The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance

Maureen McGowan Lost and Found

A billy club to the hip was not the worst way Jake had ever been woken up.

“Get up, asshole,” a voice boomed, and the weapon slammed down again, higher this time.

Straight to the ribs. Damn. Another bad start to another bad day.

“Easy. He’s asleep.” A velvet-soft voice drifted over him. “Give him a chance to sit.”

Jake opened one eye to witness the speaker — surely an angel — but all he saw was a wall of dark-blue slacks in his face.

Angel, my ass. Two cops. Uniformed. Modern dress.

Even in the dim light, he deduced he’d woken in his own century. At least he wasn’t lying on damp ground. At least New York City, the park, the bench, existed today.

He slowly pulled his face off the wooden slats and blinked his eyes fully open. The sun had barely turned the sky pink. Six twelve, he guessed, and then glanced at his wristwatch. Off by a minute. And although the watch wasn’t one of those ones where the date clicked off in a bevelled box in the three’s spot, he knew it was April 17. Question was, what year?

He drew in a deep breath and winced at the pain in his side.

“You hurt?” the female cop asked.

He looked up at her and stared without answering. She was tall for a chick, probably only three or four inches shy of his six foot two, and her dark hair was pulled back, mostly hidden under her cop hat, exposing pale skin that gleamed in the pink light of dawn. She might be cute — out of that uniform.

Apparently women’s libbers had changed a few things. No girl cops walking the streets in his day.

Ha. His day didn’t mean shit any more.

He was a man with no time, no life — just a place and one day to endure, over and over again.

“What the fuck is that on your face?” The male cop slammed his club on the bench and pointed to the flower Jake knew was drawn on his left cheek in metallic-blue eyeliner, matching the three teardrops trailing down his right. So enduring they might as well be tattoos, no amount of cold cream could wipe them off for more than twenty-four hours.

“Fucking fruitcake.” The cop sneered.

“Hey.” The female shot her partner a scolding look.

Cop ignored it. “Get up, pretty boy. We’re taking you in.”

The male cop was ugly. But not in an unhandsome kind of way. He had that whole square-jawed, clear-skinned, masculine look Jake knew women went for. No, his ugly came from the angle he held his chin, the way he kept one hand close to his gun, the other on his club, the way he stood with his knees locked, his feet spread six inches wider than was natural, projecting the repulsive look of a power-hungry asshole. He was why hippies and Black Panthers called police pigs.

The female cop talked in low tones to her partner, and then he grunted and stepped back. She reminded him of someone, but who?

Her blue eyes flashed a hint of kindness as she thrust a card towards Jake. “Here’s a list of shelters. You can’t sleep here.”

Jake dismissed the offered card. “I just did.”

The male cop lurched forwards ready to strike, but she blocked him.

“Let’s go. He’s not hurting anyone. Besides, time to go off shift.”

The male cop’s nostrils flared and his fingers flexed over his gun. “Yeah. Bum’s not worth the paperwork.” The pair turned, and the heels of their heavy black shoes clomped on the concrete path as they left. He should let them go. Couldn’t.

“Hey, John Wayne,” Jake yelled after the cop. “Who you calling a fruitcake? You take orders from a broad.”

The cop spun and charged, club raised.

The female started after her partner, but Jake was quicker. He ducked the club and dived for the cop’s legs, taking him down in a

tackle on to the damp grass at the side of the pavement. The club came down on his back. More bruises, but who gave a shit. They’d be gone in the morning. Always were.

“Freeze,” the female yelled.

Hearing the click of her gun’s safety, he wondered whether the command had been directed at him or her partner. Didn’t matter.

Jake let the male cop flip him on to his face and pin him to the grass. No point in resisting the cuffs, either. At least in jail he’d have a fighting chance of being fed.

At least jail was something to do.

Kara studied the homeless guy they’d picked up in Central Park, now sitting in the metal chair beside the desk she shared with three other street-patrol officers. Sending Tony home to breakfast and his wife had been a good move — their opposing philosophies on anti-loitering by-law enforcement was a nightly source of conflict. All bets said she’d saved her partner another excessive force charge.

The man pulled a clean-looking white handkerchief from his jacket pocket. “Mind if I wipe this artwork off my face?”

Without waiting for her answer, he traced the flower petals and swiped down the stem with freakish accuracy, and then moved on to the teardrops, hitting those with precision, too. Even without a mirror, he knew exactly where to rub. Finished, he balled up the blue-stained handkerchief and tossed it into a trash can about five feet away.

“Don’t you want that?” she asked.

