Chapter 8
Another week of quiet, serenity and nature in the rough would drive Sunny mad.
She’d already accepted that. Even love wasn’t enough of a buffer against hour after hour of solitude, punctuated only by the occasional call of a hardy bird and the monotonous drip, drip, drip of snow melting from the roof.
For variety she could always listen to the wind blow through the trees. When she had stooped that low she realized that she would gladly trade all of her worldly possessions for the good grinding noise of rush-hour traffic in any major city.
A girl might be born in the woods, she thought, but that didn’t mean you could keep her there.
Jacob was certainly a distraction, an exciting one. But as the days passed it became clear that being snowbound in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere was no more his definition of a good time than it was hers. The fact that she found that a relief didn’t ease the boredom.
They managed to occupy their time. Arguing, in bed and out. Two restless personalities stuck in the same space were bound to strike sparks. But their minds were as restless as their bodies and needed stimulation.
Sunny compensated by hibernating. Her reasoning was, she couldn’t be bored if she was asleep.
So she developed the habit of taking long naps at odd hours.
When he was certain she was asleep, Jacob would slip out, taking advantage of the bonus he’d found in the shed.
Cal’s aircycle. With that he would make a quick trip to his ship and input new data into the main computer.
He told himself that he wasn’t deceiving her, he was simply performing part of the task he had come to her time to accomplish. And if it was deceit, it couldn’t be helped. He’d nearly convinced himself that what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. At least for the time being.
Though he was as restless as she, he found himself storing up memories, images, moments.
The way she looked when she woke—sleepy-eyed and irritable as a child.
The way she’d laughed, the sun shining on her hair, when they’d built a house of snow under the pine trees.
The way she felt, passion humming under her skin, when they made love in front of the fire.
He would need them. Those memories, those remembrances of each conversation or spat. Each time he returned to the ship he was reminded of just how much he would need them. He told himself he was only preparing to go on with his life. And so was she.
She had written inquiries to the handful of universities she’d selected.
But the weather had so far prevented her from venturing out as far as Medford to mail them.
She had read, lost to Jacob at poker, even dragged out her sketchbook in desperation.
When she tired of drawing the view of snow and pine trees from the windows, she sketched the interior of the cabin.
Bored, she resorted to drawing caricatures.
Jacob read incessantly, and he’d taken to scribbling in a spiral notebook he’d dug out of some drawer. When Sunny asked him if he was preparing for an experiment, he made noncommittal noises. When she pressed him, he simply pulled her into his lap and made her forget to ask questions.
They lost power twice, and they made love as frequently as they argued. Which was often.
Sunny was certain, when she caught herself making the bed for lack of anything better to occupy her time, that if they didn’t do something they would both find themselves in a home for the gently deranged.
Leaving the bed half-made, she sprinted to the top of the stairs. “J.T.”
He was currently trying to keep himself sane by building a city of cards. “What?”
“Let’s drive to Portland.”
Jacob’s attention was fixed on a particularly intricate arrangement. He thought the structure was beginning to resemble the skyline on Omega II.
“J.T.”
“Yeah.” With fingers that were rock-steady, he added another card.
“I guess it’s too late,” Sunny murmured, and sat down to the west of the city. “He’s already gone around the bend.”
“Do we have any more of these?”
She sighed at his dwindling stack of cards. “Nope.”
“I was thinking of a bridge.”
“Think shock therapy.”
“Or maybe a skybelt.”
“A what?”
He caught himself and put another card in place. “Nothing. My mind was wandering.”
She snickered. “What’s left of it.”
“You were saying?”
“I was saying let’s get out of Dodge.”
“I thought Medford was the closest town.”
She opened her mouth, closed it again. “Sometimes,” she said at last, “I’m not sure if you belong on the same planet with the rest of us.”
“It’s the right planet.” A portion of his pasteboard roof fluttered. “Breathe the other way, will you?”
“Jacob. If you could spare a moment of your valuable time.”
He glanced up then, and he had to smile. “You have the sexiest pout I’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t pout.” When she caught herself doing just that, she hissed between her teeth and blew down a building.
“You’ve just murdered thousands of innocent people.”
“There’s only one person I’m going to murder.” Desperate, she grabbed a handful of his sweater. “J.T., if I don’t get out of here I’m going to start bouncing off the walls.”
“Can you do that?”
