His very nice chest. She had to admit the view of him walking away was as nice as the one from the front, if not nicer. The man was definitely fit. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He was all cowboy . . . long, lean and hard in all the right places.
Get over it . . .Now was not the time to think about how long it had been since she’d been with a man. She had a job to do. “What do you mean by strange?” Shay suddenly realized what he’d said. Did he know something?
He was talking to the horse now, stroking its nose, using soft soothing sounds to calm it. The horse leaned into him. She found his state of undress very annoying for some reason. The guy acted like he was in his bathroom instead of the middle of nowhere. Come to think of it, the middle of nowhere probablywashis bathroom and would be hers too before too much time passed.
“Oh hell,” she said.
“At least that makes some sense.” He gave the horse a last comforting pat and walked behind a rock beneath an overhang of the cliff. “Where did you come from?” He pulled on a pair of well-worn jeans.
“I’d rather not say,” Shay said. “What did you see?”
“I’d rather not say,” he quipped. He walked back to the river and picked up a bottle that lay along the bank. “At least one good thing has happened today,” He held up the bottle as if it were a great prize, then removed the cork and took a long drink. He held the bottle out to her as he walked past. “You look like you could use some too.”
“Er . . . no thanks.” Shay followed him back to the rock and watched in astonishment as he lay down on his back and placed a hat over his face. “What are you doing?”
“Getting some rest. I don’t know about you but I’ve had one hell of a day.”
Rand didn’t want to admit it to the woman, but he felt as if he’d been ripped in half. At the moment he couldn’t care less if she shot him. He spared a glance at her, from beneath his hat. She leaned against the rock with her arms crossed. She wasn’t pretty in the usual way; instead she had strong clear features and a quiet confidence that bespoke intelligence and contentment. Her hair was strangely short for a woman. It barely touched her shoulders and framed her face in a riot of curls that gleamed white in the moonlight. Her left arm was covered with some sort of contraption that had tiny coloured lights on it. He couldn’t even begin to figure out what that was all about. She was dressed strange too, all in black with thick boots over pants that looked like a second skin, a shirt that looked like his longjohns and a short coat of the softest leather he’d ever seen. If she wanted to draw attention to herself she’d succeeded. The way her pants hugged the lines of her legs made him want to wrap them around his waist in the worst way, even if he did feel like the ass end of an armadillo.
She had to know something about what had happened to Tom. It was the only logical explanation of what she was doing out here. How she’d got here without him seeing her was another story entirely. One he needed to think on for a bit. This was why he’ddecided to lie down. He needed to catch his breath after whatever it was had slammed him into the river.
“I’m guessing that you’re feeling pretty sick right now. Kind of nauseous and weak?” She dragged the toe of her squared-off boot through the sand.
He was. How would she know that? “Where did you say you were from?”
“I didn’t.” She looked at the thing on her arm again. Pushed a couple of the lights. Took what looked like a flask from her belt and drank from it. “The question iswhendid I come from.”
Just when he was beginning to think the night might make a turn for the better she had to go and get all crazy on him. Luckily his gun was handy. Rand sat up and eased his way around to where he could grab it if need be. Lightning flashed in the distance and he waited for the sound of thunder but none came. The woman looked at it also, then back at her arm.
“OK. I’ll bite.Whenare you from?”
“I’m from 2143. That’s two hundred and fifty-some years from now if you’re counting. That blast that knocked you on your ass was caused by me getting bumped from my destination by whoever is messing around up there.” She pointed towards the lightning flashes.
“I’m going to need another drink.” He looked for the bottle. She grabbed it off the boulder she leaned against and tossed it to him. “So you didn’t plan on landing here?” As if anyone would come to this canyon deliberately. Rand had learned a long time ago that it was best to humour people when they were loco, until you could get the drop on them. The weapon she’d waved around earlier was pretty wicked-looking. He didn’t know what it was but he was pretty sure it didn’t shoot bullets. That whole thing about cauterization did not sound appealing at all.
“No. My plan was to land about a month before this date. In time to stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“The rips in time.”
Rand laughed. After everything else that had happened this day it was pretty much all that was left to do. He sat back against the canyon wall and let out a big whoop then took another draw off the bottle after wiping his eyes. “I haven’t had a good one like that in a while,” he admitted.
“It will more than likely be your last.” She crouched down before him. “Still feeling weak?” She took the bottle.
“Yeah. Too much sun.” Rand looked her up and down. “And way too much excitement.”
She handed him her flask. “Drink this. You’re probably dehydrated, and this—” she pitched his bottle away “—isn’t helping things.”
Rand sniffed the flask, decided that it had to be OK since she’d just drunk from it and it smelled pretty good, kind of fruity like apples and oranges. He took a drink and was amazed at how cool it was going down his throat. His stomach felt immediately settled although he was still weak and wanted nothing more than to stretch out and sleep for days. If only there was a nice soft bed available.
He definitely didn’t mind the company at all. Several days in the sack with this woman would be a treat.
“Feel better?”
“A bit.” He wondered if there was something alcoholic in the flask. Something that would make him as crazy as she was. Still there had to be an explanation for what he saw, for what happened to Tom, and for every other weird thing that he’d seen and heard lately. Since no one else was forthcoming with explanations he might as well listen to what she had to say. “What’s your name?”
“Shay McCoy. Captain Shay McCoy. T.T.E.A. That’s the Time Travel Enforcement Agency if you’re wondering.”
