Time Was

by Nora Roberts

  He bit down on his impatience. “You’ll point me in the right direction?”

  “No, but I’ll take you.”

  “You’ve already done enough.”

  “Maybe, but I’m not handing you the key to my car, and you can hardly walk that distance on those roads.” She took the corner of his cloth and dried her hands while he tried to formulate a reasonable excuse. “Why wouldn’t you want me to see your plane, Hornblower? Even if you’d stolen it, I wouldn’t know.”

  “I didn’t steal it.”

  His tone was just abrupt enough, just annoyed enough, to make her believe him. “Well, then, I’ll help you find the wreckage as soon as the trail’s safe. For now, have a seat and let me look at that cut.”

  Automatically he lifted his fingers to the bandage. “It’s all right.”

  “You’re having pain. I can see it in your eyes.”

  He shifted his gaze to meet hers. There was sympathy there, a quiet, comforting sympathy that made him want to rest his cheek on her hair and tell her everything. “It comes and goes.”

  “Then I’ll check it out, give you a couple of aspirin and see if we can make it go again. Come on, Cal.” She took the cloth from him and led him to a chair. “Be a good boy.”

  He sat down, flicking her a glance of amused exasperation. “You sound like my mother.”

  She patted his cheek in reply before taking fresh bandages and antiseptic from a cupboard. “Just sit still.” She uncovered the wound, frowning over it in a way that made him shift uncomfortably in his chair. “Sit still,” she murmured. It was a nasty cut, jagged and deep. Bruises the color of storm clouds bloomed around it. “It looks better. At least there doesn’t seem to be any infection. You’ll have a scar.”

  Appalled, he lifted his fingers to the wound. “A scar?”

  So he was vain, she thought, more than a little amused. “Don’t worry, it’ll look dashing. I’d be happier if you’d had a few stitches, but I think that’s more than my Sears and Roebuck degree can handle.”

  “Your what?”

  “Just a joke. This’ll sting some.”

  He swore, loudly and richly, when she cleaned the wound. Before she was half finished, he grabbed her wrist. “Sting? Some?”

  “Toughen up, Hornblower. Think about something else.”

  He set his teeth and concentrated on her face. The burning pushed his breath out in a hiss. Her eyes reflected both determination and understanding as she went competently about cleaning, treating and bandaging the wound.

  She really was beautiful, he realized as he studied her in the watery early sunlight. It wasn’t cosmetics, and it was highly unlikely that there had been any restructuring. This was the face she’d been born with. Strong, sharp, and with a natural elegance that made him long to stroke her cheek again. Her skin had been soft, he remembered, baby-smooth. And color had rushed in and out of it as her emotions had shifted.

  Perhaps, just perhaps, she was an ordinary woman of her time. But to him she was unique and almost unbearably desirable.

  That was why she made him ache, Cal told himself as he felt the muscles in his stomach knot and stretch. That was why she made him want her more than he’d ever wanted anything before, more than it was possible for him to want now. She was real, he reminded himself. But it was he who was the illusion. A man who had never been born, yet one who felt as though he had never been more alive.

  “Do you do this often?” he asked her.

  She hated knowing she was causing him pain, and she answered absently, “Do what often?”

  “Rescue men.”

  He watched her lips curve and could almost taste them. “You’re my first.”

  “Good.”

  “There, that should do.”

  “Aren’t you going to kiss it and make it better?” His mother had always done so, as he imagined mothers had done for all time. When she laughed, he felt his heart lurch in his chest.

  “Since you were brave.” She leaned down and brushed her lips just above the bandage.

  “It still hurts.” He took her hand before she could move away. “Why don’t you try again?”

  “I’ll get the aspirin.” Her hand flexed in his. She would have backed away when he rose, but something in his eyes told her it would do no good. “Caleb . . .”

  “I make you nervous.” His thumb caressed her knuckles. “It’s very stimulating.”

  “I’m not trying to stimulate you.”

  “Apparently you don’t have to try.” She was nervous, he thought again, but not frightened. He would have stopped if he’d seen fear. Instead, he brought her hand to his lips, then turned the palm upward. “You have wonderful hands, Libby. Gentle hands.” He saw the emotions flickering in her eyes—confusion, unease, desire. He concentrated on the desire and drew her closer.

  “Stop.” She was appalled by the lack of conviction in her own voice. “I told you, I . . .” He brushed his lips against her temple, and her knees turned to water. “I’m not going to bed with you.”

  With a quiet murmur of agreement, he ran his hand up her back until her body was fitted against his. It amazed him how much he’d wanted to hold her like this. Her head nestled perfectly against his shoulder, as if they had been made to dance together. He had a moment’s regret that there wasn’t music, something low and pulsing. The thought made him smile. None of the women in his life had ever wanted to have the stage set. Nor had he ever had the urge to set one before.

  “Relax,” he murmured, and slid his hand up to the back of her neck. “I’m not going to make love with you. I’m only going to kiss you.”

  Panic had her straining away. “No, I don’t . . .”

  The fingers at the back of her neck shifted, tightened, held firm. Later, when she could think, she would tell herself that he had inadvertently touched some nerve, some secret vulnerability. An unspeakable pleasure sprang into her, and her head fell back in submission. On the heels of that flash of sensation he brought his lips to hers.

