Fighting Fate

by Louise Clark

  Andrew assumed an offended expression. “I do not know the meaning of your term, ‘goofing off,’ but I believe you to be using it as a derogatory description of my behavior.”

  “I am.”

  “I trust you will accept my sincere apology for any errors I have made during these past several days and my deepest promise that I will do nothing to endanger Cody Simpson, a man for whom I have the greatest respect and affection.”

  Uncle Andrew had puffed up like an angry rooster defending his flock of hens. Faith figured he’d received about as much of her message as he was likely to acknowledge. All she could do now was keep her fingers crossed and hope for the best. She nodded glumly. “Thanks.”

  He eyed her shrewdly. “I think Mistress Taylor’s desire for domination is not your only concern.”

  Faith thought about that. He was right. Ava scared her silly, but her own relationship with Cody had become such a tangle she didn’t know how to sort it out. “Cody doesn’t know about you, about all of this.” She waved her hand in the direction of the living room. “All he knows is that you are my weird cousin who has phobias. He helped me out, blindly. He trusts me. Now. But I haven’t told him about you visiting and Mom going back into the past. I don’t know how he’ll take it.”

  “Consider this, Faith. When I arrived I must have looked and sounded like a madman. And yet, Cody accepted me and he has been more than patient with me since. Trust him, Faith. Tell him. He cares for you. Have confidence that he will accept you for what you are.”

  Faith thought about Cody, his curiosity and interest. He had an open mind, it was true, but then her father’s face intruded in her mind’s eye and she shook her head. Asking any man to accept the reality of time travel, instigated by individuals who were able to project a light across the centuries, was dangerous. “I don’t know, Andrew. What if he thinks I’m crazy and doesn’t want to date me anymore? I think I’m…I really like him. He means a lot to me. On top of that, we work together. Relationships that go bad can create a huge strain in the office. Ava has already told me that if it’s him or me, I’m the one who will be expected to leave NIT. I’ve got a lot at stake here.”

  “Aye, you do, girl. As do I.” Andrew paused, waiting a moment then two for emphasis. “I have realized that I am in love with Mary Elizabeth. Yet I have never told her I am a Traveler and a Beacon too. I hope she will accept me, but even if she does, her father will do his best to see that we do not wed as he hates me for my politics.”

  Momentarily diverted, Faith said, “You’re a Beacon? Do you have a visitor from the past or one from the future like Mom?”

  “From the past.” Andrew’s mouth hardened into a dangerous line. “My many times great grandmother. She lived in Boston town in the early days of the settlement. She was a devout, religious woman, with a quick intellect who discussed the Scriptures with her friend Anne Hutchinson, and others of like mind. When John Winthrop and the Puritan leaders accused Mistress Hutchinson of heresy, they also accused our ancestor. Her husband, a poor sort of man, denounced her and sent her away from their home. Then she was convicted and banished from Boston. She had nowhere to go but the vast wilderness and there she eventually found my light. She has made a home for herself now, but she still comes from time to time for food and shelter when the weather is bad.”

  Faith eyed him with amazement. “You’re the first Beacon, the one who began it all!”

  He shook his head. “There were others before us, in Scotland and England too.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Nor I, until she found me. Her name was expunged from the family records by her brute of a husband.” He looked at Faith, a brooding expression in his eyes. “I could not turn her away, even if Mary Elizabeth rejects me because of my abilities. I am what I am, Faith, as you are what you are. Not all men—or women!—will accept us or understand our powers, but I have hope of Mary Elizabeth and I believe Cody will as well.”

  “I almost told Cody last week, but I chickened out when you arrived.”

  Andrew put his hand over hers. “Tell him soon, Faith. He deserves to know.” He smiled. “You deserve to know how he will react. Waiting will only make the telling more difficult, and the hearing more shocking.”

  “You’re right.” Faith smiled. Absurdly, she was scared at the thought of confiding in Cody, but she was excited too.

  “And I will tell Mary Elizabeth when I return. If she still wants me I will brave her father’s wrath and ask him for her hand.”

  “Good luck.”

