It's About Time

by Charlotte Douglas

  “I’ll take you,” she muttered between gritted teeth. “You’ll need my help with the computerized cataloging systems.”

  “And if I find it a total waste of time, I’ll buy dinner tomorrow night, as well.” His low, mellow voice caressed her ears, and although she kept her eyes on the road, she could hear the smile in his words.

  He was smiling still an hour later as the library printer spewed out a bibliography of several articles from scientific journals.

  “There’s one on time travel by Professor Christopher Smallwood at North Carolina University at Raleigh,” he said. “Good place to start, don’t you think?”

  “If you insist on pursuing this, the little men in white coats will come and take us both away.” She ripped the ribbon of tractor paper from the printer.

  “Little men in white coats?”

  “From the loony bin, the funny farm, the nuthouse—”

  His eyes stared blankly at her, struggling to understand.

  “—the insane asylum.”

  “I see.” A worried frown replaced his former look of triumph. “We’ll have to proceed carefully and not call attention to ourselves. I’m sure you’ll think of a plan.”

  “Why me?”

  “You know the current idioms, the culture. While I would take a sensible and rational approach, it might appear madness to someone of your era.”

  She came eye-to-eye with molten pewter and found it irresistible. Madness. That’s what was happening to her. “We’ll have to locate these articles first and make copies, unless you want to take the time to read them now.”

  “Copying several articles will take days. Won’t they allow us to check out the journals?”

  She grinned, feeling like Santa Claus. “You liked the computer, you’re gonna love the copy machine.”

  She located the journals with the articles on time and began feeding dimes into the copier. He watched in fascination as the first article was reproduced, but as the tedious process continued, he wandered off.

  When she had completed her copies, she went in search of Rand and found him in the nonfiction section, leaning against the stacks with one foot propped on a lower shelf, an open book in his hands.

  The beauty of his face in repose, his casual posture that revealed his latent strength and the way his hair fell across his brow as he read convinced her that her instincts were on target. He was perfect for the investment firm’s campaign.

  “Reading more about time?” Her voice broke the quiet of the secluded aisle.

  He glanced up in surprise, so absorbed in his reading he hadn’t heard her approach. “No, finance.”

  She glanced at the title of the volume in his hands. “A history of the stock market?”

  He looked like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I thought this might come in handy when I return to where—when I belong.”

  “But that’s cheating!” Her indignation was short-lived. The poor guy would never get the chance to use his insider information.

  “I prefer thinking of it as making the best of a bad situation.” He shoved the book onto the shelf, grasped her by the elbow and propelled her toward the door. “But now we must hurry to the hotel.”

  “What’s the rush?” She attempted to fold the tractor paper trailing behind her as he tugged her toward the parking lot.

  “You, Miss Caswell, have to prepare for what I believe is called ‘a hot date.’”

  She hid a smile as she ducked into the driver’s seat. He learned fast. Which was a good thing, considering he was going to be stuck in the future for a long, long time.

  * * *

  THAT EVENING, Tory sipped her wine spritzer in a quiet corner of the hotel bar, shifted to a more comfortable position on the soft leather banquette and scribbled another note on the pad in front of her. Rand Trent’s inspiration made her pen fly across the page. She’d left him in their room to shower and dress for dinner. When he’d finished, it would be her turn.

  Through the tall windows at the other end of the room, the tropical sky had deepened to the color of mangoes following the sunset, and the gulf’s smooth waters pulsed a deep teal blue. A tuxedoed pianist in the far corner coaxed soft jazz from a black, lacquered grand piano.

  A deep sigh exploded in her chest. Just as well Rand wasn’t there. She’d found herself drawn to the handsome time traveler, and such a setting would only amplify his appeal. The best way to resist his Victorian charm was to keep her mind on business.

  “Everything working out for you, m’dear?” Emma’s cheerful British voice roused her from her reverie.

  “Everything?” Her mind, still focused on her Money Man, didn’t grasp Emma’s question.

