So Close to You (So Close to You - Trilogy) (14 page)

When most of the clothes are packed into boxes, ready to be picked up by the Red Cross, Mary comes back over to the table, pulling a short, dirty-blond-haired girl along with her.

“This is my best friend, Susie, but I call her Suze!”

I smile. “Hi, Susie.”

“Hi.” Her voice is soft and shy.

“My two best friends
finally
meeting!” Mary says, as if I’ve been here longer than two days. “Suze has been just dying to meet you. Haven’t you, Suze?”

Susie makes a sound of agreement but doesn’t say anything. Her hair is fine and lies in wisps around her face. Next to the vibrant Mary, she looks pale and thin.

“Let’s all get ready for the USO dance together!” Mary chatters. “There’s a picnic earlier in the day for the little kids and families, but we can go back to my house before the actual dance starts. What are you wearing, Suze? I’ve been mending that red dress I have. You should wear your black, with the tight bodice and the beads!”

“It’s the only dress I have, Mary.” Susie looks down at the table. I notice that her shirt has a small hole in the sleeve.

“Well, then, aren’t you lucky you look like such a bombshell in it?”

Susie gives Mary a look that is both amused and grateful.

“Is Mick coming to the dance?”

Susie’s face falls. “He might have to work the boats.”

“Suze is engaged to Mick Moriglioni,” Mary tells me. “We went to grade school with him, but he left in eighth grade to go work in the family fishing business. His daddy’s overseas now, and he has to run the business along with his younger brothers. He spends all his time down by the docks, and he
never
has time to see Susie.”

Susie stares down at the table. “He’s busy. I understand.”

“Oh, phooey. He works too much, when he should be going out with you!” Mary flips her hair over her shoulder and huffs. “He’s going off to war in just a few months. Suze is going to be all alone then. You’d think he’d want to spend time with her now!”

“Hello, girls,” Lucas says from behind us. We all turn at the sound of his voice. He steps forward and catches my eye, smiling broadly. I can’t help but smile back.

“Lucas!” Mary immediately starts to glow in his presence. “I was just telling Suze how Mick should take her to the USO dance this Saturday. You’ll be there, won’t you?”

He pretends to consider the question and Mary squeals, pushing at his shoulder. They both laugh.

“I’ll be there if I can get leave. It shouldn’t be a problem.” He looks at me. “Are you going, Lydia?”

“Do you think Mary would let me miss it?”

“Then I’ll try to be there.” He grins a little, his eyes bright. I blink at him, surprised by how flirtatious he sounds. I think of the way he laughs and jokes with Mary. He’s probably just teasing me, too. Like an older brother or something.

Mrs. Bentley approaches the table. “You girls have done a wonderful job!”

“Thanks, Ma! We worked really hard,” Mary says. I give her a look, but she just winks at me. “It was mostly all my work. Lydia barely helped at all.”

I start to laugh. “You are such a liar!”

“Lydia!” She looks mock offended. “We’re in a
church
.”

Everyone laughs, including Mrs. Bentley. “Mary, I need to make sure the boxes are organized before they’re sent out. Will you come help me?”

Mary sighs and glances at Lucas out of the corner of her eye. He’s looking down at the table, drawing circles on the wood with his finger. He has a tiny smile on his face and I wonder what he’s thinking about.

“Sure thing, Ma.” Mary and Mrs. Bentley walk back into the crowd.

Susie, Lucas, and I stand around the table. Nobody says anything, and the silence quickly becomes awkward.

“I should go too.” Susie glances between the two of us. She seems uncomfortable now that Mary is gone.

“It was nice to meet you,” I tell her.

“You, too.” She walks away.

“Bye, Susie.” Lucas looks up, and his eyes find me instantly. “Alone again.” He grins widely. There’s something endearing about his crooked bottom teeth; I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen teeth that aren’t perfect. “It’s nice of you to help out today.”

“Of course. The Bentleys have been so wonderful, especially Mary. She’s the best.”

“She’s a great girl.” He says the words without any inflection and I can’t read anything behind them. I want to ask him more about her, want to know if he feels the same way she does, but I don’t.

“It’s been like having a sister.”

“Good luck to you then. I have three of ’em. They drive me up a creek.”

“Three sisters?” I picture Lucas surrounded by a bunch of nagging, teasing little girls. “That’s a lot of women.”

“It’s what makes me such a big hit with the gals.” He laughs a little as he says it, but I don’t doubt the truth of his words. I see the way other women in the room are watching him, aware of his tall, broad frame, blond hair, and pretty face. His features are too soft to be considered handsome, but he has an easygoing, boyish quality about him that’s undeniably attractive.

I tilt my head as I study him. I only met Lucas two days ago, and I’ve been so distracted—by the Montauk Project, Dean, Wes—that I never considered him as anything other than a nice guy who helped me when I needed it. But for that brief moment when I thought he was flirting with me, I became aware of him in a new way. Now I’m starting to see what Mary meant about him being “drooly.”

My cheeks burn at the thought, and I glance down at the table. “You must miss them,” I say quickly.

“We write.” He shrugs, dismissing the topic. “So you’re settling in okay?”

I nod and bite my lip. He mimics the motion and I laugh. Our eyes meet.

