Time Enough for Love (3 page)

He looked embarrassed. “Not at this time, no. I used an early prototype to make the leap back. It was in my basement—the Wizard-9 agents didn’t know about it. It was less sophisticated than the final version of the Runabout, and because of that I could take nothing with me—not even my clothes.”

“Well,
there
’s a convenient explanation for why you were walking around naked.” Maggie opened her purse, took a twenty-dollar bill from her wallet, and set it down on the table. “Keep the change, Nostradamus, all right?”

“I’ll pay you back.”

“Don’t bother.”

“I will. I’ll bring it to you tomorrow.”

His quiet words stopped her, and she turned to look back at him. “I’d rather you just stayed away from my house. In fact, if I see you again, I’m going to have to call the police and—”

“Then maybe I better warn you. We’re going to
meet for the first time in just a few days,” he told her. “At Data Tech’s Thanksgiving party.”

Maggie took a step back toward him, startled. Data Tech. She’d recently signed a contract with Data Tech to write a prospectus for a public offering. And the ink on a second contract with the software giant—this one for editing an annual report—was barely dry. And she
had
received an invitation to the annual Thanksgiving party at Data Tech. She’d already decided to go to the Tuesday-night affair, to schmooze with her new clients and to sniff around and see if there were any other potential projects requiring her talents.

“You won’t meet me,” Chuck told her. “At least not exactly. You’ll meet my younger self—Charles. Dr. Charles Della Croce.”

“Your
younger
self …” Maggie had to laugh. “Of course. If you’re from the future, then it stands to reason that there’s another you—a younger you—running around somewhere.”

He didn’t crack a smile. “Look, I know this sounds crazy to you.”

“Well, there you go,” Maggie said. “We’ve finally agreed on something.”

“I really need your help.”

“Chuck, you need help—that’s for
sure
, but I’m not the one who can give it to you.” Silently she
cursed herself for not just turning and walking away. Instead she sat down across from him again, knowing she was going to kick herself over and over as she was forced to work late into the night to make up for this lost time. “Let me make some phone calls, call a few friends, find you a doctor who can—”

His fingers started drumming impatiently on the table again. “Nostradamus,” he said suddenly.

“Excuse me?”

Chuck realized he was doing it again. He was tapping his fingers, and he stilled them, consciously trying hard to rein in his impatience. “You called me Nostradamus,” he told Maggie, gripping the edge of the table instead. “And you’re right—I know your future. All I have to do is remember something … I don’t know, some newsworthy event that happened after November twentieth this year.”

Maggie closed her eyes as she pressed one hand against her forehead, as if she had a headache. She sighed and opened her eyes again. “I’m going to have to go,” she said again. “I can’t worry about where you’re going to spend the night or what you’re going to eat or—”

“There was a plane crash,” Chuck suddenly remembered. “I think it was November. Yes—it was about a week before Thanksgiving. It hasn’t happened yet, has it?”

Maggie threw her hands into the air. “Jeez, I don’t know. Maybe. Where was it? A private plane went down a few days ago in the Rockies.”

“No,” Chuck said. “This was major. This was a commercial flight out of New York, heading to London. A terrorist’s bomb went off when the plane came in for a landing. It was awful—hundreds of people died.”

Maggie pushed back her chair and stood up, opening her purse one more time. “God knows I can’t afford this, but …” She put another two twenties on the table. “Stay someplace warm tonight, Chuck. And think about getting some help.”

He picked up the money and held it out to her. “Maggie, I don’t need this. Honestly. I’ve got access to a bank account.”

But Maggie was backing away. “Good-bye, Chuck.”

“I’ll be here at Tia’s, every afternoon at this time.” He didn’t raise his voice to call after her, but it carried to her just the same. “If you change your mind, you can find me here in the bar.”

Maggie pushed open the door and stepped out into the late-afternoon heat, resisting the urge to turn one last time and look back.

I
T WAS AFTER
five o’clock on Friday when Maggie finished her meeting with the Data Tech vice-presidents. There were four of them, and each had had his own idea about how the company’s current prospectus should be written.

