Chapter 6

Deanna Calavicci stroked one hand along the freshly ironed skirt of her black evening dress, then smiled to herself as she weaved her way around the chairs and tables of the crowded Hotel del Coronado's Crown Room.

Seated at a corner table, with his head down and his attention on his half-finished glass of ice water in front of him, sat Edward St. John the Fifth. She'd spotted him right away from the door and politely waved off the hostess as she made her way over to the table. As she reached him, she paused and watched for a few moments as his thin, pale fingers moved up and down along the damp sides of the clear glass before she reached out for his shoulder.

Once again, past comparisons flashed through mind. The Edward St. John that Deanna had encountered during the attempted shut-down of Project Quantum Leap had been a deceptive and unfriendly government agent—not at all someone that she'd have tried to socialize with, and vice versa. The man she'd worked with at Project Engram had been a learned man (a medical doctor and a scientist, much like his prized pupil, Doctor Samuel Beckett), but always been preoccupied by the burden of the Project and the absence of his friend; until their last encounter, when she visited him in the hospital, there had been no opportunity for either of them to acknowledge that a mutual attraction even existed.

By comparison, this Edward ("Eddie," she reminded herself) had taken a completely different path than the other versions of himself. There had been no hesitation in his interest, no masking it behind duty and responsibility, and now…

And now you have him back, her mind whispered. In a way.

"Eddie," she greeted him in a warm tone, as she gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze through his coat jacket.

His head jerked up in surprise as she startled him out of his thoughts, and he half-turned to give her an almost relieved smile.

"Deanna! I'm so glad you came." His eyes lit up and he half-rose from his chair as she slid into the empty seat across from him, in a subtle nod to the customs of his younger years. "I wasn't sure I'd… well, I thought you might have changed your mind."

She gave her head a friendly shake as she settled into her chair. "Why?"

He puffed out a quick breath. "Any number of reasons, really. We've just met. Perhaps you've got a husband, or a boyfriend. Our age difference—"

"Means nothing to me," she interrupted him. "And there's no one else in my life. We're just here to get to know each other. And have a good dinner."

"Yes. Yet, at the same time, it's almost as if we know each other already…" His brow furrowed as he tried to understand his own words, then smoothed out as he dismissed the thought. "Anyway, I was mostly prepared for you to not show up. Yet here you are."

She winked. "Here I are."

Deanna watched as he drained his glass and set it back on the table. She couldn't help but pick up on the nervousness that emanated from him. He already knew that their encounter seemed "off" for some reason, and Deanna felt her resolve to not tell him about the Projects weakened. What good would it do to be deceptive if he could already sense something "wrong" about the situation? How could she truly enjoy herself, letting himself fumble around to try and explain his interest and attraction in her, already knowing all the answers? Knowing that she had the upper hand?

She set her hands in front of her and fussed with the gold cloth napkin on the plate in front of her, in a series of jerky movement that revealed her controlled, yet restless, energy.

"Now you seem anxious," he pointed out.

"I am." She released a low grumble in her throat, then looked up at him with an almost pleading expression. "Are you hungry?"

Their eyes locked at that moment, and Deanna felt an unexpected but not unwelcomed tingling sensation sweep up her body, from her toes to her neck. She had been prepared to say something to the effect of, "Because I think we should talk about something first" or "I have to tell you an incredible story."

Instead, she felt herself caught up in the moment, almost dizzy with the sudden desire to put her arms around him and hold him close to her, to know his touch again, to see where the night might take them…

"I'm not particularly hungry, no," he muttered in response.

Eddie licked his lips, then held them open, parted, while he tried to come up with something else to say. Words seemed to fail him. Instead, he reached across the table and took both of her hands in his. They sat like that for a moment before he let her go, pushed back from the table, got to his feet and stepped forward.

She took his arm, and they left the restaurant without another word.

.

.

.

.

"Beth Lynn Ansell."

Eddie stood with his back to Deanna as he spoke the name, then let his head drop forward for a moment.

"You're right," he said in a tight voice. "You are a woman with secrets."

Deanna glanced back down the busy hallway, towards the open double doors of the restaurant that they'd passed through several minutes earlier. Although she had been more than ready to follow him from the restaurant to his hotel room, common sense slammed back into her head as they'd made their way down the hall, and she'd forced him to sit next to her on a padded bench.

Before things went any further with them, she knew that she needed to tell him something of what she knew, and so she chose the simplest thing that came to mind.

