But when it came to a personal man-woman relationship...
For the most part, the men she saw socially were easily dissuaded. The majority of them were intimidated by her mind, which she admitted was usually one-track. Then there was her family. Thinking of them made her smile. Her mother was still the dreamy artist who had once woven blankets on a handmade loom. And her father... Libby shook her head as she thought of him. William Stone might have made a fortune with Herbal Delights, but he would never be a three-piece-suit executive.
Bob Dylan music and board meetings. Lost causes and profit margins.
The one man she’d brought home to a family dinner had left confused and unnerved—and undoubtedly hungry, Libby remembered with a laugh. He hadn’t been able to do more than stare at her mother’s zucchini-and-soybean soufflé.
Libby was a combination of her parents’ idealism, scientific practicality and dreamy romanticism. She believed in causes, in mathematical equations and in fairy tales. A quick mind and a thirst for knowledge had locked her far too tightly to her work to leave room for real romance. And the truth was that real romance, when applied to her, scared the devil out of her.
So she sought it in the past, in the study of human relationships.
She was twenty-three and, as Caleb Hornblower had put it, unmatched.
She liked the phrase, found it accurate and concise on the one hand and highly romantic on the other. To be matched, she mused, was the perfect way to describe a relationship. She corrected herself. A true relationship, like her parents’. Perhaps the reason she was more at ease with her studies than with men was that she had yet to meet her match.
Satisfied with her analysis, she slipped on her glasses and went to work.
Chapter 2
The rain had slowed when he woke. It was only a hiss and patter against the windows. It was as soothing as a sleep tape. Cal lay still for a moment, reminding himself where he was and struggling to remember why.
He’d dreamed... something about flashing lights and a huge black void. The dreams had brought a clammy sweat to his skin and had accelerated his heartbeat. He made a conscious effort to level it.
Pilots had to have a strong and thorough control over their bodies and their emotions. Decisions often had to be made instantly, even instinctively. And the rigors of flight required a disciplined, healthy body.
He was a pilot. He kept his eyes closed and concentrated on that. He’d always wanted to fly. He’d been trained. His mouth went dry as he fought to remember... anything, any small piece.
The ISF. He closed his hands into fists until his pulse leveled again. He’d been with the ISF and earned a captaincy. Captain Hornblower. That was right, he was sure of it. Captain Caleb Hornblower. Cal. Everyone called him Cal except his mother. A tall, striking woman with a quick temper and an easy laugh.
A new flood of emotion struck him. He could see her. Somehow that, more than anything else, gave him a sense of identity. He had family—not a mate, of that he was sure, but parents and a brother. His father was a quiet man, steady, dependable. His brother... Jacob. Cal let out a quiet breath as the name and the image formed in his mind. Jacob was brilliant, impulsive, stubborn.
Because his head was pounding again, he let it go. It was enough.
His eyes opened slowly and he thought of Libby. Who was she? Not just a beautiful woman with warm brown hair and eyes like a cat. Being beautiful was easy, even ordinary. She didn’t strike him as ordinary. Perhaps it was the place. He frowned at the log walls and the gleaming glass windows. Nothing was ordinary here. And certainly no woman he had ever known would have chosen to live here, like this. Alone.
Had she really been born in the bed he was now in, or had she been joking? It occurred to Cal that a great deal of her behavior was odd, and perhaps there was a joke somewhere, and he’d missed the punch line.
A cultural anthropologist, he mused. That might explain it. It was possible he’d dropped down in the middle of some kind of field experiment, a simulation. For her own reasons, Liberty Stone was living in the fashion of the era she studied. It was odd, certainly, but as far as he was concerned most scientists were a bit odd. He could certainly understand looking toward the future, but why anyone would want to dig back into the past was beyond him. The past was done and couldn’t be changed or fixed, so why study it?
Her business, he supposed.
He owed her. From what he could piece together, he might well have died if she hadn’t come along. He’d have to pay her back as soon as he was working on all thrusters again. It pleased him to know that he was a man who settled debts.
Liberty Stone. Libby. He turned her name over in his mind and smiled. He liked the sound of her name, the soft sound of it. Soft, like her eyes. It was one thing to be beautiful; it was another to have gorgeous velvet eyes. You could change the color of them, the shape, but never the expression. Maybe it was that that made her so appealing. Everything she felt seemed to leap right into her eyes.
He’d managed to stir a variety of feelings in her, Cal thought as he pushed himself up in bed. Concern, fear, humor, desire. And she had stirred him. Even through his confusion he’d felt a strong, healthy response, a man-woman response.
He dropped his head into his hands as the room spun. His system might be churning for Libby Stone, but he was far from ready to do anything about it. More than a little disgusted, he settled back on the pillows. A little more rest, he decided. A day or two of letting his body heal should snap his mind and his memory back. He knew who he was and where he was. The rest would come.
A book on the table beside the bed caught his eye. He’d always liked to read, almost as much as he’d liked to fly. He preferred the written word to tapes or disks. That was another good and solid memory. Pleased with it, Cal picked up the book.
The title puzzled him.Journey to Andromedaseemed a particularly foolish name for a book, especially when it was touted as science fiction. Anyone with a free weekend could journey to Andromeda—if he liked being bored into a coma. With a small frown, he started to leaf through the book. Then his eyes fell on the copyright page.
That was wrong. The clammy sweat was back. That was ridiculous. The book he was holding was new. The back hadn’t been broken, and the pages looked as though they’d never been turned. Some stupid clerical error, he told himself, but his mouth was bone-dry. It had to be an error. How else could he be holding a book that had been published nearly three centuries ago?
***
Absorbed in her work, Libby ignored the small circle of pain at the center of her back. She knew very well that posture was important when she was writing for several hours at a stretch, but once she lost herself in ancient or primitive civilizations she always forgot everything else.