A Husband in Time
Maggie Shayne
The man had come to Jane Fortune from out of nowhere. He couldn't explain who he was, but Jane's young son could.The little boy insisted Zach was his imaginary daddy come to life, the father he'd always wanted. And even Jane couldn't deny that he was oddly familiar–and the husband she'd always dreamed of. Yet the clock was ticking on the family they'd formed, because Jane had discovered exactly who Zach was. And only a twist of time could keep him home….
Kate Fortune’s Journal Entry
That old clapboard New England home holds such special memories for me. I’m so pleased that my granddaughter Jane and her son, Cody, are making good use of it. She and her little boy have had a rough time of it. When Cody’s father abandoned Jane before Cody was even born, I knew the road ahead would be difficult. But her family has always been there to support her. Now I hope some of the “magic” of the house weaves its spell around her. And that she’ll finally be able to discover true love….
A LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR
Dear Reader,
It isn’t often I get the chance to speak directly to you at the beginning of a book, and I’m so glad my editors at Silhouette gave me that opportunity with A Husband in Time. I’m very excited to be a part of this special series, and was even more thrilled when I learned the type of story I would be asked to write. When you read it, I’m sure you’ll see why.
A Husband in Time is my twelfth novel with Silhouette. From the very first book, I’ve felt the warmth of those of you who read them. Through the letters you send me, and the books you buy, you let me know that the work I put in to these stories is worth the effort, because someone, somewhere, is getting pleasure from reading them. That’s what makes it all worthwhile. And it’s also what keeps me punching away at the keyboard, day after day. As long as you keep enjoying them, I’ll keep writing them.
Happy reading!
A Husband in Time
Maggie Shayne
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MAGGIE SHAYNE,
a USA TODAY bestselling author whom Romantic Times calls “brilliantly inventive,” has written more than twenty-five novels for Silhouette.
Maggie has won numerous awards, including two Romantic Times Career Achievement Awards. A five-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA
Award, Maggie also writes mainstream contemporary fantasy and romantic suspense for MIRA Books, and has contributed story lines to network daytime soap operas.
She lives in rural Otselic, New York, with her husband, Rick, with whom she shares five beautiful daughters, two English bulldogs and two grandchildren.
Meet the Fortunes—three generations of a family with a legacy of wealth, influence and power. As they unite to face an unknown enemy, shocking family secrets are revealed…and passionate new romances are ignited.
JANE FORTUNE: The single mother secretly dreams of finding a husband, and a father for her six-year-old son. She has almost given up hope until a mystery man comes to her out of nowhere….
ZACH BOLTON: He can’t explain who he is, or where he’s come from. He feels at home with Jane and her son, but can he stay with them—forever?
MONICA MALONE: She now owns major shares in Fortune Cosmetics. What further havoc will she create to claim the rest of the Fortune wealth?
JAKE FORTUNE: The hardworking family man is hiding a deep, dark secret. Is he in cahoots with Monica? Once his secret is discovered, the Fortune empire might come tumbling down….
NATALIE FORTUNE: Kindhearted schoolteacher. Could a farmhouse and St. Bernard inherited from her grandmother lead to the exciting romance with a dashing man she’s been dreaming of?
LIZ JONES — CELEBRITY GOSSIP
I s anyone but me wondering why Jake Fortune sold Monica Malone sizable shares of stock in Fortune Cosmetics? After all, Monica is just a faded starlet coasting on her former glory and fame. Do you suppose Jake and Monica are having a torrid affair? Or perhaps the shrewd Monica is holding some juicy secret over Jake’s head and blackmailing him? Rumors are running rampant.
The rest of the Fortunes are up in arms. Now Monica owns a big piece of the business, and who knows what type of control she’ll want to wield.
This is going to be a battle to the bitter end. And I’m putting my money on the Fortunes!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
One
August 4, 1897
S ix-year-old Benjamin Bolton rested against a stack of pillows in his bedroom—the first room on the left, right at the top of the stairs. He couldn’t get out of bed very often, not at all without his father’s help. But Father had turned his bed around and tied the curtains open so that Ben could see the sky as he lay there. And tonight, as he stared up at the sparkling night sky, he saw a shooting star…and then another, and a third. They zipped across their blue-black home, leaving white-hot trails, and though it wasn’t very scientific at all, Benjamin closed his eyes and wished with everything in him.
“Three shooting stars, that’s three wishes for me. I wish…” He bit his lip, thinking hard to be sure he’d word the wishes right, and not waste them. “I wish to be well again, so I can run and play outdoors, and ride my pony, and not die like they all think I’m going to, even though they don’t say it out loud.”
He drew a breath, heard the wheezy sound it made as it whistled into his weakened lungs. His head hurt. He ached most everywhere, and he was dog-tired. His eyes tried to close, but he forced them open. This was important, and he still had two wishes to go.
“I wish for a mother. A real mother, who will love me and read to me… And who isn’t afraid of bullfrogs, like Mrs. Haversham is.” He smiled after he made the wish, because he was sure he’d worded it just right.
Licking his lips, Benjamin squeezed his eyes tight, and made the third wish, the one he’d been wishing for all his life. “And I wish for a big brother. I promise I won’t ever fight with him or tease. I would like for him to be smart, and brave, and strong, just like my father. I’ll even share my pony with him.”
Ben opened his eyes, gazing out the window. No trace of the stars remained. But they’d been there. He’d seen them. And now an odd, warm feeling settled over him, just like a big woolly blanket. Somehow, he just knew everything was going to be all right.
August 4, 1997
Cody Fortune glanced up from the laptop computer his mom had given him for his tenth birthday, turning his head just in time to see the three shooting stars arching over their car as it rolled over the narrow, deserted roads of Maine, heading for the coast and their new home.
“Wow,” he whispered, craning his neck for a better look. Of all the things he’d seen on this trip from Minnesota, this was the most incredible. Three at once. It had to be an anomaly.
“Did you see that, Mom?”
“What?”
“Three shooting stars, right in a row!”
She smiled at him, only taking her eyes from the road for a second. “So, why don’t you make a wish? Or are you too skeptical for that?”
Cody Fortune was far too intelligent to believe in any such thing as wishing on stars. But he knew his mom didn’t like him taking life too seriously, and some touch of whimsy moved him to close his eyes and whisper the things that had been on his mind the most lately. “I wish I had a dad,” he said softly. “And a little brother, because it gets so darn boring being an only child. We’d have great times together. And I wish…” He licked his lips, opened his eyes and stared up at the sky. His eyes watered just a little bit, but he blinked them dry again. “I wish for my mom to be happy. Really happy. ’Cause I know she isn’t. I can’t remember when she was.”
He lowered his head, and his mother’s soft hand stroked his hair. “Of course I’m happy, Cody. I have you, and a new house in a small town, just like I’ve always wanted. What more could I need?”
Cody smirked. He knew better, of course, but he’d never get her to admit her life was less than perfect. “You realize I’ve just wished on three hunks of burned-out rock, don’t you?”
“It was still generous of you to use up a whole wish on me.”
He shrugged and turned to the laptop again. It wasn’t so bad that he’d lapsed into childish fantasies for a second there. It was like his mom was always saying, he was still a kid, even if he did have the brain of a full-grown nuclear physicist.
“So, have you thought about what I told you?” he asked, and saw her brows rise.
“About what, Cody?”
Cody sighed. When he spent the weekend with his grandparents, he’d stumbled on something he knew must be important, but his mother, as usual, couldn’t care less about the family business. “What I overheard when Grandpa took me to work with him last week. Don’t you remember? That witch Monica was there, and—”
“Cody, that isn’t very nice.”
“So? Neither is Monica. Anyway, she was being really nasty to Aunt Tracey. Said she knew some secret, and she’d tell if Tracey and her boyfriend, what’s his name—? Wayne. Yeah, that’s it. Monica said she wanted them to go away, or she’d tell some secret.”
Jane shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Cody. We all know Monica’s been wanting to get her hands on the business. She probably sees Aunt Tracey as one more competitor for it.”
“Yeah, but Aunt Tracey only just found out she was a Fortune.”
“If she’s a Fortune, Cody, she can handle empty threats from Monica Malone.” She sent him a sideways glance. “This is just one more example of why I want no part of the family business, pal. All the scratching and clawing and fighting to hold on to it.” She gazed out the window at the rugged coastline as they passed it. “It’s going to be so much better here.”
