Time Thief: A Time Thief Novel (14 page)

I reminded myself that not only was he a man who had just been stabbed, but he was also harassing a very nice old woman who paid my wages.

“How come you’re annoying Mrs. Faa?” I asked, apropos of the latter.

“I’m not annoying her. How the hell do you start this thing?”

“She says you’re annoying her. You were poking around her RV and stuff last night. And evidently her grandson, or grandsons plural, stabbed you. Why did they stab you, Peter? What is this vial you’re looking for, and which you think I took, but I didn’t? And why can you bend over double like that when you were all bloody and stuff last night?”

“That is a great many questions. I don’t feel inclined to tell you the answer to any of them,” he told me, sitting up, his face flushed. “How do you start the car? Is there a trick to it?”

“Yes. I don’t feel inclined to tell you the answer,” I said, watching with interest as he pressed whatever buttons he could find. “What exactly is the Watch?”

He shot me an irritated look. “You’re not going to pretend to be innocent, are you? That really annoys me, and I can assure you that I’m about at my limit of annoyance lately, what with having the vial stolen, and being stabbed, and being ambushed in my own motel room.”

“Ouch.” Just seeing him gave me more pleasure than I really should have acknowledged. There was something about him, though, some sense of need in him, that overrode all the warnings of ego, superego, and even my normally “do whatever makes you happy” id. I had an almost overwhelming urge to help him. It was odd, this urge, and I spent a few minutes trying to analyze just what was behind it.

“Ouch doesn’t begin to cover it. Just once I would like a simple, straightforward case, one where I could arrest the guilty, and get on with my life.”

“What is it you do when you’re not popping out at
women in the woods, or being stabbed?” I couldn’t help but ask.

A slight dull red tint rose on his cheeks. He looked even more annoyed than he did a moment before, but I was all that much more intrigued. He was blushing, actually blushing. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a man disconcerted by so innocent a question. Now I badly wanted to know more about him.

“What I do with my spare time isn’t important,” he said in a voice that was both haughty and grumpy.

“That bad, huh? Would it help if I guessed?”

“No. Just tell me how to start this car.”

“Let’s see,” I said, tipping my head to the side as I considered him. That was certainly no strain to my eyes. “Male model?”

“I said it isn’t important,” he snapped.

“No, I don’t think male model. You don’t have that Zoolander feeling to you, although I bet you’d do a heck of a Blue Steel.”

I swear he rolled his eyes.

“Porn star?”

He shot me a look filled with venom.

“No. Not a porn star. You’d be all—” I made a vague gesture and gave a little shudder. “You’d have that vibe, and I don’t feel that from you. Hmm. What else would make a grown man blush?”

“I did not blush. I’m simply hot.”

“You can say that again,” I said softly, and smiled brightly when he cast a startled glance at me. “Stripper.”

This time he really did roll his eyes. “No.”

“Clown at children’s birthday parties.”

“No!” he said louder.

“Door-to-door adult-toy salesman.”

“I am ceasing to listen to you. You may babble to your heart’s content. It will have no effect on me.” He actually started humming a tuneless little hum.

“Professional sperm donor?”

“For the love of the saints, woman!” he exploded. Not literally, of course, although he kind of looked like he wanted to.

“I thought you weren’t listening to me?”

“You are the single most irritating woman I have ever met,” he said, giving up with trying to get Eloise’s wires to cooperate. “And as I said, I am at my limit of annoyance.”

“If you’d answer my question, I wouldn’t have to keep guessing,” I pointed out. “I mean, it’s a fairly innocuous question. I’m happy to tell you what I do with my spare time—I like to knit, and design sweaters—but if you have some unsavory secret that you don’t want anyone to know—”

“Physics!” he all but bellowed at me. “I’m getting my doctorate in physics.”

I blinked at him. “You’re embarrassed because you’re going to college?”

He sighed, and banged his head on the steering wheel a couple of times. I could have told him that wouldn’t help. “I look at least twice as old as all the other students, and no, I’m not embarrassed about it. I’m simply trying to understand the nature of Travellers by exploring their relationship with time on a quantum level. If I can do that, perhaps I can find a way to change them, to make them see that they have so much to offer people, and that to continue with such an exclusionary attitude will sound the death knell of all.”