“Just watch me.” She leaned closer. “Portland. People, traffic, restaurants.”
“When do you want to leave?”
With a huff, she sat back again. “You were listening.”
“Of course I was listening. I always listen. When do you want to leave?”
“A week ago. Now. I can be ready in ten minutes.”
She sprang up. Though Jacob winced when his city collapsed, he rose with her. “What about the snow?”
“It hasn’t snowed for three days. Besides, we have four-wheel drive. If we can get to Route 5, we’re home free.”
The thought of getting out nearly made him forget his priorities. “And if Cal comes back?”
She was all but dancing with impatience. “They’re not due back for a couple of weeks. Anyway, they live here.” Carelessly she stepped on his demolished city. “J.T., think carefully. Do you really want to see a grown woman turn into a raving lunatic?”
“Maybe.” Taking her by the hips, he pulled her intimately close. “I like it when you rave.”
“Then prepare to enjoy yourself.”
“I am.” He dragged her to the floor.
She argued—briefly. “I’m going,” she said, undoing the buttons of her flannel shirt.
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“Right.” He tugged the plain white undershirt over her head.
She struggled but couldn’t prevent her lips from curving. Giving up, she helped him off with his sweater. “And so are you.”
“As soon as you’re finished raving,” he promised, then closed his mouth over hers.
***
Sunny threw a small bag into the back of the Land Rover. She’d taken time to grab a toothbrush, a hairbrush, her favorite camisole and a lipstick. “In case we have to stop on the way,” she explained.
“Why would we?”
“I don’t know how long it’s going to take us to get out of the mountains.” She settled in the driver’s seat. “It’s about five hours after that.”
Five hours. It took them five hours to get from one part of a single state to another. For the past few days he’d nearly forgotten how different things were.
She shot him a look, eyes bright, lips curved. “Ready?”
“Sure.”
It was difficult not to stare as she turned a small key and sent the combustion engine roaring. He could feel the vibration through the floorboards. A few small adjustments, he mused, and even an archaic vehicle could be made to run smoothly and quietly.
Jacob was on the brink of pointing this out to her when she shoved the Land Rover in gear and sent snow spitting out from under the tires.
“All right!”
“Is it?”
“This baby rides like a tank,” she said happily as they lumbered away from the cabin.
“Apparently.” He braced himself, finding it incongruous that he should worry about life and limb here, when he had taken countless trips at warp speed. “I suppose you know what you’re doing.”
“Of course I know what I’m doing. I learned how to drive in a Jeep.” They labored up an incline where snow had melted and refrozen into a slick surface. Jacob judged the height and breadth of the trees. He could only trust that she knew how to avoid them.
“You look a little green.” She had to chuckle as they plowed, then fishtailed, then plowed again, making erratic but definite progress. “Haven’t you ever ridden in one of these?”
He had an image of driving his own LSA vehicle—Land, Sea or Air. It was smooth and quiet and as fast as a comet. “No, actually, I haven’t.”
“Then you’re in for a treat.”
The Land Rover bumped over rocks hidden under the snow. “I bet.”
They forged through the drifts. He nearly relaxed. By all indications, she knew how to handle the vehicle. Such as it was. After the first twenty minutes, the heater began to hum.
“How about some tunes?”
His brow creased. “Fine,” he said cautiously.
“You’re in charge.”
“Of what?”
“Of the tunes.” She navigated carefully down an incline. “The radio.”
He eyed a particularly large tree. At their current rate and angle, he estimated thirty seconds to impact. “We didn’t bring it.”
“The car radio, J.T.” She missed the tree by six or eight inches. “Pick a station.”
She’d taken her hand from the wheel for an instant to gesture at the dashboard. Eyes narrowed, Jacob studied it. Trusting luck, he turned a dial.
“It works better if you turn it on before you try to tune in a station.”
Biting back an oath, he tried another dial and was greeted by a blast of ear-popping static. After adjusting the volume, he applied himself to the tuner. His first stop was an instrumental melody, loaded with strings, that made him cringe. Still, he glanced over at Sunny.
“If that’s your choice, we’ll have to reassess our relationship immediately.”
Sound faded in and out as he played with the tuner. He hit on some gritty rock, not too dissimiliar from what might have sounded over the airwaves in his own time.
“Good choice.” She turned her head briefly to smile at him. “Who’s your favorite musician?”