Times Change (6 page)

“What?”

“Live alone?”

“Yes. My work takes up most of my time.”

“Physics, right? Too bad.” She settled back with her tea. The idea of him being a spy was beginning to sound absurd. And, to give him his due, she decided, he wasn’t as crazy as she’d initially believed. Eccentric, she thought. If there was one thing Sunny understood, it was eccentricity. She’d lived with it all of her life. “So you really like splitting atoms, or whatever it is you guys do?”

“Something like that.”

“What’s your stand on nuclear reactors?”

He nearly laughed, but then he remembered where he was. “Nuclear fission is like trying to dispose of a mouse with a rocket launcher. Dangerous and unnecessary.”

“My mother would love you, but that doesn’t sound very physicist-like.”

“Not all scientists agree.” Knowing he was on unsteady ground, he went back to the toaster. “Tell me about your sister.”

“Libby? Why?”

“I have an interest in her, since she has my brother.”

“She isn’t exactly holding him for ransom,” Sunny said dryly. “In fact, he rushed her down the aisle so fast, she barely had time to say ‘I do.’”

“What aisle?”

“It’s a figure of speech, J.T.” She spoke slowly now, and with a sigh. “When people get married, they, you know, go down the aisle.”

“Oh, right.” He thought that over as he fiddled with the toaster. “You’re saying that the marriage was Cal’s idea.”

“I don’t know whose idea it was, if that matters, but he was certainly enthusiastic.” Her fingers began to drum as her annoyance grew. “I get the impression you think Libby pushed Cal into something here, or that she, I don’t know, used feminine wiles to trap him.”

“Does she have them?”

After she finished choking on her tea, Sunny took a long breath. “This may be tough for you to understand, Hornblower, but Cal and Libby love each other. You’ve heard of love, haven’t you? Or doesn’t it compute?”

“I’ve heard of the concept,” he said, mildly enough. It was intriguing to watch her temper rise—as it did with very little provocation. Her eyes darkened, her skin flushed, her chin lifted. Attractive when composed, she was simply devastating when aroused. He wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t considered how interesting it would be to arouse her in other, more rewarding ways. “I haven’t experienced it myself, but I have an open mind.”

“That’s big of you,” she muttered. Rising, she stuffed her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and stalked to the window. Lord, he was a prize. If she managed to keep from murdering him before Cal and Libby got back, it would be a miracle.

“Have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Been in love,” he said, running the staff of the screwdriver through his fingers.

She sent him a particularly vicious look. “Keep out of my personal life.”

“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t, not a bit. He was as determined to make her look like a fool as she was to make him sound like one. “It’s just that you sounded so knowledgeable on the subject I assumed you’d had quite a bit of experience. Yet you’re not matched—married—are you?”

Whether he’d aimed or just shot from the hip, he’d hit the target dead-on. She hadn’t been in love, though she’d tried to be several times. Self-doubt only fanned the flames of anger.

“Just because a person hasn’t been in love doesn’t mean he or she can’t appreciate its value.” She whirled back, hating the fact that she’d been put on the defensive and determined to turn the conversation around. “The fact that I’m not married is purely a personal choice.”

“I see.”

The way he said it had her teeth snapping together. “And this has nothing to do with me. We’re talking about Libby and Cal.”

“I thought we were talking about love as a concept.”

“Talking about love with a heartless clod is a waste of time, and I never waste mine.” She balled a hand on her hip. “But we both have an interest in Libby and Cal, so we’ll clear it up.”

“All right.” He tapped the screwdriver on the edge of the table. He didn’t need a computer to tell him what a clod was. It was just one more thing she would have to pay for before this was over. “Clear it up.”

“You automatically assume that my sister, being a woman, lured your brother, being only a man, into marriage. What an incredibly outdated theory.”

His fingers paused in the act of reattaching the toaster’s coil. “Is it?”

“Incredibly outdated, chauvinistic and stupid. The idea that all women want is marriage and a house with a picket fence went out with the poodle skirt.”

Though he wondered who in his right mind would put skirts on poodles, there was something more important to touch on. “Stupid?” he repeated.

“Idiotic.” Legs spread, jaw firm, she baited him. “Only a true idiot would be alive today with that kind of neanderthal attitude. Maybe the last few decades have passed you by, pal, but things have changed.” She was on a roll now, a slender steamroller with right on her side. “Women have choices today, options, alternatives. An enlightened few even figure that, because they do, men benefit from the same expanding horizons. Except, of course, men like you, who are mired in their own self-importance.”

He stood at that, in a slow, deliberate manner that would have tipped her off if she hadn’t been so angry. “I’m not mired in anything.”

