His deep brown eyes grew wide, and she wondered if she could fall into them. If he chuckled, she'd die. Right here, on this plush, pile carpet. He didn't chuckle. His grin became an odd little smile, and he took her hand and gave it a gentle tug. He wanted her to sit back down on the loveseat with him.
“Okay, Miss Anna. Do you have any proof for me?”
Think
, she ordered herself. Yes. Money. She would have money that bore a date later than 1973. She rarely paid attention to the dates on bills, but from her vantage point, 1973 had been a long time ago. She only hoped that what had happened in a movie she'd once seen – in which the hero who had traveled back in time was violently thrust back into his own time just by the mere sight of modern money – wouldn't happen to her.
Somehow, she doubted it. From what she could assess, music had been her conduit. Time to test that theory. If she wound up in her own time sooner than she expected, well, that could be nothing but a good thing, really. Yes, she wanted to spend more time with this Maestro – how could she not? – but she would have to clear out soon, since he and Elena had to reconcile so that Matt could be born.
As much as she loved Matt as her friend, her stomach twisted at the thought of Maestro with the tall, cool Elena. Since Elena had said she would come to the hotel, something might happen between her and Maestro tonight. The heavy, lumpish feeling in her stomach intensified. She had fallen head-over-heels for him. But everything between Maestro and Elena had happened in her own timeline, before she had even been born, so it was ridiculous for her to become jealous of it now.
Sigh
. Oh, the confusion, the cognitive dissonance.
She dug in her jeans pocket and found her wallet. Plenty of proof here. She didn't use credit cards, but she had a debit card and, of course, her driver's license. And here were three twenty dollar bills. She examined them. Their dates were 2006, 2009, and 2004. Her driver's license would expire in 2013. Too bad she hadn't tucked her cell phone in her pocket instead in of her purse; if she had the phone with her, it would really blow his mind. She handed the money and the driver's license to Maestro, who studied them skeptically.
“Those don't look authentic,” he said. “The money's not quite right. Different texture, different design. And that driver's license... well, that's all wrong. It doesn't look like any driver's license I've ever seen in any state. Made differently, too.” He glanced down at her. “But you honestly seem to believe you're telling me the truth.”
“Look at them more closely,” she urged. “Sure, everything is going to look different. We're talking thirty-seven years into the future, remember? Do you really think money and driver's licenses will stay exactly the same as it is now? And check this out.” She handed him her debit card. “In 2010, there are automatic tellers at banks, and we can use these cards to withdraw our money.”
He studied the card, shook his head, and looked at her again. “Are you some kind of science fiction writer? I bet you are. Perhaps you're trying to get into character for a novel.”
She shook her head and opened her mouth, but the words had dried up on their way out of her throat.
“It's not a big deal, Miss Anna. I'm a musician. I spend most of my time around creative people. Many of them think I'm kind of annoying because I like to keep my feet more firmly rooted on the ground, but it doesn't mean I can't enjoy other people's flights of fancy.”
“You don't believe me. You think I'm a liar. Or a flake.” Despite the warm way he was looking at her, she felt annoyance worming its way up through her own feelings of warmth.
He gave her back the money and the cards. “No,
Schätzchen.
But you have to understand. You're claiming that you time-traveled to be here. Nothing about it makes sense. To what end? Why did you do it? How did you do it? You're making a gigantic, fantastical claim, and to believe it, I'm going to need more substantial proof than a few strange-looking items.”
A skeptic to his core. Well, as adorable as Maestro might be in 1973, he was almost as pigheaded as he was adorable. And the more time she spent with him, the more flustered she became. If she didn't go and go soon, she would wind up breaking both his heart and hers when she had to leave for good, to make way for Elena – and Matt. Time to go back down to the lobby and play some Rachmaninoff. That way, Maestro would believe her, at least. And neither of their hearts would be broken.
