Disclaimer: Please see Chapter 1 for the bit about me not making any money off this.
Time to Consider
Chapter 13
By Callisto
Alvear Hotel
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Norwood could do nothing more than hint. To go any further would risk losing control of his intellectual property and the project as a whole. Holding the carrot firmly within his grasp, he told the burly sweeper that he felt confident in his ability to contact the two lost friends who were most likely in police custody.
Sam stared at Norwood speculatively. He was on the verge of bringing Raines' favorite brutal sweeper, Willie in on this interrogation when the kid made this offer—albeit with a disturbingly venal look on his face. If all he wanted was money, then that was something Sam knew he could handle on his own. He doubted the kid wanted anything more than a few hundred bucks, at the most maybe a thousand. He thought wrong.
Negotiations were about to begin and Norwood had done his homework. Without actually revealing his substantial price tag, he informed Sam that his means of making contact would also involve no one knowing about it. He then gave the sweeper a partial list of the components needed to get his 'radio' up and running.
Sam took out a note pad and began to jot down the various electronic gizmos the kid was requesting. Once he was done, Sam looked up from the half dozen items and into the kid's eager face. He didn't know what was going on, but he intended on take precautions.
"I have to talk to some people to see if I can get my hands on some of this stuff. If I bring one or all these items to you, I'm coming along with them. Whatever these things are, they sound pricey so you can plan on me hanging around to protect my investment. Also I want to be standing right next to you when you contact them."
Norwood paused for a few seconds. He hadn't considered Sam's request but knowing that everything he had just asked for was either expensive or extremely difficult to obtain, the young scientist couldn't find fault with the request. Norwood rationalized to himself that the collection of muscle sitting across from him wouldn't have a clue about quantum mechanics or possess the technical know-how to understand what it took to form the temporal portal necessary to make contact with his friends. There were bigger problems at the forefront of Norwood's mind—mainly, if the two people in question had even survived the time trip and if so, did they leave the tree frog to fend for itself or was it still within their immediate proximity. The frog was the key and if either one of them had an ounce of sense—hopefully this burly guy wasn't an example of their mental prowess—they hung on to amphibian like the lifeline it was.
Wyman's cabins - Past
Lake Catherine, VT
A couple days after their argument, Jarod went over his private and personal plans for both of them to stay, while putting the final touches on the radio he designed to help them make contact with the scientist who brought them this unexpected bonanza. While doing this, his thoughts wandered to their conversation in the bathroom. The setting proved to be more conducive to what he had to say than he could've imagined. The protectively angry look on her face that hid the hurt boiling inside was evidence that he needed to settle this tension between them immediately. Walking up to her, Jarod got to the point straight away.
"You're right, I should've looked at it from all sides. I don't want to squander this chance we've been given to set some things right from our time but I don't want to lose you as a result. We have at least 2 decades before some of the injustices I tried to correct start occurring. That gives us plenty of time to see if a personal relationship between us will work. Regardless, I always have been and will always be your friend."
With that he gave her a halting smile combined with a concerned frown. The result was a combination of expressions that united his concern with his love for her. Carefully studying her face, he inched forward and lightly touched her shoulder, half-expecting her to reject him. Instead, she sighed deeply and gazed into the concern written clearly on his face. The whole ordeal of jumping back 25 years had put her on an emotional roller coaster, kept her nerves on edge and her reactions uneven. In a singular motion, she closed the gap between them, leaned up on her toes and kissed him slowly, with her hand lightly cupping the side of his face. Jarod was careful not to spoil the moment however his body unconsciously reacted as he gently held her close to kiss her more fully. Parker eased out of their kiss and smiled indulgently at him. His brow furrowed in curiosity at her half-amused, patient expression when she abruptly turned and closed the drain to fill the tub. Jarod handed her a bottle of foaming soap and tightening his towel around his waist, readied himself to sit on the tub's edge so he could talk with her further. He was about to take up his perch when he glanced down and noticed an obvious bulge in his towel.
