It took all his willpower not to touch her and, with the need raw in his gut, to draw away.

"I lied," he murmured as his gaze dipped down to her mouth. "I'm not sorry." But he rose and moved away from the bed. She stood up and tried to keep her nervous fingers from fiddling with the hem of her sweater.

"Is that your family?"

"Yeah." He'd been staring at the picture, wishing life could be as simple as it had been at that moment. "My brother Jacob and my parents."

The love, somewhat wistful in his voice, was unmistakable. Moved by it, she laid a hand on his arm. "This is Jacob?" she asked, indicating his brother. "But they don't look old enough to be your parents."

"It isn't difficult to look young." He shrugged. "Well, it won't be."

"And that's your home?"

"I grew up there. It's about twenty kilometers outside the city limits."

"You'll get back to them." She buried her own yearnings. Love, no matter how suddenly it came or how deep it reached, was selfless. "Think of the story you'll have to tell."

"If I remember."

"But you couldn't forget." The possibility struck her painfully. She couldn't bear it if he forgot her, if even her memory no longer existed. "I'll write it down for you."

He shook off his black mood and turned to her. "I'd appreciate that. Will you let me go back with you?"

She felt a flutter of hope. "Go back?"

"To the cabin. I've done about all I can for now. I can start the repairs on the ship tomorrow. I was hoping you'd let me stay until it's all ready."

"Of course." It was foolish, and selfish, to hope that he would stay any longer than necessary. She put on a bright smile as they started from the room. "I have dozens of questions to ask you. I don't even know where to begin."

Still, she asked him nothing on the drive back. He seemed distracted, moody, and her own mind was crowded with impressions and contradictions. It would be best, she decided, if they pretended a kind of normality for a few hours. Then, with a thud, inspiration hit.

"How would you like to have lunch in town?"

"What?"

"Try to stay tuned, Hornblower. Would you like to drive into town? You haven't seen anything but this little slice. If I suddenly found myself back in, say, the 1700s, I'd want to explore a little, watch people. It only takes a couple of hours. What do you say?" The moodiness left his eyes, and he smiled. "Can

I drive?"

"Not on your life." She laughed and tossed her hair back. "We'll stop back at the cabin for my purse."

It took more than thirty minutes to get to the highway through a narrow pass where the Land Rover had powered its way through the mud. When they reached the highway Cal saw the vehicles that had fascinated him on television. They rumbled noisily along. He shook his head as Libby jockeyed aggressively for position.

"I could teach you to fly a jet buggy in an hour."

The wind felt wonderful on her face. They had today, and perhaps a day or two more. She wasn't going to lose a moment of it.

"Is that a compliment?"

"Yeah. You're still using what-gasoline?"

"That's right."

"Amazing."

"Being smug and superior suits you-especially since you didn't even know how to turn my car on."

"I'd've figured it out." He reached out to touch the flying strands of her hair. "If I were home I'd fly you to Paris for lunch. Have you ever been there?"

"No." She tried not to think too deeply about the romance of it. "We'll have to settle for pizza in Oregon."

"Sounds great to me. You know, the strangest thing is the sky. There's nothing in it." A car whizzed by, muffler coughing, radio blaring. "What was that?"

"A car."

"That's debatable, but I meant what was the noise?"

"Music. Hard rock." She reached over to turn on the radio. "That's not as hard, but it's still rock."

"It's good." With the music playing in his head, he watched the buildings they passed. Neat single-family homes, chunky apartment complexes and a spreading single-level shopping center. The traffic thickened as they came closer to the city. He could see the high rectangular forms of office buildings and condos. It was a cluttered and, to his eyes, awkward skyline, but it was oddly compelling. Here were people, here life continued.

Libby eased down the curving ramp and headed downtown. "There's a nice Italian place, very traditional. Red checked tablecloths, candles in bottles, hand-tossed pizza."

Cal gave an absent nod. There were people walking the sidewalk, some old, some young, some plain, some pretty. There was noise from car engines, and the occasional bad-tempered blare of a horn. The air was warmer here and smelled slightly of exhaust. For him it was a picture out of an old book come to life.

Libby pulled into a graveled lot next to a squat white-and-green building. The neon sign across the front window said Rocky's.

"Well, it's not Paris."

"It's fine," he murmured, but he continued to twist his head and stare.

"It must feel like stepping through the looking glass."

"Hmm. Oh." He remembered the book, one he'd read as a teenager. "Something like that. More like something from H. G. Wells."

"It's nice to know literature has survived. Are you hungry?"

"I was born hungry." Once again he fought off a darkening mood. She was trying, and so could he.

The restaurant was dim, nearly empty, and the air simmered with spices. In the corner was a jukebox pumping out a current Top 40 hit. After a glance at a sign that read Please Seat Yourself, Libby led Cal to a corner booth. "The pizza's really wonderful here. Have you had pizza before?"

He flicked a finger at the hardened candle wax on the bottle in the center of the table. "Some things transcend time. Pizza's one of them."

The waitress toddled over, a plump young woman in a bright red bib apron that had Rocky's and a few splashes of tomato sauce dashed across the front. She placed two paper napkins beside place mats decorated with maps of Italy.

"One large," Libby said, taking Cal's appetite into account. "Extra cheese and pepperoni. Would you like a beer?"

"Yeah." He tore a corner from the napkin and rolled it thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger.

"One beer and one diet cola."

"Why is everyone here on a diet?" Cal asked before the waitress was out of earshot. "Most of the ads deal with losing weight, quenching thirst and getting clean."

Libby ignored the quick curious look the waitress shot over her shoulder. "Sociologically our culture is obsessed with health, nutrition and physique. We count calories, pump iron and eat a lot of yogurt. And pizza," she added with a grin. "Advertising reflects current trends."

"I like your physique."

Libby cleared her throat. "Thanks."

"And your face," he added, smiling. "And the way your voice sounds when you're embarrassed."

She let out a long, windy sigh. "Why don't you listen to the music?"

"The music stopped."

"We can put more on."

"On what?"

"The jukebox." Enjoying herself, Libby rose and extended a hand to him. "Come on, you can pick a song."

Cal stood over the colorful machine, scanning the titles. "This one," he decided. "And this one. And this one. How does it work?"

"First you need some change."

"I've had enough change for a while, thanks."

"No, I mean change. Quarters." Chuckling, she dug into her purse. "Don't they use coins in the twenty-third century?"

"No." He plucked the quarter from her palm and examined it. "But I've heard of them."

"We use them around here, often with reckless abandon." Taking the quarter back, she dropped it and two more into the slot. "An eclectic selection, Hornblower." The music drifted out, slow and romantic.

"Which is this?"

"'The Rose.' It's a ballad-a standard, I suppose, even today."

"Do you like to dance?"

"Yes. I don't often, but-" Her words trailed away as he gathered her close. "Cal-"

"Shh." He rubbed his cheek against her hair. "I want to hear the words."

They danced-swayed, really-as the music drifted through the speakers. A mother with two squabbling children rested her elbow on her table and watched them with pleasure and envy. In the glassed-in kitchen a man with a bushy mustache tossed pizza dough in quick, high twirls.

"It's sad."

"No." She could dream like this, with her head cushioned on his shoulder and her body moving to their inner rhythm. "It's about how love survives."

The words floated away. Her eyes were shut, her arms still around him when the next selection blasted out with a primeval scream and a thundering drum roll.

"What about this one?"

"It's about being young." She drew away, embarrassed, when she saw the smiles and stares of the other patrons. "We should sit down."

"I want to dance with you again."

"Some other time. People don't usually dance in pizza parlors."

"Okay." Obligingly he walked back across the room to their table. Their drinks were waiting. As Libby had with the drink in his galley, Cal found enormous comfort in the familiar taste of American beer. "Just like home."

"I'm sorry I didn't believe you at first."

"Babe, / didn't believe me at first." In a natural gesture he reached across the table to take her hand. "Tell me, what do people do here on a date?"

"Well, they-" His thumb was skimming over her knuckles in a way that made her pulse unsteady. "They go to movies or restaurants."

"I want to kiss you again."

Her eyes darted up to his. "I don't really think-"

"Don't you want me to kiss you?"

"If she doesn't," the waitress said as she plopped their pizza in front of them, "I get off at five."

Grinning, Cal slipped a slice of pizza onto a paper plate. "She's very friendly," he commented to Libby, "but I like you better."

"Terrific." She took a bite. "Are you always obnoxious?"

"Mostly. But I do like you, a lot." He waited a beat. "Now you're supposed to say you like me, too."

Libby took another bite and chewed it thoroughly. "I'm thinking about it." Taking her napkin, she dabbed at her mouth. "I like you better than anyone I've met from the twenty-third century."

"Good. Are you going to take me to the movies?"

"I suppose I could."

"Like a date." He took her hand again.

"No." Carefully she removed it. "Like an experiment. We'll consider it part of your education."

His smile spread, slow, easy and undoubtedly dangerous. "I'm still going to kiss you good-night."

It was dark when they returned to the cabin. More than a little frazzled, Libby pushed open the door and tossed her purse aside.

"I did not make a scene," Cal insisted.

"I don't know what they call being asked to leave a theater where you come from, but around here we call it making a scene."

"I simply made some small, practical comments about the film. Haven't you heard about freedom of speech?"

"Hornblower-" Stopping herself she held up a hand and turned to the cupboard to get the brandy. "Talking throughout the picture about it being a crock of space waste is not exercising the Bill of Rights. It's being rude."

With a shrug, he plopped down on the couch and propped his feet on the coffee table. "Come on, Libby, all that bull about creatures from Galactica invading Earth. I have a cousin on Galactica, and he doesn't have a face full of suction cups."

"I should have known better than to take you to a science-fiction movie." She sipped the brandy. Then, because she decided it was as much her fault as his, she poured another snifter. "It was fiction, Hornblower. Fantasy."

"Rot."

"All right." She passed him the snifter. "But there were people in the theater who had paid to watch it."

"How about that nonsense with the creatures sucking all the water out of the human body? Then there was the way that space jockey zipped around the galaxy shooting lasers. Do you have any idea how crowded that sector is?"

"No, I don't." She sampled more brandy. "Tell you what, next time we'll try a Western. Remind me not to let you turn on Star Trek."

"Star Trek's a classic," he said, and sent her into a fit of giggles.

"Never mind. You know, I almost think I'm losing my grip. I spent the morning in a spaceship and the afternoon eating pizza and not watching a movie. I don't seem to be able to make sense of it all."

"It'll come clear." He touched his glass to hers before settling his arm around her shoulders. It was comforting, the glow of the lamplight, the warmth of the brandy, the scent of the woman. His woman, Cal thought, if for only a moment. "I like this better than the movies. Tell me about Liberty Stone."

"There's not much."

"Tell me, so I can take it with me."

"I was born here, as I told you before."

"In the bed I sleep in."

"Yes." She sipped her brandy, wondering if it was that, or the image of him in the old bed, that warmed her. "My mother used to weave. Blankets, wall hangings, rugs. She would sell them to supplement what my father grew in the garden."

"They were poor?"

"No, they were children of the sixties."

"I don't understand."

"It's difficult to explain. They wanted to be closer to the land, closer to themselves. It was their part of a revolution against material power, world violence, the entire social structure of the time. So we lived here and my mother bartered and sold her work in the surrounding towns. One day an art buyer on a camping trip with his family came across one of her tapestries." She smiled into her brandy. "The rest, as they say, is history."

"Caroline Stone," he said abruptly.

"Why, yes."

With a laugh, he downed the brandy and reached for the bottle in one smooth motion. "Your mother's work is in museums." Bemused, he picked up the corner of the blanket beside them. "I've seen it in the Smithsonian." He poured more brandy in her glass while she gaped at him.

"This gets stranger and stranger." She drank again, letting the brandy influence her sense of unreality.

"It's you we need to talk about, you I need to understand. All these questions." Unable to sit any longer, she cupped the snifter in both hands and started to pace. "The oddest ones pop into my mind. I keep remembering you spoke of Philadelphia and Paris. Do you know what that means?"

"What?"

"We made it." She lifted the snifter in a toast, then recklessly drained it. "It's still there, all of it. Somehow, no matter how close we came to blowing everything, we survived. There's a Philadelphia in the future, Hornblower, and that's the most wonderful thing I can imagine."

Still laughing, she spun in a circle. "All these years I've been studying the past, trying to understand human nature, and now I've had a glimpse of tomorrow. I don't know how to thank you."

Just looking at her left his stomach in a knot. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement. Her body was long and slim and wonderfully graceful as she moved. Wanting her was no longer an urge, it was an obsession.

He drew a long, careful breath. "Glad I could help."

"I want to know everything, absolutely everything. How people live, how they feel. How they court and make love and marry. What games do the children play?" She leaned over to pour another inch of brandy in her glass. "Are hot dogs still the best bet at a baseball game? Are Mondays still the hardest day of the week?"

"You'll have to make a list," he told her. He wanted to keep her talking, moving, laughing. Watching her now, animated, bursting with enthusiasm and humor, was as arousing as being in her arms. "What I can't answer, the computer can."

"A list. Of course. I make terrific lists." Her eyes glowed as she laughed at him. "I know there are more important things for me to ask. Nuclear disarmament, world peace, a cure for cancer and the common cold. But I want to know it all, from the inconsequential to the shattering." Impatiently she pushed her hair back from her face. Her words couldn't seem to keep up with her thoughts. "Every second I think of something new. Do people still have Sunday picnics? Have we beaten world hunger and homelessness? Do all men in your time kiss the way you do?"

The snifter paused halfway to his lips. Very slowly, very deliberately, he set it down. "I can't answer that, because I've only practiced on women."

"I don't know where that came from." She, too, set the snifter aside, then rubbed her suddenly damp palms on the thighs of her jeans. "I suppose I'm a bit wired."

"Excuse me?"

"Nervous, excited. Confused." She pushed her hands through her hair. "Oh, God, Caleb, you confuse me. Even before- before all this."

"We're even there, Libby."

She stared at him. He hadn't moved, but she saw that he had tensed. "That's odd," she murmured. "I don't usually confuse anyone. Nothing seems to be exactly the way I expect it to be with you. I guess I'm a coward, because every time you come near me I want to run." She closed her eyes. "That's not true. You asked me once if I was afraid of you, and I said I wasn't. That's not true, either. I am afraid. Of you, of me, and most of all of thinking I might never feel this way again with anyone else." She began to roam the room again, picking up a pillow, tossing it aside, shifting a lamp. "I wish I knew what to do, what to say. I don't have any experience with this kind of thing. And, damn it, I wish you'd kiss me again and shut me up."

He thought he could feel each separate nerve in his body stretch. "Libby, you know I want you. I haven't kept it to myself. But under the circumstances- the fact that I'll be gone in a few days-"

"That's just it." Suddenly she wanted to weep. "You will be gone. I don't want to wonder what it might have been like. I want to know, I feel- oh, I don't know how I feel. The only thing I'm sure of is that I want you to make love with me tonight."