  She went rigid, though not from fear, not from anger, and certainly not in resistance. It was shock, wave after wave of it. A live wire, she thought dimly. Somehow she had closed her hand over a live wire, and the voltage was deadly.

  His lips barely touched hers, teasing, titillating, tormenting. It was a caress, mouth against mouth, unbearably erotic. Then it was a nibble, an almost playful nibble. And a caress again, sweet and light and compelling. His lips were warm and smooth as they rubbed a whispering trail over hers. In arousing contrast, the stubble of his beard scraped roughly over her cheek as he turned his head to trace the outline of her lips with his tongue.

  It was intimate, impossibly so, the way he tasted her, toyed with her. His tongue dipped to hers, savoring dark new flavors, before he changed the mood again and caught her bottom lip between his teeth, nipping, stopping unerringly at a point between pleasure and pain.

  It was seduction, the kind she had never dreamed of. Slow, soft-edged, inescapable seduction. She could hear the low, helpless sound that caught in her throat as he closed his teeth lightly over her chin.

  The hand that had tensed against his chest began to tremble. She felt the solid cabin floor sway under her feet. Her rigidity melted degree by degree until she was shuddering with the heat and pliant in his arms.

  He’d never experienced anything, anyone, like her. It was as though she had melted against him, quietly, completely. Her taste was fresh, like the air that wafted through the open window. He heard the soft, yielding sound of her sigh.

  Then her arms were around him, clinging. She plunged her fingers deep into his hair as she strained against him. In a heartbeat, her mouth went from submissive to avid, pressing hungrily, possessively, desperately, against his. Rocked by the force, he dived into the kiss and let passion rule.

  She wanted .
. . too much. Why hadn’t she known she’d been starving? Just the taste of him made her ravenous. Her body felt as though it would explode as dozens of new sensations arrowed into it, each of them sharp, separate and stunning. A muffled cry escaped her when his arms tightened painfully around her. She was no longer trembling—but he was.

  What was she doing to him? He couldn’t catch his breath. He couldn’t think. But he could feel—too much, too quickly. The loss of control was more dangerous to a pilot than an uncharted meteor storm. He’d only meant to give and take a moment of pleasure, to satisfy a simple need. But this was more than pleasure, and it was far from simple. He needed to pull back before he was sucked into something he didn’t yet understand.

  He drew her away with unsteady hands. It helped—a little—that her breathing was as ragged as his. Her eyes were wide and stunned. Yes, stunned was the word, he decided. He felt as though he’d flown into the side of a building.

  What had he done? Confused, she lifted a hand to her lips. What had she done? She could almost feel her blood bubbling through her veins. Libby took a step back, wanting to find solid ground again, and easy answers.

  “Wait.” He couldn’t resist. He might curse himself for it later, but he couldn’t resist. Before the first shock waves had passed, he hauled her against him a second time.

  Not again. The single thought echoed in both their minds as they went under. The pull was just as strong, the need just as gripping. She felt herself seesaw between limp surrender and furious demand before she managed to yank herself free.

  She nearly stumbled, and caught the back of a kitchen chair to steady herself. Her knuckles went white on the wood as she stared at him, dragging air into her lungs. She knew nothing about him, yet she had given him more than she had ever given anyone. Her mind was trained to ask questions, but at the moment it was her heart, fragile and irrational, that held sway.

  “If you’re going to stay here, in this house, I don’t want you to touch me again.”

  It was fear he saw in her eyes now. He understood it, as he felt a trace of it himself. “I didn’t expect that any more than you did. I’m not sure I like it any more than you do.”

  “Then we shouldn’t have any trouble avoiding anything like this in the future.”

  He tucked his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, not bothering to analyze why he was suddenly so angry. “Listen, babe, that was just as much your doing as mine.”

  “You grabbed me.”

  “No, I kissed you. You did the grabbing.” It gave him little satisfaction to see her color rise. “I didn’t force myself on you, Libby, and we both know it. But if you want to pretend you’ve got ice in your veins, that’s fine with me.”

  The embarrassed flush fled from her face, leaving it very white and very still. In contrast, her eyes went dark and wide. The stunned hurt that glazed them had him cursing himself and stepping forward.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shifted behind the chair and managed to speak calmly. “I don’t want or expect an apology from you, but I do expect cooperation.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’ll get both.”

  “I have a lot of work to do. You’re welcome to take the television into your room, and there are books on the shelf by the fireplace. I’d appreciate it if you’d stay out of my way for the rest of the day.”

  He dug his hands into his pockets. If she wanted to be stubborn, he could match her. “Fine.”

  She waited, her arms crossed over her chest, until he strode out of the room. She wanted to throw something, preferably something breakable. He had no right to say that to her after what he’d made her feel.

  Ice in her veins? No, her problem had always been that she felt too much, wanted too much. Except when it came to personal, physical, one-to-one relationships with men. Miserable, she yanked out the chair and dropped onto it. She was a devoted daughter, a loving sister, a faithful friend. But no one’s lover. She’d never experienced the driving need for intimacy. At times she’d been certain there was something lacking in her.