In my peripheral vision I see a navy uniform. I quickly turn my head to see Wes standing near the side door. His gaze cuts to me for a second, a flicker of black, before he slips out of the room.

I automatically jerk forward. “Lucas, I’m sorry, but I have to …” I rush from the table.

“What—?” I hear Lucas ask behind me, but I’m already gone.

The late afternoon sunlight is bright, with clouds moving in thin streaks across the sky. I stop outside the door of the church, scanning the yard in front of me. It’s empty, with neatly cut grass stretching toward a few low, scrubby-looking trees. Beyond that the dunes rise up, covered in long, swaying grass. I can just glimpse the ocean through the gaps in the sand.

I walk across the yard, past the trees, until I reach a large dune. My shoes sink into the sand, some of it sliding into my short socks, rough against my ankle. I hop on each foot as I pull my shoes and socks off and hold them in one hand as I climb to the top of the bank.

Wes stands on the deserted beach. From a distance he looks like someone taking a casual moment to watch the waves break against the shore. But as I get closer, I see the contained way he carries himself: the subtle stiffness in his posture, the deliberate placement of his arms and legs.

As I walk up to him, he turns his head. The motion is so quick that I stop abruptly and drop my shoes onto the sand.

“The soldier you were talking to. Who is he?” Wes says it so quietly that I strain to hear him over the sound of the waves. His voice is different from how it was in the woods. It’s no longer soothing and easy but stiff and slightly robotic. There is something in the way his jaw clenches that makes me think my answer is important to him.

He stares at me as he speaks. He doesn’t fidget, he doesn’t look around. For some reason it annoys me, and I cross my arms over my chest as I answer him. “That’s none of your business.”

He turns to face me without breaking eye contact. “Lydia. You being here isn’t right. This isn’t your time.”

I step closer to him. I can smell the salt of the ocean, and something else—something spicy and clean, like pine needles and rain. “Why didn’t you tell me I traveled through time? And why did you help me get out of the labs?” As soon as I ask one question, I think of another, and another, and I can’t stop as they pour out of me. “Are you connected to the Montauk Project? Are you a guard there? Why didn’t you kill me for knowing too much?
Who are you?
”

The corners of his lips tighten slightly.

“This isn’t a joke,” I say coldly. “I refuse to be in the dark, stumbling around trying to figure out what’s happening.”

“I know it’s not a joke.” He’s serious again. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

I find myself growing defensive at his tone. “It’s not like I meant to go back in time. I didn’t know what would happen in that machine. Maybe I shouldn’t have pressed a button, but I was trying to get away from
you
!”

He shifts closer to me. The movement is so small it’s almost invisible but I notice it instinctively. “I wasn’t going to hurt you.”

“I didn’t know that. I still don’t know that.”

Wes takes a full step closer and we’re only a few feet apart. He’s tall, just a little shorter than Grant. I’m not that short, but I have to crane my neck to look up into his face. The sun is behind him and it reflects off the metal buttons of his uniform. I wonder briefly where he found it—then where he’s been sleeping and what he’s been doing for these past two days. I look at his clean-shaven face, at his newly cut military-short hair and decide he can probably take care of himself.

“I won’t
ever
hurt you, Lydia.” He sounds so sincere that I feel most of my anger and fear dissolve. I’m not even surprised that he knows my name.

I take a deep breath. I won’t let him distract me from the reason I’m here. I need answers. “Let’s start from the beginning. Why was the bunker open?”

For a moment I think he won’t answer. Then he says, “There was a security breach. That door opened automatically. It’s not a commonly used entrance—it’s usually sealed shut.”

“A security breach? Who was it?”

“I …” he hesitates. “I left the Facility before the suspect was apprehended.”

“Is that what you call the underground lab? The Facility?”

He nods.

The wind whips the curls around my face. I brush them away impatiently. Wes follows the movement with his eyes. We’re close enough to touch, though he keeps his hands tight against his sides.

“I have questions about the Montauk Project,” I say. “A lot of them.”

His face goes hard at my words, and his mouth presses into a thin line. “There’s not much I can tell you.”

“What
can
you tell me?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Do you work for them?”

No response. I lean forward, consciously invading his space. The wet pine smell is stronger, and I realize that it’s coming from him.

“Then tell me this. Why did you follow me?”

For the first time on the beach, Wes’s eyes leave my face, dropping down to the sand below our feet. He seems … uncertain about something.

“I need to make sure you make it back to two thousand twelve,” he says.

“Why is that important to you?”

He looks up at me again. “Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect?”

“You mean like when a butterfly flaps its wings in Texas and then there’s a tsunami in China?”

One corner of Wes’s mouth tilts up. “Sort of. It’s a scientific theory about chaotic systems. Any small change can lead to unpredictable, potentially massive variations within a system.”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

He smiles briefly, so quick I almost miss it. “It’s not that a butterfly flapping its wings
will
cause a problem somewhere else, but that it
could
. We can’t predict when or how those small changes happen, but they could cause untold amounts of damage to a system. Time is a system, Lydia.”

“You’re saying that my being here will change something.”

“It could. The more interaction you have with this time, the more you might be altering future events that have unknown consequences.” Any trace of humor leaves his face, and his voice is firm.

If I save Dean, I’ll be changing the past. I’ll be giving my grandfather the life with his father that he’s always wanted. But no one can predict how that will affect the future.