“You’re up to your neck in it, Hornblower. From the minute you got here you’ve been trying to find some way to turn your brother’s marriage into a setup created by my sister.” She took one long-legged stride toward him. “I’ve got a flash for you. Only a fool gets tricked into marriage, and Cal doesn’t strike me as a fool. That’s where the family resemblance fades.”

A jerk, a clod, an idiot and now a fool. Yes, he thought, she was going to pay. “Then why did he marry so quickly, without even attempting to come home and see his family first?”

“You’ll just have to ask him,” she shot back. “It could be because he didn’t want to be questioned or hounded or interrogated. In my family we don’t pressure the people we love. And in the real world women get along just fine without setting snares for unwary men. The fact is, Hornblower, we don’t need you.”

This time it was he who took the step. “You don’t?”

“No. Not for winning the bread or chopping the wood, running the country or taking out the garbage. Or—or fixing toasters,” she added, with a wild gesture toward the mess on the table. “We can do everything we need to do just dandy on our own.”

“You left out something.”

Her chin lifted a fraction higher. “What?”

His hand clamped quickly around the back of her neck. Sunny had time for a hiss of surprise before his mouth closed over hers. When a woman was expecting a left to the jaw, she had little defense against a heated embrace.

She murmured something. He felt her lips move beneath his. His name, he thought, as the whisper of sound and movement shuddered into him. He was angry—more than angry—but his hair-trigger temper had never taken him so deep into trouble before.

And she was trouble. He’d known it from the first glimpse.

Recklessly he ignored logic and consequences and dragged her closer. Her hands had shot out of her pockets, and now they were clenched taut as wire on his shoulders, neither resisting nor surrendering. He wanted, craved, one or the other. With an oath he nipped at her full, seductive lower lip until her gasp of pleasure shocked the air.

She’d been right about the high-powered voltage that ran through him. Her system was jolted again and again as he held her closer, tighter, harder. She didn’t struggle. For, while her body was charged with the current that raced from him into her, her mind emptied, thoughts streaming away like colored chalk in the rain.

She felt his muscles tense under her fingers, heard his sharp intake of breath as she pressed herself more fully against him. She could taste the passion, riper, darker, than any she had ever known, but she couldn’t be sure if it was his or her own.

It was as if she had come alive in his arms. He felt her go from rigid shock to molten aggression in the space of a heartbeat. Of all the women he had pleasured, or been pleasured by, he had never known one who matched him so perfectly. Passion to passion, demand to demand.

He ran his hands through her short cap of hair. Warm silk. Down the slender curve of her throat. Hot satin. With his tongue he sampled the potent flavors of her mouth, and then he groaned as she drew him deeper into her.

Never had need spun so quickly out of control, risen so high above the tolerable.

He hurt. And he had never hurt before, not from wanting. He reeled, the way a man might stagger from lack of food or sleep. And he knew fear—a sharp and sudden terror that his own destiny had been removed neatly from his hands.

It was that which had him yanking her away, his fingers biting into her arms as he held her back. His breath came fast and shallow, as if he had raced to the top of a cliff. Indeed, staring at her, he thought he could see the drop, spread below him like a vision of jagged rocks and boiling seas.

She said nothing, just stared with eyes that were huge and dark. In the milky winter light her skin was pale and clear. Like a statue, she stood utterly still, utterly silent. Then she began to tremble.

Jacob snatched his hands away as if he’d been burned.

“I suppose . . .” Because her voice was weak, Sunny took a long, cleansing breath. “I suppose that was your way of proving a point.”

He pushed his hands into his pockets and felt exactly like what she had called him. A fool. “It was a choice between that and a left jab.”

Either way, he’d scored a knockout. Steadier now, she nodded. “If you’re going to stay here for the time being, we’re going to have to establish some rules.”

She recovered quickly, he thought, with a bitterness that surprised him. “Yours, I suppose.”

“Yes.” She wanted to sit down, badly, but forced herself to face him eye-to-eye. “We can argue all you like. In fact, I enjoy a good argument.”

“You’re seductive when you argue.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. No one had ever accused her of that. “I guess you’ll just have to learn how to control yourself.”

“It’s not my strong suit.”

“Or take a hike in what’s already over a foot of snow.”

He glanced toward the window. “I’ll work on it.”

“Fair enough.” She took another long breath. “Though it’s obvious we don’t like each other very much, we can try to be civil as long as we’re stuck with each other.”

“Nicely put.” He wanted to trace a finger down her cheek but wisely resisted the temptation. “Can I ask you a question?”

“All right.”