“Nah, it’ll find me.” He grinned and her heart skipped a beat.

The man was oddly familiar — she must’ve seen him loitering in the park before — but something didn’t add up. His sandy hair, curling loosely around his sideburned face, looked clean — too clean for a man who made a habit of sleeping on park benches, and the golden stubble on his strong jaw and upper lip looked like he’d had a proper shave in the past twenty-four hours.

His clothes insinuated a thrift-store pedigree, but even there, something was off. Although his brown-and-beige plaid suit and mustard-coloured shirt were rumpled, they looked clean and, except for the retro style, new. Plus, he didn’t have the obvious reek and grime of a man who lived on the streets. In fact, when she’d removed the cuffs, he’d smelled good — hints of fresh, citrus tones, under healthy sweat. But what was with that hippy stuff he’d just wiped from his face?

Time to stop wondering and start asking. “Name?”

He glanced up, his piercing eyes the colour of an angry ocean. “Jacob Reddick.”

Her breath hitched. “It’s you, isn’t it? I know you.”

“Believe me, honey.” He barked out a sharp laugh. “Not a chance in hell.”

He was right. It wasn’t possible. Like an eyewitness, thinking she recognized a mugshot on her third viewing, Kara was falling prey to mistaken identity syndrome. After all those years of searching for her mystery man, imagining him everywhere, and recreating his face in her dreams, her memory was muddled. Faulty synapses crossing a face from her past with this man’s.

Best to get this done and head home for a glass of wine — breakfast of night-shift champions. “Address?”

“Honey, you’ve already been to visit. South side of the lake, near the terrace, Central Park, NY, NY.”

She rolled her eyes and wrote: “no fixed address”. “Date of birth?”

“April 17—” He paused. “What year is this?” His mouth twitched to the side.

“Excuse me?”

“Year.” He leaned back. “How many years past the birth of Christ has mankind survived on this fine morning?”

“Uh, it’s 2009.” Maybe she’d been too quick to rule out the psych hospital option?

He looked to the ceiling for a moment and then tapped her form. “Put down April 17, 1977.” He flashed a gleaming white smile that sparked in his eyes.

Her stomach tightened and she blinked, hoping to negate the familiarity she felt. Loneliness had driven her to conjure up a connection pulsing between them. A trick of the mind. Clearly it was time to start dating, again.

“Mr Reddick, there’s no point in lying.”

“Sweetheart—” he leaned forwards “—last time I checked, I was thirty-two years old. So if this is 2009, it follows I was born on April 17, 1977.” He was grinning again. Clearly amused.

But she wasn’t amused at the effect his sexy smile was having on her insides. Kara gathered up a healthy dose of irritation to drown it.

Nineteen-seventy-seven sounded right. She’d been born a couple of years later and he looked roughly her age — further proving he wasn’t who she’d thought. Where was the joke?

She realized. “Oh, happy birthday.”

He leaned back. “No need to throw me a party, honey. Every day’s my birthday.”

His mocking grin hit her right in the belly.

She pressed back and crossed her arms over her uniformed chest. “Officer.”

“What?”

“It’s officer, not honey.”

He rolled his eyes and then raised his palms towards her. “Look, officer, I’m no chauvinist pig. I think it’s cool they’re letting chicks carry guns these days. Just trying to be friendly.”

Friendly, my ass. “Look. You’re in some serious shit here. You assaulted my partner.”

“Your partner’s a pig.”

Hard to argue with that one. She chewed the inside of her lip to keep from smiling.

“Listen, Mr Reddick. I get the feeling you’re not really such a bad guy, and I’d love to help you get into a shelter, or send you home to grovel to your wife, or whoever tossed you out on your ass last night, but for some reason you seem hell-bent on making me regret helping you. Do you want to spend the next couple of months in lock-up?”

He shrugged.

She leaned on to the desk. “We’re real backed up right now. It’ll be ages before you see the inside of a courtroom.”

He cocked up one eyebrow. “Do what you want. I know exactly where I’ll be tomorrow at dawn and it won’t be in your jail cell. I guaran-damn-tee it.”

“Oh, really. You think I won’t do it, don’t you?” He’d read her like a book. She hated that.

Hand in his pocket, he pressed a sharp edge up and into the fabric of his slacks.

Heart racing, Kara stood, squared her stance and moved one hand to her weapon. “Empty your pockets. Now.” She was off her game not doing this sooner.

