Twice Upon a Time (2 page)

“So we throw a goat into a volcano. Problem solved.” Carl’s eyes lit up with wonder.

“How does it work?”

Reece pul ed the amulet from his pocket, holding the two halves together in his palm. Carl stared down at it, his tongue running over his upper lip repeatedly. It seemed a shame to toss this opportunity aside when they’d finally discovered something that might truly be remarkable. He and Carl had travelled the globe raiding tombs for almost a decade. They’d unearthed plenty of artifacts and treasures, but nothing like this.

Reece glanced up the stairwell towards Lara’s office. Even though he wanted to, he’d promised her that he wouldn’t use it, and he would keep that promise.

“It doesn’t work,” Reece lied in a last ditch effort to dissuade his partner. “We tried it and nothing happened.”

“You tried it without me?”

“Yeah. It’s junk. Like I said.”

“I don’t believe you, Reece. I can tell when you’re lying to me.” Carl wrapped both hands around Reece’s, trapping the amulet within their combined hands. “Say the incantation, Reece. I know you know it by heart already.” He did, but he wasn’t going to say it. “Let it go, Carl. It doesn’t work.”

“Prove it.”

Reece could just make something up. Carl would never know. Reece spoke the first three syllables of his fabricated incantation and the amulet in his palm began to hum.

Carl’s pale blue eyes widened and he gasped with excitement. “It does work. I knew it.”

Reece’s heart pounded. He spoke several additional syllables of the incantation as if someone else was controlling his mouth. He wasn’t sure if he were saying the real words that Lara had deciphered or making up his own, but they tumbled from his lips in rapid succession. A brilliant white light filled their hands, bursting from between their fingers. They released their grip and stared down at the disk. Yellow sparks crackled between the two broken edges of the amulet. The brilliant light faded along the stone’s surface except for a series of symbols along one edge which glowed white in rhythmic pulses. Reece’s heart sank when he realized the glowing symbols were the request for a worthy sacrifice. A thick black mist rose up from the disc and faded out of existence.

An instant later, the glowing symbols requesting a sacrifice flickered and changed into different symbols. Reece wasn’t an expert like Lara, but he knew enough hieroglyphics to understand their meaning.

“What does it say?” Carl asked.

“The world is yours.”

“So,” Carl said, the excitement in his expression matching that in Reece’s chest,

“when would you like to go first?”

Lara exited the elevator of the parking garage and hurried toward her car. Her thoughts were in chaos. Why had Reece taken the amulet with him? Did he mean to use it? Would he break his promise to her? Why else would he have put it in his pocket instead of leaving it at the museum?

She paused a few feet away from her car and listened. A presence lurked behind her. She reached into her purse for her can of pepper spray and turned slowly. Before she could even ask if someone was there, an inky shadow materialized in a swirl of thick fog. “Its power may only be released by someone who can offer a great sacrifice.” Lara didn’t actually hear the raspy words. They echoed in her mind in an obscure language that she somehow understood. Long arms extended from the shadow and col ided with her chest. Lara felt the warmth drain from her body instantly and watched a brilliant light burst from her chest before it was extinguished within the shadow. The cloaked apparition backed away and Lara crumpled, dead before she hit the ground.

In our last volume,
Loving on Borrowed Time
, Reece goes back in time to try
to save Lara from her untimely death. Using the amulet, he arrives one year
before Lara’s unintentional sacrifice and convinces her that she is in grave
danger. He tells her that in the future he found her dead in a parking garage and
he has the newspaper clipping to prove it. Though this past Lara has never met
Reece, something about the way he looks at her gains her trust. They use the half
of the amulet still in Reece’s possession to outrun Carl, who wants to make sure
Lara stays dead. Two random leaps through time later, they are still on the run
from Lara’s tragic future and find themselves in a new time and place...

