The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (66 page)

Plus, she did slant her gaze towards his torso every few paragraphs, immersed though she was in a borrowed future book extolling the virtues of superconductors. David himself was trying to read back issues of the
Chronicle
, but the heat made it hard to concentrate on the articles in the “Local News” section. Part of his reason for reading the paper was his curiosity about how people lived and thought and, well, gossiped about each other. The other part was to make sure that Elaine’s name wasn’t besmirched by his presence.

So far no one had enquired as to where he was staying – a hazard since Elaine’s father was currently overseas lecturing on the newest learnings in electricity to his fellow scientists, leaving her essentially unchaperoned – but he didn’t want to take chances with her reputation. The hilltop house was fairly isolated in this age, with no neighbours at the bottom of the hill. They had, however, driven her father’s automobile into town a few times already, with David introduced as “a fellow scientist and colleague of Mr Cuttleridge’s” to explain his presence and peculiarities. That had come in handy when trying to explain away certain oddities in his speech and demeanour.

He tried to focus on a description of a soirée given by the mayor and his wife up at the county seat, but just couldn’t focus. Groaning, he dropped his head on his hands.

“Stressed again?” Elaine asked, looking up from her book, which she had covered in plain brown wrapping paper to disguise its out landishly bright cover. “Have you palpitated recently?”

He winced again and dropped his head to the table, slumping in his chair. “If I ‘palpitate’ any more, I’ll palpitate myself to pieces.” Wiping his forehead on his forearm only smeared the sweat around; it did nothing to remove the damp, sticky feeling. “What I
need
is a shower.”

“I’m afraid all we have is a bathtub in this day and age,” Elaine reminded him. “But if you mean to bathe, do not look to me to heat up your water. I’ll go nowhere near the stove in this B-beastly weather.”

“I’d rather have a C-cold bath instead,” he muttered. “One more week of this, and then it’s back to blessed air conditioning.”

Elaine hmphed. “I distinctly recall suggesting that I come to the future again. But no, you insisted you wanted to live in the past. To revelin its lack of amenities. Well, R-revel all you want. It was your own choice.”

“It wouldn’t be so bad if you at least had a swimming pool,” he pointed out, rolling from his forehead on to his cheek so that he could look at her.

Elaine looked up, but not at him. The thoughtful pinch of her brow intrigued him. Nodding slowly to herself, she picked up her book ribbon, marked her spot and set it aside. She nodded sharply and placed her hands on the table. “Up you get. I might not have a formal pool, but there is a small pond down at the bottom of the hill. Down about where that mini-market thing is located in your era. If we take a lantern and a blanket, some towelling cloths and so forth, we can go down there and . . . erm . . .” She paused, blushing. “No, that wouldn’t work. You didn’t bring a bathing suit, did you?”

It’s been a couple of weeks,
the devil in the back of his mind whispered. Or maybe it was the one in his trousers. David shook his head slowly. “No, I didn’t. But I won’t tell if you won’t. This
is
a private pond, yes?”

“As private as it gets. The land goes down to the bottom of the hill, where the Attenborough Farm takes over; technically it’s a stock-watering pond,” she explained, “but the Attenboroughs have been pasturing their cattle on the west side of their property of late. However, there are many bugs to worry about. If you don’t wear a proper swimming suit, you’ll run the risk of being bitten in unpleasant places.”

“Then the bathtub it is,” he decided, pushing himself upright. “At least the windows of this house have mosquito netting on them.”

“I am not going to heat any water for you,” she reminded him tartly as he rose. “Nor am I going to pump it into the heating pails. I’m too warm as it is to work that hard. Though . . . well, a cold bath does sound like it would be L-lovely.”

David grinned and flexed his arms. “No worries; I’ll raw enough for you, too.”

Pumping water for the primitive needs of the household was a better way to exercise than stopping by the gym. It didn’t take that long to get the kitchen pump working, nor to carry two buckets at a time up the stairs. The activities of pumping, lifting, climbing and pouring worked his arms, waist and legs. The fourth trip was tiresome, though. The Cuttleridges had spent all of their money on fitting their house with the latest electrical gadgets, not on upgrading the indoor plumbing.

Even the tank in the water closet had to be filled by bucket every third or so flush, though Elaine had mentioned her father had plans to rework the plumbing upon his return from his latest lecture tour in Europe.

Once the beautiful, nearly new, claw-footed tub had been filled halfway, David stripped off the remainder of his clothes. The water was somewhere between cooland slightly cold, enough of a shock that he sucked in his breath. The contrast to the humid evening heat was too heavenly to resist, however. Settling happily into the tub, he lazily scooped cool water over his chest and shoulders, and splashed some of it up on to his face, scrubbing away the residue of too much perspiration.

Just as he started to feel better, to feel human once again, the bathroom door opened. Startled, David splashed upright, then into a ball, trying to hide his groin from her view. Elaine poked her head around the corner. Her face was redder than the summer heat could account for, and she looked more hesitant than he had ever seen her before. Which wasn’t all that hesitant, for after ascertaining eye contact, she stepped fully into the smallroom.

“Erm. . . I wrote myself a letter – as you may recall – and in it. . .” She hesitated, then reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a small blue square. “Well, it instructed me to take a twenty-dollar bill out of your wallet on the last visit, and to go down to the mini-market to buy some of these. And to bring them back with me to here and now, to be used when you take a cold bath after I suggest you go and palpitate.”

Heat suffused his face. It accompanied a tickle in his chest, which turned into a wry laugh. “No
wonder
you keep suggesting I should go and palpitate myself! You lascivious little . . .! Come here,” David ordered, grinning and holding out his hand. She approached and handed him the little condom packet, blushing and smiling. Setting it on the shelf built behind the sloped back of the bath, David gestured at her clothes. “Well? Take everything off! You’ll want to get nice and coolin here before we start heating things up again in the bedroom. And I did say I’d draw enough water for you, too.”

