Chapter 6 #2
She continued through the ship. There was a second level that seemed to be comprised almost completely of bedrooms. Cabins, Libby corrected automatically. On ships they were called cabins.
The furniture was streamlined, and most of it was built directly into the wall. Smooth formed plastic and bright colors were the style.
She found Cal’s almost by accident. She didn’t want to admit she’d been looking.
There was little difference between his and the other cabins, other than its homey untidiness.
She saw a jumpsuit, similar to the one he’d been wearing when she’d found him, tossed in a corner.
The bed was unmade. On the wall was a picture, eerily three-dimensional, of Cal standing with a group of people.
The dwelling behind them was multileveled and almost entirely glass. There were white terraces jutting out at all angles, and there were tall, shady trees on a green lawn.
This was his home, she thought, certain of it. And his family. She studied them again. The woman was tall and striking and appeared much too young to be his mother. A sister? she wondered, but then she remembered that he had spoken of only one brother.
They were all laughing. Cal had his arm slung around the shoulder of another man.
The height and build were similar, and there was enough facial resemblance to make her certain that this was Cal’s brother.
His eyes were green, and even in the photograph they were uneasily piercing.
A tough customer, she decided and shifted her attention to the third man in the photo.
He seemed slightly befuddled. His face wasn’t as blatantly handsome, but there was kindness in it.
Trapped in time, she mused. That was what a photograph did. It trapped people in time. Just as Cal was trapped now. She lifted a hand, but she caught herself just before she stroked the image of his face.
It was important to remember that he was only here until he could break free.
He had another life, in another world. What she was feeling about him, for him, was impossible.
Just as impossible, she thought as she pressed the cool bottle to her brow, as the fact that she was standing in a vehicle designed to travel through space.
Abruptly weary, she sat down on the bed.
It was crazy, all of it. And the craziest part of all was that she had fallen in love for the first time in her life.
And the man she loved would soon be far beyond her reach.
With a sigh, she stretched out on the slick, cool sheets. Perhaps it was all a dream after all.
He found her there more than an hour later, curled up on his bed. She was sleeping, as she had been the first time he remembered seeing her. It brought him an odd, unsettling feeling to watch her now.
She was lovely, but it was no longer her beauty that drew him.
There was a sweetness about her, a combination of compassion and shyness.
She had strength and passion. And innocence—an incredibly alluring innocence.
He wanted to go to her now, to gather her up and make love with her in the softest, gentlest way he knew.
But she wasn’t for him. He wished it could be like a fairy tale, wished she could go on sleeping for a hundred years, for two hundred and more, until he awakened her and claimed her for his own.
He wasn’t a prince, he reminded himself. He was just an ordinary man caught in an extraordinary situation.
Moving quietly, he crossed to the bed to draw the sheet over her. She stirred, murmured. Unable to resist, he reached down to stroke her cheek. Her eyes fluttered open.
“Cal. I had the strangest dream.” Then she was awake and pushing herself up to stare around the cabin. “Not a dream.”
“No.” He sat beside her. No matter how much he lectured himself, he couldn’t deny the pleasure it gave him to share his bed with her, if only as a friend. “How do you feel?”
“Still a little rattled.” She combed both hands through her hair, holding it away from her face for a moment before she let it fall. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep. I guess my mind needed to shut off for a while.”
“It’s a little much to take in all at once. Libby?”
“Yes?” She glanced distractedly around the cabin, trying to let it all settle in.
“I’m sorry. I have to.” He closed his lips over hers and savored. She was warm and soft from sleep. He couldn’t have explained to her how badly he needed that yielding texture. Reflexively she lifted a hand to his shoulder. But there it relaxed.
It took all his willpower not to touch her and, with the need raw in his gut, to draw away.
“I lied,” he murmured as his gaze dipped down to her mouth. “I’m not sorry.” But he rose and moved away from the bed. She stood up and tried to keep her nervous fingers from fiddling with the hem of her sweater.
“Is that your family?”
“Yeah.” He’d been staring at the picture, wishing life could be as simple as it had been at that moment. “My brother Jacob and my parents.”
The love, somewhat wistful in his voice, was unmistakable. Moved by it, she laid a hand on his arm. “This is Jacob?” she asked, indicating his brother. “But they don’t look old enough to be your parents.”
