Maggie took a sip of her drink, feeling the warming kick of the tequila.
This seemed so unreal. She was sitting here, across this restaurant table from one of the most attractive men she’d ever met—discussing his plan for changing the future. He was going to tamper with time and change his own destiny in order to prevent Wizard-9 agents from overthrowing the U.S. government. She took another slug of her drink.
“Why me?”
“It’s not going to be easy,” he told her. “Developing time travel was always something of an obsession for me. What you’ll need to do is to talk Charles into going back to school and getting his medical degree. You’ll need to convince him—me—that there’s plenty of work to be done in AIDS research. Charles needs to be talked into leaving Phoenix, into leaving Data Tech. And all his—my—research notes on time travel need to be destroyed.”
Maggie shook her head. “I don’t get it. Why do you need me? Why don’t you just go to Charles and tell him everything that happened, convince him to give up his research that way?”
Chuck silently gazed at her. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft. “Because I remember how badly I wanted to develop time travel. And I’m not sure that loyalty to a president whose name he’s never even heard is enough to make Charles give up his dream. Yeah, over a hundred people were killed in the bombing, but I know what he’ll say. He’ll say, think of the thousands who could be saved if time travel exists. He’s never met anyone from Wizard-9. He won’t understand the danger.”
As Maggie looked into his eyes she knew he wasn’t telling her everything. There was more, but he was leaving it out.
“But why me? Why should I be able to get through to him?”
He didn’t answer right away. “Because there’s something between us,” he finally said quietly. “I feel it right now. I felt it the first time we met too. And Charles is going to feel it when he meets you at that Data Tech party on Tuesday.”
Chemistry. He was talking about the sexual attraction that simmered between them. He was talking about using that attraction to knock his past self off his predestined path. If he really thought she could do that, he must be experiencing one hell of a powerful attraction.
Maggie was glad she was sitting down. She felt slightly weak in the knees. She hated to admit it, but she was feeling that attraction as well. Every time their eyes met. Every time their eyes didn’t meet. It was always there, snapping and crackling around them like a live wire.
If you weren’t careful, a live wire could kill you.
But what was he asking her to convince Charles of, really? Leave Phoenix, Chuck had said. Leave Data Tech. Did he expect her to leave Phoenix and Data Tech too? Did he expect her to do something like marry him? No, not him—Charles.
This was way too weird.
“Why do you call him Charles?” she asked. “I mean, he’s really just you, only younger.”
He shifted in his seat for about the thousandth time that evening. It was just one of the many ways his relentless energy slipped through the cracks of his self-control. Maggie knew well—even just from the few times she’d met him—that Chuck Della Croce was not a patient man. He didn’t like to sit still, he didn’t like to move slowly. Yet his intensity burned deeply, and he seemed to focus every ounce of his attention on every word she spoke and every move she made.
It was kind of scary actually—having him look at her that way.
What would it be like to make love to this man, to have that focus and attention in a purely sexual context? The thought made her mouth go dry, and she had to take another sip of her drink.
“Up until recently—this year in fact, your time,” he clarified, “nobody ever called me anything but Charles.” He smiled. It was really only a half smile, a slight twisting of one side of his mouth, yet it made him look even more handsome. Thank God he didn’t give her a full grin. The force would’ve knocked her clear out of her chair.
“But when I met you at that party,” he continued, “you decided right then and there that Charles was too formal, and you started calling me Chuck.”
Wait a minute.… “I did?”
“Yeah. Even though we didn’t do more than date a few times, you had a rather strong influence on my life.”
She sat even farther forward. “We dated?”
“After we met at that Data Tech party, yeah, we went out once or twice.”
“Just … once or twice?”
He was cryptic. “At the time I didn’t think we were compatible, so I didn’t pursue a relationship beyond friendship.”
She didn’t get it. “But at that time you were Charles, weren’t you? I mean, you were more Charles than you are now, seven years later. So if you didn’t think we were compatible then, why would Charles think we’re compatible now? And what is it exactly that you want me to do? All this talk about compatibility is making me a little nervous.”
“All I want you to do is meet him—me—Charles—at that Data Tech party and let things happen as they’re supposed to. Only this time around, don’t be so quick to quit.”
Maggie blinked. “Quit?”
He was drumming his fingers against the table and—as she’d seen him do before—he seemed suddenly to become aware of the sound, and forced himself to stop cold.
“Yeah,” he said. “You were the one who broke it off between us.”
Maggie had to laugh. This was too absurd. “Okay. Now we’re getting into the really unbelievable stuff. The time travel I’m starting to be able to handle, but this … Nuh-uh. You’re telling me that I broke up with you. That’s insane. Why would I break up with you? You’re brilliant, you’re nice, you’re polite—you seem socially adept—not too many eccentricities, give or take the finger-tapping thing. Your sense of humor needs a little work, but, you know, it’s back there. It’s hiding, but it seems solid enough. And, okay, maybe you need to work on being just a teeny bit warmer—maybe you need to practice stretching those lips into a smile in front of a mirror a few times a day. And speaking of mirrors, have you looked into one lately? You’re gorgeous, Chuck. You’re a twenty on a scale from one to ten. So what you’re telling me is that you’re perfect and I broke up with you. I don’t think so, bub.”