Cody sighed. It was no use talking to his mother about business. She just didn’t care. He stared at the dark ocean, and the whitecapped waves crashing to the shore, and then he thought maybe she was right. It was kind of pretty here. “So how much longer till we get there?”
“I think… I think this is— Oh, my, Cody, this is the place. Look at it!”
Cody looked up at the house their headlights illuminated as the car turned into the gravel drive. “Looks like something out of a Stephen King novel.”
“Isn’t it great?”
He grimaced at his mother’s enthusiasm as she brought the car to a halt and killed the engine.
“I thought you liked Stephen King novels,” she said.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to live in one.”
She smiled at him. Then he turned his gaze to the house once again, and froze. From the corner of his eye, he’d seen some kind of flash in an upstairs window. Like…lightning or something. His mom was already opening her door, but he put a hand on her arm, stopping her. “I think…somebody’s in there.”
“What?” She frowned and looked where he pointed. “I don’t see anything.”
“Maybe it was just a reflection.” But he didn’t think so. He folded up the laptop and pulled his penlight from his pocket. He never went far without it—not that it would make a very good weapon, but at least he’d be able to see whatever horrible creature sneaked up on him. “Better let me go in first, Mom, just in case.”
She ruffled his hair, which he hated. “My hero,” she said, but he could tell she wasn’t one bit nervous about going into that big, empty, dark house. She must be nuts.
Headlights spilled through the rear windshield, and Cody turned to see a second vehicle bounding over the gravel drive. A police car. He bit his lip before he could say, “Thank God!” Though he was still a bit nervous. In Stephen King novels, the small-town sheriffs of Maine never failed to be good guys, but they usually got killed off pretty early on, leaving the innocent mother—and her son, who knew all along something wasn’t quite right, but who couldn’t get anyone to listen—to fend for themselves.
Sure enough, a reed-thin man in a gray uniform with a shiny badge, stepped out of the car, and came over just as Mom stepped out of theirs.
“Quigly O’Donnell, ma’am. You must be Ms. Fortune. You’re right on time.” He had the same accent as the old man who’d lived across the street from the main characters in Pet Semetary. Cody shivered.
“Call me Jane,” his mom said, and shook the sheriff’s hand. “And this is my son, Cody.”
Cody nodded, but didn’t shake. He was too busy watching the house. “I thought I saw something up there,” he said, pointing, hoping the sheriff would go against character and check it out, hoping the guy would survive the experience.
“Ayuh, I wouldn’t worry about that, son. Probably just the ghost.”
“Ghost?”
“Some say the ghost of Zachariah Bolton still rattles around the old place. Not that I’d give it much credence, mind you. It’s just a tale the old folks like to tell now and again. Gives ’em something to talk about over checkers, it does.”
“Checkers,” Cody said, raising a brow. “Gee, Mom, thanks for bringing me to such a cultural mecca.”
“Mind your manners, Cody. Sheriff O’Donnell, if you brought the key along, I’ll—”
“Got it right here,” he said, and the last word sounded like “hee-ya.” Mom would call that accent charming and say it was local “flavor.” Cody found it irritating as all get-out. The sheriff held up a big old key on a brass ring. Like a jail-cell key from an old western. Or the key to the dungeons in a horror flick. Cody felt the tone slipping from King to Poe. This was not a good sign. “I’ll help you with your things, if you like. Power’s been turned on, and everything should be ready for you.”
“That was kind of you, Sheriff.”
“Yeah,” Cody put in. “I’m glad to know we’ve got pow-uh.”
His mom’s elbow dug into his ribs, but the doomed sheriff didn’t seem to notice Cody’s mimicry. He just nodded. “Least I could do for your grandmother, ma’am. Kate Fortune was one hell of a lady, if you’ll pardon the expression. When she asked me to watch after the place for her, I was more than happy to do it. Pity we’ve lost her now.”
Jane nodded. “I miss her terribly.” She slipped an arm around Cody’s shoulders and squeezed. “We both do.”
The sheriff nodded, cleared his throat. “Well, come on and follow me. I’ll show you around. And while I’m at it, I’ll tell you all about our town’s one and only claim to fame. This place’s original owner, and resident ghost, if you believe in that kind’a thing. Zachariah Bolton.” He walked as he spoke, in that slow, lazy pattern that left every sentence sounding like a question. They followed him up the porch’s wide steps and across it to the front door, which was tall, and dark, and to Cody’s way of thinking just a little bit scary.
Then Quigly O’Donnell opened the front door, and he decided he’d been wrong. It was a lot scary.
Quigly O’Donnell snapped on a light.
It was fabulous! Everything Jane had ever wanted in a home was in this house. Oh, she knew most of her family thought her hopelessly old-fashioned, but she wasn’t fond of modern society and all its trappings. Modern-day values were what had landed her pregnant and alone ten years ago, and that shock had gone a long way toward guiding Jane to her own perhaps outmoded system of morality.
This house was the embodiment of the life she wanted for her and Cody. A simple, old-fashioned life. With one notable exception. There would be no father in this traditional American family. Jane was mom and dad and everything in between. Everyone said she couldn’t do it all, that she was pushing herself too hard. But she could. And she’d do it without her family’s money. She wanted no part of the family business or the wealth that went with it. It was a rat race, everyone fighting to hold on to their share of the pie and always worrying about someone trying to take it from them. No. That wasn’t anything she wanted to be involved with.
This, though—this would be perfect.
“I never thought my modern-minded grandmother had a clue what to make of me,” she whispered as she moved through the modest entry hall and into the Gothic living room, with its high ceilings and intricate, darkly stained woodwork. “But Grandma Kate knew me better than I ever imagined. She must have, to have left me this place.” All around them, furniture stood draped in white sheets, like an army of ghosts.
“And that guest house out front will be perfect for my antique shop.” She couldn’t stop smiling. The place was her dream come true.
“The house isn’t the half of it, ma’am,” Sheriff O’Donnell offered. “It’s the history that goes along with it that makes it so special.” He’d carried in two of their suitcases, and he set them on the hardwood floor. “You’ve heard of quinaria fever, of course?”
“Heard of it?” Jane glanced behind her, but Cody was already off exploring nooks and crannies, flashing his ever-present penlight into closets and cupboards. Her heart twisted a little in her chest at the mere mention of the disease. “I nearly lost my son from it,” she said quietly. “He was exposed as a baby. Thankfully, we caught it in time.”
Frowning, the sheriff tilted his head. “Well, now, if that don’t beat all…” Then he shrugged. “Hell of a coincidence, ma’am, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
“Why’s that, Sheriff?”
“Well, Zachariah Bolton was the man responsible for finding the cure. Tryptonine, you know. Same drug we use today, with a few modifications, of course. If it hadn’t been for him— Ah, now here’s the dining room. Floor-to-ceiling hardwood cupboards on two walls. See there? Same as in the kitchen. And the ones here on the wall in between…” He opened a cupboard door, left it wide, then meandered into the kitchen. Opening the cupboard from that side, he peered through at her. “See that? Accessible from either side.”
“That’s very nice.” But she was more interested in the tale he’d been telling before.
Cody joined them then, having heard the tail end of the sheriff’s comments. “You’re dead wrong about tryptonine, Sheriff,” he said, then grinned innocently at his mom and added, “if you’ll pardon the expression.”
“Cody!”
“Come on, Mom. Everyone learns this stuff in fourth grade. The quinaria virus was cured by Bausch and Waterson in 1898.”
Jane scrunched her eyebrows and shook her head. “Are you a walking encyclopedia, or what?”
He shrugged and looked past her to Sheriff O’Donnell.
“Well, now, that’s a bright young fellow you have there, Ms. Fortune. Cody, is it? Well, Cody, m’boy, you have part of it right. But you don’t know the whole tale. Did you know, for instance, that Wilhelm Bausch and Eli Waterson spent most of their time competing against one another? Great researchers, sure enough. But more focused on getting the jump on each other than on the importance of their work. Blinded by ambition, you might say.”
Jane saw Cody’s eyes narrow suspiciously. But he listened.
“It was their friend Zachariah Bolton who finally brought them together. And only by working together were they able to find the cure.” He waved a hand to indicate that they should follow him and turned back toward the living room, then headed up the stairs. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
Jane knew she was grinning like a loon, but she couldn’t help herself. “Isn’t this great, Codester? A house complete with a ghost and a historical past?”
“Mom, you’re too into history. Get with the nineties, willya?”
“Yeah, yeah. Hurry up, I want to hear the rest of this.” She followed her son, noticing the way he paused just outside the door of the room at the top of the stairs. He stood still for a moment, staring at that door. Then shivered and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.
