Times Change (13 page)

And she thought he was insensitive.

He wondered what would happen if he strolled into what passed for a research lab in this age and showed them the procedure for fusion.

They’d probably sacrifice a lamb and make him a god.

He sat back, arms crossed. They’d just have to figure it out for themselves. Right now, his biggest problem was keeping warm, with all the cold air blowing off of Sunny.

He frowned when she pulled out onto a ramp. He hadn’t been paying close attention, but he was certain they hadn’t driven for five hours. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to get something to eat and put gas in the car.” She snapped the words off without a glance at him.

Hugging her resentment to her, she pulled into a gas station, got out and slammed the door behind her. As she reset the self-service pump, she muttered under her breath.

She’d forgotten how his mind worked. Obviously he was deluding himself into believing that she was luring him into some sort of trap.
I want you to meet my parents. How do you feel about a double-ring ceremony?
Sunny ground her teeth. It was insulting.

Maybe she was in love with him—and that was a situation she dearly hoped could be reversed—but she hadn’t done one single thing to pressure him. Or to lead him to believe that her heart was all aflutter at waiting for him to get down on one knee.

If he thought she’d intended to flaunt him in front of her parents like so much matrimonial beefcake, he had another think coming. The jerk.

Jacob sat a moment, then decided to get out to stretch his legs. And get a look at his surroundings.

So this was a refueling station, he mused, studying the gas pumps. Sunny had stuck the nozzle end of a hose into a compartment on the side of the Land Rover. From her expression, she didn’t look too happy about standing out in the cold with her hand on the switch. Behind her, the pump—the gasoline pump, he elaborated—clicked as numbers turned over. The odor of fuel was strong.

Other cars crowded the pump islands. Some waited in their vehicles for a man in a cap to come out and go through the procedure Sunny was doing for herself. Others did as she was, and shivered in the cold.

He watched a woman bundle a trio of children around the side of a building that was set farther off the road. The children were arguing and whining, and the woman was snatching at arms. He had to grin. At least that much hadn’t changed over time.

On the road, cars chugged by. Jacob wrinkled his nose at the stench of exhaust. A sixteen-wheeler roared by, leaving a stream of displaced air in its wake.

There were plenty of buildings, such as they were. Tall ones, squat ones, all huddled together as if they were afraid to leave too much room between them. He found the style uninspired. Then, less than a block down the street, he spotted something that brought him a pang of homesickness. A pair of high golden arches. At least they weren’t completely uncivilized, he thought. He was grinning when he turned back to Sunny.

She didn’t respond.

Ignoring him, she screwed the gas cap in place and hung up the hose. Silent treatment or not, he told himself, he would not apologize for something that was so clearly her fault. Still, he followed her into the building and was distracted by rows of candy bars, shelves of soft drinks and the prevalent scent of crude oil.

When she took out paper money, Jacob had to stick his hands in his pockets to keep himself from reaching out to touch it. The man in the cap ran grimy fingers over the keys of a machine. Red numbers appeared in a viewbox. The paper was exchanged, and Sunny was given metal disks.

That was money, too, Jacob reminded himself. Coins, they were called. He was frustrated when she dumped them in her bag before he could get a close look. He wondered how he could approach her for some samples.

The woman he’d seen earlier herded the three children inside, and the room was immediately filled with noise. All three fell greedily on the rows of candy bars.

“Just one,” the woman said, an edge to her voice. “I mean it.” She was digging in her purse as she spoke.

The children, bundled in coats and hats, set up an arguing din that ended in a shoving match. The smallest went down on her bottom with a thump and a wail. Jacob bent automatically to set her on her feet, then handed her the smashed candy bar. Her bottom lip was quivering, and her eyes, big and round and blue, were filled to overflowing.

“He’s always pushing me,” she complained.

“You’ll be as big as they are pretty soon,” he told her. “Then they won’t be able to push you around.”

“Sorry.” Sighing, the woman picked her daughter up. “It’s been a long trip. Scotty, you’re going to sit on your hands for the next ten miles.”

When Jacob turned to leave, the little girl was smiling at him. And so, he noted, was Sunny.

