Maggie moved toward the door. “I better finish fixing the sheets.”
“I’ll do it,” Charles said, turning off the radio. “I’d like a chance to talk to him. Privately. If you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind.”
Chuck appeared in the hallway, holding on to the frame of the door, propelling himself forward by hopping on his good leg. He was unable to keep from watching Maggie as she quietly came down the hall and moved past him.
Charles could read so much in the darkness of the other man’s eyes. Did his own feelings and hunger for Maggie show so clearly in his own eyes?
“I’ll be in the living room if you need me,” Maggie turned back to say.
What did she see when she saw them standing there together like this? Did they look as different as Charles imagined? Did he seem like a mere shadow of his older, more experienced self? Did he pale so utterly in comparison?
Pushing his troublesome thoughts away, Charles helped Chuck into the bedroom. Chuck had already hung the strap of his assault weapon over one of the bedposts, and he checked, making sure it was within reach as Charles helped him into the bed.
“You know, for the past few years,” Chuck said, breaking the silence, “ever since the news about the Wells Project was leaked to the public, I haven’t gone anywhere without a matched pair of bodyguards. My house—your house—was turned into a fortress. I put in a security system that kept the world out.” His voice got softer. “And kept me locked in.”
Chuck leaned over, opening the drawers of a small bedside table one at a time, gritting his teeth against the pain in his leg.
“I know what you’re trying to do—”
“Let me finish,” Chuck interrupted as he pulled a gleaming wooden box from one of the drawers. “I figured old Harmon Gregory might have one of these.”
“Have one of what?”
“It’s not even locked. And this man has kids.” Chuck flipped open the box to reveal a shining silver handgun. “It’s loaded too. Son of a bitch.” He took the gun, then put the box back in the drawer, pushing it closed.
“Over the past few years,” he told Charles as he hefted that small but dangerous-looking weapon, “I’ve had to carry a gun, and I’ve had to use it. More times than I like to remember. That’s your destiny—if you continue to pursue the Wells Project.”
He set the gun down on top of the bedside table, well within his reach.
“I just don’t see how you can expect me to let the Wells Project go.” Charles started to pace. “I don’t see how you could just let it go. All my life, I’ve wanted—we’ve wanted—to travel back through time. To fix things that went wrong. To save Stevie. Have you forgotten?”
“Look at me closely, Charlie. I’m your own personal ghost of Christmas future. Look into my eyes, really look, and see what you have to look forward to if you continue on your current path. I’ve seen a good friend killed. Boyd Rogers.”
Charles stopped pacing.
“You didn’t know about Boyd, huh, Charlie boy? Well, he died on this path that leads from you to me. And Maggie too. Do you really want to find out what it feels like to have the woman you care more about than anything else in the world die in your arms?”
Charles was silent. He couldn’t answer.
“Look at me,” Chuck commanded him harshly. “I’m a dead man. I have no future. And it was my obsession to change my past, my refusal to reconcile myself with Stevie’s death, that’s led me right here. Right here.”
Charles took a deep breath. “I realize that there are difficulties to overcome,” he said, “but surely there’s a way to keep Maggie and Boyd safe, to prevent the Wizard-9 agents from using the Runabout to plant that bomb in the White House, and still have access to time travel. All we need to do is to think it through—”
“There’s not.” Chuck leaned his head wearily back against the pillows. “You know, I had plenty of chances to go back and save Stevie, but I didn’t. It was one thing to dream about it, but another to actually do it. I realized that I would risk totally changing history.”
“By saving the life of one five-year-old boy?”
“Absolutely.” Chuck sat up again. “Did you know that the trucker who killed him was driving drunk? Did you know that he went to jail for vehicular manslaughter? If he hadn’t been stopped, God only knows who he might’ve killed either later that afternoon or some other day. He might’ve killed someone who grew up to play some tiny, stupid, but vitally important part in world history. He might’ve killed the boy or girl who was destined to grow up to be a mechanic, that due to his or her shoddy work made a car break down before it could get into an accident and kill someone else—someone destined to be a U.S. President.”
Charles shook his head. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? One unplayed game of Chinese checkers was all it took to change our life.” Chuck shifted uncomfortably on the bed, clearly in pain. “Do you know a man named Albert Ford? Works in accounting?”
Charles was caught off guard by the apparent non sequitur. “I’m sorry, who?”
“Albert Ford. Accounting.”
“At … Data Tech?”
“Yeah. Blond hair, thinning on top. Average height?”
“I don’t really know him. I mean, I think I’ve seen him around.…”
“If you’re not careful, Maggie’s going to marry him in a few years.”
“Albert Ford?”
“Yeah.”
“And Maggie?”
“Yeah.”
Charles shot a long hard look at Chuck. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Nope. Wait a few years and you’ll see. I was invited to the wedding. If you’re smart, you won’t make the same mistakes I did, and you won’t have to live through that laughfest. But even if you don’t, you will have residual memories. They’ll be enough to give you nightmares.”
Charles started pacing again. “Tell me about residual memories. I’ve theorized about them, but when I had one—I remembered meeting Maggie at the Data Tech holiday party—it was much clearer than I’d imagined.”
