Time After Time (15 page)

“Before me?”

She nodded, gazing into the fire. “It never bothered me much. Pulling up stakes, I mean. I never regretted that.”

“But you would this time?”

“Of course I would.”

“Why?” he asked softly, his voice husky.

Alex felt a gathering tension, uneasily aware of a matching tension filling Noah’s lean body. It was suddenly difficult to breathe, and she had the strong impression that they were at a fork in the road. Something had to be resolved between them, and she was afraid, desperately afraid, that she would somehow lose him again.

She couldn’t lose him again.

“Why, Alex?”

“Because … I love you.”

He was silent and still for such a long time that Alex’s control broke. She jumped to her feet, pacing over to the open door and staring out into the night. In a voice that was strange to her ears, she said, “I used to believe that life was very simple. I got that from the animals, I suppose. They—animals—aren’t much concerned with tomorrow. They live day to day. I’ve always been that way. When I didn’t like my life anymore, I changed it in some way. I don’t think I ever learned to stand and fight.”

“Alex—”

She barely heard him. “There was never anything I wanted to fight for. To join the circus, I ran away. To protect Cal, I ran away. It’s very easy to get into the habit of running. And the worst thing about running isn’t just that it’s cowardly. The worst thing is that it doesn’t solve the problem. It’s like being on a merry-go-round; eventually you come back to where you started.”

“Alex—”

His voice was nearer, just behind her, but Alex kept talking in that strange voice. “I’ve reached that point now. I want to change my life again. I could change it by running. Again. I could change it by staying. If I run, I know what I’ll lose. If I stay, I don’t know if I can
win
.”

“You want to win safety for Cal?” he asked quietly.

“That’s part of it. A large part.” She stared out into the darkness. “Part of it is something I—I need to win for myself.”

“What do you need for yourself?”

Alex gestured almost helplessly, trying to find words. “Maybe a place. Or a kind of certainty. No more running, I guess.” She turned suddenly, leaning back against the doorjamb and staring up at him. “I used to watch old Western movies when I was a kid. D’you know what I always looked for, waited for in those movies?”

“What?”

“The part where the good guys made a stand. It always happened. They’d build barricades around a town or a ranch, and they’d fight it out. They
were
protecting
something. Something worth standing and fighting for. And whenever the movie reached that point, I always knew the good guys were going to win.”

“Because they had a place to fight?”

“I suppose.”

“And that’s what you want now?” Noah asked. “A place to fight?”

Alex gazed up at him. “A place to fight. A reason to stand and fight. It’d be easier to run, Noah.”

His hands rose to rest on her shoulders. “Honey, I can’t promise that by staying you’ll keep Cal safe forever. I can’t even promise he’ll be safe for a week or a month. I
can
promise that I’ll do everything in my power to help you keep him safe. And I can promise you a place to fight. As for a reason to stand …” He took a deep breath. “I love you. I hope that’s reason enough.”

A fork in the road. Alex had chosen, she knew, long before.

She smiled slowly. “I think it’s time I stopped fading into the misty night.”

Noah sighed an eternity’s pent-up breath. It was a commitment of sorts, and more than he’d dared hope for. Unwilling to touch what was fragile in its newness, he reached for lightness. “It’s about time!” he reproved her sternly. “I was beginning to think I’d perjured myself for nothing.”

“Perjured yourself?”

“The scarred trees at home. I invented kids with hatchets, remember?”

“So you did.” Alex let her arms circle his waist. “But you said Teddy didn’t believe you.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I lied.”

“My hero.”

Gravely Noah said, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

Alex giggled. “All you need are six-guns and a ten-gallon hat!”

“Would you please,” Noah requested politely, “allow me to enjoy my heroism for just a few moments?”

“All right, stranger. But tell me something, will you?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“When the bad guys bite the dust, are you going to kiss me or your horse?”

“In the great tradition of Western epics …” he began grandly.

“Yes?”

“I’ll kiss you, of course.”

“Gee, you mean I beat out Trigger?”

“By a nose.”

She choked. “That’s terrible!”

“But honest.”

Releasing him, Alex ducked under his arm and went back to sit on the couch. “If you’ll please stop playing with words,” she said briskly, “we can discuss strategy.”