She stopped, shocked that she had said it aloud, stunned that it was perhaps the truest thing she'd ever said. Then the nerves were gone, and the shock with them. She was absolutely calm, and absolutely certain.

"Caleb, I want to be with you tonight."

He rose. The hands he tucked in his pockets were two tense fists. "A few days ago it would have been easy. Things have changed, Libby. I care about you."

"You care, so you don't want to love me?"

"I want to so badly I can taste it." When his gaze whipped to hers, she could see that he spoke nothing less than the truth. "I also know that you've had a little too much to drink and more than too much to deal with tonight." He didn't dare touch her, but his voice was like a caress. "There are rules, Libby."

She took what she knew might be the biggest step in her life when she moved to him and held out both hands.

"Break them."

CHAPTER 7

He could hear his own heart beating, could feel the blood pumping to and from it. In the shadowy light she looked mysterious, impossibly erotic in a baggy sweater and worn corduroy. Her hair was mussed, from the drive and from her own restless fingers. He could imagine, all too clearly, what it would be like to smooth it himself. How it would be to slip off all those layers of oversize clothing and find her slim and warm underneath. He took a long, careful breath and tried to think clearly.

"Libby-" He ran a hand over his roughened chin. "I'm trying to think like a man you'd understand, one from your time. I don't seem to be doing a good job of it."

"I'd rather you'd think like yourself." She wanted to be calm and confident. This was a decision she'd waited years to make. She was sure. But still there were nerves, brought on by excitement, anticipation and deep-rooted doubts about her own capabilities as a woman. "Time doesn't change everything, Caleb."

"No." He was certain men had felt this stirring since the first dawn. But when he looked at her he was afraid that what he was feeling was far more complicated than basic attraction. His throat was dry, his palms were damp. The harder he tried to think rationally, the less clear his thoughts became. "Maybe we should talk about it."

She resisted the urge to stare at her feet and kept her eyes on his. "Don't you want me?"

"I've imagined making love with you a dozen times."

She felt the thrill, and the fear, tangle in a race up her spine. "When you imagined, where were we?"

"Here. Or in the forest. Or thousands of miles away in space. There's a pond near my house, with water as clear as glass and a bank of flowers my father planted. I've seen you there with me."

It hurt, more than a little, knowing he would go back to that pond, to a place where she couldn't follow. But they had now. The present was all that mattered, all she would let matter. She crossed to him, knowing that they both needed for her to take the first step.

"Here's a good start." She lifted a hand to his cheek. "Kiss me again, Caleb."

How could he resist her? He was certain no man could. Her eyes were huge and dark, her lips were parted. Waiting. Slowly he lowered his, just brushing, testing. Her soft, yielding sigh seemed to fill him. Need did, a wild, urgent need. Shaken by the scope of it, he put his hands on her shoulders to draw her away.

"Libby-"

"Don't make me seduce you," she murmured. "I don't know how."

With a strangled laugh, he pulled her hard against him, burying his face in her hair. "Too late. You already have."

"Have I?" Her arms were around him, holding tight to what she told herself she would release without regret when the time came. A shudder had her gripping harder when he caught her earlobe between his teeth. "I don't know what to do next."

Cal plucked her up into his arms. "Enjoy," he told her before he carried her up the stairs.

He wanted her in the bed where he'd dreamed of her. In the pale light of the rising moon he laid her down. Whatever he had he would give her. What she had he would take. He understood pleasure, the degrees, the depths, the layers. Soon, very soon, so would she.

Slowly he undressed her, drawing out the process for his own enjoyment and for the simple wonder of it. Every inch he uncovered delighted him, the slender ankles, the smooth calves, the curving shoulders. He watched her eyes widen and cloud with confused passions when he touched her, palms skimming, fingers trailing.

Taking her hand, he brought it to his mouth to taste and savor. "I've seen you like this," he murmured. "Even when I tried not to."

She'd thought she would feel awkward, even foolish. She lay naked in the splash of moonlight and felt only beautiful as he looked his fill. "I've wanted to be here with you, even when I tried not to." She was smiling when she lifted her hands to undress him.

He was determined to be patient, to be thorough, to be very, very gentle. He knew, as he understood she did not, that there were hundreds of varied paths to fulfillment. This time, her first time, it would be sweet. Then her inexperienced hands made his blood leap under his skin. Seduction, unplanned, was potent. Once he covered her hands with his and bit back a moan.

Her fingers tightened under his, and her body tensed. "Am I doing something wrong?"

"No." He let out his breath on a quick laugh and forced himself to relax. "A little too right. This time." Shifting away, he slipped out of the rest of his clothes. "Remind me to ask you to undress me like that again later." He brushed her hair back from her face and began to kiss her. "This first time I have things to show you, places to take you." He nipped lightly at her chin. "Trust me."

"I do." But she was already trembling. The brush of his body against hers, warmth to warmth, was like some strange, exciting dream. His hands roamed over her, whisper-soft, limber as a violinist's, and a knot of heat built from her center out to her fingertips before she could do more than wrap her arms around him. She melted into the kiss, into the long, luxurious depth of it. Then those clever fingers found a point, some pulse that beat under the skin near the base of her spine, and sent her reeling.

His mouth muffled her cry of stunned release as her body arched, then went as fluid as water beneath his. Almost experimentally, he eased her up and over again, his own body vibrating from her pleasure.

"Incredible," he murmured before she dragged his mouth back to hers.

Her response had his blood pounding. She was like a fast fuse, and he held the still-smoking match. He knew that if he had taken her that instant she would have welcomed him, just as he knew desire was only the root of the flower. He wanted to give her the blossom.

Delving deep, he found the control that he needed to prolong passion rather than be commanded by it. She seemed so fragile now, her taste, her scent, the liquid movements she made under him. Like the moonbeams that washed the room, she was pale and beautiful. With his lips against her throat, he could feel her pulse thunder, echoing his own.

No fantasy he had ever indulged in, no woman he had ever pleasured, had been as glorious as the woman who held him now. He linked a hand with hers, knowing he would never find the words to explain to either of them what this night with her meant to him.

But he could show her. He would show her.

One moment she was floating, the next racing. Then she was flying. Love with him was a myriad of tastes and textures, a storm of sensations, a symphony of sounds. His hands were almost unbearably gentle, and the scrape of his beard against her skin was an arousing contrast. As she gave herself the liberty of touching him, of stroking him, she discovered that his body was wire-taut and his muscles were trembling.

She wanted to think, to analyze each moment, but it was possible only to experience.

Soft, so incredibly soft- she was almost afraid it was an illusion, his touch, the words he murmured, the glow that seemed to surround her. Then there was heat, stunningly real. She was steeped in it. In him.

He lifted her so that they were kneeling in the center of the bed, wrapped close. Flickers of urgency came through- a roughened caress, a quickened breath. A skim of fingers, a press of pulse to pulse, and he had her gasping, her head thrown back, her body curved against his. He groaned and crushed his hungry mouth to her throat.

Her nails bit into his skin. Even that aroused him. Here was passion, wilder, freer than any he had ever imagined. She was open for him, only him. He was half-mad with the knowledge that she would give to him what she had given to no one else.

But gently. Dragging himself back, he eased his possessive grip into a caress. When he lowered his mouth to her breast, the sound of pleasure came from both of them. He used his tongue to tease, his teeth to torment. He could feel her skin hum under his hands and lips.

She was small, delicate. It helped to bring out the tenderness he wanted to show her. But when he laid her back there was a strength and demand in the hands that pressed him against her.

So long. The thought raced in and out of her mind as he did things to her, for her, things she had never imagined. She had waited so long for this. For him. Her response came freely and fully, her loving of him totally instinctive. There was no way for her to know as she spun in the world he had opened for her what she brought to him.

He was skilled, and he used his skill to take her beyond those first flashes of pleasure into the velvet space reserved for lovers. She was innocent, yet, just as truly, just as easily, she took him. He slipped into her. She closed around him.

It was a merging of bodies, and of hearts, and of time.

Clouds. Dark, silver-edged clouds. Libby was floating on one. She wanted to go on drifting forever. Her arms had slid from around him, limp, to lie on the rumpled sheets. She couldn't find the strength to lift them and encircle him again. Nor could she find her voice. She wanted to tell him not to move-not ever to move. With her eyes closed and his body fitted so perfectly against hers, she counted each beat of his heart.

Silk. Her skin was like hot, fragrant silk. He was certain he could never get enough of it. With his face buried in her hair, he felt his system drift back to earth like a feather on the breeze. How could he tell her that no one had ever moved him as she did? How could he explain that at this moment he was more at home than he had ever been in his own world, or in the sky he loved so much? How could he accept that he had found his match in a place, and in a time, where he was a stranger?

He wouldn't think of it. Cal turned his lips into her neck. For as long as it was possible, he would live from minute to minute.

"You are so lovely." He propped himself on an elbow so that he could see her face, the paleness of it in the moonlight. It was flushed from the afterglow of lovemaking. Her eyes were clouded with the last dregs of spent passion. "Very lovely," he murmured, and kissed her. "Your skin's still warm." He began to nibble, as though she were a delicacy he couldn't resist.

"I don't think I'll ever be cold again." Fresh desire began to tingle within her. "Caleb-" Her breath caught on a fast, hot shudder. "You make me feel-"

"How?" With his tongue, he traced her parted lips. "Tell me how I make you feel."

"Magical." Her fingers curled into the sheets. "Helpless." And went lax. "Strong." She gripped his forearms, rocked by a dazzling array of new sensations. "I don't know."

"I'm going to love you again, Libby." He crushed his mouth to hers in a soul-wrenching kiss that left them both breathless. "And again, and again. Each time I do, it'll be different."

There was a power building in him. It might have frightened her if she hadn't felt its twin growing in her. Her eyes stayed open and on his as she lifted her arms and rose to meet him.

Limbs entwined, they lay together in the deepest part of the night and listened to the wind rising through the trees. He was right, Libby thought. Each time was different, excitingly different, yet beautifully the same. She could, she hoped, live out her life on the memories of this one night.

"Are you asleep?"

She settled her head more comfortably in the curve of his shoulder. "No."

"I might enjoy waking you." He slid his hand up to cup her breast. "In fact, I'm sure I would." He nestled his leg cozily between her thighs. "Libby?"

"Yes?"

"Something's missing."

"What?"

"Food."

She smothered a yawn against his shoulder. "You're hungry? Now?"

"I've got to keep up my strength."

A quick, wicked grin curved her lips. "You've been doing pretty well so far."

"Pretty well?" When she chuckled, he pulled her on top of him. "But I'm not finished yet. Why don't I watch while you fix me a sandwich?"

She traced lazy patterns on his chest with her fingertip. "So, male chauvinism survives in the twenty-third century."

"I fixed you breakfast this morning."

She remembered the little silver bag. "More or less."

Had it only been that morning? Could a life change so unalterably in just a few short hours? Hers had. She wondered if that should frighten her, but all she felt was gratitude.

"All right." She started to push away, but then he gripped her hips and shifted her.

"First things first," he murmured, and sent her soaring again.

Later, Libby struggled into a robe, wondering if her mind could handle the simple task of slapping some meat between two slices of bread. He'd drained her and filled her, aroused her and soothed her, until her limbs were weak and her mind was mush.

He switched on the bedside light as he rose out of the bed, unabashedly naked. "Got any cookies to go with that sandwich?"

"Probably." She didn't want to stare at him. Yes, she did. Though she knew it was foolish, her color rose as she lowered her eyes to watch her fingers fumble with the belt of her robe. When he walked toward the door, she looked up quickly. "You're not going downstairs like that."

"Like what?"

"Without- You need to put something on." He leaned a hand against the doorjamb and grinned. Watching her blush delighted him. "Why? You should know how I'm built by now."

"That's not the point."

"What is the point?"

Giving up, she gestured to the pile of clothes. "Put something on."

"Okay. I'll put on the sweater."

"Very funny, Hornblower."

"You're shy." A glint came into his eyes, one she recognized very well by now. Even as he took the first step toward her, she snatched up the jeans and tossed them at him.

"If you want me to fix you a sandwich, you'll have to cover up some of your- attributes."

Still grinning, he struggled into the jeans. If he put them on, she'd just have to take them off him later. Enjoying the idea, he followed her downstairs.

"Why don't you fill the teakettle?" she suggested as she opened the refrigerator. "With what?"

"Water," she said with a sigh. "Just water. Put it on the front burner of the stove and turn the little knob under it." She pulled out some packaged ham, some cheese and a hothouse tomato. "Mustard?"

"Hmm?" He was studying the stove. "Sure." People now had to be very patient, he decided as he watched the electric coil of the burner slowly glow red with heat. Still, there were advantages. Libby's cooking was a far cry from the quick packs he was accustomed to. Then there were the living arrangements. Though he had always loved the home he'd grown up in and was more than comfortable in his quarters aboard his ship, he liked the feel of real wood under his bare feet, and the smell of it burning when she had a fire going in the main room.

Then there was Libby herself. He wasn't certain it was proper to call her an advantage. She was distinct, unique, and everything he'd ever wanted in a woman. His mouth fell open an instant before the heat from the burner singed his finger. With a quick yelp, he jumped back.

"What is it?"

For a moment he just stared at her. Her hair was tousled around her face, and her eyes were heavy from lack of sleep. The robe she wore seemed to swallow her up.

"Nothing," he managed, nearly overwhelmed by an emotion that he prayed was only desire. "I burned my finger."

"Don't play with the stove," she said mildly, then went back to making the sandwiches.

Everything he wanted in a woman? That wasn't possible. He didn't know what he wanted in a woman, and he was a long way from making up his mind. Or had been.

That thought put the fear of God into him. That, and the uncomfortable suspicion that his mind had been made up for him the moment he'd opened his eyes and seen her dozing in the chair. Ridiculous. He hadn't even known her then.

But he knew her now.

He couldn't be in love with her. He watched as she tossed her hair back from her face with a flick of her hand, and his stomach tied itself into knots. Attraction, however outrageous, was acceptable. It wasn't possible that he was in love. He could love being with her, love making love with her, laughing with her. He could care for her, find her fascinating and arousing, but as for love, that wasn't an option.

Love, here and in his time, meant things neither of them could ever have together. A home, a family.

Years.

As the kettle began to sputter, he let out a long breath. He was simply magnifying the situation. She was special to him, and always would be. The days he spent with her would be a precious part of his life. But it was essential for him to remember, for both their sakes, that his life began two hundred years after Libby no longer existed.

"Is something wrong?"

He glanced over to see her holding two plates, her head cocked a bit to the side, as it did whenever she was trying to work out a problem.

"No." He smiled and took the plates from her. "My mind was wandering."

"Eat, Hornblower." She patted his cheek. "You'll feel better."

Because he wanted to believe it could be that simple, he sat down and dug in while she fixed the tea.

