Time's Enemy: A Romantic Time Travel Adventure (Saturn Society Book 1) (55 page)

Tony gave a rueful snort. “Hope no one notices the dates.”

They came up with twenty-six dollars in ones and older fives. Tony slipped the money back into his wallet. When he reached for the business cards, his hand paused.

On top was Chad Everly’s Saturn Society card. Tony grabbed it and shoved it into his wallet, a chill rushing through his body.

He wasn’t exactly on good terms with the time travelers’ organization. The last time he’d spoken with Everly, six months ago, Everly had left in an uneasy truce.

In 1959, Theodore Pippin would be running the Dayton Saturn Society House. It was unlikely Pippin’s vendetta against those he considered Enemies of Time—like Tony—had diminished. Yet with recovery setting in, there wasn’t a damn thing Tony could do.

Except hope that if Pippin found them, he’d show Violet mercy.

“Twenty hours. I still can’t believe we slept that long,” Violet said as she and Tony ate at the motel room’s little square table.

“That’s nothing.” Tony took a bite of hamburger, the sound of his chewing oddly loud in the motel room, even though he wasn’t eating impolitely. “Go back further, and you could sleep for days.”

“Goodness! But how?” Even as she voiced the question, the knowledge felt familiar. But she had to keep up a good front.

Tony gave a half-shrug as he reached for the fries. “They say it’s sort of like animals in hibernation. All I know is I’m glad you went for food.”

She’d risen a half hour earlier, ravenous and amazed she’d slept for twenty hours. Luckily, two dollars and forty-five cents was enough to buy a couple of burgers and fries from the motel restaurant. The woman who’d taken her order had stared at Violet like she’d grown a second head when she’d ordered a Diet Coke, belatedly realizing it didn’t exist in 1959.

She and Tony both focused on their food, though it could have been greased paper for all Violet tasted. She tried to avoid looking at the bed in which they’d both slept. Her belly twitched. She should have had the propriety to lie on the floor—or ask Tony to.

Nothing happened.
She wouldn’t have, even if she hadn’t slept like the dead. They might have shared a bed, but as much as she longed to, they hadn’t touched.

She yearned to find out if the reality lived up to her dreams. She knew exactly how he’d feel in her arms. The way he’d feel as he moved inside her when they’d make love—

Her face heated.
Violet! For shame! On a first date, for crying out loud!

She cast an abashed glance at him, but he was engrossed in his food. She was not that kind of woman. She might not remember her past, but this she knew. Never mind that other women, including her roommate Stephanie, took men to their beds all the time and few thought the worse of them.

Violet dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Mercy, I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry.”

“Recovery’ll do that to you.”

“Recovery from what?”

“Time travel.” He wadded his napkin into a tight ball. “You haven’t done this before, have you?”

She stared at the edge of the table, gripping her dress. A sensation of doom settled over her, heavy enough to push her through the floor, and realization trickled over her skin in a cold sweat. The familiar dizzy spells. Her sense all along that they were something frightening, so much that every time one hit, she gripped the chair, her desk, the wall, anything, to stay grounded. Because she
could
travel in time. She
had
done it—
before.
Before that day six years ago.

The day something terrible happened. Something so terrible she had no memory of it. Something to do with Tony. And there was no way on earth she could tell him. Not when there was a good chance she’d killed someone.

“No.” She wiped her mouth, though it was already clean. “But... how did this happen? How did we go back in time?”

“We thought about it. For people with this... ability, that’s all it takes.”

Her head spun. Not like the time travel dizzy spell, but like she’d climbed on an amusement park ride that was spiraling out of control. A high-pitched roar filled her head.

Because she knew this.

She forced herself to speak.
Sound surprised.
“When- how- have you always been able to travel in time?”

“No.” He rose and paced to the door, but didn’t open it. “Last year. When I fell, in Mexico. I died. Or almost did.” He faced her, his head canted to the side. “You ever heard about people having near death experiences?” She nodded. “Well, that’s what happened to me. I saw my- people I knew who’d died. Then something—someone–pulled me back. That’s how you get the ability. If you’re near death and someone who can time-travel touches you.”

It hit her like a blow to the ribs. She’d been there, thanks to winning a spot on the executives’ company trip a year ago. She’d touched him, when he’d fallen and almost died.

Then he’d disappeared, only to reappear a half hour later, and still near death.

She’d
done this to him. And now someone was after her for reasons she couldn’t remember, and because of her, they were after him, too.

The food in her mouth solidified.

He couldn’t know. If he did, wouldn’t he have contacted the authorities?

He turned around and wiped a hand through his short, spiky dark hair. “You must think I’m insane—”

“Then I am too.” She stood and met his eyes. “Because I believe you.” The cars in the parking lot made it hard to refute. So did the old-fashioned telephone beside her (with a dial!), and the news she’d heard on the ancient-looking radio at the restaurant.

But most of all, it was the way the knowledge had clicked into place. Picture a bygone era to go there, focus on the present to stay put. The knowledge, the dizzy spells, the fatigue, were all familiar. From
before
.

She forced herself to breathe.
Inhale. Exhale.
One thing at a time. First, they had to figure out how they’d live while in 1959, then—

“All I wanted was a nice, normal night out.” Tony stared at his hands.

“It’s not your fault.” His stricken expression made her try to inject some levity. “Unless you’d planned for us to get run off the road and shot at.”

He gave a mirthless laugh. “Sure, that’s all it was, a fancy scheme to give me an excuse to bring you to a dumpy motel in 1959 and...” He swallowed. His expression changed to the strange look she’d often seen when he passed her in the hall at work. The same way he’d looked at her last summer when she’d visited him in the hospital, after he’d disappeared
(time traveled?)
for three weeks. An expression of pain, sadness, and something else.