Working for more than one boss was a potential nightmare, but she’d learned a long time ago simply to smile, nod, take notes—and then write the darn thing the way
she
envisioned it. She’d give each of them an individual call to tell them how she’d incorporated their personal suggestions into her final draft. With any luck, everyone would be happy.

More than one of the VPs had hinted that if this
project went well, she’d be offered a salaried position with the company. After three years of self-employment, the thought of a steady paycheck, employer-paid benefits, and scheduled vacations was tempting.

The Data Tech headquarters was an easy commute from her house. The company was a fairly affluent one, and it showed in the design of the building. Tasteful Southwestern decor graced the spacious three-story lobby, allowing office workers, clients, and guests three different views of the magnificent metal sculpture of a flock of birds taking flight that seemed to lift off from the lobby floor.

As Maggie joined the small crowd of people waiting for the elevator going down, she turned to look back at the sculpture. The people she’d met here were friendly and happy. She’d been told about a workout room in the basement, and that the food in the cafeteria was near gourmet quality. And salary raises were regular and generous. No, she wouldn’t mind working here at all.

The elevator door slid open, and she turned to see that it was already crowded. Only a few people got on—there was no room for her.

The crowd shifted slightly, and then she saw him.

Chuck Della Croce. The gorgeous madman.

He was standing in the elevator, fully dressed in a
respectable-looking business suit. His hair was shorter, his mouth less tight and grim, but it was him, wasn’t it? He was facing her, and as she stared at him he briefly met her gaze.

There was nothing there. No flicker of awareness, no sign of recognition. Nothing.

Because it wasn’t Chuck Della Croce. It was his “younger self,” Charles. And this younger man hadn’t met her yet.

The door closed, and he disappeared from view.

Of all the ridiculous, silly thoughts! Of
course
it wasn’t Chuck Della Croce or even
Charles
Della Croce. It was simply someone who looked a lot like him.

She was losing it, big time. As if time travel really existed. As if she actually believed Chuck’s delusional ravings.

Still, Maggie moved quickly to the railing and looked down into the lobby. As she watched, the tall dark-haired man who may or may not have been Charles Della Croce came out of the elevator and walked across the tile floor, past the flying birds, talking to another man.

Both men were pulling off their ties, and Chuck … Charles—whoever he was—shrugged out of his jacket in preparation for heading out into the late-afternoon sunshine.

From this angle, this height, the top of his head sure looked familiar. Too bad he wasn’t naked—that would have clinched it. If he hadn’t been wearing his clothes, she would have known without a doubt whether or not this was the same man who’d pounded on her door the afternoon before.

And then he laughed at something the other man said. Maggie caught only the briefest profile of his face, but it was enough to make her heart nearly stop beating. Whoever he was, when he smiled like that, he was impossibly handsome.

As she watched, the man pushed open the heavy glass doors and headed toward the parking lot.

By the time Maggie reached the lobby herself, he was long gone, and she’d nearly succeeded in convincing herself that seeing this man was a mere coincidence. So this guy looked like her gorgeous madman. A lot of men did. The phrase
tall, dark, and handsome
hadn’t become a cliché without reason.

Still, she couldn’t keep herself from stopping at the main reception area. “Excuse me, is there a Charles Della Croce working here?”

The woman behind the reception desk keyed the name into her computer. “Yes,” she said. “Dr. Della Croce. He’s upstairs in research and development.
Oops, I’m sorry—I see he’s just left the building. Would you like to leave a message for him?”

But Maggie was already backing away. “No. No, thank you.”

Okay. There had to be a reasonable explanation for this. Such as, the madman knew he looked like this scientist and had borrowed his persona. She knew nearly all there was to know about Data Tech, after all. Most of the work done in their R&D labs dealt with computer software, not time travel. In fact, there was no mention of time travel in any of the information Maggie had been given about the corporation.

She headed quickly out to the parking lot and unlocked her little car.