“Whoa, you lost me,” I said, making a gesture over my head. “Death knell? Really? I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who’s used that phrase in an actual sentence.”

He shot me a look. I grinned.

“I’m glad you think that the extinction of our race is amusing.”

“I don’t. Not that I know what you’re talking about, but I don’t think the extinction of anything except animal and child abusers is good. You’re the second person who’s mentioned Travellers to me today, though. You are talking about the not-quite-Gypsy people like Mrs. Faa, yes?”

“I am.”

“Well, good luck with your project, whatever it is. I will say that I think it’s very cool that you’ve gone back to school. I’d love to go to art school and learn how to design well, but it’s really pricey. Good for you for living your dream.”

He grumbled something that sounded even more embarrassed. Clearly, he was a man who didn’t take compliments well.

“One last question…”

“I find that difficult to believe. You strike me as a woman who is full of questions.”

I ignored that bit of snark. “How exactly did you get out of my car last night?”

“I went through the window, since I couldn’t get the door open.”

“But you were unconscious. And bleeding. You said you’d been stabbed twice.”

“I
had
been stabbed twice.” He heaved himself over to the passenger seat, then shooed me away so he could
exit the car. “Once at my motel room, the second time at the lumber camp. Now it’s my turn to ask questions. What is your relationship with Lenore Faa?”

“I’ve told you twice now—I’m taking care of her pugs. Let me see your chest.”

His dark brown eyebrows rose.

I made a little gesture of denial. “You don’t have to get that look on your face. I’m not coming on to you.”

“Why?” He looked down at himself for a moment. “Do I disgust you?”

“Far from it. You’re really…and your eyes…I just want to bite…but that’s not why I asked. I want to see how badly you were stabbed.”

He watched me for a few seconds, then unbuttoned his shirt to the point where it was tucked into his jeans.

“Oh!” I said, reaching out without thinking to touch his right pectoral. “You have a lightning flower, too.”

He stiffened as my fingers trailed down the light tan marking that started at his right shoulder and crossed diagonally down to his breastbone. His skin was warm, much warmer than I imagined, and the little brown hairs on his chest were as soft as silk. My fingertips tingled as I looked into his eyes, suddenly extremely aware that we were standing together in near isolation. The world faded away to nothing, leaving behind just Peter and me in a little pocket of sun-drenched privacy. And I had my hand on his bare chest. His very manly bare chest.

He stiffened at the contact, his pupils dilating to fill those beautiful irises.

“Why are you staring at me?” he asked, and a little thrill went through me when I could feel his voice rumble around his chest beneath my fingers.

“I think my brain has stopped. My ego and superego
are stunned. My id has all sorts of ideas, but she’s not usually the best judge of actions in situations like this.”

“Your hand is on my chest,” he pointed out, sounding just the teeniest bit breathless. Oddly enough, I was suddenly breathless, too.

“Yes, yes, it is. Does that bother you?”

He considered that question for a moment or two. “No.” His gaze dropped first to my mouth, then to my breasts, which of course meant my nipples immediately went into full red alert, and hardened themselves into little hussies of breastitude.

“You’re doing that on purpose,” he accused, his voice now very husky, his gaze glued to my chest.

“I’m not now, nor have I ever been, in control of my nipples. They have a mind of their own.” I shivered a little despite the warmth of the day, and the fact that I was standing full in the sunlight with my hand on the chest of a man so hot, his skin felt like it was scorching my flesh.

I tried desperately to think of something that didn’t involve me suddenly jumping him and licking that gorgeous chest. I might not be able to control my lustful fantasies, but I was no fool, and despite the attraction I felt toward him, I wasn’t about to give in to such desires without knowing a whole lot more answers. With an effort, I swallowed back what felt like a gallon of saliva, and focused on the one thing that wouldn’t have me imagining just what the rest of him looked like all bare and glistening in the summer sun. “Were you hurt when you got struck by lightning?”