She smiled and blushed, and started unbuttoning her ruffled white blouse. “I feel so N-naughty, doing this. And yet . . . so free. So future-modern.”

“Whereas I feel so R-randy, and never so grateful for a lack of air conditioning in my life,” David countered, grinning. Uncurling from the last of his protective huddle, he settled against the sloped back of the tub, displaying himself as well as enjoying her half-shy show.
Brains, beauty and boldness, all wrapped up in time-travelling papers and quantum-mechanic strings.

She paused in her disrobing, catching sight of his erection under the cool caress of water bathing his flushed skin. The look in her eyes was almost the same one he had seen in that first photograph, that small smile with hints of lascivious pride.

Yes, these are
definitely
a few of my favourite things . . .

“Come here, my dear, B-beloved Elaine,” David coaxed as she unfastened her skirt and shimmied her hips, helping her lower garments to drop. “Join me in the tub, and, together, we’ll make some steam.”

Climbing into the tub, Elaine argued, “I’m not so sure that steam should be considered a viable comparison, David. Electricity has so much more potential. Your own era proves my point.”

Rolling his eyes, David pulled her down on top of him. “And I say,
steam
.”

As their bodies met, his cool and damp from the bathwater, hers warm and sticky with sweat, he silenced her with a thoroughly modern kiss. Not until both of them were once again hot and breathing heavily did he release her.

“All-right, I’ll concede your point. Steam, it is,” Elaine stated, pulling back just long enough to capitulate. She recaptured his lips with another kiss, proving herself as quick a student of passion as she was of everything else. Murmuring against his lips, she slid her hand boldly down his ribs, underneath the waterline. “Lots of lovely S-steam . . .”

Allie Mackay

One

Talmine Village

Scotland’s Far North, the Present

Precious lass. You’re mine, do you hear me?

I won’t – I can’t – live without you.

Lindy Lovejoy, American tourist and expert on all things Scottish, heard the words in her mind. But they were real enough to make her heart thump against her ribs. Her breath caught, too, and her stomach went all fluttery. In fact, if she weren’t sitting on her bed, bolstered by pillows and surrounded by maps and writing paraphernalia, she was sure she’d melt into a puddle on the plaid-carpeted floor.

She did tilt her head and close her eyes, concentrating.

Her room, surely the tiniest in the entire bed-and-breakfast inn, was quiet. Darkness came early on autumn nights in Scotland and if anyone occupied the room next to hers, they weren’t making any noise. Outside, the wind had risen and fluting gusts whistled round the eaves and soughed down the narrow road beneath her window. A glance in that direction – she hadn’t yet bothered to close the curtains – showed a steady rain just beginning to fall.

But she could still hear the man’s voice. Deep, richly burred and dangerously seductive, his words slid through her like smooth, sun-warmed honey.

I’ll ne’er let you go, sweetness.

Lindy bit her lip, listening. He’d breathed the endearment as if he were right beside her, his chin grazing her hair and his breath warm against her cheek.

He was definitely a Highlander.

And he spoke with the kind of fill-her-with-shivers Scottish accent she thought of as a verbalorgasm.

To o bad he was a product of her imagination.

Lore MacLaren.

Hero of the Scottish medieval romance she’d been working on for years and that had only been rejected by – she opened her eyes and frowned – every agent and editor in the industry. At least the ones she’d targeted so carefully.

Not that it’d done her any good.

Biting back a curse she was not going to let pass her lips, she tucked her hair behind her ear and willed her character to stop talking to her.

Now wasn’t the time for guilty pleasures.

Even if she was sure that having such a hot, realistic, full-bodied hero – a Highland hero, for heaven’s sake! – had to be something really specialin the super-competitive business of writing and selling romance novels.

Lore MacLaren would have to wait until her vacation was over.

The research trip that – she just knew – was going to result in her big breakthrough into publishing. She plucked at a loose thread on the bed’s tartan duvet, almost afraid to acknowledge how much time, money and effort she’d vested in her plans. Anyone even halfway familiar with karma, knew how easy it was to jinx oneself.

But still. . .

Life could seem so unfair.

Some authors hit New York running.

She’d tried that and failed. Doing everything right and following all the rules had gotten her nowhere. Now she was going to take a detour.

If
Heather Aflame
wasn’t wowing the powers-that-be, she’d knock them sideways with
The Armchair Enthusiast’s Guide to MythicalScotland
. In lyricalbut concise, easy-to-follow language, she’d regale readers with insider tips on everything from how to drive on the left to finding hidden away entrances to Neolithic chambered tombs and other little known sites that most tourists never see.

Aspiring writers and maybe even some published authors would snatch the book off the shelves. Agents and editors would be impressed, hinting that she should pour her knowledge into writing a Scottish romance.

She’d sell Lore at last.

A fantastic two-book deal would be hers. She could then quit her job at Ye Olde Pagan Times, the New Age shop in her hometown of New Hope, Pennsylvania, where she worked such long hours some of the regulars often asked if she slept on a cot in the back room.

She’d never again have to urge someone to buy a sneeze-inducing bundle of bad-vibes-chasing sage.

Or suffer the equally pungent smell of some of the love potions and herbal treatments for masculine sexualdysfunction that were kept in a locked cupboard in one of the shop’s darkest corners.

Sweet lass, I need you . . .

Lore’s voice came low and husky. Lindy whipped around with a jolt, sure she’d felt his breath on her nape. Soft and warm, it had caressed her skin, making her tingle with desire and awareness. His words, deep and rough-edged, let her know that he wanted her with equal passion. But a quick glance showed that the room loomed empty. As before, nothing stirred except the damp wind outside her window.