He shrugged and dug into his blazer to come up with a gold lighter and a pack of gum from one, a crumpled envelope and a small key from the other. The gum’s label said “Wrigley”, but must’ve been bought overseas, because it was unlike any pack she’d ever seen. She kept her hand over her gun as he dug into his pants pocket and then slapped a handful of bills and coins on to the desk. Three one-dollar bills, but something was off. Counterfeits? Maybe. Not recently issued bills, that’s for sure.

“The other pocket.”

He pulled out a necklace and let it dangle for a moment before dropping it to the metal desktop. The enamelled butterfly pendant hit with a clink, and then the chain snaked around it like sand falling in slow motion.

Goosebumps erupted on every inch of her body. “Where’d you get the necklace?”

“From a kid in the park — teenaged runaway.”

The air rushed from her lungs and she squeezed her muscles to hinder the earthquake emanating from deep in her bones. She shook her head to dislodge the impossible conclusions scrambling to take hold.

His eyes widened. That they quickly snapped back to indifference didn’t matter. The few seconds of intense recognition, of wonder in his eyes, had swept her from the squad room and back in time. Back to a day in 1994 she’d started to think she’d imagined.

She was imagining this.

“Get out of here.” It wasn’t him, and if it was, he was fucking with her.

“What? No jail?” His pissed-off tone fuelled her confusion-induced anger.

She pointed towards the entrance. “Out. Now.”

As she watched him stuff his possessions into his pockets and walk away, her mind, her whole body, felt as if she’d been set in a paint mixer.

This man, his smile, his eyes, his dated clothing and hairstyle, were so much like the man who’d saved her life. But he couldn’t be. Not unless fifteen years could pass without him aging a day.

Jake played with the pendant in his pocket. Hard to believe it was the same girl, but her reaction to the butterfly had been unmistakable.

From the second he’d heard her voice, something about her had been familiar, but it wasn’t until he’d brought out the pendant that he’d seen the oh-so-obvious truth. Even all grown up, in that cop uniform, and without the heavy black eyeliner he’d wiped from her cheeks with that same damn handkerchief, it had to be her.

Across from the police station, he leaned against the brick wall, unable to leave — obsessed — like some chick waiting for the Beatles to emerge from a hotel. Pathetic.

And useless.

Chances were there was some back entrance the cops used. And even if she did see him waiting, she clearly wouldn’t want to. She’d tossed him out.

The year they’d met in the park she’d been a teenager — lost, terrified, out of her depth — and he’d been the big brother figure who’d shared his story, hoping his life lessons might help her.

Her reaction to him that day had been textbook obvious, given her age and the circumstances, and didn’t mean she’d give a damn about, or even remember, him today. She was a fully formed person now, no longer broken. Probably had a husband or boyfriend, at least friends to support her.

More to the point, even if she were curious, wanted to find out if they shared the same memory, what would be the point?

In spite of today — even because of today — the odds were freakishly long that he’d ever see her again. If there was a next time, he’d be just as likely to find her playing on the swings as a toddler, or pushing a walker as a ninety-year-old woman. Both were thousands of times more likely than seeing her on anything resembling tomorrow.

For him, there were no tomorrows.

He pushed off the wall and started down the street. A small car pulled out from the kerb and a line of yellow cabs honked. His first visit to the twenty-first century. Didn’t look that different from the last.

“Mr Reddick. Jacob. Wait. Please. Jake.”

He stopped, but didn’t turn.

“Wait a minute,” her voice pleaded, coming closer.

Talking to her was a dumb idea, yet his feet remained clamped to the sidewalk. Time — however meaningless the term had become — had taught him that interacting with others, making any kind of connection, was pointless.

Human connections only made his existence harder to endure.

Kara slid her hand on to Jake’s shoulder and his head tipped back a fraction of an inch. His sandy curls hit the collar of his plaid jacket, bending like soft springs, and it was all she could do to keep her hand from traversing the few inches required to stroke those curls, confirm their softness, and run the back of her finger along the warm neck beneath.

Crazy. Insane.

She barely knew this guy. They’d spent one day talking when she’d been all of fourteen, yet he’d been the leading man in her dreams for years.

As Jake slowly turned, her hand slipped from his shoulder and stung at the loss of contact. “It is you, isn’t it?” Her voice came out low and breathy.

He reached out, but dropped his arm sharply. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He stepped back, but she grabbed his jacket’s sleeve.

“Yes you do.”

He glared and pulled his arm out of her grip. “I’ve never seen you before.”

“Yes you have. I can prove it.” Her chest squeezed and heat rose in her face. “Your mother died of cancer when you were twelve. Just like mine. Then your father died too. You regretted how you’d cut him out of your life and blamed him for things he couldn’t control. You blamed him for not being your mother.”