“You okay, pal?”
“Yeah. Sure, fine. C’mon.”
Sheriff O’Donnell headed into a bedroom farther down the hall, snapped on a light and waved his arm with a flourish when they entered.
Jane caught her breath. “My God,” she whispered, blinking at the portrait on the far wall. “It looks like a Rockwell!” She moved closer, ran her fingertips lovingly over the ornate frame, then touched the work itself. “But it can’t be. This has to be at least a hundred years old.”
“You have a fine eye, Jane.”
“I know antiques,” she said with a shrug. “It’s my business. This is unsigned. Do you know who did it?”
“Ayuh, unsigned, and no, I don’t know who the artist was,” O’Donnell said. “But it’s yours, along with everything else in the house. Including the old safe in the attic, still locked up. Might even be some of Zachariah Bolton’s old notes and such tucked away in there. Yours to do with as you please, just as your grandmother’s will specified.”
Jane couldn’t take her eyes from the portrait on the wall. A very Rockwellian painting of a dark-haired man, eyes passionate and intense, hair rumpled, white shirt unbuttoned at the neck. In one hand he held a small contraption with springs and wires sprouting in all directions, and in the other a tiny screwdriver. Gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and those piercing, deep brown eyes stared through them at his work. And beside him, right beside him, dressed in identical clothes—though in a much smaller size—sat a little boy who couldn’t be more than five or six. He had carrot-colored curls and bright green eyes, and he was tinkering with a tiny screwdriver of his own. The two sat so close they had to be touching. And the connection between them was so strong it was palpable, though they weren’t even looking at one another. At the bottom of the painting was a single word: Inventor.
“That there is Zachariah Bolton, ma’am,” Sheriff O’Donnell told her. “And the boy is his son, Benjamin.”
“Benjamin,” she whispered. “That was my grandfather’s name and this child looks enough like Cody to be his…” Jane’s voice trailed off.
“Little brother,” Cody finished, stepping farther into the room.
“Bolton was a friend and colleague to Wilhelm Bausch and Eli Waterson. In fact, they both said publicly that they considered him one of the greatest scientific minds of their time. One of the few things they agreed on, it was. Well, sir, when little Benjamin died of quinaria fever—”
Jane gasped, her eyes snapping back to the mischievous green ones in the painting. “Oh, no. That sweet little boy?”
“Yes, ma’am. And the day the boy passed, Zachariah Bolton went plumb out of his mind. The grief was too much for him, they say. Locked himself in the boy’s bedroom and refused to let anyone in. When they finally forced the door, he was long gone. And he’d taken the poor little fellow’s body right along with him. Bolton was never heard from again. Now, Bausch and Waterson were distraught enough over it that they vowed to find a cure for the disease that took little Benjamin. And by heaven, that’s just what they did.”
Jane blinked away the inexplicable tears that came to her eyes as she heard the story. “That’s so incredibly sad.”
“Yes, ma’am, that it is. I can take that painting down, store it somewhere, if it’s going to bother you.”
“No,” she answered quickly. “No, leave it right here.” Her eyes found those of the inventor again, and she could almost feel his pain.
“The place hasn’t changed much over the years,” the sheriff mused. “Aside from some fresh paint and paper, it’s almost exactly the way Bolton left it. Almost as if it’s been…waiting…or something.”
Jane frowned at the man. “But it’s been a century.”
“Ayuh. After Bolton vanished, his friends, Bausch and Waterson looked after the place. Kept the taxes paid up and so on, always insisting Bolton would come back someday. Course, he never did.” Quigly shrugged and heaved a sigh. “The house was left alone for a short while, of course, after the two men passed. Went to the town for taxes, and naturally the town kept it up, hoping to sell it one day. Never did, though. Not until your Grandma Kate came along. And even when she bought it, she refused to change a thing.”
Jane could understand that reluctance to change this place. It had a soul to it, as if it were a living entity—or was that the lingering presence of the long-dead scientist she felt in every room?
“Hey, Mom?”
She turned, surprised that Cody’s voice came from a distance and not right behind her, where he’d been standing only seconds ago. “Codester? Where are you?” She stepped out of the master bedroom, into the hall. Cody stood two doors down, in front of that room at the top of the stairs. The one that seemed to have given him a scare before.
“I want this room, if it’s okay with you,” he said. Frowning, Jane went to where he stood near the now open door. He looked in at a rather ordinary-looking bedroom, with no furniture to speak of, and nothing exceptional about it except for the huge marble fireplace on one wall.
“I kind of thought this room…gave you the willies. Isn’t this where you thought you saw something before?”
“That’s why I want it,” Cody said. He looked at her and shrugged. “If there is some kind of ghost hanging out around here, I want to know about it.”
“Gonna analyze it until you convince it it can’t possibly exist?”
“Maybe,” he said, grinning. “So when are the movers gonna get here with my Nintendo?”
Two
1897
T hunder rumbled and growled in the distance, and Zachariah got up from the chair where he’d been keeping constant vigil to light the oil lamp on his son’s bedside table. Benjamin had always been afraid of thunderstorms. Just as Zach fitted the glass chimney into place, Ben stirred, as Zach had known he would.
“Father… Oh. You’re right here.”
“Where else would I be?”
“Working on the device, of course. You waste an awful lot of time sitting here with me, you know.”
“I like sitting with you.” Thunder cracked again, and Benjamin reached for his father’s hand, found it, and held tight.
“There, now. No need to be afraid, son. You know thunder can’t hurt you.”
“That doesn’t make it any less noisy, though,” Benjamin said, quite reasonably. “How much longer will it last, Father? It’s been storming all night.”
Zachariah pulled the gold watch from his vest pocket, opened it and then turned its face toward his son. “It’s only 9:08, my boy. It hasn’t been storming all night, only a couple of hours. And it will end any time now, I’m cer—”
His words were cut off by the loudest, sharpest crack yet, this one so loud it even made Zachariah jump a bit. At the same instant, the night sky beyond Benjamin’s window was ripped apart by a blinding, jagged streak.
“Father, the lightning! It’s hit something!”
Zach moved to the edge of the bed and gathered his son in his arms. “There now…” he said. “It wasn’t as close as it seemed.” But he kept his gaze focused on that one spot in the night where the lightning seemed to have struck. And as he watched, he rocked his son, whispered to him, stroked his hair.
Within seconds, a pinprick of light danced in the distant sky. And then it began to grow, and spread, until Zach recognized it for what it was. A fire. And from what he could see, it was the old Thomas barn, nearly three miles away, that had been hit, and that was now burning. No great loss. It was an old, decrepit building and hadn’t been used in years. The only thing inside, so far as he knew, was some musty old hay.
Benjamin fell asleep in Zachariah’s arms, and Zach remained right where he was all night long, holding his precious child and watching the growing blaze in the distance. Soon it illuminated the entire night sky. The barn was old, tinder-dry, and had gone up like a matchstick.
Zach ought to be working. He knew he should, for so very much depended on the success of the current experiment. And he was so close. So close.
Right now, though, Benjamin needed him. And right now he couldn’t bring himself to leave.
But as the sun rose high the next morning, and spirals of smoke still rose from the charred remains of the old Thomas barn, Zach gently tried to extricate himself from the bed without disturbing Benjamin. And he did. A bit too easily. As he got to his feet, it hit him that, sick as he was, Benjamin was normally a very light sleeper. He should have at least stirred when Zach got up from the bed.
A cold chill crept up his spine as he turned to face his son, who hadn’t so much as stirred in his sleep all night.
And then Zachariah Bolton’s heart froze over. He shook Ben’s frail shoulders gently, tapped his pale cheek. But there was no response. His son had slipped into a coma. The state that marked the final stages of his illness. Death was only twenty-four hours away now, perhaps less.
There was no more time. None whatsoever. He must act now, and if the experiment had side effects, then so be it. He’d suffer whatever he must in order to save his son’s life.
He reached into his vest, and removed the device from its pocket. There was no longer any reason to stay by his son’s side. Benjamin wouldn’t wake again. Not unless… Not unless this worked.
Leaning over the bed, he stroked his son’s coppery curls, kissed his forehead. “I’ll be gone for a little while, my Ben. But I’ll try to arrange it so it’s only an instant for you. I don’t want to leave you, but I must to get you healthy again. Understand?”
Benjamin’s auburn lashes rested on his chalk-white cheeks, and his breath wheezed in and out of his rail-thin body.