Well, hers would be. But as little time as they had spent together, she seriously doubted his would be too badly damaged. He had a wife to reconcile with, and a son to raise. The music from Maestro's bedroom wended its way back into her mind. No more Pastoral Symphony. Instead, she heard the tumultuous strains of Mahler's Sixth Symphony, 4
th
Movement: “Tragic.”
Yeah. That was about the size of it.
“Come on.” She tugged at his hand. “Let's go down to the lobby, and I'll show you.”
He stood, but regarded her through narrowed eyes. “What?”
She took his other hand, and her annoyance quietened. Perhaps her annoyance had been something from her wiser, more sensible self, to propel her into doing what had to be done. “Maestro, you can't possibly know what this evening has meant to me. Spending time with you. Getting to know you–”
“But you said you knew me in your time–”
“Not like this,” she said, placing emphasis on every word. “By the time I'm born, you're a much older man. We started out as student and teacher. You became my mentor, inspiration, and friend. Here, we're...”
No. Don't say it.
“We're?” he asked playfully, pulling her to him.
“At least we could be–” She couldn't finish, because he was kissing her. Oh, so gently. His lips on hers evoked more delicious little tingles, coursing all throughout her body. What an incredible thing, that such a light touch should inspire such feeling. It was as if she were being lit up from inside. He increased pressure on her lips, oh-so-gradually, and her arms went around him to grip his shoulders from the back. Nothing on earth had ever made her feel like this. Nothing, not even in her silliest – she'd thought them silly, how could she have been so blind? – dreams of falling in love. He pulled her up closer against him, and their kiss deepened to the point where she honestly couldn't tell where she stopped and he started, where he began and she ended. Every nerve in her body screamed for him, his touch. Yet she wanted to take things nice and slow and savor each feeling in its infinitude...
No. We can't do this.
She turned her face away from his. Seemingly oblivious for a moment, he feathered kisses up and down her cheek, on her ear, her temple, and her jawline. “Anna...” he breathed. “Miss Anna. Let's stay here just a little longer.”
With everything in her, Annasophia wanted to stay. She couldn't, though. Things mustn't go any farther. She had been selfish to come here in the first place. Why, oh why, hadn't she thought of Matt? In her grief for Maestro – elder Maestro – her brain must have slipped a gear. Or several. “Maestro... I mean, Wilhelm... please trust me. It's very important that I go.”
He drew back, confusion and hurt standing out like exclamation points on his face. “Well then, why did you come in the first place?”
Oh, you don't want to know the answer to that
. “It was kind of a mistake.” When the hurt on his face darkened further, she quickly added, “I don't mean spending time with you was a mistake. It's been wonderful. One of the best times in my life. It was all I could ever have hoped for. But there's a hugely important reason I have to get back, as soon as possible. And I'm sorry, but I can't tell you what it is. I just can't.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “You aren't making any sense at all.”
“And that's probably a good thing.” She turned and headed for the door of his suite. Would he come with her? Part of her wanted to try to make him stay here. If the music – the conduit – worked how she thought it might work, then he would see her disappear into thin air. It would be a shock. If he saw for himself, though, that she'd been telling the truth, it might ultimately make her departure easier on him. He would see that no, she wasn't a flaky hippie chick running off somewhere. He'd at least understand that yes, she had traveled in time, and if he was falling for her the way she was falling for him, he would understand that yes, she had desperately wanted to see him and be with him, even if she couldn't stay, even if he couldn't understand. For now. Perhaps once he and Elena were together and they had Matt, he would understand.
The time they had spent together was better than nothing. They would cherish their memories of the love that had begun to blossom.
How might that love affect the present?
Annasophia brought herself up with a shock. It must already have done so. Why else would Maestro have decided to settle down in East Tennessee, many years from now, with a professorship at Southern Mountain State University, for Pete's sake? There was nothing wrong with East Tennessee or SMSU, but with his connections and credentials, Maestro could have taught anywhere. What's more, he could have kept his concert career alive for decades, like Vladamir Horowitz.