  “Your room arrangements. Has Mr. Trent settled in?” Emma whisked away the half-full glass and replaced it with a fresh drink.

  “I didn’t know you worked the bar.” Tory laid her pen down and gazed at the elderly woman with suspicion. Every time the little maid had shown up in the past two days, she’d been a prelude to trouble.

  “Just helping out Charlie.” Emma nodded to the tall black man behind the bar, polishing glasses. He smiled and nodded in her direction before turning to a customer at the bar. “He’s shorthanded tonight. There’s a flu bug making the rounds of the staff.”

  “That’s all I need,” Tory groaned. “A strange man to share my room and influenza to boot.”

  “You mustn’t worry. You’ll be fine. Just drink your wine and relax.” Emma patted her hand in a motherly gesture. “You’re on vacation, remember?”

  Tory glanced at the notes before her. “Looks as if this is going to be a working vacation. Would you bring me a phone, please?”

  Disapproval wrinkled the maid’s forehead. “Now?”

  Tory motioned toward the wall behind her. “That is a phone jack, isn’t it?”

  Emma shrugged and scurried away, returning a moment later with a telephone. She leaned over, plugged it into the bar wall, then rose, red faced from the exertion, and confronted Tory. “Why spoil this beautiful evening with business talk? Don’t you have a date for dinner?”

  Tory’s hand paused above the phone’s buttons. “How did you know?”

  But Emma was already moving away to the opposite side of the room. Tory shivered. Something was strange about the cheery little woman, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Emma seemed too kind and happy to be dangerous, and yet—she gave herself a mental shake, forcing Emma from her thoughts, and returned to the phone, punching in her credit card number, then the Atlanta number of Kristin Foster, her administrative assistant.

  Kristin’s perky voice with only the slightest hint of Southern drawl answered after the third ring. In the background, a television was blaring.

  “Kristin, is this a bad time?” She pulled her pad closer and flipped to its front page.

  “No, I just fed the kids and settled them in front of the TV. How was the wedding?”

  “Great. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”

  “And Florida?”

  “It’s great, too—”

  “Meet any handsome guys?”

  Tory endeavored to keep the impatience from her voice. “That’s why I’m calling. I’ve met the perfect man for the Benson, Jurgen and Ives campaign.”

  “You’ve signed him?” Kristin half covered the receiver and yelled, “You kids stop fighting or I’ll turn that off!”

  “Not yet. I’m going to pitch the idea to him tonight. Meanwhile, I want you to call the writers. Have them work up a segment—”

  “Hold on while I grab a pencil.” The sound of drawers opening and closing crossed the wire. “Okay, shoot.”

  “I want a script based on the idea that making money is what he does, and he doesn’t apologize for it. Also, contact the photographers and cameramen. I need a set, a Victorian office suite.” She stopped long enough for Kristin to finish writing and took a long drink of the wine Emma had brought her.

  “Got it. What else?” Kristin’s
voice seemed to come from far away.

  Tory stared at the pad before her, but her eyes wouldn’t focus. She couldn’t concentrate. Hell, she was probably coming down with the flu Emma had mentioned.

  “That’s enough for now. Get started on it in the morning and I’ll check in with you tomorrow.” She thrust the pad away and sipped her drink again.

  “Right.” A child shrieked in the background. “Lucky woman, enjoy yourself.”

  As Tory put down the receiver, Emma appeared at her elbow. “Through with the phone, Miss Caswell?”

  Her moment of giddiness had passed. She glanced at her notes with disinterest. “Yes, thanks. Take it away. I have a hot date to prepare for.”

  As Tory slid off the leather banquette and headed for the door, she heard Emma call her name.

  “Your notepad, Miss Caswell.”

  She took the pad Emma offered and tucked it beneath her arm. “Thanks.”

  Emma’s amethyst eyes twinkled as if she knew a happy secret. “Enjoy your dinner, Miss Caswell.”

  Tory strolled contentedly down the carpeted hallway, humming the strains from the bar’s piano. When she entered her room, she tossed the notebook onto the desk. “Rand?”