  With one kiss, Cal had made her want things she’d almost convinced herself weren’t important. At least not for her. She had her work, she was ambitious, and she knew she would make her mark. She had her family, her friends, her associates. Damn it, she was happy. She didn’t need some hotshot pilot who couldn’t keep his plane in the air to come along and make her feel restless—and alive, she mused, running a fingertip over her bottom lip. She hadn’t known just how alive she could feel until he’d kissed her.

  It was ridiculous. More unnerved than annoyed, she sprang up to pour another cup of coffee. He’d simply reminded her of something she forgot from time to time. She was a young, normal, healthy woman. A woman, she remembered, who had just spent several months on a remote island in the South Pacific. What she needed was to finish her dissertation and get back to Portland. Socialize, take in some movies, go to a few parties. What she needed, she decided with a nod, was to get Caleb Hornblower on his way, back to wherever the devil he came from.

  Taking the coffee, she started upstairs. For all she knew, he might have dropped down from the moon.

  She passed his room and couldn’t prevent a quick snicker when she heard the frantic sounds of a television game show. The man, she thought as she slipped behind her own door, was easily entertained.

  Chapter 4

  It was an education. Cal spent several hours engrossed in a sea of daytime television. Every ten or fifteen minutes he switched channels, moving from game show to soap opera, from talk show to commercial. He found the commercials particularly entertaining, with their bright, often startling, intensity.

  He preferred the musical ones, with their jumpy tunes and contagious cheer. But others made him wonder about the people who lived in this time, in this place.

  Some selections showcased frazzled women fighting things like grease stains and dull wax buildup. He couldn’t imagine his mother—or any other woman, for that matter—worrying about which detergent made whites whiter. But the commercials were delightful entertainment.

  There were others that had attractive men and women solving their problems by drinking carbonated beverages or coffee. It seemed everyone worked, many outside, in sweaty jobs, so that they could go to a bar with friends at the end of the day and drink beer. He thought their costumes were wonderful.

  On a daytime drama he watched a woman have a brief, intense conversation with a man about the possibility of her being pregnant. Either a woman was pregnant or she wasn’t, Cal mused, switching over to see a paunchy man in a checked jacket win a week’s vacation in Hawaii. From the winner’s reaction, Cal figured that must be a pretty big deal in the twentieth century.

  He wondered, as he caught snippets of The News At Noon, how humanity had ever made it to the twenty-first century and beyond. Murder was obviously a popular sport. As were discussions on arms limitations and treaties. Politicians apparently hadn’t changed much, he thought as he snacked on a box of cookies he’d found in Libby’s kitchen, his legs folded under him. They were still long-winded, they still danced around the truth, and they still smiled a great deal. But to imagine that world leaders had actually negotiated over how many nuclear weapons each would build and maintain was ludicrous. How many had they thought they needed?

  No matter, he decided, and switched back to a soap. They had come to their senses eventually.

  He liked the soaps the best. Though the picture was wavy and the sound occasionally jumped, he enjoyed watching the people react, agonizing about their problems, contemplating marriages, divorces and love affairs. Relationships had apparently been among the top ten problems of this century.

  As he watched, a curvy blonde with tears in her eyes and a tough-looking bare-chested man fell into each other’s arms for a long, deep, passionate kiss. The music swelled until fade-out. Ki
ssing was obviously an accepted habit of the time, Cal reflected. So why had Libby been so upset by one?

  Restless, he rose and walked to the window. He hadn’t exactly reacted in an expected fashion himself. The kiss had left him feeling angry, uneasy and vulnerable. None of those reactions had ever occurred before. And none of them, he admitted now, had lessened his desire for her in the least.

  He wanted to know everything there was to know about Liberty Stone. What she thought, what she felt, what she wanted most, what she liked the least. There were dozens of questions he wanted to ask her, dozens of ways he wanted to touch her, and he knew that when he did her eyes would become dark and confused and depthless. He could imagine, with only the slightest effort, what her skin would feel like on the back of her knee, at the small of her back.

  It was impossible. There was only one thing he should be thinking about now. Going home.

  The time with Libby was only an interlude. Knowing as little as he did about women of this time didn’t prevent him from being certain that Liberty Stone was not a woman a man could love and leave with any comfort. One look in her eyes and you saw not only passion but home fires burning.

  He was a man who had no intention of settling down anytime soon. True, his parents had matched early and had married fairly young, at thirty. But he had no desire to be matched, mated or married yet. And when he did, Cal reminded himself it would be on his own ground. He would think of Libby only as a distraction, however pleasant, in a tense and delicate situation.

  He needed to be gone. He pressed his palms against the cool glass of the window as if it were a prison he could easily escape. This was an experience some men might have craved, but he preferred breaking the boundaries of his own world—and his own time.

  True, he’d learned things by reading the newspapers and watching the television. In the twentieth century the world was a long way from reaching peace, people worried a great deal about what to have for dinner and weapons were owned and used with reckless abandon. A dozen farm-fresh eggs could be had for about a dollar—which was the current U.S. currency—and everyone was on a diet.