Times Change

Chapter 10

“It’ll be fun.” Sunny navigated into a narrow parking space under a brightly lit sign that aggressively flashed Club Rendezvous. Jacob studied the winking colored lights with some doubt, and she patted his hand. “Trust me, pal, we need this.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. Besides, if I find out you can’t dance, I want to be able to dump you now and save time.” She just laughed when he twisted her ear. “And you owe me.”

“Why is that?”

She flipped down the visor and gave what she could see of her face a quick check in the mirror. On impulse she pulled out a lipstick and painted her mouth a vivid red. “Because if I hadn’t been so quick with the excuses you’d be eating dinner at my parents’.”

“I liked your parents.”

Touched, she leaned over to kiss his cheek. Seeing she’d left the imprint of her lips there, she rubbed at it with her thumb.

“Damn it.”

“Hold still a minute,” she complained when he backed away. “I’ve just about got it.” Satisfied, she dropped the tube of lipstick back in her bag. “I know you like my parents. So do I. But you’d never have gotten nachos and margaritas at Will and Caro’s.” She lowered her voice. “My mother cooks.”

Taking no chances, he rubbed at his cheek himself. “Is that a crime in this state?”

“She cooks things like alfalfa fondue.”

“Oh.” Once he’d managed to imagine it he’d decided he much preferred the spicy Mexican meal they had shared a short time before. “I guess I do owe you.”

“Your very life,” she agreed. Opening her door, she squeezed herself through the narrow opening between it and the neighboring car. The flashing lights danced over her, making her look exactly as she was—exciting and exotic. “And after a couple of weeks in nature’s bosom I figure we could both use some live music—the louder the better—a rowdy crowd and some air clogged with cigarette smoke.”

“Sounds like paradise.” He managed, with some effort, to push himself out the other door. “Sunny, I don’t feel right about you exchanging all your currency.”

She lifted both brows, half-amused, half-puzzled, by his phrasing. “You exchange currency when you go into a foreign country. What I’ve been doing is called spending money.”

“Whatever. I don’t have any with me to spend.”

She thought it was a pity that a man so obviously intelligent and dedicated should earn a small salary. “Don’t worry about it.” She’d only started counting pennies herself since she’d become self-supporting. So far, she hadn’t shown much of a knack for it. “If I get to Philadelphia, you can pick up the tab.”

“We’ll talk about it later.” He needed to change the subject, and he found the answer close at hand. “I wanted to ask you what you call that outfit you’re wearing.”

“This?” She glanced down at the snug, short and strapless red leather dress under her winter coat. “Sexy,” she decided, running a tongue over her teeth. “What do you call it?”

“We’ll talk about that later, too.”

With her arm through his, she crossed the broken sidewalk. The swatch of formfitting leather didn’t provide much protection against the wind, but it felt good to wear something other than jeans. It felt even better to note how often Jacob’s gaze skimmed over her legs.

The cold was forgotten when she opened the door to a blast of heat and music.

“Ah . . . civilization.”

He saw only a dim room dazzled by intermittent flashes of light. The music was every bit as loud as she’d promised, pulsing with bass, blaring with horns. He could smell smoke and liquor, sweat and perfume. Through it all was the constant din of voices and laughter.

While he took it in, she passed their coats to the checker on duty and slipped the stub in her bag.

She was right. He’d needed it—not just the sensory stimulation, not just the anonymous crowd, but also the firsthand look at twentieth-century socializing.

Overall there was very little difference from what he might have found in his own time. People, then and then, tended to gather together for their entertainment. They wanted music and company, food and drink. Times might change, but people’s needs were basically the same.

“Come on.” She was dragging him through the crowd to where tables were crammed together on two levels. On the first was a long bar. There was a man rather than a synthetic behind it, serving drink and setting out bowls filled with some kind of finger food. People crowded there, hip to hip.

On the second level was a half circle of stage where the musicians performed. Jacob counted eight of them, in various kinds of dress, holding instruments that pitched a wall of sound that roared out of tall boxes on either corner of the stage.

In front of them, on a small square of floor, tangles of arms and legs and bodies twisted in various ways to the beat. He noted the costumes they chose and saw that there was no standard. Snug pants and baggy ones, long skirts and brief ones, vivid colors and unrelieved black. Women wore shoes flat to the floor or, like Sunny, shoes with slender spikes at the back.

He imagined this meant those particular women wanted to be taller. But it had the side effect of making it very pleasant to look at their legs.

