3. Body Heat
3
BODY HEAT
The drive home from the restaurant felt like something out of a dream. Maybe I could have blamed the wine I’d drunk with dinner, but I knew it was much more than that, especially when I’d had only a single glass.
No, this was all about the understanding I seemed to have reached with Seth. He might not have come right out and asked me, but I knew he wanted to marry me, wanted to make sure our futures would be bound together forever.
And I was just fine with that. True, we had quite a few hurdles to overcome before we could even think about getting to that point, and yet, just knowing we were on the path was enough for me.
The important thing was that no matter what happened, Seth and I would face it together.
I also thought I might be okay with staying in 1947. It had a lot more creature comforts than 1884 or even 1926, and although Jerome wasn’t quite the lively place it once had been, I thought Seth and I could work together to make sure it survived those rocky years and went on to future success.
For all I knew, maybe we were meant to be here, were meant to be some of the people who had worked so hard to preserve Jerome and keep it from slipping into utter ruin.
Deep down, I knew that wasn’t quite right. This wasn’t our place or time, and even though we had a mission we needed to carry out, we shouldn’t stay here any longer than necessary.
In the meantime, however, I was sure going to enjoy that shower.
Seth pulled the Chevy into the detached garage, and then we got out of the car and headed into the house. The evening air was just as chilly as he’d predicted, so I was glad of the sweater I’d slipped on when we exited the restaurant.
It was also cooler than I would have liked in the house, but at least I was able to discover why. Sometime along the way, someone had installed an electric wall heater in the living room, but clearly, it hadn’t been turned on, not when no one had been living in the house for months.
“I think I can make it work,” I told Seth, who’d been peering at the unfamiliar unit with creased brows, clearly not sure how it even functioned.
“You can?” he said, somewhat surprised.
I nodded. “A friend of mine in college had an old apartment in downtown Flagstaff that I swear hadn’t been updated since the 1950s. It had a heater similar to this.”
And I found the switch at the bottom of the unit and pushed it to the right. Almost immediately, warm air began to flow out, although it smelled of burned dust because it had been sitting unused for so long.
“That’ll go away after it’s been running for a couple of minutes,” I told Seth as his nose wrinkled. “How about we get some water and let it do its thing?”
He seemed amenable to that plan, so we went into the kitchen and poured glasses of water for the two of us. We sipped in silence for a moment, and although I wouldn’t say the atmosphere in the room was exactly tense, I also knew neither of us was really thinking about the wall heater.
No, we were thinking about what we’d said in the restaurant, how we’d taken an important next step despite not making anything official.
And I also knew I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that my thoughts were also straying to the room next door…to the bed Seth and I planned to share.
There was no way in the world I’d be able to lie chastely next to him, not with the sexual tension that had been building between us for the past couple of weeks.
I set down my glass of water, extremely glad that I hadn’t bothered to reapply my lipstick after dinner. This way, I wouldn’t make as much of a mess.
My fingers found his, and he tightened his grip and pulled me close so he could press his mouth against mine. At once, my body came alive, every nerve ending telling me that I needed to be with him before another second passed.
Although neither of us said anything, by unspoken agreement we left the kitchen and moved into the bedroom, not even bothering to turn on a lamp since enough illumination trickled in from the hallway that we could see well enough.
And I wanted to see every inch of him.
I reached up to loosen his tie and then undo the buttons on his shirt. Underneath, he wore a tank-style undershirt, one that couldn’t quite conceal the solid muscles of his chest.
Still, he was way too covered up for me.
Off went both shirt and undershirt, tossed toward the chair in the corner, although I wasn’t sure whether they actually found their target.
That was much better. Now I could see all the glorious muscles of his arms and chest, could see how flat his stomach was. Maybe not a true six-pack, since he came from a time when working the machines at a gym wasn’t really a thing, but I thought his body was all the more beautiful for that.
I began to reach for his belt, but he put his hand on mine.
“Don’t you think it’s your turn to remove a few things?”
Fair enough.
I shrugged out of my sweater and also tossed it in the general direction of the chair, and then reached for the concealed side zipper in my dress, figuring Seth would have a hard time with it since I didn’t know for sure whether they’d even been common in the 1920s. After slipping the dress over my head and throwing it onto the chair to settle on the rest of our clothes, though, I stepped closer to Seth.
