Love Came Just in Time (8 page)

“The future will just have to go on without you,” he announced.

She blinked. “I beg your pardon.”

“Petered pain is something you'll not have to bear again.”

“Petered pain?”

“Aye,” he said, firmly.

“Oh,” she whispered. Then she smiled, a gentle smile. “You mean Peter Pan.”

“Whatever,” he said, with an imperious look. “And that so-shall sec . . . sec—”

“Social Security,” she supplied.

“Aye, that. You'll have no need of it. Whatever it is,” he added. “You will have me.”

“I will?”

“Whether you like it or no.”

“I see.”

He grunted. “So you do.”

He stalked back to the fire. Abigail's arms stole around his neck and it broke his heart. How could she think no one wanted her?

He set her down on her feet near the fire, put his hand under her chin, and lifted her face up.

“I assume this agrees with you,” he stated.

She looked up at him solemnly. “I didn't think you were giving me any choice in the matter.”

“I'm not. I intend to woo you fiercely. I am merely assuming the idea agrees with you.”

A small smile touched her mouth. “I suppose the future isn't all it's cracked up to be.”

“Especially when the glorious Year of Our Lord 1238 provides one with such exceeding luxuries,” he said, indicating his pitiful hall with a grand sweep of his arm.

“Well . . . now that you mention it—”

He didn't wish to hear what she intended to mention, so, like the good soldier he was, he marched straight into the fray without hesitation. He lowered his head and covered her mouth with his.

She shivered.

And then she kissed him back.

Miles's senses reeled. He gathered Abigail close and wrapped his arms around her. He smiled to himself as he remembered his first sight of her and how plump a harpy she had seemed. She was definitely not fluffy now. He could work on that later. Visions of half a dozen little Abigail-like creatures scampering about his hall calling “here, kitty, kitty,” sprang up in his mind. He lifted his head and blinked.

“Miles, I think—”

He captured her mouth again. Thinking was not something he wanted to do much more of for the moment. Later he would give thought into little dark-haired, gray-eyed waifs and their mother running roughshod over his hall and his heart. For now, he was far too lost in Abigail's arms.

Miles could hardly believe the events of the past several hours. He'd come to Speningethorpe a se'nnight before, determined to wither away to an intolerable, bitter old man. Without warning, Abigail had come splashing down into his moat and changed his life completely. Perhaps there was more to Sir Sweetums than met the eye.

Whatever the case, Miles knew he had made the right choice. Perhaps the sailing would be a bit rough at first, what with them both coming from different worlds. Already her cat had done damage to his nose. The saints only knew what wreckage Abigail would leave of his heart. But surely it would be worth the effort.

The smell of something burning finally caught his attention. And that warmth on his backside he had thought to be Abigail's hand had suddenly turned into something else entirely.

“Merde!”
he shouted.

“Drop and roll!” Abigail said, shoving him. “Drop and roll, you idiot!”

He dropped and she rolled him. He soon found himself face down on the floor. There was a fine draft blowing over his backside.

“The fire got your tights, too, I'm afraid,” Abigail said. “What a shame. Your bum is looking kind of red—”

Miles whipped over so he was sitting, bare-arsed, on the floor. He felt furious color suffuse his cheeks. Abigail laughed.

“Oh, Miles,” she said, shaking her head.

He grunted and scowled to save his pride. Abigail leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

“You're very cute.”

Well, he knew that was a compliment. A pity he'd had to scorch his arse to wring one from her! To soothe his burned backside and assuage his bruised ego, he hauled her into his lap and looked at her purposefully.

“I will need to be appeased,” he announced.

She put her arms around his neck. “And just how is that done in 1238?”

“I will show you.”

“I had the feeling you would.”

Miles kissed her. In time he forgot the pain of his toasted backside. He forgot that, by the saints, he was some seven hundred years older than the woman in his arms. He was almost distracted enough to bypass giving thought to what he would tell his father about her when he took her to Artane.