Zach straightened and pushed his hands through his hair. He looked like hell. He knew it without a glimpse at the looking glass. His clothes were rumpled, vest unbuttoned and gaping. The thin black tie he’d worn the day before hung loose from his collar. He’d planned, though. There was a small satchel in Benjamin’s wardrobe, with a change of clothes and the things he’d need. Including proof, should he be questioned. He took a moment to retrieve the satchel. No time to change. Not now. Ben could very well expire while his father worried over such trivial matters. But once Zach was gone, time would virtually stand still for his son. Time enough to bathe then. If he was displeasing to those he met, well, too bad for them. Not that he was likely to meet anyone at all. Each time he’d opened the portal, it had shown him an empty, unlived-in version of his own house. Not that he cared right now who he might meet, or what they might think of him.
He wasn’t thinking of himself. Not at all. He wasn’t thinking of society, either, or of the repercussions he knew full well might come from his tampering with nature this way. He flatly refused to consider those. The only thing on Zachariah Bolton’s mind was his son. His precious Benjamin. The only thing that mattered right now was finding a way to save his child’s fragile life. The child who was, right now, precariously close to death. And he could do it. Zachariah Bolton could do it. He could travel backward through time. He could go back to a time before his son had been exposed to the killing virus that was trying so hard to take him. And when he arrived there, he’d take Benjamin away, somewhere safe. So that when the virus pummelled Rockwell, Ben would be far away. He’d never be exposed. And when the danger had passed, he’d bring Ben home safe and sound. He’d never become sick. He’d never die. He’d be all right. Zach would return here, to this time, to find his son healthy and well again. With no memory of having been sick at all.
Zach’s heartbeat escalated as he pointed the device toward that spot in the very center of his son’s bedroom. He had no idea what the spot was. A wrinkle in the fabric of time. A rent. Whatever it was, it was only here, in this room, and he suspected it had been here, hovering in the air above the ground, even before the house was built. He’d attempted the experiment in numerous locations, but here and here alone had he found success. One night, when he’d been working in here so as to be with his ailing child, he’d discovered the portal purely by accident.
With his thumb, he depressed the initiator button. And a pinprick of light appeared in midair, at the room’s center. Holding the device steady, he turned the expander dial, and the light grew bigger, brighter, until it was a glowing sphere that extended beyond the ceiling and the floor. A mist-filled, glowing orb. But even that began to change. The mists cleared and took on forms, and in moments Zach was looking into what appeared to be a huge mirror. And the mirror reflected this very room back at him. Only in another time. He could clearly see that the wallpaper was different, and the curtains in the windows were different, and the furnishings. Everything. Right down to the small body bundled beneath the covers in the bed. Benjamin? Before he was taken ill, when he was well and strong and healthy? This was going to work. It was going to work!
He only hoped it didn’t kill him. Every test so far indicated there would be side effects. The tea cup Zach had pushed through the portal a few days ago had shattered. He’d made adjustments to the device and tried again. The apple he sent through had withered, and he’d made still more changes. The mouse…the mouse had died. And though Zach had recalculated and made even more changes, he couldn’t be certain he had it right this time. So, yes, there might be side effects. Serious ones. He just didn’t know what they would be, yet. But—he smiled a little—he was about to find out. “You’re going to be all right, Benjamin. I swear to you. You’ll be well again!” And Zachariah Bolton stepped into the light, and promptly felt a post wallop him right between the eyes.
Jane Fortune couldn’t sleep. There was simply too much on her mind. Oh, not the house. The house was perfect, she’d known that the second she saw it. The aging but elegant Victorian, standing like a guardian of the sea. The rocky Maine shoreline below. The songs of the waves that would sing her to sleep under ordinary circumstances.
Her new antique shop—Jane smiled at the words—was now a reality. She’d researched the area, made new contacts and stocked up on local finds. She’d been open for several weeks now, and business was brisk. The guest house—a miniature copy of the main house, perched at its feet as if the house had given birth to a pup—was perfect, just as Jane had known it would be. Even the nearby town, appropriately named Rockwell, was picture-perfect. The epitome of the New England fantasy. A place time and progress seemed to have forgotten. It boasted a corner drugstore complete with a soda fountain and a barbershop with an old-fashioned candy-cane pole outside. When she walked along Rockwell’s sidewalks, she half expected to round a corner and spot four men in flat-topped straw hats and handlebar mustaches singing about strolling through the park.
But as Grandma Kate used to say, when things seem too good to be true, look out, because they probably are. What if the business failed? What would she do then? Go running back to Minneapolis with her tail between her legs?
No. No, this move had been hard enough on Cody. She wouldn’t uproot him again. She’d make this work, somehow. She had to, for her son’s sake.
But financial worries were not the only things troubling Jane’s mind tonight. She was more concerned about her son than about anything else. Cody’s wish for a father had gnawed at her heart from the second he uttered it in the car that night. He was an intelligent child—gifted, the school officials called him. He knew he’d had a father once. But while Jane didn’t believe in lying to her son, she hadn’t told him the whole truth about Greg. He knew only that his father had been a talented musician who died when Cody was still a baby. She’d left out the rest. She’d never told Cody how taken in she’d been by Greg’s idealism and sincerity, and the beauty and meaning behind the songs he wrote and played in clubs around Minneapolis. God, when she thought now about how quickly she’d fallen in love with him…
She’d been a fool. Greg’s idealism had fled the second some L.A. big shot heard him play, and offered his band a recording contract. A pregnant young girlfriend who had made it clear she wanted no part of her family wealth, hadn’t fit in with his new and improved plans. She wouldn’t have wanted such a shallow and irresponsible man raising her son, anyway. She knew that now. But she also knew her son ached for the lack of a father in his life.
Oh, if only…
She looked wistfully at the painting on the wall beside her bed. Zachariah Bolton. His soft sable hair fell across his forehead, his brown eyes gleamed. The narrow black tie hung in two thin ribbons, and his vest was unbuttoned. The top of a gold watch peeked up from a small pocket.
The boy’s resemblance to her own son struck her again, and she figured that might be a lot of the reason she liked the piece so much. The two sat very close to one another, at a wooden table with an oil lamp at either end. Each intent on his own work, but still, somehow, aware of the other. You could almost feel the love between them. Father and son, she’d have known that even without Quigly O’Donnell’s narration. A father whose work meant the world to him, she thought, but who had never once allowed that work to come before his son.
If only Cody could have a father like that one.
Jane sighed, and relaxed deeper into her pillows. It was no use dreaming. She’d never find a man with those century-old values in the nineties. Not even in this nostalgic town. And she wouldn’t settle for less. She didn’t want another man whose career meant more to him than his own child. And she didn’t want an ambitionless bum, or an immature, irresponsible overgrown kid, either.
She wanted…
Her gaze wandered back to the man in the painting. His full lips were parted just slightly, his strong jawline was taut, as if he were grating his teeth, and he was shoulder-to-shoulder with the little boy. The passion in his eyes was for his work. But it was intense enough to make her wonder if it had ever been there for a woman. His wife, the boy’s mother, perhaps?
She smiled and shook her head. She was gifting the mysterious inventor with qualities he’d probably never had. The day after she and Cody moved in, Jane had made a trip to the Rockwell Public Library and borrowed several books on the town’s history. The chapters on Bolton all read much the same. He’d been a notorious womanizer. The Don Juan of the nineteenth century, one author had dubbed him. None had mentioned his wife. Poor, long-suffering woman.
And yet that passion in the eyes of the inventor called to her.
Oh, but all this speculation was silly. The man was no longer living. And that probably wasn’t passion at all in his eyes, but perhaps the beginnings of insanity. Once a man considered to be a genius, and far ahead of his time, Bolton had, the books claimed, crossed that fine line between brilliance and insanity. And from what she’d read, Jane thought the madness had begun to take over long before the death of his precious son. Two accounts said that Bolton had claimed he’d discovered a way to travel through time. He’d been ridiculed for that claim, and soon after he’d refused to discuss it. Some said it was that ridicule that had sent him into seclusion, as much as the loss of his son. Whatever the reason, he’d dropped out of sight in 1890-something, never to be heard from again.
A shame. A crying shame.
“Mom! Mom, hurry!”
The alarm in Cody’s voice pierced straight through every thought, to her very soul. Something was wrong. She jumped out of bed and ran into the hall, down it, and her heart was in her throat even before she exploded through his bedroom door and froze in place.