“You should be able to manage the rest of it.”
True, the heavily constructed bras of the 1940s didn’t bear much similarity to the flimsy little things I’d been wearing in 1926, but hooks and eyes were pretty basic. First, though, he had to remove my slip, his fingers trembling a little as he pulled it over my head and let it fall to the floor.
Now I stood in front of him in just an ivory satin bra and matching underpants, gladder than ever that I’d decided against a girdle after spending two weeks constricted in a corset. Those clear blue eyes under the straight brown brows met mine, and although I could see the need in them, I also thought there might have been just a bit of worry.
“I’ve never — ”he began, then broke off, as if too embarrassed to go any further.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I have.”
Surprise flickered in his gaze, but he didn’t seem inclined to ask any questions. Thank God — not because I was embarrassed, but only because I didn’t want to waste time on my sexual history when we had better things we could be doing.
And I guided his hands to the back of my bra so he could undo the hooks there. Once it fell away, he let out a breath…and then bent to kiss them, to take one of my nipples in his mouth so he could gently suckle there.
The heat and need that flashed through my body were so intense, I almost stumbled. However, I didn’t lose myself so much that I forgot to reach for his belt and undo the buckle, then let his trousers fall to the floor.
Underneath, he had on a pair of boxers that did absolutely nothing to hide how erect he was, how ready. Not that I was expecting anything less, but all the same, it was good to know that I excited him just as much as he excited me.
While I didn’t recall making the conscious decision to do so, I still moved toward the bed and fell down on it. He dropped to the mattress as well, pulling me close so we could kiss over and over again, so he could feel my bare breasts pushing against his torso and I could thrill to the hardness of his cock pressing against my thigh.
It seemed silly to still have those bits of fabric separating us, so I grabbed hold of the waistband of his boxers and eased them down, and then waited as he slipped off my panties so we were both finally naked. I took him in my hand and heard him gasp, and guessed I probably shouldn’t do everything I wanted to him, not on this first go-’round, anyway.
After all, we should have plenty of opportunities for us to do this again in the very near future.
Instead, I kissed him again and moved his hand between my legs so he could stroke me. For just a second, he hesitated, as if he wasn’t sure exactly what he should do, but then his fingers became more certain, more steady, and I gasped, knowing how close I was already, just having him touch me like this.
But that wasn’t how I wanted to climax. No, I wanted to feel him inside me.
I shifted, pushing at the covers. Although heat was beginning to seep into the main bedroom from the wall unit in the living area, it would still be much better to finish this under the coverlet and the blankets, just so I wouldn’t have to worry about shivering the whole time.
Seth seemed to understand what I was doing, because he also tugged the covers back and then slid under them with me. At once, I wrapped my legs around him, pulling him to me, drawing him inside.
His gasp might have come just a second or two before mine; I couldn’t really be sure, not when I was so focused on the sensation of him pushing ever deeper, beginning to rock his body against mine as we found our rhythms. Hands clasped in hands, breaths mingling, growing faster, more intense.
He cried out first, which I supposed wasn’t too surprising for a man having his first intimate encounter. But I could feel the heat surging in my own body, letting me know that I wouldn’t be too long in following him over the edge.
I gasped and let the warm golden heat flood through me, rushing all the way to the tips of my fingers and all my toes. In that moment, I could only think of how perfect Seth McAllister was, how my heart and my body and soul had somehow known he was the only man in the world I could ever truly love.
We held each other for one long, exquisite moment, and then he released me, withdrawing gently so he could roll over onto his side. His eyes met mine for one long, aching moment.
“I love you.”
Those three words were uttered in barely more than a whisper, voice raw with emotion. I reached out to touch his hair, the thick, wavy locks lush beneath my fingertips.
“I love you, Seth McAllister,” I replied, then shifted so I could place a kiss against his mouth.
His expression was of a man utterly satisfied with his world. But then alarm flickered, and he said, “We didn’t — well — ”
The words broke off there, and he glanced away, obviously embarrassed.
I understood what he was trying to say, though.
“It’s all right,” I told him, and brushed my lips against his cheek before continuing with, “ Blessed Brigid, now is not the time. Please bestow your blessings elsewhere. ”
Seth stared at me, wide-eyed. “How could you know that?”
