Susan Squires - [Da Vinci Time Travel] (13 page)

“Arthur was hard to love? We idolize him.” Maybe she didn’t want to really know the truth if all her dreams were to be dashed.

“Oh, he was idolized back then too.” Gawain sat back in his chair at the little dining table. “Brave in battle. A superb strategist. His men would follow him into the nether realm itself. He cared for the common people. You’ve no idea how rare that was in those days. And he was building a city out of stone where there was only mud before.” He lifted his wineglass and drained the last. They’d switched to red. “But that doesn’t make him easy for a woman to love.”

A perfect hero. How not? And yet . . .

Gawain sighed. He must have seen her expression. “Exactly. Always thinking of other things. Away at war. He didn’t treasure her as he should have.”

Diana couldn’t help the fact that her eyes widened. “You loved her.”

He flushed and made a deprecating gesture with his
mouth. “Calf-love. I was ten when it fell. Remember? We all loved her, even the least of us.”

“What happened to her, after . . . after Camelot fell?”

“She went to a nunnery. But of course, Cerdic couldn’t leave it at that. She was too much an icon. Men would follow her, even with Arthur gone.”

“So Cerdic was . . .?”

The leader of the Saxons. When Camelot fell, he burned the abbey with her in it.” Gawain’s voice was flat, as though that could conceal the emotion behind the words. A terrible look crossed his face, devastation, anger . . . self-loathing? His eyes went an angry, churning brown.

“Not your fault.”

“We should have sent a force to defend her. My . . . my father wouldn’t countenance it. He said . . . he said it had to happen. He’d seen it in the future.”

Whoa. How hard to live with was
that?
Your father essentially condemning the woman you loved to death? Refusing to let you protect her?
No wonder he was so obsessive about protecting people. “It must have been hard to be Merlin’s son.”

“Sometimes.” His expression said,
All the time.
But he wasn’t going to elaborate. He took a breath. “Her death created the Resistance. We punished those who committed atrocities like that. We lived in caves, in swamps.” He managed a smile.

“Until your father sent you forward in time . . .”

“Yes.” He stood and began taking dishes to the sink. “He gave me a job to do.”

His expression was closed but also telling. She saw it all. He clung to that job. After a life of learning to live with unconscionable loss, it was all he had. He’d not only lost the woman he loved, but he’d also lost his whole world, his father—difficult as his relationship with his
father was—everything he knew until he came forward in time. All gone. He had only the honor of fulfilling his job. His eyes turned steel blue.

And that job was . . . her? To protect
her
? For God’s sake,
why
?

She wasn’t worth that kind of effort. So what if Mordred killed her? She was a person no one even noticed. Gawain was mistaken. He might have been sent to protect this century from Mordred. Mordred had consequence. He’d brought down Camelot. He’d changed the course of history. He even had magic powers. Gawain had been sent for him.

So maybe, hard as it was to stomach, Gawain was meant to kill him.

But what could Mordred actually
do
here in this time? He could be a serial killer. Would it change history? This century spawned serial killers right and left. Maybe he was going to kill someone important like the president or something.

“What is the saying now? A penny for your thoughts.”

Diana started and looked up. “Sorry. Just thinking about what a mess we’re in. How will we ever find Mordred if he doesn’t want to be found?”

While she’d been lost in thought, Gawain had taken dishes into the kitchen. She couldn’t help but watch how his big body moved under his shirt. “I’d say we could bribe someone to trace his credit cards, but we don’t know whose cards he’s using,” Gawain said over his shoulder.

“Let me clean up at least.” She rose and pushed him out to the little dining room. “Unless you have some hidden source of income, we don’t have the money for a bribe.”
Hmmmm
. Oakwood apartments cost an arm and a leg, because mostly corporations footed the bill. How could he afford to live here when he was just out of prison? “Besides, he’s using the cash from the coin I sold for him, not credit cards.”

Gawain gave her a look out from under raised brows. “He’ll have stolen credit cards by now. Maybe even killed for them. Easier and quicker than selling coins.”