There emerged from his chest something that sounded like a cross between a growl and an oath. He leaned forward, his breath brushing my lips when he answered, “You know we do not get harmed by lightning.”

“I do?” I asked, my brain utterly consumed with the fact that he was so close to me, I could smell his sun-warmed skin. It was a good smell, a sexy smell, one that seemed to wrap around me little spirals of pure eroticism. I shivered again, unable to keep my back from arching so my breasts were thrust forward to brush his chest. I wanted to kiss him more than I wanted anything else at that moment, including Eloise returned to a full working state, and world peace. Not necessarily in that order.

Just as his lower lip brushed mine, he pulled back, his eyes narrowed as he glared down at me. “I told you that I do not appreciate people pretending innocence. It is my job to seek out the truth, and attempts to cover it up will not do you any favors.”

“Pretending innocence?” I scrunched up my nose in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“You asked if I had been hurt when I was marked.” To my dismay, he buttoned up his shirt, hiding that lovely, touchable chest from my view. “When you clearly know that to be false.”

“When you were struck by lightning, you mean?” I asked, more puzzled than ever. “A lot of people die from it, you know.”

“We are not normal people,” he said in that same annoyed voice.

He must have realized that I truly did not understand what had irritated him, because he stopped buttoning his shirt and gave me a good, long look, one that didn’t have the least little bit of sexual awareness in it. “Or perhaps you are normal…no.” He shook his head, and continued on slowly. “You are not the same as others, and yet, you do not know what I’m talking about, do you?”

“Not really. I think the fact that I almost kissed you distracted me from the subject.”

“
I
almost kissed
you
,” he said in that bossy way he had that made me smile to myself. “I did not do so because I thought you were attempting to fool me. But now…”

“But now?” I prompted, hoping for a return to that almost-kissing state.

“Now I think you’re just ignorant.”

“Hey!” I gasped, smacking him on his (delectable and highly lickable) chest. “I am not!”

“Not in the sense you imagine,” he said brusquely, finishing up the last of his buttons. “You are not aware of what you truly are. Of what I am. And since I do not have the time to explain it to you now, you will start that devil of a vehicle, and we will return to town.”

“Where Mrs. Faa’s two grandsons, who I saw driving down Main Street, will finish up the job they started last night.”

He snorted. “They do not have the ability to harm me.”

“Really? Sure looked like they did last night when you were passed out bleeding all over my air mattress.”

“They took me by surprise,” he said, waving away that statement. “They will not do so again. And although I appreciate the fact that you sought to remove me from their vicinity—I assume that is why you abducted me so forcibly—I do not need your help or protection. I am a member of the Watch. Should there be any need for help and protection, I will be the one to provide it.”

I judged enough time had passed that Andrew and Gregory must have cruised through town and not found Peter. Accordingly, I climbed back into the car, and tried to start her up. “Wow. Do you ever laugh out loud at how arrogant you sound?”

“I am not arrogant. I am simply competent.”

I would have answered that outrageous statement, but Eloise was being obstinate. It took eight tries before I could get her engine to start.

“Whew. She’s in a testy mood today,” I said, sitting up and pulling a U-turn to head back into town.

“Machinery does not like Travellers,” Peter said enigmatically. “Electronics specially so. Have you never found that they give you a migraine?”

“It’s like you’re speaking in English, and yet not. I wonder if there’s such a thing as a course in Peter-ese.”

“You wouldn’t need it if you weren’t in denial,” he countered.

I gawked at him for a couple of seconds before returning my attention to the road. “I am so not in denial! My foster mom would never let me get away with that. She’s a psychologist,” I added in explanation. “She totally has me in touch with my ego, superego, and id. All of whom think you might be a few blocks short of a Lego set.”

“Foster mother?” He gave me another one of those long, considering looks. I had to admit, I didn’t at all mind being the focus of his attention. My breasts, in particular, enjoyed it. “Your parents are deceased?”

“Yes. They died in a forest fire at a park when I was three.”

“And did one or both of them have issues with things of a mechanical nature?”