No Future Christmas (16 page)

How did he tell this woman his love for her consumed him?
How did he show her he was hers forever?
Mike felt a connection with Shauna
that overshadowed anything he’d ever felt before.
His heart pounded so hard he
thought it’d come out of his chest.
He kissed her ear, her neck and followed an
invisible line down to her perfect breasts.
He licked and laved, leaving a
shiny wetness as he moved lower along her body.
His fingers skimmed her flat
stomach and dipped between her legs.
Shauna reared up, her eyes dilated, her
mouth parted, gasping.

Mike loved her more at that moment than he thought possible.
Shauna’s short, golden hair was matted to her face, her stunning acorn-colored
eyes were unseeing, yet filled with heat.
He stroked the soft wetness between
her thighs and felt Shauna’s breathing ratchet up.
He inserted one finger
inside her and stroked, feeling a liquid warmth flow over him.

Stretched to the breaking point, Mike’s body hardened to a
painful arousal.
The glide into her was perfection.
Wet warmth surrounded him
and he knew he’d come home.

They were a perfect fit.

Mike started slowly, straining against the overwhelming
desire to race to the finish.
Sweat glistened on Shauna’s forehead as she met
him thrust for thrust.
Her eyes were heavy with desire.
Their breaths mingled
when Mike lowered his mouth to hers.
He tugged that lower lip into his mouth
sucking the sweetness from it.
Shauna’s guttural groan galvanized Mike.
He
pushed the pace faster, felt her body stiffen, heard her hoarse breaths and
knew she was on the brink of orgasm.

His body responded with blazing desire.
He’d never felt so
hard.
His muscles quivered, strained to the limit.
His mind went blank and all
he knew was Shauna’s scent, her warmth, her love.

They reached their peak at exactly the same moment.
Oceans
of warmth, rivers of ripples and thunders of heart beats crashed upon them.
Mike cried out and Shauna screamed.
They rode the thundering waves until they
subsided.
Weakness flowed through Mike.
He collapsed on top of Shauna,
breathing raggedly.
He tried to collect his thoughts but only one thing ran
though his mind.

He loved her.
He loved her.
He loved her.

Chapter Nine

“You are now officially members of our underground group,
The Subversives,” Louise said to Shauna and Mike the next morning.
“We’ve been
tunneling our way into the Fearsome Foursome’s secret files, locked warehouses
and old computer logs.
We’ve inserted spies into their organizations and some
have made it quite high into their ranks.” She spooned a mouthful of oatmeal
from a clear plastic bowl with purple and blue striations.
“This is delicious,
Shauna.”

“I didn’t make it, Mom, Mike did.” She beamed at her lover.
Last night’s confessions still rocked her.
He loved her.
This amazing,
handsome, loyal man loved her.
Shauna wanted to pinch herself to make sure it
was true but she knew it was.
She wouldn’t dwell on the complications.
Not now.
Not yet.

“Well, Mike, I haven’t had real, old-fashioned oatmeal in
twenty years.
It’s wonderful.” Louise scraped the bottom of the bowl making a
ringing sound.

“Thank you, Mrs.
Wentworth,” Mike said.
He finished his plate
of fresh fruit, already having finished the oatmeal.

“Oh, please…call me Louise.”

“Well, thank you, Louise.” Mike nodded his head.
“What’s
next on our agenda?
How do we find out what the CEOs are up to?
I’m sure you
have everything well organized but what can Shauna and I do?”

Douglas spoke up.
“Since you’re on the Global Guardian’s
most wanted list—number one for that matter,” Douglas had a look of pride on
his face at that fact, “you’ll have to stay undercover.
Both of you.” He gave
Shauna a stern look.
Her mouth opened to say something but Douglas cut her off
with a wave of her hand.
“I know.
I know.
You hate being stifled.
But you have
to remember that this is a long-term project.
We have been insidiously
inserting ourselves over a period of twenty years.
We are getting close and
can’t give ourselves away at this point.
It would all be fruitless.”

“But Dad,” Shauna protested, “what can I do in hiding?”