The moonlight spilled through the window and bathed the two forms in its pale, liquid glow. A rumpled, tousled man knelt on the floor, holding her son in his arms, so tightly she wondered if Cody could breathe. The man’s back was toward Jane, and his shoulders shuddered and convulsed as if he were sobbing. Cody stared at her from the darkness, wide-eyed, as the man rocked him back and forth.
“My son,” he kept whispering, his voice raw and coarse. “My boy, my son. Thank God…”
Jane’s heart seemed to grind to a halt. Without a second’s hesitation, she stepped into the room, snatched the baseball bat from where it leaned in the corner, lifted it and moved forward.
“Mom, no!”
Cody’s shout made the lunatic who held him pause and stiffen, as if just realizing someone else had come into the room. And Jane hesitated. Instead of bringing the bat crashing down on his head, she just held it there, ready, poised. Her throat was so dry that the words sounded raspy and harsh when she said, “Let him go. Let him go, right now, or I swear…”
And he turned very slowly, still hugging Cody tight, to face her. The movement bringing him out of the light, so that his face was in shadow. His brows drew together, and he seemed puzzled. Confused.
“Please,” Jane said, and her voice wasn’t quite as demanding or as confident this time. Her hands shook, and her grip on the baseball bat was none too steady. “Please, take whatever you want. Just don’t hurt my son.”
“Hurt him?” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. Tormented, pain-filled, and weak. “No, I could never… I love him. He’s my son, my Benjamin, my…” Blinking as if to clear his eyes, he turned to stare at Cody’s small, frightened face.
Jane lowered the bat, reached out a hand, flicked on the light switch. She saw the man jerk in shock, saw the fearful glance he sent up at the light fixture on the ceiling above him. Then his gaze returned to the top of Cody’s head, because he held him too closely to see much else.
“He’s my son,” Jane said, calmly, gently, and her eyes were fixed to Cody’s. The man was obviously insane. “His name is not Benjamin, it’s Cody. He’s my son. Please…”
The man gave his head a shake. With deliberate tenderness, he clasped Cody’s small shoulders and moved the boy away from him, just a bit. Enough so that he could stare down into Cody’s face.
“You’re…you’re not Benjamin….” he whispered, and the pain in his voice had tears springing to life in Jane’s eyes.
“I’m Cody, mister. Cody Fortune. I had a dad once, but he died when I was a baby. That’s my mom.” Cody pointed. “Her name’s Jane.”
The man’s brows rose. He shook his head slowly, and tears filled his eyes. “Lord,” he whispered. “You’re not… But…I thought…” Blinking repeatedly, he gripped the bedpost, pulled himself to his feet, but remained bent over, his free hand pressing to his forehead. Finally, he straightened, and turned to face Jane fully, right beneath the overhead light.
She saw his face, and her jaw fell. She caught her breath, forced her shock into submission. But then she noticed the clothes he wore, and her heart flip-flopped all over again.
Dear God, he was the image of the man in the painting.
“I’m sorry,” he said, glancing down at Cody. Then facing Jane, he repeated, “I’m so sorry I frightened you both. I…” He took a step toward her, but swayed a little, and grasped the bedpost to hold himself up.
“Th-th-that’s okay,” Jane said, and she wiggled her hand at her son. Cody ran to her, and she held him tight, never taking her eyes off the stranger. “Um…look, how did you get in here?”
He frowned, and looked around the room as if for the first time. “It’s…it’s different.” He closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.
Jane gently pushed Cody behind her, then took a backward step. She forcibly ignored his resemblance to the inventor she’d been mooning over so recently, and refused to think about his clothes. “You’re, um…sick or something, aren’t you,” she said, almost as if to convince herself of it. “You’re disoriented and you wandered in here by accident. I understand, all right? I’m not going to press charges, or anything like that.”
The man’s eyes opened. They were a bit dazed, clouded with pain, but they were also intelligent, perfectly sane and utterly sincere brown eyes. Brown eyes that looked so familiar it was downright uncanny. “What year is this, Jane?”
What year—
Jane swallowed hard and refused to so much as allow the thought to enter her mind. “Nineteen ninety-seven,” she told him, as casually as if it were a question she answered every day. She nudged her son with her as she took another backward step into the hall.
The man’s head jerked up fast and his eyes widened. “Nineteen…” Then he looked above him, at the light fixture in the ceiling, and when he lowered his head again, he grimaced in agony. “No… No, I went the wrong way. I came forward instead of going back. This can’t be, I…” Still ranting, he lunged forward, toward Jane, but he never made it. He went down like a giant redwood, in a heap at her feet.
And that was when she noticed the gold wire-rims on the floor beside him. The satchel in the middle of Cody’s bedroom floor. The little black box. She swallowed hard and told herself she was letting her imagination run wild. She bent down over him, reached into his vest pocket and pulled out the pocket watch—the exact same pocket watch she’d seen in the painting. And then she looked more closely at the small black box on the floor. An odd-looking remote control that looked an awful lot like the box the inventor was tinkering with in the painting.
“He asked what year it was. Said he’d come forward,” she muttered. And she mentally revisited what Sheriff O’Donnell, and the library books, had told her about the genius scientist who’d lived here. That he’d claimed to have invented time travel…and then he disappeared.
“But that just can’t be…”
“Mom?”
She rose, and turned to face her son.
“Can we keep him?”
Jane braced her hands on the edge of the bed, bending almost double as she tried to catch her breath. The man was no lightweight, that was for sure. Getting him into the bed had been no easy job. And whoever he was, he could use a shower, a shave and a clean change of clothes.
None of which, she reminded herself, was her problem. All she had to do was go downstairs, call Sheriff Quigly O’Donnell and have this intruder taken away to a jail cell.
Except that she hadn’t placed that call just yet. And she was in no hurry to, for some reason.
“Mom, is he sick?”
She glanced at her son, shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably. You’d better go wash your hands, Cody. It might be catching.”
Cody didn’t go. “Maybe he’s not sick, Mom. Maybe he’s hurt.”
Jane slipped her arm around her son’s shoulders and squeezed. “You must have been scared to death.”
“Nah. At first I thought he really was my dad. That he’d come back somehow—even though I know that’s impossible. The way he was hugging me and all.” His chin lowered just a bit. “It was kinda nice.”
Jane’s throat tightened. Time to change the subject. “How did he get in here, sweetheart?”
Cody shook his head. “There was this big light, right in the middle of my room. Round. Like…sort of like a train tunnel, only light instead of dark. Really light. It hurt my eyes.” Jane frowned, but her son kept on talking. “Then the light was gone, and he was laying on the floor.”
“Lying on the floor,” she said automatically, her gaze pinned to the man in her son’s bed.
“That’s what I said. Mom, you think he’s a ghost?”
“No, Cody, I don’t think he’s a ghost.” She frowned at her son. “And I didn’t think you believed in anything as non-scientific as that.”
“I don’t. But what about—?”
“Come on,” she said, feeling uneasier by the second. A train tunnel, indeed. “Let’s go call Sheriff O’Donnell.”
“Mom, we can’t!” Cody pulled his hand free. “He needs help! He’s sick or hurt or something! You can’t go putting him in jail!”
“Honey, he broke into our house—”
“He’s my friend!” Cody crossed his arms over his chest, lower lip protruding.
“How can he be your friend? You don’t even know him.”
“He hugged me,” Cody said firmly. “And he said he loved me. And I’m not going to let you put him in jail.”
Jane closed her eyes and sighed. “Codester, sweetie, we can’t just keep him.”
“Why not? He could help with the tree house I want to build in the backyard. When he’s better, I mean. It would be great. And we could—”
“For all we know, Cody, this man could be a dangerous criminal. We can’t just let him stay. He could be—” She looked down into her son’s huge green eyes and felt like Attila the Hun. “Cody…”
“Please, Mom? We at least have to find out who he is, where he came from. What that flash of light was all about. I think he needs help, Mom.”
She sighed. “I’ll think about it.”
Cody smiled. Then he yawned and rubbed his eyes.
“Come on. You’d better get some sleep now. In my room, okay?”
“Okay.” Grinning, Cody raced down the hall and shot right into her bedroom.
Jane looked at the man who slept in her son’s bed. There was, of course, no way she was going to let him stay here. She’d simply have to wait until Cody went to sleep to call the sheriff. She’d figure out a way to explain it to him later. Meanwhile, she wouldn’t take her eyes off the guy. If he so much as glanced in Cody’s direction…
She picked up the baseball bat and pulled up a chair. She’d give Cody fifteen minutes to fall asleep. Then she’d place that call.