It seemed natural, Libby thought, for them to share tea and sandwiches in the middle of the night-just the two of them sitting in the cozy kitchen, with an owl hooting somewhere in the forest and the moonlight fading. The awkwardness she had felt-foolishly, she believed-before she'd tugged on her robe, was gone.

"Better?" she asked him when he'd downed half of his sandwich.

"Yes." The tension that had slammed into him so unexpectedly had nearly dissipated. He stretched out his legs so that the arch of his foot rubbed over her ankle. There was something soothing in the contact, like a long nap on a rainy afternoon. She looked so pretty with her hair mussed and her eyes heavy. "How is it," he murmured, "that I'm the first man to have you?"

She nearly choked before she managed to swallow the tea that was halfway down her throat. "I don't-" She coughed a little, then tugged the lapels of her robe closer. "I don't know how to answer that."

"Do you consider that an odd question?" Charmed again, he smiled, leaning closer so that he could touch her hair. "You're so sensitive, so attractive. Other men must have wanted you."

"No- that is, I can't say. I haven't really paid much attention."

"Does it embarrass you for me to tell you you're attractive?"

"No." But when she picked up her teacup with both hands she was flushed. "A little, perhaps."

"I can't be the first to have told you how lovely you are. How warm." He pried one of her hands from the cup to soothe her fingers. "How exciting."

"Yes, you can." Almost unbearably aroused, she let out a long, shaky breath. "I haven't had a lot of- social experience with men. My studies." Her breath snagged as he kissed her fingers. "My work."

He released her hand before he went with his impulse to make love with her again. "But you study men."

"Studying and interacting are different things." He didn't have to touch her to stir her, Libby realized. He only had to look, as he was looking now. "I'm not very outgoing unless I concentrate on it."

He started to laugh, then realized she believed it. "I think you underestimate Liberty Stone. You took me in and cared for me, and I was a stranger."

"I could hardly have left you out in the rain."

"You couldn't. Others could. History may not be my strong suit, Libby, but I doubt human nature has changed that much. You went out in the storm to find me, brought me into your home, let me stay even when I annoyed you. If I get back to my own time and place it will be because of you."

She rose then to fix more tea she didn't want. She didn't want to think about his leaving, though she knew she would have to. It was wrong to pretend, even for a few hours, that he would stay with her and forget the life he'd left behind.

"I don't think giving you a bed and some scrambled eggs constitutes a real debt," She made herself smile as she turned toward him again. "But if you want to be grateful I won't argue with you."

He'd said something wrong. Though he couldn't put his finger on it, Cal could tell from the way her eyes had changed. She was smiling at him, but her eyes were dark and sad. "I don't want to hurt you,

Libby."

Her eyes softened now, and he was relieved. "No, I know that." She sat down again and poured each of them another full cup. "What do you plan to do? About getting back, I mean."

"How much do you know about physics?"

"Next to nothing."

"Then let's just say I'll put the ship's computer to work. The damage was pretty minimal, so that shouldn't be a problem. I'll have to ask you to drive me out to the ship again."

"Of course." She felt a bubble of panic and struggled to get past it. "I suppose you'll want to stay on the ship now, while you work out your calculations and make your repairs."

It would be more practical, and it would certainly be more convenient. Cal gave it no more than a moment's consideration. "I was hoping I could stay here. I've got my aircycle on board, so I can get back and forth easily enough. If you don't mind the company."

"No, of course not." She said it quickly, too quickly, flustering herself. Then she stopped and backed up. "Your aircycle?"

"If it wasn't damaged in the crash," he mused. Then he tossed the possibility aside. "We'll have a look tomorrow. Are you going to eat the rest of that?"

"What? Oh, no." She passed him the second half of her sandwich. It was ridiculous, she supposed, but every now and then he said something that made her wonder if she was dreaming again. "Cal," she began slowly, "it occurs to me that I can never tell anyone about you, or any of this."

"I'd rather you'd wait until I'd gone." He finished off the sandwich. "But I don't mind if you tell anyone."

"That's big of you." She gave him a bland look. "Tell me, do they have padded cells in the twenty-third century?"

"Padded cells?" He took a moment to imagine one. "Is that a joke?"

"Only on me," she told him as she rose to clear the plates.

"It may be one on me, too. I've wondered if, once I get back, anyone will believe me."

A thought struck her that was both absurd and fascinating. "Maybe I could do a time capsule. I could write everything down, put in a few interesting or pertinent items and seal it up. We could bury it-I don't know, down by the stream, perhaps. When you got back you could dig it all up."

"A time capsule." The idea appealed to him, not just scientifically, but personally. Wouldn't it mean he would still have something of her, even when they were separated by centuries? He would need that, he realized, the solid proof of not only where he had been but that she had existed. "I can run it through the computer, make sure we don't put it somewhere that's going to be covered by a building or a landslide or some such thing."

"Good." She picked up a pad from the counter and began to scribble. "What are you doing?"

"Making notes." She squinted at her own writing and wished she had her glasses. "We'll need to write everything down, of course, starting with you and your ship. What else should we put in it?" she wondered, tapping the pencil against the pad. "A newspaper, I think, and a picture would be good. We may have to drive back into town and find one of those little booths that take pictures. No, I'll buy a Polaroid camera." She scribbled faster. "That way we can take pictures here, in the house or right outside. Then we'll need some personal things-" She fingered the thin gold chain at her throat. "Maybe some basic household items."

"You're being a scientist." He took her by the waist and drew her slowly, unerringly, against him. "I find that very exciting."

"That's silly."

But it didn't seem silly at all when he lowered his head and began to nibble at her neck. She felt the floor tilt beneath her feet.

"Cal-"

"Hmm?" He journeyed up to a small, vulnerable spot just behind her ear.

"I wanted to-" The pad slipped out of her hand and landed on the floor at their feet.

"To what?" Quick and clever, his fingers loosened the knot at her waist. "Tonight you can have anything you want."

"You." She sighed as her robe slid off her shoulders. "Just you."

"That's the easy part." More than willing to oblige, he braced her against the counter. A hundred erotic ideas swam through his mind. He was going to see to it that neither of them thought the same way about this cozy little kitchen again. The streaks of pink along her skin stopped him.

"What's all this?" Curious, he ran a finger over the swell of her breast, then shifted his hand to his chin. "I've scratched you."

"What?" She was already floating an inch off the floor, and she was less than willing to touch down.

"I haven't shaved in days." Annoyed with himself, he bent to lightly kiss the skin he'd irritated earlier. "You're so soft."

"I didn't feel a thing." She reached for him again, but he only kissed her hair.

"There's only one thing to do."

"I know." She ran her hands up his muscled back. With a laugh, he hugged her tighter. "That's two things." He scooped her up again for no other reason than that it felt wonderful.

"You don't have to carry me." But she nuzzled into his shoulder. "I can walk to bed."

"Maybe, but we'd better use the bathroom for this."

"The bathroom?"

"I'm going to have to deal with that nasty-looking device," he told her as he started up the stairs. "And you're going to walk me through it so I don't cut my throat."

Nasty-looking device? She tried to put it all together as he carried her upstairs. "Don't you know how to use a razor?"

"We're civilized where I come from. All instruments of torture have been outlawed."

"Is that so?" She waited until he set her down again. "I suppose that means women don't wear high heels or control-top panty hose. Never mind," she said when he opened his mouth. "I think this could become a very philosophical discussion, and it's much too late." Opening the linen closet, she took out the razor and the shaving cream. "Here you go."

"Right." He looked at the tools in his hand with a kind of resigned dread. What a man did for his woman. "Just how do I go about this?"

"This is all secondhand, as I've never shaved my face before, but I believe you spread on the shaving cream, then slide the edge of the razor over your beard."

"Shaving cream." He squirted some into his hand, then ran his tongue over his teeth. "Not toothpaste."

"No, I-" It didn't take her long to get the picture. Leaning back against the sink, she covered her mouth with her hand and tried, unsuccessfully, not to giggle. "Oh, Hornblower, you poor thing."

Cal studied the can in his hand. As he saw it, he really had no choice. While Libby was bent nearly double, he turned, aimed and fired.

CHAPTER 8

She awakened slowly, muttering a bit when the sunlight intruded on her dreams. She shifted, or tried to, but she was weighed down by an arm around her waist and a leg hooked possessively over hers. Content with that, she snuggled closer and had the pleasure of feeling her sleep-warmed skin rub against

Cal's.

She didn't know what time it was, and for perhaps the first time in her life it didn't matter. Morning or afternoon, she was happy to lie curled in bed, dozing the day away, as long as he was with her.

Drifting, nearly dreaming again, she stroked a hand over him. Solid, she thought. He was solid and real and, for the moment, hers. Even with her eyes closed she could see him, every feature of his face, every line of his body. There had never been anyone she had felt belonged so completely to her before. Even her parents, for all their love, all their understanding, had belonged to each other initially. She would always think of them as a unit, first and last. And Sunny- Libby smiled a little as she thought of her sister. Even though she was younger by nearly two years, Sunny had always been independent and her own person-argumentative and daring in ways Libby could never try to emulate.

But Cal- It was true that he had only just appeared in her life, would disappear again all too quickly, but he was hers. His laughter, his temper, his passion- they all belonged to her now. She would keep them, treasure them, long after he was gone.

To love as she did, Libby mused, when every emotion, every word, every look, had to be squeezed into a matter of hours, was both precious and heartbreaking.

He thought he'd been dreaming, but the shape, the texture, the scent of a woman's body were very, very real. Libby's body. Her name was there, his first waking thought. She was pressed against him, a perfect fit even in sleep. The slow, gentle stroke of her hand aroused him in the most exquisite way.

He'd lost count of the times they had moved together during the night, but he knew dawn had been breaking the last time she'd cried out his name. The light had been dim and pearly. He would never forget it. She was like a fantasy, all soft curves, agile limbs and tireless passions. Somewhere along the line he had stopped being the teacher and had been taught.

There was more to loving than the uncountable physical pleasures a man and a woman could offer each other. There was trust and patience, generosity and joy. There was the drugging contentment of falling asleep knowing your partner would be there when you awoke.

Partner. The word floated through his mind. His match. Was it fate or fancy that he had had to travel through time to meet his match?

He didn't want to think of it. Refused to. All he wanted now was to make love with Libby in the sunlight.

He shifted, and before either of them was fully awake, slipped into her. Her soft moan mingled with his own as their lips met. Acceptance. Affection. Arousal. Slowly, drawing out the lazy delight, they moved together, their hands beginning a quiet exploration, the kiss deepening. "I love you."

He heard her words, a caressing whisper in his mind, and answered them like an echo as his lips began to trace her face.

The admissions shocked neither of them, as they were too dazed by the tumultuous sensations and emotions running through them. She had never spoken those words to another man, nor he to another woman. Before the impact hit home, need had them clinging closer.

Gracefully, gloriously, they took each other to the pinnacle.

Later, he nuzzled down between her breasts, but he was no longer sleeping. Had she said she loved him? And had he told her he loved her? What disturbed him most was that he couldn't be sure if it had happened, or if it had been his imagination, something wished for while his mind was vulnerable with sleep and pleasure.

And he couldn't ask her. Didn't dare. Any answer she would give would hurt. If she didn't love him, it would be like losing part of his heart, of his soul. If she did, it would make leaving her something akin to dying.

It was best, for both of them, to take what they had. He wanted to make her laugh, to see both passion and humor in her eyes, to hear them in her voice. And he would remember. Cal closed his eyes tight. Whatever happened to him, he would always remember.

So would she. He needed to be certain of his place in her memories.

"Come with me." Sliding off the bed, he dragged her with him.

"Where?"

"To the bathroom."

"Again?" Laughing, she tried to snag her robe, but he pulled her into the hall without it. "You don't need another shave."

"Good thing."

"You only cut yourself three or four times. And it's your own fault you used up most of the shaving cream beforehand."

He sent her a wicked grin. "I liked rubbing it all over you better."

"If you're getting ideas about the toothpaste-"

"Maybe later." He lifted her up and into the tub. "For now I'll settle for a shower."

She let out a quick shriek when the cold water hit her. Before she could retaliate or form even a token protest he had joined her, wrapping one arm around her while he adjusted the water temperature with his free hand. He thought he was getting rather good at it.

She took a stream of water in the face, sputtered, started to swear, then found herself caught in a hot, wet, endless kiss.

She'd never experienced anything like it. Steamy air, slick skin, soapy hands. Her knees were weak by the time he shut the spray off and wrapped her in a towel. As dizzy as she, he rested a forehead on hers.

"I think if we're going to get anything done-anything else, that is-we'd better get out of the house."

"Right."

"After we eat."

She was amazed she had the energy to laugh. "Naturally."

It was late afternoon when they stood by Cal's ship again. Clouds had moved in from the north, bringing a chill. Libby told herself that was the reason she felt cold. She hugged the short jacket tighter, but the cold came from inside.

"I'm standing here, looking at it, knowing it's real, but I still can't understand it."

Cal nodded. His contented, relaxed mood had fled, and he wasn't entirely sure why. "I get the same sensation whenever I look at your cabin." There was a headache building behind his eyes, the kind he knew came from tension. "Look, I know you've got work of your own, and I don't want to hold you up, but would you mind waiting a few minutes while I check the cycle?"

"No." She'd been hoping he'd ask her to stay all day. Masking her disappointment, she smiled at him. "Actually, I'd like to see it."

"I'll be right back."

He opened the hatch and disappeared inside.

He would do that again soon, and for the last time, Libby thought. She had to be prepared for it. Strange, but she'd imagined he'd told her he loved her that morning. It was a nice, soothing thought, though she understood he didn't really. He couldn't. He cared for her, more than anyone had ever cared for her, but he hadn't fallen deeply, completely in love with her, as she had with him.

Because she loved him, she was going to do everything she could to help him, starting with accepting limitations. It was a beautiful day, after the most beautiful night of her life. Smiling, really smiling, she looked up at the cloudy sky. The rain would come by evening, and it would be welcome.

She glanced back at the ship when she heard a low, metallic hum. Another door opened-the cargo door, she assumed because of its size and location. Her mouth dropped open as Cal, on the back of a small, streamlined bike, raced out, six inches above the ground.

It made a sound that was something like a purr, not catlike or motorlike, more like the sound of air parting. It was shaped something like a motorcycle, but without the bulk. There were two wheels for ground transportation, and a narrow, padded seat to accommodate riders. The body itself was a long, curving cylinder that forked into two slender handlebars.

He drove-or flew-it over to her, then sat grinning on the seat like a ten-year-old showing off his first twelve-speed.

"It runs great." He made some small movement with his hand on the handgrips that had the purr deepening. "Want a ride?"

Frowning, she eyed the little gauges and buttons on the stock beneath the handlebars. It looked like a toy. "I don't know."

"Come on, Libby." Wanting to share his pleasure, he held out a hand. "You'll like it. I won't let anything happen to you."