He stared at the ground, his jaw clamped so tightly she wondered if his teeth might crumble. So stubborn.

“You ran away at fourteen. Just like me. And you regretted that, too. Had to live hand-to-mouth and work nights to finish high school and land a job that paid enough to cover your rent.” She sucked in a sharp breath. Had his stories all been lies designed to manipulate an impressionable young runaway?

If so, they’d worked.

She stomped her foot like a child — felt like one. “I did what I promised. I went home. I apologized to my dad. I kept away from drugs. I finished high school.”

He didn’t move.

“You’re why I became a cop. You inspired me to help people.” Her voice hitched and she hated how her throat kept strangling her words. “You saved my life.”

His head snapped up, eyes soft, but his expression quickly switched back on to cold. “If that’s true, I’m glad.”

“So you admit it’s you.”

He nodded.

“Then talk to me. Where have you been? Why didn’t you call me like you promised?”

“I never promised.” He backed up a step.

“Tell me what’s going on.” She reached out to rest her hand on his forearm.

He jerked back. “There’s no point.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Believe me, Kara. I can.”

Her breath hitched. He remembered her name.

That small fact melted the iciness he was casting towards her. She had to keep trying. If nothing else, she owed him. She owed him her life.

“You have three or four dollars in your pocket. That’ll barely get you a coffee. At least let me buy you breakfast. Please.”

His mouth cocked up in a half-smile. “What will the waitress think if I let the lady pick up the tab?”

She laughed, hoping to lighten the mood. “What year did you step out of?”

He didn’t laugh back.

Jake, on round two of breakfast, swallowed a huge bite of pancake and wiped syrup off his chin with the back of his hand.

Across the table in the diner’s window booth, Kara pushed congealed egg yolk around her plate with a crust of toast as she told him about her still-shaky relationship with her father.

Even though her black sweatshirt and jeans weren’t exactly feminine, she was so much softer in street clothes. Unconstrained by that cop hat, little tendrils of hair had fallen around her face, and he gripped his fork to kill the temptation to lean over and brush one back. The angry young girl he’d met fifteen years earlier had turned into one hell of a beautiful woman.

“You still like butterflies,” he said without thinking.

She raised one hand to her earring and a smile lit her face, the whole room. “I can’t believe you kept my necklace all these years — or the ridiculous coincidence you had it with you, today.”

He stuffed his mouth with pancake and bacon. He’d been trying to quash the persistent notion that the necklace was no coincidence. The last time he’d felt hope it’d almost killed him.

“Look.” She reached her hand across the table. “You completely changed the course of my life that day. Seriously. And now you seem down on your luck. I’d like to return the favour, help you.”

“I’m beyond help, honey — sorry — officer.”

She pulled back. “Why are you being a jerk? I just spilled my life story, and you’ve barely told me a thing. Not even why you were sleeping in the park.”

Her eyes were coaxing him to say more, so he studied his last slice of bacon. He was a shit for caving in on the free breakfast, a shit for acknowledging they’d met before, and an even bigger shit for revealing a second of joy when she’d told him she’d dumped her last boyfriend almost a year ago.

After today, he’d never see her again.

Frustration urged him to pound his fist through the plate glass window beside him, but he turned back and her concerned expression released some of the pressure. He rested one elbow on the table. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a real conversation.”

“These are tough times. Being homeless isn’t anything to be ashamed of.” She stretched out her hand and he longed to touch it so badly he ached.

He leaned away. “Homeless sounds great compared to my life.”

“Tell me what’s wrong.” She drew a deep breath and her breasts pressed against her top. “No way have you been living on the streets for long. I swear you haven’t aged.”

Damn. She wasn’t going to give up easily. Maybe it would help if she thought he were crazy.

He patted his full belly. “Thanks for the breakfast. I hadn’t eaten since 1824.”

She smiled. “Funny.”

“Might be, if it weren’t the truth.”

Her expression hardened. Not what he’d aimed for, but angry would do. Time to toss lighter fluid on to the flames.

“You want more truth? Well, here it is.” He pushed his plate to the side and leaned on to the table. “On my thirty-second birthday, a hippy in the park gave me a tab of acid. Like an idiot, I took it, and ever since then, no matter where I am or what I’m wearing, no matter what I’m doing or where I fall asleep, I wake up every morning in that same spot, on the same day, but a different year, in the same fucking clothes, with the same fucking things in my pockets.”

He slapped his palm on the table. “I can’t even count how many days I’ve endured since this started, or how many different years I’ve been to. Can’t keep track, because the paper’s never there when I fucking wake up.”

