Time to Love Again Read Online Free PDF

new
concern in her heart. Either this man had penetrated her disguise
or he had a yearning for young boys. She very much doubted it was
the latter.
    As for Hank, could he find her if she moved
elsewhere? Would his peculiar theory about manipulating time allow
for a change in position on her part? Would she ever see him, or
Willi, again? For that matter, could she manage to stay alive until
Hank might be able to arrange something, compute a new formula, or
get advice from one of his friends who also experimented with
computers? And – what at that moment seemed to her to be the most
urgent question of all – could she protect herself against the
warrior who held her in such a firm grasp, who would surely soon
understand that she was no boy, if he had not already discovered
it?

Chapter 4
     
     
    As Theuderic had warned, their way wound
through forests and across rivers and streams. Winter had barely
begun to loosen its grip on that thickly wooded, sparsely settled
northern land. There was a thin layer of snow on the ground, and in
the few bare spots mud oozed, while from frozen puddles shards of
ice reared upward under the horses’ hooves. The trees were bare,
with spring’s blossoming still several months away. The chill day
was dampened by an occasional cold drizzle.
    India’s hands and feet grew numb and her nose
began to run. Soon she was shivering in earnest. Then Theuderic
took his blue wool cloak and wrapped it around them both, pulling
her still closer to him in the process. She was too grateful for
the warmth of his tough body to make any protest.
    They rode until it began to grow dark, when
they stopped at a spot where the stream they had been following
widened into a little pool. There a pile of charred wood showed
that men had camped in that place not long before, and by the
comments of Marcion and Hugo, India learned it had been this very
band, on its way into Saxony. She marveled how they could find
their path through what looked to her like a trackless wilderness
and then return to the same place.
    Nor did the men seem over-tired after
fighting and riding all day, though she nearly fell from weariness
when Theuderic lifted her down from his horse. He stood for a
moment with his hands resting lightly on her hips as if to steady
her until she found her feet again. So it must have appeared to any
who looked in their direction, but India was intensely aware of the
forward pressure of those hands. Her own hands were still on his
shoulders. She caught her breath, knowing without looking that his
eyes were on her face, searching, searching…
    Unable to lift her own gaze from his mouth,
she watched his firm lips tighten into a hard line. He had a nice
mouth, and when he wasn’t acting like the hardened leader of a
warband, it often quirked into a half smile at one corner. It would
be so easy to slide her arms around his neck, to pull his face down
to hers….
    Appalled at her reaction to this rude,
unlettered warrior, so different from any other man she had known,
she jerked away from him. At once he removed his hands from her
hips, releasing her.
    “A pretty painted boy,” he muttered under his
breath.
    “I wish you would call me by my name,” she
said.
    “ Boy .”
    She did look upward then. What she saw
unnerved her. In his grey glance, unanswered questions smoldered,
along with a light that told her that he, too, had been affected by
their momentary half-embrace. He turned from her with an oath,
leading his horse aside without a backward look. She imagined with
grim humor that he was disgusted with himself for feeling a
stirring of interest toward what he thought was another male.
    She moved around the clearing, trying to work
out the stiffness in her legs. After a while she knelt by the pool
to drink, wondering wryly if she would contract from the water some
awful disease that could have been easily cured, or even prevented,
in her own century. Which thought brought her to the vital question
of exactly