Noah joined her, grinning. “If you insist. But I was having fun playing with words.”

Alex eyed him thoughtfully. “How did you ever manage to get so big without growing up?”

“Eating spinach,” Noah replied promptly.

She put her head in her hands briefly, then cleared her throat as she glared at him. “Strategy.”

“Yes, ma’am. Well, as I see it, we have two basic alternatives. One, we go on hiding a four-hundred-pound
lion to the best of our combined abilities. Two, we somehow manage to make an illegality legal and let Cal go public.”

Alex winced. “Lousy options,” she commented darkly.

“There are drawbacks to both,” he agreed. “You’ve been lucky for six years, but lady luck’s a fickle creature. I don’t think we’d better count on luck to keep him safe. That means we’ll have to be very, very careful. As for the second alternative, we’ll have to be very sure we
can
make Cal legal before we—so to speak—let the cat out of the bag.”

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist saying that.”

“No applause for my wit?”

“We’re going to bury your wit along with your masculine pride.”

“There’s no need for that,” he said on a sigh. “Both are already gone where you’re concerned. I have the wit of a ten-year-old—”

“He admits it.”

“—and my pride is in my shoes.”

“I thought we were talking about Cal.”

“No, we’re talking about the other lion in your life.”

“Let’s save one before we discuss the other, shall we?”

“If you insist.”

Alex stared at him. “Well, you’ve outlined our options rather neatly. Any ideas?”

“We could start a zoo,” he offered.

“A zoo.”

A bit hastily Noah said, “I was just kidding.”

“Noah?”

“Yes?”

After a long moment of staring at him with unblinking eyes, Alex smiled slowly and leaned over to slide her arms around his neck. “You know,” she said, “I never thought much of those ditsy ladies in the old movies who’d climb up in some man’s lap and start kissing and hugging to get what they wanted. It always struck me as being rather underhanded and devious, because those guys were, of course, just putty waiting for a molding hand.”

Noah cleared his throat strongly. “And so?”

“And so, I’d never try that on you. Never. It would be just terrible of me to take advantage of this violent passion you’re laboring under. Just terrible. I wouldn’t be able to hold my head up for the shame I’d feel. I mean, to resort to such underhanded feminine tricks would be to admit that I couldn’t win a debate with you. That I couldn’t converse like any sensible adult. I’d be resorting to some horrible sexist tradeoff, offering my willing body in return for what I really wanted from you.”

Noah cleared his throat again, his arms moving of their own volition to encircle Alex as her weight settled into his lap.

Solemnly she went on. “It’d be the most awful thing I could possibly do, cheating both of us of an opportunity to grow and learn as sensible adults. It would deprive us of the chance to realize our full potential.”

“Alex—”

“Worse, we’d be setting the bars of our cage in cement. We’d wake up one day and not know how to
talk
to each other anymore! We’d address each other by silly pet names, and embarrass everyone
who heard us. We’d be so ridiculous, we wouldn’t be able to
stand
each other!”

Noah had to clear his throat twice. “Alex?”

“I would never allow that to happen,” she insisted solemnly. “I would never demean the both of us by resorting to such tricks. It would be unfair and unladylike. Not to mention devious and underhanded. I would never consider using your violent passion for me as a weapon or a reward. I would never wait until you were weak with desire and then demand that you give in to me. I promise you, Noah! If I want something of you, I’ll ask in a rational, reasonable manner, and we’ll discuss it. And if I lose out to you logically, I promise not to cry, or cling to you, or hold passion over your head as a threat. Or a promise.”

“Alex?”

She was kissing his chin. “Hmmm?” “Um … what, uh, what were you going to ask me?” he managed.

“Oh, nothing important.” Her fingers threaded through his hair and her lips feathered along his jaw.

“You were going to ask me something.”

“Hmmm? Oh, that. It was just about the zoo.”

“Zoo? What zoo?” Not that he cared.

“Our zoo. All that land, fenced and everything. We can have a zoo, can’t we, Noah?” She kissed him, then kissed him again.

“Zoo?” He wondered dimly if he was repeating himself.