Zach awoke in the darkened room. His son’s bedroom, of course. He must have tired himself out working today, and fallen asleep reading to the boy. It was a wonder Ben hadn’t shaken him awake to get him to finish the story, the way he usually did.
But where on earth was Benjamin?
He closed his eyes, shook his head. Of course. Benjamin was still visiting his grandparents in Boston. How could he have forgotten?
Well, then, as long as he was awake, he might as well get some work done.
Oh, bother.
Zach poked into his shirt pocket in search of his spectacles, but didn’t find them there. He reached to the small stand beside the bed for an oil lamp, but he must not have left it there. All he had to go by was the moonlight streaming in through the window behind him as he scanned the room in search of the lamp. But what was this? There was an incredibly beautiful young woman asleep in a wooden chair beside the bed. She wore a pale nightgown, with short sleeves that revealed her shapely arms. Her head was tipped sideways, resting upon her shoulder. And her hair rolled in waves of red-brown satin, halfway to the floor. My word, she was something. But what on earth was she doing here? How had she…
Slowly Zach recalled his colleagues Wilhelm and Eli, and their penchant for practical jokes. They’d been teasing him about working too hard, about having no life, no interests, aside from his son and his work. He’d once been something of a rogue, engaging in affairs with some of the town’s most notoriously improper young women. But he’d been slacking off lately, and devoting all his time to the current experiment. One that would change the world, if he ever made it work.
Once, those two clowns had suggested he’d been so long without a woman that he wouldn’t know what to do with one if she showed up in his bed. So they’d decided to hire some doxy to prove their point, had they? My, she was beautiful. Unfortunately, he wasn’t so desperate to prove his manhood that he’d risk disease to do so. He much preferred to choose his own lovers. A shame, such a shame.
He sighed. No doubt she’d report back to those two childish pranksters that he’d failed to show any interest in her…charms.
Well, he could at least avoid the ribbing he’d take over that.
Sliding from the bed, wondering only briefly why he felt so weak and slightly dizzy, he tiptoed to the chair where she slept, nearly tripping over the baseball bat his son must have left lying about. Amazing he hadn’t spotted it before. He shoved it out of the way with his foot and stepped closer to the trollop, and touched that long hair, rubbed it between his fingers. Soft as down. He bent slightly, inhaled her scent and smiled. Oh, they’d gone all out. Must have paid extra for a clean and lovely girl. This one looked as fresh as a daisy, and smelled even better.
As he stood bending over her, she sighed and moved a bit. Her lips parted and her head tipped back. And Zach realized with a pang how very long it had been since he’d kissed a woman. And, aside from the common cold, perhaps, he didn’t fear catching anything by kissing this one.
So he did. He bent lower, lifted her chin with the tip of his forefinger and fit his mouth to hers. Her lips were warm and moist and pliant, and they felt good beneath his. Better when a gentle sigh escaped them, one he inhaled. He nudged those soft lips apart, to taste more of her, and they opened willingly, easily. She was starting to come awake now. Starting to respond, kissing him back. He slipped his arms around her small waist and pulled her to her feet, cradling her between his legs and against his chest as he deepened his kiss. Her drowsy response ignited feelings in him that he’d long since forgotten. Feelings he hadn’t thought he’d ever know again. Passion flared in his veins, and her body pressed closer, head tilted farther, lips opened to his questing tongue. Her hands crept up his back, clung to his shoulders, and his heart beat a wild tattoo in his chest. No, none of his halfhearted dalliances had produced this strong a response in him.
Not since Claudia…
And then a mighty shove sent him staggering backward, and Zach was too surprised to even wonder why he was so weak that a mite of a woman could send him flying.
She stood panting, glaring at him. “That’s it,” she fairly growled at him. “That’s it. I was thinking about going easy on you, mister, but you’ve pushed me too far.”
“Rough or easy,” he told her, “doesn’t much matter. I’m not interested in having sex with you, Miss, so you might as well be on your way.” It was a lie, of course. He was very interested. If only he had one of those condoms on hand, he might even oblige her.
“Not…interested… Sex?” She blinked as if in shock.
“Oh, it isn’t you, love.” He smiled at her, reached out a hand to smooth her hair out of her eyes. She only stood there, apparently too shocked to move. “Actually, I’m more tempted than I’ve been in a very long time. You’re lovely. But I’ve no wish to expose myself to… Well, you understand.”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t understand, and I don’t think I want to. Listen, you’re nuts. You’re certifiable. I’m taking you downstairs right now, and I’m calling the sheriff. But don’t bother waiting around for him, okay? Just get out.”
He frowned, tilted his head. “Pardon?”
“I said get out,” she told him. She was grating her teeth and her fisted hands were shaking at her sides. “Get the hell out of my house. Now.”
“My word,” he told her. “You really should consider a career in the theater. I’ve no idea what you’re up to, darling, but this is my house, and it’s you who really ought to be leaving.”
She blinked. The anger was rapidly fading. It was fear he saw replacing it in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said, thinking perhaps she’d be beaten if it became known she’d failed. He almost reconsidered his decision to abstain. Sex with this fiery woman would have to be something to experience. “What if I let you stay a couple of hours, hmm? Will that be enough to convince them we had ourselves a good tumble?”
Her hand connected with his face in a streak, and he didn’t have time to duck it. It thoroughly amazed him when her blow knocked him off balance. He landed on the bed, blinking up at her. Lord, why was he so weak? So dizzy? Had he been ill recently?
“Get out,” she ordered.
“Enough,” he said softly, still baffled by his physical state. “Are you daft? Must I prove to you that this is my home? Shall I send for the sheriff to have you carried out? Is that what you want?” He shook his head, lifted a hand and pointed toward the table near the window, its shape just visible in the darkness. “There is a worktable. Not the main one, of course, but I do keep one here in Benjamin’s room. Some of my experiments are there. My tools. My notes. They’re secret, naturally, but a common doxy like you could make neither heads nor tails of them anyway, so go ahead and look.” He pointed to the far wall. “There is the hearth, and upon the mantel are a pair of oil lamps and some matches. Do light one, so you can see for yourself where you are, woman. And then kindly remove yourself. I have work to do.”
The woman only stared at him, completely puzzled. And then, slowly, she moved to the wall. She touched an appendage there, and the room was suddenly flooded with light. Zachariah Bolton nearly fell on the floor in shock.
Three
J ane searched the floor, spotted the baseball bat and snatched it up again as she watched an apparently bewildered man gazing around Cody’s bedroom as if in disbelief.
“What is this?” he shouted. “Where is the slate board? My notes? Lord, woman, who installed this confounded electrical illuminator in here, and what have you done with my notes?”
“Look,” she said, holding the bat up in front of her. “I don’t know who the hell you are, or what you’re talking about, but—”
“My tools!” he yelled, turning this way and that, pushing a hand through his nearly black hair. “What in tarnation have you done with my tools? And my worktable? Woman, where is Aunt Hattie’s credenza?”
The man was sick. And not just mentally, either. His face was pale, and thinner than it should be, and dark circles ringed his deep brown eyes.
“Thank heavens,” he said at last, and fell to his knees on the floor, grasping that small box. “The device is safe, at least. The device…” He looked even more confused than before. “But…but I hadn’t finished it yet.”
She wanted to run from the room. Right that second, run down the hall to grab Cody, and then take him right out of this house. But the man on his knees in the center of the floor was looking at her, and she thought, maybe, he was remembering… The pain that slowly shadowed his face said more than words could. But he spoke all the same, staring hard at her.
“You’re Jane.”
She nodded, not moving. Telling herself to leave, call for help. And telling herself not to go to him and try to ease the confusion from his brow.
“And the boy…he’s your son… He’s not Benjamin.”
“That’s right. You remember, then,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes. “I remember. Benjamin…my little Benjamin…he’s…” His head bowed, and his shoulders began to shake. “He’s dying. How could I forget that, even for a moment?”
Jane blinked. Dying? He had a son, who resembled her own, and that son was dying? “My God,” she whispered, and the bat fell to the floor with a bang. “My God, no wonder you’re so messed up.” Warily she moved forward. And when she stood close to where he knelt, she touched his hair, stroked it away from his face and felt the tears that dampened it.
His arms closed around her legs, his head resting against her thighs. “I meant to go back, Jane. I meant to go back, so I could save him. Before he was ever exposed to the blasted virus. I meant… But I failed. A miscalculation. Something. I failed, and now I might have lost him forever.”
