Page 22 of After 5
“I think I’ll pass. The training Jake imposes on me is enough.” I did my time at the gym. Not every day, but I managed to turn my spaghetti arms into toned, tanned flesh.
Jake saw to it I had the proper skills to measure up to the WTF standards and reduced my body fat to twenty-four percent. At least the last time I checked. I might have indulged in a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, so I could have some extra.
“Let’s try and focus,” I said. “We don’t have much time. Something is going on, because Mortas is here and he wouldn’t risk his life getting stuck in the past for an entire travel cycle if it wasn’t important.”
“Where should we start, doll?” he asked, taking in the town. A Victorian style courthouse sat at the north end of the square. A hardware store, feed store, and the dime store we currently stood in front of ran the length of the buildings to the right of the courthouse. A second row of buildings stood perpendicular to us. A bar flanked by the library and a grocer, then ended with a barber. We stood on the northwest corner catty corner from the library. A Studebaker pickup and a Buick were parked at the dime store, but a handful filled the spaces in front of the bar.
“We should go across the street to the bar,” I said to Ace. I learned from past travels if you wanted information, the bartender and the barber knew everything. I had more bad haircuts than I could count trying to get the lay of the land from the barber.
The bartenders were inclined to be less chatty, equating their information to the confessions given to the local priest. I might have to throw back a few drinks to encourage the bartenders to loosen their lips about the secrets in this town, but I wanted to try them first and avoid a bad haircut.
Ace tweaked his mustache. “I like having the little ’stache—makes me feel mysterious.”
“I hardly recognize you,” I told him. “Is the mustache fake?”
“No, it’s the real deal.”
“I’m always amazed when you grow facial hair. The vessel did a great job making you fit in with the time.” I glanced down, admiring his alligator cowboy boots.
“You too, doll. That hat is to die for.”
My blond hair was done up in a bun at the nape of my neck and topped off with a straw hat adorned with plastic flowers. The blue floral cotton dress had cute capped sleeves and hit me mid-calf. I liked the dress; however, the padded shoulders made me feel like a linebacker. The ensemble was finished off with a pair of sturdy pumps. I couldn’t complain, because at least this outfit enabled me to move freely. Much better than the pencil skirts of the fifties or the eighteenth-century petticoats.
Ace and I stepped off the curb to walk the block to the bar. A man exited the bar and headed in our direction. His gray pinstriped suit and fedora felt out of place in the farming town. The Clark Gable mustache threw me off, but the casual lean to his stride sent off warning bells as he walked toward us.
“It’s Caiyan,” I said to Ace.
As he got closer, the frown that normally accompanied his discovery of me intruding on one of his missions didn’t appear. He tipped his hat in my direction, but we weren’t close enough to speak. I had a few things I’d like to tell him.
Ace stopped short, grabbed my arm, and steered me away from my approaching ex-boyfriend.
I glanced at Caiyan as he passed. He practically ignored me. My breath caught as I smelled the familiar scent of cinnamon and fresh earth.
Caiyan turned and walked toward the Buick parked in front of the dime store.
I stood dumbfounded and took a deep breath to shout out a few deserving words I had stored up for him.
Ace clapped a hand over my mouth. “It’s not him.”
“It is him,” I said prying the hand from my mouth.
“No, hon. It was him, but a younger Caiyan. He’s the traveler in Pickles’s vision from another time. If he remembers you when it’s time for your little meet cute in Scotland, it could screw up your past tryst.”
Ace was right. There wasn’t a glint of recognition from Caiyan when our eyes met. His face lacked the hard lines Ace believed were acquired by years of time traveling. Was he older than when I first met him in Scotland? The time he took me for a roll in the hay and left me stranded.
Watching him walk away, he was leaner, and his stride boasted the arrogance of a younger man. Younger, I guessed, but couldn’t tell which man strode away from me. His scent hung in the air and my boy howdy tingled.
“Don’t stand gawking doll, he doesn’t forget much.” Ace pulled me across the street and into an alcove next to the bar. “Let’s hope his mind is preoccupied with other things.”
Caiyan’s playboy attitude preceded meeting me. A random woman on a side street in a town where he was obviously on a mission wouldn’t be exceptionally memorable. Besides, the hat shadowed my face and I was dressed like a woman in the nineteen forties.
When Caiyan first met me, I had an ugly brown toboggan over my then dishwater blond hair, sans a few highlights, and the inhibitions of a young female. I barely recognized the woman I had become.
“I can’t tell how old he is, or if he’s already met me.”
“Bloody ’ell. Based on that tight butt, I’d say it’s definitely the time he wasn’t working for the WTF.”
“Good, that’s before he met me,” I said. Glad I didn’t mess up my “meet cute” with the man of my dreams.
