But by then, Chuck and Maggie would have already returned to Phoenix.
Maggie had pointed out that it was possible Wizard-9 was as adrift and as out of place as Chuck was in this time frame. Maybe they wouldn’t have the resources or connections needed to authorize the setting up of roadblocks. But despite their botched assassination attempt, Chuck seemed to think they were capable of anything.
He was determined to return to Phoenix as soon as possible.
The stolen car was left in the airport as a false lead. When they found it, the agents from Wizard-9 would waste valuable time and manpower attempting to pick up Chuck and Maggie’s trail in the Flagstaff area.
But their trail would long be cold.
Chuck had briefly considered leaving Maggie safely hidden up in the mountains. But Maggie didn’t even have time to protest before he told her he’d rejected that idea flat out. Apparently, where Wizard-9 was concerned, there was no such thing as safely hidden. The only way Chuck could guarantee her safety was if he was with her.
It was also there, in the late-night quiet of the Flagstaff bus station, that Chuck had told her that kiss they’d shared in the mall parking lot had been another mistake.
The clock on the wall of the motel lobby said 8:30 A.M. as Maggie watched Chuck fill out the motel registration form. He paid in cash, and a few minutes later they unlocked the door to a room.
One room.
A single, solitary room.
Chuck entered first, tossing the bag with the dress in it onto one of the two double beds before he turned to switch on the heater. The November night had been cold and a chill lingered in the room.
Maggie stood in the doorway as the old machine underneath the front window wheezed to life. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
He knew she was talking about the fact that he’d gotten only one room. “I need to know that you’re safe. There’re two beds.” He switched the heater on high, turning the knob to the warmest setting, then straightened up. “Come in and close the door. You’re drawing attention to us.”
Maggie stepped inside, leaning back against the door to shut it.
Two beds. He was right. There were two beds. But as far as Maggie could tell, there wasn’t a brick wall with a steel-reinforced, heavily padlocked door separating them.
“I won’t touch you,” he continued, glancing at her in the dim light of the lamps. His face was grim, his mouth a tight line. “I promise.”
It wasn’t the idea of Chuck losing control that Maggie was afraid of. It was her own inability to stay away from him that frightened her. So far she’d failed rather miserably in her attempts to keep her distance from this man. Chuck may have been sure that the kisses they’d shared had been mistakes, but to Maggie they had felt impossibly right. He may have been sure, but she wasn’t at all certain she was strong enough to fight her attraction to him much longer.
She cleared her throat. “I’m just …” A deep breath and then she started again. “We’ve been together constantly all night. No offense, but I could really use some time away from you and—”
“No.” He crossed to the sink that was on the wall outside of the bathroom and began washing the miles of travel off his hands and face. He met her eyes in the mirror. “I’m sorry. If we need to leave out the back window, we can be gone in a matter of seconds. But if you’re in another room, even next door …” He shook his head. “We’re toast.”
The high window in back of the little room was not easy to access, but Maggie had no doubt that Chuck could get it opened if they needed to leave in a hurry. He was proving to be something of an expert at all kinds of unexpected things.
“What kind of scientist who works in an R and D lab knows how to get hold of a gun and hot-wire a car?” she asked. “Where did you learn things like ‘doubling back on our six,’ or whatever you called it?” She paused. “Isn’t that some kind of military expression?”
“Yeah.” Chuck dried his face with a hand towel, still watching her in the mirror. “You can pinpoint locations by using the numbers from the face of a clock.” He pointed directly to his right. “The bathroom door is at three o’clock. The sink is at twelve. Right now you’re standing at my seven—”
“And directly behind you—where you’ve already been before—is your six.”
He gave her a slight smile. “Right.”
“So, what, did you learn that in the Data Tech employees’ manual or something?”
“Or something.”
Maggie sat down on one of the beds. The mattress was soft and springy. Sitting down felt good, though. And lying down would feel even better. She sank down onto her back, her feet still on the floor as she stared up at the cracks in the motel-room ceiling. “Would it really kill you to be more specific?”
She heard the creak as Chuck sat down on the other bed, heard the double thuds as he took off his boots and tossed them onto the floor.
She was actually surprised when he finally spoke.
“Shortly after the news leaked out that I was working on the Wells Project, I started getting death threats. Some were just threats, but some were real. A few were near misses. At the time I had a friend who was thinking about retiring from the Navy. He was in the SEAL units, and he had some … skills that I thought would come in handy. I hired him as a security consultant. He taught me a bunch of nifty little tricks.”
“Where was he when the Wizard-9 agents tried to ambush you in your lab?”
Chuck didn’t answer right away, and Maggie turned her head to look at him.
He was still sitting on the edge of the other bed. His feet were bare, and his elbows were resting on his knees, his shoulders bent with fatigue. Or despair. He was resting his forehead in the palm of one hand, rubbing it slightly as if he had a headache. But he glanced up as if he felt her gaze on him.
“He was dead,” he answered. “They shot him in the back of the head at close range before I got to the lab that morning.” He paused. “You saw them do it.”
Maggie’s breath caught in her throat. “Oh my God.”