“It isn’t difficult to look young.” He shrugged. “Well, it won’t be.”
“And that’s your home?”
“I grew up there. It’s about twenty kilometers outside the city limits.”
“You’ll get back to them.” She buried her own yearnings. Love, no matter how suddenly it came or how deep it reached, was selfless. “Think of the story you’ll have to tell.”
“If I remember.”
“But you couldn’t forget.” The possibility struck her painfully. She couldn’t bear it if he forgot her, if even her memory no longer existed. “I’ll write it down for you.”
He shook off his black mood and turned to her. “I’d appreciate that. Will you let me go back with you?”
She felt a flutter of hope. “Go back?”
“To the cabin, I’ve done about all I can for now. I can start the repairs on the ship tomorrow. I was hoping you’d let me stay until it’s all ready.”
“Of course.” It was foolish, and selfish, to hope that he would stay any longer than necessary. She put on a bright smile as they started from the room. “I have dozens of questions to ask you. I don’t even know where to begin.”
Still, she asked him nothing on the drive back. He seemed distracted, moody, and her own mind was crowded with impressions and contradictions. It would be best, she decided, if they pretended a kind of normality for a few hours. Then, with a thud, inspiration hit.
“How would you like to have lunch in town?”
“What?”
“Try to stay tuned, Hornblower. Would you like to drive into town? You haven’t seen anything but this little slice. If I suddenly found myself back in, say, the 1700s, I’d want to explore a little, watch people. It only takes a couple of hours. What do you say?”
The moodiness left his eyes, and he smiled. “Can I drive?”
“Not on your life.” She laughed and tossed her hair back. “We’ll stop back at the cabin for my purse.”
It took more than thirty minutes to get to the highway through a narrow pass where the Land Rover had powered its way through the mud.
When they reached the highway Cal saw the vehicles that had fascinated him on television.
They rumbled noisily along. He shook his head as Libby jockeyed aggressively for position.
“I could teach you to fly a jet buggy in an hour.”
The wind felt wonderful on her face. They had today, and perhaps a day or two more. She wasn’t going to lose a moment of it.
“Is that a compliment?”
“Yeah. You’re still using what—gasoline?”
“That’s right.”
“Amazing.”
“Being smug and superior suits you—especially since you didn’t even know how to turn my car on.”
“I’d’ve figured it out.” He reached out to touch the flying strands of her hair. “If I were home I’d fly you to Paris for lunch. Have you ever been there?”
“No.” She tried not to think too deeply about the romance of it. “We’ll have to settle for pizza in Oregon.”
“Sounds great to me. You, know, the strangest thing is the sky. There’s nothing in it.” A car whizzed by, muffler coughing, radio blaring. “What was that?”
“A car.”
“That’s debatable, but I meant what was the noise?”
“Music. Hard rock.” She reached over to turn on the radio. “That’s not as hard, but it’s still rock.”
“It’s good.” With the music playing in his head, he watched the buildings they passed.
Neat single-family homes, chunky apartment complexes and a spreading single-level shopping center.
The traffic thickened as they came closer to the city.
He could see the high rectangular forms of office buildings and condos.
It was a cluttered and, to his eyes, awkward skyline, but it was oddly compelling. Here were people, here life continued.
Libby eased down the curving ramp and headed downtown. “There’s a nice Italian place, very traditional. Red checked tablecloths, candles in bottles, hand-tossed pizza.”
Cal gave an absent nod. There were people walking the sidewalk, some old, some young, some plain, some pretty.
There was noise from car engines, and the occasional bad-tempered blare of a horn.
The air was warmer here and smelled slightly of exhaust. For him it was a picture out of an old book come to life.
Libby pulled into a graveled lot next to a squat white-and-green building. The neon sign across the front window said Rocky’s.
“Well, it’s not Paris.”
“It’s fine,” he murmured, but he continued to twist his head and stare.
“It must feel like stepping through the looking glass.”
“Hmm. Oh.” He remembered the book, one he’d read as a teenager. “Something like that. More like something from H. G. Wells.”
“It’s nice to know literature has survived. Are you hungry?”
“I was born hungry.” Once again he fought off a darkening mood. She was trying, and so could he.