The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (10 page)

Friendly, my ass.
“Look. You’re in some serious shit here. You assaulted my partner.”

“Your partner’s a pig.”

Hard to argue with that one. She chewed the inside of her lip to keep from smiling.

“Listen, Mr Reddick. I get the feeling you’re not really such a bad guy, and I’d love to help you get into a shelter, or send you home to grovel to your wife, or whoever tossed you out on your ass last night, but for some reason you seem hell-bent on making me regret helping you. Do you want to spend the next couple of months in lock-up?”

He shrugged.

She leaned on to the desk. “We’re real backed up right now. It’ll be ages before you see the inside of a courtroom.”

He cocked up one eyebrow. “Do what you want. I know exactly where I’ll be tomorrow at dawn and it won’t be in your jail cell. I
guaran-damn-tee
it.”

“Oh, really. You think I won’t do it, don’t you?” He’d read her like a book. She hated that.

Hand in his pocket, he pressed a sharp edge up and into the fabric of his slacks.

Heart racing, Kara stood, squared her stance and moved one hand to her weapon. “Empty your pockets. Now.” She was off her game not doing this sooner.

He shrugged and dug into his blazer to come up with a gold lighter and a pack of gum from one, a crumpled envelope and a small key from the other. The gum’s label said “Wrigley”, but must’ve been bought overseas, because it was unlike any pack she’d ever seen. She kept her hand over her gun as he dug into his pants pocket and then slapped a handful of bills and coins on to the desk. Three one-dollar bills, but something was off. Counterfeits? Maybe. Not recently issued bills, that’s for sure.

“The other pocket.”

He pulled out a necklace and let it dangle for a moment before dropping it to the metal desktop. The enamelled butterfly pendant hit with a clink, and then the chain snaked around it like sand falling in slow motion.

Goosebumps erupted on every inch of her body. “Where’d you get the necklace?”

“From a kid in the park – teenaged runaway.”

The air rushed from her lungs and she squeezed her muscles to hinder the earthquake emanating from deep in her bones. She shook her head to dislodge the impossible conclusions scrambling to take hold.

His eyes widened. That they quickly snapped back to indifference didn’t matter. The few seconds of intense recognition, of wonder in his eyes, had swept her from the squad room and back in time. Back to a day in 1994 she’d started to think she’d imagined.

She was imagining this.

“Get out of here.” It wasn’t him, and if it was, he was fucking with her.

“What? No jail?” His pissed-off tone fuelled her confusion-induced anger.

She pointed towards the entrance. “Out. Now.”

As she watched him stuff his possessions into his pockets and walk away, her mind, her whole body, felt as if she’d been set in a paint mixer.

This man, his smile, his eyes, his dated clothing and hairstyle, were so much like the man who’d saved her life. But he couldn’t be. Not unless fifteen years could pass without him aging a day.

Jake played with the pendant in his pocket. Hard to believe it was the same girl, but her reaction to the butterfly had been unmistakable.

From the second he’d heard her voice, something about her had been familiar, but it wasn’t until he’d brought out the pendant that he’d seen the oh-so-obvious truth. Even all grown up, in that cop uniform, and without the heavy black eyeliner he’d wiped from her cheeks with that same damn handkerchief, it had to be her.

Across from the police station, he leaned against the brick wall, unable to leave – obsessed – like some chick waiting for the Beatles to emerge from a hotel. Pathetic.

And useless.

Chances were there was some back entrance the cops used. And even if she did see him waiting, she clearly wouldn’t want to. She’d tossed him out.

The year they’d met in the park she’d been a teenager – lost, terrified, out of her depth – and he’d been the big brother figure who’d shared his story, hoping his life lessons might help her.

Her reaction to him that day had been text-book obvious, given her age and the circumstances, and didn’t mean she’d give a damn about, or even remember, him today. She was a fully formed person now, no longer broken. Probably had a husband or boyfriend, at least friends to support her.

More to the point, even if she
were
curious, wanted to find out if they shared the same memory, what would be the point?

In spite of today – even
because
of today – the odds were freakishly long that he’d ever see her again. If there was a next time, he’d be just as likely to find her playing on the swings as a toddler, or pushing a walker as a ninety-year-old woman. Both were thousands of times more likely than seeing her on anything resembling tomorrow.

For him, there were no tomorrows.

He pushed off the wall and started down the street. A small car pulled out from the kerb and a line of yellow cabs honked. His first visit to the twenty-first century. Didn’t look that different from the last.

“Mr Reddick. Jacob. Wait. Please. Jake.”

He stopped, but didn’t turn.

“Wait a minute,” her voice pleaded, coming closer.

Talking to her was a dumb idea, yet his feet remained clamped to the sidewalk. Time – however meaningless the term had become – had taught him that interacting with others, making any kind of connection, was pointless.

Human connections only made his existence harder to endure.

Kara slid her hand on to Jake’s shoulder and his head tipped back a fraction of an inch. His sandy curls hit the collar of his plaid jacket, bending like soft springs, and it was all she could do to keep her hand from traversing the few inches required to stroke those curls, confirm their softness, and run the back of her finger along the warm neck beneath.

Crazy. Insane.

She barely knew this guy. They’d spent one day talking when she’d been all of fourteen, yet he’d been the leading man in her dreams for years.

As Jake slowly turned, her hand slipped from his shoulder and stung at the loss of contact. “It is you, isn’t it?” Her voice came out low and breathy.

He reached out, but dropped his arm sharply. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He stepped back, but she grabbed his jacket’s sleeve.

“Yes you do.”

He glared and pulled his arm out of her grip. “I’ve never seen you before.”

