Alex guffawed louder than Kendra had yet heard him, and before she could even acknowledge her relief that he’d not been offended, she found herself joining in finally. She laughed until her stomach hurt. She laughed until she couldn’t breathe. Years of clenched living uncoiled like a mainspring inside her.
All the laughing that Alex had done in her presence made a new kind of sense to her then. Maybe I’ll start working against the force of gravity next. Still gasping for breath, she giggled.
“What now?” Alex asked weakly.
Kendra’s glance strayed to Alex’s equation, clenched in her hand. She spread it across the end of the bench, and cleared her throat. “You know, this is really very interesting, but you don’t need this section.” She drew brackets around a large section at the end of the first page.
“What do you mean?! Of course one has to allow for a present time, a now!”
“But don’t you see, that’s at the end of my equation--the return loop.”
“You can’t leave a place-time without having first described it.”
“Of course you can. The end of the equation anchors the whole thing.”
“Prove it.”
“You know that I already have.”
“Reproduce your results. I want to see you jump from this end of things, the departure point.”
“Fine. Help me check the equipment.”
It took them four hours to be absolutely sure they’d reproduced conditions in Kendra’s lab. She pulled up her equation, and adjusted for her current position and time.
“It’s almost dawn,” she said and yawned. “Will you be all right in the day?”
“As long as I’m not in the light I’ll be fine. Vampires don’t need much sleep, but you must be exhausted. You’ve been up for thirty-six hours.”
“Mmm,” she looked at the spot on the floor where a little black circle should have been painted. “There’s no black dot on the floor,” she pointed, and swayed where she stood.
“Right. That settles it. You’re going to bed.”
“Not until I paint a black spot on the floor.” Kendra crossed her arms, determined.
Alex looked around the lab. He pulled out several drawers, but found no paint.
“Can’t you ask Cyril to bring some?” she asked.
“This is a secret lab, darling. Cyril’s never been here.”
“Oh.” Kendra swayed dangerously, and Alex put his arms around her. “Did you just call me ‘darling’?”
“I did.”
“Oh.” Kendra couldn’t decide how she felt about that. “But we have to work together.” She yawned.
“Let’s talk about it tomorrow while we paint a dot on the floor, shall we?” Alex picked her up, and walked toward the door. Kendra fell asleep as he walked, dreaming of secret passageways.
She woke briefly when she felt her shoes being tugged off.
“Our dates have to stop ending like this,” Alex murmured.
Kendra tried to reply. Her mouth opened, but she fell asleep again as she thought about what to say, and dreamed of Alex’s house in Cambridge in 1593, such a soft bed…
What was that knocking? A woodpecker on the wooden framing of Alex’s Tudor home? Kendra wished it would stop, so she could go back to sleep. More knocking. Maybe if she leaned out the window she could scare it off. Yes, she leaned forward and flapped her left arm--Crash!
Her eyes flew open at the same moment that Alex flung himself into her room.
“What is it? Are you all right?” he asked, moving nearly faster than she could see to check every corner of her room and the bathroom beyond.
“Ouch,” Kendra said and checked her left hand. She’d knocked a bedside lamp to the floor. “Did it break?”
“Just the lightbulb,” said Alex as he returned the lamp to the table. “Cyril will clean up, but you’d better get out of bed on the other side.” He waited.
Kendra was fully clothed under the sheets. She looked at him and frowned nonetheless.
“Oh,” he said, realizing he’d over-stepped his bounds. “Sorry. I’ve had breakfast sent up. It might still be warm, though I knocked on your door forever. I’ll just wait in the kitchen for you.”
“What time is it?” she asked as he reached the door.
Hand on the doorknob, Alex looked over his shoulder, and gazed at her long enough that Kendra flushed. She wished that she hadn’t asked him such a stupid question. She probably had insulted him, asking the time from a vampire who had been around at least a thousand years. Where was the damn clock?
Just as she found it across the room on top of a long low bureau with more drawers than she would ever need, he said, “It is six p.m. You slept for more than twelve hours.” His voice sounded funny.
“Sorry,” she said, and switched into business mode. She didn’t know what Alex was feeling that would make his voice change, and she didn’t want to know. “If you’ll get out of here, I’ll get dressed, and we can eat.”
Alex cleared his throat. “Absolutely.” He left. It sounded as if he muttered something more, but Kendra couldn’t make out the words. She pretended that she hadn’t heard anything.
Each of the many drawers in the bureau was filled with clothing. Kendra didn’t even know the names of some of the types of underwear she found in the top drawers. She grabbed the most ordinary bra and panties she could find, and a scoop-necked T-shirt. From her huge closet she chose jeans and a plain white oxford shirt. Showered and dressed, she returned to the closet to find some shoes, but was so overwhelmed by the myriad of choices that she just grabbed her running sneakers, and hurried to the kitchen.
Alex looked like a suave playboy in a french blue shirt, light-colored trousers and matching vest. He read the paper while sipping something out of a coffee mug. Kendra was sure it wasn’t coffee, but was careful not to look at the mug or at Alex as he drank from it. She knew she couldn’t handle seeing him lick blood from his lips or anything gross like that. She shuddered.
He lowered his paper, and looked her up and down. She felt like a grubby child, but he damn well didn’t need to know that.
“I thought you planned to work after breakfast,” she snapped as she sat down. In front of her was a covered dish, and under the cover she found a perfect veggie omelet, and six spears of asparagus. To the left of her plate was a basket of croissants, wrapped in a cloth and still warm. A glass of orange juice and a carafe of coffee completed the offerings. Kendra’s stomach growled. She broke a croissant in half, smeared jam on one end, and shoved it in her mouth.
“Good evening to you, too.” Alex raised his mug in a toast. He slid what looked like a magic marker toward her.
“What’s that?”
“A quick-drying black paint pen.”
“Thanks.” Kendra started in on the omelet.
