A Twist in Time

Chapter 5

Wednesday

“Okay, now we can make some time,” Lucy muttered as they cruised onto the Golden Gate. The traffic was backed up at the tollbooths coming south into the city, not heading north to Marin County. Car lights made a broad white ribbon snaking away onto the bridge itself. She glanced over to the half-naked man in the passenger’s seat of Jake’s Chevy. As she accelerated, he gripped the center armrest with his good left hand. His lips thinned into a grim line.

“Drive this cart more slowly,” he commanded.

Any slower and she’d probably get arrested. But any faster and Galen would probably lose Jake’s omelet. “It’s okay,” she said as she turned her gaze back to the road. Stupid. Like he would understand that. What was “okay” in Latin? “Es good,” she finally said, in what she hoped was whatever language he’d been using. It occurred to her that he didn’t know why fast was a good thing. She kept the car at fifty and eased over to the right-hand lane. She was probably the only person on the bridge actually going the speed limit.

“We must go fast.” Her lack of fluency in Latin was really annoying. And her accent was definitely different from his. He seemed to have trouble understanding her. “Jake—my friend Jake? Jake thinks men will come to . . . take you.” How was that so bad to him? “They would take you to a prison.” Sort of true. They’d hear about Galen from the hospital staff. And they wouldn’t let a treasure like an actual man from the past run around loose on the streets. They might be right about that. This whole thing was really bad. “We must go.” The word for escape escaped her. “Fast. Before they . . . find us.”

He was breathing through his mouth. “You did not send for Brad to fix the metal wheels. How will I go back?”

Tricky, especially in Latin. “Jake thinks Brad will take you to prison.”

“Your lover would imprison me?” He almost relaxed. “I will tell him I do not want you.”

“Gee, thanks.” That cut a little too close to the bone. She’d always known she wasn’t movie star material. But did he have to be so blunt? “He is not my lover.”

Galen shot her a look that might have meant she must think him stupid. “Woman,” he insisted. “We will go to this Brad. I will make him fix the metal wheels.”

The hills rose up around them north of the bridge. The sky had lightened to that pearly quality it got just before sunup. The grass covering the hillsides showed itself vibrant green. Sausalito would appear down to the right at any minute. Why couldn’t Jake have moored his boat there instead of way up at the top of the bay? Probably because the docks at Sausalito had turned into a cozy neighborhood. People lived on house boats that hadn’t moved for thirty, forty years. Not the first choice for a secrecy and paranoid specialist like Jake.

“It is . . . of no matter that you do not want me. Brad has a bad friend. They want you because . . . you are from another year. They will not . . . let you go back.” Was that true? Was she doing the right thing, running away? Then she remembered Colonel Casey’s cold eyes. This time, Jake might be right to be paranoid.

“I will fight them with the sword of Jake.” He stated it simply, as if she would be a fool to think he wouldn’t win such a battle.

“You are not . . . enough strong. They will bring . . . other men. We . . .” What was the word for hide? “We go far. You heal. Then . . . you can fight.” Except they would have guns and he had a sword. She couldn’t let him face off with Colonel Casey, ever.

Running away was difficult for him. She could see his jaw working. In the end, he took in a long breath and let it out. His shoulders sagged a little. “Until I heal. Where do we go?”

“We go to the boat of Jake.”

“I will heal. Then will I fight whoever comes. Brad will fix the metal wheels, and I will go back to the battle.” He nodded to himself and sat back in the seat. Apparently he felt better now that he had a plan. It made him feel in charge of his fate. Like anybody was in charge of that.

She’d love to have a plan besides just hiding out. While Galen healed, Brad would be working to fix the machine. Maybe Casey could get another diamond. Would Casey care about finding her and Galen if he had the working machine? Jake thought so. If they did escape Casey, Galen would never get back home to his family, to the woman he probably had waiting there, to the battle that seemed so important to him. And Lucy’s life was gone, too. Who was she, without the bookshop, with her only two friends in life, Jake and Brad, lost to her, too?