Parker turned to find him looking uncomfortably self-conscious at his physical reaction to her. She smiled at him but a protective tinge of expectant disappointment wouldn't let her go. "Get in," she ordered softly.
"You want me to join you?"
"Yes. You first," she replied as she casually removed her robe.
With a small shrug, he slipped out of the towel and eased himself into the warm water. When he was finished positioning himself comfortably, she stepped into the tub, splashed some water over her arms and leaned slightly back. Jarod pulled her fully against his body and sighed pleasurably. When the water was high enough, Parker leaned forward and spun the taps shut then resumed her position against him, as Jarod began to slowly wash her skin.
"I don't want to lose you, either. We're both taking a gamble by continuing with this relationship. You're the only person in this variant time zone I can talk to without worrying about saying or making a reference to something that hasn't happened yet. I can't afford to lose you. I've lost so much already. Regaining it here doesn't negate the pain I've already been through."
"I know and you won't. I plan on somehow meeting up with you in Europe. I don't have all the details worked out and it may take me a little time to find you but officer training school is out. None of my family expected me to really go through with it, so it won't be a shock to them." Jarod brought a cupped handful of fragrant water up to her shoulder and watched it flow over her skin, then followed it with a kiss and a gentle bite to the neck.
"And the pretends? Are you going to start doing them again?"
"Not right away. There's more than one way to work through this," he replied slowly. After a short pause he continued with, "In our time, I had unlimited access to funds and information. Things are different here and we both have more options. I like helping people, but I'll need to change my tactics. Having your help would definitely make a difference."
"That's not all that's worrying me," she replied with a heavy sigh, thoroughly enjoying his erotically tactile exploration of her body. "It's the Centre. Returning to our own time, we'll both have to avoid them. Staying here is riskier. If they capture you and figure out who and what you are, things will be worse here than they were in our time. With me tagging along, it would only insure that they would try to kidnap you as well."
"They're looking for a brilliant little boy, not a full grown man," he rejoined softly in her ear. "They taught me how to be a pretender, I can just as easily pretend that I'm not."
"The scrolls aren't all they have. Genetics don't lie. You have the gene and a simple test would prove it. I know every bone in your body is altruistic but if you start messing with this timeline, we have no idea what unseen damage we might be causing."
"I like it when you say 'we'. I'll do my best to avoid the Centre but aren't we getting ahead of ourselves? That's at least 20 years from now. We'll have plenty of time to figure out what's best. I for one would like to spend some of that time doing things I never had the freedom to do before, like hang around in one place for more than a few months."
"You want a home," she replied quietly. "If you stay here, you'll have them, with no threats and no fears."
"And if I can convince you to stay, I'll have my best friend as well." He nibbled on her ear while his hands began to wander more purposefully.
Stimulated beyond distraction, she turned halfway in his arms and murmured against his mouth, "One thing is certain. I'm enjoying being seventeen much more than I did the first time around." With that comment, she neatly turned to completely face him in a move that showed how limber she was.
Shaking himself free from the more erotic aspects of his reverie, Jarod returned to his final upgrades for the radio when he recalled something Parker had told him about her arrival in this time. He realized there was an easier way to go about contacting the scientist. Grabbing the keys to the truck, he was headed out the door when his father stopped him.
"Going somewhere?"
"Oh, yeah," Jarod said confusedly. He kept forgetting that his father wanted to keep tabs on his whereabouts. "I was going to stop by and see Mari. Did you want me to pick something up while I'm out?"
"Son, I think we should have a talk," the major said quietly.
Jarod stared curiously. He knew his father was curious about the sudden relationship he developed with Parker. Now it seemed the major wanted to find out more about his son's deepening involvement. "You want to talk to me about my girlfriend?"
"Among other things, yes. Let's take a walk," the major commanded.
Jarod looked behind his father to see Parker and Ethan walking up to the screen door. Before she could knock, Jarod said, "Mari, what a coincidence. I was just about to go over to the Inn."
Jarod stepped around his father and opened the door for them and his mother. All three were carrying grocery bags, which Jarod quickly took from them.