“Hey,” Abigail said, looking at him with a frown, “keep your mind on the task at hand. Really, Miles. It can't be that taxing.”

He threw back his head and laughed. Perhaps this was truly the gift he'd needed most for Christmas—a woman who had no reason to tread lightly near him. He looked at Abigail and smiled.

“My lady, you amaze me.”

“Of course I do. What other twentieth-century girls have you met lately?”

He smiled and kissed her again. She was certainly the only one, the saints be praised. He doubted he would survive the wooing of another.

His nose began to twitch, but he stuck his finger under it and kept his mouth pressed tightly against Abigail's. With any luck that blasted cat would keep his distance until Abigail was properly wooed.

And if Miles ever caught up with Sir Sweetums, he would offer him a cup of the finest meade in gratitude.

ABBY SAT CROSS-LEGGED on the table in the kitchen and watched Miles cut up vegetables for a stew.

“Do you know what you're doing?” she asked, doubtfully.

He looked up from under his eyebrows. “I cooked many a meal for myself in my travels. We will not starve.”

“But how well will we eat?”

Miles very carefully set the knife down, crossed the two steps that separated her resting place from his working area of the table, and stopped in front of her.

“Oh, no you don't—”

She wasn't fast enough. She didn't even get a chance to give him her kissing-won't-solve-all-our-problems speech before a very warm, very firm mouth came down on hers. She shivered. It was a mouth minus its previous surrounding accompaniment of whiskers. Miles had shaved once he'd learned modern guys did it every day. Abby had vowed solemnly to herself not to overuse that keep-up-with-the-twentieth-century-Joneses strategy too often. But it was worth it for this. Kissing a bewhiskered Miles was great, but this was earth-shattering.

And he'd dispensed early on with that closed-mouthed kissing business. He was going straight for the jugular and didn't seem to care which way he got there, inside her mouth or out. Abby thought he might be wishing he could just crawl inside her and this was the best he could get for the moment. She hadn't given him her Garretts-don't-do-it-before-marriage speech, but they hadn't gotten that far yet. She sincerely hoped they got that far eventually.

Abby blinked when Miles lifted his head.

“Finished?” she croaked.

“Do you doubt my skill in the kitchens?”

She shook her head, wide-eyed.

He smiled in the most self-satisfied of ways and returned to his chopping. Abby rubbed her finger thoughtfully over her bottom lip. Maybe kissing
would
solve quite a few things.

Abby looked at Miles chopping diligently. Just how had she gotten so lucky? She had been rescued by a fantastic-looking man who got so distracted by kissing her that he set his own clothes on fire. He was stacking up oh-so-nicely against her Ideal Man list. It was almost enough to make her forget about going home.

Home.
She turned the thought over in her mind. Modern conveniences waltzed before her mind's eye and she examined each in turn. Somehow they just didn't seem that appealing. Phones were noisy, fast food was unhealthy, and life in the corporate world spent basking under fluorescent lights gave her headaches. She'd always liked camping, which was a good thing, since Miles's castle was about on that same level of civilization.

And there probably wasn't any use in thinking about it. She had no guarantee that diving into Miles's moat would leave her resurfacing in Murphy's Pond.

On the other hand, what future did she have in the past? Miles certainly hadn't mentioned marriage. He was definitely shaping up to be someone she could share her life with, but was he free to choose his wife? Her knowledge of the marital practices of medieval nobility was scant, unfortunately. Even if could choose, who was to say he'd want her?

“Where go you?”

Abby hadn't realized she had gotten off the table until Miles spoke.

“Just out,” she said, moving toward the kitchen door. Maybe a little distance would soothe her smarting feelings. She was losing it. Why in the world did she think—

“You sound as if you need to be convinced to stay,” he stated, snagging her hand. “Come you back here, my lady, and let me see to it.”

Abby let him pull her back, turn her around, and gather her into his arms.

“Abigail,” he said softly, “what ails you?”

She put her arms around him and shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Do you miss your home?”

“No.”