It had been sitting in the sun for hours, and the temperature inside was ovenlike. Maggie pulled down all the windows and turned the AC on full power as she headed onto the main road.

What if he were telling the truth?

The thought was a tiny one, but it niggled at the back of her mind obstinately.

He wasn’t telling the truth, she told herself firmly. He was insane. And she would be, too, if she started believing him.

The air coming out of the vents was starting to feel cooler, so she closed the windows. She turned on
the radio, too, determined not to think about anything at all until she got home. Then she’d think only about dinner. And after dinner, she’d finish up the copy for that landscaping brochure and—

“… reports now say that the airliner carrying over three hundred passengers went down around two
A.M.
, London time, over the Atlantic.” The normally ebullient country-station DJ sounded sober and solemn. “I repeat, World Airlines flight 450 from New York to London exploded in midair over the Atlantic Ocean around two o’clock this morning. There are believed to be no survivors.”

She was only a block away from her house, but Maggie had to pull over to the side of the road. She could barely breathe despite the fact that the air conditioner had fully kicked in.

How could Chuck have known? Somehow he’d
known
.…

“The investigating agencies have issued a short statement saying that the explosion was the result of a terrorist act. Apparently attempts were made to negotiate with the terrorists onboard. A tape of those conversations will be released at a later date.”

Terrorists. A terrorist’s bomb brought the plane down. Chuck had told her about it. He’d warned her. But she’d done nothing. She’d called no one.

And over three hundred people had died.

Maggie did a U-turn, tires squealing, heading for Tia’s.

Chuck saw Maggie pull up outside of the restaurant. She was driving much too fast, and he knew she was here because she’d heard the news reports about Flight 450.

He went out on the sidewalk to meet her.

As he moved into the late-afternoon sunshine he was struck again, as he had been repeatedly since yesterday, by the sense of freedom he felt. For the first time in years he was able to go wherever he pleased without a pair of bodyguards watching his back.

“I tried to warn them,” he told Maggie before she could say even a word. “I remembered it was World Airlines, and I called them right after you left last night, but the jet had already departed from Kennedy Airport. I was too late.”

“How did you know?” she asked. There was suspicion in her eyes, and her face was almost ashen.

“I told you how I knew,” he said quietly, aware that the clerk from the nearby convenience store had come out onto the sidewalk to have a cigarette and was eyeing them curiously. “Why don’t you come
inside, and I’ll buy you a drink. You look as if you could use something.”

She backed away from him. “You knew because you’re one of them. You’re one of the terrorists who planted that bomb.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t believe that. That’s ridiculous.”

“And your claim that you’re a time traveler isn’t …?”

She did a double take then, as if really looking at him for the first time. The Santa Claus pants and makeshift sandals were gone. Her eyes were wide as she took in his jeans, his nearly brand-new polo shirt, and the expensive leather of the new cowboy boots he’d picked up just this morning. He knew he looked a lot different from the wild-eyed man who’d pounded on her door just over twenty-four hours ago.

“Where did you get those clothes?”

“I’m not a terrorist,” he told her. “In fact, my phone call to World Airlines saved lives. The way it really happened—the way I remember it happening the first time around—the bomb didn’t go off until the plane was coming in for a landing. It took out an entire terminal at Heathrow. Five hundred people on the ground died, as well as the three hundred and forty-two passengers on the plane.”

“Where did you get those clothes?”

He could tell from the look in her eyes that she wasn’t buying any of this. Okay. They’d start small. They’d start with his clothes.

“That was easy. I went home. To
Charles
’s home. I know where I used to hide the key, and his clothes are all my size—because I’m him. This shirt is a color I never liked—I won’t miss it. The jeans I’ve already missed. I remember that I wondered what happened to them. See, there’s this strange memory thing that happens when you change the past. You get something called residual memories and—”

“Just stop!” she said fiercely. “Stop with the time-travel crap. I want to know who you really are. I want to know the
truth
.”

“Maggie, I swear, I’ve told you nothing but the truth.”