“It’s true.”
“And that’s just you,” she continued. “I haven’t even started on me. I’m always the one in a relationship who hangs on until the bitter end, hoping for a happy ending. And oh, will you please look at me a little more closely? Maybe the light’s not bright enough in here. You keep hinting at this instant animal attraction, love-at-first-sight doody, and—believe me, I know—I’m not the love-at-first-sight type. I mean, look at me. I’m just … not.”
“Sorry, you’re wrong,” he said coolly. “Have you looked into a mirror lately? You’re beautiful, Mags. This time around, I’m going to make damn sure you believe that.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Oh, please.”
He leaned forward, the intensity in his eyes sparking even hotter. “As far as I was concerned, the attraction factor alone was enough to keep us together for years, but you didn’t agree.”
“Are you sure you’re talking to the right person?” she asked. “Because that doesn’t sound like anything I’d ever say.”
“I remember what you said.” Chuck sat back and stirred the ice in his glass, his body language suddenly distant and closed. He glanced at her only briefly, keeping his eyes for the most part trained on his glass. “After we went out a few times, you told me … how did you say it? That you weren’t interested in being physically intimate with a man who wouldn’t be emotionally intimate with you—a man who wouldn’t even talk about his day-to-day life, let alone his feelings.”
“That sounds like me,” Maggie conceded. Suddenly it all made sense. Chuck was attractive and intelligent and as sexy as hell, but he wasn’t exactly the warm, fuzzy, sharing type. Even the level of intimacy needed for this conversation was difficult for him to handle—she could tell that from the way h
e was sitting, the way he wasn’t meeting her gaze.
“There are some things I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do any differently this time around,” he said quietly. “And yet I’m asking you to do nearly everything differently.” He forced a smile. “After seven years of friendship, I know you pretty well, Mags. I know you don’t want me. If I could think of another way, short of kidnapping my own self …” He shook his head.
I know you pretty well, Mags.
Maggie was shaken. She was sitting and talking with a man who knew her far better than she knew him. How much better, she didn’t know. She took a fortifying sip of her drink.
“So,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Tell me honestly. Did I ever sleep with you—in my future and your past …?” She rolled her eyes again. “Whoa, this is definitely Twilight Zone stuff.”
He answered her seriously, quietly. “No. We never made love.”
But he’d wanted to. He didn’t say it in so many words, but she could see it in his eyes. He still wanted to.
“I have to go home now,” Maggie told him. “I think my brain has just absorbed all the weirdness it can hold for one night.”
She stood up, but then she stopped, looking back at him. “Do you have a place to stay tonight?”
He gave her another of those half smiles. “I don’t suppose that’s an invitation.”
Her laughter sounded slightly hysterical. “Not a chance. But if you need some money for a motel room …”
“I’m fine. I know where Charles kept his extra bank-machine card. I’m all set for cash.” He hesitated. “Can I walk you home?”
“Please don’t.”
Chuck nodded. “May I call you tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Call me.” Maggie hurried away.
Maggie had three different work deadlines approaching at the rate of a speeding train, but she simply could not concentrate.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Chuck.
His story was impossibly absurd. Time travel. A covert agency with plans to overthrow the government. It was insane.
Still, she found herself believing him.
And she found herself drifting out of focus as she sat in front of her computer, thinking not about his story, but about his eyes. About the way he looked at her, as if she were a tall glass of water and he was dying of thirst.
Getting involved with this man would be crazy. If everything he’d told her was true, he was from the future. He didn’t belong in this time. There was already another one of him here. If he couldn’t get back to his own time—and he’d implied that was true—he’d probably have to take on a new identity and … And if everything he’d told her wasn’t true, if this all was some kind of giant con or scam, well, then she’d be twice the fool.
No, she was going to have to keep her emotions out of this. Friends. She was going to have to work to be sure they became nothing more than friends.
She closed her eyes tightly, trying to banish the picture of him standing naked in her yard.
The intensity in his liquid brown eyes was even harder to forget.
Unable to write an intelligible word, Maggie grabbed her purse and her car keys and headed over to Data Tech. She had to pick up a file she needed, and as long as she wasn’t getting anything done, she might as well do it now.
This didn’t have anything to do with wanting to get another look at the man Chuck had called Charles. She wasn’t going to Data Tech to do something as asinine as to spy on Chuck’s younger self.
As she made the turn into the Data Tech parking lot, she saw him. Charles Della Croce. Sitting behind the wheel of a gleaming white Honda, he was slipping on a pair of sunglasses as he braked to a stop before leaving the lot.
As he took a right, heading out toward downtown Scottsdale, Maggie made a quick U-turn, her tires squealing slightly on the hot asphalt as she followed him.
This was insane. This was not “picking up a file.”
There were two other cars between her car and Charles. That was good. Not wanting him to notice that she was following him, she hung back slightly as he took another right turn.
He drove into the old-fashioned part of Scottsdale that was filled with quaint little shops and cafés and four-star restaurants.
