Silver Storm: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 2 (9 page)

Just like that Tim was committed hook, line and sinker.

Sarah wrapped her arms around her middle as Alexa chipped in, “We’ll stop and get you some clothes, Sarah. And shoes that fit you.”

Tim shook his head. World-ending disasters afoot, leave it to a woman to worry about clothes.

Luke pulled Alexa close and wrapped his arm around her waist. “There’s a storm blowing in tonight. Sarah, you look like you could use some rest. I’ll do some research on Negative Matter, and what kind of theoretical weapon you could be dealing with. Then we’ll head over to the Hancock Observatory and see if Sarah can ride the lightning.” Luke’s pathetic joke did nothing to ease Tim’s mind.

They needed a game plan. In the field he’d counted on the top level guys on his team to analyze the opposition and the dangers of the mission. Strengths. Weaknesses. Tim had known every guy on his crew, trusted them with his life. He’d known the personalities of all the players. He knew who to talk to when the crazy visions started going on in his head, who would listen to his warnings and who wouldn’t. But he never went it alone. Never tried to argue logistics on the ground or outsmart the toughest sons of bitches on the planet. He got them in and out, and he watched their backs.

But this time there was no clear enemy and no team to brainstorm. No spook to give them a hint about what the hell was really going on. No information. And no control over the game. That was the most frustrating thing of all. He wasn’t used to being completely in the dark. He hated being out of control. That was one of the reasons he was a pilot. He loved the feel of directing the machine, even if his rational mind told him that all control was an illusion, with a stick in his hands and his seat rumbling beneath him, rationality was easy to ignore.

He was totally in the dark, surrounded by people he didn’t know. And worse? He sat next to a woman who couldn’t sneeze without potentially blowing something up. That he’d seen for himself.

Where had she come from? Really? What was going on here? A lightning strike and alien manipulation of her DNA? Good God. How was he supposed to wrap his head around that?

And he was more convinced than ever that someone had stolen his work. Even if that wasn’t the case, and these “aliens from the future” were for real, who better to understand their technology than him? He’d been on the brink of creating that kind of device himself, until the spooks became his personal shadows and he gave up his last ounce of hope that his work would be used for good. That was why he’d corrupted his own work and destroyed the rest. This kind of thing shouldn’t be created. Some things humanity should just leave alone.

Nine million people needed him to figure this out. Fast. And all Sarah could do at the moment was stare blankly at a whorl of stained wood in front of her and hold back tears. It looked like she could barely move, let alone come up with a rational plan.

She was an asset, a weapon. A piece on the chessboard he needed to learn how to play. At the moment, she wasn’t much better than a mannequin with red-rimmed, glassy eyes, lead-filled limbs, and a vacant, frozen face.

She looked both exhausted and scared to death.

Not sure if the overture would be welcome, he placed his hand gently over hers where it rested in a fist against her thigh.

Sarah sighed, and the Mark on the side of his neck warmed, like a hot, soothing hand rested on his skin. After the constant and slightly painful tingling and humming beneath his scar, the sudden shift of sensation left him wary. And eager to touch more of her.

“I was afraid of that.” Alexa’s whispered words echoed in the eerily silent room. She nodded her head in Sarah’s direction. Sarah’s head had fallen to the side in an awkward angle wedged against the back of the couch, asleep. “When was the last time she slept?”

Tim shrugged. “I have no idea. She was unconscious this morning for about fifteen minutes when I pulled her out of the lake.”

“How long since she’d rested before that?” Alexa shifted and looked directly at him without blinking. “The energy won’t let her rest unless you’re there to ground her.”

Tim glanced down at his hand where it rested over Sarah’s lightly freckled skin, then back up at the oh so serious couple staring at him like he was their pet project.

“You can’t leave her side until she learns what this is going to do to her, until she learns some control. It’ll be too dangerous for everyone.” Luke’s warning sank in and he imagined the worst. Apparently, Alexa did, too, because it looked like the little woman was on the verge of tears.