She looked at him, and at the bike, hovering just above the pine needles that were strewn on the forest floor. It was a small machine-if indeed that was the proper term-but there was room enough for two on the narrow black seat. The body was painted a metallic blue that glistened with deeper shades in the sunlight. It looked harmless, she decided after a moment, and she doubted if anything so small could hold much power. With a shrug, she slid on the seat behind him.

"Better hold on," he told her, mostly because he wanted to feel her body curve against his.

The strength of the vibration beneath her shocked her, though she knew it was foolish. Cal had looked harmless, too, she remembered. "Hornblower, shouldn't we have helmets or-" The words whipped away as he accelerated.

She might have screamed, but instead she squeezed her eyes shut and gripped Cal so tightly that he choked on a laugh. He could feel her heart beating against him, as fast and heavy as it had through the night. With an innate skill honed finer by practice, he steered once around the ship, then up the slope.

Speed. He'd always been addicted to it. He felt the air slap his face, stream through his hair, and pressed for more. The sky beckoned, his first and most constant lover, but he resisted, aware that Libby would be more frightened than thrilled if he took her too high too quickly. Instead he breezed through the forest, winding around trees, skimming over rock and water. A bird burst off a branch just above their heads and went wheeling away, chattering bad-temperedly at the competition. He could feel her grip relax a fraction, then a little more. Her face was no longer pressed between his shoulder blades.

"What do you think?"

She could nearly breathe again. It seemed her stomach had decided to stay in place. At least for the moment. She opened one eye for a cautious look. And swallowed hard.

"I think I'm going to murder you the minute we're on the ground again."

"Relax." The cycle tilted thirty degrees right, then left, as he danced through the trees.

Easy for him to say, she thought. Another look showed her that they were more than ten feet above the ground. She gasped, nearly managed to squeal out a demand to be set down, but then it hit her. She was flying. Not enclosed in some huge, bulky plane thousands of feet up, but freely, lightly. She could feel the wind on her face, in her hair, could taste the promise of spring on it. There was no loud roar of engine noise to disturb the sensation. They were skimming through the forest as playfully as birds.

He stopped in the center of the clearing his ship had created. While the bike hovered, he turned to look at her.

"Want me to go down?"

"No. Up." She laughed and tossed her head back. She had already felt the pull of the sky.

He was grinning when he leaned back to kiss her. "How high?"

"What's the limit?"

"I don't know, but I don't think we ought to chance it. If we go up above the trees, somebody might spot us."

He was right, of course. Libby pushed her hair out of her face, wondering why she seemed to have so little sense when she was around him. "To the treetops, then. Just once."

Delighted with her, he turned around. He felt her arms hook firmly around him, and then they were flying again.

He'd never forget. However many times he had taken to sky and space, however many times he would yet take to them, he would never forget this one playful flight with Libby. She was laughing, and the sound of it caressed his ear as her body pressed companionably against his. Her fingers were linked loosely at his waist. His only regret was that he couldn't watch her face as they rose up and up. Making love with her was like this, as clean and clear as cutting through the air. As mystifying and seductive as defying gravity.

He resisted the temptation to crest the trees, contenting himself, and her, with gliding around the thick branches at a hundred feet. Below they could see a thin stream that cut through the rock, and a waterfall, driven by the spring rain and the snowmelt that danced down the ridge and fell into space. The sun pushed through the clouds so that they could watch the pattern of shadows shift on the ground below. For a moment they both turned their faces to the sky and wished.

He slowed for their descent, and they seemed to drift downward, weightless, soundless. Libby felt her hair lift off her neck, teased by the air currents. She thought pleasantly of Peter Pan and fairy dust before they touched down lightly beside the ship.

"Okay?"

When he turned to look over his shoulder, Libby noticed that the faint hum had stopped. The chill had vanished. "It was wonderful. I could have stayed up all day."

"Flying's habit-forming." No one knew that better than he. He swung off, then took her hand. "I'm glad you liked it."

It was over, Libby told herself when she felt her feet on solid ground again. But she had one more memory to store away. "I loved it. I'm not going to ask you how it works. I doubt I'd understand anyway, and it might spoil the fun." With her hand still caught in his, she looked at the ship. Her feelings about it were as confused as the rest of her emotions. It had brought him to her, and it would take him away. "I'll let you get to work."

Cal was dealing with the same tug-of-war himself. "I'll be back around nightfall."

"All right." She took her hand from his, then stuck it restlessly in her pocket. "You won't have any trouble finding your way?"

"I'm a good navigator."

"Of course." The birds they had frightened away with their ride were beginning to sing again. Time was slipping by. "Well, I'd better go."

He knew she was stalling, but then, so was he. It was stupid, Cal told himself. He would be with her again in a matter of hours. "You could come in with me, but I don't think I'd get a lot done."

It was tempting. She could go inside, distract him, keep him away from the computer and the answers for a few more hours. But it wouldn't be right. Libby looked up at him again as all the love and the longing welled up inside her.

"I haven't gotten any work done the last couple of days, either."

"All right." Leaning over, he kissed her. "See you tonight."

He stood by the open hatch as she started up the slope. But when she reached the top of the ridge she didn't look back.

Libby spent most of the day drafting an account of the series of events that had occurred over the last week. She used Cal's words, his theory, to explain how he had come to be with her, coloring them with her own impressions. Then she listed, in the orderly fashion that was second nature to her, everything that had happened, from the time she had seen the flash in the sky until she had left Cal beside the ship.

That was the simple part, setting down the facts. Her memory was faultless. She knew that would be both a blessing and a curse when she was alone again. But for now she pulled together her objectivity and gave the story as much skill and dedication as she had her dissertation.

Once done, she read the entire story over twice, refining or enlarging where she saw fit. She was trained to report, she mused as she studied the computer screen. When Cal presented his experiences to the scientists of his time, she wanted him to have the benefit of whatever skill she could give him.

It was a fantastic story, fantastic in the most literal sense of the word. Perhaps it wouldn't seem quite as fantastic in Cal's time. How would his people react to him when he returned, when he told his tale? The accidental explorer, she thought with a smile. Well, Columbus had been looking for India when he'd discovered the New World.

She liked to think that he would be treated as a kind of hero, that he was a man whose name would be in history books.

He had the look of a hero, she mused, daydreaming a little as her glasses slipped down her nose. Tall and tough. The bandage over his brow added a rakish look-as the week's growth of beard had before he'd shaved it. For her, she remembered, and felt the deep glow of pleasure.

He was, perhaps, an ordinary man in his time. A man, she supposed, who did his job as others did, who groaned over getting up in the morning, one who occasionally drank too much or forgot to pay bills. He wasn't wealthy or brilliant or wildly successful. He was simply Caleb Hornblower, a man who had taken a wrong turn and become extraordinary.

To her, he would never be just a man. He would always be the man.

Would she love again? No, Libby thought with the calm of absolute certainty. She would be content, somehow, with her work and her family, with her memories. But to love again would be impossible. She had, even as a child, believed that there would be only one man for her. Perhaps that was why it had always been so easy for her to concentrate on studies and career while her contemporaries had drifted in and out of relationships and fallen in and out of love.

She hated making mistakes. Libby smiled a little reluctantly at the admission. It was a flaw, certainly, one of pride, but she had always detested the idea of taking a misstep, personally or professionally. That was why she studied harder than most, researched more thoroughly, considered more carefully.

It had paid off, she reflected as she pushed a few buttons and had her dissertation flashing onto the screen. She was young for the degree of success she'd achieved. And she intended to achieve a great deal more.

She was old, perhaps, to be having her first love affair. But caution and care hadn't led her astray. Loving Cal would never be a mistake.

Content, she pushed her glasses more securely on her nose, leaned forward and went to work.

He found her there hours later, her posture long forgotten, absorbed in a culture as different from hers as hers was to Cal. She'd switched on the desk lamp at dusk, and the light slanted across her hands.

Strong, capable hands, Cal thought. Probably inherited from her artist mother. The nails were short and unpainted, at the ends of long fingers. There was a scar, a faint one he'd noticed before, along the base of her thumb. He'd meant to ask her how she'd come by it.

He thought he'd been tired when he'd come in-not physically, but mentally, with the burden of figures and calculations weighing on his mind. But now, seeing her, fatigue was forgotten.

He'd managed, somehow, to stop thinking about her while he'd worked. It had been a deliberate effort to stop thinking, stop wanting, stop needing. Because of it, he'd managed to make some progress. He was all but sure of what he had to do to get home. He knew the odds and the risks. Now, watching her, he knew the sacrifice.

He'd only known her briefly. It was necessary, very necessary, to remind himself of that. His life wasn't here, with her. He had a home, an identity. He had a family, he realized now, that he loved more than he had once comprehended.

But he stood and watched her as the minutes ticked away, absorbing every breath, every careless gesture. The way her hair swept over her neck, the way her stockinged foot tapped impatiently when her fingers paused. Now and then she would drag a hand through her hair or cup her chin in her palms and stare owlishly at the screen. He found every movement endearing. When he finally said her name, his voice was strained.

"Libby."

She jolted and spun in her chair to stare at him. The hallway was dark behind him. He was just a silhouette, propped casually against the doorframe. Love nearly smothered her.

"Oh. I didn't hear you come in."

"You were pretty deep in your work."

"I guess." When he stepped into the room, the intensity in his eyes had her drawing her brows together. "What about yours? Did it go well?"

"Yes."

"You look upset. Is something wrong?"

"No." He reached down to touch her face, and his eyes softened. "No."

"Your calculations?"

"Coming along." Her skin felt like silk, he thought, and it warmed under his touch. "In fact, I made more progress than I'd expected."

"Oh." He thought he saw a shadow flicker in her eyes, but her voice was bright and encouraging. "That's good. Did you ride the cycle back?"

"Yeah. I left it behind the shed."

It had been a stupid question, she thought. He would hardly have hiked all the way. She wanted to ask him to take her up again, now, while the moon was rising. The wind was already picking up, warning of rain. It would be wonderful. But he looked tired, and troubled.

"Well, after all that you must be hungry." She glanced around as if noticing the dark for the first time. "I hadn't realized it was so late. Why don't I go down and toss something together?"

"It can wait." Taking her hand, he drew her to her feet. The machine continued to hum, forgotten by both of them. "We can go down later and both throw something together. I like the way you look in glasses."

With a quick laugh, she reached for them. He caught her hand so that both of hers were trapped in his.

"No, don't take them off." He tilted his head to kiss her, as if experimenting. Her taste was the same. Thank God. Most of the tension dissolved. "They make you look- smart and serious."

Though her heart was already thumping, she smiled. "I am smart and serious."

"Yes, I suppose you are." He ran his thumbs over the inside of her wrists and felt her pulse scramble. "The way you look right now makes me want to see just how unintellectual I can make you." With their hands still joined, he bent to kiss her, holding himself back, teasing and nibbling her lips until her breath was a shudder.

"Libby?"

"Yes."

"What can you tell me about the mudmen of New Guinea?"

"Nothing." She strained against him, moaning a bit when his lips continued to brush, featherlight, over hers. "Nothing at all. Kiss me, Caleb."

"I am." His lips cruised over her face, skimming here, lingering there. She was like a volcano, awakened after eons of sleep, ready to burst free, hot and molten.

"Touch me."

"I will."

It was never what she expected. He had her teetering on the edge with only a stroke of his hands. Then, as she trembled back to earth, he began to undress her, peeling off her flannel shirt, tugging off her jeans, while they stood beside the bed. She wore a narrow white undershirt in plain cotton. It seemed to fascinate him as he toyed with the straps, skimmed his finger along the low scooped neck, before he slipped it up and over her head. His lips were never still, nor were his hands, which roamed to exploit all the secrets he'd already discovered.

Delighted, delirious, she yanked his sweater over his head. It amazed her that the need could have sharpened and grown, outracing what she had felt for him the first time. Now she knew where he would take her and had already traveled some of the routes he navigated so expertly.

His skin was soft, smooth. It pleased her to run her hands up and over his back to feel it and the hard muscle beneath. The contrast, the peculiarly masculine contrast, made her knees weak. She heard his breath quicken as she stroked her hands from shoulder to waist.

To be wanted this- desperately. She could feel it in the way he touched her, in the way his mouth came back to hers again and again for longer, deeper, hungrier kisses. His tongue tangled with hers, enticing, erotic, and she felt as well as heard him suck in his breath as her knuckles grazed his stomach.

She had learned, Cal thought dizzily. And she had learned quickly. Her hands, and the gentle movements of her body against his, were driving him beyond reason. He wanted to tell her to give him a moment, to give him the time he needed to gain a firm, lasting grip on control. But it was already too late. Much too late.

He dragged her to the bed. Her gasp of surprise ended in a dark moan of pleasure. She reached for him, only to find herself gripping the bedclothes as he whipped her over the first raw edge.

She'd thought she knew what loving was. Even a night steeped in it hadn't prepared her for this. He was crazed, and in a moment her madness matched his.

No gentle touch, no easy persuasion. It was all hot, ripe need and a desperate race for satisfaction. Like two lost souls, they rolled over the sheets and drowned in each other.

A desperate demand. A fervent answer. Murmured requests were for the sane. Tonight there were only breathless moans and shuddering sighs. Her skin was so slick with the heat passion pumped into her that it slid sleekly over his. Each time his mouth found hers she tasted the rich, musky flavor of desire.

There were no velvet clouds now, but a storm breaking. Exciting. Electric. She could almost hear the air singing with it. Drums seemed to pound inside her head, inside her heart, beating in an ever-increasing rhythm. Gulping in air, she rolled over him to press her open mouth to his throat, his chest, knowing only that his flavor was dark, rich and wonderful.

He couldn't get enough. No matter how much she gave, he needed more and still more. He was unaware that his fingers were digging hard into her skin, bruising, even as his lips followed the trail. He could see her in the dim lamplight, the way her damp skin glowed, the way her head fell back each time pleasure overtook her. Her eyes were gold, like some dark, ancient coin. Tribute for a goddess. He thought of her as one now, as she rose over him, her body curved back like a bow, the light casting an aura around her hair.

He thought he would die for her, thought he would die without her. Then she was taking him into her, deeply, fully. He reached blindly, as she did, and their hands linked.

Then there was no thought at all.

He held her close long after the tremors had subsided in both of them. He tried to remember what he had done, what she had done, but it was all a blur of torrential sensations and emotions that had bordered on the violent. He was afraid he had hurt her, that now that her mind and body had cooled she would pull away from him and what was inside him.

"Libby?"

Her only answer was a slight shifting of her head against his chest. One of her greatest pleasures was feeling his heart race under her cheek.

"I'm sorry." He stroked her hair, wondering if it was too late for tenderness.

Her eyes opened. Even that effort was almost more than she could manage. There was a flicker of doubt she struggled to ignore. "You are?"

"Yes. I don't know what happened. I've never treated another woman like that."

"You haven't?" He couldn't see the smile that curved her lips.

