Time Frame Series Book Two: Sex. Coffee. Time Travel.

CHAPTER 1

IN THE PAST, TENSE

He hadn’t told her that she would dream. Darkness was seared with flashes of piercing light. She saw herself free falling into a vortex of color, light and sound. She slid between sheets of liquid color, swirling and heaving, thrumming against her body. There was a steady thumping rhythm that she was somehow dimly able to realize was her heartbeat. The drumming echoed louder and then diminished, to be replaced by a keening wail that seemed to come from within her. The sound grew steadily, if not in volume, then in pressure, as her heart beat faster. The tightness in the core of her built slowly and steadily, until she was certain that her heart would burst. She continued the fall from brilliance into darkness, a deep impenetrable darkness save for the glow that came from within her. A honeyed amber light shone the outline of her body against the deep velvet black around her. She was both inside and outside of herself at the same time. Just as she felt that her heart could swell no larger, she exploded, a shower of fire and diamonds, that propelled her up and out to fill the darkness with the stars of her soul.

She first became aware of the funk of damp, fetid earth. Her body lay heavy, face down, on a musty bed of sodden leaves. Lesley swallowed against the dryness of her throat. With great effort, she lifted her head slightly, but it was dark and she couldn’t see anything. She put down her aching head, turning it slightly so that it was her cheek that rested on the soggy leaves. She tried moving her arms, shifting her legs, but she had no energy. She found herself able to do little more than lie there.

While lying there with eyes closed, she realized that despite the darkness, the birds seemed to be quite busy in the trees above her. Slowly, she opened her eyes again, and discovered that she was able to make out dark looming shapes high above her. Her vision cleared as she stared above and focused on the shapes in the trees and bushes. Then slowly, she found herself able to move her arms and then her legs, and finally, the throbbing pain in her head lessened into a dull ache.

She still couldn’t see very clearly, and spent several long minutes blinking, trying to sharpen the focus of her eyes. It was very much like looking sideways through warped, bubbled glass. The variations of blues, greens and browns surrounding her shone with fierce intensity. With a soft moan, she managed to roll herself over onto her back. She lay there for some time, hands flexing experimentally, clutching at the soft, squishy layer of leaves. Gradually, she felt the cold damp of the ground come up through her dress, despite the woolen cloak. Blinking rapidly, she was able to finally clear her eyes, and her focus sharpened to the details of the landscape around her.

Then, slowly, very slowly, she managed to pull herself up into a half-reclining position. She was able to take one good look at her surroundings before her stomach heaved and she was violently ill. In the back of her mind she vaguely remembered Miles’ warnings about food.

It ended quickly, there being little to expel.

Surprisingly though, at the end of it, she felt better. Still weak, but better. She shivered at a chill gust of wind, pulling her damp woolen cloak closer around her. She wondered just how long she’d been there, and then how long it would be until Miles arrived. He shouldn’t be too far away, she thought. After all, she’d gone through just after him.

It was then that she remembered the locator.

Shifting, she pulled the reticule from under her cloak. She stuck her hand inside sorting blindly through the items. To get to what she was looking for she pulled out her little leather gris-gris bag. She felt oddly comforted and steadied by seeing it, glad she had slipped it into her bag and taken it with her. As always, it gave her strength and confidence. It had been at her side for as long as she could remember. The iron key around her neck was something new. But instinct told her that it was important.

Finally, she drew out the small instrument that looked to her more like a cigarette lighter than anything else. When she ran her finger over the plastic casing, her nail caught the switch and flicked the signal on. A tiny, red diode light flashed intermittently, silently indicating that the device was activated.

She was in a nondescript area that could have been anywhere within ten miles of the farm. This she knew; this was her reality, but beyond this, she wasn’t sure. Had this ‘time thing’ even actually worked? As she looked about the clearing, here was nothing she could see that gave her any indication of where she was, let alone when.

Lesley sighed and pulled herself up. Her knee knocked the side of the small leather grip. This small but crucial grip, steel reinforced, held the two spring-loaded hypodermic needles, containing the precisely measured drugs she and Miles would need for their return trip. Hidden under the ordinary catch was a lock that could be opened only with a digital four number combination. Miles had told her that short of an explosive charge, nothing would open this ‘ordinary’ looking grip.

Miles carried with him the other equipment that would be necessary for their return to the twenty-first century. Lesley put a hand to her left ear, confirming the ear bud was still in place. She tried to call to him on the sub-vocal link, but there was no reply. Miles told her that the range was nearly five miles. Could they be farther apart than that? She only hoped it wouldn’t take Miles long to find her.