“Do you usually respond so radically to men you don’t like?”

“That’s none of your business.” Temper brought a flattering tinge of color to her cheeks.

“I thought it was a very civil question.” Then he smiled and changed tactics. “But I’ll retract it, because if we argue again so soon we’ll just end up in bed.”

“Of all the—”

“Are you willing to chance it?” he said quietly. He gave a slow, satisfied nod when she subsided. “I thought not. If it makes you feel any better, neither am I.” So saying, he sat and picked up the tools again. “Why don’t we just cross the whole business off as poor judgment.”

“You were the one who—”

“Yes.” He looked up, his gaze carefully neutral. “I was.”

It was pride that had her stalking toward the table when she would have preferred to slink away and nurse her wounds. “And I suppose it’s asking too much to expect an apology.”

“I don’t need one,” he said easily.

She snatched up a toaster part and flung it. “You’re the one who did the manhandling, Hornblower.”

With difficulty, he checked himself. If he touched her again, now, they would both regret it. “All right, I’m sorry I kissed you, Sunny.” There was an edge to his voice as his eyes whipped up to hers. “I can’t begin to tell you how sorry.”

She spun around and stormed out of the room. The apology hadn’t mollified her. In fact, it had only inflated an angry hurt. She picked up the heaviest book she could find and flung it across the room. She kicked the sofa, swore, then streaked up the steps.

It didn’t help. None of it helped. The fury was still roiling inside her. And worse, much worse, was the need, the raw-edged need, that tangled with it. He’d done that, she thought, slamming the door. Deliberately, too. She was sure of it.

He’d managed to make her so angry, to push her so close to the edge, that she’d responded irrationally when he’d kissed her.

It wouldn’t happen again—that she promised herself. Humiliation was nearly as bad as being outmaneuvered, and he’d managed to do both in a matter of hours. He was going to have to pay for it.

Throwing herself down on the bed, she decided to spend the rest of the afternoon devising ways to make Jacob Hornblower’s life a living hell.

Chapter 4

He never should have touched her. Jacob cursed himself. Then he found that it was much more convenient, and much more satisfying, to curse her. She’d started it, after all. He’d known, right from the start, that she would make trouble for him.

There were some people in this world—in any world, he thought bitterly—who were just born to complicate other people’s lives. Sunbeam Stone was one of them. In her looks, in her voice, in her gestures, in her personality, she had everything a woman needed to distract a man. To aggravate him to the edge of reason. And beyond.

She challenged him at every meeting. Those cool smiles, that hot temper. It was a combination he couldn’t resist. And he was sure she knew it.

When he’d kissed her—and God knew he hadn’t meant to—it had been like being shot into hyperspace without a ship. How could he have known that damn sulky mouth of hers would be so potent?

He’d never been attracted to passive women. But what difference did that make? He had no intention of being attracted to Sunny. He couldn’t be. He damn well wouldn’t be, no matter what tricks she pulled out of her twentieth-century hat.

What had happened was completely her fault, he decided. She’d taunted and tempted him. She’d wanted to confuse him. Gritting his teeth, he admitted that she’d done a brilliant job of it. After she had and he’d reacted as any normal man would, she’d looked at him with those big, gorgeous eyes full of panic and passion. Oh, she was a case, all right. His study of the twentieth century should have warned him that women had been much more bewildering back then. And craftier.

Hands in pockets, he paced to the window to watch the swirling snow. Oh, she was a bright one, he mused. Sharp as Venusian crystal, and twice as deadly. She knew something wasn’t quite right about his story, and she was determined to find out just what he was holding back. And he was just as determined to keep her in the dark.

In a battle of wits, he had every confidence his would prevail. How much effort would it take to outwit a twentieth-century woman? After all, he was more than two hundred years ahead of her on the evolutionary scale. It was a pity she was so intriguing. And so primitively attractive. But he was a scientist, and he had already calculated that any kind of involvement with her would shoot his equations to hell.

Still, she was right about one thing, he decided. They were stuck with each other. The whole damn mountain was practically empty but for the two of them. The way the snow was falling, it was painfully obvious that they would be in each other’s way for days. However irritating it might be, for the time being, he needed her.

He had to get around her, or through her, to get to his brother. Whatever it took, he would get to Cal.

Turning, he made a long, slow study of the kitchen. The first thing to be faced was that the cabin was too small for them to avoid each other. He could go back to his ship, but he preferred being here, recording firsthand observations. It would be easier to fight whatever attraction Cal felt for this time and place if he understood it. And his innate curiosity would never be satisfied on the ship.

So he would stay. And if that made the pretty Sunbeam uncomfortable, so much the better.