He looked away from her, breaking the almost palpable connection that had shimmered between them. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you that.”
Maggie sat up. “No,” she said. “Chuck, I want you to talk to me. I wish you would tell me more.”
He stood up. “We should get to sleep.”
Maggie felt a surge of frustration. Why wouldn’t he talk to her? She could see his pain etched into the lines of his face. He tried to hide it, tried to pretend it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but fixing the mistake he’d made.
But the desperation and anguish of the wild-eyed man who’d first pounded on her back door was not gone. All those emotions were still inside of him, despite being carefully locked away. He worked hard to stay in control, never to lose sight of his single goal.
His control had slipped only when he’d given in to passion. He’d dropped his guard only when he’d kissed her. He’d kissed her as if there could be no secrets between them, as if their hearts beat in perfect unison, as if they were two parts of a single whole.
But those kisses were wrong, or so Chuck said when he’d regained his precious control. They were mistakes that weren’t meant to happen.
Maggie fought the frustration that rose up into her throat, choking her. Across the room, Chuck unwrapped the dress they had bought at the mall.
The mall. Maggie nearly laughed aloud. It had been hardly more than twelve hours since she’d met him outside of the movie theater. It had been hardly more than twelve hours since her life had been forever and irrevocably changed. But what had changed it most? The rain of bullets that had very nearly taken her life? Or that incredible, soul-shattering, heart-stopping kiss she’d shared with Chuck immediately after?
When Chuck had kissed her, she thought she’d found all of the answers she’d ever been searching for. But Chuck had only found that he’d made a mistake.
As he carefully hung the dress on
a hanger, the fabric glistened in the dim light, an odd spot of elegance in the shabby room.
“Why bother?” she asked. Her voice sounded harsh in the stillness.
He turned to look at her, and she held his gaze pointedly, almost aggressively, as if daring him to look away from her.
He didn’t look away, but his eyes revealed nothing of what he was feeling. “Why bother hanging this up?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’m not going to be able to go to the party tomorrow night—no, tonight. The party’s tonight.” Everything was happening so fast. Maggie took a deep breath. “If the guys in Wizard-9 are so smart, it won’t be long before they notice that my name is on the guest list—”
“I’m sure they already know,” Chuck told her. “And you’re right. The party’s no longer an option. But you can still wear the dress. I just have to figure out an alternative time and place for you and Charles to meet.”
He spoke so quietly, so matter-of-factly, as if nothing about this insanity affected him personally. Well, shoot, maybe it didn’t. He wasn’t the one who was going to have to get all dressed up in a ludicrous attempt to catch the attention of a man she knew damn well wasn’t interested—the seven-years-younger version of a man who had told her their kisses had been a mistake.
“I don’t know how you think I’m ever going to be able to talk Charles into something as huge as changing his career.” Her voice shook, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t care, anyway. She had every right to be upset, dammit. She’d been shot at and dragged halfway across the state and back all in one night. She’d found everything she’d ever wanted, only to realize she hadn’t found anything at all. Because the kind of love she wanted was a love that was returned.
“Just be yourself. He won’t be able to resist you.”
She rose to her feet as her temper blazed. “Resist what? What exactly is it you want me to do, Chuck?”
But he wasn’t going to let her fight with him. He turned away, pulling back the covers of his bed. “Let’s just go to sleep. It’s been a long night.”
He was so calm, so cool. Maggie wanted to see beneath his facade. She wanted to get a rise out of him. She wanted to see something in him besides this grim determination. “You want me to sleep with him, right? Okay. You win. I’ll do it. But I have to warn you. If I have sex with Charles, you’ll have a memory of it too.”
He stood quietly, expressionlessly. “Maggie, this isn’t about sex.”
“If it wasn’t about sex, you wouldn’t’ve cared if I wore a potato sack the next time I met Charles,” she countered hotly, gesturing toward the dress hanging in the corner. “And that’s no potato sack.”
“You’re right. It’s about sex.” His lack of emotion was driving her crazy. “But not entirely. It’s more complicated than that.”
“Complicated is putting it mildly.” Her voice cracked. “I don’t know why you think I have the power to make Charles change his entire life. You tell me he won’t be able to resist me. But, hey! You have no problem resisting me. All you do is push me away—”
Chuck turned away with a forceful exhale of air halfway between laughter and a sob. And just like that, he wasn’t standing still anymore. He was moving, using one hand to rake back his unruly hair as he paced toward the sink.
Maggie met his gaze in the mirror, and she knew from the blaze of heat in his eyes that something she’d said had managed to put a crack in his control. If he were ever going to open up and talk to her, it was now or never.
“Okay,” she said as he turned to face her. “Okay. You said it’s complicated. More complicated than just sex. Tell me what you mean. Make me understand!”
Chuck took several steps toward her, but then stopped, turning away and running both hands up his face and over his hair to grip the tensed muscles in the back of his neck. He swore, softly but steadily.
“Please?” She reached out to touch his arm.
He pulled away as if she’d burned him. “Maggie, Christ—I can’t explain. Not without … Not easily.”
