A Twist in Time dvtt-3

by Susan Squires

  “Bed now. It is late.” She rolled up the charts. “I will tend your wounds.”

  In his cabin he pulled off his sweatpants and lay on the bed. She turned on the bedside lamp. It cast a golden glow over his body. Outside, the rain still beat on the deck and ports. The boat rocked in its slip. She had never felt so alone with a man. The world was far away beyond the darkness. Brad and Casey and Jake, even the convenience store guy, were all irrelevant. It was only she and Galen in the watertight cocoon of Jake’s boat, safe and dry, at least for now.

  She got the hydrogen peroxide, the Betadine and bandages. She pulled the adhesive on his shoulder wound in toward the incision so she wouldn’t tug at the stitches (thanks to the book’s instructions). Then she pulled the sodden gauze away. He peered down at his shoulder.

  She tossed the gauze and tape aside. The wound was still shocking, but it had pulled together and tightened. The drain in the lower end seemed even more a violation of his flesh than the black, uneven track of stitches. “It’s better.”

  “Hit heth swift.” He was staring at her. “It heal swiftly,” he corrected.

  Forget the dropped s on “heals”—no use overcorrecting him. “You are wonderful with words.” She turned to her disinfectants. He’d understand that. “Wonderful” was a word they shared.

  “I was meant to be more,” he said in Latin.

  She glanced up to him and saw a look of shame flicker across his exhausted face. She had seen that expression before. What had he to be ashamed of? A potent warrior, a man who could read and write several languages in a time when literacy was almost unheard of . . . why would he be ashamed? “What more? More than warrior? More than leader? More than intelligent?” She spoke in a mixture of English and Latin, whatever occurred.

  His expression flattened. “You ne understandeth.”

  Well, if he was going to retreat to being the strong, silent type, two could play that game. She focused on her dressings. As well as she could. Her hands on his body were sending signals to parts of her that shouldn’t be taking the call. In fact, she wasn’t sure the boxers helped much. They were bulging over his generously constructed male . . . area, which only drew her attention to what she knew was underneath. And the rest of him was bare, except for bandages of course, and so her hands touched hot skin at every turn. Was he fevered? Or maybe she was the one who was hot. Either way, the result was the same. Signals. Shuddering, tingling signals.

  Focus, she thought. Not on that! On the wound. Just tend the wound. New bandage. Lay it out. But the crisp hair on his chest brushed her knuckles and his nipples were soft. They made her want to rub her thumbs over them until they peaked. How had his left hand gotten to her thigh? She looked up. His blue eyes were communicating in a language that didn’t need words. She got the message loud and clear.

  And she was really afraid her eyes would be speaking just as clearly. What was the matter with her? This is a probably murderous Viking, remember? She’d bought pepper spray just to thwart unwelcome advances. Only her body was sending out signals that the advances weren’t unwelcome. And she was going to be cooped up on this boat with him for a while. At the moment it seemed like forever. So she had to deal with this whole attraction thing head-on.

  She sat back and took his hand from her thigh. Her heart was thudding uncomfortably in her chest. “Look,” she said, then started again in Latin. She wanted no misunderstanding. “I am not interested . . .” She wasn’t sure that was the right word. More direct. “I do not want you.”

  Those blue eyes blinked, slowly. Was there a hint of a smile around those lips? There’d better not be. “Thou haban . . .” He started again. “You have lust for me.”

  “I . . . I do not . . . lust for you!” Why did “lust” have to be a word from Old English?

  “Ja. You have lust for me.” He reached his good hand around her neck, under her braid.

  And she let him. His calluses felt coarse against her skin. She was throbbing and wet between her thighs. What would it be like to let a man like this have his way with her? Would it be her way, too? Would she give in to him? The word “yield” sounded in her mind.

  “Gield to me,” he said clearly, echoing her thoughts.

  She started and sidled out from under his hand, to stand above him, panting. Yield was an Old English word? Oh, she hated that. “I will not yield to you.” Or to my feelings. She switched to Latin. That seemed more . . . impersonal. But she was so flustered it was difficult to find the words. “You will be . . . be . . . good.”

