Time Enough for Love (11 page)

She nodded, wondering when he looked into her eyes if he saw a still-smoldering echo of the love they’d shared in the early-morning light.

Maggie had never experienced anything like that before in her entire life.

It had been wild and raw—by far the best sex she’d ever had. Ever.

But it had been so much more than that too.

She had never felt so connected, so in tune with another human being.

She had never felt so complete.

Except after they’d made love, after they’d exhausted their desire, after he’d pulled her into his arms and held her, he hadn’t said a single word.

Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe she didn’t need him to talk to her. Maybe his nonverbal skills would make up for his deficiencies in the more traditional types of communication.

She leaned toward him to kiss him, hoping to engage in more of that nonverbal communication.

But Chuck met her lips only briefly before he pulled away. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, sitting for a moment with his back to her. “It’s nearly four-thirty. We need to start getting ready.”

She sat up, touching his back. “Ready for what? I’m in no hurry to go anywhere.” She pressed herself against him as she kissed his shoulder, encircling
him with her arms, her hand encountering the muscles of his taut stomach, then sliding even lower. “Are you sure I can’t talk you into—”

Chuck caught her hand. “Maggie, we need to go.” He stood up, grabbing his jeans from the floor and pulling them on in one swift motion. “If you want to take a shower, you should do it now.”

He wanted her, Maggie knew he did. He was far more than half-aroused. It was something of a challenge for him to zip his jeans.

“I want to take a shower—but I want you to take it with me,” she said boldly. She stood up, too, making no move to cover herself.

For some reason, he was back to trying to resist her. She didn’t know why, but if she had her way, that resistance was going to crumble, and soon.

But when he turned to look at her, the heat and desire that flared in his eyes was tempered with a profound sadness.

“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do more,” he told her quietly. “But we’re running out of time. I need you to intercept Charles before he leaves for the Data Tech party.”

He needed her to …

“Please, Mags,” he continued. “Take a shower, and get dressed.”

He turned away, taking the slinky dress from its
hanger. As Maggie watched, he disappeared into the bathroom, and she heard him hang it on the back of the door. He came back out, stepping aside for her.

But she didn’t move.
Get dressed.
He didn’t seriously expect her to put on that dress and …

But he did. Maggie saw that fact in his face, in his eyes. He still expected her to use that sexy dress to try to seduce Charles.

No, she couldn’t believe that. Not after the way he’d made love to her. She
wouldn’t
believe it. He must have something else in mind.

“You said I wouldn’t be able to go to the party—that the Wizard-9 agents would be waiting for me!” Her words came out in barely a whisper.

“You aren’t going to the party,” he told her. “
I
am.” He took one of the bath towels and shook it open. He handed it to her as if hoping she’d use it to wrap around herself. But Maggie still didn’t move. She couldn’t move.

“But they’ll kill you.”

“No, they won’t. They need Charles alive, remember? To develop the Wells Project. When I go to the party, they’ll think I’m Charles.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Ken Goodwin’s men are probably watching Charles’s condo, because they know that sooner or
later I’m going to try to contact him,” Chuck explained. “They’ve probably been following him wherever he goes, only this time they’re not going to follow him, they’re going to follow
me
. I’m going to get my hair cut and pick up a tux and—”

“You’re going to sneak in the back door of the condo and come out the front, pretending to be Charles,” Maggie realized.

“That’s the general idea,” Chuck agreed. “But Wizard-9 is surely watching both the front door
and
the back. There’s no way I could get into the condo without being seen.”

He took the towel from her hands and gently wrapped it around her. “I was trying to figure out how to make this work when I remembered I left for the party about ninety minutes early. I went into Data Tech to get some work done up in the lab before I had to make an appearance downstairs. But I’d been up late the night before, and before I got into my car, I stopped at the Circle K on the corner to get a cup of coffee to go.”

“So Charles will come into the convenience store.…”

“And
I’ll
come out. I’ll take his car and go to Data Tech. The Wizard-9 agents will follow me.”