“If he killed for them, the police will be after him.
They
can trace his use of the cards.” She put the rinsed plates into the dishwasher.

Gawain’s brows drew together. “They’d put him in prison. That would be bad. Not only could I not get in to kill him, but he would have a ready-made army of hardened soldiers in there. He’d have them converted into fanatic followers in no time.”

No help there, then. “Oh my God! I was supposed to go down to the police station with him today.” She moaned and tossed the sponge into the sink. “They have my driver’s license, and my car. How could I have forgotten? Oh, I am in so much trouble.”

“We’ll go in tomorrow,” he soothed. “You’ll say he disappeared, that you spent the day looking for him. All true, by the way. Not a big deal. I’ll go with you.”

“So I show up with another guy with no identity? That’ll be just great.”

“I’ve got an identity. Driver’s license. I’ve even got a prison record. I’m a real citizen.” He poured soap in the dispenser, shut the door, and pushed the button to start the dishwasher. It gurgled to life. Where had he gotten a driver’s license? Maybe she didn’t want to know.

Straightening, he said, “Really, don’t worry about this.”

Yeah.
They did have bigger fish to fry. “So how are we going to find him?”

Gawain plopped back down in his chair and sighed. His eyes were gray. He ran his hand through his hair. Diana gave a little gasp. The gesture was so familiar, it sent an electric jolt of . . . of longing straight down to . . .

“What is it?”

She shook her head convulsively. “Nothing. Nothing.
This is just all so strange.” A sense of
tristesse
washed over her. Something was missing and she’d lost it, and it was something she wanted more than anything in the world.

He reached across the table as though to take her hand, then snatched his back. He sucked in a breath and his eyes changed from shifting gray to a steel-hard blue-gray. His face shut down. He took two ragged breaths and shoved himself up from the table. “Well, I’ll just take your bag into your bedroom. I’m sure . . . Well, it’s been a long day. You . . . you probably have writing to do.”

Writing?

“You’re close to a deadline, aren’t you? You can use my computer. All set up on the desk in that bedroom and everything.”

She blinked twice. “How did you know I was close to a deadline?” Almost past, in truth, and not a book in sight. But how would he know that? A chill ran down her spine.

He looked confused. “Uh. Well, the clerk at the liquor store says you let your milk go sour when you’re on deadline and you buy more at the liquor store instead of going over to Ralphs. He’s really proud of you and your books, you know.”

“Uh . . . yeah.” This man knew more about her than . . . than anyone had a right to know.

It hit her. This guy was the closest thing she had to a friend in the world. That was pathetic. She’d known him one day, and yesterday she’d been sure he was stalking her. She’d taken a time machine and brought back the baddest of bad guys, and now they couldn’t find him or tell anyone and tomorrow she had to go to the police station, for goodness’ sake. Her head bent of its own accord and she stood there, wavering, trying to get a grip.

A strong arm slid around her shoulders. Heat radiated through her body. “You just go to bed and get some sleep,” Gawain murmured.

She looked up to find that his eyes had gone a soft, clear green. The color of his eyes was like a new language, one she wanted to learn. The weight on her chest began to melt a little. Her eyes filled, though. She couldn’t help that.

He gathered her into his arms and hugged her to his chest. Hard muscle surrounded her. He laid her head against his chest. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you now.” And that was so tempting. The masculine smell of him, his warmth of his breath on her head as he bent over her, the beating of his heart, all assuaged a longing she hadn’t even known she had until now.

Then the melting feeling grew hotter. The weight seemed to move from her chest to pool between her legs. She looked up at him, acutely aware that her body was pressed along the length of his. Her eyes would reflect the heat. He would know she lusted after him. She pushed herself away. How embarrassing! Throwing herself at him like that.

“I’m so sorry. I . . . I don’t mean to be a burden. . . .” His hands hovered at her shoulders. “It’s just . . . it all seemed so much. I . . . You’re right. I need to get some sleep.” She ducked away and backed toward the hallway.

He looked acutely embarrassed, too. How would he not be embarrassed that she’d turned a comforting gesture into something it was never meant to be? “I’ll just get your things.” He reached down for her roller bag with a pained expression.