Crazy talk again. But then, how sane would she be if she ever lost her Codester? A little chill raced up her spine, but she went right on stroking his hair. His entire situation resembled the history of Zachariah Bolton. No wonder he’d wandered here in confusion. “It’s all right,” she whispered, because there was a lump in her throat that prevented her speaking louder. “It’s going to be all right. I’ll help you. Okay?”
He said nothing. But she knew he was devastated. He clung to her, shaking, crying perhaps, confused and in terrible pain.
“What’s your name?” she asked him.
“Zach,” he muttered. “Zachariah Bolton.”
She stiffened, and he must have felt it, because he straightened away from her. He pressed a hand to his forehead, as if trying to rub away a pounding headache, and then he slowly got to his feet. “I’m sorry. I’m falling apart. What must you think?”
“I think,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “that you’ve been through something horrible and it’s left you…confused.”
“Insane, you mean.”
“Of course not.”
He shook his head and paced away from her. “You look at me as if you believe I’m insane.”
“I…well…look, it’s just that Zachariah Bolton would be over a hundred and thirty years old today.”
He stopped pacing and stood, toying with the black box in his hands. “Zachariah Bolton,” he said softly, “is thirty-five years old, Jane. He was born in 1862.”
“That doesn’t make any— What is that thing you’re playing with?”
He looked up, blinked. “So the house belongs to you now?”
“Yes. My son and I, yes.”
“Your husband…is he at home? May I speak with him?”
“I don’t have—” She bit her lip, averted her gaze. Since when did the handbook on survival in the nineties advise women to tell insane housebreakers that they were all alone? “He’s not here right now.”
The man who claimed to be Zachariah Bolton frowned, and his gaze shifted downward. To her left hand, she realized belatedly. “You’re not married, are you?” She didn’t answer. He shook his head in wonder, and looked down at the box in his hand once more. And then he swayed a little, blinked as if his vision were blurring.
“You’re not well,” she told him.
He drew a fortifying breath and eased himself down onto the edge of the bed. “No. No, physically, I’m not at all myself. Side effects, I suppose. I hadn’t expected them to be quite so severe.”
“S-side effects…to what?”
He looked her squarely in the eye. “You’ll run off to send word to the local asylum if I tell you. But I don’t suppose I have much of a choice right now, do I? I need you, Jane. I need you to… Ah, but I can’t make you understand this way. Come here.”
She blinked, took a step backward, eyeing him as he patted the spot on the bed beside him.
He frowned, and then his brows went up and he nodded. “Yes, I don’t suppose I behaved as a gentleman when I found you here earlier, did I?” And his eyes, for some reason, fixed on her lips, and remained there a moment too long. “I don’t know what that was, Jane. A memory lapse of some sort. Side effects, as I said. I was remembering a time when two of my colleagues hired a…” He gave his head a shake. “No matter. I apologize for that. Please, come over here, just for a moment. If you stand there, you might be hurt when I show you what this device does.”
She tilted her head. “What is it, some kind of stun gun?”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know that term, but no, that’s not what this is. I only want to show you how I got here, Jane, because if I tell you, you’ll think I’m insane and throw me out before I can offer proof.”
She took a step toward him. He held out a hand. “I am Zachariah Bolton, Jane, and if you’ll just come over here, I’ll prove it.”
Sighing, she picked up her baseball bat. He glanced down at it, lifting one eyebrow. Jane went to him, sat down beside him on the bed. “I suppose you’re going to tell me you traveled a hundred years forward in time, and that this little remote control gone haywire is your time machine.”
He frowned hard. “How on earth could you know—”
“Oh, everyone around here knows about Zachariah Bolton. He was a genius. A man light-years ahead of his time. But he got a little crazy after his…” Her voice trailed off, and she lost her breath.
“After his son died? Yes, I suppose I will go a bit crazy if that happens. But, Jane, I have no intention of letting it happen.” Her eyes widened as she stared at him. He glanced down at himself. “I’ve been wearing these clothes all night, as I sat up with him. No wonder you were so afraid of me. I look like a common tramp. I hadn’t expected anyone to be here…except for Ben and perhaps Mrs. Haversham.”
She stood up, shook her head. “Stop. Just stop talking this way. It’s…”
“Crazy?” He nodded. “I know. I know. That’s what all my colleagues kept saying. That time travel was physically impossible. That I was wasting my talents working on it. I was close, oh, so very close, for months. When Benjamin took ill…it did something to me. Gave me something…extra.”
She was still shaking her head, still backing away. But his hand came up and caught her wrist, holding her still, bringing her close to him. With the funny-looking remote, he pointed. “That spot, right there, Jane. A spot some thirty-five feet above the ground, a spot that this house ended up being built around…There’s a wrinkle there. An invisible wrinkle in the fabric of time. A doorway, Jane. And I can open it.”
His thumb touched a button on the remote, and she heard a low-pitched hum. A pinprick of light appeared in the air halfway between the floor and the ceiling, at the room’s center.
“My intent was to go back, and only a few months. I wanted to go to my Benjamin before he’d ever been exposed to the virus, and take him away before he could become infected. I wanted to save him. Surely you can understand that, can’t you, Jane? Only hours ago you were willing to face me down with nothing but a wooden bat in order to save your own child. You’d do anything for him. You know you would.”
She didn’t like the way his eyes were blazing, or the tightness of his grip on her forearm. She pulled, but he got to his feet, gave one good tug, and she was pressed tight to him. His free arm snapped around her waist like a padlock’s hasp, and he held her immobile. The fingers of his other hand worked the dial on the little black box, and the box began to hum. But the light remained the same.
“I messed it up, Jane,” he said, his voice close to her ear, as he slowly turned a dial with his free hand. “My calculations were off somehow, and I came forward instead of going back. And not just a few months, but a century. A hundred years.”
He gave the dial another twist, his grip on her waist tightening. She shook her head, but stopped pulling against his embrace. “This can’t be,” she whispered. “This just can’t be.”
Zach twisted the dial once more, but the light only flashed brighter for an instant and then died. For a long moment, Jane just stared at the spot where it had been.
He fiddled with the box, twisting the knob again, but nothing happened.
“Damn. I’m forgetting… I’m not insane,” he whispered, and she realized, a little belatedly, that he was still holding her. Her back nestled intimately against the front of him, and his hand remained, lightly now, but snugly, at her waist. “The device needs time to recharge. How I let that slip my mind, I don’t know. Three days, Jane, and I’ll show you a wonder you’ll never forget. I am exactly who I say I am. I swear to you. And I need you, Jane. I need you to let me stay here until the device can recharge and I can get back to my son.”
She turned in his arms, stared up into his eyes and knew, without any doubt, that this man fully believed every word he was saying. This poor, beautiful, sick man.
“You won’t turn me away. I know you won’t. There’s kindness in your eyes, Jane. I see it there. You won’t—”
“You need help,” she whispered. “Let me help you find it.”
He closed his eyes, his shoulders slumping forward as if he were too exhausted to go on. “At least,” he whispered, “let me stay until morning. I’ll think of a way to make you believe me by then. I’m too tired now. I can’t think….”
“All right.” Stupid, she told herself. Stupid to let an insane man stay the night. But she couldn’t turn him away, not with that pain in his eyes. She just couldn’t.
The relief in his face, in his eyes when he opened them again, was incredible. He pulled her closer, hugged her, rested his cheek in her hair. “Thank you, Jane,” he told her. “Thank you.”
She was, he mused, perhaps the kindest woman he’d ever known. She’d suggested he get some rest, expressed concern over his health before she retired to her bed. Truth to tell, he was more than a bit concerned himself. That memory lapse…and this incessant weakness, and the recurring vertigo… Coming through the doorway had altered him physically, and he still wasn’t certain of the extent of the damage. He’d fallen asleep instantly, and only awakened just now, to the sun rising high in the east. And he still felt exhausted and battered. His head ached intensely. But he had no time to waste lying in bed and waiting to recover. For all he knew, he might get worse, rather than better. Best, he decided, to get to work right away.
Work? But what work? What the hell could he do? Nothing, he realized slowly. Nothing but wait. He couldn’t return to his own time until the device had recharged. So for three days he’d be here, unable to do a thing to help his son.
It wasn’t hopeless. Merely a setback. He’d wait, and then he’d return. He’d return to the exact time whence he’d come. Benjamin’s condition would not have had time to worsen. And from there, Zach would simply start over. Make a few adjustments, and try again. In the meantime, there was very little he could do. His main task, it seemed, was proving himself to Jane, convincing her to let him remain right here, for there was no other place….