"No." Cautious, ready to release her if she jerked away, he lifted her head. "I'd like to make it up to you," he began. Then saw that the glint in her eyes was not tears but laughter. "You're smiling."

"How," she said, kissing the bandage on his forehead, "would you like to make it up to me?"

"I thought I'd hurt you." He rolled her over on her back, then took a good long look. She was still smiling, and her eyes were dark with centuries of secrets only women fully understood. "I guess not."

"You haven't answered my question." She stretched, not because she meant to entice, but because she felt as contented as a cat in a sunbeam. "How are you going to make it up to me?"

"Well-" He glanced around the rumpled bed, then shimmied up to look down at the floor. Reaching down, he plucked up her fallen glasses. He twirled them once by the sidepiece, then grinned. "Why don't you put these on, and I'll show you?"

CHAPTER 9

Libby was lingering over a second cup of coffee, wondering if being in love was directly connected to the difficulty she was having facing a day cooped up with her computer. She recognized the signs of procrastination in Cal, as well. He sat across from her, poking at the remains of her breakfast. He'd already eaten his own.

More than procrastination, she mused. He looked troubled again, as he had when he'd come back the night before. As he had seemed, she thought, when they'd fallen asleep. More than once during the night, and the morning, she'd been certain he was about to tell her something. Something she was afraid she would hate to hear.

She wanted to find a way to encourage him, to smooth the way to his leaving her. Love, she thought with a sigh, had made her crazy.

The rain had come, in a long, quiet shower that had lasted almost until morning. Now, with the sun, the light was soft, ethereal, and there were pockets of mist hugging the ground.

It was a good day for making excuses, for taking aimless walks in the woods, for making lazy love under a quilt. But thinking like that, Libby reminded herself, wouldn't help Cal find his way home.

"You'd better get started." It was a gentle nudge, offered without enthusiasm.

"Yeah." He would rather have sat where he was, ignoring reality. Instead, he stood and, giving her a quick kiss, walked to the back door. When he opened it, the kitchen filled with birdsong. "I was thinking I'd take a break during the afternoon. Maybe come back for lunch. I'm getting so I can't stomach the stores on the ship." It was more that he couldn't stand being away from her, but she smiled, taking him at his word.

"Okay." Already the day seemed brighter. "If I'm not slaving over a hot stove, I'll be upstairs working."

It seemed so normal, Libby thought when he closed the door behind him, to part in the morning with an easy kiss and plans to meet for lunch. That was probably best, she decided after she topped off her cup and took it upstairs with her. There was certainly little else about their relationship that anyone would have called normal.

She worked well into the afternoon, blaming her edginess on the caffeine. She didn't want to dwell on the fact that Cal had seemed too quiet, too thoughtful, that morning. They both had a lot on their minds. And, she reminded herself, he would be back soon. Since it would be a habit soon broken, she decided to cut her own work short to go down and fix him something special for lunch. When she reached the base of the stairs, she heard the sound of a car.

Visitors weren't just rare at the cabin, they were nonexistent. Feeling equal parts surprise and annoyance, she opened the front door.

"Oh, my God." Now it was all surprise, with a healthy dose of trepidation. "Mom! Dad!" Then it was love, waves of it, as she rushed out to greet her parents. They stepped out from either side of a small, battered pickup.

"Liberty." Caroline Stone welcomed her daughter with a throaty laugh and a theatrical spread of her arms. She was dressed almost identically to Libby, in faded jeans and a chunky, hip-grazing sweater. But, unlike Libby's plain red wool, Caroline's was a symphony of hues and tones she had woven herself. She wore two jet-black drop earrings-in the same ear-and a necklace of tourmaline that glittered in the light.

Libby kissed Caroline's smooth, unpowdered cheek. "Mom! What are you doing here?"

"I used to live here," she reminded Libby, then kissed her again while William stood back and grinned. They were two of the three most important women in his life. Though they were a generation apart, he noted with pride that his wife looked hardly older than his daughter. Their coloring and build was so similar that more often than not they were mistaken for sisters.

"What am I?" he demanded. "Part of the scenery?" He spun Libby around for one of his hard, swaying hugs. "My baby," he said, and gave her a loud, smacking kiss. "The scientist."

"My daddy," she responded in kind, "the executive."

He winced just a little. "Don't let it get around. So, let me get a look at you."

Grinning, Libby took her own survey. He still wore his hair too long to be conservative, though there was a sprinkle of silver in the dark blond waves, and a bit more dashed through his beard. Both were trimmed now by a barber with a French accent, but little else about William Stone had changed. He was still the man she remembered, the man who had carried her papoose-style through the forest.

He was tall, and at best he would be considered stringy. Long legs and arms gave him a gangly look.

His face was gaunt, his cheekbones sunken. His eyes were a deep, pure gray that promised honesty.

"So?" Libby turned in a saucy circle. "What do you think?"

"Not too bad." He slipped an arm around Caroline's shoulders. Together they looked as they always had. United. "We did a pretty good job on the first two, Caro."

"You did an excellent job," Libby corrected. Then she stopped. "First two?"

"You and Sunbeam, love." With an easy smile, Caroline reached in the back of the pickup. "Why don't we get the groceries inside?"

"But I-Groceries." Biting her lip, Libby watched her parents pull out bags. Several bags. She had to tell them- something. "I'm so happy to see both of you." She grunted a bit when her fattier set two heavy brown sacks in her arms. "And I'd like to- that is, I should tell you that I'm not- alone."

"That's nice." Absently William pulled out another sack. He wondered if his wife had noticed the bag of barbecued potato chips he'd stashed inside. Of course she had, he thought. She never missed anything. "We always like to meet your friends, baby."

"Yes, I know, but this one-"

"Caro, take that one along inside. One's enough for you to carry."

"Dad." Seeing no other way, Libby blocked her father's progress. She snagged her lip again when she heard the door swing open and shut behind her mother. "I really should explain." Explain what, she wondered? And how?

"I'm listening, Libby, but these bags are getting heavy." He shifted them. "Must be all the tofu."

"It's about Caleb."

That caught his attention. "Caleb who?"

"Hornblower. Caleb Hornblower. He's- here," she managed weakly. "With me."

William cocked one gently arched brow. "Oh, really?"

The man in question parked his cycle behind the shed and, lecturing himself, strode toward the house. There was nothing wrong in taking an afternoon break. In any case, the computer was hard at work even in his absence. He'd completed most of the major repairs to the ship, and in another day, two at the most, it would be ready for flight.

If he wanted to spend an extra hour or so with a beautiful, exciting woman, he was entitled. He wasn't dragging his heels. He wasn't in love with her.

And the sun revolved around the planets.

Swearing under his breath, he walked through the open back door. Just seeing her made him smile. Even if he could only see her small, nicely rounded bottom as she rummaged in the bottom of the refrigerator.

His mood lifting, he walked quietly over to grab her firmly, intimately, by the hips.

"Babe, I can never make up my mind which side of you I like best." "Caleb!"

The astonished exclamation came not from the woman he'd only just turned into his arms but from the kitchen doorway. His head whipped around, and he stared at Libby, who was gaping, wide-eyed, from across the room, her arms full of brown bags. Beside her stood a tall, thin man who was eyeing him with obvious dislike.

Slowly Caleb turned back to see that he was embracing an equally attractive, if somewhat older, woman than the one he'd expected.

"Hello," she said, and smiled quite beautifully. "You must be Libby's friend."

"Yes." He managed to clear his throat. "I must be."

"You might want to let go of my wife," William told him. "So that she can close the refrigerator."

"I beg your pardon." He took a long and very hasty step back. "I thought you were Libby."

"Are you in the habit of grabbing my daughter by the-"

"Dad." Libby cut him off as she dumped the bags on the table. As beginnings went, she thought, this one was hardly auspicious. "This is Caleb Hornblower. He's- staying with me for a while. Cal, these are my parents, William and Caroline Stone."

Terrific. Since he didn't think he could manage to have his molecules reappear in a different location, he figured he'd better face the music. "Nice to meet you." He found that the best place for his hands was his pockets. "Libby looks a great deal like you."

"So I've been told." Caroline beamed another smile at him. "Though never quite in that way." Wanting to let him off the hook, she offered him a hand. "Will, why don't you put those bags down and say hello to Libby's friend?"

He took his time about it. William wanted to size the man up. Good-looking enough, he supposed. Strong features, steady eyes. Time would tell. "Hornblower, is it?" William was pleased that Cal's grip was cool and firm.

"Yes." It was the first time he'd been weighed and measured so thoroughly since he'd enlisted in the ISF. "Should I apologize again?"

"Once was probably enough." But William held his opinion on the rest in reserve.

"I was just about to make lunch." She had to do something, Libby thought, to keep everyone busy until she'd worked out a solution.

"Good idea." Caroline pulled fresh cauliflower out of a bag. She'd found the chips, and a jar of pickled hot sausages William had smuggled in. "But I'll make it. Why don't you give me a hand, William?"

"But I-"

"Brew some tea," she suggested.

"I'd love some tea," Libby said, knowing it was a sure way to her father's heart. She took Cal by the hand. "We'll be right back." The moment they were in the living room, she turned on him. "What are we going to do?"

"About what?"

With a sound of disgust, Libby paced toward the fireplace. "I've got to tell them something, and it can hardly be that you've just dropped in from the twenty-third century."

"No, I'd just as soon you didn't."

"But I never lie to them." Torn, Libby poked a charred log with her toe. "I can't."

He walked over to cup her chin in his hand. "Leaving out a few small details isn't lying."

"Small details? Like the fact that you came visiting in a spaceship?"

"For one."

She closed her eyes. It should be funny. Maybe it would be in five or ten years. "Hornblower, this situation would be awkward enough without the added bonus of you being from where-make that when-you are."

"What situation?"

She tried not to grind her teeth. "They're my parents, this is their house, and you and I are-" She made a circling gesture with her hand.

"Lovers," he supplied.

"Will you keep your voice down?"

Patient, he laid his hands on her shoulders, gently kneading. "Libby, they probably figured that out when I almost kissed your mother in the refrigerator."

"About that-"

"I thought she was you."

"I know. Still-"

"Libby, I realize it wasn't the most traditional way to meet your parents, but I think that of the four of us I was the most surprised."

She couldn't help chuckling. "Maybe."

"Absolutely. So I think we should just get on to the next step."

"Which is?"

"Lunch."

"Hornblower." With a sigh, she dropped her forehead on his chest. It was a pity this was one of the things she loved about him-his ability to appreciate the simple things. "I wish you'd get it through your head that this is a sensitive situation. What are we going to do about it?" She waited one beat. "If you ask me about what, I'm going to smack you."

"You talk tough." Framing her face with his hands, he lifted it. "Let's see some action."

Libby didn't make even a token protest as his mouth lowered to hers. It was all some sort of a dream anyway, she told herself. Surely she could make everything come out all right in her own dream.

There was a loud, annoyed cough from behind her. Jerking away from Cal, she looked at her father. "Ah-"

"Your mother says lunch is ready." Though he hated acting so predictably, he gave Cal one last measuring look before he went back into the kitchen.

"I think he's warming up to me," Cal mused.

In the kitchen, William scowled at his wife. "That man always has his hands on one of my women."

"One of your women." Caroline let out a long, robust laugh. "Really, Will." She tossed her head so that both of her earrings danced. "He does have very nice hands."

"Looking for trouble?" With one arm, he scooped her up against him.

"Always." She gave him a warm and very provocative kiss before turning toward the doorway. "Come sit down," she said, sharing her radiant smile with Cal. "I just threw a salad together."

She had four bowls set out on her own woven mats.

In the center of the table was a concoction of vegetables and herbs, with the surprising addition of green bananas, sprinkled with whole-wheat croutons and ready to be mixed with a yogurt dressing. Libby gave one wistful thought to the BLTs she'd planned on before she sat down.

"So, Cal-" Caroline passed him the bowl. "Are you an anthropologist?"

"No, I'm a pilot," he said, just as Libby announced, "Cal's a truck driver."

Libby muttered under her breath as Cal calmly dished up salad. "Cargo," he explained, pleased that he could honor Libby's wish to stick with the truth. "I deal primarily with cargo. Libby figures that makes me an airborne truck driver."

"You fly?" William drummed his long, skinny fingers on the table.

"Yes. That's all I ever really wanted to do."

"It must be exciting." Caroline leaned forward, always willing to be fascinated. "Sunbeam, our other daughter, is taking flying lessons. Maybe you can give her some pointers."

"Sunny's always taking lessons." There was both amusement and affection in Libby's voice as she passed the salad on to her mother. "She's good at everything. She took up parachuting and figured the next step was to learn how to fly the plane herself."

"Makes sense." He glanced over at Caroline. Caroline Stone, he thought, not for the first time. The twentieth-century genius. Cal would have found it no more incredible to be sharing a meal with Vincent Van Gogh or Voltaire. "This is a wonderful salad, Mrs. Stone."

"Caroline. Thanks." She slanted a look at her husband, knowing he would have preferred his sausages and chips and a cold beer. After more than twenty years, she hadn't quite converted him. That never stopped her from trying.

"I feel very strongly that proper nutrition is what keeps the mind clear and open," she began. "I recently read a study where proper diet and exercise was directly linked to longer life spans. If we cared for ourselves better, we could live well over a hundred years."

Noting the expression on Cal's face, Libby gave his ankle a kick under the table. She had a feeling he'd been about to inform her mother that people did live over the century mark, and regularly.

"What's the use of living that long if you have to eat leaves and twigs?" William began, but then he noted his wife's narrowed look. "Not that these aren't great leaves."

"You can have something sweet for dessert." She leaned over to kiss his cheek. Six rings glittered on her hands as she offered the bowl to Cal again. "Have some more?"

"Yes, thanks." He took a second serving. His appetite continued to amaze Libby. "I admire your work, Mrs. Stone."

"Really?" It still pleased her when anyone referred to her weaving as her "work."

"Do you have a piece?"

"No, it's- out of my reach," he told her, remembering the display he'd seen behind glass at the Smithsonian.

"Where are you from, Hornblower?" Cal switched his attention to Libby's father. "Philadelphia."

"Your work must involve a lot of traveling." Cal didn't bother to suppress the grin. "More than you can imagine."

"Do you have a family?"

"My parents and my younger brother are still back- back east."

Despite himself, William thawed a bit. There had been something in Cal's eyes, in his voice, when he'd spoken of his family.

Enough, Libby decided, was enough. She pushed her bowl aside, picked up her tea with both hands, then leaned back, her eyes on her father. "If you have an application form handy, I'm sure Cal could fill it out. Then you'd have his date of birth and Social Security number, as well."

"A little snotty, aren't you?" Will commented over a forkful of salad. "I'm snotty?"

"Don't apologize." Will patted her hand. "We are what we are. Tell me, Cal, what's your party affiliation?"

"Dad!"

"Just kidding." With a lopsided grin, he reached over to pull Libby onto his lap. "She was born here, you know."