"I ran into Mari at the general store and she and her little brother were nice enough to help me carry all of it home. Mari, I hope you and Ethan will stay and have dinner with us?" Margaret asked insistently.
"Thank you, I'll have to clear it with my mother first."
"The phone is over there next to Kyle. Emily, Ethan come in the kitchen and help me get dinner started."
Parker walked over to the phone, while Jarod and his father exchanged looks. The major shrugged and clapping his son on the shoulder said, "We'll talk later."
Parker heard him and looked over as Jarod watched his father walk outside. Speaking briefly to Ben, she informed him that she and Ethan had been invited to dinner and would be home afterwards. Ben was in a generous mood as well, having the kids out of the house gave him more time to spend alone with their mother.
Settling down on the couch, Parker picked up the television schedule and began reading the offerings for the day. "Which is your favorite show? Not much here to choose from. There's a classic Saturday Night on—that looks promising. It used to be my favorite show. Otherwise, it looks like a Nick-at-Nite nightmare," she said laughingly.
"Who's Nick-at-Night?" Kyle asked curiously.
"Oh, ummm that's a TV channel we get in Europe," Parker answered quickly.
Jarod smiled at her gaffe and sat next to her on the couch. "Some things are worth waiting for," he said softly switching to Portuguese. "The other day definitely falls into that category."
"Hormones kicking in again?" she asked softly in English.
"I've been thinking..." he began stubbornly in Portuguese.
"You still can through that thick cloud of hormones? Now I can appreciate why they kept calling you a genius," she interrupted in Portuguese.
"Everything's ready for making contact. You mentioned a frog when we first met. Do you still have it?"
"Red-eyed Horatio? What do you want with him?"
"Horatio?"
"I have this nasty habit of naming all my pets. Back home I've a menagerie of strays that drives my mother nuts."
A sigh of relief escaped his lips. "Where's the frog?"
"Back home hanging out on a tree limb in the terrarium. Why?"
"It's the key. You said that you woke up with it sitting next to you."
"How is he key to anything? And why would I've brought him here with me?"
"When we went through the portal, our bodies regressed 25 years but when you woke up the frog was still the same age. It was given something to inhibit regression. I'm betting that it was also injected with a locator beacon so our mad scientist would be able to find it in the continuum. The scientist should pick up whatever signal the beacon is emitting. That is if he hasn't already retrieved the frog."
Ethan walked by loudly arguing with Emily, causing Parker to call out to him. "Hey, Shorty. What are you yelling for? Be quiet."
Jarod looked at her curiously. Her Centre persona had come out in full bloom, something that had begun to fade in the past month they had spent together. It made him all the more determined to keep her in this time frame.
In response to her sharp reprimand, Ethan quickly stopped. He turned and looked at her with a sudden fear. This is the way she used to sound—the way she used to talk to him—before. Completely abandoning his argument with imperiously skeptical Emily, Ethan approached his sister. He didn't stop until he was partially in her lap, causing her to look at him in alarm. Without a word, he stared into her eyes.
"Are you alright?" she asked as she felt his cheek and forehead, brushing back his longish hair.
The genuine concern in her face and the light in her eyes relieved him. The whispers reassured him that the replacement was still present. His sister was still his sister but by some means there had been a change. He remembered when it occurred and noted it down in his journal—the day their mother stayed home from work to talk to Mari. At first he didn't, but now Ethan liked this new Mari better. She wasn't as impatient with him and seemed to like him better as well. He wanted to keep her this way.
"I'm fine. I told Emily that you could play the piano really good and dance too. She doesn't believe me, though," he said quietly, then turned his eyes to Jarod. He knew about the whispers but instinctively Ethan felt he could trust Jarod, so he smiled at Mari's boyfriend before jumping off his sister and asking calmly, "Would you play something?"
"What is it with you having to win arguments? I swear Ethan, this quirk of yours just doesn't go away," she replied with affectionate sincerity.
