Time Thief: A Time Thief Novel, Page 2

  Dalton peered at me through the thick lenses of his glasses, his liquid brown eyes full of empathy. “I lost my parents at a young age, as well. You are lucky not only to have survived but to have found a good home after the tragedy.”

  I smiled and curled my toes around the toe-grip on my sandals. “I’ve always been lucky that way. Well, I used to be lucky. It seems to have run out of late.”

  “Oh? In what way?”

  “No job, no boyfriend, my apartment house is going to be torn down, and I’ve got too many fines at the library to do anything but sneak in and read books while hiding in one of the back study carrels.”

  “And then you were struck by lightning,” he said with a little smile.

  I answered the smile. “Yup. Kinda makes you glad that all you have are easily fixed hives, huh?”

  The nurse behind the frosted glass window slid open one section and said loudly, “Dalton McKay? You may go into room two. The doctor will be with you shortly.”

  “Ah. Excellent.” He stood up and started toward the door the nurse had gestured at, then turned around and offered me his hand. “Thank you for entertaining me, Kiya. I hope your luck changes soon.”

  “Thanks. Happy dehiving!”

  I didn’t see him again, since I was called into another room and had to repeat my story of the morning’s adventures, which necessitated a number of tests, but after a couple of hours of giving up what felt like way too much blood, having an EKG, and explaining just what a lightning flower—officially known as a Lichtenberg figure—was, it wasn’t until early afternoon that I was released from the clinic with a clean bill of health. I waved to the nurse as I headed out to where Eloise sat somewhat lopsidedly on the side of the street.

  “Right,” I told the car as I climbed in through the window, not an easy task on a 1969 VW Bug, crawling over the passenger seat to the driver’s side. I gave the dashboard a little pat. “I’ve given you gas and oil and water, Eloise. I cleaned your spark plugs. I washed your front window, and if you had a back one, I would have washed it, too. I even vacuumed, and found a piece of fresh rope to hold the driver’s-side door tight. There is no earthly reason why you shouldn’t start, so let’s not go the prima donna route this afternoon, OK? We have a good two-hour drive to get home, and since there’s no one here in town I can stay with, I really, really, really need you to be reliable today.”

  I took a deep breath and, bending down, fished out the ignition wires that I had to use to start the car because the ignition was shot. Literally. Stupid hunters thinking Eloise was a derelict when she clearly was in fine working order, if admittedly suffering from a few cosmetic insults.

  “You’re not the only one who’s had a few years on her,” I told the car while I touched the wires together.

  A few sparks, a puff of acrid electrical smoke, and Eloise’s engine coughed and sputtered to life.

  I sang while I drove out of the southern Oregon town that nestled up against the Cascade mountains, interrupting myself periodically to swear at the logging trucks that barreled out of the wilderness, their swaying loads of freshly cut trees annoying me on many levels. Not only were the truckers arrogant with their “we’re bigger than you and thus you have to give way to us” attitude, but I hated the clear-cutting that went on in the interior of the state, even if the lumber companies had a stringent replanting policy.

  “The forest belongs to everyone, you road hog!” I bellowed at one truck when it came whipping around a curve, straddling the center line of the road, and causing me to jerk the wheel to the right, sending poor Eloise onto the shoulder, where the passenger side was forced to endure the savagery of a long stretch of wild blackberry bushes before the car came to a shuddering halt. “I’ve got your license plate number! I’m going to turn you…Well, drat, no, I didn’t get the number. Bastage.”

  It took me a few minutes to get a grip on my jangled nerves, but at last I stopped shaking and tried to start the car.

  Eloise gave a few oily coughs, backfired twice, and lapsed into an ominous silence. I swore to myself. “Great. Stupid logging trucks picking on innocent little Bugs. Well. Only thing for it is to get out and see if you’re truly stuck or just being cranky.”