Maestro had given all that up and changed his career path to something he had just told her would be practically unthinkable? All for a girl who wouldn't even be born for eleven more years?
It boggled her mind.
He must have already fallen hard for her, perhaps as hard as she'd fallen for him. That made it all the more imperative to get back to her time as soon as possible so that he and Elena could rekindle their relationship and bring Matt into the world.
If she was lucky, she wouldn't have messed things up. She'd still have him, in her time, as her Maestro – teacher, mentor, and friend, even if she couldn't keep him as her lover.
* * * ~~~ * * *
Chapter Five
Annasophia and Maestro went to the lobby. Near the bar sat a black matte baby grand piano, angled just right so the bar patrons could watch performances as they drank and so people sitting in the lobby could see the pianist, too. There was no pianist at the bench now, though. Despite the late hour, several people sat at the bar, and a few were hanging out in the lobby. Elena wasn't here, and Annasophia had to wonder if she might not show up after all. At the thought of sitting at the piano, playing the concerto that would – she hoped – take her back to Maestro in the present, she couldn't suppress a pang of grief at leaving this Maestro behind.
They could have a life together here, in this timeline, and she wouldn't have to say goodbye to him for over forty years.
When she went back to 2010, goodbye would be imminent.
Matt
, she reminded herself.
Matt
. Elena would come. Even if she didn't show up tonight, it would be soon. Annasophia recalled the brightness in Elena's eyes as she had looked at Maestro. Matt – or what would become Matt – lived in that brightness.
She would love to ask Maestro to play some Jerry Lee Lewis before she left. Oh, how she'd love to see him grooving to “Great Balls of Fire!” It was an experience she'd carry with her even if she lived to be one hundred years old. She couldn't ask, though. Seeing that side of Maestro would only make her fall even more hopelessly in love with him.
She mustn't play her own music for him, either. That could have the same effect on him. The easier she could make this on both of them, the better – especially given that Maestro would have to fall in love with Elena again for Matt to exist. She had to give Matt – and thus, Elena – every chance.
Maestro came up to her and put his big hands on her shoulders. “What are you thinking about,
Schätzchen
?”
Your future child
, she wanted to say. “How much I'm going to miss you,” she said instead.
He frowned a little bit, but warmth flickered in his gaze. “If you're getting into a role for some kind of time travel book or film, you certainly are serious about it.”
“You could say that.” Obviously, Maestro still didn't believe that she'd be vanishing off the piano bench in a matter of minutes. He was about to get the surprise of his life. And if the bar patrons and the few people in the lobby were watching while she did it, then they'd get a shock, too. Annasophia could only hope they were either sleepy or inebriated enough to write off her disappearance as a figment of their imaginations or as dreams. She couldn't do anything about any of that. Plenty of people had strange experiences or thought they'd seen strange things.
Maestro wouldn't be able to write her off as a hallucination, though. They had already shared too much.
Better make this quick.
To kiss or not to kiss? They had already kissed in Maestro's suite. It would have to be enough. If she started kissing him now, she wouldn't want to stop, and they would wind up back in his room, with all possibilities of reconciliation with Elena – and Matt's subsequent birth – lost. It had taken all her will to pull away before. She didn't need to tempt herself again.
Or him.
She took a deep breath and sat down on the piano bench. Maestro stood behind her and slightly to the left. “So you're going to play for me.” His voice was deeper, somewhat husky. “I'm glad. For a little while, I thought you were serious about going away.”
Tears filled her eyes. Oh, how hurt he would be. Not to mention shocked, when he saw for himself that she'd been telling him the truth all along.
Get it over with
, she told herself. And clearly he would be okay. Matt was – and would be – proof of that. She cleared her throat, then said, “Meeting you and spending time with you like this has been the most wonderful experience of my life. Not to say that our future friendship isn't a joy. It certainly is. But this has been something beyond – well, beyond my wildest dreams. And I hope I'll see you...” Her voice cracked with a sob. “In the future.”