He appreciated the style of nonconformity, the healthy expression of individual tastes. He knew there had been a space of time between this and his own when society in general had accepted a uniform. A brief period, Jacob mused, but it must have been a miserably dull one.

As he stood and observed, waitresses in short skirts bustled on both levels, balancing trays and scribbling the orders shouted at them.

Inefficient, he thought, but interesting. It was simpler to press a button on an order box and receive your requirements from a speedy droid. But it was a bit friendlier this way.

With her hand in his, Sunny led him up a short flight of curving stairs and began to scout around for an empty table. “I forgot it was Saturday night,” she shouted at him. “It’s always a madhouse on Saturdays.”

“Why?”

“Date night, pal,” she said, and laughed. “Don’t worry, we’ll squeeze in somewhere.” But she abandoned her search to smile at him. “What do you think?”

He lifted a hand to toy with the trio of balls that hung from slender chains at her ears. “I like it.”

“The Marauders are good. The band.” She gestured as the sax player went into a screaming solo. “They’re very hot out here.”

“In here,” he corrected. “It’s hot in here.”

“No, I mean . . . Never mind.” Someone bumped her from behind. Taking it in stride, she wound her arms around Jacob’s neck. “I guess this is our first date.”

He ignored the crowd and kissed her. “How’s it going so far?”

“Just dandy.”

Taking that to mean “good,” he kissed her again. Her satisfied sigh set off a chain reaction inside him. “We could always just stand here,” he said, directly in her ear. “I don’t think anyone would notice.”

“You were right,” she said on another sigh. “It is hot in here. Maybe we should just—”

“Sunny!” Someone caught her by the waist, spun her around and, ending on a dip, pressed a hard, wet kiss to her mouth. “Baby, you’re back.”

“Marco.”

“What’s left of me. I’ve been pining away for weeks.” He slung a friendly arm around her shoulders. “Where’d you disappear to?”

“The mountains.” She smiled, pleased to see him. He was skinny, unpretentious and harmless. Despite the dramatic kiss, they had decided years before not to complicate their friendship with romance. “How’s the real world?”

“Dog-eat-dog, love. Thank God.” He glanced over her shoulder and found himself being burned alive by a pair of direct green eyes. “Ah . . . who’s your friend?”

“J.T.” She laid a hand on Jacob’s arm. “This is Marco, an old poker buddy. You don’t want to play with J.T., Marco. He’s murder.”

Marco didn’t have to be told twice. “How ya doing?” He didn’t offer his hand, because he wanted to keep it.

“All right.” Jacob measured him. He figured if the man kissed Sunny again it would be simple enough to break his skinny neck.

“J.T. happens to be the brother of my sister’s husband.”

“Small world.”

Jacob didn’t bat an eye. “Smaller than you think.”

“Right.” If Marco had been wearing a tie he would have loosened it. But with his collar already open he didn’t have a clue how to ease the constriction in his throat. “Listen, do you guys need a table?”

“Absolutely.”

“We pulled some together back there, if you want to climb in.”

“Okay.” She looked up at Jacob. “Okay?”

“Sure.” He was already annoyed with himself. The jealousy had been an emotional rather than an intellectual reaction. He watched Sunny’s long legs as she walked between the tables. And an entirely justified reaction. Maybe men had progressed, but they had always been, would always be, territorial.

Half a dozen people greeted Sunny by name as they stopped at the table. Because most of the introductions were lost in the roar of the music, Jacob only nodded as he took his seat.

“This round’s on me,” Marco announced when he finally managed to flag down a waitress. “Same thing,” he told her. “Plus a glass of chardonnay for the lady and . . .” He lifted a brow at Jacob.

“A beer. Thanks.”

“No problem. I sold three cars today.”

“Good for you.” Sunny leaned over a bit, easily pitching her voice above the noise as she elaborated for Jacob’s benefit. “Marco’s a car dealer.”

Jacob got the image of Marco shuffling automobiles, then passing them around a poker table. “Congratulations” seemed the safest possible comment.

“I do okay. Just let me know if you’re in the market. We got in a shipment of real honeys this week.”

Jacob spared a glance at the brunette on his other side as she rubbed her arm against his. “I’ll do that.”

Relieved that Sunny’s new friend no longer looked as though he wanted to rearrange his face, Marco shifted his chair a little closer. “So what do you drive, J.T.?”

