I'll Be Seeing You Through Time (The Dimension Keepers) (5 page)

“Thanks for asking, but no.”

“Come on, please. You’re the only gal here who isn’t with someone tonight.”

Jewel looked down when his fingers touched her hand.

“Just one dance?” he asked again.

Her chest felt tight, but she knew she had to move ahead with her life. Glenn wasn’t coming back. She asked the bartender to watch her equipment and let Jim lead her to the dance floor. When she stiffened, he loosened his hold on her waist.

“It’s only a dance,” he said with a smile. “I’m not asking to get married.”

“I know.” She fought back tears and dropped her head to his shoulder. He was a nice man and just asking for a dance. He wasn’t there to change her life. Her life already changed and she wasn’t ready to move on.

The band began to play,
Stardust.

Jim stepped back and asked, “So why do you think that Artie Shaw divorced Lana Turner? I can never imagine
anyone
divorcing Lana Turner.”

Jim’s abstract question made her smile. “Maybe he didn’t like blondes?”

“Who doesn’t like blondes…” he paused, looking at her and then added, “But you’re kind of cute for a redhead.”

“I think that was meant to be a compliment. Speaking of blondes, I took some great photos of Veronica Lake tonight. If you stop by the photo lab tomorrow, I’ll make you a copy of her photo and maybe if she comes back you could have her autograph it.”

He took her hand and twirled her in a circle. “I’ll be there. I have a collection of pin-up gals going in my locker. Do you think there might be a chance I could get a few more prints for the other guys? Maybe five? I would be the hit of the barracks.”

“I can do that, but for tonight, I need to head back to turn in the equipment.” Jewel excused herself when the song finished.

“Sure,” he said. “See you tomorrow?”

A large part of her knew she needed to get out more but the part called her heart wouldn’t let her go. When she returned to the barracks she took the pills the doctor gave her to help her sleep. The pills were good. When she swallowed them it meant, on most nights, Glenn was in her dreams.

Somewhere in-between

Glenn was behind her on the beach. His strong arms encircled her waist. Jewel leaned back into him and tipped her head letting the breeze ruffle her hair.

“I miss you so much,” Glenn whispered into her ear as he nuzzled the lobe of her ear.

She took a breath of the moist sea air and watched the gulls swoop overhead. Turning on the pads of her feet, she wound her hands behind his neck. Dropping to her knees she pulled him down to the warm sand beside her.

He ran a slow glance over her face, down her arms and to her breasts. The subtle scan accelerated her pulse.

Jewel drew his shirt open and explored the texture and taste of his skin. The roughness of the coarse brown hair tickled her lips as her tongue touched an erect nipple. She looked down the deserted beach and knew that she had the power if she wanted. She wouldn’t… couldn’t let him go this time.

Their eyes met as she slid the silky material of her dress off one shoulder. Jewel worked the material lower seeing Glenn’s eyes darken with desire as she exposed each inch of skin. Bending forward she lowered her breast to his mouth. His eyes closed and his hands moved her closer. The tip of his tongue traced her nipple sending a shudder of desire through her.

In a swift move, he flipped her onto her back and kissed her. She began to tell him how much she wanted him to truly be there, but he silenced her with a finger to her lips.

“You’re killing me—” He smoothed a hand down her arm and kissed the underside of her jaw.

“I can’t.” A lump formed in her throat and she felt a tear skitter down her cheek.” You’re already dead.” She paused and took in a breath. “I can’t do this anymore. I thought I was strong but I’m not.”

He pulled back. “What?”

“I can’t do this anymore. You’re dead. I can’t be with you no matter how much I want it. I’d do anything to change that.” She sat up, pulled up the sleeve of her dress, and choked back a sob. Sniffing she looked back towards the parking lot and stopped. Jewel wiped away tears. With a puzzled expression on her face, she asked, “Do you see that car?” She pointed. “Why does it look like that?”

Glenn turned, surprised by her question. A sleek red sports car pulled into the lot.

It wasn’t a car from her time, it was a car from his.

“No!” He shook his head until he came out of the dream and sat bolt upright in the bed.

The dream.
Jewel was pulling herself into his world through her dream. But how was that possible?