Modern Phoenix and Scottsdale were made up of enormous shopping malls—places where, once inside, shoppers didn’t have to face the fiery heat of the Southwestern sun as they went from store to store. But the older section of the city dated back to the days before air-conditioning, to the time of small-town America. The sidewalks here were no less busy because they were outside. They were crowded with tourists and the usual lunchtime businessmen and -women.
Charles pulled into a parking space on a side street, and Maggie did the same, parking some distance away from him. He headed back toward the shops and restaurants on foot, and Maggie ran to keep up as he disappeared around the corner of a building.
The noontime sun was unseasonably warm for November, and even a brief sprint made her shirt stick uncomfortably to her body. As she rounded the corner she felt a rush of relief as she spotted Charles, his dark head a good four inches above the rest of the crowd. As she watched he crossed the street and went inside a trendy-looking little restaurant called Papa John’s Eatery.
He sat down at a table near the front window. Maggie tried not to look too conspicuous as she pretended to look into the window of a Native American art and jewelry store while glancing back over her shoulder at the restaurant.
She saw a waiter approach Charles and hand him a cellular phone. He spoke for a moment, then handed the phone back, decidedly displeased. He said something to the waiter, gesturing at the place setting in front of him. The waiter nodded, and removed the extra silverware and glasses. It didn’t take the detective ability of a Sherlock Holmes to figure out that Charles’s lunch date had called to cancel.
As Maggie watched, Charles glanced at a menu and ordered quickly and seemingly without much regard for what he would be eating.
She crossed the street, wanting to get nearer, needing to take a closer look. After all, she’d never seen Chuck and Charles in the same place at the same time. They could well be one and the same.
On a whim, she pulled open the door to Papa John’s and went inside.
Charles was sitting at his table, paying no attention to what was going on around him, writing something in a small notebook.
Waving aside the waiter who was coming toward her, Maggie took a deep breath and headed for Charles, counting on the fact that she’d come up with some real-sounding excuse for being there when the time came to open her mouth.
“Hey, Chuck,” she said, slipping into the chair next to his.
He looked up, startled.
Part of Maggie still hoped that this was one great big practical joke. He would meet her eyes sheepishly and grin and admit that Katy, Maggie’s college roommate, had coerced him into playing this silly trick on her.
But there was absolutely no recognition in his eyes. None at all.
Dear God, he was Chuck—but he wasn’t. His eyes were the same liquid shade of brown, his nose the same perfect shape. His hair was shorter, though, and the lines around his eyes and mouth were less pronounced. He looked younger. About seven years younger, she’d guess. Exactly seven years younger …
“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was the same too—a sexy baritone, resonant with a rich timbre. “I don’t think we’ve … Have we met?”
His scar. The thin line that marked his left cheekbone, directly underneath his eye. It was gone. Or rather, perhaps more accurately, it hadn’t yet appeared.
“Actually, no,” Maggie said.
He was looking at her as if he were afraid she might be insane, and for a moment Maggie felt that could well be true. Sitting here like this, talking to him like this … This wasn’t the way they’d met. Chuck had told her they’d first met at that party at Data Tech. She was probably messing things up royally, but now that she was here, now that she w
as face-to-face with Charles, she didn’t want to leave.
She was fascinated. This was Chuck she was sitting across from. But he was a younger Chuck. A Chuck without that grim tightness to his mouth, without that tightly clenched jaw, and without that weary desperation in his eyes.
“I was being followed,” she fabricated, praying that God would forgive her for lying, “by this really creepy guy—every time I turned around, he was right behind me. He was talking to himself, saying all kinds of really weird things. I saw you sitting in here all alone, and I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind helping me out by pretending to be, you know, my significant other or something, so this guy will leave me alone once and for all …?”
His gaze shifted and he squinted slightly as he looked out the window into the glaring brightness of the crowded street. “Is he still out there?”
Maggie turned to look. “I … don’t know.” She hated lying like this. She was amazed that she could come up with a story so quickly with those disturbing brown eyes gazing at her. But there was no way she could tell him the truth.
“Well, just in case he’s still watching …” Charles leaned forward and kissed her.
He kissed her.
On the mouth.
His lips were warm and soft and he tasted like lemonade.
Maggie was caught so off guard, she could do nothing but laugh.
He laughed too.
His smile was incredible, and Maggie realized she’d never truly seen Chuck smile. Sure, he’d made an attempt. He’d twisted his lips in a vague imitation, but it had been nothing like this. Something had happened over the past seven years to make him forget how.
“Maybe we better do that again,” he suggested, his grin widening. “Make sure this man—whoever he is—really gets the message.”
Charles started to lean forward again, and whether he was only teasing or not, Maggie would never know, because temporary insanity overcame her and she leaned forward, too, closing the gap between them.
And then he was kissing her again. Not a swift gentle brushing of lips like the last kiss, but a longer, deeper kiss. Maggie felt a jolt of disbelief as his tongue swept into her mouth. Not disbelief that he would kiss her that way, but that she would welcome such a kiss, that she would kiss him back with such abandon, and most of all, that she wanted that kiss to go on and on and on.
Time Enough for Love Page 4