There was a universal moan around the table. Marco accepted it with a good-natured shrug and popped a handful of peanuts into his mouth.

“Hey, it’s my job.”

“Like taking little old ladies for test drives is a job,” someone joked.

“It’s a living.” Marco grinned. “None of us are rocket scientists.”

“J.T. is,” Sunny said.

“Are you?” The brunette scooted her chair closer.

She had big brown eyes, Jacob noted. Eyes that just brimmed with invitations. “In a manner of speaking.”

“Oh, I just love brainy men.”

Amused, Jacob picked up the beer the waitress set in front of him. He caught the look Sunny shot across the table. He recognized it. Jealousy, it appeared, was contagious. Nothing could have pleased him more. He took a long swig and tolerated the smoke the brunette blew in his direction. It was no use telling her that she was endangering her very attractively packaged lungs.

“Do you?”

She kept her eyes on his as she slowly crushed out the cigarette. “Oh, yes. I’m very attracted to intelligence.”

“Let’s dance.” Sunny shoved back her chair and snagged Jacob’s sleeve. “Nice try, Sheila,” she muttered, and dragged Jacob onto the dance floor.

“Is that her name? Sheila?”

She turned to him, into him, and tilted her chin upward. “Who wants to know?”

“Don’t you want me to be nice to your friends?” He settled his hands on her hips. With her heels, her eyes were level with his. And her body fit his perfectly.

“No.” Her mouth moved into a pout as she twined her arms around his neck. “At least not the stacked ones.”

Curious, he looked back at the table. “Is she stacked?”

“As if you didn’t notice. Unfortunately, her I.Q. measures the same as her bustline.”

“I like your . . . I.Q. better.”

“Good thinking.” Grinning, she brushed a kiss over his mouth. “I can’t blame her for giving it her best shot. You’re awfully cute.”

“Small dogs are cute,” he muttered. “Babies are cute.”

“You like babies.”

“Yes, why not?”

She toyed with the ends of his hair. “Just checking. Anyway, you are cute. And sexy.” She took a playful nip at his bottom lip. “And brainy.” She settled her cheek against his as he drew her closer. And mine, she thought. All mine. “What does the T stand for?” she murmured.

“Which T?”

“In J.T.”

“Nothing.”

“It has to stand for something.” She let out a sound of pleasure, “You dance very well.” The sax was playing again, crying the blues this time. Sunny’s eyes dipped closed as Jacob molded her against him. They were hardly moving in the press of bodies surrounding them. As his hands roamed over her back and his lips down her throat she didn’t care if they ever moved again.

Her thighs brushed against his. The leather fitted her like a second skin, one he was already imagining peeling away from her. As he turned her in his arms, slowly, sinuously, he shifted to taste the bare flesh of her shoulder. Even over the echoing music he could hear her skin humming. Lazily he trailed his lips back to toy with hers.

“You smell incredible. Like spring in the desert, hot, with some lingering trace of flowers gone wild.”

Unable to resist, she deepened the kiss until her head swam. “J.T.?”

“Yes?”

“I’m not sure, but I think we could get arrested for this.”

“It would be worth it.”

She opened her eyes, met his. “Let’s go home. I don’t like crowds the way I used to.”

***

They stayed a week, so that she could drag him to movies, malls, more clubs. She attributed his constant fascination to the fact that he’d never been in the Northwest before. Each time they went out, it was as though he were seeing things for the first time. Because of that, she enjoyed the hours and the errands more than she ever had.

When they were alone, when she trembled in his arms, she realized that it didn’t matter where they were. They were together. And if with each passing moment she fell more deeply in love, she did so freely and with absolute joy.

For the first time in her life she began to think of a future with a man, one man. She imagined passing through the years with him—not always content, but always satisfied. She thought of a home, and if white picket fences and car pools didn’t enter the fantasy, children did. She could picture the arguments, the noise and the laughter.

Before much longer, she thought, they would talk about it. They would plan.

He allowed himself the week. A handful of days meant so little in the vastness of time. And meant so much to him. He recorded everything he could, and branded the rest on his memory. He didn’t mean to forget, not an instant.

Yet he worried about how he could tell her where he had to travel when he left her so that it would hurt the least. More, he worried because he was no longer sure he had the courage to live without her.

When they left to go back to the cabin he told himself that it was the beginning of the end. If it had to end—and he saw no alternative—it would end honestly. He would tell her everything.

“You’re so quiet,” she said as they turned up the long, bumpy road that led to the cabin.