"Yes, she told me." Cal watched Libby hook an arm around her father's neck.

"Used to play naked right out that door while I was gardening."

Despite herself, Libby laughed, even as she closed a hand over her father's throat. "Monster."

"Can I ask him what he thinks of Dylan?"

She gave his head a shake. "No."

"Bob Dylan or Dylan Thomas?" Cal asked, earning a narrowed look from William and one of surprise from Libby before she remembered his affection for poetry.

"Either," Will decided.

"Dylan Thomas was brilliant but depressing. I'd rather read Bob Dylan."

"Read?"

"The lyrics, Dad. Now that that's settled, why don't you tell me what you're doing here instead of driving your board of directors crazy?"

"I wanted to see my little girl."

She kissed him, just above the beard, because she knew it was partially true. "I saw you when I got back from the South Pacific. Try again."

"And I wanted Caro to have the fresh air." He sent his wife a smug look over his daughter's shoulder. "We both figured the air around here worked well the first two times, so we'd try it again."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about this place being good for your mother's condition."

"Condition? You're sick?" Libby was up and grabbing her mother's hands. "What's wrong?"

"Will, you never could come to the point. What he's trying to say is I'm pregnant."

"Pregnant?" Libby felt her knees go weak. "But how?"

"And you call yourself a scientist," Cal murmured, and earned his first laugh from Will.

"But-" Too dazed to be annoyed by the comment, she looked back and forth between her parents. They were young, hardly more than forty, and vital. She knew there was nothing unusual about couples in their forties having babies. But they were her parents.

"You're going to have a baby. I don't know what to say."

"Try congratulations," Will suggested. "No. Yes, I mean. I need to sit down." She did, on the floor between their chairs. She discovered sitting wasn't enough and took three long breaths. "How do you feel?" Caroline asked. "Dazed." She looked up, studying her mother's face. "How do you feel?"

"Eighteen- though I have talked Will out of delivering this one himself here at the cabin, the way he did with you and Sunny."

"The woman's lost her sixties values," Will muttered, though he had been tremendously relieved when Caroline had insisted on an obstetrician and a hospital. "So what do you think, Libby?"

She rose to her knees so that she could hug each of them. "I think we should celebrate."

"I'm one step ahead of you." Rising, William went to the refrigerator, then held a bottle aloft. "Sparkling apple juice."

The cork popped with a sound as festive as champagne. They toasted each other, the baby, the absent Sunny, the past and the future. Cal joined them, drawn in by their pleasure in each other. Here was one more thing that time hadn't changed, he thought. The giddy delight a coming baby brought to people who wanted it.

He'd never thought very seriously about starting a family. He'd known that when the time, and the woman, were right the rest would fall into place. Now he caught himself imagining what it would be like if he and Libby were toasting their own expected child. Dangerous thoughts. Impossible thoughts. He had only a matter of days left with her-hours, really-and families required a lifetime.

Even as he yearned for one life, watching Libby's parents together reminded him of his own family. Were they watching the sky, wondering where he was, how he was? If only he could let them know he was safe.

"Cal?"

"Hmm? What?" He blinked and saw Libby staring at him. "I'm sorry."

"I was just saying we should build a fire."

"Sure."

"One of my favorite spots here is in front of the fire." Caroline hooked her arm through William's. "I'm so glad we stopped by for the night."

"For the night?" Libby repeated.

"We're on our way to Carmel," Caroline decided on the spot, and gave William's hand a vicious squeeze before he could speak. "I craved a ride along the Coast."

"What she craved was a cheeseburger under her alfalfa sprouts," William said. "That's when I knew she was pregnant."

"And being pregnant entitles me to an afternoon nap." Caroline sent her husband a slow smile. "Why don't you tuck me in?"

"I could use a nap myself." With his arm around her shoulders, they started out. "Carmel? Last I heard we were spending a week here. Since when are we going to Carmel?"

"Since four's a crowd, dummy."

"That may be, but I haven't decided if I like the idea of Libby being with him."

"She likes it." Caroline walked into the bedroom and was flooded with memories. The nights they'd shared, and the mornings. They'd made love in that bed, argued politics, planned ways to save the world from itself. She'd laughed there, cried there and given birth there. She sat on the edge and let her hands run over the spread. She could almost feel the murmur of memories.

Will, his hands tucked in the back pocket of his jeans, paced to the window.

She smiled at his back, remembering how he had been at eighteen. Even thinner, she recalled, even more idealistic, and just as wonderful. They had always loved this place, being children there, having children there. Even when things had changed, they had never lost that cocksure certainty of who and what they were. She understood him, heard his thoughts as if they were in her own head.

"A cargo pilot," Will muttered. "And what the hell kind of name is Hornblower? There's something about him, Caro, I don't know what, but something I'm not sure rings true."

"Don't you trust Liberty?"

"Of course I do." He looked back, insulted. "It's him I don't trust."

"Ah, the echo of time." She cupped a hand to her ear. "The exact words my father once spoke when referring to you."

"He was a poor judge of character," Will muttered, and turned back to the window.

"Most men are when it comes to the choices their daughters make. I remember you telling my father that I knew my own mind. Let's see, was that the first or second time he threw you out of the house?"

"Both." He had to grin. "He said you'd be back in six months and that I'd end up selling daisies on a street corner. Fooled him, didn't we?"

"That was nearly twenty-five years ago."

"Don't rub it in." He fingered his beard. "Doesn't it bother you that they're here-together?"

"You mean that they're lovers?"

"Yes." He dug his hands in his pockets again. "She's our baby."

"I remember you telling me once that making love was the most natural expression of trust and affection between two people. That hang-ups about sex needed to be eradicated if the world was ever to experience true peace and goodwill."

"I did not."

"You certainly did. We were crammed into the back seat of your VW, steaming up the windows, at the time."

He had to grin. "It must have worked."

"It did, mostly because I'd already decided you were the one I wanted. You were the first man I'd ever loved, Will, so I knew it was right." She held out a hand and waited until he'd clasped it. "That man downstairs is the first Libby's ever loved. She knows what's right." He started to object, but she tightened her grip. "We raised them to follow their hearts. Did we make a mistake?"

"No." He laid a palm on the gentle slope of her belly. "We'll do the same for this one."

"He has kind eyes," she said softly. "When he looks at her, his heart's in them."

"You always were overly romantic. That's how I caught you."

"And kept me," she murmured against his lips.

"Right." He toyed with the hem of her sweater, knowing how easy it would be to slip it over her head, and exactly what he would find beneath. "You don't really want to sleep, do you?"

With a laugh, she overbalanced so that they both tumbled onto the bed.

"It's so strange." Libby dropped down on the grass beside the stream. "Thinking that my parents are going to have another child. They looked happy, didn't they?"

"Very." Cal settled beside her. "Except when your father was scowling at me."

She laughed a little as she rested her head on his shoulder. "Sorry. He's really a very friendly man, most of the time."

"I'll take your word for it." He plucked at a blade of grass. It hardly mattered if he had her father's approval or not. Soon Cal would be out of his life, and out of Libby's.

She loved it here beside the water, which ran fresh and cold over the rocks. The grass was long and soft, dotted along the bank with small blue flowers. There would be foxglove in the summer, growing as tall as a man and bending over the stream with its purple or white bells. There would be lilies and columbine. At dusk deer would come to drink, and sometimes a lumbering bear would come fishing.

She didn't want to think of summer, but of now, when the air was as fresh as the water, with a clear, clean taste to it. Chipmunks raced in the forest beyond. She and Sunny had hand-fed the friendlier ones. Wherever she went, to remote islands, to desert outposts, she would remember those early years of her life. And be grateful for them.

"That's going to be a very lucky baby," she murmured. Then she smiled as a thought struck her. ' To think, after all these years, I might have a brother."

He thought of his own, Jacob, with his flaring temper and his sharp, impatient mind. "I always wanted a sister."

"There's something to be said for them, too. But they always seem to be prettier than you are."

He rolled her onto the grass. "I wish I could meet your Sunbeam. Ow." He rubbed a hand over his side where she'd pinched him.

"Concentrate on me."

"That's all I seem to do." He braced his arm beside her head as he studied her face. "I have to go back to the ship for a little while."

She tried valiantly to keep the sorrow out of her eyes. It had been easy to pretend there was no ship, and no tomorrow. "I didn't have a chance to ask you how it was going."

Quickly, he thought. Too quickly. "I'll know more when I check the computer. Can you make an excuse to your parents if I'm not back when they get up?"

"I'll tell them you're off meditating. My father will love it."

"Okay. Then tonight-" He lowered his head for a gentle kiss. "I'll concentrate on you."

"Concentrating's all you'll do." She linked her arms around his neck. "You're sleeping on the couch."

"I am."

"Definitely."

"In that case-" He slid down to her.

Later, during the night, when the fire was burning low and the house was quiet, Cal sat alone, fully dressed. He knew how to get back. At least he knew how he had gotten where and when he was and how to reverse the process.

With a few more repairs, basically unnecessary ones, he would be ready to go. Technically he would be ready. But emotionally- Nothing had ever torn him quite so neatly in two.

If she asked him to stay- God, he was afraid if she did, it would swing the balance of the tug-of-war he was waging. But she wouldn't ask him to stay. He couldn't ask her to go.

Perhaps when he made it back and offered the data to the world of science a new, less dangerous way would be created to conquer time. Perhaps he could come back.

Turning his head, he looked into the fire. More fantasies. Libby was facing the facts, and so would he.

He thought he heard her on the stairs. But when he looked it was William.

"Trouble sleeping?" he asked Cal.

"Some. You?"

"I always loved this place at night." Because he loved his daughter, as well, he was determined to make an effort to be civil, if not exactly friendly. "The quiet, the dark." He stooped to add another log to the fire. Sparks flew, then winked out. "I never pictured myself living anywhere else."

"I never imagined living in a place like this or realized how hard it would be to leave."

"A long way from Philadelphia."

"A very long way."

He recognized gloom when he heard it. William had courted it early in his youth, mistaking it for romance. Unbending a little, he dug out the brandy and two snifters. "Want a drink?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

William settled in the winged chair and stretched out his long legs. "I used to sit here at night and ponder the meaning of life."

"Did you ever figure it out?"

"Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't."

It had been simpler, somehow, when his main concerns had been world peace and social reform. Now, God help him, he was nearing middle age-that area that had always seemed so gray and distant. It reminded him that he had once been a young man, much younger than the one facing him now, with his head in the clouds and his mind on a woman. The times they are a-changing, he thought wryly, and swirled his brandy.

"Are you in love with Libby?"

"I was just asking myself that same question."

William sipped his brandy. He preferred the traces of doubt and frustration he heard to a glib response. He'd always been glib. No wonder Caroline's father had detested him. "Come up with an answer?"

"Not a comfortable one."

Nodding, William lifted his glass. "Before I met Caro, I was planning to join the Peace Corps or a Tibetan monastery. She was fresh out of high school. Her father wanted to shoot me."

Cal grinned. He was beginning to enjoy the brandy. "I had a minute to be grateful you didn't have a weapon this afternoon."

"Being a pacifist by nature, I only gave it a passing thought," William assured him. "Caro's father thrived on the idea. I can't wait to tell him I got her pregnant again." Relaxed now, he savored the idea.

"Libby's hoping for a brother."

"Did she say that?" Now he grinned, lingering over the idea of a son. "She was my first. Every child's a miracle, but the first- I guess you never get over it."

"She is a miracle. She changed my life."

William's look sharpened. Hornblower might not realize he was in love, he thought, but there was little doubt about it. "Caro likes you," he commented. "She has a way of seeing into the heart of people. I only want to say that Libby isn't as sturdy as she seems. Be careful with her."

He rose then, afraid he might start to pontificate. "Get some sleep," he advised. "Caro's bound to be up at dawn fixing whole-wheat pancakes or yogurt-and-kiwi surprise." He winced a little. He was a man who would always yearn in his heart for bacon and eggs. "You won points by the way you dug into that tofu amandine casserole."

"It was great."

"No wonder she likes you." He paused at the foot of the steps. "You know, I have a sweater just like that."

"Really?" Cal couldn't suppress the grin. "Small world."

CHAPTER 10

"I knew you'd be up early." Libby slipped out the back door to join her mother.

"Not so early." Caroline sighed, annoyed with herself for missing the sunrise. "I've found myself getting a slower start the last couple of months."

"Morning sickness?"

"No." Smiling, Caroline hooked an arm around Libby's waist. "It seems all three of my children decided to spare me that. Did I ever tell you I appreciated it?"

"No."

"Well, I do." She gave Libby's cheek a quick kiss and noted the faint shadows under her eyes. Biding her time, she nodded toward the trees. "Like to walk?"

"Yes, I would."

They started off at a meandering pace, the bells Caroline wore at her wrists and ears jingling cheerfully. So much was the same, Libby thought. The trees, the sky, the quiet cabin behind them. And so much had changed. She leaned her head against her mother's shoulder for a moment.

"Do you remember when we used to walk like this, you and Sunny and I?"

"I remember walking with you." Caroline laughed as the branches arched overhead in a cool, green tunnel. "Sunny never walked anywhere. The moment she could stand she was off at a dash. You and I would poke along, just as we're doing now."

And what would this child be like? Caroline wondered, feeling a fresh thrill of anticipation.

"Then we'd pick some flowers or berries so that Dad would think we'd been doing something productive."

"It seems both our men are sleeping in today." When Libby didn't respond, Caroline waited until the silence between them was comfortable again. The forest was alive with sounds, the rustling of small game in the brush, the call of birds in flight. "I like your friend, Libby."

"I'm glad you do. I wanted you to." She bent to pick up a twig, then broke small pieces off as she walked. It was a nervous gesture Caroline knew very well. Sunny would let any and all feeling burst straight out, but Libby, her quiet, sensible Libby, would hold them in.

"It's more important that you do."

"I do, very much." Suddenly aware of what she was doing, Libby tossed the rest of the twig aside. "He's kind and funny and strong. This time I've had here with him, it's been wonderful for me. I never really thought I'd find someone who would make me feel the way Caleb makes me feel."

"But you don't smile when you say that." Caroline reached up to touch her daughter's face. "Why?"

"This- time we have- it's only temporary."

"I don't understand. Why temporary? If you're in love with him-"

"I am," Libby murmured. "Very much in love with him."

"Then?"

Libby drew a long breath. It was impossible to explain, she thought. "He has to go back, to his family."

"To Philadelphia?" Caroline prompted her, at a loss.

"Yes-" There was a smile now, faint and wistful. "To Philadelphia."

"I don't see why that should make a difference," she began. Then stopped and put a hand on Libby's arm. "Oh, baby, is he married?"

"No." She might have laughed then, but she noted the deep and genuine concern in her mother's eyes. "No, it's nothing like that. Caleb could never be dishonest. It's very hard to explain, but I can tell you that right from the start we both knew that Cal would have to go back where he belonged, and I- I would have to stay."