  I crawled over to the passenger seat, intending on exiting the car the same way I entered it (which was pretty much my only option), when I realized that in my haste to avoid being squashed flat by the logging truck, I’d run the car right off the tiny dirt shoulder and into a dense wall of blackberries. There was no conceivable way I was going to climb out of the window into that, even assuming I could shove the blackberry vines back enough to escape the car.

  “Crap.” I sat back down in the driver’s seat and considered the door to my left. Due to the fact that the door itself didn’t work, it was tied on tightly from the outside. Likewise, the window had been cemented into place, since the mechanism that managed it had long since given up the ghost. “Well, I guess I’ll have to go out the back.”

  The little car shook as another logging truck whizzed past, the wind from its passage sending my shoulder-length hair whipping around my face when I peeled back the duct tape holding the thick, clear plastic that stood in place of my rear window.

  I was halfway out the window, swearing to myself as I tried to reach behind me and disentangle the bit of my shirt that had somehow been caught on the twisted window frame, when a car passed me, slowed, stopped, then, with blithe disregard to both laws of the road and common safety, backed up until it was stopped behind me.

  “Problem?” the man who got out of the car asked as I struggled with the tangled wad of shirt behind me. I was half in the car, half out of it, one hand braced on Eloise’s sloped rear while my legs kicked around inside.

  “Yeah, my shirt is caught on something and I can’t…ow! Son of a bitch, Eloise!”

  “My name is Gregory, not Eloise,” the man said with a voice filled with humor. “Perhaps I can help.”

  “Sorry, I was swearing at my car, not you,” I answered, releasing my hold on the twisted cloth, and leaning forward, sucking the blood off my punctured finger. “Be careful. The metal’s jagged just around the top, and it’s sharp.”

  The man reached in alongside my hip, sliding his hand up and onto my butt.

  “Whoa, now!” I jerked to the side, my legs kicking again as I tried to escape both the caught shirt and the butt groper. “That is totally uncalled-for! What sort of a man takes advantage of a snagged woman to cop a quick grope?”

  “Sorry,” he said, quickly moving his hand. “I didn’t mean to…er…grope. I’m just trying to locate…Ah, this must be it. Hold still, or I won’t be able to unhook the material.”

  I twisted around to glare suspiciously at the back of his head as he bent into the empty window, but he must have been telling the truth, because he didn’t attempt any more unsolicited touching. The shirt gave way as he released it.

  “Oh, thank you,” I said in relief, intent on sliding forward down Eloise’s rear. Two strong hands under my arms caught me instead, pulling me out until I was upright on the road. “Oh. Er. Thanks,” I repeated.

  “My pleasure. I don’t mean in reference to touching your ass, although that was very nice. In a wholly accidental way.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not the way to make friends or influence people,” I muttered, spinning around as I tried to see the damage to my favorite gauze blouse. I finally twisted it around, grimacing at the dirty hole now present in the back.

  “Would it be rude of me to inquire why you were climbing out the back of your nonexistent rear window?” the man asked.

  I sighed and released the shirt, then turned my attention to my butt-groping savior. One look at his curly blond hair, Californian surfer-dude good looks, and mischievous blue eyes had my mind going blank for a few seconds.

  Gently, he reached out and pushed my chin upward until my mouth closed. I blushed, ashamed that I’d been gawking so brazenly.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, wondering how th
e hell one man could be so handsome and not have a harem of women traveling around with him. Maybe he was gay? No, in that case, the harem would be male. I shook my head. No matter what his sexual preference, this man was so handsome, it just wasn’t possible that he was there at that moment, standing by the side of a little-used road in the backwoods of southern Oregon.

  “Why are you shaking your head at me?”

  “You’re not real,” I said. “You can’t be real. Unless America’s Sexiest Male Models is filming at Crater Lake, or something like that. Because otherwise? No. It’s just not possible.”

  He laughed. He had a nice laugh, baritone with just a hint of huskiness. “I assure you that I am very real. Although I do thank you for the compliment. At least, I think it was a compliment.”