“I was thinking.”

“Well, that’s fine, but you haven’t picked one fight in five hours. I’m worried about you.”

“I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Now I’m really worried.” She’d known that something was on his mind, something that caused her palms to sweat. Deliberately she made her voice light and cheerful. “We’ll be back in a few minutes. Once you’re trapped inside the cabin, hauling wood and eating out of a can, you’ll be your old cranky self.”

“Sunny, we have to talk.”

She moistened her lips. “All right.” Her nerves began to hum as she stopped the car in front of the cabin. “Before or after we unload?”

“Now.” It had to be now. He took her hand and said the first words that came to mind. “I love you so much.”

The little fist of fear in her stomach unclenched. “We’re never going to fight if you keep talking like that.” She shifted closer to kiss his cheek. It was then that she noticed the smoke pumping out of the chimney. “Jacob, someone’s here.”

“What?”

“In the cabin.” She saw the front door open. “Libby!” With a laugh, she shoved the car door open and bounded out. “Libby, you scared me to death.” As Jacob watched, she threw her arms around a slim brunette. “Look at you! You’re so tanned!”

“There’s a lot of sun in Bora Bora.” Libby kissed her sister’s cheeks. “When we got back last night we thought you’d skipped out on us.”

“Just a quick trip into the real world to recharge.”

Libby’s laugh was smooth and easy. She knew her sister very well. “That’s what I told Cal. All your books were still here.” Suddenly she gripped both of Sunny’s hands. “Oh, Sunny, I’m so glad you’re back. I can’t wait to tell you. I—” A movement caught her eye. Glancing over, she saw Jacob as he climbed out of the Land Rover. As their eyes met, her half smile of greeting faded and her fingers tightened on Sunny’s.

“What? What is it? Oh.” Smiling, Sunny turned. “Guess who dropped in? This is Jacob, Cal’s brother.”

“I know.” Libby felt as though the ground had vanished from under her feet. She’d seen his face before, in the picture Cal had kept on his ship. But this was no picture. It was a flesh-and-blood man, a furious one. As they stared at each other in silence, the blood seeped slowly out of her face.

He’s come for Cal, she thought, and had to bite back the scream of protest that rose into her throat.

She’s terrified, he realized. Something moved inside him that he stubbornly ignored. He wouldn’t feel for her. He wouldn’t think of her as anything but the obstacle preventing his brother from returning home.

“J.T.?” Instinctively Sunny put a protective arm around Libby’s shoulders. There was something here, she realized. And she was the only one not in on the secret. “Libby, you’re shivering. You shouldn’t be standing out here without a coat. Let’s go inside.” She tossed a look back over her shoulder. “Let’s all go inside.”

“I’m all right.” Shaken, Libby walked inside to the fire and tried to warm her icy hands. No amount of heat could warm her trembling heart. She wouldn’t look at him again, not until she had herself under some kind of control. In the back of her mind, the little germ of fear had lived. Someday they would come for him. But she hadn’t believed it would be so soon. They’d had so little time.

Time, she thought bitterly. It was a word she could learn to hate.

Sunny stood between them, baffled. The tension was so thick in the small room that she could smell it as easily as the woodsmoke. “All right.” She looked from Libby’s rigid back to Jacob’s stony face without any idea who she should go to. “Would either of you like to tell me what’s going on?”

“Hey, Libby, if that was that sexy sister of yours, I want to tell her—”

Barefoot, his sweatshirt torn, Cal strode in from the kitchen. Everyone turned toward him. It was like a slow, deliberate ballet. His easy grin froze. All motion stopped.

“J.T.” His voice was hardly more than a whisper as joy and disbelief flooded through him. “J.T.,” he said again. Then, with a whoop, he was across the room, grabbing his brother in a hard hug. “Oh, God, Jacob! It’s really you!”

Libby watched them until tears blurred her vision and she turned away.

Sunny beamed. The two brothers held each other in a fierce embrace. She could see the emotions run over Jacob’s face and found them beautiful.

“I can’t believe it,” Cal murmured, pulling his brother back to study, to devour, his face. “You’re really here. How?”

He kept his hands on Cal’s arms, needing the simple and tangible contact. “The same way as you, but with more finesse. You look good.” Somehow he’d expected to find Cal pale and thin and tired from coping with the twentieth century. Instead, his brother was tanned, alert and obviously happy.

“You, too.” His smile faded a bit. “Mom? Dad?”