  Andrew smiled rather devilishly. “You as well.”

  “I have come to a decision.”

  Andrew liked to make serious pronouncements when she was in the middle of a traffic nightmare. Like now, as she approached an intersection toward the end of a green light. There were half-a-dozen cars on the opposite side turning left. She knew at least two or three were going to try to sneak across between the point when oncoming traffic stopped for the yellow and when the yellow flicked to red. The trick was to get into the intersection before those left-turners gunned it to make their turn, or to be far enough away that a safe stop could be made when the light went yellow.

  Faith was used to a quiet morning commute with only the radio news for company. She could focus on surviving the rush hour gauntlet and preparing for the day ahead. Andrew was a sociable guy, however, and every morning since he’d arrived he’d chatted non-stop from her house to the office. It was now Friday morning, the fifth day he’d come into work with her. Faith was beginning to develop the knack of tuning him out.

  She was a few feet away from the intersection now, too close to stop without the car behind rear-ending her. She kept her foot on the gas and entered the intersection.

  “I am going to ask Mary Elizabeth tonight.”

  “What?” One of the left-turning cars surged into the intersection, directly into Faith’s path, a second one hot on its bumper. “No!” She hit the break pedal.

  “You think I should not?” Andrew said, frowning.

  “Andrew, I…” The driver of the second car hit the breaks too, while the first one stepped on the gas. Faith squeaked between them as the light went red. Crisis over, she glanced over at Andrew. “What were you saying?”

  “I have decided to go back tonight. There is a subscription ball in Lexington. All of the best families will be there. George Strand is sure to attend and to bring his family. It would please me to claim a dance or two with my Mary Elizabeth.”

  “And you’ll tell her then?”

  “Aye. And ask her father for her hand if she agrees.”

  “A ball. This sounds like a pretty big deal. Why didn’t you tell me before we started on our way to work? You could have gone back this morning.”

  “I did not decide until just now. I had to weigh all of the alternatives.”

  Faith checked her mirror, then zipped into a narrow opening in the outside lane. “I’ll take you home. You can go back, make sure everything is okay on your farm, prep for tonight.” They were about halfway to NIT. If she turned around now she would be at least a half-an-hour late for work, but she would find some way of covering it with Ava. She could even work late tonight.

  Sure that was it. She’d trade off the time she missed this morning for some at the end of the day. It was perfect. Who would complain—

  “I’ll stay,” Andrew said.

  Faith’s fantasy of a productive, unstressed slide into the weekend evaporated. She sighed.

  Andrew said, “I have responsibilities I cannot shirk. I will go this afternoon after we return from your workplace.”

  “Responsibilities? What are you talking about?”

  “The report you required me to create.” He sounded miffed, as if she had failed him in some way.

  “Report?” Her memory clicked in. “You mean, the one on the status of all of the computers in the bullpen?”

  “Aye, that would be the one.”

  A make-work project. He was going to stay
for the whole day because he hadn’t finished a make-work project? She didn’t know whether to be outraged or proud.

  Both emotions were irrelevant. Andrew had decided he was going to remain a while longer. She’d just have to deal with it.

  The morning passed quietly. Andrew worked on his project, laboriously typing in the information he’d assembled. Cody came down for lunch a little after noon and they celebrated Andrew’s decision to return home with deli sandwiches and toasted his announcement that he would be asking Mary Elizabeth to marry him with cans of diet cola.

  An hour after they returned from lunch Andrew delivered his report to Faith with a flourishing bow that would have made most men look silly. Andrew, however, had a trick of laughing with his eyes as he performed the bow that took away pretension and added charm. Faith accepted his work with appropriate solemnity and was surprised to discover that it actually contained useful material.

  By mid-afternoon she felt like a runner on third, staring at home, knowing that the batter up had a ninety-five percent hit rate and homered six times out of ten. Two hours left and Andrew would be leaving NIT for the last time. She could hardly wait.

  She was cleaning her desk, prioritizing the week’s unfinished tasks, when June walked into her office. “Angela’s at it again,” she said.

  Angela’s at it again. With those few, simple little words Faith’s day dissolved into disaster. “Her computer?”