"A few thousand miles shouldn't matter if two people want to be together."

"Sometimes distance is, well, longer than it looks. Don't worry." Leaning over, she kissed Caroline's cheek. "I can honestly say that I wouldn't trade the time I've had with Cal for anything. There was a poster in the cabin when I was little. Do you remember? It said something about- if you had something, let it go. If it didn't come back to you, it was never yours."

"I never liked that poster," Caroline muttered.

This time Libby did laugh. "Let's pick some flowers."

Libby watched them go a few hours later, her father behind the wheel of the rumbling pickup, her mother's earrings dancing as she leaned out of the window to wave until she was out of sight.

"I like your parents."

Libby turned to Cal, linking her hands around his neck. "They liked you, too."

He leaned down for a brief kiss. "Your mother, maybe.".

"My father, too."

"If I had a year or two to win him over he might almost like me."

"He wasn't scowling at you today."

"No." He rubbed his cheek against hers as he considered. "It was down to a sneer. What are you going to tell them?"

"About what?"

"About why I'm not here, with you?"

"I'll tell them that you went home." Because she made the effort, her answer sounded casual and easy. So easy that he nearly swore.

"Just like that?"

Her voice was a little brittle now, she knew, with a tone that could easily be taken as callous. "They won't pry if I don't want them to. It will be simpler for everyone if I tell them the truth."

"Which is?"

Was he determined to make it difficult? She moved her shoulders restlessly. "Things didn't work out, and you went on with your life. I went on with mine."

"Yeah, I guess that's best. No mess, no regrets."

Irritable, she thrust her fists in her pockets. "You have a better idea?"

"No. Yours is just dandy." He pulled away, annoyed with himself, annoyed with her. "I've got to get to the ship."

"I know. I thought I'd run into town and pick up the camera and some other things. If I get back early enough I'll ride out, check on your progress."

"Fine." He was damned if it was going to be so easy for her when he was being torn in two. Before he could regret it, he yanked her against him and crushed his mouth down on hers.

Hot, edgy, tasting of anger and frustration, the kiss spun out. Libby hung on, to maintain her physical, as well as her emotional, balance. She couldn't, wouldn't, give him what he seemed to need. Total capitulation. He'd never asked for that before, nor had she known she would so firmly withhold it. Trapped, she couldn't soothe, couldn't demand, as he devoured.

In one long, possessive stroke, his hands ran up her body, then down again with no lessening of force. She might have protested. There was something here that frightened her, that left her weak-not meltingly, but with an open-ended vulnerability that made her struggle to find her feet again. There was no gentleness here, nor was there the sense of urgent desire he had once shown her. Instead, the kiss was like a punishment, and a brutally effective one.

"Caleb-" She began, hitching in a shallow breath, when he released her.

"That should give you something to think about," he said, then turned abruptly to stalk away.

Stunned, she stared after him. One unsteady hand reached up to press against lips still tender from his assault. When her breathing steadied, her temper took hold. She'd think about it, all right. She stormed inside, slamming the door behind her. Moments later she stormed out again to climb into the Land Rover.

It was all going perfectly. And he was mad as hell. Technically he could take off within twenty-four hours. The major repairs were done, the calculations as finely tuned as he and the computer could make them in the time allotted. His ship was ready. He wasn't. That was what it came down to.

She was certainly ready to see him off, Cal thought as he fused a tear in the inner shell with his spot laser. Damned anxious, if it came to that. She was probably in town right now buying a camera so that she could take a few souvenir pictures before she waved goodbye. He shut off the laser and checked the seam.

Why did she have to be so practical about it?

Because she was practical, he reminded himself as he yanked off his protective goggles. That was one of the things he most admired about her. She was practical, warm, intelligent, shy. He could still see the way her eyes had looked the first time he'd told her he wanted her. They'd gone from big and tawny to big and confused.

And when he'd touched her. She'd gotten hot and trembly. She was soft, so incredibly soft. Cursing himself, he stowed the laser in the tool compartment, then tossed the goggles in beside them before he slammed the door. He couldn't imagine a man in the universe being able to resist those eyes, or that skin, or that wide, sexy mouth.

That was part of the problem, he admitted as he prowled the ship. Men wouldn't. Maybe she hadn't paid attention before. Maybe she'd been too wrapped up in her books and her work and her theories on the societal tendencies of man as a species. One day she was going to slip those glasses off her nose and look around-and realize that there were men, flesh-and-blood men, looking back at her. Men who could make promises, he thought in disgust. Even if they didn't mean to keep them.

Perhaps she hadn't realized how much passion, how much heat, how much power, she held. But he'd opened those doors for her. Opened, hell-he'd smashed them. Once he was gone, other men would tend the fire he'd lit.

The thought made him insane. Cal admitted it as he dragged his hands through his hair. Stark, raving crazy. He belonged in one of those padded cells Libby had spoken of. He couldn't stand it-the thought of someone else touching her, kissing her. Undressing her.

With an oath, he wheeled into his cabin and began to put it in order. That is, he tossed things around.

He was being selfish and unfair. And he didn't care. It was true that he would have to accept the fact that Libby would go on with her life, and that her life would include a lover-or lovers, he thought, grinding his teeth. A husband, perhaps, and children. He had to accept that. But he was damned if he had to like it.

After kicking a shoe into a corner, he dug his hands into his pockets and stared at the picture of his family.

His parents, he mused, going over each feature of their faces as he had never bothered to before. It had been three- no, four months since he'd seen them. If you didn't count the centuries.

They were attractive, strong-looking people, despite his father's slightly hangdog expression. They had always seemed so content to him, so sure of their lives and what they wanted. He liked to picture them at home, with his mother laboring over some thick technical book and his father whistling between his teeth as he played with his flowers.

He had his mother's nose. Intrigued, Cal leaned down to peer closer. Strange, he'd never noticed that before. Apparently she'd been satisfied with the one she'd been born with and had passed it on to him.

And to Jacob, he realized as he studied his brother's image. But to Jacob she'd passed along brilliance, as well. Brilliance wasn't always a gift, Caleb thought with a grin. It seemed to make Jacob hotheaded, questioning and impatient. He remembered his mother saying that J.T., as his family called him, was more fond of arguing than breathing.

Cal decided he'd probably inherited his father's more even temperament. Except he didn't feel very even-tempered at the moment.

With a sigh, he sat on the bed. "You'd like her," he murmured to the images. "I wish you could meet her." That was a first, he thought. He'd never had the urge to bring any of his companions home for family approval. It was probably the result of spending the day with Libby's parents.

He was stalling. Rubbing his hands over his face, Cal admitted he was wasting his time with busywork and self-indulgent analysis. He should already be gone. But he'd promised himself another day. There was Libby's time capsule to do- that is, if she was still speaking to him.

She was bound to be angry about the little number he'd pulled on her before he'd left that morning. That was fine, he decided as he stretched out. He'd rather have her angry than smilingly urging him on his way. Lazily he checked his watch. She should be back in a couple hours.

Right now he was going to have a nap to make up for the long, frustrating and sleepless night he'd spent on her couch. Switching on the sleep tape beside the bed, he closed his eyes and tuned out.

Idiot, Libby thought, gripping the wheel tightly as she maneuvered the Land Rover along the winding switchback toward home. Conceited idiot, she clarified. He'd better have an explanation when she saw him again. No matter how she racked her brain, she could come up with no reason why he had kissed her in that furious, mean-spirited way.

Something to think about.

Well, she had thought about it, Libby reminded herself while she navigated the narrowing dirt road. It still made her furious. And it still didn't make any sense. Then again, she had a twice-married neighbor in Portland who claimed men never made sense.

They always had to her-as a species, anyway, Libby thought grimly. And on paper. Now, for the first time, she was involved in a one-on-one with a flesh-and-blood member of the male genus, and she was baffled.

Libby bumped over rocks as she tried once again to solve the mystery of Caleb Hornblower.

Perhaps it had had something to do with the visit by her parents. But then, he'd been moody the morning before they had arrived. Moody, but not angry, she remembered, and they had made slow, quiet love by the stream during the afternoon. He'd seemed cheerful enough at dinner, perhaps a little withdrawn, but that was only natural. It must be very difficult for him to be around people when he had to concentrate on not saying anything that might give him away.

She felt a tug of sympathy and stubbornly ignored it.

That was no reason for him to take his frustration out on her. Wasn't she trying to help him? It was killing her inside, but she was doing everything in her power to see that he got back to where he wanted to be.

She had her own life, as well. That fact soothed only a little as she barreled up a slope. She should be working on her dissertation and making the preliminary plans for her next field study. There was an offer of a lecture tour she had yet to fully consider. Instead, she was running errands-buying cameras and oatmeal cookies. For the last time, she decided huffily, but then she realized that it would indeed be the last time.

She stopped the Land Rover when the trail narrowed to a footpath. She hadn't really meant to come out to Caleb. During the entire trip she'd told herself she would go back to the cabin and get to work. Yet here she was, letting herself be pulled back. At least there was something she could do for herself.

On impulse, she grabbed the new Polaroid from the shopping bag. After unboxing it, she skimmed over the directions, then loaded it with the first of the packs of film she'd bought. As an afterthought, she grabbed the bag of chunky oatmeal cookies.

From the top of the slope she studied the ship. It lay huge and silent on the rocks and the downed trees, like some strange sleeping animal. Deliberately she blocked out thoughts of the man inside and concentrated on the ship itself.

The sixteen-wheeler of the future, she decided, carefully framing it. The Greyhound bus or power van. All aboard for Mars, Mercury and Venus. Express trips to Pluto and Orion available. With what was more a sigh than a snicker, she took two pictures. Sitting on the edge of the slope, she watched them develop. Fifty years ago, she mused, the idea of instant pictures had been science fiction. She glanced back at the ship. Man worked fast. Very fast.

Wanting a few more moments to herself, she ripped open the bag of cookies and began to nibble.

Of course, she'd never be able to show the picture that was already taking shape in her hand to anyone. One was for the capsule, but the other was for her personal files. She wanted to believe it was the scientist who had taken it, who would label and file it along with other pictures she would take and the hard copy of the report she was writing on this isolated experience.

But it had nothing to do with science, and everything to do with the heart. She didn't want to rely on her memory.

She slipped the pictures into her pocket, swung the camera over her shoulder and started down.

When she reached the hatch, she lifted her fist, then started to laugh. Did one knock on the door of a spacecraft? Feeling foolish with the ship looming over her, she rapped twice. A chipmunk scurried over the ground, scrambled onto the trunk of a fallen tree and stared at her.

"I know it's odd," Libby told him. "Just remember to keep it under your hat." She tossed half a cookie in his direction, then turned back to knock again. "All right, Hornblower, open up. I feel like an idiot out here."

She tried knocking, pounding, shouting. Once she gave in to temper and slammed the hull with a good kick. Favoring her sore toes, she stepped back. Furious with him, she'd nearly decided to turn back when it occurred to her he might not be able to hear her.

Stepping closer, she began to search for the device he had used to open the hatch. It took her ten minutes. When the hatch opened, she stormed inside, ready for a fight.

"Listen, Hornblower, I-"

He wasn't on the bridge. Frustrated, Libby dragged back her hair. Couldn't he even make himself available when she wanted to yell at him?

The shield was up. She hadn't been able to see in from the outside, but now she had a stunning panoramic view. Drawn, she crossed over to the controls. How would it feel, she wondered as she sat in his chair, to pilot something so huge, so powerful? She scanned the buttons and switches spread out before her. Was it any wonder he loved it? Even a woman who had always been firmly rooted to the ground could imagine the wild, limitless freedom of traveling through space. There would be planets, balls of color and light. The glimmer of distant stars, the glow of orbiting moons.

She liked to think of him that way, weaving through the stars the way he had woven through the trees with her on the cycle.

Libby took a last scan of the controls, then studied the computer. A little ill at ease, she glanced around the empty bridge before she leaned forward. "Computer?" Working.

She jolted, then swallowed a nervous laugh. There were two questions she wanted to ask, but only one she truly wanted the answer to. Because she believed in facing facts, Libby inhaled, exhaled, then plunged. "Computer, what is the status on the calculations for the return journey to the twenty-third century?"

Calculations complete. Probability index formulated. Risk factors, trajectory, thrust, degree of orbit, velocity and success factors locked in. Is report desired? "No."

So he was finished. She'd known it, even when she'd tried to tell herself she had a few more days with him. He hadn't told her, but she thought she understood why. Cal wouldn't want to hurt her, and he would know, would have to know, how she felt. No matter how hard she tried to treat their relationship as a single moment in time, one based on passion and affection and mutual need, he had seen through her. He was trying to be kind.

She wanted to be glad for him. She had to be glad for him.

She took a minute to adjust, then asked what she had asked once before. "Computer." Working. "Who is Caleb Hornblower?"

Hornblower, Caleb, Captain ISF, retired. Born 2 February, to Katrina Hardesty Hornblower and Byram Edward Hornblower. Place of birth Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Graduate Wilson Freemont Memorial Academy. Attended Princeton University, withdrew after sixteen months without degree. Enlisted ISF. Served six years, seven months. Military record as follows-

With her lips pursed, Libby listened to the readout of Cal's military career. There was citation after citation-just as there was reprimand after reprimand. His record as a pilot was flawless. His disciplinary record was an entirely different matter. She couldn't help but smile.

She thought of her father and his ingrained distrust of the military system. Yes, given a bit of time, she thought, he would have grown very fond of Cal.

Credit rating 5.8, the computer continued.

"Stop." Libby heaved a sigh. She wasn't interested in Cal's credit rating. She'd pried far enough into his personal life as it was. Any other answers she wanted would have to come from him. And quickly.

Rising, she began to wander through the ship, looking for him.

It was the music that tipped her off. She heard it first, distant and lovely, with a vague curiosity. Something classical, with a kind of swelling passion. As she followed it, she tried to identify the composer.

She found Cal asleep in his cabin. The music filled the room, every corner of it, yet it was soft, soothing, seductive. She felt the tug, the almost irresistible urge to slip into the bed beside him, snuggling close until he woke and made slow, sweet love to her.

She shook it off. The music, she decided. Somehow it was comforting and erotic at the same time. Exactly the way his kisses could be. She wouldn't let it influence her or let herself forget that she was angry with him.

Still, she took a picture of him as he slept, then slipped it, almost guiltily, into her pocket.

After leaning against the doorway, she lifted her chin. It was a deliberately defiant pose, and she enjoyed it.

"So this is how you work."

Though she'd pitched her voice above the music, he went on sleeping. She considered going over and giving his shoulder a shove, then came up with a better idea. She slipped two fingers of her left hand into her mouth, inhaled, then blew out a sharp, shrill whistle, just as Sunny had taught her.

He came up in the bed like a rocket. "Red alert!" he shouted before he saw her smirking at him from the doorway. After leaning back against the cushioned headboard, he ran a hand over his eyes.

