A Husband in Time (7 page)

“What,” he asked, “is a hunk?”

Her blush deepened and she lifted her brows. “I didn't say hunk, I said skunk.”

“I distinctly heard you say hunk.”

“My reputation is ruined. They'll probably report me as an unfit mother.”

“You think Mrs. Curry believes we're…er…”

“Having sex?” she inserted, and Zach blinked at
her casual use of the words. “Of course she does. What else would she think?”

“I fail to see why she'd jump to such a drastic conclusion.”

“Take a look in the mirror, Zach. Mrs. Curry isn't numb from the neck down, or blind, or gay. And she's probably pretty sure I'm not any of those things, either.” She shook her head. “Lord, I hope it doesn't make the
Rockwell Daily Star.
‘Local Spinster Living in Sin. Read all about it!'”

Zach resisted the urge to laugh. She was sincerely upset over the blemish he'd caused to her reputation. Though it was difficult to focus on that, when he was fairly certain she'd just said she found him attractive. Unless he'd misunderstood.

“Gossip hasn't changed much, has it?”

“Nothing's changed in this little town, Zach. Anywhere else, it wouldn't matter if I paraded men in and out of my bedroom day and night. No one would care. Here, though, we have Isabelle Curry, Rockwell's answer to modern morality, and her partner in crime, Pastor McDermott. And they're both on the school board, too.” She shook her head.

“I'm sorry,” Zach told her, and he meant it. “Perhaps we could say I was renting a room from you, or…”

“No one would believe it, Zach.”

Zach sighed, truly sorry for causing Jane so much strife. “I suppose the best thing I can do is get hold of that miracle drug of yours as soon as possible, and be on my way. Surely your reputation can survive a mere three days of living in sin?” She rolled her
eyes. “Meanwhile, Jane, would it be better if I were to stay here in the guest house?”

“It's not a guest house anymore.”

Zach looked past her, at the guest house—or at what had been the guest house. Now bric-a-brac lined shelves beyond the windows, and a sign above the door read Times Remembered—Fine Antiques and Collectibles.

“Would you like to see it?” she asked softly. And though he really should have been beginning the search for this new drug, Zach found himself nodding. A few more minutes wouldn't matter.

“Yes,” he said. “I'd like that very much.”

The smile that touched her lips, and the light in her eyes, told Zach that this little enterprise meant something to her. And that she was proud of it. She led him through the front doors, and Zach didn't recognize the place. The entire building had been converted, partitions knocked down. It was one large room now, with a long counter across the back side, and rows of shelves everywhere else. The shelves were lined with too many items to name. Canisters, dishes, knickknacks, music boxes. There was an entire section of books, another with artwork. And a large corner had been left open, for several pieces of furniture that had been cleaned and polished until they shone. An oak rocking chair. A sewing machine. A pedestal table.

Each item in the shop had a price tag dangling from it. And on the counter in the back sat a large black cash register that had obviously come from his time, as well. Zach doubted he'd recognize its modern-day counterpart.

“I'm impressed, to say the least, Jane. A woman setting up and running her own business. Owning her own home and automobile. Raising her son alone.”

She waved a dismissive hand at him. “Don't be impressed until I make enough money to expand.”

“Are you…having financial problems, then?”

She smiled at him. “Zach, my family is one of the wealthiest in the country. I have trust funds and interest-bearing accounts enough to buy the moon.”

Zach tilted his head. “I don't understand. Why—”

“Growing up in Minneapolis, I lived in my father's mansion. Servants at my beck and call. More clothes than I could wear in a year. Cars and private schools and money, money, money.”

“And?”

“And I hated it. Zach, Fortune Cosmetics is a monster. My family think they're running the business, but the truth is, it's running them. My father is so jealous of my uncle Jake that they can barely speak without an argument. And they're brothers. My mother…all she cares about is money and scheming to get more of it. I just didn't want any part of that. Not for me, and especially not for Cody.”