He’d never used the f-word in front of a lady. His mom would’ve been disappointed. Dad would’ve slapped him. He barely cared.

Her posture had stiffened during his rant, but she softened and stretched her hand out again. “Why are you telling me this crazy story?”

“Because it’s true.”

“Do you hear how ridiculous you sound? Explain to me how one thing you’ve said is even possible.”

He pounded the table. “You think I know? You think I understand how, even if I change out of this suit, even if I tear it or burn it, I wake up in it every morning as if it’s brand new? You think I know why, even if I go to bed with cuts and bruises from a beating, or fall asleep in the arms of a whore, I wake up alone and in the exact same state of health as I was in 1967, the last year I lived a fucking normal day?”

Face burning, he thumped back in the booth and realized he’d shouted and a few heads had turned.

Worse, her eyes had glassed over. She was trying so hard to help him, to recapture the closeness they’d felt when they’d met before.

And he was an asshole.

He reached for her hand, still resting on the table, but she jerked it away and blinked back the tears.

One escaped and she swiped it away, clearly angry at its unwanted appearance. “How dare you yell at me? All I did was ask a question and you act like a jerk. You might look the same, but you’ve changed.”

He wanted to apologize, but what was the point? Civilized conversations were something from his past. He focused on the table’s scratched surface.

“Is being cruel fun for you?”

Shame swarmed around him. “I’m sorry.”

She slid her hand on to the table again. “Please, at least tell me why you were sleeping in the park. Fifteen years ago, you told me you had a job on Wall Street. Did you lose everything in some hedge fund mess?”

He hadn’t been to that job in forty-two years. What could he possibly tell her?

Transfixed by the long slender fingers of her hand, he wondered how skin-on-skin contact would feel. Her hand looked so soft and it’d been so long since he’d touched a woman, touched anyone. He craved the sensation, yet knew it would prove a mistake. “There is no way to explain my life.”

“How bad can it be?” Her hand reached an inch further towards him. “Are you on the lam? A spy? A terrorist? In a witness protection programme, or something?”

“All those options sound terrific.”

“I know.” She grinned. “You’re Osama Bin Laden.”

“Who?”

“OK, OK. I give up.” She raised her hands. “You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

The sun had come around to stream through the window and her hair, her skin, shone. Lord, she was beautiful. And was still as kind-hearted and generous and funny as she’d been as a kid. If only he could stay here, in this time. But it wasn’t possible and seeing her today had made his life worse.

Even after this short time with Kara, he knew he’d forever grieve losing the opportunity to know her, grieve what might have been, grieve what could never be. Spending time with this woman was salt on his open wound of a life.

Darkness attacked from every direction, forced the sunlight from his eyes and filled every thought in his head, every cell in his body. He rested his elbows on the table and grabbed his head in his hands. “When will this end? I need to end it.”

She leaned across the table and her warm palms landed over his hands. The contact was better than he’d imagined, more fabulous, more painful, and a buzz rushed through her body into his, invading his soul to push back the dark.

With a finger under his chin, she coaxed his glance back to hers. “You don’t mean ending your life … You wouldn’t …”

“If only I could.”

Kara shifted around the booth to sit next to Jake, her heart nearly bleeding. “No. You don’t mean that.” She’d been the suicidal one when they’d first met — on a quick road to an OD or getting murdered. If he were serious about wanting to end his life, she’d do everything in her power to get him the help he needed. Finally, she could pay back the kindness he’d shown her.

He gave his head a sharp shake and turned towards her. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m an idiot. No social graces.” He cocked one side of his mouth in a faux display of levity, but his hands gripped the table’s edge like he thought the entire booth might make a run for it.

After she peeled one of them off, their fingers entwined, but she couldn’t say which one of them had initiated the gesture. Her body flushed.

“Kara,” he said, his voice low and deep. “You’ve already helped me, saved my life more than you could possibly know. Your necklace — it’s the only thing I’ve ever held on to.”

Her belly squeezed and flipped. He’d kept her childish gift, proving that day had meant something to him, too. The heat from his leg next to hers was too much to resist and when she shifted to increase the contact, he drew a husky breath and their bodies, their faces, inched closer together.

The man who’d starred in her hormone-riddled teenaged dreams, whom she’d fantasized about meeting again, was inches away. Physically, he was exactly as he’d been back then — hadn’t aged a day — and even though fifteen years had hardened his outlook, she could sense the man she’d known hidden under the jerk he was cloaked in this morning.

It was crazy she hadn’t recognized him the instant he’d raised his head from that bench. This man was the reason none of her relationships had lasted. He was the man she’d wanted the others to be.

