Times Change (20 page)

“I’ll talk to him in the morning. And to Libby,” he added. “I want to set things right with her.”

Now the smile came more easily. “They’re good for each other. You see that, don’t you?”

“I’d have to be blind not to.”

“Science and logic aside, sometimes emotions are the most accurate equations.” Feeling stronger, she held out her hand. “I’d like to stay the night, here with you.”

He brought her close, struggling not to crush her against him. “I’ll come back.” When she shook her head, he pulled her away. The passion was in his eyes again, and the anger. “I will. I swear it. I need a little more time, to test. I managed to work it out this far in only two years. With another two, I can make it smoother, until it’s as basic as a shuttle to Mars.”

“A shuttle to Mars,” she repeated.

“Just trust me,” he told her, drawing her back. “When I work it all out we’ll have more time together.”

“More time,” she murmured, and shut her eyes.

Chapter 12

She left before he awakened. It seemed the best way. She hadn’t slept at all. She had lain awake during the night trying to find the best way.

He had put music on, something dreamy and beautiful by a composer she hadn’t heard of. Because he had yet to be born. He had adjusted the lights so that the cabin had been washed with simulated moonbeams.

To add romance. She understood that now, loved him for it. He had wanted to give her everything it was possible for him to give her on that last night. And he had given her everything but what she wanted most. A future.

It occurred to her as she thought over the twist her life had taken that up until this point all her decisions had been black-and-white. A choice was either right or wrong. But this time, this most important time, there were dozens of shades in between.

She drove back to the cabin slowly. How could she have said goodbye again? Some pains could not be endured a second time. Sunny could only hope he would understand what she was doing. She hoped she understood it.

She parked in back of the cabin and sat for a little while, studying the way the glaze of ice on the tree limbs glittered in the morning sun. Listening to the sound, the sound of almost perfect silence. Tasting the hint of coming snow in the air.

Slowly, fighting back the grief, she walked to the cabin and entered the kitchen quietly.

Libby had left a light in the window. The sight of the old kerosene lamp burning dully in the morning light brought the hateful tears to her eyes again. She swallowed them, then sat at the table to run her fingers over the wood as Jacob had only weeks before.

“You’re up early.”

Sunny lifted her eyes and met her sister’s. “Hi.” Her lips curved. “Mom.”

Instinctively Libby laid a hand on her stomach. “Jacob told you. I wanted to.”

“Great news is great news whatever the source.” She rose to gather her sister close. There was joy here, and she clung to it. “No morning sickness?”

“No. I’ve never felt better.”

“Cal better be spoiling you.”

“Rotten.” Libby drew back to brush at Sunny’s fringe of bangs. Her sister’s eyes were shadowed and sad. “How are you?”

“I’m okay.” Because her legs felt unsteady again, she turned back to sit at the table. “I’m sorry I ran out the way I did.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Libby was dressed in a baggy sweater and cords, her favored outfit for the mountains. Studying her, Sunny thought her sister had never been, more beautiful. She wondered if she would ever carry a child, feel that love growing inside her.

“I flattened him.”

“Good,” Libby said, with a nod of approval. Movements automatic, she filled the teakettle with water, then set it on the burner. “Want some breakfast?”

“Later, maybe.”

“Sunny, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Sunny reached behind her to close a hand over the one Libby had laid on her shoulder. “Really, it’s all right.”

“You really love him.”

“Yes, I love him.”

Wishing she could find a way to grant her sister the happiness she felt herself, Libby rested a cheek on Sunny’s hair. “Cal says J.T.’s planning to do some more work on the equations for the time travel. To hone it down, to make it safer, and more practical, if that word can apply.”

“Yes, he told me.”

“He’s brilliant, Sunny. Really brilliant. It’s not just Cal’s bragging. I read the rest of his file. And the fact that he was able to make this trip after only two years of work is proof of it. Once he finishes his testing, he’ll come back.”

“I hope he can.” She closed her eyes. “I really hope he can.” Then, with a laugh, she buried her face in her hands. “Listen to us. We’re here talking about all of this as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I must still be in shock.”

“After more than a year, I still wake up some mornings wondering if I imagined it all.”

“But you have Cal,” Sunny murmured, letting her hands fall into her lap. “He’s right there to prove it’s real.”

“Sunny, if I—” She broke off when Cal walked into the room. She lifted her shoulders, let them fall. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No. I’m handling it, I promise you that.”

