Night Games (7 page)

“It's floating. Why is it floating?” She didn't look at him.

Brian didn't answer. He punched in a set of numbers, pressed the activator, and the Mc-Donald's disappeared.

Ally turned and stared at the Constructor. “What is it? How does it work? Why do you have it? And why was the building floating?”

Brian wearily rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “It was floating because in 2502 all the buildings float. The greenhouse effect kicked in, all the polar ice caps melted, and there were an increasing number of violent hurricanes. Humans found it more efficient to live above the sogginess. Besides, you can move a floating building. If business is bad in one spot, just move it somewhere else. Floating buildings are cost effective.”

“What?”

Brian almost smiled. She looked sort of cute with her mouth open. “Oh, and this?” He held up the Constructor. “This builds things without human effort, and I don't have a clue how it works. Do you know how your cell phone works, or your computer?”

She shook her head as she raised a shaking
hand to push a blond tendril of hair from her face. “I . . . I don't believe you're from the future. I don't know where that ‘Constructor' came from, but it didn't come from the future.” She was shaking all over now.

He sighed. It was no use. He couldn't let her just stand there and shake. He understood fear. Fear that turned your insides liquid and your legs to boneless jelly. He felt it every time he stood somewhere high and looked down. He couldn't turn away from her fear.

Brian pulled Ally into his arms.

She stood, arms at her sides while he rubbed a circular pattern of comfort on her back. Slowly, her shaking stopped, but she didn't lean into him. She stepped away.

He let her go. “It won't do any good to go to the authorities. They won't believe your story. And I'd be gone before they came to investigate.” He grasped her hand and applied the healing cream before she had time to yank it away.

She stared blankly at her hand, then nodded. “I'll harness up the horse, and we'll leave you and your Constructor in peace.”

He studied her. “Don't you have the least bit of curiosity? What if my story is true? You're a writer. Are you going to walk away from something like this?”

She cast him an incredulous stare. “You bet. All this is too weird for me.”

Brian had no idea why he was goading her. Maybe it was her hardheaded refusal to believe
the truth. “And this is the woman who's wandering around at midnight looking for a vampire?”

She straightened her shoulders, and he could almost see the courage oozing back into her. “Katy's hunting for a vampire. I'm hunting for some peace so I can think about my book.”

He held up his hands as though it was all very simple. “I don't see a problem. You want peace, I'll give you peace. You won't even know I'm around.” What was this all about? He
wanted
her to leave, didn't he?

“I doubt that very much.” Her smile was barely there.

“And if you decide you want the story of the century, come to me.”
And if you want the sexual experience of five centuries
. . . No, couldn't do that. No sex. His contract was his promise, and he didn't break promises.

“There has to be a logical explanation for that building. There
has
to be.” She sounded as though she was trying to convince herself.

“Why? Why does everything have to be logical?” He laid his arm across her shoulders, and she flinched. “Go with what's new and amazing. In another five hundred years it'll be logical.”

Ally was confused because no matter what explanation she came up with, she'd seen what she'd seen. And there was no logical explanation for what she'd seen. “Okay, so are you a scientist working on a secret project?” That sounded hokey even to her.

He shook his head.

Since she had no explanation for the unexplainable, she reverted to the mundane. “Katy and I will be going into Liscannor for supplies.”
And we won't be back if I can help it.

“I'm going with you. I already talked to your great-aunt.” He cast her a half-lidded stare. “I don't know if you should tell her about what you saw.”

“Right. I mean, Katy wouldn't understand, and she's getting up there in years, and I wouldn't want her to be too scared and—”
Lord, stop my babbling.

“Your great-aunt would love it. She'd build herself a haunted castle.” He slanted her a hard grin. “After which she'd ask me to tell her every detail of my sexual technique during the games.”

“You're right, she would.” Ally felt herself wilting under the burden of what she'd seen. Who to tell? “Katy is a little too gullible.”

“Your great-aunt accepts things as the truth until they're proven false.” He followed her down the hill toward the wagon.

Ally felt his disapproval like a blow. What the heck did he expect? Nothing he said made sense.
You saw the Constructor at work.
He had to be crazy.
What about the Constructor?
And that was the one thing that kept her from screaming and running away from him. If she walked away now, she'd always wonder . . . because a crazy man wouldn't have the Constructor.

Katy met them at the wagon. “ 'Bout time you got back. We need to get started into Liscannor.
Think we should stay at a bed and breakfast for the night so Brian will have time to look for his cat. It'll be good to have my own room for a night.” She cast Ally a matter-of-fact glance. “You talk in your sleep. Wouldn't mind if you ever said something good.”

Ally chose not to argue with Katy about her talking in her sleep. Katy never lost an argument. She turned to Brian instead. “What makes you think your cat will head for town?” She watched Katy climb into the wagon.

“She's looking for someone.” Brian didn't elaborate.

Ally forced a smile. “Oh, come on, a cat wouldn't know where to look for someone.”

Brian focused his intense stare on her. He didn't smile back. “She's not a cat.”

 

 

 

 

Not a cat.
Did Ally believe that? Nope. And she didn't believe Brian Byrne was an MVP, future Hall-of-Famer for some solar system sex league. She glanced down at her hand. And she absolutely
did not
believe her scratches were almost gone. Nope. Didn't believe any of it.

She was still feeling shell-shocked as she climbed from the wagon in front of Fitzpatrick's Bed-and-Breakfast.

Brian drove the wagon away to find someone who would let him put the horse in their pasture, while Katy hurried off to do some shopping. Ally slowly walked into the small bed-and-breakfast to register.

She considered calling Dad and telling him they were flying home, but he'd want to know why. Ally could lie to Dad, and she could lie to
Katy, but she couldn't lie to herself. She was running from something she didn't understand, couldn't cope with. The same way she'd run from the truth when she first suspected her perfect marriage wasn't going to make it until “death do us part.”

