“That had to be a fit of idiocy. I’m thinking seizure.”
“How do you feel now?”
“Why fight destiny?”
She yanked his hair a little harder. “Try a more romantic line, mister novelist.”
“You have gorgeous eyes.”
“That’s better.”
“And you have an old soul.”
“Hmmm.” She pecked his cheek.
“And that silky hair of yours—”
“Good enough, handsome. It’s time to carry me upstairs.”
Brewster frowned down at the couch. “Okay, but…could this cushion be any softer? We’re lost in it.”
She giggled. “Now I’ll discover how my man handles adversity. What would Prince Charming do?”
“Poof.”
Too funny. She waggled a finger in his face. “No, that’s the fairy godmother, and she’s in a different story.”
Brewster put a hand under his chin in a perfect imitation of the thinking man. “Maybe Snow White and Prince Charming could try bouncing up at the same time.”
“Like this?” She lurched up, came back down on his lap, started laughing, and almost couldn’t stop.
He rolled his eyes. “You’re punch drunk, aren’t you?”
She stifled one last giggle. “I might be trying a little too hard to get lost in the moment.”
“No, hey, you might be right on track with that, but we don’t want to damage the goods here, Snowy. Let’s try it together on the count of three.”
Carla wrapped her arms around Brewster’s neck and leaned into him as he counted and lifted her from the couch on cue.
“You’re my hero,” she said.
“I’ve been keeping your charm in my pocket for strength.”
“I’ve been keeping thoughts of you in mine.”
He carried her up the stairs. A wave of renewed heat rushed through her when she caught a glimpse of the bedroom doorway, and it burst into a bonfire as they neared the bed, but she came to her senses in the nick of time. “Set me on my feet, Prince Charming.”
Brewster stood her on the floor. He shifted his hands to her sides, brushing a delicious whisper of silk negligee against her skin.
She tried to stay focused. “Brewster.” Her voice came out hoarse and throaty.
His soft eyes melted her, but she pressed on. “I’m nearly thirty years old. I know that’s a long time to wait, but I’ve been waiting. For the right man. After only two dates, is it too much to ask that we wait a little longer?”
He nodded. “Say no more.”
She glanced at the bed. “I want you to stay with me. The way you did the other night.”
Brewster moved his hands to her face, leaned in, kissed her nose. “Your wish is my command.”
They got into bed together again. They spooned again. And she lost herself in the joy of having a man who cared more about her than his own primal needs.
* * *
Carla awakened with her back to Brewster. He’d draped his arm over her, and she closed a hand on it, ready to fight whatever force might pull them apart.
They were one. She basked in the glow of him.
She knew with all her heart Brewster was her destiny. She might get whisked away to Syracuse or Manhattan, Sanctimonia, even Pluto, but she’d always find her way back. Wormholes be damned. She could simply get into her car and… She froze.
Brewster jolted awake. “What’s wrong?”
She couldn’t answer.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“You’re a year in my future,” she whispered.
“I’m having a little trouble wrapping my mind around that idea.”
“It’s true, Brewster, so tell me this. Why didn’t you already know me the night of that thunderstorm? I’ve a notion to come and visit you right now, a year in your past, but you don’t remember me ever doing that, do you?”
“Is that a trick question?”
The room brightened and went into a spin. Brewster’s essence sifted through her fingers like sand. “No!” She groped for him but came up with nothing more than pillow. “Oh no, please don’t pull me away now!”
Her plea came too late. She’d already moved on.
CHAPTER 20
The next day…or a year earlier?
A gray bank of clouds rolling in from the west threw a shadow across the interstate, spurring Brewster to turn his car heater up a notch. The approaching squall stalled at that point, as lake-effect snowstorms sometimes do, and the landscape’s personality split—bright on the right side and shaded on the left—until he reached the County Route Two exit near Pulaski, New York, and headed off the highway.
Those last few miles had been surprisingly lonely. True, the Tug Hill region wasn’t renowned for its population, but Brewster couldn’t recall driving anywhere, not even the dusty stretch of desert road he once traveled out of Phoenix on the way to Vegas, without coming across so much as a single long-haul trucker, let alone any cars. The air in his car nearly crackled with electricity, adding to his unease and reminding him of the time he rode his bicycle along a path that crossed beneath a power line. What the hell was going on?
He tried to fight out of a mental fog and remember why he’d driven to Upstate New York in the first place. Maybe he was dreaming.
Brewster followed the county road east, getting some distance ahead of the sluggish squall before slowing at an old filling station. A couple pumps stood sentry outside a listing shack of a store—a smaller version of a gray abandoned barn he’d passed a mile earlier. He was driving on fumes and decided not to risk running out of gas by holding out for a more modern station. He turned into the lot, parked alongside one of the pumps, and got out of his car.
An icy gust of wind blasted him in the face and ripped a newspaper out of a stand near the building. Most of the pages went airborne, but one section spread apart and hugged the pavement, rolling and dancing like tumbleweed. The front page flew up and pressed against the side of