Flutters battered her ribcage. She’d never been able to identify
what
else but it came to her now. Yearning.

The setting sun’s light coming in through the window brought out the hollows in his face. Could he think of her the same way she had about him for so long?

He paced back to the window and the expression faded into the shadows.

If it had been there at all. She joined him at the window. He rested his forehead against the glass. “God, I’m sorry.”

“I’m the one who grabbed you. And...” She took a deep breath. “I have no family. No one will miss me except my roommate Stephanie. And work, of course.” She pressed her lips together. It wouldn’t be hard for a potential employer to check her background and find she had none. All she had was the faked birth certificate and Social Security card Stephanie’s ex-husband had obtained for her. “What we need to do now is make the best of this crazy situation and figure out how we’ll eat for the next few days. And where we’ll sleep.” She squared her shoulders. “Is there any way to find... others like you? Someone we could explain our situation to, who might be able to help—”

“No.”

She drew back. “You don’t know any—”

“Not in this time.”

Her eyes flicked to the dresser where he’d emptied his wallet. One of his business cards, the one he’d hastily hidden, had looked familiar. She’d seen that symbol before. The words meant nothing, but words never did. Even Tony’s name hadn’t.

But when she first saw him, his face had made her belly leap in recognition. The logo of the planet Saturn and three stars did the same.

That symbol had meant something to her in her old life. Something important. Something she needed to find out.

Something Tony wasn’t willing to share. If that Saturn organization was part of her past and she asked him about it, she’d raise suspicion.

Outside, the Paradise Motel sign flickered to life in the deepening twilight. Tony moved away from the window, shaking his head. “I wasn’t ever going to do this again. And now I’ve dragged you into it—”

“We’ll manage. Tomorrow I’ll ask if they could use help with the cleaning. Or in the restaurant.” She stared down at herself. Though modestly long, her filthy dress with its laser-burnt hem would hardly impress a would-be boss.

Tony started to say something, but she dropped her hand to his arm, silencing him. “Don’t blame yourself.”

Her gaze climbed his body until it reached his eyes. The sign illuminated him in a spectral glow, making him appear not quite real, but more the stuff of dreams.

His arm slid around her back, and he traced his fingers up her shoulder blade. Her skin tightened in the line he touched.

He tilted his head, his gaze a caress. “You’re an amazing person. Anyone else... my ex-wife would be hysterical if she went back in time. Hell, the first time I did, I spent half the time trying to convince myself I was imagining it. But you...” He slipped his other arm around her waist. “You just accept it all, crazy as it must sound.”

Her insides were a quivering pile of jelly. She gave a jerky nod behind her. “All of this is pretty convincing.”

His hand tightened on her back and he pulled her closer.

She barely dared to breathe, and lightness swelled in her chest. Lost in his eyes and their light, she moved into the heat his body radiated, the ache to mold herself to him overpowering.

He lowered his face toward hers. Her belly bottomed with desire.

He was going to kiss her.

She stretched up, and her lips met his, moved with his. Her eyes drifted half-closed. Heat flooded her as their mouths moved together, the reality as heavenly as she’d known it would be. She slid her arms around him, reveling in his solidness, his taste, the roughness of his day-old beard, the gentle pressure of his tongue meeting hers...

He pulled away. “God, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” He dragged a hand over his face.

Violet’s mouth moved wordlessly. She ached for his touch. The same constant ache that plagued her whenever she saw him, worse now that she’d tasted what she’d been missing. “Don’t be sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t try to stop you.”

She should leave. It was the proper thing to do.

But she had no money, no place to go.

Hang it all, she was tired of being proper. A doctor’s exam had confirmed that she was no innocent. But it had been years since she’d lain with a man—and whenever it had been, she had no memory of it. Or him.

Tony’s gaze roved around like he feared he was doing something dishonest.

She would allay those fears. Stephanie said men liked it when a woman let them know what she wanted.

Violet thirsted for Tony’s arms around her, for the knowledge, for the answer to the question that had haunted her since the first time she saw him.

What had he meant to her in her forgotten past?

She slipped her arms around his waist. His hands trailed down her sides, then slipped around her back. The heavens opened, drenching her body in a deluge of sparks. He drew her against him, crushing her breasts to his chest as he once again lowered his face to hers and their lips met in a searing join.

This was what she’d been missing. Two years of having to be content to talk to him on the phone when he called the helpdesk, or passed her in the hallway and said hello.

His mouth never leaving hers, he ran his hand up and down her back, then slowly moved it around her side. Her skin prickled in jittery delight at his touch, her dress the only thing between them. Heaven help her, but she wished it wasn’t.

Mercy, he could kiss her forever. His hand brushed the side of her breast. She gasped.

He snatched his hand away. “Oh hell, I—”

“Don’t.” Her voice was firm. She was not going to let him apologize. She didn’t want him to be sorry.

“I was going to say, I need a shower,” he said. “A cold one,” he added under his breath.

Violet’s strength sapped, she sank onto the bed. She looked at her dirty dress. “I’m... a bit worse for the wear myself.” She met his gaze, her breath ragged.

“You can go first.” He backed toward the table.

Not what she wanted to hear. The words she longed to say lodged in her throat. She had to know, now, or never know.

Need nagged her in Stephanie’s voice.
Be bold. Men like it when the woman makes the first move.

“I- I’m usually not this forward, but...” Violet met his gaze and gave him her best demure smile. “We could share.”

His shoulders flattened, and his voice was strained, as if he was choking. “Violet, we’re both under a lot of stress. I don’t want to do anything we’ll regret.”