Time's Enemy: A Romantic Time Travel Adventure (Saturn Society Book 1) (30 page)

She slid her hand into his, and he led her to the center of the room. His other hand was warm on her back between her shoulder blades, and his sureness pushed away the last of her anxiety. She let him lead her in an odd, freestyle step that made up in feeling what it lacked in style. This moment could last forever. It’d never been that way with Elmer. Not even with Louie, the first and only man she’d let— No use thinking such things. She and Tony had no future. But they had tonight.

They swirled in time to the music, the feel of his hand in hers and on her shoulder sent an intoxicating warmth through her. “Did I tell you you look incredible?”

Her cheeks heated. “I believe you did. But I don’t mind hearing it again.” Perhaps the dress showed more than was proper. She didn’t care. She turned her face back to his and reveled in the feeling that for this moment, there was only the two of them and the music. Nothing else existed. Her world began and ended in Tony’s arms.

He pulled her close, enough to catch the dance-hall inspectors’ notice had they gone to Triangle Park. She leaned into his shoulder and caught a whiff of the restaurant beneath a pleasant blend of his clean shirt and mildly musky man-scent. Too soon the song was over, and the orchestra picked up with a faster one.

Charlotte tipped her head. “Thank you, that was delightful.” She didn’t want to let him go, didn’t want the emptiness, the sense of something lacking when they’d part. But she couldn’t stand in the middle of the room holding his hand all night. She stepped back but Tony didn’t release her. Instead, he tightened his hold and slid his other arm around her back, then drew her closer until their bodies touched. She let go of his hand, unable to do anything but look into his eyes.

“I’m sorry we didn’t go to the dance,” he said.

She looked down, conscious of the press of her breasts against his chest, then met his gaze again. “I’m not.”

His eyes closed halfway and he lowered his head until his lips touched hers. A thrill coursed through her body as she angled her neck to meet his kiss.

His lips were soft, yet firm, and her body tingled with awareness everywhere they touched. He started to pull away, but she slid her arms around his back. He relaxed against her and did the same, his mouth still molded to hers, moving with hers.
No future. Just this moment.

Finally he pulled back and dropped his arms. “God, I’m sorry. I had no business doing that.”

Her fingers trailed down his arm as she stepped away. “Don’t be sorry. I didn’t try to stop you.”

They moved to the sofa and sat with a wide gap between them. They stared at the radio, the way Tony said people in his time sat and watched the wondrous thing he called television.

Finally he spoke. “Look, Charlotte... maybe I should go to a hotel. I don’t want to, but... Elmer may not be the man for you, but neither am I. Not when I have a week at the most to be here.”

She studied her hands in her lap. Maybe he was right from a personal standpoint, but there was so much more at stake. His life, maybe his soul. She had to be the one to bring him to the Society. If she failed to keep her end of the bargain, Theodore would find Tony and make him a mindless shell of a man like Fred Cheltenham.

She’d watched Tony for four days. Tried to convince him his best chance to learn what he wanted to know lay in the Society House. He hadn’t fallen for it.

He hadn’t done anything wrong so far, but his questions warned her he would. She had to stop him.

Warmth crawled through her insides. He was so much more than the man who saved her life.

She studied the tip of her shoe, where a small scuff marred the black patent leather. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. He shifted, started to rise, but she touched his arm, stopping him. “But it’s late. Stay here tonight. Go tomorrow if you must.”

As soon as she got off work, they’d leave for the Society House. Forget trying to convince him. She’d insist on it. Trick him if she had to. He found her intriguing, enough to make him temporarily forget his mission. If all else failed, she’d use her “woman’s wiles,” as Theodore called it.
Whatever it takes.

The close call with Pippin weighed on Tony’s mind as he mopped the restaurant floor after the breakfast rush the following morning. Somehow Charlotte had managed to talk him into going with her, though it was a continual effort for Tony to keep from wanting her, watching her, touching her as she cleared tables. “Thank you again for staying through today.” A coffee cup slipped in her fingers as she grabbed it, but she caught it just in time. “You don’t know how much of a help you are. The new girl doesn’t start until tomorrow, and Sunday’s our busiest morning.”

“I figured it was the least I could do, for letting me stay with you all week.” His grip tightened on the mop. Charlotte’s workload wasn’t the real reason he stayed.

The prospect of leaving gnawed at him until he finished mopping and started gathering the table linens that needed to go to the laundry. He didn’t want to leave, dammit. He’d be stuck in 1933 for at least another week. Seven long, lonely days of trying to find something to fill his time until the pull hit—

“I declare, Mr. Irving, do try to be more careful.” Charlotte slipped through the kitchen door. “That’s the third time today you’ve bumped into me. What if I’d been a customer?”

Tony barely heard the man’s grumbled response. Charlotte hurried to clear a vacated table, sureness and grace in her every movement. She held her own with Irving, but her tight jaw betrayed her discomfort at his advances.

The eggs and toast Tony had eaten for breakfast sat in his stomach like a ball of hard clay. He wanted to take her away from that asshole. Give her a comfortable life where she could work on her projects all day if she wanted.

But he couldn’t, not when his return would precipitate her death. He had to leave now. The longer he stayed, the harder it would be to leave. He’d tried to ask his question for five days. If she hadn’t answered by now, she wasn’t going to. And she kept suggesting they go to see Pippin! Didn’t she know her mentor was more likely to torture, brainwash, or kill Tony, than help him?