Chapter Seven

Glenn fought the fear of nodding off again and finally got out of bed. He spent the rest of the night going over the data charts. Now that he had the coffee machine figured out, he’d put it to good use and drink a few pots.

After several
hours of scrolling the sheets, his finger paused.
There.
The numbers suddenly popped out.

He looked at the clock. It was after eight. Hopefully, Hadley would be awake.

Glenn dialed the number using the tiny, slim phone called a ‘cell.’. “Hadley, it’s Glenn. Can you come over? I think I’ve found something.”

Hadley was at the apartment in fifteen minutes and Glenn brought him into the room where he worked. Glenn sat on the couch and tipped the lamp for better light. He pointed. “See this shift in the numbers. This means there was a magnetic spike. It could be attributed to many natural causes, but I thought I’d start with San Francisco. This was the last place that we knew the bookstore to be, and where I traveled. Can you print out similar charts for, let’s say, just North America for the last six months? Maybe we can spot a similar flux.”

After Hadley ran the data on his computer, he sent it to a corner office supply store. When he returned, he laid the inch high stack on the table.

Glenn grinned, as he looked at the hundred or so pages. “Be careful what you wish for. This is a lot of numbers.” He circled the data he found on the older sheets. “This is the grid we’re looking for. How about I take half the sheets and you take the other half?”

After a few hours of searching the columns of data, Hadley pushed back from the table and groaned. “Numbers have never been my strong suit.”

“Well it’s a good thing that you found me then isn’t it?” Glenn answered.

Hadley looked at him for a long moment. “Don’t take this wrong, but you look like hell. Haven’t you been sleeping?”

“No. I barely slept last night.”

“Join the club, but I believe we carry different reasons. Yours isn’t because you were in search of an odd flavor of ice cream. Are you having a difficult time with the adjustment of times?”

“Not really.” Glenn sat back and rubbed his hands over his knees. “If I tell you why you’ll think I’m crazy.”

“I doubt it. We are time travelers. I don’t think what you say can in anyway shock me.”

“Every time I fall asleep, I dream of Jewel.”

“You loved her. I’m sure it’s normal.”

“I think that she is pulling me into her dreams. Here. In this time. That somehow, she is coming forward to be in my dreams.”

“Fascinating.”

“You think I’m crazy.”

“No.” Hadley shook his head. “I had similar dreams with Samantha. I think that when people are deeply connected, for whatever the reason, that the bonds somehow transcend time. Our dreams rest between worlds. You’re not crazy.”

“I can’t stop it. Every time I fall asleep, she’s there. I want her to move on, but she keeps pulling me in. Holding me to her. This time in the dream… she saw a car that I saw in town at a car show yesterday. It was a
Vittoria
sports car. I read the history of the company. It wasn’t founded until 1988, so how could Jewel see it? After the first dream I could still smell her perfume on the pillow. It’s like our worlds are mixing. I’m worried about her. She looked so sad and like she hadn’t slept or eaten in a week.”

“I’ll do anything I can to help.”

“I know you will, if I can come up with what the hell that is.”

Chapter Eight

1942

Jim arrived outside the darkroom at exactly the time he said he would. Jewel leaned against the hot metal wall and popped the cap off the glass Coke bottle with the bent metal edge of the siding. She handed him the black and white prints of Veronica Lake in a small paper bag.

He took the photos out and then slid them back in the bag. “Thanks.” Jim tipped his hat up and squinted into the sun. “I talked to the girls at the table after you left. They said that you don’t say much, but they knew that you were engaged. Your guy’s ship went down in the South Pacific.”

She tried to calm her shaking hands and clenched the Coke bottle tight. “That’s what happened. I just don’t want people to think I want sympathy.”

“I’m engaged too—a sweet girl back in Virginia.” He pulled a wrinkled leather wallet out and flipped it open to the girl’s photo.

Jewel took the wallet and inspected the wallet-sized print. “She’s a brunette. I was expecting a blonde.”

He smiled. “I like all girls. Blonde. Redhead. Brunette. I’m flying out to the front in a few days. I hope I come back.”

“You’ll come back.”

“I don’t want to ever see the hurt in my girl’s eyes that I saw in yours last night. I think it’s harder on the ones left behind than on the soldiers that die.”

