A Twist in Time (25 page)

“Jake Lowell,” Evans intoned. “Bought the apartment building for cash in ’77. Tenants say he got the limp in ’Nam. But there’s no service record for a Jake Lowell, or Jacob, or Jackson, or any of those as a middle name. No records at all, military or otherwise, before the purchase.”

Evans cracked a smile. “Jake Lowell is not what he seems.”

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“Excellent,” Casey muttered. “Just excellent. Let’s have a talk with Mr. Lowell, while you find out just where he got such a big payout, and for what services.”

“Could be mob money, drug money.”

“Maybe.” Casey doubted it. He was beginning to smell something much closer to home.

“So, you ready for the car?”

Galen took a breath and let it out, remembering how fast the thing had gone when they rode in it before. He pulled the lever that opened the door and got in.
“Ja.
I will learn how to drive this cart as you do.” He set his jaw. “You will teach me, Lucy.”

“
That’s
a disaster waiting to happen,” she muttered as she slid behind the wheel. He didn’t understand those words. But he got her tone.

“You think I cannot do this?”

“Can we go on our quest first?” She was giving him that look of exasperation. He knew why. It was the kiss. It had unnerved her. He swallowed. It had unnerved him, too.

“
Ja,
” he answered. For a single instant, she had been so soft, so yielding. He had wanted nothing more than to protect her from her world. For an instant on the deck, she had revealed most clearly that she wanted him and that, even more important, she might let him protect her. When had that become important to him?

He cleared his throat and sat up, grasping the handle on the door to this car with the hand of his injured right shoulder. “We will now go fast.” He braced himself for that unnerving speed.

She reached around him and pulled a thick strap with an iron tongue on it across him and snapped it into a kind of a buckle on his left side as she had before. “Seat belts, everyone.”

The car backed up, slowly, turned as she turned the wheel, then started up the dirt track. As they approached a crossroads, other cars tore by, very fast, in both directions. Lucy took her foot from a lever on the floor and pressed another pad. The car stopped. She pulled a lever by the wheel with her left hand and a rhythmic sound began. He craned to see what she was doing. A little green light blinked, pointing left. She looked both ways, waited for some other cars to whiz by, and then pressed the lever on the floor. The car went onto the slicker, black road. She pressed down harder and the car sped up. He was ready. He braced himself with his good hand on the seat and pushed his feet against the floor. Marshes and reed beds flew past.

He steadied his breathing.
Not so bad.
How many leagues could you go in one day with a cart such as this? No horses to feed. No need to worry about their stamina. Was there?

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“Does the cart grow weary?”

“Weary?” She glanced from the road to him. Her mouth tried not to smile.

He nodded. “Weary.” He liked it when she tried not to smile. Someday, maybe she would not try. She would just smile many times in a day.

“No. But you must give it gasoline. Like food. It goes until it has no more gas.”

They came to a very large village, though its halls were not as high as the ones the first night.

She pulled the cart in among many others standing in rows in front of a huge building that looked like a squat castle stretching away into the distance. At several points huge stacked towers stretched even farther into the air. Carts roamed the aisles, pulling in and out. It was a maze of confusion. Did everyone in this time have such wonderful carts?

“Since I don’t want to become familiar, let’s try Macy’s this time.” She unbuckled her own thick strap and got out of the car. He pressed the metal buckle as she did, and the strap snapped back into a little, hard house at his shoulder. He unfolded himself from the car. People were walking in and out of doors made entirely of glass into total darkness within a huge tower of the castle. The young women wore breeches and tight, revealing tops like Lucy or tiny skirts that left their legs bare, the older women were clad in baggy breeches and voluminous smocks.

The men shoes that laced and tight breeches and shirts in bright colors. Many were blue. This must be a rich time to have enough woad to dye so much cloth blue.

As he and Lucy approached, the doors opened by magic. He followed Lucy, who was striding toward the open maw of darkness. He straightened his shoulders and tried to breathe. This was an everyday thing for her. She was not frightened of this magic or the darkness. Quests demanded courage of a man. Was he not the first of his king’s warriors?

