Twisted Tale of Stormy Gale (7 page)

“Give me the TTM.” I held my hand out to Bacon.

Accustomed to me bossing him around, he gave it to me without a word. I kept his hand in mine as Devlin began to walk toward us, closing the distance quickly.

Looking down at the TTM, I noted with relief that Bacon had already set the date and location. I planted one foot for leverage and pivoted toward the spot two few feet behind us where I thought I’d seen a ripple. Praying it was the real deal, I depressed the lever and yanked on Bacon’s arm with all my strength. A moment later, Devlin’s shell-shocked face flickered before my eyes, and we were gone.

Chapter Seven

West Grove, Pennsylvania, Christmas Eve, 2010

We ended up spending two weeks in 2004 fashioning a new temporal displacement module, but we finally made it back home. I think I’d been outside of the house maybe twice since then—once to buy twelve pints of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, and once to chase some pious-looking carolers off our front porch.

I just couldn’t get my shit together. Everything, from washing my hair to making tea, felt like a Herculean effort. Christmas was usually my favorite time of the year. Every year we would make a few special trips the month before and hoard tons of treasures, then sell it all on eBay. Flush with cash, we’d clean out all the toys stores in town and bring loads of gifts to all of the homeless shelters and Boys and Girls Clubs. We’d have bikes and books and video games, chocolate Santas and stockings stuffed with goodies. Then we’d hit the food banks and stock them up with turkeys, potatoes and pies.

This year, Bacon did all the work. I didn’t even have the heart to deliver the gifts with him. I was in glass-half-empty mode, and even though their faces would be alight with joy at their gifts, I knew half of the kids there didn’t have fathers, or had drug addict mothers, or no home to go to. Worse, they stood little chance of breaking that cycle. Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.

I couldn’t work but I couldn’t relax either, and the only time I felt even close to normal was when I was sleeping. I dreamed of Dev and of Gilly, and in that second before waking, that moment between dreams and reality, I felt right again.

But then I invariably woke up.

The ugliest, most selfish part of me wished that I could just travel back to the day the TTM was lost to Devlin and stop Bacon from leaving the room that night at all. Then I would never have heard of the Loony Duke and I could go back to my old life. But Devlin would never have known that we were all right, and after all he’d been through, I didn’t have the stomach for that. And even if I did, one of the many problems inherent in time travel is that if something happens as a result of time travel, it cannot be undone. Once the state of that time period has been altered, it cannot be altered again without serious consequences. And since we’d been in London on a time-travel mission when Bacon played cards with Devlin, we had already changed things once. We couldn’t go back and fix it, no matter how much I wanted to.

By the time we got back home, despite the lies and the fact that he did not agree with my choices or my methods, Bacon forgave me almost right away. Partly because he saw how devastated I was, and partly because we’re family, but mostly because he is a wonderful person and he doesn’t have it in him to hold a grudge. He did, however, try to convince me to go back and get Devlin.

“He is obviously your soul mate. Fate handed him to you when we were kids, now again as a grown up. And what if you only get one, then what?” he asked for the twentieth time.

“We promised Gilly we’d never tell,” I reminded him yet again.

Bacon stared at me, his soft eyes filled with pity, his thoughtful expression making him look much older than his nineteen years. “And if Gilly was alive he wouldn’t make you keep that promise. If he knew how sad you were right now, there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do to make you feel better. Don’t you know that?”

“I do,” I agreed. “Gilly had a weak spot for us, and he would have sacrificed anything for our happiness, even it meant revealing a secret as potentially dangerous to the world as time travel. And just because he might have been willing to risk that for my happiness, doesn’t mean I am.”

“The thing about being a martyr, Storm, is that you end up dying alone.” He gave me a sad little smile and walked out, leaving me alone once again with my Chunky Monkey, reruns of
I Love Lucy
blaring in the background.

I dreamed of Gilly again Christmas night. It seemed so real, like I could touch him. And whoever said you can’t dream in color is so dead wrong, because in my dream, Gilly’s lively blue eyes crackled with barely repressed glee, just as they had in life.

We sat together on a pair of swings not unlike the ones he had gotten for us when we were young. We swayed forward and back, just enjoying the sun on our faces and being together. He spoke first, and the sound of his voice and that gentle, lilting brogue he’d never quite shaken was a balm to my soul.

“What are you doing, lass?” he asked, the glee in his eyes dimming.

I almost played dumb and said swinging, but opted to just answer the question. “Wallowing, I guess.”

“Nah, wallowing means it’s overdone, undeserved. You have every right to be sad. You’re nursing a broken heart. The question is, why?”

“You know why. Because it can’t happen,” I responded sharply, instantly regretting my irritable tone. “Sorry, it’s just hard.”

“Do you love him, then?

“I do. I think I loved him from the day I saw him bumbling down the street on those skinny legs, so oblivious to everything around him, so filled with hope. He was like a bright light. I wanted a piece of that light so bad.”