  The bathroom door stood open, but Rand was nowhere in sight. Lovely man. He’d probably deserted the premises to give her privacy to dress. His fresh sandalwood scent wafted on the current from the air-conditioning vent and mixed with the pleasing aroma of new leather.

  She opened her closet. Her clothes hung on the left side of the expansive space. To the right, Rand’s new clothes hung neatly with his running shoes and Top-Siders lined up on the floor beneath them. A feeling of satisfaction suffused her as she observed his clothes juxtaposed with hers. It seemed so...cozy.

  Belting out a Whitney Houston love ballad, she stripped off her clothes, wrapped a terry robe around her and ran the water for her bath, adding fragrant bath salts that matched her perfume. As she slipped into the steamy water, she lay back, closed her eyes and pictured Rand with the Florida sun shining on hair the color of rich coffee and catching the gleam of a smile that cocked the right corner of his mouth.

  She remembered the way the fabric of his rugby shirt pulled across the muscles of his chest, the taut fit of his jeans across his hips, the long fingers of his hands leafing through a book. Somewhere in the back of her mind, niggling thoughts of an ad campaign surfaced, only to drown again in a deluge of sensuous images.

  An hour later, she stood before the full-length mirror, studying the fit of her new dress, when someone knocked at the door. She opened it to Rand, dressed in gray slacks, navy jacket and claret tie, holding out a large white box.

  “For you.” He entered the room and closed the door behind him.

  She took the box, lifted the lid and folded back green florist paper to display two creamy white camellias tied with white satin ribbons. “A corsage! No one’s given me a corsage since the senior prom.”

  “It is inappropriate? I’m afraid I have a great deal to learn about the customs of your time.” He stood by the door, feeling he’d been punched in the stomach as he surveyed Victoria’s appearance.

  She wore an amazingly brief black dress, reaching several inches above the knee, with long fitted sleeves and a neckline that revealed the satiny smoothness of her tanned shoulders. A spray of shining black sequins began at her right shoulder, cascading diagonally over the formfitting garment from her firm breasts and supple hips all the way to the skirt’s hem. Silky, sheer black hose encased long, slender legs, accentuated by the brevity of her skirt and high-heeled black pumps.

  Fire flamed in his belly as she tilted her head toward him, bathing him with the glow of her sea green eyes. “Flowers are always appropriate. They’re lovely.”

  She stood before the mirror, placing the corsage first on one shoulder, then the other.

  He moved behind her. Her magnolia fragrance encompassed him as he raised a hand to her hair, shining like burnished gold, which she’d arranged in a chignon that exposed the slender column of her neck.

  “Wear them here,” he suggested, touching her hair.

  Selena would have fastened them to her bodice, just to be perverse, but Victoria placed the flowers where he’d pointed and secured them with hairpins.

  His hands brushed her bare shoulders. “I’ve reserved a table on the terrace. You won’t be too cool there?”

  She crossed to the dresser and drew a black cashmere stole from the bottom drawer. “I’ll be fine. But surely you’re not hungry after all you ate at the mall?”

  “Ravenous,” he assured her, but his hunger wasn’t centered in his stomach.

  * * *

  BEYOND the soft lights of the terrace the moon hung low over the tranquil gulf, flanked by two bright stars. A cool breeze, laden with a tropical perfume, wafted across their table.

  “Mmm.” Tory took a deep breath. “Orange blossoms.”

  “Where’s that scent coming from? Where the groves used to be, there’s nothing but houses and shops.” Rand stared off into the darkness across the golf course that bordered the hotel on the east and south.

  “People here grow oranges and grapefruit in their yards, much as we do peaches and pears in Atlanta.” She sipped her wine and appraised the attractive man across from her. “What was it like here a hundred years ago?”

  “This terrace wasn’t here. Just a broad veranda and stairs leading down past the rose gardens to the railway.”

  “A railway? Like a train station?” She tried to imagine trains lumbering past the hotel while the guests attempted to sleep.