He lifted her face up. Abby met his dark gray eyes and almost wanted to cry. Why be dumped here if she couldn't have him?

“Saints, but you Garretts are a stubborn lot,” he said, smiling down at her. “You are resisting my wooing. You leave me with no choice but to pour more energies into it. Perhaps without the distractions of supper to prepare.”

Well, wooing sounded good. Maybe it was best to just give things a few more days. After all, she might find out she really didn't like him very much.

He released her, dumped the rest of his vegetables into the pot, hung it over the fire, then turned back to her with a purposeful gleam in his eye.

“Is that all that needs to go in there?” she asked.

He shrugged and advanced.

“What if it tastes lousy?”

“You'll never notice.”

“Why not?”

“Because you'll be too distracted by my surliness if you do not give me your complete attention.”

“One of these days, Miles de Piaget, kissing me into submission isn't going to wor—”

But, oh, it was working at present. With her last coherent thought, Abby knew the day she decided she didn't like him would be the day they'd need snow tires in hell.

 

 

AN HOUR LATER, Abby held up a dollar bill to the firelight. “This is George Washington. He was the first president of the United States.”

“No king?”

“Nope. That's why we said ‘no thank you' to England in the 1700s. We're all for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without a monarchy to tell us how to go about it.”

Miles looked with interest at her wallet that sat between them on the blanket near the fire. Abby had appropriated his sleeping blanket as a carpet. The chair was too uncomfortable for sitting, and the floor too disgusting for intimate contact.

“What else have you in that small purse?” he asked.

“Not as many things as I would like,” Abby said with a sigh.

She had her little wallet on a string, her gloves, and her keys. Her sunglasses had been stuffed inside her coat. The only other things she'd had in her pocket were a plastic bag of gourmet jelly beans and some soggy lint. But he'd been fascinated by it all. She'd been fairly certain he'd believed her when he'd hit the floor in the kitchen, but there was nothing like a bit of substantial evidence to slam the door on doubt.

He'd examined her jeans closely, seemingly very impressed by the pockets and copper rivets. Her down coat was still dripping wet, but she had the feeling they'd be fighting over that once it was dry. Her underwear and bra she'd finally had to rip out of his hands. It was then she'd given him her Garretts-don't-do-it-before-marriage speech. She'd expected protests. Instead, she'd gotten a puzzled look.

“Of course you don't,” had been his only comment.

So, now they were sitting in front of his bonfire, examining the contents of her wallet and munching on Jelly Bellies.

“Aaack,” Miles said, chewing gingerly. “What sort is this one?”

She learned forward and smelled. “Buttered popcorn, I think.”

“Nasty.” He swallowed with a gulp. “Is there this chocolate you spoke of?” he asked, poking around in the bag hopefully.

“I wish,” she said with feeling. She'd had one lemon jelly bean and given the rest to Miles. Unless sugar found itself mixed in with a generous amount of cocoa, she wasn't all that interested. Now, if it had been a bag of M&M's she'd been packing, Miles would have been limited to a small taste and lots of sniffs. “Chocolate doesn't even get to England until the seventeenth century. Trust me.
This
is history I know about.”

“Where does it come from?”

“They grow it in Africa.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding almost as regretful as she felt. “A bit of a journey.”

“You didn't see any on your travels?”

He shook his head. “Not that I remember.”

Abby leaned back against the chair legs. “What made you decide to go to Jerusalem?”

“I wanted to see the places my father had been in his youth, I suppose. My father had gone on the Lionheart's crusade, first as page, then squire to a Norman lord. My brothers followed in his footsteps to the Holy Land, even though there was no glorious war for them to wage.” He smiled faintly. “I think I simply had a young man's desire to see the world and discover its mysteries. Instead, I saw cities ravaged by war, women without husbands, children without fathers.” He shrugged. “I don't think fighting over relics was the message the Christ left behind Him. Perhaps I found it even more ironic because I overlooked the city of Jerusalem on Christmas day.”