  “Oh, it was.”

  He laughed again, which relieved the awkwardness of the moment, then suddenly jerked me to the side as a large Land Rover with a boat in tow hurtled past us, far too close to the shoulder for safety. “Idiot American drivers.”

  “You’re not American?” I asked in surprise. He certainly sounded West Coast to me.

  “I was born in a very small town in what is now Romania, actually,” he said with a little bow. “My name is Gregory Faa. And will you give me the pleasure of knowing your name?”

  He had absolutely no accent, but the way he put words together did sound a bit foreign. Or at least, very upper-class. “Kiya Mortenson. Sorry I gawked just then. I wasn’t expecting to be rescued from the depths of Eloise by a Romanian supermodel.”

  “I’m not a model,” he said with another smile. “I take it that your car has broken down?”

  “Well,” I said slowly, following him when he went around to the front of the car. “With Eloise, it’s not so much a case of breaking down as it is running on a hope and a prayer, but yes, we got run off the road, and she stopped and won’t start again. Oh, the engine is in the back on a VW Bug. Are you good with cars?”

  “Not particularly.” We moved to the rear of the car. In silence, we both contemplated the workings of Eloise’s motor. “I can give you a lift into town, though. I’m sure you can get someone to tow the car there.”

  “Ew. Tow truck.” I bit my lip and tried to calculate how much money, if any, was left on my credit card. My bank account was sorely depleted due to Lily having to return to work, and thus not paying me for my covert fill-in job. “Um…yeah. Maybe I’ll just let her rest for a bit. Sometimes she will start up if she’s had some time to recuperate from trauma.”

  A large RV lumbered past us, narrowly missing hitting Gregory’s shiny red car. He cocked a light brown eyebrow at me. “I wouldn’t risk leaving my car on this road, even if it was”—he glanced over my shoulder to where Eloise sat—“temperamental. It’s not safe.”

  I eyed his sports car. “I don’t suppose if we had a rope, you could tow me into the nearest town? Or maybe just to a pullout spot, if there is one on this road?”

  “No,” he said gently, taking me by the shoulders and pushing me toward his car. “Jaguars do not tow other cars. Get in, and I will take you down the road to the next town. It’s not far, three or four miles at best.”

  “But, Eloise—”

  “It will take us ten minutes at the most to get to town. We must hope that your car will be safe for the time it takes for the tow truck to fetch it.”

  Limply, I allowed him to seat me in his car, all the while mentally chastising myself for not standing up to this handsome Good Samaritan. It wasn’t like me to be a doormat for any man, but here I was sitting silently, guiltily enjoying the mingled (and heady) aroma of leather seats, expensive car, and sexy man as he whisked me away.

  “Were you on your way to your workplace when you had car trouble?” Gregory asked politely a few minutes later. Fir trees that lined the narrow road whipped past us on the right side, leaving the impression of a green blur that was punctuated now and again by sharp, craggy rocks that jutted out of the earth and jabbed pointy fingers to the sky. To the left, off and on through the dense trees I caught a flash of silver light, indicating a stream or perhaps one of the lakes that dotted this area.

  “I wish. I’m unemployed at the moment. I was helping out a friend, but that ended kind of badly; hence I’m on my way home. I live near the coast, so it’s important that I be able to get Eloise started again.” I gnawed my lower lip for a few seconds, not wanting to ask the question uppermost in my mind, but not seeing much of a way out of it. “Do you think a tow for Eloise would be much above fifty bucks? If it’s only a couple of miles, that is?”

  He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “I shouldn’t think so. A bit on your uppers, are you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Sorry, that was a Briticism. I take it that you’re a bit short of ready cash?”