“Some are more clear than others. I don’t know why.”
Charles glanced briefly at Chuck, and the older man’s lips twisted into a half smile.
“Yes, I remember rather vividly what you and Maggie did in that closet this afternoon,” Chuck said quietly.
Charles closed his eyes. Oh, God. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what it is about her, but I couldn’t … I didn’t …” He opened his eyes and met Chuck’s level gaze. It was almost like looking into a mirror. “She loves you,” he said. “And as similar as we are, I’m not you.”
“Thank God.” Chuck’s voice rang with heartfelt conviction.
“You don’t understand. I have the power to make you disappear. And by making you disappear, I’ll end up taking a different path to the future, a path that virtually guarantees that I’ll never be you. Not even in seven years. I’m not sure I can handle knowing that I’m not quite the man Maggie loves. I don’t think I can handle knowing that she’ll always be mourning the loss of a person that I’ll never quite become.”
“You’re so wrong,” Chuck argued. “If Maggie loves me, then she loves you, too, because every single bit of you is here, inside of me. The rest of me, the part that’s not you, is poison. And Maggie knows that, she sees it. There’s so much I can’t give her.”
Charles was silent.
“I’ve known her for seven years,” Chuck continued, “and in only a few days you’ve given her far more than I ever have. You told her about Steve. You told her how you felt. That’s all she ever wanted. It’s what I couldn’t give her, but you’ve already gotten past that. She fell in love with me because of the danger, because of the excitement. But with you … You’ve cemented her love for us—for you. Don’t you see?”
Charles sat down on the edge of the bed, suddenly so tired. When had he last slept? “I have the distinct disadvantage of not having known her for t
he past seven years,” he finally said. “I haven’t even known her for seven days.”
“Double memories,” Chuck said again. “You’re going to live through everything that I did through double memories. You’ll catch up in plenty of time.”
Charles smiled. “She’s incredible.”
“You should tell her you love her.”
“But I’m not sure I—You know, it’s only been a few days.… Assuming that I love her seems a little bit premature—”
“Don’t forget, I was there too,” Chuck reminded him. “In the closet? I remember exactly what you were thinking. I remember how you felt. You love her almost as much as I do. In time you’ll love her even more.”
Charles was silent.
“You have to tell her.”
He looked at Chuck sharply, suddenly understanding. “You haven’t told her, have you? I can’t believe it. After seven years you didn’t tell her you love her?”
“Even now, I can’t bring myself to say it,” Chuck admitted quietly.
“I think you could say it,” Charles countered. “I just think you won’t. I think you figure I’ll come off looking like the better man if I say it, but you don’t.”
Chuck made a sorry attempt at a smile. “We always were too smart for our own good, weren’t we, kid?” They sat for a moment in silence. Then Chuck shifted again, in pain. “I know you’re going to do the right thing. I just wish you’d do it soon. My leg hurts like a bitch.”
“What about Stevie?” Even as Charles said the words he could hear an echo of Maggie’s voice. After all this time Stevie’s life is still more important to you than your own. And he knew what he had to do about Stevie. He had to let him go. Because he didn’t want to end up like Chuck, burned out and battle-worn, hard and cynical. He didn’t want to watch Boyd and Maggie die.
Yet his very attempt to save Maggie would guarantee that he didn’t become the man she loved.
“Let him rest in peace,” Chuck said quietly. “Spend the rest of your life trying to save the kids who haven’t died.”
Charles stood up. “Do you … want me to send her in? To say … good-bye?”
Chuck shook his head. “No,” he said. “Do it right, Charlie, and you and I will never have to say good-bye to Maggie ever again.”
THIRTEEN
MAGGIE SAT ON the living-room sofa, watching the sky turn pink and orange through the narrow slit in the picture-window draperies.
She heard the soft rumble of voices fade, heard the bedroom door open and close, heard Charles pause as he came into the room.
“It’s Thanksgiving,” she said, without even turning to face him. “I just realized. It’s Thanksgiving morning.”
“Happy Thanksgiving.” He sounded anything but happy.
“Charlie, I’ve been wondering. Chuck said he learned survival skills from his Navy friend. What’s his name …”
“Boyd Rogers?”
“Yeah. He said Boyd taught him all kinds of tricks after he developed time travel. After his life was first threatened. So how come you know all that stuff too? Like doubling back on our six?”
Charles sat down across from her in one of Harmon Gregory’s easy chairs. He looked totally wiped out.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You need to sleep and—”
He cut her off. “No. I want to talk. I’d like to talk … if you don’t mind.”
“Well, I’m right here—dying to listen.”
Charles actually managed a smile. “When I was a kid, after I moved to my great-uncle’s in New York City—he was a physicist, did I tell you that?”
Maggie shook her head. “No.”
“He worked as a professor at NYU. Brilliant man. But strange. He was certainly not prepared to open his home to a seven-year-old. I think he was intending to send me to boarding school. But then he realized that I understood him when he spoke about his work, so he kept me around. In some ways it was an opportunity—I was auditing courses at NYU by the time I was twelve. But in other ways, living in that mausoleum of a house was …”
“Lonely?” Maggie supplied.
