Page 29
DOYLE
Holy shit Sadielooked like she came out of his time and his dreams. Tight jeans, boots, loose, see-through shirt… Did she know what she did to him? It wasn’t fair. He’d have to leave with the TCR in a matter of days. Maybe sooner if they found the saboteur. Securing her ranch by pretending to be her fiancé surely couldn’t be done in such a short time. But the thought of her losing it, or worse, getting blamed for the murder of that horrible man, made him feel sick inside.
“You look amazing,” Doyle said under his breath.
After a quick, “Hello!” Teddy ran off to retrieve the clock he wanted to share so badly with him.
“Thank you, Wally. Try some of my homemade jelly.” She passed him a jar of reddish jam and let her fingers linger, sliding slowly off his when he accepted it.
Funny how she made his first name sound so sensual. Doyle swallowed. “I’m glad you made yourself more comfortable.”
“Me too,” Sadie said with a mouthful of food. “You think this’ll be okay for the rest of your people?”
He bit his lip. “Maybe a…bra?”
Her nose wrinkled up in the most adorable way. “A what?”
“Oh. Um, maybe something to you know, to, uh, cover.” He gestured in round motions to his chest area as heat rushed to his face.
Sadie stared as she chewed a biscuit. When she swallowed, she said, “I don’t know what a ‘bra’ is, but I’ll put on a vest.”
“We don’t have to do any more group tours today if it’s too much for you,” he said, changing the subject as he helped himself to a glob of the most delicious fruit preserves he’d ever tasted.
Sadie snorted. “I feel better now that I changed. I’m rearin’ to go. Two more, right?”
Distracted by the sound of pounding feed, Doyle nodded. Breath huffing, Teddy ran back in, holding aloft a hand-sized object made of gears and metal.
“See how it’s moving?” Teddy asked with a wheeze. “I figured out how to make it so it keeps going no matter what. You never have to wind it, all you have to do is keep it in the sun for part of the day.”
Doyle gently took the object and turned it over in his hand, careful not to get his fingers on the tiny, mirrored panels skillfully attached to the top and sides. This kid just took theoretical physics and invented working solar technology, a hundred years ahead of its time.
Whistling, he set the piece down on the table and stared at the expectant, freckled child waiting for a pat on the head when he deserved a Nobel prize or something. Did those exist yet? “This is very impressive work, Teddy,” was what he finally settled on. What if the world changed for the better all because his own technology prevented the murder of these two, amazing people? “I’m going to need your help after all with my invention.”
“Thanks, Wally. I’d be happy to help. And I already started whittling the case for the clock.” Teddy’s chest pumped rapidly beneath his half-hooked overalls and the wheezing came through loud and clear.
“You need your new medicine,” Sadie reported, springing from the table and rushing to a cabinet by the small kitchen.
“You got him an inhaler?” Doyle asked, guiding Teddy to a seat. He didn’t know exactly when they were invented, only that in his time, dissolvable micro-tablets served the same purpose, lasted longer, and had no side effects. For some people, one or two doses prevented attacks for the remainder of their lives.
“I stopped at the doc in town after you told me what it was,” Sadie said, hurrying over with a large tablet in her hand instead of an inhaler. “I can’t believe I didn’t understand it was physical. But the doc said this cyanide tablet ought to help.”
The boy reached to grab it from his mother’s hand and Doyle reacted immediately, knocking it to the floor. Sadie screamed and clutched her hand to her chest in shock as she stared wide-eyed at Wally. Teddy’s wheezing worsened audibly.
“What’d you do that for?” Sadie asked and dropped to her knees to retrieve the tablet that he’d kicked out of reach into a corner.
“You can’t give him cyanide,” Doyle exclaimed, perplexed. “What kind of monster is this doctor? That’s poison.”
Sadie stood, staring red-faced between Wally and her rapidly worsening son. “Well, what do I do? You a doc now, too, Wally?”
Reaching into his pocket, Doyle fished for his emergency pack of asthma tabs, and pulled out one tiny, orange pill.
“Open your mouth,” he told Teddy—who complied—then popped it beneath the boy’s tongue. Color flooded immediately back into his face, the flush of oxygen filling him as he gulped in giant breaths.
Sadie grasped Teddy’s arms and jostled him, a crazed look in her eye. “You okay?”
“I’m okay, Ma. Stop shaking me. Thanks, Wally, you’re my hero.”
Pulling from his mother and darting around her, Teddy threw himself against Doyle’s chest, clasping his lanky arms behind his back. Slowly, Doyle embraced him back, tucking his face into the boy’s strawberry hair. Something inside him opened wider the longer the hug went on, and he couldn’t hold back the euphoric smile that spread over his face like prickly pear jam on a biscuit. And when he met Sadie’s admiring gaze, warmth enveloped him.