The lump in Tony’s stomach hardened into rock as he collected the napkins from the table by the window. It was more than the sense of failure, the knowledge that he was this close to getting his daughter back and he’d failed. No Bethany...

And no Charlotte. The better he’d come to know her, the easier it was to believe Dewey. Their kiss last night confirmed Tony’s suspicions. Gratitude for saving her life wasn’t the only reason she’d insisted he stay with her.

She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

All the more reason to get away. Spare her heart, not to mention his own. He’d split now.

He gathered the last tablecloth, then stopped to pick up a dirty plate from the counter on his way to the kitchen. His work was done. All he had to do was say goodbye to Charlotte... forever.

He nudged the kitchen door open, and the scene before him froze his blood.

Charlotte’s back pressed against the edge of the sink. Irving hovered over her, gripping the countertop on each side of her. The cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth bobbed as he spoke. “Come on babe, there’s dozens of broads out there wouldn’t give it a thought to have your job...”

Tony couldn’t move. Charlotte shrunk back farther. “No...” Her voice was small and weak. She reached up to her neckline, fumbled with her necklace. Irving leaned closer. “Did you say no?” His lips drew into a sneer. “Come on, don’t make me get ugly—”

Tony leaped forward and yanked Irving’s shoulder, pulling him off of Charlotte. “You’re already ugly, you sonofabitch!”

Irving whirled around. “What the—” He glared at Charlotte. “You told me there ain’t nothing between you and him!”

“There’s not.” Tony bit the words out as he edged close to her. “And the lady said no.”

Irving drew himself up, his hand clenched into a fist. “Now look here, pal!” He extended a finger and jabbed Tony’s chest. “This is my place.”
poke
“I’m the one in charge.”
poke
“If I say she puts out or gets out, then she puts out or—”

Tony whipped off his glasses, tossed them aside and hurled his fist into Irving’s face. The restaurant owner stumbled backward, clutched at a food prep table to break his fall, missed and grabbed at the edge of the hot grill instead. With a howl, he slid to the floor. “You motherfucker! Get outta here! And don’t neither one of you ever set foot in here again!”

Tony scooped his glasses out of the sink where they’d landed and bolted for the back door. He was dimly aware of Charlotte’s footsteps echoing in the alley behind him.

He slowed after he put a few buildings between himself and Irving’s Place. The clickety-clack of Charlotte’s heels pounded the gravel until she caught up with him. “Tony! Wait!”

She caught his elbow. “Where are you going?” He stopped and turned. A tiny crease formed between her eyebrows.

He surveyed the alley. He’d run in the opposite direction of Charlotte’s house. “Away.” Away from Irving. Away from the threat of Theodore Pippin.

And away from Charlotte.

Her shoulders shrank backward. “Please... at least come back for your things.”

He hesitated. If he went with her, would he be able to leave? The temptation to pick up where he’d left off the night before might grow too great, despite the possibility of another visit from Pippin. “No. It’s better this way. I’ve run off your boyfriend. Got you fired from your job. Fucked up your whole life. I can get new things.” At his own reminder that he had money, he dug out his wallet and pulled out most of his cash. “Here, it’s the least I can do for all the trouble I’ve caused... God, I’m so sorry...” He pressed a wad of tens into her hand and closed her fingers around it. He couldn’t look at her stunned face. He swallowed hard as he turned away, then allowed himself one last glimpse.

She stared after him, her body rigid. “Tony...”

“Good—” He turned and walked toward Main Street, unable to force the rest of the word through his thick throat.

Tony paced across his room at the Gibbons, the only downtown hotel he was aware of that still existed as such in his time, although it had a different name. He threw open the window and gazed over the parking lot, already darkened by the lengthening shadows of the buildings that surrounded it on three sides.

He’d blundered around for hours after he left Charlotte, then took in a movie, something about a lion tamer. He sat through it twice—not because it was good, but because it had enough action to take the edge of his mind off Charlotte.

He paced to the door, then back to the window again. What was he thinking? He was a man who led through knowledge and order. A man who rearranged the magazines on people’s coffee tables. Not the kind of guy who threw a punch without thinking. Or at all, for that matter.

Never mind that it had felt damn good.

Through Charlotte, he’d discovered his heart wasn’t dead, and he could still feel excitement, anticipation and wonder. She was the first woman he’d found remotely interesting since Dora’s defection.

The woman who had the answer he needed but wouldn’t give it to him. Hopelessness settled over him like a new fallen snow. In his quest for knowledge, he’d failed. Was the one thing he wanted—his daughter’s life—too much to ask?

He sat and took off his shoes. If he got extra sleep, maybe the mental energy he needed to bring on the pull would build sooner.

He peered around the room. Bed, dresser, nightstand. Not much different than any of those he’d stayed in on his many travels, other than the absence of a TV and phone. And quiet. At his request, the desk clerk had given him a luxury room with a private bath on the sixth floor. There were no other guests in the wing.

It would be an adequate place to live—exist—until the pull returned him to the twenty-first century. Hopefully, the room would be unoccupied in his time. After he warped, he’d check into the modern-day hotel, then crash.

He wandered back toward the door when someone knocked.

“Yes?” What the hell did someone want this late?

“Room service,” a man in the hallway called.

“I didn’t order anything.” Tony hoped the intruder heard the irritation in his response.