Louise scraped her chair away from the table.
She gathered
the dirty dishes and put them in the dishwasher.
“Dishwasher on.” The machine
clicked, then the faint sound of water splashing inside told them the dishes
were on their way to antibacterial cleanliness.
“You can dig through computer
files.
You’re a scientist.
You know your way around old and new computers and
we need someone who can work the old ones.” Louise’s face lit up, her eyes
widened.
“Mike, you really know the old computers since you came from the
twenty-first century.
You can help Shauna navigate the old programs.
We
salvaged a few that had been in a scrap yard.
We know they’re from Circle
Planet Com because they still have the name emblazoned on the outside of them.
They might think they erased the programs but you never know what we’ll find.”

“I’ll be happy to help, Louise,” Mike said.

“Honey,” Douglas said to his wife, “I have something I want
to work on with Mike first.
He can start the computer programs in a day or so.”
Douglas pushed back his chair and stood.
“Come with me, Mike.”

As the two men left the house Shauna said, “Well.
I wonder
what he’s up to.”

“If I know your father, he’s going to show Mike his ancient
weapons.
He’s gathered quite an arsenal over the years.”

“Really?
What for?”

Louise straightened the living room, fluffing pillows,
folding throw blankets.
“He says it’s a hobby but I think he has an ulterior
motive for those old weapons.
It’s funny how sometimes newer isn’t better.
Those old guns can stop an attacker like that!” Louise snapped her fingers.
“Plus, the noise alone will scare them away.”

Shauna laughed.
“Well, Mike’s a police officer from 2004.
He’ll have good knowledge about old weapons.
They’re new to him.”

Louise stopped her fussing for a moment.
She turned to
Shauna.
“What’s it like?
The twenty-first century.
I knew you were working on
time travel.
Even as a little girl you had a romance for the old days.
You
always found the oldest stories online, looked for the old hard covered books
and even loved that ancient wooden picture frame your father found for you that
held your picture of Rover.” She laughed, lost in thought.
“He paid so much
money for it at the time.
I wanted to kill him.
We didn’t have a lot then and
were just starting The Subversives.
I wanted all our money to go into the rebel
group, your father wanted to pamper you.” She turned, the fond memory lighting
up her face.

“Mom, it’s so amazing.
I traveled there at Christmas.
The
stores were lit up with multicolored lights.
Strings and strings of them.
Windows were painted with frosted scenes of old Christmases past.
Like the
1800s.” Shauna sighed.
“Christmas trees were decked out everywhere.
Outside
parks covered in snow had pine trees with lights and decorations on them.
People even put bows and wreaths on the front of their automobiles.
The smell
of wood smoke, exhaust from combustion engines, pine scent and baking cookies
was everywhere.
I loved it!”

Louise took Shauna’s hand and pulled her from her chair at
the kitchen table.
She led them to the sofa and sat down.
She turned and stared
at Shauna.
“Okay.
I’ve not said anything.
I’m sure your father knows too.
You
and Mike became lovers last night, didn’t you?”

“Mom!” Shauna jumped up her hands covering her flaming face.
“What kind of a thing is that to ask?”

“A motherly thing.” She stroked one of Shauna’s hands.
“Look, I know I’ve been out of your life for years but mothering is permanent.
And it comes back immediately.
I’m concerned for you.”

“You don’t like Mike?”

“I love Mike.
I don’t like the century he’s from.” Louise
sighed and hugged her daughter.
“What are you going to do about that?”

Shauna kissed her mother’s soft, lined cheek.
“Nothing.
There isn’t anything to do.
For now we fight the CEOs and let the rest take
care of itself.”

“Shauna, you have to think this through.
Your man lives over
a hundred years in the past.
He has family, friends, a job.
You can’t expect
him to leave all that for you.”

“I don’t.
I would never ask him to give up everything.
Just
as I wouldn’t expect him to ask me to give up my life.
Everything will work
out.”

“That’s my always optimistic daughter.” Louise shook her head.
“You found the positive in everything when you were younger.
Sometimes it drove
your father and me nuts.”

“I didn’t find anything optimistic when the Global Guardians
told me you were both dead.” The flatness of the statement hung in the air.
Shauna felt tears form and brushed them away.