His own discomfort—and the kiss had caused him plenty—would just have to be dealt with. He was, after all, superior.

Feeling more calm, he went back to the table to reassemble the toaster.

As he worked, he could hear the ceiling creak and groan above his head. He smiled to himself when he realized that she was pacing on the second floor. He bothered her. And that was just fine. Maybe she would keep her distance—or at least stop daring him to do something they would both regret.

It was illogical to desire someone he didn’t even like. To fantasize about someone he could barely tolerate. To ache for someone who annoyed him so consistently.

When the screwdriver slipped and mashed his thumb, he cursed her again.

***

He wasn’t going to get away with it She paced from wall to wall, from window to door, trying to work off steam. The nerve of the man, to grab her as if she were some mindless bimbo, then reject her just as callously. Did he think, did he really think, he could vent his . . . his sexual frustrations on her without compunction?

She had news for him.

No one, absolutely no one, treated her in that manner and lived to tell the tale. She’d been taking care of herself for too long. Men might pressure. She pushed them aside. They might seduce. She resisted, effortlessly. They might beg. She—

Her smile bloomed beautifully at the image of Jacob Hornblower begging. Oh, that would be a triumph, she thought. The enigmatic Dr. Hornblower on his knees, at her feet.

With a sigh, she began pacing again. It was a shame, a damn shame, that her standards didn’t permit teasing or clichéd feminine ploys. No matter how much of a jerk he was, she had her ethics.

She was a modern woman, one who stood on her own, with or without a man. One who thought her own thoughts and fought her own fights. She was no Delilah to use sex as a weapon. But she wished, and how she wished, that once, just this once, she could ignore those ingrained principles and seduce him into a pitiful puddle of pleading.

He’d used sex, she thought, kicking a shoe out of her path. And wasn’t that just like a man? They liked to claim that it was women who lured and teased and taunted. Incensed, she gave the hapless shoe a second, vicious kick. Men, the entire bloody species, preferred to play the innocent bystander entrapped by the femme fatale. Hah!

If anyone dared to call Sunny Stone a femme fatale she’d punch him right in the face.

He’d
forced himself on
her.
Well, her stiff-necked honesty pushed her to admit that he hadn’t used force for more than a fraction of a second—if at all. Before he’d kissed her senseless.

She hated that. The fact that she’d melted like some weak-kneed romantic heroine. She’d kissed him back, too. What was the word? Wantonly. It made her wince. One lousy kiss and she’d been plastered all over him. So, she owed him for that, as well.

The best way to pay him back, she realized, was to shoot straight for the ego. As far as she could tell, that was the biggest target a man offered a woman. Hiding in her room would only make him think he—and what had happened between them—mattered to her. So she would go about her business and act as though nothing had happened.

He was still in the kitchen when she came down. Sunny turned on the stereo and adjusted the volume. If it was loud enough, conversation would be difficult, if not impossible. After adding a log to the fire, she settled on the sofa with her books. Over an hour passed before he came out and went upstairs. She studiously ignored him.

More from boredom than from appetite, she went into the kitchen and fixed herself an enormous sandwich. Under other circumstances she would have offered to make one for her guest. But the idea of him going hungry just made her own meal that much more palatable.

Content, she bundled into coat and boots to go outside and fill the bird feeder. The short trip brought home to her the fact that her unwelcome company would be in her way for several days. The snow was blinding, falling in swirling sheets that covered her tracks almost as quickly as she made them. There was wind behind it, a nasty wind that raced keening through the trees and sent the pines roaring.

With snow up to the tops of her boots, she lugged the bag of feed back to the shed. Catching her breath, she let the storm blow around her. She could see nothing but the power of it, the anger of it. It was magnificent.

Annoyance faded. All dark thoughts vanished. As she stood with the wind battering her, the snow slapping wet on her cheeks, she felt the excitement and the peace that she rarely felt elsewhere.

Though she never stayed in the mountains long, though she always became restless and went off in search of noise and crowds, there was no place she would rather be in a storm. Winter snow or summer thunder. It was here, alone, that the force, the energy, the mystery, could be appreciated.

A city covered with snow would soon dig itself out. But the mountains were patient. They would wait for sun and time. As she stood with the wind wrapped around her like a wild, relentless lover she wished she could take some piece of this with her wherever she went.

From the window he watched her. She stood like some kind of winter goddess in the whirling snow. Hatless, her coat flapping open, she remained still, heedless, as the snow covered her hair. And she was smiling. Cold colored her cheeks. She seemed more than beautiful now. She seemed untouchable. And invincible.

