The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance Read Online Free PDF Page A

gave her a polite smile. She’d forgotten everything he’d told her.
    “Oh, sorry,” she said with a start. “You were saying something about the … White Stripes?”
    “The guitar player, I said. He gives it a sort of White Stripes sound.” Of course, at this point, the band had finished with Billy Joel and was a few bars into “In Your Eyes”, so the comparison made considerably less sense than it had before. Nonetheless, she pursed her lips again in that way she had, and he knew she was thinking of Robin, the miserable freshman room-mate he’d heard her mention over the years. He’d always been able to make her laugh with a White Stripes reference. He’d miss that.
    He looked at her hand, considering.
    “Kate, could I interest you in a dance?”
    She felt the touch of his hand on her elbow as he led her to the floor. There was something both intriguing and protective about it. He was like the sexy uncle your girlfriend always wants to chat up at parties.
    “In your eyes, the light, the heat. In your eyes, I am complete …”
    He took her waist and held out his hand. She placed her palm on his, and a warm rush went through her, like the shower of sizzling sparks after a sky-filling firework.
    She made a small mewl of surprise. “You told me things,” she gasped.
    “You remember.” He laughed. “I didn’t know.”
    Mark, disadvantaged kids and her mother’s cancer, the ideas tumbled through her mind – narrow, concrete glimpses of a future that had until now been vast and ill-defined. “You wanted me to give something up. What?”
    “All of it.”
    “What?”
    “Kate, I don’t have much time.” He glanced at his watch as they moved. “To the end of this song, maybe a few minutes more, so I want you to listen. When that foosball game ends, Mark, my friend, is going to ask you out for a drink. Don’t do it. Tell him you’re tired; tell him you’re dating someone else, whatever you want. Just don’t go with him.”
    “You said we were getting married. You said we were happy.”
    His face contracted, and she felt her stomach knot.
    He hadn’t said they were happy, had he? “What happens?”
    He lowered his eyes.
    “Patrick, you’re supposed to be my friend.”
    A long sigh. “Look, I’m not going to tell you this unless I can be completely fair. He’s a good man. He shares your love of travel. You hold his hand at dinner parties. For years you guys would have won couple of the year.”
    “And then?”
    “A woman.”
    “A slip.”
    He met her eyes.
    “Does he leave me?” she asked, slightly ill.
    “No,” he said sadly. “Though I wish he would.”
    “Like my father, then?”
    “Kate, I watched you fold in on yourself. I watched the Kate who set the room on fire everywhere she went just go out, like someone shot out a porch light with a twenty-two. It was like an eclipse, Kate. The spark was gone.”
    She refused to believe she could let that happen. She refused to believe she’d have invested so much in a man like her father. All her life had been about feeling strong and empowered. “How do we know I can’t change it? How do we know?”
    “I have to be honest, Kate. I don’t know. I hope it is possible to change things. After all, that’s the reason I’m here.”
    She looked at P.J., trading quips with Mark. “I can’t believe the Mark I’ve met would do that, and I really can’t believe I’d be attracted to that kind of man.”
    “People change, Kate. I told you.”
    “Did you?” She wondered what his story was.
    “No.”
    “Did you marry?
    “Yes, once. For six years. But it was mistake.”
    “Why?”
    He turned his head. “The usual reasons.”
    “Why?”
    “Kate.”
    “Why, Patrick?”
    He led her into an unexpected turn. “I was in love with someone else.”
    Her eyes came to rest on P.J., who was looking straight at her. When their gazes met, he pivoted and took a long swallow from his beer. She wondered what else she had missed tonight.
    “I’m