He'd been dreaming. Out in space, whipping through the galaxy, with the controls at his fingertips and worlds racing by hundreds of thousands of miles beneath him. She'd been there, right beside him, an arm wrapped around his waist, all the fascination, all the thrill of flying glowing on her face.

Until something had gone wrong. And the ship had shaken, the gauges had blinked, the bells had sounded. He'd heard her scream as they'd gone into a dive. He hadn't known what to do. Quite suddenly his mind had gone blank. He hadn't been able to save her.

Here she was now, while his heart was still sprinting from the dream, looking cocky and ready to spar.

"What the hell was that for?"

He looked as though he'd had a scare. She certainly hoped so. "It seemed the most efficient way to wake you up. I tell you, Hornblower, you keep working like this, you'll wear yourself right out."

"I was taking a break." He wished he'd taken a good long slug of potent, electric-blue Antellis liquor. "I didn't sleep much last night."

"Too bad." As sympathy went, it left a lot to be desired. Still studying him, she dug for a cookie.

"That couch is lumpy."

"I'll make a note of it. Maybe that's why you woke up on the wrong side of it." She took her time, nipping off tiny bite after tiny bite. It was an attempt to make him hungry, and she succeeded, though not in the way she'd intended.

He could feel his muscles tightening, each separate one. "I don't know what you mean."

"It's an expression."

"I've heard it." He knew he snapped the words out, but he couldn't help it. She flicked out her tongue to catch a crumb at the corner of her mouth. He nearly groaned. "I didn't wake up on the wrong side of anything."

"Well, I suppose it could be your nature to be surly and you've managed to repress it lately."

"I'm not surly." He all but growled it.

"No? Arrogant, then. Is that better?" Her slow half smile was meant to annoy, but it provoked a different emotion.

Trying to ignore her and what was going on inside his own rebellious body, he looked at his watch. "You took a long time in town."

"My time's my own, Hornblower."

His brows arched. If she hadn't been so smug about her own control, she might have noticed that the eyes beneath them had darkened. "You want to fight?"

"Me?" Her lips turned up again. She was the very picture of innocence. "Why, Caleb, after meeting my parents you should know I'm a born pacifist. I was rocked to sleep with folk songs."

He muttered an opinion, a single two-syllable word that Libby had always thought belonged to the slang of the twentieth century. Intrigued, she cocked her head.

"So, that's still the response when someone doesn't have a clever or intelligent answer. It's such a comfort to know some traditions survive."

He threw his legs off the edge of the bed and, his eyes on hers, slowly unfolded himself. He didn't step toward her, not yet. Not until he could trust himself not to plant a good clean jab on her outthrust chin. Strange, he'd never noticed the stubborn set of it before. Or that I-dare-you look in her eyes.

The worst of it was, the arrogance was every bit as arousing as the warmth.

"You're pushing, babe. I figure it's only fair to warn you that I don't come from a particularly peaceful family."

"Well-" Carefully she chose another cookie. "That certainly puts the fear of God into me." After rolling up the bag, she tossed it at him so that his defensive catch crumbled half the contents. "I don't know what's gotten under your skin, Hornblower, but I've got better things to do than worry about it. You can stay here and sulk if you like, but I'm going back to work."

She barely managed to turn around. He grabbed her arms and had her pressed into the wall, his fingers digging in. Later she would wonder why she had been surprised that he could move that quickly, or that beneath the easy disposition there lurked a fierce, raw-edged temper.

"You want to know what's wrong with me?" His eyes, so close to hers, were the color that edged lightning bolts. "Is that what all this button-pushing's about, Libby?"

"I don't care what's wrong with you." She kept her chin up, though her mouth had gone dry. Libby knew that for her offering an apology would always be easier than sticking with a fight. Sometimes it wasn't pacifism but cowardice. She straightened her spine and drew in a deep breath. She was sticking.

"I don't give a damn what's wrong with you. Now let me go."

"You should." He wrapped her hair around his hand to pull her head back, slowly exposing her throat. "Do you think that every emotion a man has toward a woman is gentle, kind, loving?"

"I'm not a fool." She began to struggle, and she was more annoyed than afraid when he didn't release her.

"No, you're not." Her eyes were on his, fury matching fury. He thought he felt something break inside him, the last bolt that had caged the uncivilized. "Maybe it's time I taught you the rest."

"I don't need you to teach me anything."

"That's right, there'll be others to teach you, won't there?" Jealousy clawed deep, drawing thick, hot blood. "Damn you. And damn them, every one of them. Think of this. Whenever anyone else touches you, tomorrow, ten years from tomorrow, you'll wish it was me. I'll see to it."

With his words still hanging in the air, he pulled her to the bed.

CHAPTER 11

She fought him. She refused to be taken in anger, no matter how deep her love. The bed sank beneath their combined weights, molding to them like a cocoon. The music drifted, calm and beautiful. His hands were rough as they dragged at the buttons of her shirt.

She didn't speak. It never occurred to her to beg him to stop, or to give in to the tears that would surely have snapped him back to his senses. Instead she struggled, trying to roll away from his ruthlessly seeking hands. She fought, furiously bucking, pushing against him, waging a private war against the traitorous response of her body, which would betray her heart.

She would hate him for this. The knowledge nearly broke her. If he succeeded in what he set out to do, it would wash away other memories and leave this one, this violent, distorted one, dominant. Unable to bear it, she fought now for both of them.

He knew her too well. Every curve, every dip, every pulse. On a wave of fury, he locked her wrists in one hand and dragged her arms over her head. His mouth savaged her neck while his free hand slid down, unerringly, to find one of those secret, vulnerable places. He heard her moan as the unwanted, unavoidable pleasure tore into her. Her body tensed, a wire ready to snap. It arched, a bow pulled taut. He felt the burst of release as it shuddered through her, heard her choked-off cry. He saw her lips quiver before she pressed them hard together.

Regret burned through him. He had no right, no one did, to take something beautiful and use it as a weapon. He'd wanted to hurt her for something beyond her control. And he had. No more, he realized, than he had hurt himself.

"Libby."

She only shook her head, her eyes tightly closed. Wishing for words that weren't there, Cal rolled over and stared at the ceiling.

"I have no excuse- there is no excuse for treating you that way."

She managed to swallow the tears. It relieved her, made it possible for her to steady her breathing and open her eyes. "Maybe not, but there's usually a reason. I'd like to hear it."

He didn't answer for a long time. They lay close and tense, not quite touching. There were dozens of reasons he could give her-lack of sleep, overwork, the anxiety over the possible failure of his flight. They would all be accurate, to a point. But they wouldn't be the truth. Libby, he knew, set great store by honesty.

"I care for you," he said slowly. "It isn't easy knowing I won't see you again. I realize we both have our own lives," he added before she could speak. "Our own place. Maybe we're both doing what has to be done, but I don't like the idea that it's easy for you."

"It isn't."

He knew it was selfish, but it relieved him to hear it. Reaching over, he linked his hand with hers. "I'm jealous."

"Of what?"

"Of the men you'll meet, the ones you'll love. The one's who'll love you."

"But-"

"No, don't say anything. Let me get it all out and over with. It doesn't seem to matter that I know it's wrong, intellectually. It's a gut reaction, Libby, and I'm used to going with them. Every time I imagine another man touching you the way I've touched you, seeing you the way I've seen you, I go a little crazy."

"And that's why you've been angry with me?" She turned her head to study his profile. "Over my imagined future affairs?"

"I guess you've got a right to make me sound like an idiot."

"I'm not trying to."

He moved his shoulders in what might have been a shrug. "I can even see him. He's about six-four and built like one of those Greek gods."

"Adonis," she suggested, smiling. "He gets my vote."

"Shut up." But she noted that his lips curved slightly. "He's got blond hair, streaked, kind of windswept, and this strong, rock-hard jaw with one of those clefts in it."

"Like Kirk Douglas?"

He shot her a suspicious look. "You know a guy like this?"

"Only by reputation." Because she sensed that the storm was over, she kissed Cal's shoulder.

"Anyway, he's got brains, too, which is another reason I really hate him. He's a doctor, not medical but philosophy. He can discuss the traditional mating habits of obscure tribes with you for hours. And he plays piano."

"Wow. I'm impressed."

"He's rich," Cal went on, almost viciously. "A 9.2 credit rating. He takes you to Paris and makes love to you in a room overlooking the Seine. Then he gives you a diamond as big as a fist."

"Well, well." She gave it some thought. "Can he quote poetry?"

"He even writes it."

"Oh, my God." She put a hand to her heart. "I don't suppose you could tell me where I'm going to meet him? I want to be ready."

He rolled over just enough to look at her. Her eyes were bright, but with amusement, not tears. "You're getting a real charge out of this, aren't you?"

"Yes." She lifted a hand to his face. "I suppose it might make you feel better if I promised I'd join a convent."

"Okay." He took her wrist to bring her palm against his mouth. "Can I get it in writing?"

"I'll think about it." His eyes were clear again, deep and clear. He was Cal now, the man she could love and understand. "Are we finished fighting?"

"Looks like it. I'm sorry, Libby. I've been acting like a lupz."

"I'm not sure what that means, but you're probably right."

"Friends?" He bent down to brush her lips with his.

"Friends." Before he could draw back, she cupped his head in her hand and held him against her for a longer, deeper and much less friendly kiss. "Cal?"

"Hmm?" He traced her lips with his tongue, memorizing their shape and texture.

"Did this guy have a name? Ouch!" Torn between laughter and pain, she jerked back. "You bit me."

"Damn right."

"It was your fantasy," she reminded him primly, "not mine."

"And let's keep it that way." But he was grinning as he ran his hand up the smooth skin where her shirt had parted. "I can give you others, if you're willing to settle."

"Yes." His palm rounded over her breast, working magic. "Oh, yes."

"If I took you to Paris, we'd spend the first three days in that hotel suite and never get out of bed." He continued to tease, nipping here, stroking there, stopping just short of possession. "We'd drink champagne, bottle after bottle, and eat small dishes with exotic names and tastes. I'd know every inch of your body, every pore of your skin. We'd stay in that big, soft bed and go places no one else had ever been."

"Cal." She trembled as he circled her breasts with slow, openmouthed kisses.

"Then we'd get dressed. I can see you in something thin and white, something that skims off your shoulders, dips down your back. Something that makes every man who sees you want to murder me."

"I don't even see them." With a sigh, she traced her hands down him, lingering over every plane and angle. "I only see you."

"The stars are out. Millions of them. You can smell Paris. It's rich- water and flowers. We'd walk for miles so you could see all those incredible lights and wonderful ancient buildings. We'd stop and drink wine in a cafe at a table with an umbrella. Then we'd go back and make love again, for hours and hours."

His lips came back to hers, drugging her. "We don't need Paris for that."

"No." He braced himself over her, bracketing her head between his hands. Her face was already glowing, her eyes were half closed, that soft smile was on her lips. He wanted to remember this, this one instant when there was nothing and no one but her.

"Oh, God, Libby, I need you."

It was all she needed to hear, all she would ever ask to hear. She reached up to enfold him.

There was urgency here. She could taste it as his tongue plunged deep into her mouth, demanding. Impatient, his hands molded her body. Because his feelings mirrored her own, her response was explosive. Her blood was molten, throbbing as it flowed close under her skin. The heat was unbearable. Delicious. It grew only more intense as he stripped her.

A primitive sound hummed deep in her throat. With a speed and fury that rocked him, she was yanking off his shirt, dragging his jeans over his hips. Desperate, she rolled, reversing their positions, making a fast, hot journey over him. She heard his breath catch, and the sound sent her excitement soaring to new heights.

Power. It was indeed the ultimate aphrodisiac. She could make him tremble and ache and whisper her name. She'd never known that with such little effort she could make him helpless.

And he was beautiful. The feel of him under her hands, the taste of him that lingered on her tongue. And strong. There were ridges of muscles, firm, tight. But they trembled under the delicate dance of her fingertips.

He'd wanted to make her remember. Cal groaned under the weight of the sensations she was bringing to him. It was he who would remember, always. The music that he had always loved, the simple eloquence of it, filled his head. He knew it would remind him of her from now to forever.

He could feel the heat radiate from her as she moved her body up his, searching, finding his mouth. Her kiss was slow, sultry, something he could drown in. Then she was laughing, evading his questing hands as she drove him toward madness again.

He couldn't bear it. His heart was pounding against his ribs, echoed by dozens of frantic pulses throughout his body. The rhythm seemed to call out her name, again and again, until he was filled with it.

"Libby." The word was hoarse, as raw as his need. "For God's sake."

Then she closed over him like hot velvet. The sound she made was hardly more than a moan, but it vibrated with triumph. Lost in her own pleasure, she set a wild pace, feeling her strength bound high, then higher, as her need swelled.

A free-fall through space, a springboard through time. He'd experienced both, but they were nothing compared with this. Blindly he reached for her, and his hands slid down her slick skin. Just as their palms met, they leaped over the top together.

Perfection. Lazily content, Libby cuddled closer, resting her cheek just over Cal's heart, all but purring as he stroked her hair.

Soothed. Every part of her was content. Body, mind, heart. She wondered how long it was possible for two people to lie curled in bed without food or water. Forever. She smiled to herself. She could almost believe it.

"My parents have a cat," she murmured. "A fat yellow cat named Marigold. He doesn't have an ounce of ambition."

"A male cat named Marigold?"

Still smiling, she ran a hand down his arm. "You met my parents."

"Right."

"Anyway, he lies on the windowsill every afternoon. All afternoon. Right this minute I know exactly how he feels." She stretched, only a little, because even that seemed to require too much effort. "I like your bed, Hornblower."

"I've grown fond of it myself."

They were silent for a while, drifting. "That music." It was playing in her head now, sweet, almost unbearably romantic. "I keep thinking I should recognize it."

"Salvadore Simeon."

"Is he a new composer?"

"Depends on your point of view. Late twenty-first century."

"Oh." Her bubble burst. Sometimes forever was a very short time. Holding on one last moment, she turned her head to press her lips to his chest. His heart beat there, strong and steady. "Poetry, classical music and aircycles. An interesting combination."

"Is it?"

"Yes, very. I also know you're hooked on soaps and game shows."

"That's research." He grinned as she pushed herself to a sitting position beside him. "I want to be able to speak intelligently on all popular forms of twentieth-century entertainment." He paused a moment, thinking. "Do you suppose they kept archives? I really want to know if Blake and Eva work things out in spite of Dorian's conniving. Then there's the problem of who's framing Justin for the murder of the evil and despicable Carlton Slade. I vote for the sweet-faced but hard-hearted Vanessa."

"Hooked," she said again, and drew her knees up to her chest to grin at him. "Don't you have soaps?"

"Sure. Never took the time to watch. I always figured they were for homeworkers."

"Homeworkers." She repeated it, liking the precise, genderless phrase. "I haven't asked you all those questions." Libby settled her chin on her knees. "When we get back we should finish writing up everything that's happened to you."