“Are you talking to me again?” he asked as they walked back to the car.

“No.” She tugged on her gloves as she sat in the driver’s seat. It would have been easier to go on hating him if he hadn’t been so sweet with the little girl. “I’m a great deal harder to charm than a three-year-old.”

“We could try a neutral subject.”

She turned on the engine. “We don’t have any neutral subjects.”

She had him there. He lapsed into silence again as she merged with traffic. But he could have kissed her when she turned into those golden arches.

She followed a sign that said
Drive-thru
and stopped at a board that listed the restaurant’s delicacies. “What do you want?”

He started to ask for a McGalaxy Burger and a large order of laser rings, but he didn’t see either on the menu. Once again he put his fate in her hands. “Two of whatever you’re having.” Because he couldn’t resist, he toyed with the hair at the back of her neck.

Annoyed, she shook his fingers off. She spoke into the intercom, listened for the total, then joined the line of cars waiting to be served. “We’ll make better time if we eat while we drive.”

They inched forward. “Are we in a hurry?”

“I don’t like to waste time.”

Neither did he, and he wasn’t sure how much more they had together. “Sunny?”

No response.

“I love you.”

Her foot slipped off the clutch. Her other slammed the brake pedal when the Land Rover stalled. The car was still rocking as she turned to gape at him. “What?”

“I said I love you.” It didn’t hurt as much as he’d thought it would. In fact, it felt good: Very good. “I figured we might as well have it out in the open.”

“Oh.” As responses went, it wasn’t her best. But she was staring straight ahead into the rear window of the car in front. There was a stuffed cat suction-cupped to the glass. It was grinning at her. The car behind her gave an impatient beep of the horn and had her fumbling with the ignition key. Rattled, she pulled up to the service window.

“Is that all you can say?” Annoyance colored his tone as she turned to blink at him. “Just ‘Oh’?”

“I . . . I’m not sure what . . .”

“That’ll be $12.75,” the boy shouted through the window as he held out white paper bags.

“What?”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s $12.75. Come on, lady.”

“Sorry.” She took the bags, dumped them in Jacob’s lap. Even as he swore at her, she dug out a twenty and passed it to the boy. Without waiting for her change, she pulled into the first available parking space and stopped the car.

“I think you singed my—”

“Sorry,” she snapped, cutting him off. Because she felt like a fool, she rounded on him. “It’s your own fault, Mr. Romance, dropping something like that on me while I’m stuck in a line of cars at a fast-food drive-in. What did you expect me to do, throw myself in your arms while they were adding on the pickles?”

“I never know what the hell to expect from you.” He reached into the bag, brought out a foil-wrapped burger and tossed it to her.

“From me?” She unwrapped the burger and took a huge bite. It did nothing to ease the fluttering of her stomach. “From me? You’re the one who started this, Hornblower. One minute you’re snapping my head off, the next you’re telling me you love me, and then you’re throwing me a cheeseburger.”

“Just shut up and eat.” He shoved a paper cup into her hand.

He’d bite off his tongue before he’d say it to her again. He didn’t know what had come over him. Gasoline fumes, undoubtedly. No man in his right mind could fall in love with such an obstinate woman. And—no help from her—he was still in his right mind.

“A few minutes ago you were begging me to talk to you,” she pointed out, sucking on her straw.

“I never beg.”

She turned then, eyes smoky. “You would if I wanted you to.”

He could have strangled her then, for saying what he realized was no more than the truth. “I thought we were going to drive while we ate.”

“I changed my mind,” she said tightly. The way her insides were shaking, she wasn’t sure she could navigate ten feet. She’d be damned if she’d let him know it. Since it wasn’t possible to kick him, due to their position, she simply turned and stared through the windshield.

She continued eating mechanically and cursed him for spoiling her appetite.

Imagine, telling her that he loved her while they were waiting for hamburgers. What style, what finesse. She tapped her fingers on the wheel and bit back a sigh. How incredibly sweet.