“That’s what you and your brother are to me, lass. The two brightest spots of my life. More than my inventions or the adventures. I love you unconditionally. And if you love him, then I know he has to be a good man. You couldn’t love another kind. And I trust you to know what’s best, even if it means sharing our secret. See, if you truly love someone, you
have
to trust them, even if it terrifies you. Not everyone will let you down or hurt you. Haven’t I shown you that? Hasn’t your brother?”

I woke with a start, in that heart-pounding “I feel like I’m falling” way. My face was wet and I felt robbed that I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye.

Knowing that Gilly would visit my dreams again and feeling like I had to take immediate action, I tamped down my disappointment and jumped out of bed, trying to stay calm, trying not to let the little ember of hope flickering within me run amok.

I went straight to my desk and unlocked a large drawer, pulling out the Risk Index Module. Breathless with fear and anticipation, I hooked it up to the computer and began frantically typing in the data.

Twenty endless minutes later I sat, my finger paused over the Enter key. Closing my eyes, I pressed it and waited as the RIM whirred and clicked.

When all was quiet, I opened my eyes, cracking them first like a child playing hide-and-seek and pretending not to peek, then opening them fully to take in the results flashing on the monitor in front of me.

Forty-nine percent.

My breath hitched as I allowed it to sink in. There was a forty-nine percent chance that Devlin’s absence from his world would cause such a major change in history, that life as we know it could be altered. We had never even attempted anything with a risk factor of higher than ten percent before. Forty-nine was…so far out of the question it wasn’t even worth contemplating.

And just like that, my little ember of hope fizzled and died. Even if I wanted to go back and get him, I couldn’t. Deep down I think some part of me had always known that.

I closed my eyes again and slumped forward, pressing my face to the cool walnut desk, finally, truly beaten, too sad to even weep.

Bacon found me in that same spot when he woke up a few hours later. He called to me softly, thinking I was asleep.

“I’m awake,” I said, not even attempting to inject any emotion into my voice. After sitting in that position for hours and thinking about Dev, I was numb. I couldn’t feel my face, and I didn’t care.

Bacon moved across the room until I could feel his hulking presence behind me.

He let out a soft whistle. “Forty-nine, huh? Well, that won’t do, will it?” He began tapping on the keyboard.

Knowing I had entered all the data correctly, I wasn’t even mildly interested in what he was doing, and didn’t even bother to pick my head up to see.

By the time he was done and the machine started whirring and flickering, I had almost fallen into a white-noise coma. I was so entranced by the sound of the clicking keys that, when all went quiet again, it was jarring. My eyes popped open and I saw two separate numbers flashing. The one on the left side of the screen read
6
and the one on the right read
10
.

I turned to look at Bacon questioningly, and he peered back at me, that wide, guileless smile wreathing his face.

With a shaking hand, I reached out and clutched the mouse, dragging it to scroll downward. As I read the data he’d entered, I flicked my eyes to Bacon again.

“You sure?” I asked, the weight of this decision heavy in those two words.

“Are you kidding? Of course I’m sure,” he replied without hesitation.

And if there was even the slightest doubt in my mind about my feelings for Dev and what I wanted, it fled as pure joy coursed through me. I leaped to my feet and grabbed Bacon’s hand in mine as we engaged in an impromptu and most excellent dance-off, falling into a gasping, laughing pile on the floor somewhere between the twist and the robot.

Chapter Eight

Lordship, Connecticut, October 31, 1836

The “Farewell to 2010” Buffalo chicken salad and diet cola, followed by a shared pint of Cherry Garcia, had seemed like a good idea at the time. But as I walked up to the front door of the estate, eh, not so much. I felt like I was going to blow chunks. Granted, even if I’d sipped weak tea and eaten toast, I probably would have felt that way. But if I did boot, the fallout of tea and toast would have been much less heinous than what was potentially coming up the pike after Bacon’s and my epic binge.

Bacon stayed back at the inn, waiting for the verdict. He was pretty optimistic, but since that’s his general state of being, it didn’t give me much comfort.

Despite my initial euphoria, during the week of planning that had followed Bacon’s offer, I had gotten progressively less confident about the outcome of this trip. I was still happy that I had a shot at least, but as the look on Dev’s face at the beach that day played like a loop in my mind, I had to wonder—how many times can you hurt somebody before they stop caring? And had I used up all my chances?

I took a deep breath, summoning every last bit of my steely time-pirate resolve, and knocked sharply on the door. A full two minutes passed, and I knocked again, harder this time. And still, another couple minutes later, nothing.

Having gone through the gamut of emotions and working myself up for this moment for two weeks, I was panicked at the thought of walking away. Even if it was just to come back later or the next day. On top of wanting,
needing
to see Devlin’s face, I also needed to know the ending to the story. If it was a yes, I needed to hear it. And if it was a no, well, I needed to hear that too. I was putting it all on the line. And until I had his answer, I was like an armadillo with its belly exposed—totally vulnerable.

I knocked harder.

Under my pounding fist, the door popped opened and swung wide. I leaned forward and peeked in but saw no one. Where were his servants? And where was Dev?

Almost in answer to my question, a loud banging sound echoed down the long hallway in front of me. It was coming from the workroom.