“Yes you have. I can prove it.” Her chest squeezed and heat rose in her face. “Your mother died of cancer when you were twelve. Just like mine. Then your father died too. You regretted how you’d cut him out of your life and blamed him for things he couldn’t control. You blamed him for not being your mother.”

He stared at the ground, his jaw clamped so tightly she wondered if his teeth might crumble. So stubborn.

“You ran away at fourteen. Just like me. And you regretted that, too. Had to live hand-to-mouth and work nights to finish high school and land a job that paid enough to cover your rent.” She sucked in a sharp breath. Had his stories all been lies designed to manipulate an impressionable young runaway?

If so, they’d worked.

She stomped her foot like a child – felt like one. “I did what I promised. I went home. I apologized to my dad. I kept away from drugs. I finished high school.”

He didn’t move.

“You’re why I became a cop. You inspired me to help people.” Her voice hitched and she hated how her throat kept strangling her words. “You saved my life.”

His head snapped up, eyes soft, but his expression quickly switched back on to cold. “If that’s true, I’m glad.”

“So you admit it’s you.”

He nodded.

“Then talk to me. Where have you been? Why didn’t you call me like you promised?”

“I never promised.” He backed up a step.

“Tell me what’s going on.” She reached out to rest her hand on his forearm.

He jerked back. “There’s no point.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Believe me, Kara. I can.”

Her breath hitched. He remembered her name.

That small fact melted the iciness he was casting towards her. She had to keep trying. If nothing else, she owed him. She owed him her life.

“You have three or four dollars in your pocket. That’ll barely get you a coffee. At least let me buy you breakfast. Please.”

His mouth cocked up in a half-smile. “What will the waitress think if I let the lady pick up the tab?”

She laughed, hoping to lighten the mood. “What year did you step out of?”

He didn’t laugh back.

Jake, on round two of breakfast, swallowed a huge bite of pancake and wiped syrup off his chin with the back of his hand.

Across the table in the diner’s window booth, Kara pushed congealed egg yolk around her plate with a crust of toast as she told him about her still-shaky relationship with her father.

Even though her black sweatshirt and jeans weren’t exactly feminine, she was so much softer in street clothes. Unconstrained by that cop hat, little tendrils of hair had fallen around her face, and he gripped his fork to kill the temptation to lean over and brush one back. The angry young girl he’d met fifteen years earlier had turned into one hell of a beautiful woman.

“You still like butterflies,” he said without thinking.

She raised one hand to her earring and a smile lit her face, the whole room. “I can’t believe you kept my necklace all these years – or the ridiculous coincidence you had it with you, today.”

He stuffed his mouth with pancake and bacon. He’d been trying to quash the persistent notion that the necklace was no coincidence. The last time he’d felt hope it’d almost killed him.

“Look.” She reached her hand across the table. “You completely changed the course of my life that day. Seriously. And now you seem down on your luck. I’d like to return the favour, help you.”

“I’m beyond help, honey – sorry –
officer
.”

She pulled back. “Why are you being a jerk? I just spilled my life story, and you’ve barely told me a thing. Not even why you were sleeping in the park.”

Her eyes were coaxing him to say more, so he studied his last slice of bacon. He was a shit for caving in on the free breakfast, a shit for acknowledging they’d met before, and an even bigger shit for revealing a second of joy when she’d told him she’d dumped her last boyfriend almost a year ago.

After today, he’d never see her again.

Frustration urged him to pound his fist through the plate glass window beside him, but he turned back and her concerned expression released some of the pressure. He rested one elbow on the table. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a real conversation.”

“These are tough times. Being homeless isn’t anything to be ashamed of.” She stretched out her hand and he longed to touch it so badly he ached.

He leaned away. “Homeless sounds great compared to my life.”

“Tell me what’s wrong.” She drew a deep breath and her breasts pressed against her top. “No way have you been living on the streets for long. I swear you haven’t aged.”

Damn. She wasn’t going to give up easily. Maybe it would help if she thought he were crazy.

He patted his full belly. “Thanks for the breakfast. I hadn’t eaten since 1824.”

She smiled. “Funny.”

“Might be, if it weren’t the truth.”

Her expression hardened. Not what he’d aimed for, but angry would do. Time to toss lighter fluid on to the flames.

“You want more truth? Well, here it is.” He pushed his plate to the side and leaned on to the table. “On my thirty-second birthday, a hippy in the park gave me a tab of acid. Like an idiot, I took it, and ever since then, no matter where I am or what I’m wearing, no matter what I’m doing or where I fall asleep, I wake up every morning in that same spot, on the same day, but a different year, in the same fucking clothes, with the same fucking things in my pockets.”

He slapped his palm on the table. “I can’t even count how many days I’ve endured since this started, or how many different years I’ve been to. Can’t keep track, because the paper’s never there when I fucking wake up.”

He’d never used the f-word in front of a lady. His mom would’ve been disappointed. Dad would’ve slapped him. He barely cared.

Her posture had stiffened during his rant, but she softened and stretched her hand out again. “Why are you telling me this crazy story?”

“Because it’s true.”

“Do you hear how ridiculous you sound? Explain to me how one thing you’ve said is even possible.”

He pounded the table. “You think I know? You think I understand how, even if I change out of this suit, even if I tear it or burn it, I wake up in it every morning as if it’s brand new? You think I know why, even if I go to bed with cuts and bruises from a beating, or fall asleep in the arms of a whore, I wake up alone and in the exact same state of health as I was in 1967, the last year I lived a fucking normal day?”

Face burning, he thumped back in the booth and realized he’d shouted and a few heads had turned.