“All right.” Tim looked back at Sarah. It wasn’t as if touching her was a big sacrifice. He knew exhaustion when he saw it. Sarah had literally passed out. He’d been too distracted, too caught up in his own thoughts to notice the sunken look of her eyes or the pale tone of her skin before. It didn’t matter much to him whether she was a pawn or a queen. She was a vital piece of the puzzle he needed to solve. He needed to keep her close until he did.

Careful not to break contact with her, Tim slid his arms beneath her willowy body and lifted her from the chair. “Got somewhere she can rest for a few hours?”

“Of course.” Alexa moved around her husband to lead him down a hallway off the kitchen.

“What time is the storm supposed to hit tonight?”

Luke checked his watch. “In about seven hours. The Observatory closes at eleven. We’ll leave at six. We should be there by eight to make sure they’ll sell us a ticket. Alexa can hide us and Sarah can zap the cameras after they shut the place down for the night.” Luke stared at his wife. “And then we’re leaving town.” Alexa nodded and met Luke’s worried gaze. Tim caught the slight shift of her hand as it moved protectively over her swollen abdomen. Luke’s little wife was pregnant, the baby bump hidden from him by her loose dress until now. Which meant if these two believed Sarah’s story, they should be in the damn car already hitting ninety on their way out of town.

If it were his wife and child, they’d already be halfway to California.

But he didn’t have that kind of life, people he needed to protect, people who counted on him, trusted him to keep them safe.

Then again, perhaps now he did. Tim studied the light dusting of freckles on Sarah’s innocent but determined face. She looked like she worried, even in her sleep. She should be on a beach drinking margaritas and getting a suntan, not worrying about bad guys or saving the world.

Nothing new for him here. Lies. Deceit. Danger. He’d lived this life for years. It might drive him insane to think about dragging a helpless woman into a fight, but he’d do it. It went against every instinct he had, made the muscles in his back and neck so tight he felt like a guitar string about to snap, but he’d do what needed to be done.

He followed Alexa down the hallway with Sarah in his arms. She led him to a guest bedroom and moved aside so he could carry Sarah in and lay her down on the bed. Then she turned and walked back into Luke’s arms.

Luke pulled her close. “We’ll knock when it’s time to get moving.”

“We’ll be ready.” Tim nodded his thanks and wondered how deep this rabbit hole was going to take him as Luke pulled his wife into the hallway and closed the door.

<><><>

Before she opened her eyes, Sarah knew two things. One, the constant buzzing pain was gone. And two, she was draped all over one sexy-as-hell soldier who had said the word “mate” like it was cancer.

She’d just met the man, yet here she was cheek pressed to his shoulder, legs entwined, her arms snuggled between them acting as the only barrier between Tim and her aching heart. His distrust and cold rejection shouldn’t hurt, but they did. She was still the too-tall, too-skinny, freckle-faced freak who couldn’t get a date to the prom.

Echoes of a thousand thoughtless comments filled her mind. “How’s the weather up there?” “I sure hope you play basketball.” And her favorite, “Don’t step on us little people.”

No man had dared kiss her until she was nearly twenty-one. And he’d been a hotshot basketball star at Purdue, convinced he was God’s gift to women, and disgusted by the fact that she refused to drop her pants and beg for his less-than-noble intentions on the first date. Hell, the first hour of their first date.

Her experience with men, other than her father, had been that they were either intimidated as hell by her six-foot frame, or wanted to sleep with her so they could brag about the novelty to their friends.

Tim’s arm was draped across her waist, and he was dead asleep, lying on his side beside her. Just holding her.

She hadn’t felt this safe since the car accident when she was seven and her big brother, Nathan, had rocked her to sleep in her grandmother’s recliner, both of them crying. That was the day they’d lost their parents. But it was her big brother, and she trusted him completely. Four years later he’d left for some secret mission in the South American jungle and never come home.