How foolish was it to decide on an impulse to power up a frigging time machine and visit the past? How had she gotten so obsessed with Leonardo’s book and his machine and the possibility of . . . escape? Was that what she’d really been obsessed with all along? Escape from what? Was her life so bad? Or was it just . . . ordinary?

What matter? It was all gone forever now.

The whole world might be changed if Brad and Casey used the machine. Would she even realize it? Maybe she’d never know the way it should have been. Jeez, but she hated these time-travel conundrums.

The sky was fully light now. She glanced to Galen and saw that the rocking motion and noise of the car had sent him into an exhausted sleep. Gone was the hard warrior. His expression was soft. His long eyelashes brushed his cheeks. He had dark circles under his eyes. He’d pushed himself to exhaustion, wounded as he was. She’d been practically carrying him by the time they got down to Jake’s car. And he was a load.

She wished she could indulge in the luxury of sleep. He might have fought a battle, time-traveled, and had surgery in the last twenty-four hours, but she hadn’t slept in she didn’t know how long. And time travel really took it out of you. Or maybe it was just the constant rush of adrenaline. Not exactly the quiet life of a book lover. To keep awake, she consulted the directions she’d gotten from Jake, scribbled on a pad with a Realtor’s name and picture at the top. The exit was off Highway 37 all the way at the top of the bay. It wasn’t technically even San Francisco Bay up there, but San Pablo Bay once you got past the narrows at Point San Pedro.

They had maybe an hour before they got to the marina. Not far.

But not far to what she didn’t know. What the hell had she gotten into?

Someone was attacking! He hit out with his right hand and felt pain stab through his shoulder as he came fully awake. A sling prevented him from landing the blow.

“Hey, you almost got me, buddy.” The woman jumped back, red blooming in her cheeks. Her eyes were the clearest green he had ever seen. Just now they were snapping in anger. What was she saying? Why couldn’t the woman speak Latin?

“Do not wake a warrior in this way,” he grunted, and pushed down the pain from his shoulder. He sat forward. The cart was stopped, thank Loki. She had been leaning in to wake him through the open door. Behind her, masts dipped and bobbed against a blue sky. Good. They were at the mooring of Jake’s boat. The torture of this Hel-begotten cart was ended. He struggled out, pushing her anxious hands away. The woman was always trying to control him.

But when he stood, the rocking masts wavered and blurred. Before he could protest, she slipped in under his good shoulder and steadied him. “I can walk, woman,” he grunted.

“If you fall, how will I . . . take you to the boat?” She seemed exasperated. She was right. Tiny as she was, she’d never get him up if he passed out.

He realized in that moment how dependent he was on her. He did not speak the language of this cursed place. He knew nothing of the workings of the carts. He had no coins with him. How would he eat without her? Beg on the streets when he did not speak a language any here could understand? The empty feeling in his belly was not from lack of food. He gritted his teeth as she pulled him forward, but he did not push her away. He would have to put up with her for now.

How difficult was it to put up with a comely wench? They were always willing to do his bidding, as long as he satisfied them in the bed box. He was good at that. The masts steadied as his head cleared. He limped ahead, leaning on her as little as possible. He would bed her and bend her to his will as soon as he was able. Then she would do his bidding. Perhaps this Brad had not Galen’s broad experience with pleasing women and that was why her temper was so bad. This Brad probably did not know what the women of Gaul had taught Galen.

She had taken out one of the small, serrated pieces of metal that were actually keys. She opened the lock on a metal grid fence and pushed open the gate, then closed it behind them and pulled him down the dock to the left. He was breathing hard and sweating. He hardly recognized the shiny, sleek white craft moored here as boats at all. There was little wood in sight. His mind registered their lines, how they rode in the water. They would be fast. Very fast.

She paused and compared her scrap of parchment with the signs in Arabic numbers at the head of each dock. “Wonderful,” she muttered as she did when she spoke her own language. But he knew that word.

“Thu understandath wonderful?” Surprising.