“Uh-huh. A children’s zoo. We’ll find other old and gentle animals, not the least bit dangerous.” She kissed him. “And children can come and pet them. Wouldn’t that be terrific?”

“Terrific,” he echoed hoarsely.

“You can photograph the kids hugging a lion or riding an elephant—”

“Elephant?”

“—and they’ll have a picture they’ll always treasure. We can charge just a small fee for admission and the pictures, and that’ll feed the animals. It’ll work out just wonderfully, won’t it?”

“Wonderfully.” Her lips were evading his, and Noah made a blind but determined attempt to capture them.

“Say yes, Noah,” she murmured.

“Yes,” he growled.

“You,” he told her some considerable time later, “are a witch. I knew it the first moment I looked into those green eyes. There are sirens in your eyes. It just isn’t fair.”

Alex, wearing only one of his shirts, was sitting cross-legged at the foot of their bed with a large pad of paper in her lap. “I know where we can get an elephant cheap,” she said, carefully sketching what was, at the moment, the empty lot behind Noah’s building.

He placed another pillow behind his back. “You have a one-track mind.”

Green eyes with a hint of Gypsy wildness in them gleamed at him. “You’re pretty unswerving yourself.”

“Don’t look at me like that, dammit!” he chided her. “Next time I’ll find myself agreeing to something even worse than a zoo!”

Alex pulled on an innocent expression that
would have shamed an angel. “Noah, you
can’t
say I forced you to agree to the zoo. I told you I’d never resort to silly, demeaning tricks, after all.”

“Yes, you did indeed say that. Promised, in fact. And I meant to tell you how truly enjoyable it was to have a rational, reasonable discussion with you.”

“Isn’t it nice to be adult about these things,” she agreed, deadpan.

“Certainly. I believe I was swayed to your way of thinking by the rational argument you used when you kissed me the first time. I was convinced of the validity of your arguments when you kissed me the second time. By the third kiss I was willing to believe the sun rose in the west. Then, by—”

“And I settled for a zoo?” she mourned, her eyes laughing.

“Would you please have a little respect for a man having a temper tantrum, and not interrupt?” he requested politely.

“Sorry. You were saying?”

He sighed again. “I’ve lost the thread, dammit.”

Alex tossed the pad and pencil aside and rejoined
him at the head of the bed. “Good,” she said cheerfully. “Tantrums are very immature.”

“This is the woman I saw throwing pillows one morning?”

“That was an entirely different kind of tantrum. Perfectly logical and reasonable.”

“The hell you say.”

She giggled. “Well, never mind. I’m sure you’ll find some way of getting even with me for using a silly, demeaning trick.”

Noah smiled slowly.

Suspicious, she eyed him. “I can see the wheels turning.”

Leaning on his elbow, Noah began very methodically to unbutton her shirt. “I was just thinking,” he said, placing a kiss beside each button as it was unfastened, “that sauce for the gander … is sauce for the goose as well.”

Alex knew—she
knew
—that he was using her own methods on her, but that knowledge did absolutely nothing to keep her heart from pounding or her breath from growing short. “I refuse,” she said, smothering a gasp as a kiss landed beside her
navel, “to let you resort to a cheap sexist trick to get your way!”

“I’d never do that,” he told her, hurt. He began pressing warm kisses in a widening path back up toward her throat.

Alex found her fingers tangled in his hair. “It would be unworthy of you. Demeaning. Unfair.”

“Of course it would.”

She helped him to discard the shirt. “I’d never forgive you,” she said weakly, her hands seeking his muscled back.

“Of course you would.”

“Brute!” she accused him breathlessly.

Between kisses he said, “There’s just … one … small thing … I want … of you, Alex.”

“What?” she managed.

“I agreed to your zoo,” he reminded her.

“Uh-huh.” She could feel her bones melting and dissolving.

“And now I want you to agree to something.” He kissed her urgently.

Alex made a sound in her throat that could have been taken for a question.

“I want you to promise to say I do,” he whispered, a breath away from her lips.

“I do,” she said obediently, lifting her head blindly to seek that tormenting mouth.

He evaded her. “Promise to say it when it counts,” he told her huskily. “Say you promise, Alex.”

“I promise!”