"Beth," he repeated.

Deanna nodded. "My mother."

He gave a bitter laugh as he turned back around. "So that's why you seem so familiar. Although if you don't mind my saying, you don't look like her," he said in a light, detached voice.

"I know you only married her," Deanna remarked, in an equally detached manner, "because that's what single young people did back then. But she wasn't in love with you, any more than you were in love with her. Was she?"

He gave a shrug. "True enough. At least we never had children—unless you're here to tell me different?"

"No," she reassured him. "You two never had children. In fact," she added in a special intonation, "I can say with some confidence you've never had children."

"Ah, never say never," Eddie cautioned her. He paused, then walked over and sat beside her on the bench again. "I was quite the randy young actor, back in the day—and, back in the day, we didn't use protection very often. It's possible they're out there, somewhere."

"My understanding is that you also… ah, had a different preference," she replied with an even look. "Back in the day."

"It was the Sixties. I didn't discriminate. I make no apologies for that, either," he added in a defensive tone.

Deanna shrugged. "Why should you? You're a complicated man. You always have been." She gave him a sympathetic look. "I understand because I live with complications. Eddie. Who I am and what I do is very complicated. The fact that we met here by chance doesn't make any of this uncomplicated for me. Neither does the fact that I find you… very attractive."

"I take it you've seen my films," he replied in a standoffish way.

"Actually, no. Sorry. That's not it. I…"

She looked away and closed her eyes, then sighed and opened them again, her gaze locked on the far wall.

"My name is Deanna Calavicci. I am a Lieutenant in the United States Navy. My father is Rear Admiral Albert Calavicci. Maybe you heard of him? He used to work for NASA."

She felt his body twitch beside her. She gave a quick nod of acknowledgement at the movement and looked back at his face.

"Yes, the astronaut," she said, stating the obvious. "And yes, I do look more like him than I look like my mother." Deanna blinked at him and nodded again. "I'm also also a scientist, specializing in superconductors, Josephson junctions and holographic technology. I'm currently assigned to a top-secret project in New Mexico. Beyond that, anything I might tell you qualifies as classified information. And the reason I'm even mentioning this much is because you know… that there's something special going on here. Between us."

Eddie gave a reluctant nod. "I guess that I do, yes. I took a nap before dinner, and I had a very bizarre dream..."

"Tell me about it," she said quickly. She clasped her hands in his, her eyes shining.

"I was in the hospital. Again," he added. "You see, I had a bit of a cancer scare a few years ago, but doctors caught it early. I'm… well, either in remission or cured, I have no idea. But in this dream, you were there. And I was apologizing." He winced. "I'd neglected you in some way. I wasn't myself. And as you were standing at the door, before you left, you said—"

"I'll miss you."

The two of them spoke the same words at the same time, and Eddie shivered. His eyes grew wide and he released her hands, then moved away from her on the bench.

"What is this?" he whispered.

Deanna closed her eyes and, without thinking about it, pushed aside her hair to scratch at her neck.

"What this is… is very hard to explain—" she began.

"Oh, God!"

Just as quickly as he'd moved away from her, Eddie slid back to her side. Her eyelids snapped open as he put his hands gently on her body, one resting on her shoulder and the other on her chin. She instinctively tried to pull away, only to feel his grip tighten as he further assessed the bright pink scar on her neck. Finally, he let her go.

"What happened?" he breathed.

"A… a car accident. Two months ago." She swallowed and brushed her hair back down. "I've been on medical since then—that is, the Navy has me on medical leave."

"It looks more like someone tried to kill you."

"In a way, I guess he did."

Eddie put his hands in his lap. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Deanna tossed her hair across her shoulder again and fought to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "That's all I've been doing for the past two months is 'talking about it.' Trying to work through it, figure out why it happened. But what's done is done, and I'm tired of talking about something that can't be fixed, and all I really want to do is get back to my job. Lives are at stake, and I've been sidelined thanks to a—drunk." She spit out the last word with more bitterness than she expected to use, then gave Eddie an apologetic look.

He gave her a nod of understanding.

"I know," she continued. "Five minutes ago, things were different. Now you know that I'm just another broken… thing."

He blinked, then leaned forward and gave her a slow, soft kiss on the temple. He dropped his mouth down to her ear.

"We're all broken in some way. Maybe that's why we need each other. To put ourselves back together again."

Deanna squeezed her eyes shut. Eddie had no way of knowing just how true his words rang.