Lara flopped down on the hot sand and put her head between her knees. She took several deep breaths, the desert heat searing her lungs and drawing moisture from her already dehydrated body. Maybe she was overreacting. It wasn’t Reece’s fault that the ancient Egyptian amulet had chosen a particular man as his host. Their leaps through time were random. Reece didn’t get to choose whose body he shared and neither did she. It wasn’t Reece’s fault that they’d left the cool, moist lands of medieval England to arrive in this brain-baking desert. It wasn’t Reece’s fault that someone had murdered her in the future, so they were forced to find refuge in the past. It wasn’t Reece’s fault that he was so sexy the thought of being unable to make love to him for three short (or more likely exceedingly long) days was unbearable. Actually, that was his fault. He should try to be less irresistible.

“Lara?” Reece’s shadow blocked the glaring sun from the back of her neck. “Are you okay?”

“Oh yeah,” Lara said. “Just fine. Give me a moment to adjust to this new body. I think this woman has the flu or something. I feel kind of queasy.” This was no flu. Lara felt queasy because her lover would be doing no loving no matter how much she wanted him. This blew.

Lara stared at their half of the broken amulet dangling from the worn leather cord around her neck. It swayed gently in hypnotic circles. She lifted a hand and fingered the hieroglyphics carved into the artifact’s stone surface. Maybe if she repeated the words represented by those strange little symbols, the freakin’ thing would take them out of this place. Not in three days, like it usual y did, but now. Right now, damn it! There was nothing but hot sand in every direction. She had no idea where they were or
when
they were. She wasn’t typically a complainer, especial y when it concerned things she couldn’t control, but she had just admitted to Reece that she loved him moments before they leapt here and
this
had to happen. The amulet had forced Reece’s consciousness to share the worst possible body. It simply wasn’t fair.

Reece squatted in front of her. He took her by both shoulders and held her at arm’s length until she looked up at him. Except she couldn’t see him. Not Reece. She saw the even features of the young man Reece had leapt into when they left medieval England behind and landed themselves in the middle of the desert with no previsions and in Reece’s case no, well...

Ugh! She shouldn’t get hung up on something so dangly, but she wanted to love a real man, not a... a…

Lara squeezed her eyes shut hoping to make reality—this very bizarre reality that existed sometime in the past—disappear.

“It’s just for three days, sweetheart,” Reece reminded her. “You look like your world is coming to an end.”

There would be no coming for her. Not when the man she loved shared a body with
this
guy.

“I’m sorry. I think it’s the heat.” She couldn’t tel him the real reason she was freaking out. Jeez, he had more reason to freak out about it than she did. He was the one missing certain parts of his anatomy, not her.

“So, what do I look like?” Reece asked.

She forced herself to open her eyes and look him over. Not Reece. Well the soul was Reece’s—the soul was always Reece’s—but the body he was currently sharing was definitely not his. She had to admit, this new body was much better looking than the Viking of a week ago, not as easy on the eyes as the knight he’d just left behind, but still, no comparison to the real Reece. Reece Jericho treasure hunter with his broad shoulders, muscular chest and narrow hips. Hazel-green eyes. Firm, kissable lips.

Gorgeous face with a strong jaw, straight nose, masculine brow. That’s who she wanted to see. The
real
Reece. The man she loved. Not this pretty, bronze-skinned guy who lacked certain important man-parts. Why couldn’t she see past the il usion this time?

Why couldn’t she see beyond the real-time physical body of the man Reece had leapt into and to the man she loved? She hadn’t had this problem in their previous two leaps.

She’d been able to see Reece almost immediately. She had no idea why she couldn’t see him this time.

“This guy you’re possessing is very young,” she said as she examined Reece’s temporary body. “Pretty even. Black hair, black eyes. Smooth, deeply tanned skin.” Her eyes raked down his lean body. “Lithe in an athletic way and practical y hairless. What are you, twelve?” She caught sight of the thing she’d been trying to forget she saw when they’d first arrived, and sure didn’t want to see a second time. “I guess that makes sense considering your, um, little problem.”

“
Little
problem? I don’t think any man would think this guy suffers from a
little
problem.”

Lara winced. “Okay, I don’t want to think about it. What does the woman I leapt into look like?”

He reached forward and tugged the veil covering the lower half of her face aside.

“You're sharing a body with a gorgeous, dark-haired woman in a flowing red sari.”