Now she’d lost over twenty-five years. Her friends. Her career. Her grandmother. She’d been promised a man who would love her forever. Instead she got a twitchy, tattooed, ex-military hard-ass who treated her with kid gloves and looked at her like she was his tenth-grade science assignment, a frog in need of dissection. A puzzle that needed to be solved.

A weapon to be deployed. It had almost been easier when he hadn’t believed her, when she’d just been a naked woman dropped like an orphaned baby on his doorstep. When she hadn’t craved his touch or his approval. When he’d been a faceless possibility, a romantic dream. When she’d been stupid enough to believe the Archiver when he told her it would all work out.

Maybe that super-psychic jerk had his own special blend of happy gas on that stupid spaceship of his. The whole thing had sounded like a grand adventure to her then. She’d zapped spheres and shot electrical bolts from her fingertips with ease.

Small fry, she now realized, to shooting lightning over the entire Chicago skyline or figuring out how to defeat an advanced alien weapon on the fly.

A softly ticking pendulum clock on the wall near the base of the bed said it was just after four. She’d heard them talking about a storm and the observatory. She wasn’t ready to give up the blessed peace of Tim’s touch just yet. Even as she told herself her desire to keep his heavy arm across her stomach was all about the painful electrical zingers that would start hitting her the second contact was broken, she knew it was a lie. A big, fat, hairy fairy tale.

Careful not to move a muscle, she studied him for the first time, unconcerned with being caught or questioned. He was solid muscle poured into soft denim jeans and an even softer T-shirt. Basic and elemental. He could be featured in an ad campaign for football, sports drinks, or a clothing company. Something about him screamed authentic, patriotic, strong. He reminded her of her brother, sharp mind and steel will, determined to do the right thing. The rocking body was an added bonus.

She traced the outline of his features with her gaze, solid jaw, furrowed brow, straight nose and crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes from a life of sun, stress, and taking care of other people.

And the scar. She couldn’t see where it began, but it wrapped around the side of his neck and disappeared under the collar of his shirt. Her fingertips ached to touch it. She wanted to lay her palm over the Shen imbedded there and claim him, make sure he knew, unequivocally that he was hers. Forever.

The urge didn’t make sense. It was totally, utterly, and completely illogical, but she didn’t care. She didn’t know him, not really. She knew the basics of his story, ex-military. She knew he was a pilot. She knew he had an adorable little dog who bossed him around, and that he liked to fish. He blushed when she came out of the bathroom, fresh from the shower and wearing his clothes. He’d tried to salvage her hair from the lake fiasco. And he’d held her when she’d cried. She knew enough to want him.

Raising her arm from where it lay tucked between them, she lifted her hand toward his cheek. The need to touch his bare skin exploded to life inside her like a bomb going off in her chest. It actually hurt.

The heat from his right cheek buzzed through her palm where it hovered a hair’s breadth away from making full contact.

Four words echoed through her mind with a vicious and unrelenting fervor. His voice. “Did you say mate?”

Pull yourself together, girl. He doesn’t want a freak.

Everyone who knew her, who loved her, was gone. Dead. Her parents, her brother, her grandmother. No one left. That was why she’d been chosen. Taken. But it still stank.

She was alone in a crowd, again. Cue the music.

Regret made her arm feel ten pounds heavier as she dropped it back to her side and closed her eyes. Tears gathered beneath her eyelids, but she took a deep breath and told them to leave her the hell alone. She didn’t have time for a breakdown. Pity party over. Time to put her big girl panties on and deal. Time to pull her championship fight out of its hiding place and bring out the mentally tough leader her teammates had relied upon time after time. She never gave up. Didn’t matter if the score was fourteen to zip and the opposing team had the serve. She. Did. Not. Quit.

Sarah took a deep breath, gathering her willpower to move away from him and get up. Time to get moving and deal with the buzzing pain she knew would hit her as soon as she left his side. She couldn’t lie here another second feeling sorry for herself and wanting what wasn’t hers. She had to move…