“They’re fine.”

Cal nodded. It was a hurt he had learned to live with. “You got my message. I couldn’t be sure.”

“We received it,” Jacob said dully.

“You’ve met Libby, then.” Regret vanished. Turning, he held a hand out for his wife. She didn’t move.

“We’ve met.” Jacob inclined his head and waited. She could take the first step.

“You’ll both have a lot to talk about.” Using every ounce of effort, she managed to keep her voice steady.

“Libby.” Her name was a murmur as Cal crossed to her. He laid a hand on her cheek until she lifted her eyes to his. He saw the love and the fear in them. “Don’t.”

“I’m fine.” Calling up more strength, she squeezed his hand. “I have some things to do upstairs. You two should catch up.” She shifted her glance to Jacob. “I know you’ve missed each other.”

Turning, she fled up the stairs.

Sunny shifted her gaze from her sister’s retreating back to Cal’s unsmiling face and then to Jacob’s angry eyes. “What the hell is going on here?”

“Go up with her, will you?” Cal laid a hand on her shoulder but continued to look after his wife. “I don’t want her to be alone.”

“All right.” She could already see, just by looking at the two of them, that she’d get no explanations here. She’d damn well get one from Libby.

Cal waited until Sunny had climbed the stairs. Facing his brother again, he recognized the fury, the passion, and the hurt in him, “We have to talk.”

“Yes.”

“Not here.” He thought of his wife.

“No.” Jacob thought of Sunny. “We’ll go to my ship.”

Sunny paused outside the bedroom door. Taking a deep breath, she pushed it open. Libby sat on the edge of the bed, hands folded. There were no tears. Tears would have been less heartbreaking than the despair on her face.

“Honey, what is it?”

Libby felt as though she were in a dream. Looking up, she focused on the reality of her sister. “How long has he been here?”

“About three weeks.” Sunny sat on the bed to take Libby’s hand in hers. “Talk to me. I thought you’d be happy to finally meet Cal’s brother.”

“I am—for him.” Hoping that much was true, she pressed a hand to her jittery stomach. “Did he explain to you why he’s here? Where he’s from?”

“Of course.” Puzzled, Sunny gave her a little shake. “Come on, Libby, snap out of it. J.T.’s a little rough around the edges, but he isn’t a monster. He’s just concerned about Cal, and maybe a little hurt that he chose you and settled here.”

“Oh, God.” Unable to sit, Libby rose to pace to the window. She heard the hum of an engine and saw the Land Rover disappear into the forest. “I would have let him go,” she said quietly, and closed her eyes. “Back then I was prepared to. I couldn’t have asked him to give up his family, his life. But now I can’t let him go. I won’t.”

“Where would he go?”

Libby rested her head on the cool glass of the window. “Back.” She laughed a little. “Forward. Jacob must have told you how impossibly complicated it all is.”

Rising, Sunny walked over to lay her hands on Libby’s shoulders. They were taut, like bundles of wire. Automatically she worked to relax them. “Cal’s a grown man, Libby, and staying here was his choice. J.T.’s just going to have to accept that.”

“But will he?”

“When he first got here, J.T. was angry and resentful. He just wasn’t able to understand Cal’s feelings. But things have changed. For both of us.”

Slowly Libby turned. What was in her sister’s heart was clearly written in her eyes. Libby felt a lurch of panic. “Oh, Sunny.”

“Hey, don’t look at me like that.” She grinned. “I’m in love, not terminally ill.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go back with him.”

With an inarticulate cry, Libby threw her arms around Sunny’s neck. She clung, rocking.

“For Lord’s sake, Libby, you’re as bad as Jacob. It’s only Philadelphia. You’re acting like I’m going to set up housekeeping on Pluto.”

“There aren’t any settled colonies on Pluto.”

With a strangled laugh, Sunny pulled away. “Well, I guess that leaves that out. We’ll have to make do with a condo in Philly.”

Libby studied Sunny’s face, and her expression gradually changed. The tears that had dampened her eyes dried. “You don’t understand, do you?”

“I understand that I love J.T. and he loves me. We haven’t talked about life commitments yet, but it’s only a matter of time.” She stopped, wary. “Libby, why are you looking at me as though you want to wring my neck?”

“Not yours.” Libby’s voice had firmed. She might be the quieter of the two, but when those she loved were threatened she could put an Amazon queen to shame. “The bastard.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said he’s a bastard.”