Cautious, she cast a sidelong look at him. His profile was set, his eyes were steely. She had seen him angrier, she supposed, but it was a close call. Something about the way he fumed in frustrated silence made her feel incredibly sentimental. Twenty years from now she would look back and smile over the way he had said those magic words the very first time.

She scrambled onto her knees and threw her arms around him. He gasped as cold liquid splashed on his knees. “Damn it, Sunny, you’ve spilled it all over me.”

He squirmed, then stilled when her mouth found his. He tasted her laughter on the tip of her tongue. Hampered by the gearshift, he struggled to drag her closer.

“Did you mean it?” she demanded, shoving what was left of their lunch aside.

No way was he going to let her off that easily. “Mean what?”

“What you said.”

He settled her awkwardly in his lap, making sure her bottom came in direct contact with his wet knees, “Which time?”

Her breath came out in a huff, but she curled her arms around his neck. “You said you loved me. Did you mean it?”

“I might have.” He worked his hands up under her coat but had to be content with the flannel of her shirt. “Or I might have been trying to start a conversation.”

She bit his lip. “Last chance, Hornblower. Did you mean it?”

“Yes.” God help them both. “Want to fight about it again?”

“No.” She rested her cheek against his. “No, I don’t want to fight. Not right now.” He felt her sigh move through her body. “It scared me.”

“That makes two of us.”

After pressing a kiss to his throat, she drew back. “It gets even scarier. I love you, too.”

He’d known it, and yet— And yet, hearing her say it, seeing her eyes as she spoke, watching her lips form the words, nothing could have prepared him for the force of feeling that poured into him. A waterfall of emotion. Tumbling through it, he pulled her mouth to his.

He couldn’t bring her close enough. It didn’t seem odd that they were huddled inside a car in a parking lot beside a busy street in broad daylight. Much odder was the fact that he was here at all, that he had found her, despite the centuries.

When he lived, she couldn’t go. When she lived, he couldn’t stay. And yet, in this small space of time, they were together.

Time was passing.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do about this,” he murmured. There had to be a way, some equation, some theory. But what computer could analyze data that was so purely emotional?

“One day at a time, remember?” She drew back, smiling. “We’ve got plenty of time.” She hugged him close, and she didn’t see the trouble come into his eyes. “Speaking of which, we’ve got almost two hours before Portland.”

“Too long.”

She chuckled, then squirmed back into her seat. “I was thinking the same thing.”

She zoomed out of the lot, keeping her eyes peeled. With a grin of satisfaction, she pulled into the first motel she spotted. “I think we can use a break.” After snatching up her bag, she strolled into the office to register.

This time she used a plastic card—something much less foreign to him. With little trouble and less conversation, she secured a key from the clerk.

“How long have we got?” Jacob asked as he swung an arm over her shoulder.

She shot him a look. “It may be a motel,” she said, steering them toward a door marked ‘9’, “but I don’t think this particular chain rents rooms by the hour. So . . .” She turned the key in the lock. “We’ve got the rest of the day—and all night—if we want.”

“We want.” He caught her the moment she stepped inside. Then, wheeling her around, he used their joined bodies to slam the door closed. Because his hands were already occupied, Sunny reached behind her to secure the chain.

“J.T., wait.”

“Why?”

“I’d really prefer it if we drew the drapes first.”

He ran the palm of one hand over the wall, searching for a button while he tugged at her coat with the other.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for the switch.”

She chuckled into his throat. “At thirty-five a night you have to close the curtains by hand.” She wiggled away to deal with it. “I’d love to see the kind of motels you’re used to.”

The light became dim and soft, with a thin, bright slit in the center, where the drapes met. She was standing just there, with the light like a spear behind her. And she enchanted him.

“There’s this place on an island off Maine.” He shrugged out of the borrowed coat, then sat down to pry off his boots. “The rooms are built on a promontory so that they hang over the sea. Waves crash up beneath, beside, in front. The windows are . . .” How to explain it? “They’re made out of a special material so that you can see out as far as the horizon but no one can see in—so that beyond one entire wall there’s nothing but rock and ocean. The tubs are huge and sunken, and the water steams with perfume.”