She shrugged and paced toward him, eyes dreamily scanning the aisles of her shop. “I've always been the old-fashioned one. My grandmother…she knew that about me. More than I ever realized. When she died, she left me this place. So I left home to come out here and try to find a simpler life.” She looked up at him, and smiled fully. “And instead, I got a time-traveling inventor.”

“Not exactly simple,” Zach said. “I find it amus
ing, Jane, that you see yourself as an old-fashioned woman. To me you seem the opposite. Strong. Independent. A freethinker. Everything I always…” he stopped himself from finishing when he realized he was going to say “wanted.” “Everything I always thought of as modern,” he said instead. It was true, what he'd been thinking, he confirmed, a bit surprised. Oh, yes, he'd had his share of women since Claudia had broken his naive young heart. But all the while, he'd scoffed at their docile ways and insipid giggles. Their meek manners and false shyness. Their constant quest for wealthy husbands. Deep inside, he'd secretly wished for a modern woman. One who had her own opinions and lived as no man's servant. Not a fainting, timid, helpless child, but a woman like…a woman like Jane Fortune.

Not that he wanted any woman bound to him. Not even one like this. No, he'd learned his lessons too well for that. But just to know one. Just to be with her…

“Maybe I'm modern from a nineteenth-century point of view, Zach,” she said. “But to a twentieth-century mind, I'm the one stuck in a time warp.”

Zach drew in a breath, let it out slowly. “Tell me about…about Cody's father.”

Jane's head came up quickly, her soft brows bending together. “No.”

“I didn't mean to pry, Jane. I was just wondering how such an old-fashioned girl managed to—”

“I really should be working on the books,” she told him. “Why don't you go back to the house and finish your breakfast?”

He'd touched on a tender subject, then. All right.
He told himself he wouldn't ask again. Though, for some reason, he was dying to know about the man who'd fathered Jane Fortune's child.

“Yes, I suppose I will,” he said. And he managed to take his eyes off her, turn and leave the shop.

“We have lunch at noon,” she told him as he started through the door.

He nodded, and closed it behind him.

 

Jane had more customers that morning than she'd had since she'd opened the shop. A few of them even bought something. The rest, she was convinced, had come to see if they could catch a glimpse of the man Isabelle Curry had no doubt told them about. The man who was living in sin with an unmarried mother. Damn. It had been hard enough seeing the speculation in their eyes when she arrived here. Everyone wanted to know where her husband was. Most came right out and asked, though a few were subtler. She didn't blame them for being curious. She'd moved into their close-knit, old-fashioned midst, and they wanted to know what kind of person she was.

Lord, now they probably thought they did.

 

“I need a slate board,” Zach said.

Cody tilted his head. “There's one in the attic.”

Zach's head came up. He'd been muttering to himself, unaware of Cody's presence in the room. He'd stationed himself at a small table in Cody's bedroom. The tools he'd brought along with him lay scattered around him on the table. The device, too, was there. Its protective cover removed, and its insides exposed as he checked to be sure it hadn't been damaged
coming through the portal. The leather-bound journal with his notes inside was open, and a newfangled ballpoint pen lay beside it. Zach had already filled three new pages with his account of his trip.

“Cody. Just the man I want to see.”

“Really?”

“Yes, indeed. I'm having some trouble with your modern vernacular. Tell me, son, what does it mean when a woman refers to a man as a, uh, hunk?”

Cody grinned. “Means he's handsome.”

Zach felt his brows lift in surprise. “Handsome?”

“Verrrry handsome,” Cody said. “Did my mom call you a hunk, Zach?”

“Er…no. No, of course not. I read it in a book, actually.”

“Uh-huh.”

Zach actually felt his face heat. So Jane found him to be…handsome. Verrrry handsome. It wasn't such a major revelation. And it certainly shouldn't be this pleasing to have confirmation of what he'd already suspected. He cleared his throat. “You were telling me about the attic?” he prompted, in an effort to change the subject.

“Yeah,” Cody was saying. “There's lots of neat stuff up there. A big safe, and some old furniture. But I don't know why you need a chalkboard.”