She sighed, pulling herself up to her feet, and slowly walked the perimeter of the small clearing, testing her unsteady legs. She felt better, but still weak, and very, very hungry. Now to wait for Miles! She hoped he would have some food with him.

Mick Kenning stood atop the high rise of the hill and gazed out over the dales that rolled out to the edge of the horizon that defined what had been his world for the last twenty-three years. Shading his eyes from the momentarily bright sun, he surveyed his domain of hillocks, trees and fells whose geography he felt he knew as intimately as that of his own body. Every tree and shrub seem to know him as well, and called to him, eager to share their secrets and confide the treasures of their nature to him. He set down the brace of hares he’d slung over his shoulder, and burrowed on his stomach under a bush to check another of his snares. More than pleased, he pulled out a young hare, still alive and twitching with terror. With a twist of his wrist, he quickly ended its misery, and then carefully reset the snare. He stood up and absently dusted some of the dirt and leaves from his vest, before slinging his catch over his shoulder and continuing on his circuit.

His restlessness had been growing of late, the itch to discover what lay beyond these dales, and then the greater world that lay further beyond. His imagination had been charged by the stories of travelers who had made their way through the New Inn and continued either further North or to the South. He’d been feeling hungrier and hungrier of late for something more. He was well aware of the wistful regard with which he watched higglers and pedlars as they followed the narrow country road south to The Rest of the World.

He knew that he’d have been long gone if not for a promise he’d made to work at the Inn for five years, in payment for the support its proprietor, John Wingate, had kindheartedly given him. Being young and penniless, his only way to repay the debt had been with his back and his hands. He’d worked his way up from mucking out the barn and the paddocks to head stableman of the coaching inn.

Mick did not begrudge Wingate a moment of the time the arrangement required of him, but the time agreed upon was nearly at an end, and he was eager to move on.

And Kate. Oh Kate! He’d thought he’d found his woman, a wife in her. She was lovely, she’d been so soft and sweet. From the first time he’d seen her he’d been smitten. She’d been carrying a jug of water to her father, the local farrier. She’d turned as he led his bay horse, Nero, up to the forge and he’d found himself dazzled by the brilliance of her smile, her dark honey hair, and her deep sky blue eyes.

He’d willingly done everything he could for her; bought her anything he could afford with his meager resources. Anything to please her. For nearly two years he’d courted her, oftimes impatient with her unwillingness to part with more than a kiss or two. Although he left her with his body crying out for more, she held him in her power.

And then quite suddenly, she’d gone off with a man of less than savory reputation, with less than a month’s acquaintance. Even nearly five years later he had often wondered about her willingness to leave her father and her only home to be with this strange man. And when he ultimately discovered what had become of her, he had to wonder about her true nature.

Mick paused, knelt down and thoughtfully fingered the fragrant leaves of a small, nearly hidden, shrub of St Josephwort. Plucking off a sprig, he crushed it between calloused fingertips and brought it to his nose. He took a moment to appreciate the fragrance, clean with multiple notes. He bit a few green leaves into his mouth, savoring the taste. Among other things, it was useful for keeping an area free of flies. Several bunches hung from the rafters of the stable at the Inn.

He stood, suddenly realizing that someone else had been here, and quite recently, too. The bushes around him had been beaten down, sap still beading from broken stems. The toe of his boot poked through the remains of a small fire, embers still glowing faintly, and turned over an empty wine bottle. From the boot prints he surmised there were two of them. Good. Elias Quant, the gamekeeper in this particular area, moved on his patrols alone, with only his dog as company. With any luck, the owners of the boots would keep Quant occupied until he was able to finish checking his snares. From the clumsy way they moved about in the bush, Mick was certain they would call attention to themselves quickly. He stamped out the remaining embers of the fire. Tossing down the St. Josephwort stem, he shrugged, continuing on his way.

By the position of the sun, Lesley guessed she must have been waiting for about two hours. She yawned and craned her head over to the edge of the hill once again. She tried to spy a road from where she was, but saw only a narrow dirt pathway leading downward and out of sight to the dales below. Shaking her head, she bent and swatted leaves and twigs from the sodden hem of her dress.

Grimacing, she tugged at her bodice with both hands and then tried to push her breasts down just a little further so that they didn’t look as though they were going to pop out at any moment. She drew her cloak more closely around herself. Yes, about two hours and counting, and the clock, so to speak, was ticking. So supposedly, she was quite literally in the past tense – really, truly, in the past. Everything in her said that it couldn’t be possible, that she may just be out in the countryside. It didn’t mean anything more than that. So far she had seen nothing that indicated to her that it was other than a nice spring day in 1765 or 2000. It hardly seemed like an auspicious occasion so far – this time travel thing – it was all so mundane, and so ordinary.