She looked up at him in equal surprise, her arm around his waist still supporting him. “I understand that.” And he understood her. It was the third time they had truly communicated. She spoke Englisc, no matter how warped.

She nodded and he could feel her relief. “Better than Latin. We might have a chance.”

He understood the first part. “Gd. Betra thone Latin,” he repeated. Her inflections were different, but the words sounded the same. When she talked fast, like to the man in green, it wasn’t just that so many words were unfamiliar. It sounded like gibberish, as if she didn’t know that words should have the emphasis only on the first syllable.

She looked around and pushed down the dock. She counted under her breath as they passed each boat. His leg was dragging. He wouldn’t make it much farther, and if he fell he was like to crush her. “Hwer is se bt?” he panted.

She looked up to him, blinking. “There,” she said, nodding at the last dock. She must have understood him.

He might have known it would be the farthest away. He got there. Barely. The boat looked to be more than forty feet long, shiny white, with bright canvas dyed blue with woad covering what must be furled sails. It was moored to the dock with surprisingly light ropes made of some slick, bright yellow material. He slung his leg over the light lines that formed a small fence at the edge and stepped down onto the rocking deck with his good leg. At least he didn’t fall. He did not want to humiliate himself in front of the woman. Still, he leaned against the cabin as she used another key to unlock a hatch.

She pushed it open and peered inside. “Uh-oh, ladder,” she said, looking worried.

She must think him weak as a mewling babe. He could negotiate a hleder. He pushed her aside. But he gripped the small rail with his good left hand until his knuckles were white as he descended into the cabin. It was surprisingly spacious. He didn’t have to duck his head.

“Learn some manners,” he heard her mutter just behind him in her own language. That he didn’t get. Didn’t have time to try because his legs didn’t want to obey him. He stumbled to a bench with a cushion at a small table and sat heavily.

“Okay, big boy. We’re getting you to bed.” Then she switched to Latin. “Stay here.”

What an ungrateful wretch. Pushing her aside like that. Like she wasn’t the one saving his hide. Now where to put him? Jake’s boat was a tidy affair, an Irwin with a center cockpit. It had been completely refitted. Forty-four feet was big enough to live on and just big enough to sail in heavy weather. It was like Jake to have called it the Camelot. Lucy glanced around at the rich, varnished teak that formed shelves and drawers around a galley much bigger than the one on her father’s Catalina 30 and lined the salon. She headed forward, past the head, and found only half of the usual V-berth. The other half had been converted to storage. The Viking was a big man. The narrow half V-berth didn’t look promising. She peeked behind the louvered doors where the other berth should be and found a generator, extra batteries, and floor-to-ceiling storage shelves. Jake didn’t apparently hold with the “sleeps seven comfortably” part of every yacht maker’s brochure. This vessel was outfitted for long voyages. She slid back down past Galen and the galley through the passage around the center cockpit and found a queen bed in the stateroom with a big locker and bookshelves and another head. Okay. That was better. He could have the big bed, and she’d take the V-berth at the opposite end of the boat. Far away, was good, too. She pulled back the spread. The bed had fresh sheets and several blankets. The dirty and blood-soaked leather of the Viking’s breeches flashed through her mind. Those breeches would have to go.

When she got back to Galen, he was looking ashen. “Bed,” she said in Latin, and nodded to the aft cabin. She grabbed his good left arm above the elbow and helped him up. The bulge of his biceps under her fingers, hard under the smooth skin, was . . . a little shocking. More than a little if she wasn’t lying to herself. Helping him down to the boat, with his arm over her shoulders and his bare ribs pressed up against her, had been difficult. Okay. That was natural. The heat from his body had seeped into her until she was hot, too. But even holding his arm was doing things to her she didn’t like in places that shouldn’t be reacting like this.

Her lack of foresight was soon evident. The little passageway wasn’t built for two to pass. She looked up at him and heaved a sigh. He was on his own. “Go there.” She inclined her head to the aft cabin.