“But if you’re both in the Circle K, Charles will see you.”

“No, he won’t. He’ll only see
you
.”

This wouldn’t work. There had to be a reason why this wouldn’t work. Maggie grasped at anything. “How will you get Charles’s car keys? If you don’t want him to see you—”

Chuck’s mouth twisted into a half smile. “You know I don’t need keys to start a car.”

Maggie drew in a deep sob of air. “So there I am, with Charles in the Circle K. What is it exactly that you expect me to do?” She knew. She just wanted to hear him say it.

His gaze was steady. “You can’t go with him back to his place—Wizard-9 probably has the condo bugged. We’ll get a suite at the Century Hotel. It’s right around the corner. You can take him there.”

“You want me to take him to a hotel room.”

“Yes.”

She hugged the towel tightly. “I can’t believe you intend for me to go through with this!” Yes, she’d told him that all she’d wanted was one night, but she couldn’t believe after the intensity of what they’d shared …

Chuck stood there, dressed only in jeans. Her scent still clung to his skin, his hair was still disheveled from her fingers, and his body was still responding to her nearness.

He was her lover. He was the man she had let
steal her heart. But while her eyes may have been filled with tears, his were dry, his face set in an expression of determination.

“We have no choice,” he said quietly.

“I’m not going to do it.” Her lip was trembling, so she lifted her chin defiantly, hoping the one would cancel out the other and she would look as determined as he did.

He took a step toward her. “Maggie, he’s
me
. It’s not as if I’m asking you to be with some other man.”

“He’s
not
you. He’s only a part of you. He doesn’t even know me!”

He drew his hand through his hair in a gesture of pure frustration. “He
is
me. The same way you’re still the same Maggie I’ve cared so much about for the past seven years.”

That stopped her. Was she? Was she truly the same? Chuck had mentioned that the Maggie he had known had changed—that time and a lousy relationship had made her quieter, less sarcastic, perhaps more compassionate and understanding. When Chuck looked at her, did he see a mere shadow of the woman she was to become? Did he miss the maturity and growth that seven extra years of life had surely brought?

Was she nothing more than a poor substitute for the Maggie he truly cared about?

She sank down onto the bed. “Chuck, please. I don’t want to be with Charles. I want to be with
you
. Why can’t we simply let events play themselves out?”

Chuck didn’t reach for her, didn’t try to comfort her. Instead he slowly sat on the other bed. “We can’t.”

Maggie wiped at her face, trying to push away the flood of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. “Why not?”

He gazed at her. “Because in approximately fifty-one hours, Wizard-9 will be able to reactivate the Runabout. They’ll make another jump—to just a few days into the past this time. And this time they’ll get here before me. They’ll be waiting to kill me. And then you won’t find a naked man in your backyard. You’ll find a naked
dead
man.”

“Oh, my God! Only
fifty-one
hours …?” Maggie fought a wave of panic.

“The clock’s ticking, Maggie. We’ve got to get moving.”

“But …” She stared at him, her mind whirling. “Maybe we’re going about this all wrong. Maybe instead of trying to keep Charles from developing the Wells Project, we should be trying to find where Wizard-9 has the Runabout. If we could destroy it—”

“That wouldn’t be enough. If I’m allowed to
continue with my work—” Chuck broke off, shaking his head.

She waited for him to explain, but he didn’t say anything more.

She moved toward him then, taking his hands and kneeling on the floor at his feet, prepared to beg if she had to.

“Please.
Why
wouldn’t it work? Tell me what you’re thinking! Talk to me, Chuck! Tell me what you’re feeling! I want to know.”

His eyes were a blaze of intensity. “I can’t. There are things you shouldn’t know about the future.”

“I don’t give a
damn
about the future. It’s all going to be different now anyway,” she said, gesturing toward the bed where they’d shared such incredible love just a few short hours before. “I don’t know about you, but
I’m
never going to be the same!”

The sadness in his eyes only deepened, and his words seemed to catch in his throat. If Maggie hadn’t known better, she would have thought he was going to cry. “It’s not going to be different enough.”