“Not easily?” The way he’d jerked his arm away from her made her want to cry. “So it won’t be easy. Do you think any of this is easy for me? Do you think it’s going to be easy for me to put on some stupid dress and seduce some stranger who both is and isn’t the man I really want to be with? I don’t want to make love to Charles, I want to make love to you.” Oh, damn, she’d gone and told him far too much. But now that she’d started, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Except, he’s you. He’s part of you, and if I do make love to him, I’m making love to you, too, aren’t I? And … and … it’s so damn confusing!”
There were tears in his eyes as he stood there, just looking at her. “Dear God,” he whispered, “I’ve done this all wrong.”
SIX
MAGGIE SAT DOWN and closed her eyes, feeling all of the fight draining out of her. He’d done this wrong. He’d made mistakes.
Not half as many as she’d made, obviously.
She felt the mattress sink as he slowly sat down on the bed. He didn’t move to touch her, he just sat there, next to her.
“Mags, I … I’ve known you for seven years,” Chuck said quietly, haltingly. “And I swear, I’ve wanted you in every way possible for every single second of that time.”
She lifted her head, turning to look at him, uncertain of what she’d just heard. “What?”
He gave her one of his crooked half smiles. “Don’t make me say it again. Once was hard enough.”
Maggie turned toward him. “But …”
“I’ve been fighting like hell to stay away from you these past few days.” He reached up with one hand, again as if trying to loosen the muscles in his shoulders and neck. “And yes, you were right. I was trying to set it up so that this time when you met me—Charles—at that party, you’d end up going home with him. See, I thought that might be a way to compress those seven years into just a few short weeks. But we don’t have weeks anymore. We don’t even have days. Only hours. I don’t know, maybe it’ll still work. See, I thought if I could make Charles feel the same way as I do about you …” He took a deep breath as he glanced at her, then shook his head. “I guess I just thought … I mean, I can’t imagine making love to you and then letting you walk away. I guess I thought if I did this right, Charles wouldn’t let you walk away, either.”
Maggie was watching him silently, her brown eyes subdued. Chuck wanted to reach out and touch her cheek. Her skin looked so smooth and soft. But he knew that touching her was the last thing he should do. “I’m sorry. I said that badly.”
“No,” she said softly. “You did okay.”
“You were right about my having double memories,” he told her quietly. “If you and Charles …” He couldn’t say it, but he knew from her eyes that she knew what he meant. “I guess I figured at least I’d have that, because you’re right. I’d definitely remember. I haven’t quite figured out what it is—maybe some kind of hormonal release that affects certain memory centers of the brain—but even a simple kiss is enough to make a residual memory extremely clear and—” He broke off. He was babbling now, and she was just watching him, her eyes so soft, so warm. He could drown in those eyes.
And still, she didn’t speak.
“So now what?” He forced a half smile. “Which one of us locks ourself in the bathroom until checkout time?”
Maggie touched the side of his face. “How about neither?”
Chuck knew he should stand up and put some distance between them, but he had no strength left. Instead he closed his eyes, allowing himself the forbidden pleasure of her touch. He felt her move closer, felt the softness of her lips where her fingers had been mere seconds before.
He couldn’t keep from touching her, too, from gently trailing his fingers down the smoothness of her arms. He felt her shiver and he knew he should stop, but he couldn’t. God, he couldn’t.
“Chuck?” she breathed.
He opened his eyes. Her mouth was mere inches away from his. A
t this distance, her eyes were more than brown. He could see dark brown and lighter brown mixed in with flecks of every gorgeous shade in between. She smiled, and even though it was a sad smile, it made her eyes shine. He couldn’t keep himself from reaching up and lightly tracing the line of her jaw. She was so beautiful, it hurt.
He had to moisten his lips before he could speak. Even then, his voice came out little more than a whisper. “Yeah, Mags?”
“I want to be with you tonight.”
He couldn’t answer her. What could he possibly say to that?
“Tomorrow night I’ll do what you ask,” she told him. “But tonight I want you to make love to me.” She kissed him lightly on the mouth, pulling back to look into his eyes and whisper, “Please?”
She kissed him again, and Chuck felt his resistance crumble in a flood of emotion so powerful, he nearly cried out.
And instead of backing away, he kissed her too.
He kissed her deeply, taking possession of her mouth, thrilling at the sound of pleasure she made as he pushed her back onto the bed with him.
Dear, sweet God, he wanted this. He wanted her. He needed her. He kissed her even harder and she met him with a fierce passion that took his breath away.
She molded her body around him, tightly gripping the leg he thrust up between hers, pressing herself against him. She was a dizzying mixture of softness and muscles, of sweetness and fire. She was everything he’d ever wanted, everything he couldn’t truly have.
Chuck knew he shouldn’t run his hands up underneath the edge of her shirt. He knew he shouldn’t cup the softness of her breast in the palm of his hand. And he knew the last thing he should do was caress the tantalizingly erect nub of her nipple and arouse her even further.
But he did and the sounds she made deep in the back of her throat as she kept on kissing him set him on fire.
He knew he should stop. He knew he should back away. Maggie didn’t belong to him. She never could.
Time Enough for Love Page 7