He nodded, set his lips, and staggered through the passageway, his broad shoulders caroming off the varnished teak paneling. He stumbled to the right side of the bed and slowly collapsed onto his good left side. Lucy hurried forward and knelt to pull off his boots. She didn’t even try to explain. What she was doing was trying really hard not to think about the fact that she was stripping a very virile man. Or about what that was doing to parts of her body she hadn’t paid much attention to lately. He was injured. What kind of a human being was she to be turned on by a wounded man? She pulled at the strings of the bow she had tied at his waist.

“Are you so eager for my services?” he rumbled in a tired voice.

Conceited lout! Did . . . did he know what she was feeling? He couldn’t. A small smile curved his lips. Was that self-satisfaction, or was he . . . was he teasing her? Did Vikings tease? There was a kind of self-aware humor around his eyes that was . . . incredibly attractive.

“Dirt.” She pointed. “Blood.” She pointed to the crisp white sheets. “Clean.”

“Women.” He shook his head. Was that mock despair or real disgust? She motioned him up so she could get his breeches off, but he lay on the bed, propped on one elbow, making no effort. His complexion was so pale she thought it might not just be rebellion. Maybe he couldn’t do as she bid. She pulled the thongs from around his legs. All that was left was to pull his breeches off. She wouldn’t blush. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t even look.

She looked.

Darn it. The flush moved up her neck to lodge intractably in her cheeks. She pulled the covers back. He dragged himself up to the pillows, and she drew the covers over him. That was better. Much better. She couldn’t see the ribs move under the skin on his flanks. Or the taut abdominals, for that matter. The bunching curve of his buttocks was concealed and the corded muscle in his thighs and even his nipples puckered in the cool morning air. Not to mention his . . . genitals. Big deal. All men had them. She wasn’t a virgin. She’d had two relationships that included sex. She’d seen men’s genitals dozens of times.

Without the reaction that this man was causing or anything like it.

This was bad. Very bad.

“Sleep,” she said, her voice tight.

His eyes were already closed. “Thonc to thu,” he muttered.

She fled.

Lucy took her mind off her charge and their situation by getting their bag in from the car and exploring the boat. Jake had provisioned it down to the last piece of silverware. The cupboards held everything from noodles and vacuum-sealed entrées to powdered milk and coffee. Cans of juice filled one whole cupboard. No scurvy on this command. Soap, shampoo, cleaning supplies; the boat had it all, including a ham radio and two small high-def flat screens, one in the aft cabin and one in the salon on the cockpit wall that could be seen from the dining table and the sofa across from it—even from the little galley across the bar from the dining table. Strange of Jake to have left the televisions. She wasn’t even sure he had one in his apartment. She turned one on. It worked. Maybe if you were on the run or there’d been some kind of disaster newscasts were handy. She’d seen the little satellite discs provided by the marina on the lampposts by the fence. The boat also had no GPS, no computer, and no phone hookup. Guess those would be too easy to trace. Jeez. Was she beginning to think like Jake?

She climbed outside and hooked the boat up to the power box with the heavy cord provided by the marina. At least they wouldn’t have to run the generator. She hung Jake’s loaned shirts in the locker and hid the money and the diamond in a narrow space she found behind the trash compactor in the galley. But where to put the gun? She couldn’t imagine sleeping with it under her pillow. She decided on a drawer in the galley with the knives where it was handy to the ladder down from the hatch. Like that would make a difference if some of Casey’s friends came to get them. And as for the sword Jake had given Galen—that she did put under her mattress. There was no way she wanted a Viking lurking around with a sword. And maybe it would be protection, in case someone came into her cabin in the night. Like the Viking. Could she hack at him? Maybe she wouldn’t have to. Just brandish it . . . maybe.

And then . . . then there was nothing left to do. She pulled off her flats. Her flippy knit skirt had seen better days. She smelled like blood. Too bad Jake didn’t have any clothes she could borrow. Macy’s in Novato tomorrow. Or maybe Target. Target was one-stop shopping. Definitely good. But first she’d rest. She lay back on her bunk. Just for a few minutes . . .