“Ah, yes, my safe.” Zach frowned. No doubt everything in it was worthless today. And it occurred to him that he was, for the second time in his life, lusting after a woman who was far wealthier than he. That thought troubled him more than it should. He cleared his throat. “The slate board. I need it for calculations, Cody. My work involves complicated
mathematical problems, and it's easier to work them out if I have…” He let his voice trail off, because Cody had turned away from him and yanked open a drawer.

“How come you don't just use this?” He showed Zach a small unit, a bit smaller and thinner than Zach's device.

“What…?”

“It's a calculator,” Cody told him. He turned so that Zach could view the tiny screen on the thing, and he pressed numbered buttons. “Watch this. One hundred fifty-three times forty-five divided by 56.9 plus two. Equals….” He pressed the button with the equal sign and held the box up to Zach.

It read 123.0017574. Zach shook his head slowly, and turned to the table, rapidly doing the figuring on a sheet of scrap paper. Amazingly, he came up with the same answer.

“It's gonna be a lot faster this way,” Cody said, and he set the calculator down on the table beside Zach's journal. “I'm really sorry about Benjamin.” Cody pulled up a chair, close beside Zach's, and sat down.

A huge lump rose in Zach's throat as he recalled, vividly, the way Ben used to work at his side before he became too weak from the illness to do so any longer. That was when Zach had moved his table and tools into his son's bedroom. So that they could work together the way they used to.

“I want to help,” Cody said.

Zach blinked at his burning eyes, and ruffled the boy's hair with one hand. “You're a good man, Cody. But I'm not sure what you can do.”

“More than you think.” Cody spun the chair he sat in around and wheeled it across the hardwood floor, stopping at the desk on the other end. “You haven't seen my computer yet.”

“Another modern wonder?”

Cody nodded and flicked a switch. “I have a modem. We can talk to scientists all over the world, download all kinds of information. And you can feed in all your numbers, and try making changes on the computer before you try it on the real machine. That way, you might be able to figure out if something's gonna work before you go ahead and do it.”

Zach braced one hand on the desk, blinking rapidly. “This machine…can do all that?”

Cody grinned. “Yeah.”

“Are all children in this century as smart as you are, Cody?”

“Nah. I'm s'posed to be gifted.”

Zach nodded, and drew his own chair over beside Cody's. “Well, it's a good thing. I'm beginning to feel decidedly uneducated. It does look as though this equipment of yours can save me a lot of time. So…will you teach me, Cody?”

Cody nodded hard, and it seemed to Zach the boy's spine lengthened and straightened. Zach watched and listened as Cody explained the machine to him. Part of him was wishing he could take the modern wonder apart to see what was going on inside it, what made it work. But he couldn't risk breaking it. Already he knew this piece of equipment would cut his research time by leaps and bounds. If he'd had access to this in his own time…

Perhaps he could find a way to avoid the side ef
fects before he returned to the past. Or even a way to speed up the recharging process. And get back to his son all the sooner.

 

Jane found them together in Cody's room, hunched over the computer, and she stood there a moment, watching as Zach slowly punched keys and Cody looked at him with adoration in his eyes.

“Time to wash up for lunch, Codester,” she said, startling them both.

“Okay, Mom.” Cody smiled up at Zach. “We'll save this, Zach, and work on it some more later.” Cody executed the save command, jumped out of his chair and rushed past Jane on his way to the bathroom down the hall. Zach got up, as well.

“Wait a minute,” Jane said. “We need to talk.”

Zach's brows rose, and he sat back down. Jane came into the room, glancing down the hall first, to be sure Cody was out of earshot. Then she took the seat her son had formerly occupied.

“Cody…he's a special boy.”

“I can see that.”

“His IQ is far above what's considered normal,” she explained. “And from what I've read about you, I imagine yours is, too.”

He shrugged, saying nothing.

“Zach, don't get too close to him.”

He looked confused.

“Look, I don't want to see him get hurt. We both know you have to go back to your own time, eventually. But he's getting attached to you, I can see that already.”

“Ah… I see what you're getting at. But, Jane, I
need the boy's help. With the use of this machine, I can—”