  “I be good.” He smiled, slowly. He did not switch to Latin. “Very good for you, Lucy.”

  “You will not touch me,” she continued firmly in Latin. “Or I will leave you.”

  “You . . .” He searched for the right word. “You want to cyssan me.”

  “I do not want to kiss you.” Much. At least her brain didn’t. She could no longer vouch for her body, betrayer that it was. She searched for purchase on a very slippery slope. She stuck firmly to Latin. “I do not want a lover.” Did she?

  But this Viking didn’t love her. He was looking for an easy conquest. That thought gave her the purchase she needed. “Women now do not live only for the kiss of a man. We have our own lives. We choose our lovers.” She would have gone on, but the language barrier was just too tough. “Do you want help for your wounds or no?”

  He searched her face. “Ja, Lucy. You heal mine wounds.”

  “Okay then,” she muttered, losing her Latin entirely. “But you keep your hands to yourself.” She sat back down and made sure all her movements were extremely brisk as she taped the bandage over his shoulder.

  Out of half-closed eyes Galen watched her secure the bandage. Why had she refused sex with him? Galen was not used to rejection. Women looking for a man thought themselves fortunate to attract his attention. But not this one. Perhaps he had mistaken her. Could she possibly be a virgin? He never trifled with maidens. She said she had male “friends.” Not possible. Women had male relatives who protected them, a husband or a betrothed, or lovers. Jake was more like a father or an uncle to her. Galen had seen that. But what about this Brad?

  She said that women of her time chose their lovers, that they did not need a man. Danish women, too, were strong and independent. But, Galen had to admit, not until they were married and widowed. Their fathers chose husbands for them. And many were bought for their bride price and their comely bodies more than for lifelong companionship. When they were widowed, they could inherit land and run their own lives. If Lucy ran her own life, mayhaps she was a widow who had taken this Brad as a lover. That would explain much.

  But what would keep her then from a little enthusiastic sex?

  Ahhh. She was afraid she would want to deny this Brad after Galen had swived her well and thoroughly. That made sense. It would be hard for another to follow in his footsteps.

  And yet . . . Could it be she loved this Brad? The thought rankled. What if, no matter her transient lust for Galen, it was he who did not measure up? He imagined this Brad a warrior with dark hair and steely eyes. Did she writhe under him as he claimed her, night and morning? Did she moan his name as he suckled at her breast?

  Then, too, Brad was very important if he could imprison anyone he wanted. Galen was nothing here. What matter that he was the king’s trusted commander when that king had long since turned to dust? He must push his body back to health. He would have to face this Brad to get back to his own time. And when Lucy saw Galen bring her lover to his knees, when this Brad begged for mercy, then she would be sorry she had not taken Galen to her bed.

  She bent over his thigh, not looking at him. She made an apologetic face as she pulled the bandage fastener away from the hair on his thigh, though he did not flinch. Her lips pouted in concentration as she daubed at the wound with her stinging orange-yellow medicine. That wound was already drying and pulling together. The flesh around it was still reddened but not hard and hot with rot. She sat back and cocked her head, studying it.
>
  “No bandage.” She spoke in Latin even though it was hard for her, just so she would not speak words their languages shared. She rejected even that intimacy. “It is better.”

  He grunted assent.

  She rose. Ahhh. Her blush betrayed her. She lusted for him whether she would or no. She hurried from the room. But soon she returned with her cursed tablets and a glass flagon of water.

  “Here.”

  He took the tablets. His fingers brushed her hand. He managed to touch her fingers as he took the flagon, too. She practically snatched her hand away. She would not meet his eyes as he swallowed the tablets.

  “Good night.” She switched off the light. The little, rocking room went pitch-black.

  He sighed. Whatever happened, he could not afford her fear. “Lucy.” He could feel her uncertainty in the darkness. He spoke carefully in Latin to make sure she understood. “I will not try to . . . kiss you again. You need not be afraid of me.”

  The silence stretched.

  “Thank you,” she said, in English. Then she was gone.