Trembling from head to toe, I stepped into the foyer and shut the door behind me. As I marched slowly down the hallway toward the bang-bang-banging of a hammer, my apprehension was so great that I felt dizzy. If someone took that opportunity to shout, “Dead man walkin’!” it would not have seemed out of place.

A moment later, I stood in front of the door of Devlin’s workroom. Either the banging had stopped or all the arteries in my brain had exploded from the pressure, and I could no longer hear. I cleared my throat to check which option was the most likely. A loud bang from the other side of the door let me know my brain was in one piece. “Mary?” shouted Devlin.

The panic I felt at the sound of his voice almost sent me tearing ass over teakettle down the hallway and out the door, but the feeling was quickly outweighed by a surge of jealousy. Who the hell was Mary?

“I told you, you didn’t have to come today, I am just going to have some of that cold pie and a—”

The door swung open, and there he was—Devlin of Leister, love of my life, staring down at me in shock. He was a mess. A gorgeous, sexy mess, but a mess nonetheless. His hair stood on end, dark circles ringed haunted eyes and his clothes hung off him as though he hadn’t eaten since I’d seen him last.

Bacon and I had tried to come back to the day after we had left, but the wormhole on the beach had closed, and the best we could do was two weeks later. By the looks of it, it had been a tough two weeks on Devlin. My heart broke just looking at him. I opened my mouth to speak, but he beat me to it.

“Come back for the rest, did you? Do you want me to pack it up for you?” he asked. He shocked me. His tone was so cold. It was if he was someone I had never known.

“No…I just wanted to—”

“What? What did you want to do, Stormy? Bugger up my life some more? Because I think you’ve already proven you’re a smashing success at that.”

At that, my eyes began fill. I turned to walk away, burning with shame and regret. He had every right to feel the way he did. I had screwed it up and now it was too late.

I was halfway to the door before his voice, the one I knew so well, stopped me.

“I won’t tell anyone,” he said softly. “If that’s why you came, I won’t tell anyone. As soon as you left, I burned it all. The blueprints, the notes, everything. Your secret is safe, so you can tell your…benefactor that you did your duty.”

I turned to face him, but he was already turning to head back into the workroom.

My heart thundered at the implications of his words. This wasn’t a definite rejection. He really didn’t know why I was there. So maybe I still had a chance? When I thought he had rejected me just a moment before, it had been so hideously painful that I hesitated for a second, wondering if I could risk putting myself through it again. And then I thought of what Devlin had gone through for me, and what my life would be like without him in it, and I ran toward the workroom door, catching it just before it closed.

“I…I love you,” I stammered at his retreating back, “and I want to stay here with you. Well, not necessarily here, but anywhere, with you. I’m sorry I hurt you. I tried to come back sooner, but the wormhole was closed and I couldn’t get back, and if you forgive me, I’ll, well, I’ll do anything, Dev. Anything. And even if you don’t, I want to tell you what happened that day, and about my life and about time travel,” I finished breathlessly, the words tumbling out of my mouth coming to a halt as he froze, then turned to face me.

I strained to hear him over the pounding of my heart, but he just stood there with his eyes closed, not saying a word. So I kept talking. For the better part of an hour I talked. I told him about Gilly and about his life and his death. I told him about time travel and how it worked and about places I’d been. I even told him about my mother and how she left me. I was terrified to stop, in case he stayed silent. That would be the death knell, the nail in the coffin,
Taps
bleating from the trumpet. But eventually, I ran out of both steam and saliva, and silence filled the great hallway, nearly suffocating me with its weight.

A long moment passed; then, to my great relief, he spoke.

“Do you want to play a game with me?”

“What kind of game?” I asked, trying to maintain my composure despite the sudden urge to faint.

“A game of guessing.”

“Yes, I do.” I said without hesitation.

“What do you have to wager, then?”

“Well,” I said thoughtfully, trying to sound nonchalant as my entire world clicked into place with an almost audible snap, “I have this emerald ring. It’s got a latch and a secret compartment, in the event that you need to poison someone.”

“Sounds intriguing. But I’d rather have the skirt.”

“The skirt I’m wearing?” I asked, feigning shock.

“That’s the one,” he said with a smile. But the smile faded, as he moved to stand in front of me. He reached out to cup my chin in his hand. “
Eu te iubeste pentru totdeauna.”

“What does it mean?”

“I will love you forever. And I will, Stormy.”

“I’m not wearing dresses and corsets everyday, I’ll tell you that right now,” I began to babble. “And you can forget all that ‘obey’ stuff too. That’s not how I roll. I can’t cook either. So don’t say I didn’t war—”

“Oh, for the love of God, would you shut up?” he asked. It was a rhetorical question. He pulled me tightly to his chest and planted a searing kiss on my lips.

A long while later, I pulled away. “I will love you forever too, Dev,” I said, my voice shaking. Sucking in a deep, shuddering breath, I allowed the last of the fear and panic that had been my constant companion for the past two weeks slip away. I worked up my best siren’s smile and asked him, “Now, how about that game?”