“I’m going to get some fresh air,” Libby announced. “Cal, take care of the tea, will you?”

A look passed between them. “Sure.”

Sunny knew them both well enough to understand that they’d planned this little bit of business so that Cal could speak to her alone.

“What do you want?” he asked when Libby had shut the door behind her. “Froot Loops or burnt toast?”

“J.T. fixed the toaster.”

“Oh yeah?” He gave it a casual glance. “He’s always liked to fiddle with things.” The kettle began to boil, giving him another moment to think through what he wanted to say. “Sunny . . . I think we’ll get snow before nightfall.”

“Cal, why don’t you relax? As tempting as it was, I didn’t murder him.”

“I wasn’t worried about that.” He poured hot water into two cups. “Not too much, anyway. It’s more a matter of wanting to explain.”

“That your brother’s a jerk? I know that.”

“He’s also sensitive.”

She could still be amused. That was a relief. “Are we talking about the same man? Hornblower, Jacob? Astrophysicist? The one with the bull head and the nasty temper?”

An apt description, he thought. “Yeah. I don’t mean like he cries at vid—movies,” he remembered. “Or that he takes it to heart when you call him names. He’s sensitive where other people are concerned. Family.” Not certain he was handling the situation correctly, he brought the tea to the table. “Half the time when he’d get into fights it was because someone had said something about me. It used to annoy me, because I wanted to take care of it myself, but he’d always plow right in before I had the chance. And my parents . . . I can’t think of a single time he’d forget a birthday or Mother’s Day.”

“They still have Mother’s Day?”

“Sure.”

“Cal.” Absently she stirred sugar into her tea. “How did you decide to stay?”

“I didn’t decide,” he told her. “What I mean is, I don’t think
decide
is the word. It implies choice. I couldn’t leave Libby. I tried. But I’ve never stopped thinking about my family.”

“Whether you consider you had a choice or not, it had to be difficult.”

“For me it was pretty cut-and-dried. I couldn’t even be sure if I’d make it back. I sent the ship and the reports because if there was a chance I could let them know I was alive, safe, I had to.” He laid a hand over hers. “With J.T., it’s different. He knows he can make it back, and if he didn’t go he’d be leaving them without hope. He couldn’t do that.”

“No, he couldn’t do that.” She lifted her head. “It’s been hard for you.”

“This has been the best year of my life.”

“But the adjustments, the separation . . .”

“If I’d been tossed back another five hundred years it wouldn’t have mattered. As long as I’d found Libby.”

“She’s lucky to have you.”

“I like to think so.” He grinned, then sobered. “He loves you, Sunny.”

Something flickered in her eyes before she lowered them. “Did he tell you that?”

“Yes, but he didn’t have to. I saw it the first time he said your name. I guess what I wanted to tell you was that he’s never felt about anyone the way he feels about you.”

“Will you help me, Cal? I left before he woke up.” She pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. “I can’t say goodbye.”

***

Libby stood by the stream watching the water fight its way around the ice. In her mind she saw it as it had been in the spring, when the water had gurgled lazily over the rocks and the song of birds had been everywhere. The grass had been soft and green.

It was there that she and Cal had buried the time capsule. And there they had made love, while her heart had broken at the picture of him unearthing it again in some springtime hundreds of years ahead.

Instead, he had stayed, and it was his brother who had taken out the box they had placed there. Now it was her sister’s heart that was breaking.

Whatever comfort she offered Sunny wouldn’t be enough.

It seemed wrong that she should have everything while Sunny lost. She had Cal, and the home they loved, the life they were building. She had the child. With a soft smile, she pressed a hand to her stomach. The child who would come at summer’s end and bind them even closer together.

Sunny would have only memories, and there was nothing Libby could do about it.

She turned her head slightly and saw Jacob.

He was only a few feet away. She hadn’t heard his approach in the muffling snow. In the shadows cast by the trees she saw how much he resembled Cal. The same build, the same coloring, the same sharp facial bones. There was a measuring look in his eyes that made her wonder how long he had been standing and watching her in silence.

She didn’t approach him. Though he posed no threat to her—and she admitted that she had been foolish and overemotional ever to believe he could—he had taken her sister’s heart. And broken it.

“Cal’s inside.” Her voice was cool and clipped. She made no attempt to be friendly.