“I guess we aren’t put into the bodies of certain people for a reason. We really aren’t here to help troubled couples of the past find love, are we? Who we leap into is totally random and I was just wishful thinking that it might have a purpose.” Reece glanced down at himself, but just as she could only see her real self, he would only see his own body, not his host’s body. “It’s not that bad is it?” She winced. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad.”

He grabbed his crotch to assess the damage. “They’re completely gone?” She swallowed and nodded morosely.

He checked his nether region carefully and she averted her gaze so she didn’t have to watch him inspect things she couldn’t see.

“Everything feels normal,” Reece said.

“Well, this guy is missing two very important parts.”

“It’s just wrong.” He scowled, biting his lip. After a moment of staring at her, mortified, he said, “He’s a eunuch? Are you sure?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“This is a first,” he said, hand returning to check for missing parts. “Did they take everything or just the testicles?”

“Well,” she said, her face flaming. She coughed. “He still has his weeble, but the wobbles are gone.”

“Not the woobles,” he said, his voice cracking with distress. “I can’t live in a guy without the woobles. Not even for three days.”

She caught the smile he was trying to hide. Reece hadn’t lost his testicles, but his host’s body was seriously low on testosterone. Poor guy. “I think maybe you should take a closer look,” Reece said. “Maybe his woobles are just in hiding. Perhpas he’s severely dehydrated and they’ve shriveled to the size of raisins.” She rol ed her eyes, but bent for a closer inspection.

“Careful,” he said, “don't poke your eye out on the—what did you call it—the weeble.”

She looked up at him, trying not to laugh. If he had a sense of humor about the situation, it was hard for her to stay out of sorts about it. She still had al of her girl bits.

At least, she thought she did. “They're definitely gone, Reece. No danglies at all.”

“Lovely,” he murmured. “And just when were to the part of our relationship that I might actually need them on a regular basis.”

She nodded morosely. “I guess we’ll just have to cuddle.”

“Just to be clear, the rocket ship is intact, but the boosters are missing?” She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Right.”

“I’ve got a piston, but no sparkplugs. A frank, but no beans. A stick, but no berries.

A noodle, but no meatbal s. A bat, but no—,”

“Reece. I think we’ve established that. Why are you fixating on this?”

“Because you’re fixating on it, sweetheart, which means you can’t see the real me.

You’re hung up on pretty boy and his lack of what’s hangin’.”

“I’m not hung up on pretty boy or things that hang,” she assured him, but he was right. She couldn’t see Reece. She could only see pretty boy. This wasn’t the way this was supposed to work. She should be able to see through the illusion and see the real Reece. She could hear him. Why couldn’t she see him?

“Do you think I might borrow one of those layers of cloth you're sporting? I think this guy would prefer you weren’t staring at his lack of woobles. He totally has a crush on you. Wel , the sexy woman you’re occupying at the moment.”

“He likes her? Romantically?” She gaped at him. Was it possible?

“Oh yeah. She makes him feel al tingly inside.”

Maybe they
were
here to help this couple find love. There was more to love than the physical, though the physical was exceptional with Reece. Nervous jitters fluttered through Lara’s belly. She hoped they could help this unlikely match. She’d felt good about helping Eirick and Helga become lovers during their first leap. It had felt even better to help Reg and Eleanor become man and wife in their second. Certain people were fated to be together. She believed that more and more with each leap through time. The instant Lara stopped worrying so much about the eunuch's equipment—or lack thereof—Reece materialized before her eyes. She grinned appreciatively.
Much
better.
She'd have broken into a sweat at the sight of him, if she hadn't already been swimming in perspiration from the blazing heat.

She unwrapped her outer shawl and handed it to him reluctantly. It was easily over a hundred degrees on the baking sand, but it seemed a shame to cover up Reece’s body, which had all the appropriate parts. Being naked suited him. And it definitely suited her. Reece wrapped the cloth around his torso twice and then up between his legs before tucking the end into the waistband he'd fashioned.

She grinned. “Nice MC Hammer look you've got going on there.” He did an obscene gyrating dance, which drew a laugh from her. One of the things she loved most about the man was how quickly he could put her at ease and make her laugh. Even in bizarre circumstances such as these. She’d have suffered a mental breakdown by now if it weren’t for him. Of course, he had a lot more experience with leaps through time than she did.