  June nodded. “Yeah. Andrew’s working on it now, but Angela’s going on vacation next week, so she needs to make sure she’s up-to-date.”

  “I’ll call Cody.” Faith was already picking up the phone.

  June looked puzzled. “It’s okay. I’m sure Andrew can handle it. I just wanted to let you know what was happening.”

  Faith punched out Cody’s extension and nestled the receiver between her shoulder and ear. While the phone rang, she smiled at June. “Thanks for the tip. I appreciate it.”

  June glanced at the phone. Still looking puzzled, she nodded. Then with a shrug she left. The phone rang three times. “Come on, come on. Be there!” On the fourth ring, just before it tipped over into voicemail, Cody answered. “Angela’s computer is down. Andrew is fixing it,” Faith said without preamble.

  Cody responded with just as much unspoken urgency. “I’ll be right there.”

  He must have run all the way. Faith beat him to the bullpen by only a couple of minutes. She stood behind Andrew, watching him open folders in the control panel with the same kind of aimless desperation as a person trying to find a diamond ring in a haystack. This was bad. This was really bad.

  It was painfully obvious to June, Angela and every female who had paused to check things out as they passed by, that this boy didn’t have a clue how to handle his toy.

  When Cody arrived he squeezed her hand reassuringly as he monitored Andrew. In a casual way he asked Angela for background details, then gently prodded Andrew out of the chair and took over.

  Faith breathed a sigh of relief. She put her hand on Cody’s shoulder and said, “Come and see me when you’re done.”

  He smiled briefly, but his focus was already deep into the computer’s malaise. Faith went back to her office.

  The next thing she knew her door was shutting with a decided snap. She looked up to find Ava standing with her hand on the knob, looking like a triumphant Amazon warrior, except that Liz and her mother claimed the Amazons were an ancient myth, not a reality.

  Ava was very real, though, and so was her triumph. Faith’s stomach knotted. Intuition told her that whatever was making Ava so very happy was not going to please her.

  She was right.

  Ava strode into the room, her eyes glittering. “I have him.”

  Him was either Andrew or Cody. Faith would place her bet on Cody. “What do you mean?”

  “That intern of his, Andrew. He’s an idiot.”

  “I don’t think he’s that bad.” She held up the report. “He did excellent work on analyzing the computer prob—”

  Ava put her hands on her hips. “He’s a fraud. He knows no more about computers than I do, and that isn’t saying much.”

  Faith dropped the report on her desk. She swallowed hard. “Ava, I—”

  Ava showed her teeth in a malicious smile at odds with her doll-like features. “Either Cody Simpson knows Andrew is a fraud or the good Dr. Simpson isn’t the computer whiz he claims to be. Either way, I have him.”

  Faith stared at her, appalled.

  Ava swept on. “I don’t think Simpson can cope. He’s behind in his projects, you know. He’s costing us money and he’s doing nothing to deserve that big fat salary he’s being paid. Ralph doesn’t seem to mind that Cody isn’t making any progress, but when I tell him Cody Simpson can’t be trusted and why, he’s going to want to make sure that Simpson delivers.” She laughed. It wasn’t a nice sound. “That means Dr. Simpson won’t have a free hand. No more skipping meetings. Or giving verbal reports that consist of ‘it’ll get done’. He’ll have to put the status of his work in writing. Weekly, at least. Daily, preferably. Oh yes, I have him now. Cody Simpson will regret foisting his phony intern on this company.”

  Faith stared at Ava. Her eyes glittered with the fury of a fanatic, while the tension in her body told of emotions on the edge of explosion. Ava would carry through with her threats. She would take away what Cody most valued about working at NIT, an unstructured environment and creative freedom. She would make his working life miserable.

  She would make him quit, all because he had helped Faith out.

  Faith couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t betray him that way. She took a deep breath, then plunged into the murky depths of Ava’s plotting. “Andrew is my cousin.”

  “He’ll regret…What did you say?”