She showed her anger differently from Sunny, he mused. Sunny exploded with hers, went straight on the attack. Apparently Libby let hers bubble and brew inside. He wondered if she realized it was just as volatile.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

She had never enjoyed confrontations, but she braced for this one. “There’s nothing you can say to me that would make me influence Cal to leave with you. The choice is his, whether you believe it or not. Just as it was before.”

“I know.” He moved slowly across the snow until he stood beside her. “It isn’t something I thought I would understand or accept, but I do. Our parents will . . . It will mean a great deal to them when I tell them about you. About the child.”

“He misses them.” Her voice was thick as she battled the tide of emotion. “They should know that.”

“They will.”

“Why didn’t you tell her?” she demanded. “How could you have let her fall in love with you when you knew you were going to leave?”

His hands fisted as he plunged them into the pockets of his pea coat. “I spent two years working, inching my way here. For one reason. Only one. To find my brother and take him home.”

Her eyes smoldered at that. “You can’t have him.”

“No.” He nearly smiled. Perhaps she was more like Sunny than he had originally thought. “And I can’t have Sunny, either. I have to live with that. She isn’t the only one who fell in love. She isn’t the only one to lose.”

“But you knew what you were doing.”

Vibrating with frustration, he faced her. For the first time she saw that his eyes were haunted and miserable. “You thought Cal would leave. Did it stop you from loving him, or him from loving you?”

“No.” With a little sigh, she put a hand on his arm. “No, it didn’t.”

“She’s strong,” he said. His control had slipped a few notches when he’d heard the understanding in her voice. “She won’t allow herself to hurt for long. If I can’t come back . . .” The pain ripped through him, forcing him to take a slow, deep breath. “If I can’t come back, she’ll go on.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I have to.” He dragged an unsteady hand through his hair. With the ache rippling through him, he told her what he hadn’t been able to tell Sunny. What he hadn’t wanted to face himself. “I haven’t perfected the procedure. This time I was months off. The next time, if there is one, I may be years off. She may have started a new life. I have to accept that.”

She smiled at him. “I study people. When you make it a profession, you learn more than tradition and social mores. You learn that real love, lasting love, is very rare. It should never be simply accepted, J.T. It should be cherished.”

He gazed across the white world he was just beginning to understand. “I’ll think of her every day for the rest of my life.”

“Have you never heard the word
compromise
?”

“I’m not very good at it. If I could find one, I’d learn to be good at it. I can only tell you that everything I do from the moment I get back will be geared toward finding a way to return here, within a day, within an hour, of the time I left.”

Moved, she leaned up and kissed his cheek. It surprised her when his arms came around her, held her. Without hesitating, she returned the embrace.

“Take care of them. Both of them.”

“I will.” She tightened her hold briefly, then smiled when she saw Cal walking toward them. Kissing Jacob again, she released him before she held out a hand for Cal’s. “Why don’t I go make some breakfast?”

“Thanks.” Cal’s fingers squeezed hers. “I love you.”

With a quick smile, she headed back to the cabin.

“Is Sunny inside?”

Cal turned back to his brother. “She came back early.” He put a hand on Jacob’s arm to restrain him. “J.T., she asked me to tell you that she wishes you a safe trip but she can’t say goodbye again.”

“The hell with that.”

“Jacob.” Cal shifted to block his brother’s path. “She needs to do it this way. Believe me, it won’t help her if you try to see her again.”

“Just cut it off clean?” Jacob pulled out of Cal’s hold. “As simple as that?”

“I didn’t say it was simple. There’s no one who knows better how you feel than I do. If you love her,” he continued, “let her have her way in this.”

Holding up his hands, Jacob whirled and strode a few paces off. Pain roiled inside him, pain edged with resentment. She wouldn’t even see him one last time. Already she was just a memory. Perhaps it was best, he told himself, best that he could believe she was already getting on with her life.

If he could do nothing else for her, he could honor this last request.

“All right. Tell her . . .” He trailed off, swearing. He would never be able to find the words for what he was feeling. Even if he’d had Cal’s knack for poetry, the phrases would have fallen short.

“She knows,” Cal told him. “Come on inside.”

***

In the afternoon they drove him to the ship. He wondered if Sunny was watching from a window as they disappeared into the forest. But when he looked back, searching, the sun was glaring on the glass and he could see nothing.