Sisterly love notwithstanding, Sunny’s hackles were rising. “Now look, Libby—”

She shook her head. She wasn’t about to be stopped now. “Did he tell you he loved you?”

Nearly out of patience, Sunny snapped off an oath. Then: “Yes.”

“And you’ve gone to bed with him.”

Sunny’s eyes narrowed. “Have you been taking lessons from Dad?”

“Of course you’ve gone to bed with him,” Libby muttered, pacing the room. “He’s made you fall in love with him, taken you to bed, and hasn’t had the decency to tell you.”

Sunny’s foot was tapping a rapid tattoo. “Tell me what?”

“That he and Cal are from the twenty-third century.”

Sunny’s foot stopped. In the sudden silence, she gaped at Libby. All that sun, she thought. Her poor sister had had her brain fried in Bora Bora. Slowly she crossed the room.

“Lib, I want you to lie down while I get you a cold cloth.”

“No.” Still fueled by fury, Libby shook her head. “You sit down while I go get you a brandy. Trust me. You’re going to need it.”

***

When Cal stepped onto the bridge of the ship, the wave of nostalgia rolled over him like warm water. The cargo planes he piloted in the life he’d chosen satisfied his need to fly, but they weren’t much of a challenge. Unable to resist, he ran his hands over the command console.

“She’s a beauty, J.T. New model?”

“Yes, I thought it best to have it designed specifically for this trip. We made some adjustments for heat and maneuverability.”

Cal couldn’t prevent his hand from gripping the throttle. “I’d like to take her up, see what she can do.”

“Be my guest.”

Cal laughed. “We’d be spotted in the first thousand miles and find ourselves on the front page of the National Enquirer.”

“Which is?”

“You have to see some things for yourself.” Reluctantly he turned away from the console and temptation. Again he studied Jacob’s face, feature by feature. “God, it’s good to see you.”

“How could you do it, Cal?”

Blowing out a long breath, he sat in the pilot’s chair. “It’s a long story.”

“I read the report.”

Cal gave him a long, steady look. “Some things don’t come through in reports. You’ve seen her.”

“Yes, I’ve seen her.”

“I love her, J.T. I couldn’t begin to tell you how much.”

Jacob felt a spark of empathy and banked it down. He couldn’t think of Sunny now. “We thought you were dead. Almost six months.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” Jacob swung to the viewscreen to stare out at the snow. “Five months and twenty-three days after you were reported lost, your ship crash landed about sixty kilometers from the McDowell base in the Baja. Empty. We had your reports.” His gaze flashed back to his brother. “And I had to watch Mom and Dad grieve all over again.”

“I wanted you to know where I was. And why. J.T., I didn’t plan this. You saw the log.”

“I saw it.” His jaw set. “You should be dead. I calculated the probability factor of you pulling out of that void in one piece. There was none.” For the first time he smiled. “You’ve always been a hell of a pilot, Cal.”

“Yeah, but you can’t input fate into computer banks.” He’d thought about that long and hard over the past months. “I was meant for Libby, J.T. You can calculate into the next millennium and that won’t change. As much as I love you, I can’t leave her and go back.”

In silence, J.T. studied him. He hated most of all that he understood. Weeks before, only weeks, he would have argued, shouted. He would have locked Cal in a cabin and taken off for home without giving him a choice. “Does she love you as much?”

A ghost of a smile played on Cal’s lips. “She never asked me to stay. In fact, she did everything she could to help me prepare for the return trip. She even asked to go with me. She would have given up everything.”

“Instead, you stayed here. You gave up everything.”

“Do you think it was easy for me to make the choice?” Cal demanded. He pushed himself out of the chair, driven by fury and frustration. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Damn it, there was no choice. I didn’t know if the ship would make it back, and I couldn’t risk her life. I was prepared to risk my own, but not hers. If I had left her, I would have been right back in the void again. And I wouldn’t have cared.”

Jacob didn’t want to understand. But he did. “I’ve spent two years working on perfecting this time-travel procedure, having this ship designed, fine-tuning all the equations. I’m not saying that more work, more study, isn’t necessary, but I made it without any major problems. The success factor is 88.57. Come home, Cal, and bring her with you.”

Cal stared at the viewscreen. He’d learned a great deal over the past year. The most important lesson was that life was not simple. The choices to be made could not be made lightly.

“There’s another piece of data you haven’t considered, J.T. Libby’s pregnant.”