She turned and ran for the second bedroom.

Damn
. How could he have ruined everything by getting an erection when he had meant only to comfort her? She’d felt it. She must have. He’d heard her lock herself into the guest bedroom after he delivered her suitcase. Who could blame her? Some honorable knight he was. It was one thing to bed willing women and quite another to frighten a woman dependent on you for her protection. Around Diana his control evaporated like water on a griddle.

She couldn’t know that he would never force himself on her. And his body betrayed him at every turn. He used the bathroom quickly and splashed cold water on his face. That didn’t help. He went into his own room and shut the door firmly, so she could hear. Not that it would make her feel secure. His own discomfort only seemed to be growing as he thought about her. He threw himself down on his bed.

But he could hear her unpacking, moving around in her room, perhaps getting ready for bed . . . taking off her clothes. . . . What would her body be like? Soft, lush, pale. Was she innocent?

How dare he have such thoughts?
He
was not innocent. That was what mattered. Another failure. Even now, his cock strained at his jeans. He got up and stripped off his
clothes. He opened the window. Chill sea air from the bay swept in. He would sleep naked in the cold. That would take care of his erection.

But it didn’t. He tossed and turned, refusing to relieve his torment himself. He was not that small a soul. He had descended to jerking at himself sometimes during the long years in prison. It had given his body some relief. But this was more than just a weakness of his body. It was a sickness in his heart that allowed him to lust after and frighten the woman he was sworn to protect. He was unlucky that she had turned into a delectable woman. Or maybe he was lucky. No. He couldn’t think like that. He would enter her dreams again tonight, let her know she could still trust him. He waited until he saw the tiny glow of her light disappear from the crack under his door. He could practically feel it when she finally fell asleep. He might not have his father’s powers, but he was good with dreams.

Diana couldn’t believe she’d embarrassed herself by letting him know that she . . . she . . . was attracted to him. Like a guy who looked like he did would spare a glance for a girl like her.

Was that why she wrote romances—to work out a happy ending where a guy like Gawain loved and treasured a girl like her? And had sex with her? Because she did write sex in her romances. How could you not include sex when it was such an important part of the relationship between a man and a woman?

Maybe that was why she wasn’t a bestselling author. Maybe everyone knew that she’d never truly experienced what she was writing about. They always said write what you know. And instead she wrote about what she’d read in other books, something she’d never experienced firsthand. Not that she hadn’t had sex. She’d made sure she had. But that one rushed time with a drunk college guy
on the dark floor of his bedroom in the frat house didn’t seem to bear any relationship to the kind of sex other romance writers wrote about.

And she knew how to pleasure herself. You could buy books that told you just how to do it at that store over on Mission Street that specialized in sex toys and a female-friendly atmosphere. But it wasn’t the same, and everyone who read her books probably knew exactly how much experience she’d had.

She finished unpacking the few clothes she’d brought and put her mandolin case in the closet. She wasn’t going to intrude on Gawain’s insistent hospitality long, regardless of the situation. It was just too demeaning. Her attraction to him was pathetic. How could she even face him tomorrow?

She needed a distraction. She’d just check that her thumb drive was okay. She powered up Gawain’s MacBook Pro and pulled the cord with the thumb drive from around her neck. She stuck it in the UBS port. Clicking on the icon, she held her breath.

The list came up. All her books were there, including the latest. She sighed and opened the document. It was still there, all twenty-five pages of it. She glanced over the first pages. First sentence not evocative enough. First page wordy. Too much thinking going on and not enough action for today’s market. Why did she even bother to save it? The heroine was an overconfident bitch who’d be more at home on
Melrose Place
or
Desperate Housewives
. The hero—well, her Gawain seemed made of cardboard, not a real man at all. Not, at least, compared to the man in the next room, who was annoyingly protective, and no doubt knew how to use that big knife he carried, and yet also knew how to cook, at least guy-things like brisket. The real man had issues. He was . . . difficult. And nothing could mask the fact that he still mourned Guinevere.