"Please, please, please," he begged eagerly, with all the drama a 6-year old could summon.
Parker continued staring at her brother, then looked over at Jarod. The look of wonderment was stamped all over her features. "He knows," she murmured softly.
"He has the same gift you have," Jarod responded tenderly. She was making him feel the things others had only told him about. Without trivializing his other relationships, this sensation definitely put them in a different perspective. The major had just reentered the house to see the expression on his eldest son's face—undisguised passion.
Margaret took in the whole scene and caught the deeply concerned look on her husband's face. Before Trevor could say anything to their son, Margaret smoothly stepped in. "Trevor would you mind helping me for a minute?" As with her children, she used a tone that was more of a command. The major conceded and joined her.
"We have one more week before going home. Leave him alone, Trevor."
Adopting her whisper, he responded, "Maggie, he's in love with that little girl. Every time I see them together I keep getting the feeling that this isn't one of his kiss-and-run girlfriends."
"She's not that young. She's seventeen. I know because I asked. And I've talked with her. Strangely enough, she seems to be extremely mature and well grounded. Nothing like that Asia Kraemer." Patting him reassuringly on his arm she stated, "Don't worry, it'll all work out."
"I'm wondering how he's going to take it when we tell him this is our last week here. If we weren't leaving soon, I think we'd have a time getting him to come home."
"I think what we both should do is try to find out as much as we can about her. Try not to be alarmed but I think we might just be staring at our future daughter-in-law."
They both stopped talking as Parker sat at the piano in the corner of the room. With practiced ease and Jarod standing nearby, she began to play. Fencing had been her main method of anger management and with it so far being unavailable to her and with her dancing abilities still rudimentary at best, piano had become her premiere emotional outlet. At her mother's insistence, Parker reacquainted herself with the instrument and recalled how she was able to pour her impotent anger and frustrations into the music. Rachmaninov and Debussy quickly became favorites. With amazing skill and much feeling, she expressed herself with a sophistication that went beyond her physical age. The hours of dedicated practice from the moment she stepped into this reality clearly showed though her proficiency was slightly lacking from the self that originally occupied this timeframe. When at last she was done, she looked up to find Jarod's whole family looking at her with unfeigned surprise. Silence enveloped the room as Jarod began to nod enthusiastically and clap; immediately joined in by the rest of his family.
Parker with embarrassed self-consciousness got up to the quick protests of her hosts and waved off their genuine entreaties for her to continue playing. Jarod grinned and said, "That's the best rendition of Beethoven's 'Bagatelle' I've ever heard." He had long ago mastered the piano but her touch and expression went beyond his knowledge.
"Thank you, Jarod. But you have to admit my performance was flawed and hardly that remarkable."
Leaning close to her he whispered, "You're underestimating yourself, Miss Parker."
Margaret watched the two lovers whispering to each other and was further convinced about her son's commitment. She strongly suspected that Jarod had lost all interest in OTS or in becoming a corporate drone. This very talented girl was his newest focus and knowing her son, he would follow up until his curiosity was completely satisfied—and his heart thoroughly devoted.
Jarod walked her outside after dinner in order to speak to her alone. Her display of talent had spurred his family into forcing her to return to the piano for the next hour.
"At least your father hates me a little less on this side of the timeline than he does on the other."
"He doesn't hate you on either side. Right now, he's worried that I've taken advantage of you. By the way, what do you say we take advantage of each other tonight?" he asked with a rakishly hopeful grin.
"We can't risk it. I think someone's watching us again."
"You're Spidy sense? Do you think it's Mr. Parker again?"
"Spidy-sense? Good Lord, Jarod," she replied looking at him with mild incredulity. "The voices in my head are starting to chatter again and yes I think it's the same guy we packed off to Florida but I haven't seen him yet."
"We're going to have to risk it. Tomorrow morning meet me in the clearing and we'll try to contact the scientist while we still have the chance. My main worry at this time is if he's still listening for us to make contact."
"If the Centre finds him, I can guarantee you that he's listening for all he's worth."