It was true. Jewel had nothing more to add to that statement so she tried to lighten the subject. “How about I write to you when you’re gone? Any letters from the home front are good.”

“That would be great and thanks for the dance last night. It was nice to hold a girl in my arms one last time. Thanks again for the photos. I gotta get back to the airfield.” He kissed her cheek, winked, and then left.

Jewel finished her hours at the darkroom. She bowed out of dinner and went back to the barracks. The room was still stifling hot from the day’s heat, but it didn’t matter. Shaking an extra sleeping pill out into her hand, she swallowed it dry.

****

Glenn fought to stay awake. He’d downed nasty tasting drinks with bulls on the label. The man at the corner store told him the drink would help keep him awake. But he was heading toward twenty hours, and it was silly to think he could stay alert forever.

He’d studied the data and found a correlation in the points. In the morning he would tell Hadley.

He propped himself up in the living room chair but his eyes felt heavy and itchy.

A warm body snuggled next to him. That smell.
Skylark.

Somewhere in-between

He opened his eyes and Jewel was next to him on the couch of the apartment. She looked up and smiled.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said.

Glenn looked around. She was here, in his apartment… and he was asleep. Wasn’t he? Good God.

He wanted to push her away, but he couldn’t force himself to do it. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t either of their faults. His heart slammed in his chest. One of them needed to stay in control, but she was so close…

“I love you,” she whispered.

He kissed her, possessed her mouth, claiming what was once his. The kiss seemed to go on endlessly, deeper, until he thought he would die from wanting.

Jewel gave him a sweet kiss with such emotion it shook him to the core. Her moist lips opened to take in the tip of his tongue. He took advantage and ran it along the seam. A tiny moan escaped her mouth.

Glenn knew this was wrong. He pushed away. “We have to stop. We can’t do this anymore.”

She didn’t open her eyes but smiled a vacant Mona Lisa smile. “You’re wrong. This can go on forever.”

Okay, she was scaring him now. He grabbed her by the upper arms and gave her a little shake.

Finally she opened her big green eyes. “I thought joining the Marines would make a difference, but it hasn’t. More young men are just going to go off to war, one at a time, and then are gone.” She snapped her fingers in the air.

“You need to stop this and move on.”

“I can stop it anytime… the doctor gave me pills…”

A rock dropped through the bottom of Glenn’s stomach. “That’s not what I meant.”

Her eyes finally focused on him. She shook her arm free. “You can’t tell me what to do. You’re dead. I make my own decisions! If I go back to where it all began… our place, maybe things will change and then you’ll be there.”

“Don’t do anything stupid. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I have no one. Soon, I’ll be here with you.”

Glenn went to reach for her but her image shimmered and faded.

“No!” he cried and fought to hold on to her but it was useless.

He woke up alone. She was gone. This time
she
left the dream, and the dread he now felt told him that he didn’t have much time.

Glenn grabbed the stack of papers off the table and ran for the door. He barely remembered driving his new car to Hadley’s house, but the next thing he knew he was pounding his fist on the front door.

A dog barked in another room as Hadley opened the door and rubbed sleep from his eyes. Glenn pushed past him into the living room.

“My God, what’s the matter?” Sam asked as she hurried down the stairs to meet them. She pulled her robe closed over her pajamas and stopped when she was beside them.

“It’s Jewel. We have to do something. She’s going to kill herself to be with me. There was another dream tonight… she’s going… you have to help me.” Desperation tinged his words.

Sam wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Oh Glenn, I’m so sorry.”

“There has to be something we can do,” he pleaded.

“We can’t travel in dreams, only through the bookstore,” Hadley said, and looked grim.

Glenn ran toward the dining room table and threw open the file he’d carried under his arm. He shuffled through the papers until he stopped and pointed. “Here!” he shouted. “I checked the numbers. If you add them together I found that they are longitude and latitude. The bookstore. It’s in Portland, Oregon. We have to go there.”

“You’re sure about this?” Hadley asked.

“No, but I’m as sure as I am about anything anymore. It’s worth a chance. I think I have it pinpointed to the area and maybe even the block. Please… we have to try and stop her!”

Hadley looked over at Sam. She nodded and said, “I’ll check the internet for a red-eye flight to Portland while you get dressed. Let me throw on a coat and I’ll drive you.”