Her towel fell off her as she moved up and onto his lap. She held on to him, needing to be closer to him, her arms locked around his neck. “I don’t care!”

“Maybe you should.” His voice was ragged as he clung to her, holding her as tightly as she held him. “Maggie, you should. God knows
I
care!”

He kissed her fiercely, taking her mouth, stealing her breath, touching her very soul. There were tears on his face. Chuck Della Croce was actually crying.

He seemed to draw strength from her as his hands skimmed the warmth of her body, as he cradled her close to his heart. He kissed her again, softly now, sweetly.

“The day I left my time,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper in the quiet of the room, “only an hour before I appeared in your yard … Maggie, I held you while you died.”

Maggie couldn’t say a word. She had died. She
would
die. Seven years in the future, she was going to die.

“I went to Data Tech,” he continued. “You were there. Ken Goodwin didn’t know it, but one of the lab cameras was on and you saw the Wizard-9 agents kill Boyd Rogers, my security chief, on the monitor in another lab. You knew I was next, and you tried to warn me.

“We tried to get away, but they started shooting. You stepped in front of me, Maggie, and you took a bullet meant for me.” His voice shook. “I locked us both in one of the computer labs, and I held you
while you died. Your heart stopped beating, and your eyes glazed over and you were gone. You were
gone
!” He took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, his voice rang with a hard certainty. “I will not let that happen again.”

“We can run away,” she whispered. “We can destroy the Runabout and then we can hide. You’re good at hiding—no one will ever find us.”

“We’d have to kill the Wizard-9 agents as well as destroy the Runabout,” Chuck said quietly. “If we didn’t, they’d simply wait seven years, and then warn themselves about me. They’d let their own selves know about the prototype in my basement, about their failed attempt to kill me. They’d get me before I even left my house that morning.” He shook his head. “As long as Charles is out there, they can get to me. And once I’m gone, they’ll kill you, too, just to be safe.”

Maggie was silent.

“I’ve got to stop this before it starts.” He kissed her gently. “I’ve opened a terrible Pandora’s box,” he told her. “Please, Mags, you’ve got to help me nail it shut.”

C
HECKING TO MAKE
sure his car keys were in his pants pocket, Dr. Charles Della Croce stepped out of the front door of his townhouse condominium, locking it behind him.

The Thanksgiving party at Data Tech didn’t start until seven. He was more than an hour and a half early. He was planning to go over now, spend some time in the lab, put in an appearance at the cocktail hour, then leave before the tedium of the actual dinner began.

Unless Maggie Winthrop showed up.

If she showed, without a date, he’d stay for dinner.

He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her
since she’d appeared at his table in Papa John’s Eatery. He’d done a little investigation, and found out that she was, indeed, a freelance writer, hired by the corporation for several short-term projects. He’d dug a little further and found an address for her, and a phone number.

He’d even found out that she’d been issued an invitation to tonight’s shindig. But whether or not she was going to attend was still a mystery.

He’d gone as far as calling her to find out if perhaps she’d want to go with him. But he’d only reached her answering machine, and she’d never called him back.

Maybe she was out of town.

Or maybe she wasn’t as interested as she’d led him to believe at Papa John’s.

Maybe that kiss they’d shared hadn’t made her head spin the way his had. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss.

His car was parked on the street, and as he started toward it a wave of fatigue hit him. He turned, heading for the Circle K on the corner and the self-serve coffee inside.

He’d been up well until dawn the night before, working on his time-travel theories. He was close. He was
so
damned close, but it was still out of his
grasp. He’d stayed awake until five-thirty, working the equations, again and again.

He’d slept only two hours before he had to get up and go in to work. He’d told no one at Data Tech about his work with time-travel. His theories weren’t ready yet for public scrutiny. But maybe soon …

He went toward the back of the convenience store, where the brewed pots of coffee simmered on burners. He poured himself a large cup and then turned, searching for the correct-size lid.