  “And unready cash, and cash that will never have a chance to be ready because frankly, it doesn’t exist, and probably never will.” I sighed. “My unemployment ran out a few months ago. The job market is crap for someone who has no marketable skills other than the ability to coax a forty-five-year-old car into running long past its normal life span. You don’t happen to know of anyone who’s looking for a secretary or receptionist or something like that? I can type and answer phones and file if needed.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t, no,” he said, shooting me a sympathetic look as we headed into a tiny little town named, according to the decorative sign by the side of the road, Rose Hill.

  “What do you do?” I asked, grimacing when the question came out somewhat accusatory. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that like I expect you to give me a job. Are you a model?”

  “Me?” He laughed again. “Hardly. I’m in acquisitions.”

  “What kind of acquisitions?”

  He shrugged. “Whatever I find profitable at the time. Lately I’ve been working out of Los Angeles exporting artwork to affluent Asian technology companies who wish to make an entrance into the global marketplace.”

  “Sounds cool. What are you doing out here in the boonies of Oregon, if you don’t mind me being nosy?”

  “I don’t mind at all. My family is here, and due to the work I just mentioned, I haven’t been around much. My grandmother has been demanding I visit for the last six months, and this was the first opportunity I’ve had to drive up here. Ah. There is the garage I remember seeing on a visit earlier. Would you be terribly offended if I offered you a small loan to cover the cost of a tow?”

  “Offended? Are you kidding? I’d be more likely to throw myself on you and kiss you in gratitude.”

  His eyes twinkled at me with a roguish glint that had me grinning. “I’m in a bit of a hurry right now; otherwise I would take you up on that offer.”

  “Hot art acquisition waiting for you?” I asked, climbing out of the car once he had stopped in front of a tiny gas station with an attached one-car service bay. On the far side of the building a shiny new tow truck sat in the shade of the ever-present pine trees.

  “As you said, I wish. Unfortunately what awaits me is a visit to my grandmother and her nightmarish herd of five pugs. Hello? Is someone here able to help me?”

  I followed him into the minuscule office, filled almost to capacity by a man in dirty blue overalls and, inexplicably, a knitted hat with antlers and deer ears.

  “Whatcha need?” the large man asked as he shifted off a hard metal stool and gave us both the once-over. “Gas is self-service. Pay in advance at the pump.”

  “My friend here is in need of a tow.”

  I listened silently as Gregory described the location of Eloise, and tossed a hundred-dollar bill across the cluttered counter just as casually as I might flick a piece of lint off my shoulder.

  The tow man grunted an acknowledgment, pocketed the money, and hoisted his bulk back onto the stool at the same time he bellowed out a name. “Norm!”

  Another rotund man emerged from the depths of the service stall, wiping his filthy hands on a crusty rag. “Yeah?”

&nbs
p; “Got a tow for you. ’Bout five miles out of town between here and Heron Creek Road. Old VW.”

  Norm hawked and spat, nodding as he trundled out to the tow truck.

  I watched him nervously, and wondered aloud if I should go with him to ensure Eloise’s safety.

  “Can’t. Against the law,” the station owner said before picking up a hunting and fishing magazine, and burying his nose in it.

  “Don’t be such an automotive mother hen,” Gregory said as he escorted me out of the confines of the small office, and steered me over to a bench that sat in the shade opposite the station. I eased myself down carefully, mindful of splinters, since the bench was made out of a roughly hewn split log. It marked the outer boundary of what was obviously a little picnic area, complete with two squirrels who were mating under a beat-up picnic table, and a trash can that—if odor was anything to go by—was housing the several-days-old corpse of a large mammal. Some of the mountain sagebrush that Dalton was so allergic to lay just beyond the area. “Your car will be fine. I hate to leave you by yourself, but if I don’t get to my grandmother, she’ll rip several strips off me.”

  “Sorry to delay you,” I said, and I was, although not so much that I didn’t add, “Enjoy the pugs.”

  He made a face. “I’m hardly likely to. They’re little monsters.”

  “Aww, they’re so cute and adorable, how can you say that? I love pugs. I’ve always wanted to have one, but just haven’t been able to get enough saved to afford it. Do you have far to go?”