  The whole parking structure reverberated with jackhammers and the bone-jarring crash of front-loaders dropping hunks of concrete into waiting dump trucks. This would have to be the last load. It was long after dark. The smell in the air was a curious mixture of diesel fuel and powdered cement. They’d cleared away the little kiosk and the striped gate arms at the entry.

  Brad stood still while Casey paced the sidewalk. His head ached with the noise. Or maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t sleeping. He couldn’t stop thinking about what a fool he’d been with Lucy. Why had he been so obsessed with her? A bookseller, for God’s sake, when he deserved someone as brilliant as he was himself. She wouldn’t take up science. She wouldn’t run marathons with him, even though it would have made her leaner. She wasn’t his ideal of a woman at all. Who knows what some hulk from the past saw in her?

  He wasn’t the only one upset. The hospital administrator was livid. Especially since no one would tell him exactly why the machine in the parking structure was so important that hospital routine had been shattered, or how it had gotten there if it was too big to fit through the entry. Patients had to park two blocks over in the public lot. Employees were walking five blocks. Only ambulances were allowed to use the driveway and even they had to pull in about fifty feet from the ER doors and run their gurneys up the sidewalk. Cops manned the barriers out at the street where gawkers milled.

  And now the engineer said it was going to take three or four days to get the machine out.

  Casey stopped in front of Brad, fuming. Casey looked worse than Brad felt. “I need a cup of coffee,” Casey muttered in a normal voice, which meant Brad had to read his lips.

  Brad followed, squinting, as though to shut out the noise.

  The hospital felt as silent as a tomb after the din of construction, in spite of intercoms and conversations and heels clicking on the linoleum floors. Down in the cafeteria they filled Styrofoam cups with sludgy coffee and paid the cashier before finding a table by the window. An elderly woman was crying in the corner. A father tried to keep a boy of about seven from zooming around the room like an airplane. Casey didn’t even seem to notice. He stared out the window at a little courtyard garden, ignoring his coffee.

  “Any news of them?” Brad blew on his coffee. No use burning his lips.

  Casey turned cold blue eyes on him. “What do you think?”

  Brad just sipped his coffee. It burned in spite of his efforts and he sputtered.

  Casey ignored him and turned those eyes out to the garden again. “Won’t get anything useful out of her shop assistant now, because she’ll say whatever we want to hear.”

  Brad shuddered. He didn’t want to think about why.

  “They didn’t use cabs,” Casey continued. “No hotels. No other hospitals. We’ve checked surgeons and primary-care doctors to see if they had anyone showing up for aftercare for shoulder surgery. Nothing. We’ve got the pictures and the artist’s renderings spread out over airports from San Diego to Seattle, BART and Amtrak stations. We’re blanketing the surrounding counties.”

  “That sounds . . . promising,” Brad offered. Casey’s eyes were scary cold.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Casey snapped. “It’s as if she and the Viking disappeared into thin air.”

  “So . . . uh, the Stanford guy confirmed the guy is Viking?”

  Casey seemed to notice his coffee for the first time and took a gulp. It must have been hot enough to scald, but he didn’t register pain. Casey was one big callus. “Hard to tell. Clothes are tenth century. Sword is Saxon workmanship, but the etching on the blade is in Danish runes. Apparently, it says: ‘I was made for the son of Valgar, for whom the world waits.’ ”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Anger welled up in Brad’s throat.

  “It means the guy has a high opinion of himself.”

  Lucy had a high opinion of him, too. Stupid bitch. She falls for someone with empty boasting on his sword. Brad only realized his grip had tightened on his coffee cup when the Styrofoam broke and hot coffee spewed over the table and onto his lap. “Jesus!” He jumped up and grabbed napkins from the dispenser on the table to scrub at his Dockers.

  “Maybe the landlord is the key,” Casey muttered. “If you expect to get into your apartment after four months of not paying rent, you’ve got to have an in with the landlord. She was probably boffing him, too.”

  Brad swallowed. That couldn’t be. “Maybe the damage made the machine bring her to the wrong time. Maybe she didn’t know she was four months late.”