  “A spur line, where guests who arrived in their private cars could park them during their stay.”

  “Did you have your own car?” Her interest in his life in the Gay Nineties escalated.

  “I traveled to Florida in my own railcar, but I stayed in the hotel once I sent my car back to Chicago.” He rolled the tulip glass between his palms, drawing her gaze to the study squareness of his hands.

  “To pick up someone?” A surge of jealousy nipped her from out of nowhere.

  He shook his head. “To take someone home—but that’s a long, unpleasant story I’d rather not go into.”

  His hint of mystery quickened her interest. “Tell me about yourself then.”

  He shrugged self-effacingly. “There’s not much to tell. My father made his fortune supplying the army during the war—the Civil War. We moved into the big house on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago when I was still a toddler.”

  “And your parents?” she prompted.

  The lines of his jaw hardened. “Drowned in a boating accident on Lake Michigan a few years later. I was reared by my bachelor uncle, a rather grim man, whose main interest in life was making money. He taught me to preserve and multiply my father’s wealth.”

  A discreet cough at her elbow announced the waiter’s return. Rand ordered for the two of them, while his comment about wealth rattled around in the fog in her brain, a niggling reminder of something she couldn’t identify.

  She should never have had that second spritzer; she hadn’t been able to think straight since. Yet there she was, drinking vintage champagne as if she knew what she was doing, so relaxed she uttered the next words that rolled into her head.

  “You must have been a very sad little boy.”

  His eyes darkened as he tossed back the last of his champagne. “Yes, I suppose I was.”

  She watched the pain flitting through the depth of his eyes, turning their pale gray smoke to granite. His uncle had taught him about money. Had anyone taught him about love?

  “And were you a happy little girl?”

  His unexpected question flooded her with nostalgia, remembrances of Jill and her, bundling into their matching coats on a cold winter morning for the ride to school. Then picnics for their dolls among the crepe myrtles on a sultry summer afternoon, her father taking endless pictures beneath the tree on Christmas Eve, her mother baking peanut butter cookies on a Saturday morning.


  She smiled at his through a haze of tears. “Oh, yes. I had a wonderful childhood. My parents are both gone now. And Jill’s with her husband in Australia. But I’m thankful for my memories.”

  He reached across the damask cloth and clasped her hand. She welcomed the warmth of his grasp. The pain vanished from his eyes as he smiled at her, and the line of his jaw softened. She studied his tanned face with its pleasing planes, strong brow and patrician nose, features any woman would admire—and in the back attics of her memory, a thought rattled at the door, trying unsuccessfully to escape.

  The arrival of the waiter, who assembled their Caesar salad beside their table, stilled the insistent clamoring in her head.

  Over poached salmon with dill sauce, fresh asparagus and new potatoes, accompanied by a dry white wine, she plied him with questions about the hotel’s past.

  “The man who built the Bellevue was a genius at making money,” Rand said, as if bestowing his highest form of praise. “He’d built a railroad down the west coast into the Tampa Bay area, and to encourage visitors to use it, he constructed two large resorts, one here at Clearwater Harbor, the other across the bay at Tampa.”

  “But how did they stand the summer heat, especially before air-conditioning? People wore so many layers of clothing then.” She appreciated scorching summers. Atlanta was famous for them.

  He took a bite of salmon and chewed thoughtfully, his appetite apparently undiminished by his earlier raid on the mall’s food court. “The hotel was only open from right after Christmas until just before Easter. But most guests stayed the whole time, paying a price dear enough to justify closing the remainder of the year.”

  No matter how she steered the conversation, he always came back to money. Money Man. Where had the phrase come from?

  “Lovely night, isn’t it?” Emma appeared at their table, filling Tory’s coffee cup from a silver pot.

  “Don’t you ever rest?” The little woman was beginning to get on her nerves. “You’ve been here since morning.”

  “As I said, there’s influenza among the staff. The rest of us are doubling up.” She moved to Rand’s place, pouring the aromatic brew into his cup, as well. “Having dessert, Mr. Trent?”