Yes. He’d have to convince Jane to let him stay. Fortunately, Zach thought, influencing reluctant females to his way of thinking was one of his areas of expertise. Second only to science, in fact. Or had been, once. He wondered briefly whether he could drum up enough of his legendary charm to sway her. He had to try. There was more at stake than conquest here. There was Ben. Benjamin was safe…for the moment. So Zach was free to pursue the matter at hand.
But first…
He glanced down at his rumpled clothing and wrinkled his nose. First a bath, and a change of clothes. His carpetbag still lay on the floor, where he’d dropped it when he first came through. So at least he had the most recent notes—torn hastily from his journal in case he might need them—a few basic tools, a change of clothes and some toiletries. He carried these with him into the bathroom down the hall, and then marveled at the wonders to be found there.
At first he wondered how he’d manage without a lamp or a candle. But then he recalled the electric illuminator in Benjamin’s—er, Cody’s—room, and searched the spot on the wall just inside the door, where the control for the other one had been. He found the switch, moved it, and the bathroom filled with light. Zach simply shook his head in wonder, and explored further. The tub was huge, with spigots fixed into it. Water, hot, as well as cold, ran into the giant shining tub at the touch of a knob. Far more advanced than his own bathroom had been, and his had been the very latest in technology. Judging by the force with which the water spewed from the spigots, he knew there must be more power behind it than mere gravity. The necessary, too, was sparkling-clean and water-filled. Warm air blew gently from a register low on the wall. He smelled no wood smoke. Something else was obviously heating the water, and the house, as well. The very essence of day-to-day living, he realized slowly, had changed. Drastically changed.
He ran water into the tub, and soaked for a long time as he tried to imagine what other advances he’d discover in this new era. Automobiles… Had they proved practical, or been a passing fancy, as so many of his colleagues had predicted? Had this new generation of humanity wiped out disease? Achieved world peace? And this woman, Jane, owning this house filled with modern wonders and raising a son all on her own. Was this common today? Zach frowned as he considered it. Something told him that nothing about Jane was common.
He’d kissed her. Yes, he’d been in the throes of some sort of delirium when he did it, but not so much so that he couldn’t recall every instant of that kiss. And her sleepy response to it. Her soft breath in his mouth, her hands splayed on his shoulders. She’d set a fire in him that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Perhaps ever. Oh, there’d been passion between him and Claudia, one he suspected was based more on his own youth and energy than anything else. But they’d really had very little in common. And, of course, he’d learned later that he’d been no more than an amusing diversion to her. She hadn’t cared for him in the least. He’d been young, with little money and few prospects. She’d been married to a wealthy man, a woman of social standing who couldn’t risk it all by admitting to her frequent affairs with naive young men. Much less admitting that she had become pregnant as a result of one of them.
She’d gone abroad to visit an aunt, or so the story went. Months later, Benjamin had been dropped upon Zachariah’s doorstep, with a note promising Zach he’d be ruined, both socially and financially, if he ever breathed a word about the child’s mother. She’d never wanted to lay eyes on the baby or on his father again.
And so she never had.
It had been, Zach mused, the best education he could ever have. Oh, he’d learned all about women. They were practical creatures. No woman would be truly interested in a man who was less than wealthy—particularly if he was less wealthy than she. Claudia’s interest had recently been renewed. No doubt due to the fact that her rich husband had passed, leaving most of his money to a nephew. And in the years in between, Zach had acquired his own wealth and social standing. But he was no longer interested in Claudia. For a time he’d become a user of women, the way he’d once been used by one of them. Once he understood how the game was played, he’d suffered no further delusions about romance or love.
Perhaps the lovely Jane had learned the lesson, as well, in a manner much the same as he’d learned it himself. Or perhaps she was simply a lonely widow. Though most widows of Zach’s acquaintance continued to wear their wedding bands. That gave him pause.
Jane. Beautiful, brave, passionate Jane. She looked like an angel. But she kissed like a woman too long without a man. He could, he mused, take care of that problem for her. His thoughts surprised him, since he’d given up his roguish ways long ago. But then, he’d been very long without a woman’s touch, and hers had been…incredible. He had three days here, after all, and little else to do besides wait.
Oh, yes. And a well-planned seduction would probably go a long way in helping to convince the little skeptic that he was who he said he was. Or at least convincing her to let him stay.
He swallowed hard at the thoughts racing through his mind. Was it some added side effect of the time travel making him addle-brained, or was it her? Either way, it didn’t matter. He thought he had come up with a far simpler means to convince her now.
As he soaked, there was a knock at the door, followed by Jane’s voice. “Are you decent?”
Some devil came to life inside him, all over again, and it was that devil who made him call, “Come in.” Perhaps he was testing her to judge her reactions, so that he might gauge what sort of woman he was dealing with. A test, much like the many other experiments he’d performed in his day. He ignored the tiny voice in his brain that told him that theory was nothing more than self-deception. The woman got to him, in a way that disturbed him far too much to admit, even to himself.
The bathroom door opened, and the woman he’d been thinking about stepped inside. Aside from an initial start of surprise, she showed no reaction at all. Keeping her eyes averted, she moved through the room, extracting big, emerald green towels from a cabinet, and then a small pink plastic item, and a can of some sort. “If you were trying to shock me, you chose the wrong method,” she said. “I was raised with brothers.” She set the towels and the other items on a shelf beside the tub, and still without looking at him, turned to go.
“Jane?” She stopped, her back to him. She wore a robe now, over the thin nightgown of the night before. Pity. But that glorious hair still hung loosely down her back, making him ache to run his hands through it once again. “What is this?” he asked.
“I thought you’d want to shave.” She still didn’t turn.
Frowning, Zach leaned forward and picked up the pink thing, turning it this way and that. “This bit of a thing is a razor?” He could clearly see, upon closer inspection, that that was precisely what it was.
“Of course it is.”
He sighed loudly, and achieved the desired results. She turned, but kept her eyes carefully glued to his face. “Could you…could you show me how it works, Jane? They’ve changed drastically in the past hundred years.”
Her eyes narrowed as they searched his, and he tried desperately to keep the mischief hidden. He started to get up. “Stay where you are,” she told him.
“I’ll need a mirror—”
“Not if I’m doing the shaving,” she said. Then she knelt beside the tub, picked up one of the towels and handed it to him. “Cover your—yourself,” she told him.
“And soak this wonderful towel?”
Frowning at him, Jane dropped the towel into the water, so that it landed right in his lap, no doubt concealing the parts of his anatomy she’d rather not be tempted to look at too closely. Then she took up the can, shook it and depressed a button on its top. Mounds of white foam oozed from the spout and into her palm. Zach felt his eyes widen. Then she leaned over and smoothed the lotion onto his face. Her touch was warm, and trembling, and so good that he closed his eyes and relished it.
When she finished, she dipped her hands into the water to rinse them clean. Her fingertips brushed his thigh, and he knew then that certain bodily functions had not been damaged by the side effects of time travel. He hoped she didn’t notice the change in the shape concealed by that towel.
“Now, you just take the razor and…” She demonstrated, by drawing the blade very carefully down over his cheek. “Just like that. You see?”
“Mmm…” he said. Then he opened his eyes and saw her scowling at him. “I mean, yes, of course. But…suppose I cut myself?”
“If you are who you say you are, then you’ve managed a straight edge in your time. And if you can handle that, you can handle this.” She set the razor on the edge of the tub and got up to leave.
“I am who I say I am, Jane. And you’ll believe it before breakfast. I promise.”
She looked at him for a long moment, and this time her eyes betrayed her, dipping down to gaze at his chest and belly. Hastily she turned and left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.
Jane leaned back against the bathroom door and tried to steady her breathing. Whoever he was, the lunatic in her bathtub was incredible. And that made him dangerous. The sooner he was out of her house, the better. She closed her eyes, but still the image of that muscled chest, beaded with water, kept resurfacing in her mind. “The sooner the better,” she muttered, and headed downstairs to start breakfast.
When she had the coffee brewing and Cody’s favorite blueberry muffins in the oven, Jane went upstairs again to wake her son. But Cody was no longer in bed when she stepped into her room. For just a second, his absence startled her. And then she heard the reassuring sounds of his Nintendo game from down the hall, and sighed. As she dressed, she glanced up at the painting that hung on the wall above her bed…and then she went still, falling into the brown eyes of the man in that painting. The inventor. The time traveler.
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