  “Then she’d be surprised she couldn’t get in. And where might she go?” Casey dripped condescension. “Landlord’s lying about not having seen her. We’ll work that angle.” Casey rubbed his jaw. “Then we have the problem of how they got away from the building, landlord or no. They didn’t take a cab. There’s no car missing from the parking lot. We have her car, and they can’t have walked with him in such bad shape.”

  “Rental car delivery?”

  “Checked that.”

  “You need a witness. Maybe there was a homeless person outside her apartment.”

  Casey stared back at the garden, jaw working. Okay, he’d checked that. Brad resolved not to offer any more suggestions. But Casey wasn’t giving him a choice. “There’s got to be something about her we’re missing . . . some skill, some . . . something that might tell us where she was.” He looked at Brad.

  “I told you everything I know months ago. She hangs out in libraries and bookstores. She walks—a lot. She knows lots of languages.”

  “Okay, that’s now. What about things she did as a kid?”

  “Well, she used to sail, and I think she had horses once.”

  Casey’s eyebrows rose. “You never said she sailed. That has possibilities.” Brad was relieved he’d said something useful. “Jensen find any diamond big enough to substitute?”

  Brad shook his head. “There’s a new one from India about the right size. But it’s still in the rough. The cutters in Amsterdam are studying it before they take a chisel to it.”

  “I’ll tell them to get on with it.”

  “It isn’t that easy. They have to eliminate the flaws by using them to split the stone. By the time they get it cut down, it may not be big enough.”

  Casey rose suddenly and drained the last of his coffee. “I’m going to get some sleep.” All eyes in the room followed him as he strode from the cafeteria. He looked like danger incarnate. Rumor had it that the last job he’d been on, a guy who’d reported Casey’s tactics to his superiors had gone missing. Well, all except a couple of fingers. Brad wondered if he should just go back to the lab and stay as far away as possible from Casey.

  But if anyone could find the fugitives Casey could. Brad wanted to be there when he did.

  Chapter 11

  Friday

  Lucy dragged herself out of bed. She’d slept badly. Maybe it was the pepper spray under her pillow. He might ha
ve promised he wouldn’t try to kiss her, but you could rape someone without kissing. Whoa. Cynical. Did she really think he structured his promise so he could keep it and still rape her? The kind of guy that rapes a woman doesn’t care if he breaks a stupid promise. The problem was that deep inside she believed Galen was an honorable man. She might be losing it, but . . . but there was something about the look in his eyes . . . Maybe that was naïve. Too cynical or too naïve? The endless tape of uncertainty had played over and over in her mind last night. So, she took the pepper spray to bed. Cold comfort that.

  Speaking of comfort, she couldn’t find any. And definitely not anything cold. Her thoughts, waking, and her dreams, asleep, all had a temperature north of a hundred, involving one raping, pillaging, and very attractive Viking. Not comfortable at all. Even now she was wet between her thighs, left over from the dream she’d had just before being wakened by thunder and the pelting rain of a fresh shower.

  Maybe pepper spray wouldn’t protect her from what she really feared: that she was the one who would end up running her hands over his body, inviting a lot more than kissing.

  He was wounded for God’s sake. That sure didn’t seem to stop him last night.

  And he wasn’t her type. Viking? Hellooooo.

  Well. She wouldn’t think about any of this anymore. The best thing to do now was take a shower, for a lot of reasons. She got up, hugging her arms around her fake-satin sleep shirt. It was emerald green, her favorite color. The boat was cold. The ports were fogged opaque, the rivulets of rain on the outside only faintly visible. She pulled out her jeans and some fresh underwear and T-shirts from the drawers under the bed. Best dress before the Viking was awake and rev up the electric heater. She’d forgotten all about dying her hair yesterday in her panic to do damage control with the guy at the Quik Stop. Now the guy at the Quik Stop and the kid and the brown, hard sailor on the other boats had all seen her red hair. If she dyed it now, wouldn’t that just scream that she and Galen were hiding?

  She slipped out the door to her cabin on the way to the head. She was too late to avoid Galen. There he was, in all his half-naked glory, limping out of his own cabin.