I could only smile back at him. “Because the McAllister witches in my time made sure to let everyone know about the charm of Brigid so we Wilcox witches could use it if we liked. Birth control’s come a long way, but the charm is still the easiest thing out there.”
“Just another benefit of the cooperation among clans, I suppose,” he said.
“Exactly.”
Our eyes met, and he pulled me toward him, kissing me over and over again, and I knew he was ready to go again already. I couldn’t really blame him, not when he’d been waiting so long for a moment like this.
I had plenty to teach him, after all.
Cool sunlight peeked past the drapes, and I cracked an eyelid. For just a second, I couldn’t remember where I was — what was with that striped wallpaper and the dark green velvet curtains? — but then I heard Seth snoring gently next to me and remembered we were in bed in the master bedroom of his bungalow.
My bungalow, too, I supposed, a hundred years from now, although of course he had much more claim to it than I did.
We’d left the heater on all night, so it was warm enough in there. Idly, I wondered who was paying the electric bills and guessed it must be Charles, since he seemed to be the one who’d kept things running all this time.
Seth stirred and sat up, the covers falling away so I could get an eyeful of his wonderful torso.
He looked even better in daylight.
“Good morning,” he said, offering me a shy smile.
Well, I’d probably introduced him to quite a few novel activities the night before.
“Good morning,” I replied, then bent over so I could give him a kiss. “And a good thing that we brought some coffee and tea over from the mercantile yesterday.”
“That’s for sure,” he said, now looking a little more relaxed. “No cream or milk, though.”
“I can drink my tea plain,” I said. “Black coffee is a no-go for me, though.”
His hand reached under the covers and found mine, then squeezed it gently. “Then we’ll both have tea. I never drink more than one cup of coffee, so it would be a waste to make a full pot.”
“Tea first, or a shower?” I asked, knowing I must have a twinkle in my eyes.
For a second, Seth stared back at me, not quite getting it. Then a flush rose in his cheeks, and he said, “You really think there’s room for the both of us?”
I smiled. “Only one way to find out.”
The shower had been something of a squeeze, but we managed to fit, and had a wonderful time rubbing soap over each other’s bodies, caressing one another, teasing and playing. We both seemed to realize it probably wasn’t a good idea to initiate another round of sex, though, not when we needed to head into Cottonwood and do some more shopping to pick up a few odds and ends we were still missing. We could go talk to Abigail and the elders sometime after that.
And all right, maybe they wouldn’t have been able to tell that we’d been playing drop the soap in the shower, but I figured it was probably better not to take any chances.
No, we got dressed and made some tea, and realized we’d need to go out to breakfast if we wanted to actually eat something, since we didn’t have bread or bacon or eggs, only a container of oatmeal that neither of us thought sounded all that appetizing.
It was a little past nine-thirty when Seth backed the Chevy out of the garage and we headed down the hill to Cottonwood. He seemed in very good spirits…but why shouldn’t he be?
We were now closer than we’d ever been.
The night before when we’d gone out to dinner, I’d been a little worried that we might bump into someone who’d known him twenty years earlier, but that hadn’t turned out to be the case. And as we drove down Main Street, we passed the Copper Café, since it wasn’t open for business, and pulled up to a place called Shorty’s that advertised 50￠ breakfasts and had such a full parking lot that we had to park on the street.
“This place didn’t exist back in the 1920s,” he said cheerfully as he locked the car door after I’d exited. “So I think the chances of running into anyone I used to know are pretty low.”
“Here’s hoping,” I replied. I had no doubt that the McAllisters would have put out the word about Seth’s return, so if we ended up bumping into any of them, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. No, the real risk was running into someone who lived and worked in Cottonwood but had known him from when he was still working at his parents’ store, or maybe from his time at the mine, even though I’d gotten the impression that a lot of the miners had come to the Verde Valley specifically to work in the mines and weren’t local.
If the worst happened, I could only hope he had some stories up his sleeve to explain his startling resemblance to the man who’d disappeared in 1926.
The diner was packed when we walked in, so full that the only spots available were located at the counter. Giving a mental shrug, I followed Seth over there and hopped up onto one of the stools, glad I was relatively tall for a woman of that period and could get up there without too much awkward scooching around.