With each breath, his hard biceps pressed against her breast, and her shallow breaths hitched, as if the air around them had thickened. All she’d have to do was lean forwards and their lips would join. The kiss she’d wanted for fifteen years would turn from fantasy to reality.

He pulled back.

She stifled a gasp.

“This is wrong,” he said as if trying to convince himself. “We ’ll never see each other again. It’s not possible.”

Chest squeezing, she inched towards him. “Nothing’s impossible.”

“For me, most things are impossible.”

“Why? Please. Tell me what I can do to help you.”

Still leaning away from her, he chewed on his lip so hard she worried he might draw blood.

“George,” he finally said. “You can help me find my friend, George.”

Two hours later, Kara walked down the street, her mind in a fog. Although their bodies were a few feet apart, she felt Jake’s heat, his energy, at her side, proving he was real and here — not a dream.

Everything he’d told her was true.

Or at least based on what she’d seen and heard, she could think of no better explanation. Could find no way to refute the evidence Jake’s friend George, a retired judge no less, had set before her: photos of the two men together, in the late fifties and early sixties, and then in multiple years over the past four decades. In each progressive photo, George, now in his seventies, had aged, while Jake remained the same — exactly the same. It was all a little insane.

His hand brushed down her arm and she jumped.

“Are you OK?” The concern in his eyes was palpable and so much better than the anger and indifference that had filled them before.

She reached for his hand and he took it, anchoring her in reality. “It’s a lot to absorb, that’s all.” They stopped at a kerb to wait for a light and her mind continued to swim through murky waters, struggling to find the surface.

George claimed to have seen Jake on fourteen separate April 17ths between 1967 and now, but had experienced his visits in a different order than Jake. Made an odd sort of sense. But a tab of acid didn’t explain how this had started.

“What else happened in 1967?”

He ran a hand over his chin stubble. “That was forty-two years ago.”

“Was it?” She stopped. “Have forty-two years passed for you? And every day of them April 17ths?’’ The idea made her dizzy.

His hand moved to her waist and he pulled her from a bicycle courier’s path. He leaned against a store window. “I don’t think so, but I don’t experience time the same way any more. I’d guess I’ve lived through a few thousand days since this started. Many days I’m alone in the forest. Some days there are Indian villages. A few times everyone I’ve come across speaks Dutch. I mostly try to survive.”

“It must be horrible.” Her heart pinched, conscious of every twitch of the hand, still at her waist. She leaned forwards.

He shook his head, dropped his hand and pushed off the window away from her. She shivered.

“You must be busy.” His voice was colder than ice. “I don’t want to keep you.”

She reached for his arm. “Keep me from what? I already called in sick for tonight while you were talking to George.”

He looked down. “Kara, there’s no point to this.”

She reached up to touch his face but he pulled his head back and she winced. “You’re such an asshole. Why go to the trouble to make me believe what’s happening to you, if an hour later, it’s buh-bye?”

“You’re right.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m an asshole. I shouldn’t have taken you to see George. I shouldn’t have had breakfast with you. I shouldn’t have waited outside the police station. I am a total shit.”

“I’ll accept your weak-ass apology, if you promise not to leave me.”

“Kara,” he stepped forwards, “you know I can’t promise that.”

She took his hand and held on tight. “I’m not looking for a promise that goes past today, but if this is the only day you’ll live in this year, you have to promise me we’ll spend it together. Don’t you get how long I looked for you the last time? How wanting to find you consumed my life?”

He looked into her eyes with such longing her insides squeezed. Desperate to feel his lips against hers, she leaned forwards.

He wanted to kiss her, she was certain. But something else mingled with the heat in his eyes. Something was holding him back.

The kiss could wait. “Come on, birthday boy. Let’s party.”

Kara sat cross-legged on the floor of her small apartment and sipped her red wine. Jake had eventually relaxed after she’d stopped hitting on him.

Instead, they’d talked all day and into the night, learning they were both dog people, neither liked anchovies on pizza and both preferred vanilla ice cream over chocolate. Fabulous to know they had more in common than dead mothers and dysfunctional relationships with their fathers, but her hold-off-on-the-seduction strategy was growing old. She’d wanted this man for ever and he was right here.

Across from her on the area rug, Jake leaned back and bent one arm up on the sofa at his back. The NYPD T-shirt she’d loaned him stretched across his body accentuating his deliciously solid shape. Tubs of takeout Chinese and a half-eaten chocolate cake stood between them like a shield to deter her from crawling across to explore the planes of his chest, his abdomen, with her fingers, her lips.