He wondered as he looked down on her why he wanted her more at that moment than he had when she had been hot and passionate in his arms.

Then she looked up, as if she knew he was watching. Through the blowing curtain of snow, their eyes met. His hands balled into fists, fists identical to the one that clenched in his gut. She was no longer smiling. Despite the distance, he felt the power ricochet back to him, buckling his knees.

If he could have reached out for her then, he would have taken her, regardless of the consequences. In that one look, past, present and future merged into one. He saw his destiny.

Then she shifted, shaking the snow from her hair, and the spell shattered. He told himself she was only a woman, a foolish one, walking in a storm. She would have no lasting effect on him.

But it was a long time after he heard her come inside before he went downstairs again.

She was sleeping on the sofa, books piled at her feet and on the floor. One of the exquisite throws was tossed over her. Despite the volume of the stereo, she slept deeply. Nearby, the fire blazed.

She didn’t look invincible now, Jacob decided. She looked disconcertingly serene. He supposed it was foolish to notice how long her lashes were as they shadowed her cheeks. How soft her mouth was when relaxed in sleep. How her hair, mussed from the wind, shone in the firelight.

They were only physical attributes, and in his time physical appearance could be altered simply and safely. It made life more pleasant, certainly, to look at a beautiful woman. But it was superficial. Totally superficial. Still, he looked for a long time.

***

Sunny woke like a shot when the music cut off. The abrupt silence had her leaping out of sleep with eyes wide and curses on her tongue. Disoriented and irritable, as she always was upon waking, she stared around the darkened room. The fire had burned down to a soft glow and shed little light. Though she didn’t think she had slept long, night had fallen. And so, she realized, had a power line.

With a sigh, she pushed herself from the sofa and groped her way across the room looking for matches. With a candle in one hand and a pack of matches in the other, she turned and walked into Jacob.

At her quick squeal, he brought his hands to her arms, both to steady and to reassure. “It’s only me.”

“I know who it is,” she snapped, infuriated that she’d jolted. “What are you doing?”

“Before or after the lights went out?”

She could see him well enough, silhouetted by the firelight, to make out the smile. “It’s the storm.”

“What about it?” The muscles in her arms were tensed. He had to resist the urge to slip his hands up the sleeves of her sweater and soothe them and stroke her skin.

“It knocked out the power.”

He hadn’t let her go. He’d told himself to, but his hands hadn’t listened. “Would you like me to fix it?”

Her laugh was quick and a bit unsteady. She wished she could blame the power failure for her nerves, but she’d never been afraid of the dark. Until now. “It’s a little more complicated than a toaster. The power company will get to it when they can.”

He was sure he could jury-rig something, but he didn’t mind the dark. “All right.”

All right, she thought, letting out a long breath. In the meantime, she was alone with him. Added to the fact that she wasn’t sure about his mental balance was the very real problem of being attracted to him. One thing at a time, she told herself, and took a deliberate step back.

“We have plenty of candles.” To prove it, she lit the one she held in her hand. It helped her confidence when she saw the flame hold steady. “And plenty of wood. If you’ll put a couple of logs on the fire, I’ll deal with getting us more light.”

He watched the way the small flame flickered in her eyes. She was nervous, he realized, and wished that didn’t make her even more seductive. “Sure.”

Sunny gathered every candle she could put her hands on. Too late she realized that one or two would have seemed rustic. The dozen she had scattered through the room only added an impossibly romantic atmosphere. Stuffing the matches in her pocket, she reminded herself that she wasn’t affected by things like atmosphere.

“You wouldn’t know what time it is, would you?” she asked him.

“Not exactly. Around six.”

She sat on the arm of the sofa nearest the fire. “I slept longer than I thought.” Now she was going to have to make the best of a bad situation. “So, did you entertain yourself this afternoon?”

“I fixed the faucet.” It had taken more time and given him more trouble than he’d anticipated, but he’d managed.

“You’re a regular Harry Homemaker, aren’t you?” Because it sounded sarcastic, she smiled. They really did only have each other at this point, and alienating him wouldn’t be wise. “I could fix some sandwiches.” She rose, willing to be gracious if it kept her busy. “Want a beer?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Sunny took two of the candles into the kitchen and nearly relaxed before she realized he’d followed her in. “I can manage this by myself.” She opened the refrigerator and swore when she remembered that the light wouldn’t come on. Saying nothing, Jacob handed her a candle. She shoved two beers at him.

He remembered how she had dealt with the bottles that morning, and he was delighted when he found the same tool and popped the tops.

“Switch on the radio, will you?”

“What?”

“The radio,” she repeated. “On the windowsill. We might get a weather report.”