Galen tried not to limp as he followed her into the darkness. It wasn’t dark. He froze. The interior of this castle was lighted without lamps, like the place in which he had first wakened, but not so brightly. Small round moons in the ceiling glowed. The floor was hard and smooth, with earth-colored tiles much finer even than the tiles the people made in the lands around the southern sea. People were everywhere, walking briskly, or strolling to look at more goods than he had ever seen. Shelves and tables stretched away into the distance. A stairway moved upward of its own accord, taking riders with it. He swallowed.

“Move it, buddy. You’re blocking traffic,” an old man said, pushing by him.

He swallowed again. He could do this. He took Lucy’s arm. That felt better.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Okay” was the word she used to indicate that all was well. He’d heard her use the word to reassure herself. “Let’s find you some clothes and shoes.”

He took a breath and let her guide him. She seemed to know her way.

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Lucy headed down to the men’s department. Galen was holding her arm, and she didn’t shake him off in spite of the nagging trill that sent down her spine. The look on his face was half wonder, half fear, and she couldn’t help but admire the way he faced such a foreign situation.

He was a brave man. She wouldn’t deny him the solace of contact with a friend.

A friend. That’s what she’d be to him, for as long as it took to get him back to a time he understood. Now if she could just get rid of the nagging trill. Well, the first thing was not to kiss him again. They’d more than convinced the other marina dwellers they were besotted with each other. Mission accomplished. So no more kissing.

She stopped at a rack of jeans. “Here we go.”

“These are like the cloth of your
brec,
Lucy.”

“Yes. Jeans. Men wear them, too.” She flipped through the rack.

“I look like other men. Good for hiding.”

“Not if you talk about hiding so loudly,” she whispered, frowning.

He examined the jeans. “The cloth is for
ceorls,
yet it is dyed with woad.”

“Ceorls?”

He repeated in Latin.

“Peasants? Oh. Because it’s rough. But it wears many years.” Woad was what they used to get blue color back then—some kind of a rock they ground up or something. She held a pair up to his backside and blew out a breath. She knew nothing about men’s jean sizes.

“Can I help you?” A young man with slicked-back black hair, a red satin acetate shirt, and pointy-toed black boots approached. Lucy sighed in relief. Here was someone who could help.

Good ole San Francisco.

“My friend doesn’t speak English very well. He needs a new wardrobe. Can you help us figure out sizes?”

The kid’s eyes slid over to Galen. Up. Down. Lingering on the important aspects. “Gladly, mademoiselle,” he said. No one said that anymore. His nose wrinkled at Galen’s smelly boots, sweats, and plaid flannel shirt that wouldn’t button. “Obviously time for a makeover.”

The kid’s name tag said:
Brendon
. “I leave him totally in your hands.”
Oops.

Brendon’s eyes slid over to her for one shocked moment. Then he sighed. He must know Galen was never going to be in his hands. On the other hand, he got a chance to dress Galen. “Mais
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oui, mademoiselle.” His head swiveled as he scanned his stock. “He has a rugged look, which we will accentuate with traditional five-oh-ones. Buttons or zipper?”

“Zipper.” Better keep the buttons to a minimum. Though Jake’s shirt was a little small, Galen hadn’t tried buttoning a single one.

Brendon scanned Galen once again. “I think . . .” He tapped his chin with one finger. “Thirty-four/thirty-fours.” He picked a pair of jeans from the rack. “I’ll pick out some shirts.”

“No
hemeth
like this.” Galen pointed to the red acetate shirt that shimmered on Brendon.

“No, no, no.” Brendon rolled his eyes. “You couldn’t carry this off in a million years.” He gave Lucy the jeans and indicated the dressing rooms. “But never fear, I shall provide.”

“Can you find him a jacket, too? We need something waterproof.”

Brendon grinned. “I’m on the job.”

Galen was stiff and glowering as she took his hand and drew him to the dressing room. “Don’t look like that,” she said. “He’s sweet.”

“I do not wish to eat him.” Galen’s brow grew even darker.

“ ‘Sweet’ sometimes can mean ‘kind.’ ‘Good.’ ” She drew him into the big dressing room and closed the curtain. “ ‘Vulnerable.’ Like the Latin word.”