Given the chance, she could even learn to live with the sideburns, that suit. She’d had her fair share of men over the years, and while many had been physically handsome by any objective standard, not one had been able to stir her insides with just a look the way Jake could.

“You must be tired,” he said, setting his wine glass down.

She shook her head. “Not a bit.” Staying up through the day was an all-nighter for her and although bed beckoned, sleep was the last thing on her mind.

Time to blast down the shield.

Pushing the picnic remnants to the side, she crossed the few feet between them and pressed her lips against his.

His body stiffened, and her heart sank, fearing he’d push her way, but then a groan rose from deep in his throat and he wrapped an arm around her, pulling her in, tipping her back, intensifying their kiss. Drawing deep breaths, his tongue plunged into her mouth.

For years she’d dreamed of his kiss, but reality far exceeded her fantasies. The perfume of red wine and chocolate lingered as his lips devoured hers and his tongue stroked and suckled with the fervour of a starving man served his first meal.

Lost in Jake’s kiss, the room spun, drifted, and she lost all concept of time, space and where she belonged in either. There existed only his lips, his tongue, his hands and the heat from their bodies mingling to form a white hot inferno.

When they came up for air, she found herself stretched across his lap, his hardness pressing into her hip through those crazy plaid pants she wanted to get off him as quickly as possible.

She moved and he groaned, capturing her lips in another ravenous kiss. Leaning on to his shoulders for support, she shifted to straddle him as his large clever hands continued to explore every inch of her body. She rubbed the seam of her jeans against him, igniting more fires as he pulled her in tighter.

“Jake.” She pressed her lips into the pulsing vein at the side of his neck. “Let’s move into the bedroom.”

She pushed back and rose to her feet, pulling him with her.

“Kara, wait.” He stopped before they reached the bedroom.

“Sorry, sailor.” She slid up against him. “I’m done waiting.”

“I need to give you something.” He reached for his blazer, balled up on the sofa, and pulled out the envelope and key.

“Can’t this wait?” Her body ached to be naked and pressed against his.

He took a step back. “It’s important.”

She nodded, wondering what could be more important than having him inside her.

“I picked this up at my dad’s lawyer that day in 1967. The key’s for a safety deposit box and the letter gives the holder of the key access. If you have problems, George will help.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Everything my dad left me is in that box. There’s a whack of gold bars, stock certificates, a few other valuables. According to George, it’s worth quite a bit now.”

She leaned into him, drew a deep breath and his scent made her eyes flutter shut. “What do you need me to do?” She pressed her lips into his throat.

He ran his hand up her back, and waves of electricity shot through her like welding sparks.

“The key and envelope might be gone when you wake up tomorrow — might follow me. If it does, go see George. He can get you access to the deposit box.”

“But why?”

“I want you to have it. All of it. It’s no good to me. George doesn’t need it or want it. It’s yours.”

Her throat squeezed. “No. You’ll need it, for when this ends.”

“Kara, this is never going to end.” He kissed her and banished her will to argue.

Battling his better judgment, Jake let Kara pull him into the bedroom, let her tear off his clothes and watched with heat as she removed hers. He let her press hot kisses into his chest, into his belly, let her grasp and stroke him. How could something that felt so good be the cause of so much future pain — for them both?

Crazy with desire, he found the strength to pull away, panting, aching, heart shredding.

“What’s the matter?” She reached for him. “Jake.”

He forced his gaze away. “This is wrong.”

She tugged on his shoulder to pull him around. “Wrong? It isn’t the sixties any more, you know. I want this. I want you.” Her back stiffened. “Or do you still see me as a kid?”

He cupped her face with his hand, hating that he’d caused the hurt in her eyes. “Kara, I’ve never wanted a woman more.” He dropped his hand. “That’s the problem.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I’ll be gone in the morning. It’s not fair.”

“You idiot.” She smiled as she placed her hand on his chest. “I get to decide what’s fair for me. I seduced you, remember?”

He looked into her questioning eyes, even more disappointed and angry than Kara. How could he possibly explain something he barely wanted to admit to himself?

He turned from her. “If we make love, it’ll kill me.”

She gasped. “What haven’t you told me? Will you get sent to the Ice Age or something? What’s happened the other times you’ve had sex?”

He turned to face her and the look in her eyes constricted his chest. “If I make love to you, my life will be unbearable.” Bad enough now. He couldn’t face jumping from year to year with such a huge piece of his heart ripped out and left behind, with knowing she existed on some different plane in time, inaccessible. Torture.

She crossed her arms over her luscious body, still glowing pink with arousal.