The same way she'd run from the press and readers when they had realized her
Perfect Wife
series was a sham, that it couldn't pass the litmus test of time. She couldn't face all those women who'd believed her, modeled their marriages according to her advice, then watched her fail miserably.

To be honest, it was a relief to be in Ireland. She could concentrate on her coping-with-single-life book while remaining invisible to press and curious readers alike.

She registered, called Mavis her literary agent, and left a brief message telling where she could be reached tonight, then retreated to her room with a sense of letting-go. Flopping onto the bed, she closed her eyes. Just a little nap, then she could decide her course of action.

When she woke, she glanced at her watch. An hour. Katy hadn't knocked, so she was probably still pillaging the local stores. If Katy bought any more souvenirs, they'd have to heave things out of the wagon so the horse could make it up hills.

During her hour's rest, her problems hadn't disappeared. They hadn't even gone away while she dreamed. In her dreams, a packed stadium roared encouragement, waving condoms with
their team's colors. Vendors hawked sizzle dogs, and a futuristic version of Queen chanted, “We will, we will boink you.”

Horrible. Okay, so one part hadn't been too terrible. The part where a naked Brian Byrne, sleek with powerful muscles and gleaming green eyes, covered her and—She'd never know what happened because she woke up. Her mind probably recognized she wasn't emotionally ready for what came next. Rats.

She'd promised herself she'd never work to please a man again, but if the man was doing the pleasing, hey, that was fine by her.

A hot shower would feel good now, ready her for the face-off she knew was coming: with Brian, with Katy. She'd better do it now before everyone used up the hot water.

Grabbing her towel, washcloth, and soap, she headed for the communal bathroom. The newer places had private baths, but you met more interesting people in an older place like this.

As she walked down the carpeted hallway, she mulled over her options. Stay or run? Each had its drawbacks.

Deep in thought, her subconscious registered an intrusion. Not a sound, but a feeling, a sense that something was wrong. She turned her head to identify the source of her unease and froze.

The Old One padded along quietly behind her. Unhurried, but obviously a cat on a mission. She closed the distance between them.
Not a cat.
Ally didn't know at what point she'd decided to believe
Brian's words, but sometime between her nap and now, she believed.

She turned to face the Old One. No way was she turning her back on whatever the cat really was. Carefully, she backed down the hallway, fear catching at her throat. Even if the cat chose to perpetuate the myth that she was just a cat, Ally didn't want the joy of wearing an ankle bracelet with teeth.

“You know, this whole intimidation thing is a waste of your time.” She hoped no one opened a door and caught her talking to a cat. “I mean, I'm absolutely no threat to Brian. I don't want him to stay here. Definitely want him to go home. So you can go stalk someone else.”

The Old One ignored her babbled plea, lowering herself into a classic cat-stalking-frightened-prey position.

Great. Ally thought about throwing her bar of soap at the cat, but decided the Old One would view that as an aggressive move and pounce.

Ally let out a startled yelp as the bathroom doorknob prodded her sharply in the back. Without thought of consequences, she reached behind, turned the knob, and breathed a sigh of relief as the door swung open.

Never once removing her gaze from the advancing cat, she backed into the room, and a cloud of steam immediately enveloped her. Ohmigod, someone was using the shower. Why hadn't the bather locked the door?
Don't even think about what would've happened if the door
was locked.
But she wished whoever it was had taken a minute to turn on the electric heater so she wouldn't be dealing with zero visibility.

Ally could see nothing but the Old One approaching through the cloud, a grade-B horror flick in the making. The Old One was too close to slam the door in her face. A flattened kitty nose would
not
put her in the mood to spare Ally's life. Besides, she'd probably destroy the door as easily as Godzilla demolished Tokyo.

Ally dropped her things and retreated another step, another step that brought the backs of her legs into sharp contact with the edge of the tub and threw her off balance. With a squeak of terror, she teetered for a moment and then, with a thud, fell backward into the tub.

For several endless seconds she sat in bewildered disorientation while warm water cascaded over her and drenched her clothes.

“Coran's tail!”

The familiar husky voice cleared her thoughts, and with dawning horror she raised her head.

She had to look up a long way. Past firm calves with a light sprinkling of damp hair clinging to them. Past thighs roped with wet gleaming muscles. She paused to stare at his most riveting feature, because no matter how horrified she was, the corner of her mind in charge of recording historical life events insisted she take note. Like a five-hundred-year flood, or Haley's Comet, you only lived to see some things once.

Yes! She could die a fulfilled woman.

She moved on. If staring at the sun could blind you, Ally didn't even want to consider what staring at Brian's assets would do.

She skimmed over his flat, hard stomach and strongly muscled chest with its damp whorls of hair adhering darkly to his flesh.

Her inspection at last reached his eyes. No shame there. They were bright with amusement. But as she watched, the amusement changed to something else. Something hot, hungry.
Dangerous.

“You tempt me greatly, woman.”

Something about the intensity of his words, the way his hair fell forward as he gazed down at her, framing a face grown hard, predatory, stirred a growing fear in her.
The face of a hunter.
And his eyes. No longer a forest green that promised comfort from the summer's heat, but a night green, mysterious, perfectly capable of starting a forest fire with one bolt of white-hot lightning.

And Ally knew with every instinct passed down from the first woman, that this was his game face, the face women responded to in 2502, would respond to in any age.

It scared the heck out of her. The Old One was a zero on the scary index compared to the man looming over her. Fear of Brian Byrne drove everything from Ally's mind except the need to escape from the tub.

Scrabbling with all the dignity of a frightened chicken, she grabbed the edge of the tub, prepared
to fling herself out and into the waiting paws of Killer Kitty.