No, she would never have written it this way. She would have had something happen that would have had her heroes launching themselves off The Precipice of Adventure. She sighed. She wasn’t the author of this, she reflected. Ever since arriving at the Farm and meeting Miles, if anything, she’d become one of the characters.

She heard a slight rustle in the bushes.

She spun around to where the sound came from.

Miles? she ventured, ready to forgive him at once if it was just him and he could put an end to this maddening waiting game.

She spoke into the Link.

Miles? Is that you?

She heard the rustling again. This time from behind her. She spun around again. Her eyes flickered over the bushes, alert for any movement. Her breath caught as her heart thudded.

Say something damn you! she hissed, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. She could sense someone there. It was almost one of her ‘superpowers’, sensing people she couldn’t see but were close to her. If it were Miles why wouldn’t he just come to her? Then it occurred to her that maybe it wasn’t Miles.

It wasn’t.

A short, stocky man strode through the bushes and confidently into her life, giving her a wary sidewise glance as he stepped past her, going directly to the blinking transmitter and picking it up. Shaking it and holding it up to inspect it carefully, he smiled a ragged, gap-tooth smile, and then stuffed the transmitter into the grimy folds of his shirt.

The man looked up and regarded her, leisurely taking her in. Then, with his eyes glancing carefully from side to side, he confirmed that she was alone. She trembled slightly, despite herself. This man was not even close to twenty-first century. Unless, of course, there was a Renaissance Faire over in the next field. But she doubted that.

Without comment, and watching her all the while, the man sidestepped over to where she’d left the grip and the small reticule. He picked up the bag and overturned it, scattering the contents. Her stomach did a turn as all the little bits and pieces scattered into the mud and sodden leaves.

Staring down, the man pushed out his lower lip as he poked at the bits with a mud encrusted boot.

Unable to control herself, she took a step toward him. His head jerked up sharply, and his small, hard, dark eyes took her in.

Keep yer head, lass, and stay still, y’hear? he mumbled, his voice a low dangerous growl, his eyes narrowed in warning. Kneeling down, he sifted through the leaves, selected a few small items and stuffed them into a leather pouch at his belt.

Miles! she whispered into the link. Silence.

He dragged his fingers through the damp leaves, but found nothing more to his interest. The grip caught his eye and he swept it up in a meaty paw, and shook it. He picked at the lock and plucked at the catches with thick fingers with no success. Frustration led easily to rage as he started kicking the case around the clearing.

Lesley winced at each thump as his boot made contact. She hoped that he would get bored and stop soon. When he didn’t, she prayed that the two hypodermics would still be intact.

When he did stop she realized that her concern was moot, for he grabbed up the case and made ready to go off with it. He ran a few steps, halted abruptly, and set the case down.

Her alarm clicked up a few notches as the man spun around to face her. He started walking back to her, with a dangerous gleam in his small dark eyes. She stared at him in horror, and pulled herself back a step. An arm in a filthy sleeve snaked around her from behind, catching her across the throat, pulling her head back. She was about to react, bringing her elbow in to where his ribs should have been when she felt something very sharp cut into her back.

She froze.

Ahh...Chalkie. Me true friend in times of need.

The man in front of her brought his face up close to hers. A podgy thing, festooned with sparse clumps of hair in the most unlikely places. If she hadn’t been supported by his unseen accomplice, she’d have been bowled over by his breath. He reeked of whiskey. Lesley gasped slightly and tried to turn her head. The knife pressed into her even further.

Miles! Miles where the hell are you? she whispered desperately into the sub-vocal link.

The man in front of her drew back slightly in reflection, which from the expression on his face was an infrequent occurrence. Then his expression became quizzical as he watched her desperate whispering to nobody at all.

Ah, the chit be mad, Charlie, growled the man behind her.

His mate chuckled dangerously. Then there’s no one to believe her. Or care. Oh, aye.

With a quick and practiced motion, he pulled off her small single-pearl-drop earbobs. Then, he drew his hand back and struck her across the side of the head, sending the sub-vocal link ear bud flying from her ear, to be lost in the thick, leaf-strewn, grassy undergrowth. She gasped and cried out in surprise, her head spinning. Her eyes watered against the pain.

When he drew his hand back to hit her again, she risked the knife at her back to move her head to the side evading him and countering with a weak uppercut. It was the surprise more than the strength of the blow that pushed him back. The knife bit harder into her back. The man shook himself and came back at her with his hand raised once again. But this time the target was lower.