“Oh, honey.
You have no idea how I’ve kicked myself for not
telling you from the beginning what we were up to.
Your father and I argued
about it and I won.
The day the Guardians took us away I knew I should have
told you.”

“You told George.
He was younger than I was.” Shauna didn’t
hide the hurt.
She’d always wondered if her parents hadn’t loved her enough to
tell her their secret.

“I was thinking like a silly female.
I’m sorry.” Louise
stroked a short lock of golden hair off of Shauna’s forehead.
“Can you forgive
me?”

“Will you answer one question?” Shauna knew she had to ask
this, wondered if she’d like the answer.
“Truthfully?”

“Of course, darling.” Louise sat back on the sofa.
“Here,
sit.” She patted the cushion beside her.

Shauna gathered her courage.
She felt all of eighteen again,
with the vulnerable core of a twelve-year-old.
“Did you love George more than
me?
Is that why you told him and not me?”

Tears fell from Louise’s eyes.
One hand flew to her mouth
while the other formed a fist at her stomach.
“Oh, honey.
No.
I loved you both
equally.
Well, maybe not.
I think I loved you more because you were my
daughter.
I felt I had to protect you.
I’m so sorry I caused you this pain,
this agony.” Louise pulled Shauna into an embrace.
She hugged her while they
both cried.

Relief poured through Shauna.
She’d never put into words her
fear that her mother hadn’t loved her enough to tell her about their mission.
Now she knew, deep in her heart, that her mother had really cared.
Only a deep,
abiding love would cause a mother to keep such a secret.
And considering the
way society was now, it might have been the right thing to do.

Shauna wiped the tears from her face and pulled back.
She
stroked her mother’s hair, feeling the coarse silver threads in it.
“Then thank
you.
Thank you for your love.”

The two women hugged and swayed together.
No more words were
necessary.

* * * * *

“Hey look at this!” Mike said.
Douglas had given him a laser
weapon.
He turned it over in his hand, studying the strange plastic-like
material.
The color was deep blue with white specks in it.
The weapon was very
lightweight, about four inches long by two inches deep by one-half inch thick.
It looked like the size of a slim cell phone from his day.
He didn’t know how
lasers worked but this gun had a button on the side that was white.

“Laser guns are deadly, Mike,” Douglas stated.
“They fit in
the palm of your hand and are easily hidden in clothes and luggage.
Actually,
they can be hidden anywhere.
They pass through every security device developed
because the material they’re made from is a secret.
No one has ever developed a
machine to detect it.
It’s the most advanced hand weapon ever made.”

“Does everyone have these?” Mike felt the lightness of it in
his hands.
He saw the pin hole on the top of the thin edge and knew the laser
beam radiated from there when the button was pushed.

“No.
They’re zealously guarded by the Global Guardians.
They
are the only ones who can carry these weapons.
Special training is required and
it takes a year to get a ‘laser qualification’.” Douglas took the weapon from
Mike’s hand.
“Let me show you how it works, then you will get started on
training with it.”

“How come you have one?”

“We have contacts, Mike.
Just know that we have Subversives
hidden everywhere.
You never know who is with us and who is against us.
You
can’t even be sure with the Global Guardians.
Some of them are on our side.”

“Great.
I don’t want to hurt the wrong guy.”

Douglas laughed a hollow sound.
“You won’t have to worry
about that.
There’s a secret code that each Subversive knows.
He or she will
say it when the time is right.”

“What’s the code word?” Mike asked.

“Not now.
Later.
When you’re proficient with this weapon,
then I’ll tell you.
First you have to pass the laser test.
That’ll take intense
training for some time.”

Curiosity wormed its way through Mike but he didn’t say
anything.
“Okay, let’s start the training.”

* * * * *

“Now…let’s see what we can dig up on this old computer,”
Shauna said.
She and her mother sat at a table in a building set away from the
house.
This was the headquarters of The Subversives.
The building was large
took up a block the size of an apartment building in New York.
One story,
nothing was higher in the hidden valley.
It reminded Shauna of the storage
areas found in the twenty-first century where people kept their belongings when
they didn’t have room for them at home.
Public storage, she thought it was
called.
This building was square with areas divided into four sections.
Each
quarter had rooms off a hallway shaped like a plus sign.