She watched Galen’s face take on a rueful cast. “We have such ones as he in my time.”

“Then you know he needs protection, not hate.” She’d bet anything “hate” was the same in his time as in hers.

Galen’s lips pressed together in a grim line and he nodded.

“He will help us.” She handed Galen the jeans.

He kicked off his smelly boots, peeled his shirt off, and pushed down his sweats. Lucy tossed his boots out under the curtain. When she turned back, Galen stood in his boxers, unbuttoning the jeans, but he was nonplussed by the zipper.

“Here,” she said, pulling it down.

His intake of breath was sharp. He pulled the zipper up again. He pulled it down. His eyes lifted to her, stunned.

She couldn’t help the giggle. “It’s a zipper.”

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He pulled on the jeans over the stitches on his thigh and his boxers, jerked up the zipper tab, worked at the button. She swallowed. The jeans rode his hips. Which left ridges of muscle that disappeared into the waistband and the vee of light brown hair that pointed downward. The only thing that kept his body from perfection was the horrible stitches across his shoulder.

“Is good,” he said, looking at his reflection in the long mirror. “I look like your time.”

“How are they with your stitches—your wound?”

Galen shrugged. “Good enough.” However he spelled it in his mind, it sounded the same.

Steps sounded outside the dressing room. “Excusezmoi,” Brendon trilled. He peeked through the curtain with an armload of shirts, sweaters, and socks. “G-goodness. Well, those fit.” Galen turned and Brendon saw the stitches. “Ouch!” he exclaimed. “That’s one nasty wound.”

“Car accident,” Lucy improvised. “Which is why he only has the clothes on his back. His luggage was destroyed in the fire.”

“Car fire?” Brendon looked horrified. “He’s lucky to be alive.” Brendon averted his gaze, suddenly shy. “Well, uh. Here are some shirts that might work. I’m guessing seventeen-and-a-half collar with thirty-three sleeves and extra large for the sweaters and pullovers. He’s . . .”

Brendon cleared his throat. “He’s a pretty big guy.”

Lucy sorted through the booty and picked out several. A work shirt, a pullover sweater with a collar and a zipper at the neck, a couple of thick waffled Henleys. Brandon had brought soft blues to match Galen’s eyes, a kind of gold/beige to match his hair, and chocolate brown. “Put on one of these,” she said to Galen, and slipped out to speak to Brendon.

“Can you dispose of these boots?” she asked, making a face. “And find us some Nikes.”

“Certainly, mademoiselle.” He picked them up with two fingers.

Lucy thought she probably owed him an explanation. “Gutting fish. A bucket overturned.” She was getting tangled up in her lies again. “Uh . . . before the car accident. You know how Scandinavians are about fish.”

Brendon rolled his eyes. “Herring. They all eat herring.” His eyes slid over to the curtain.

“Apparently makes them big and strong, though. I’ll get him all the accessories.”

Brendon disappeared with only one longing backward glance.
Sheesh, as bad as the nurse.

Anyone would give their eyeteeth to hook up with this guy. Anyone except her of course.

Lucy returned to Galen. He was pulling his hair from under the collar of the work shirt. She held up the shirt-tail. “Inside your breeches.” While he unfastened his jeans and tucked, she buttoned all except the top two buttons. Her knuckles couldn’t help but scrape his chest hair.

She chewed her lips and worked fast so she could step back. He fumbled at buttoning the jeans
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again. It took all his attention. That allowed her to look her fill.
Whoa.
The tenth-century Viking had disappeared, and in his place stood one hunk of a modern man. This guy would turn heads anywhere. Not good for hiding, but at least the beard and the braids were gone.

Brendon returned with a lined windbreaker that was just what she’d had in mind and a bomber jacket in chocolate brown, another pair of jeans and some brown cords, some Nikes, and a pair of Frye boots. A couple of belts in both brown and black leather with brass buckles hung over his shoulder.

“Leather,” Galen said, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the bomber jacket and the boots. He pulled on both carefully. She helped him get his other arm in the jacket. This might be the garment most familiar to him. Lucky he hadn’t spotted any leather pants or she probably wouldn’t have been able to talk him out of the sleazy rock star look.