When he was through, the fine, embroidered silk bodice cover fluttered in torn ribbons. With each labored breath, Lesley felt her breasts creeping up again behind the stiff stays of her corset.

This quickly brought him in closer, and she willed herself to move without fear. With a scream, she executed one of the nastier countermoves that Jax had taught her long ago. The man howled more in amazement than pain. Lesley didn’t have the strength to strike him very hard. He grabbed at his wounded parts between his legs and fell, unbalanced, to one knee.

Following through, Lesley brought her fist down on the back of his neck, forcing him down to both knees. She twisted out of her captor’s grip, willing to risk the knife, but if she did the move right she would avoid it entirely. Her gambit worked. The man was so taken by surprise that he did not move his dagger, and as a result, he grazed his partner who had dragged himself up and was in midstride to lunge at her again.

Gathering up thick handfuls of heavy, sodden, traveling cloak and soaked dress and petticoats, she tried to flee, screaming as she did, hoping to alert Miles or anybody else who might be close by. To anybody who hopefully might be passing by and just happened to be carrying a tranquilizer gun. The long cloak was her undoing, for her foot caught on the trailing hem, twisting her foot and she stumbled, falling forward on her stomach, knocking the breath out of her. She scrambled up, but not quickly enough the second man pulled her up roughly by her hair. This time, her screams were stilled with the blade at her throat.

The short man still cursed loudly and vehemently, blood flowing freely from a cut on his hand. He hopped up and down with pain and wrath. A hollow laugh sounded by her ear.

You’ve got him angry, chit, the voice behind commented flatly. That ain’t good practice. Ain’t good a’tall.

With one hand firmly grasping her hair, he pulled so hard that her eyes watered with pain. He moved the knife again into her back, pressing it in far enough to force her to arch her back, her barely concealed breasts thrusting forward.

Done with his cursing, the shorter fellow, Charlie, still wincing, paced deliberately from side to side as though considering what to do with her as he came up to her again. His eyes narrowed into slits, his hand grasping her chin with grubby thumb and forefinger. Lesley’s efforts to squirm out of Chalkie’s viselike grip only drove the blade deeper into her back.

She gasped at the sharp pain as the man’s face leered in, moving closer to hers. She held her breath against the renewed assault of the man’s fetid vapors. What could she do? Her mind raced for something – anything. She realized that she had written this scene any number of times, but how could she write herself out of this one?

She spat into his eye.

***

CHAPTER 2

IN THE PAST, EVEN MORE TENSE

Y’mad bitch!! Charlie snarled and dealt her another blow with his injured hand. She tasted blood, unsure whether it was hers or his.

Behind her, Chalkie laughed again, releasing his hold on her, and thrusting her forward. Free from the threat of the blade, she started screaming again. Catching hold of her torn bodice with his bloodied hand the short man shook her and threw her to the ground. He continued slapping her as she struggled against him, kicking and scratching. She did what she could, but the dress and cloak hampered her, twisting over her arms and legs, making her movements clumsy and nearly useless.

He dropped down onto her, hard, tearing the breath out of her, leaving her gasping. His head hovered above hers, his lips curled back. Beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks making rivulets through the dusting of dirt on his face, coming to rest on the hair of his upper lip. With one hand, he pushed up her skirt and petticoats, as she tried to squirm out of his grasp. He dealt her another blow as he shifted his knee to between her legs, forcing them apart.

In desperation she dragged her hands through the dirt and grass. Her fingers made contact with a rock and closed around it. She raised her hand to clout him with the rock, but he blocked her easily with a low chuckle, and the stone went flying harmlessly away. The man held her down with one hand to her throat, the other reaching down to fumble at the buttons of his breeches.

Beyond them, Chalkie cried out in surprise. Cursing, he fought a third man.

Lesley’s assailant paused only momentarily to watch the skirmish. Two men tangled viciously, knives flashing. He tore his attention from the fight down to her again, his eyes narrowing. With his free hand, he squeezed roughly at her breasts, and then he continued tugging at the buttons on his breeches. Lesley lay there, her eyes half closed, as though in submission, but her own hands far from still. The man leaned in just a bit closer, and she was able, with the fingertips of her left hand, to slowly extract the man’s dirk from the top of his right boot.

His attentions focused on his single minded goal, he was unaware of this and his lips curled with anticipation as he made to pull himself out and get down to his unsavory business. Lesley made sure of her grip on the knife and was just about to twist it up into him, when there was a blur of motion from the side, and with a grunt of surprise he toppled over, rolling off her and away into the mud and muck.

Her breath coming in ragged gasps, she twisted painfully to her side, watching as the third man attacked Charlie with a forceful, well placed boot