Charles nodded. “Very much so.” He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
He was talking to her. He was actually volunteering information about himself without her having done more than ask a few simple questions. Maggie found herself holding her breath, hoping he would keep talking, wishing there were some way she could make this easier for him.
But only time would ease his discomfort. Only time would make him see that the trust he placed in her was well justified.
She knew the man he’d become if he didn’t risk everything and trust her completely. Chuck hadn’t taken that risk seven years ago, and this beautiful, precious, newly formed, and so fragile thing that was the seed of their love had been crushed before it could grow. And Chuck had grown colder, harder. Lonelier. And Maggie had ended up married to some fool.
She looked into Charles’s eyes, willing him to take the chance and tell her more.
He looked back, and he began to talk. “The house was so silent—I could think for hours on end without interruption. I read all of the books in my uncle’s library, and went to the public library for more. My entire life revolved around my research. I knew there was so much I needed to learn if I was going to develop my theories of time travel. I read, I ate, I slept, and—when Jen, my uncle’s housekeeper, remembered to send me—I went to school.
“The year I turned ten, I was walking home from school one day, and a gang of high-school kids grabbed me and pulled me into an alley. They had knives and they threatened to use them if I didn’t hand over all my money. But I had none. I had nothing of value to anyone but me. I had a picture of Stevie in my wallet, and when they took that, I … lost it. I went ballistic and got myself slashed for my trouble. But even that didn’t stop me.”
Maggie could picture him, ten years old and wire thin, with that burning intensity turning him into a passionate windmill of pounding fists and kicking feet with no regard for his own safety.
“One of the kids pinned me to the ground while the other kids ran off with my wallet—with my picture of my brother. This kid who held me down—Boyd Rogers—was four years older than me, but it was all he could do to hold me there. I don’t know, maybe the way I fought won his respect, but he quieted me down by telling me that if I stopped fighting him, he’d go and get my wallet back. He told me we’d trade—he’d give me the wallet if I would tutor him in science and math.
“At first, I couldn’t believe it. I thought he was probably making fun of me, but I would have done anything to get that picture back, so I agreed. And when Boyd upheld his part of the bargain, he held me to mine. It turned out he was serious. He wanted a tutor. So I met him at least three times a week after school, in the park. He got a lot of razzing from his friends for hanging out with a ten-year-old from the School of Gifted Geeks, but he didn’t give a damn. You see, he had this plan to join the Navy and become a SEAL the way his cousin had done. And his cousin told him that if he wanted to get into the SEAL units, he had to have a strong background in science and technology. And that’s what I helped him with.
“I worked with him for four years—right up until the day he enlisted. And he tutored me during that time too. He taught me how to fight, how to survive on the streets of the meanest city in the world. And he made it impossible for me to shut out the rest of the world. He gave me a life outside of that silent house.” He paused. “You know, I’ve never told any of this to anyone before.”
Maggie’s heart was in her throat. “I know,” she said softly.
“Boyd and I stayed tight, even after he joined the Navy. And when he finally got into the SEALs, back when I was finishing up my doctorate, he started taking me out on survival training missions. He’s been like a brother.”
He paused again.
“Maggie, I don’t want to be responsible for his death.”
Maggie looked up to find him studying her fa
ce. His eyes were impossibly sad.
“Or yours, either,” he added softly. “Especially yours.”
She knew what Charles was going to say next, and sure enough, as she looked back toward the window, he said it.
“I’m going to do it.” His words seemed to hang in the stillness.
Maggie fixed her gaze firmly on the ever-lightening strip of sky as she nodded. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s what Chuck wants.” She straightened her back and forced herself to look at Charles. “It’s what I want too.”
He just gazed at her. He looked so tired, so unhappy, she wanted to reach for him, to comfort him. She wanted him to comfort her.
“He loves you, you know,” Charles finally said. “He has for years.”
Maggie shook her head. “He’s only known me for less than a week. The Maggie he’s known for years married some creep from accounting.”
“Albert Ford.” Charles gave her one of Chuck’s crooked half smiles.
“Do you know him?”
“Not well—but enough to advise you not to marry him.”
“All right,” Maggie said. “I won’t.”
“Good.” He smiled again. “Poor Albert. Little does he realize his entire destiny has just been altered.”
“Think of the aggravation—and alimony payments—we’ve just saved him.”
“Of course, it’s entirely possible you were earning more than he was. Maybe you’re the one who’s saved from making those alimony payments.”
Maggie laughed, and the smile Charles gave her was one of his own—full and warm and filled with pleasure.
But it faded too quickly as they sat for a moment in silence.
“Would you mind—” he started, then stopped.
Maggie didn’t say a word. She just waited.
“Would you mind very much if I admitted that I’m … scared?”
She shook her head. “No. I would be … honored … that you shared that with me.”
“I keep wondering if this is really the right thing to do. It feels so wrong to give up all those years of research and … I can’t keep from thinking what if there’s something I’ve missed. What if there’s some way …? What if we all just disappeared? Chuck and I could develop the Wells Project on our own.”
Time Enough for Love Page 15