  Faith swallowed hard. Ava’s cheeks were red with emotion. Her eyes bored into Faith and her mouth was a straight, hard, line. She’d heard what Faith had said and she’d caught the implication. She was not happy. “Andrew is, well, he’s the family problem. He never sticks at anything except, ah, playing computer games. The family thought, we thought—I suggested!—that maybe if he came into NIT for a week or so and learned what it was like working with computers, he’d pull his life together and go back to school. Get a degree. Make something of himself. I asked Cody to take him on as an intern. He said he would.”

  Ava’s eyes had narrowed as she saw her quarry slipping away, but at the end of Faith’s blurt of information she began to smile. “No problem. I’ve still got him. He’s shown considerable irresponsibility in taking on a person with no skills whatsoever. He should have checked Andrew out. Ralph won’t like this.”

  Faith took another deep breath. Forced it out. Sucked in a second. Then plunged deeper. “He did. He interviewed Andrew.”

  “You know, Ms Hamilton, I’m still not convinced. Had Simpson done a proper interview he would have learned of your cousin’s inadequacies.”

  This was it. The muck at the bottom of the pit had her fast. There was no way out. “I knew that Cody was having a hard time doing his own work and fixing the computers down here, and I played on that. I coached Andrew on what to say to Cody to make him think Andrew would be useful. It’s not Cody’s fault Andrew couldn’t cut it. It’s mine.”

  Ava bought the explanation. Her eyes glittered with a thwarted rage that needed an outlet somewhere. She held out her hand. “I am disappointed in you, Ms. Hamilton. I thought you were a team player. Well, you’ve shown me differently. Give me your office keys, please.”

  Faith stood frozen. Ava’s hand twitched, demanding those little pieces of metal that were the symbol of the regular world Faith had always longed to succeed in. To surrender them to Ava was the end of her dream of fitting in, of being normal.

  Her eyes locked with Ava’s. She reached into the pocket of her slacks, found the ring, pulled it out. Then hesitated. She didn’t want her dream to end this way, at the hands of Ava the Oppressor.

  Ava’s hand twitche
d in a ‘gimme’ motion.

  Faith still hesitated. Could she do this?

  Chapter 19

  Of course she could if it meant protecting Cody and saving his job. She dropped the keys in Ava’s outstretched hand.

  “I am going to see to it that you are fired.” Ava’s fingers curled over the metal, then she pulled her hand back with a flourish, snatching Faith’s dreams away at the same time. “For some reason Ralph Warren has a soft spot for you. But when I tell him what you’ve done, you’ll be finished here.” She swept out of the room, triumph in her thrust-back shoulders and the tilt of her head, fury in every staccato step.

  Faith sat down at her desk before her knees buckled. Ava might or might not be able to follow through on her threat, but her last comment showed her insecurity. She could plan and plot, but ultimately Ralph made the big decisions.

  That cheered Faith a little, but not much. She’d been an accidental participant in Ava’s battle with Cody all along. If Ralph decided to keep her on it would probably be because he’d decided to fire Cody, which wasn’t what she wanted at all. No, the best she could hope for was that Ralph fired her. End of job at NIT. End of dream of being normal.

  Tears of anguish welled up. She shut her eyes tight to keep them at bay. She didn’t want Cody or Andrew or anyone in the bullpen to see puffy eyes and tear streaked skin and wonder why she’d been crying. They’d ask questions, questions she didn’t want to answer. The people she supervised would feel sorry for her, or angry with NIT, neither of which would do the organization any good. Andrew would assume she was upset because of her need to succeed in the real world and would feel guilty that he’d been the cause of her loss. And Cody?

  Cody would fight for her. He’d storm out after Ava and he’d face her down in a battle so huge the whole place would shake. Two tyrannosaurs fighting over the fate of a rodent-sized mammal.

  The image brought a hiccup of brightness to the gloom she was feeling. She opened her eyes and rubbed away the tears with her knuckles. To help her through this Cody didn’t have to do battle for her. In fact, she didn’t want him to. This was her fight, not his. But the knowledge that he would defend her, the belief that he cared for her, the way she had come to care for him, was a balm to the pain she faced at the destruction of her dream.