My surroundings weren’t entirely unfamiliar, mostly because retro diners like this were still popular in the twenty-first century. In fact, the chrome trim on the stools and the counter, the red leatherette seats, and the black and white checkered floor felt like such a cliché that I had to remind myself this was the original deal, the kind of diner all those later versions had been based on.
Menus were stuffed into a rack behind the aluminum napkin dispensers placed on the countertop near us, and Seth and I both took one and perused the offerings. Honest-to-God diner food, including burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches and all the comfort food I’d been missing for the past month. Seeing those items made me want to rethink our decision to get breakfast, although I had to admit it was probably a little early for a hamburger or a French dip.
So I settled for a Denver omelet with a side of bacon and some iced tea, while Seth got ham and eggs and toast, as well as a cup of coffee. He’d seemed all right with the tea we’d had at his bungalow, but apparently, he still needed a cup of joe to get his day really started.
The place was way too crowded for us to even think about discussing anything important, so instead we talked about the butcher shop and the general store and the bakery we’d seen as we drove over to the diner. It would be too impractical — and expensive — to keep eating out, which meant we should get some real groceries. Not too many, since I didn’t know when we might set out for Flagstaff to rescue Ruby from Jasper Wilcox’s clutches, but at least enough so we could have dinner at home tonight and breakfast and maybe lunch the next day.
Funny how the bungalow already felt like home to me. Yes, I’d been living there back in the twenty-first century, but that wasn’t what I meant. In my present, I’d been in Jerome for less than a month and was just starting to settle into the place. Now, though…now Seth and I had made love there, had acknowledged that we were going to be together no matter the year, and I wanted nothing more than to start sharing those days together in the little house as soon as I could.
All that would have to wait until Ruby was rescued, though. If she wasn’t returned to the McAllisters, they wouldn’t have the strength and guidance that had steered them safely through the rocky decades of the 1950s and 1960s until the town began to come alive again…until the time when her great-niece Angela would be born, the final piece of a puzzle generations in the making. Without Angela, the Wilcox curse would never be broken and the Arizona witch clans would never become one united front.
The food came quickly and was delicious, and Seth and I did our best not to rush through it even though we knew we had other things that needed to get done today. I couldn’t help wondering why the elders hadn’t reached out to us — in 1926, the bungalow definitely didn’t have a phone, but a big rotary-dial model now sat on a side table in the living room — but maybe they’d thought to give us a little time to settle in while they formulated their own plans.
But even though we hadn’t heard from them, I knew we’d have to sit down with the elders…and Abigail and Charles…and have a talk once we were done running our errands this morning. They’d probably think our plan was crazy, but I honestly couldn’t see how they would come up with anything better. Maybe they had enchantments that would work like a mobile version of the wards that protected Jerome, but since Jasper and his goons had easily gotten past them, I didn’t think they’d be much help.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been thinking of Jasper’s companions that way, since it was entirely possible that one of those “goons” was related to me somehow. I had no real idea, thanks to the way I’d never managed to get a glimpse of them in my dreams, and even when we’d encountered the men in person, their backs had been to us as they’d gotten in their cars and hustled Ruby away.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t dreamed at all the night before, at least nothing that I could remember. Was that because the dreams had come to give me a specific vision of what was going to happen to Ruby and now they were no longer necessary, or simply because I hadn’t slept alone last night, had fallen into deep slumber with Seth’s arms around me?
I had no way of knowing, so I thought it best to put those thoughts aside to focus on something more immediate.
The only hitch in my plan was the way Jeremiah Wilcox had supposedly detected my father’s presence in Flagstaff all those years ago, even though my father had his talent-hiding gift active the whole time. Was that something all the Wilcox primuses had been able to do, or was that a particular power that belonged to Jeremiah alone?
Difficult to say. Then again, my father hadn’t possessed an amulet to boost his gift the way I would, so I had to believe its presence would help keep us hidden from Jasper during our time in Flagstaff.
Once we were done, Seth laid a dollar bill and a couple of quarters down on the counter, and we got up to go. Maybe someday I’d get used to how cheap everything was in the past, but for now, I’d just have to allow myself to boggle a little at the thought of getting two substantial breakfasts for only a buck and some change for the tip.