He sat on the edge of the bed, closed his eyes.

She joined him and her hand landed softly on his back. “I’m sorry. I’ve been so focused on the thought of having to wait at least a year to see you again. I didn’t even think how it might affect you. That for you it might be longer. Or the next time you see me, it might not be 2010. I’m so selfish.”

“No, I’m the one who’s selfish.” He dropped his lips to her hair and inhaled the sweet scent. “The next time I see you, you’ll have moved on. I can’t take that.”

“Not a chance.”

“Kara, it could be another fifteen years. It could be never. I couldn’t bear to think you’d live your life hoping to see me at best once a year. If we make love—” He dropped his head.

She slid back on the bed and slipped under the covers. “You win. I get it. Just let me hold you.” Her arms reached for him.

His heart nearly ripped from his chest and he joined her under the covers. They wrapped their arms around each other and she drew one leg over his thigh. He felt safe, at home.

She rubbed her cheek on his chest. “I love holding you.”

“I love it, too.”

He loved her. But knew saying it, or loving her, would make everything worse.

Her heartbeat penetrated his body as they clung together like hurricane victims. A hurricane would be a lesser threat. He’d never felt such happiness, such sadness. The duelling emotions overwhelmed his senses.

“Maybe if I hold hard enough I can keep you here.” She pressed her lips against his chin.

He smiled. “That’s a nice thought.”

“I’m serious. You kept my necklace — and nothing else — over thousands of jumps through time. That must mean something.”

He kissed her nose. He wanted to believe it, too. He really did. Holding on to the necklace couldn’t have been a coincidence. It was almost as if fate had pulled him through time since their first meeting. Pulled him to a year when Kara was single and ready to meet him again as an adult, ready to save him, ready to make this all stop.

But thoughts like that only bred pain. The hope he’d felt on first finding her necklace added to his pockets’ inventory had drained away over hundreds of jumps, drawing with it his will to live. This time would be worse.

She stifled a yawn. “Promise me one thing?”

“If I can.”

“Promise me if we’re lucky enough to find each other again …” Her voice was growing softer, her words slowing. “Promise me that the next time you land in another year I’m alive, you’ll make love to me. Even if I’m ninety.”

“I don’t know.” He grinned. “Ninety?”

“You had your crack at twenty-nine tonight, buddy. You blew it.” She playfully pulled on his chest hair. “Now promise.”

“Only if you promise to live your life as if I don’t exist. Yo u can’t wait for me.”

“OK.” Her breath warmed his neck.

He’d make sure he didn’t live to break his side of the promise.

They held each other without speaking, and soon Kara’s breathing deepened, her body caving to the sleep it needed. He pressed his lips into her hair and watched the clock’s blue numbers glowing in the darkness. A digital clock, she’d called it.

She was right about one thing, he’d be crazy not to hold her for every last minute he possibly could. He would not fall asleep. He’d stay awake and watch the minutes flash by with her in his arms.

Although the impending dawn would force him back into that hideous suit and dump him into the park in some other century, he was going to stay conscious, anchored to her and this time as long as possible.

He’d tried staying awake many times before. Hadn’t worked. Neither had hopping a freight train to Florida.

Maybe tonight. Maybe if he stayed awake he’d remain here. Hope pierced the deep sadness filling his heart.

Two thirty-seven.

Three fifty-five.

Four fifty-six. Dawn was too close.

His eyes blinked open, heart racing.

Four fifty-eight. He’d missed a whole minute.

He held one eye open. Just over an hour left. No way would he fall asleep now.

Jake woke with bright sunlight against closed eyelids. Strange. Usually someone or something woke him before the sun got so high.

He ran his hand forwards to feel the surface. Ground or bench?

Cotton sheet?

He bolted upright and spun. “Kara?” He was in her apartment, but where was she?

Oh, Lord. What had he done? What if she were now travelling across the centuries in his place?

His heart pounded, and pain flooded every pore in his body. No. No. No.

“Coffee?”

He looked up. Kara was standing in the door to the bedroom, his hideous suit jacket over her otherwise naked body.

Joy rushed over him and in one leap he had her in his arms. “Is this real?”

She held up a newspaper to show him the date: April 18, 2009.

“How? Why?” Without giving her an instant to answer, he kissed her. Nothing had ever felt so right.

Even if he’d never know the answer to how, he knew why.

Why was because he belonged here. Belonged in this place, in this time. Belonged with her.

Kara pulled her lips away, took his hand and drew him towards the bed. “Listen, mister, lots of time to ponder the secrets of the universe. Right now, I plan to cash in on that promise.”