“I thought we’d stop by the gas station first,” he said as he opened the car door for me. “We need a fill-up anyway, and we’ll have a better chance of getting a map there than we would at the general store.”
“Sounds good,” I said, then waited as he came around to climb in the driver’s seat.
The gas station was only a few blocks away, and I remained in the car while Seth filled up the tank and then went inside to pay and, with any luck, get us the map we needed.
He was successful, since he came back with a folded map in one hand, one he gave me before getting behind the wheel once more. “I hope this is what we needed. The attendant says it covers the whole northern half of the state.”
I unfolded the map. I could already tell it was going to be a nightmare to fold back up again, and, not for the first time, mourned the loss of my cell phone and all those lovely built-in map applications. It had probably gotten dropped when I stumbled and fell in the mine shaft, and I told myself I shouldn’t cry over it anyway. Even if it had come into the past with me, it wouldn’t have been good for much, not with all the satellites that powered its data not due to come along for decades and decades.
“This looks pretty much like what I’m used to,” I told Seth as I ran my finger along the line that indicated Highway 89-A. “See how it goes through Cottonwood and then crosses the open land between Sedona and here? Then it keeps going up into Oak Creek Canyon and winds its way to west of downtown Flagstaff. It won’t be as fast as taking I-17, but it’ll get us there.”
Seth scanned the map for a moment, as though doing his best to commit it all to memory. “What’s I-17?”
“A freeway,” I said, then added as he continued to look blank, “A freeway is like a highway, only bigger and faster. Sometime in the twentieth century, the government built a big network of freeways that crisscross the country. I’ve heard you can jump on I-10 in Santa Monica in California and take it all the way to Florida.”
“That’s incredible,” he said.
I supposed it was. The freeways that allowed us to get around Arizona had always been a part of our lives, so it was hard to imagine what it would be like to have to use the blue highways and backroads to get to your destination.
Speaking of destinations, the general store was just a few blocks from the gas station, so we got there only a minute after we’d pulled onto Main Street. We purchased some odds and ends — some dish towels for the kitchen, a container of cocoa, a jar of honey — but it was at the butcher and the bakery and the greengrocer that we did the real damage, buying thick-cut bacon for our breakfast the next day, along with blueberry muffins and dinner rolls and a gorgeous pork roast.
Just as we were putting our purchases in the trunk, an incredulous voice said, “Seth? Seth McAllister?”
We both straightened. Standing on the curb a few feet away was a man who looked as if he might be in his middle forties, with fair hair starting to show a few threads of silver and gray eyes behind a pair of thick horn-rimmed glasses.
“Oh, hi, Freddie,” Seth said, obviously doing his best to sound casual and failing miserably. “Didn’t the elders call you?”
The other man swallowed. “Yes, we got a phone call last night saying you’d come back, but I wasn’t sure I could believe what Helen was telling me. It’s like something out of all those science fiction books we used to read.”
Seth managed a smile. “Yes, I suppose you could call it that, but it was really magic involved, not science.”
Freddie cast a worried glance up and down the sidewalk, but luckily, no shoppers were anywhere near us. “Your magic?” he asked me — probably because he must have known his cousin’s talent didn’t have anything to do with time travel.
“Yes,” I said. “It was all an accident, though…and it took both our powers to get us back here.”
“Twenty-one years later,” the man said, and I gave him a helpless look.
“That part definitely wasn’t intentional.”
Seth stepped in there, saying, “It was really good to see you, Freddie, but Devynn and I need to get back up to Jerome. The elders are waiting for us.”
That was a flat-out lie, of course, but I wasn’t about to contradict him, not when I knew the longer we stood there chatting on the sidewalk, the greater the chance that someone else would come along and realize the man Freddie was talking to was none other than Seth McAllister, mysteriously vanished all those years ago and yet not looking a day older.
“Oh, of course,” Freddie said at once. “It was good to see you, too. I’m glad you’re back in the Verde Valley safe and sound.”
Seth offered his cousin a smile, and then the two of us got in the car and slowly drove away from the curb. Neither of us said anything, and I guessed he was still processing the encounter, once again coming to terms with his new reality of being a man out of time.
And as for the safe and sound part?
Well, I supposed we’d find out soon enough.