Trapped in Time Read online

  “Your wife—the other Caroline. Yes, I know,” Caroline said quickly. “The point I’m trying to make is, I wasn’t just playing with your heart for the fun of it. I actually felt for you. Felt so much that I sort of…couldn’t help myself. I didn’t mean to lie to you and I never dreamed of hurting you. I got caught up in what for me were very real and extremely new emotions and I just…got carried away.” She sighed. “For that, I’m truly sorry. It was selfish of me not to think how you’d feel if you found out I wasn’t really your wife.”

  Richard frowned. “So…you had no intention of telling me you weren’t my Caroline?”

  Caroline bit her lip and shook her head shamefacedly.

  “I thought you’d think I was crazy if I told you. So I made up my mind to just stay in your universe with you and keep on pretending to be her. I…I thought it would be okay, since we had been Dream Sharing with each other,” she admitted in a low voice.

  Richard shook his head. “I was not Dream Sharing with you. It was Caroline—my Caroline, I dreamed of.”

  “No, it was me!” Caroline insisted. “Don’t you remember? You told me that you’d dreamed of me in a strange setting, where all the women wore trousers. And you saw me working with machinery you didn’t understand.”

  He frowned thoughtfully. “So I did.”

  “Look around you.” Caroline made a gesture that included her whole world. “That couldn’t have been the other Caroline—it was me. You were Dream Sharing with me. That’s why I felt the instant connection to you—felt like I already knew you and trusted you. Because we had been in each others’ dreams for years. You were never meant to be with her—you were dreaming of me and I was dreaming of you all that time.”

  Richard looked stunned. She saw the dawning light of comprehension on his face and for just a moment, she dared to let herself hope that he might see the truth—that they belonged together. Then his face, which had begun to open up, closed down just as quickly.

  “What you say may well be true,” he said stiffly. “But it does not negate the events that transpired between us. Or change the fact that I must return to my own world.”

  Caroline felt tears rising like a hot lump in her throat. She had finally gotten a chance to talk to him—a chance to explain everything. Richard had heard her out—he even believed her.

  But it didn’t change a thing.

  “Did you ever feel anything for me at all?” she asked, fighting hard to keep her voice from trembling. “I mean, you came back to save me…you took a bullet for me! Was all of that nothing?”

  He looked away, his jaw working as a muscle jumped there. His hands were clenched into fists.

  “It was not nothing,” he admitted in a low voice. “But it was not enough to keep me here, either. I am sorry, Dr. Lambert, but I cannot stay.”

  It was a moment before Caroline could answer him. She had to take some deep breaths and get control of herself. At last, however, she felt able to speak without crying.

  “All right—I never expected you to stay,” she said, which was true. She had only hoped desperately that he would. But it had never been a foregone conclusion. “I just wanted to explain my actions and motivations to you,” she went on, lifting her chin and refusing to let the tears she felt stinging her eyes fall. “And to tell you that…that I’m going to make a fresh start.”

  He frowned. “A fresh start? What do you mean?”

  “I mean, no more working with the PORTAL—no more living here aboard the Mother Ship,” Caroline said firmly. “I need to do something completely different. Something to take my mind off…well, you see what I mean.”

  “I suppose.” He sighed heavily. “Truthfully, it will be some time before I can forget the events of the past several days myself.”

  “Right.” Caroline nodded jerkily. “So I’m going back down to Earth to do something new with my life. I’m thinking seriously about joining the Peace Corps and going to help out in a third world country somewhere.”

  “What?” Richard looked startled. “You plan to go to the wild and undiscovered countries of Africus or Indo-Chin?”

  Caroline suppressed a small, sad smile.

  “Well, they’re not nearly so undiscovered in my time,” she told him. “But yes, I might. I have a meeting about it set up. And…” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to move on in other ways too. I’m going to try dating again.”

  “Dating? You mean courting, correct?” Richard asked. When she nodded, his face grew dark. “You’re not going to use one of those applications on your telephone, are you?” he demanded. “The ones that expect you to act like an unpaid prostitute?”

  “I’m not using a hook-up app, no—not that it’s any of your business,” Caroline told him sharply. “But apps are pretty much the easiest way to meet people in my world. So I’ll probably use one of the relationship ones—I’ll try anyway.”

  Richard frowned. “I don’t like this! This idea of you meeting up with a strange man who might have nefarious purposes in mind is terrible! You could be attacked again, as you were in the alley behind Mother Griffith’s—do you not remember?”

  “Of course I remember!” Caroline shot back, her grief turning to irritation. “But if there was one thing our time together taught me, it’s that I don’t want to spend my life alone! Before I met you, I thought I could just stay married to my work. Now I understand that I need more that that!” She took a deep breath. “I might…never meet anyone like you again or feel that same connection, but I have to try. I can’t just give up on life because I can’t have everything I want.”

  “I suppose it is none of my business,” Richard growled unhappily. “But I cannot help fearing for your safety! I will not be here to protect you next time a strange male has designs on you.”

  “I know—because you’re going back to your own world,” Caroline snapped. “Who knows—maybe you can meet someone there you can love and protect. Someone who won’t ruin your trust in her by trying to save her own skin.” She took a deep breath, searching for control. At last she went on in a calmer tone. “What I’m trying to say is, maybe you can start again too. I guess…I guess that’s all either of us can do.”

  “I suppose.” But Richard looked extremely unhappy at the prospect.

  Well, let him be unhappy then, Caroline thought. He couldn’t have things both ways. He couldn’t decide to leave her and then tell her how to live her life. Abruptly, she decided she was done here.

  “Well, that’s all I have to say,” she said coolly. “Thank you for the courtesy of listening. I hope…” her breath hitched in her throat and for a moment she almost couldn’t force the words out. “I hope that you have a very long and happy life in your own world.”

  “Caroline—” Richard began. There was an unreadable look on his face, his pale blue eyes filled with something like regret. But Caroline couldn’t stay any longer—not if she was going to keep her promise to herself not to cry.

  “Goodbye,” she blurted and ran out the door before he could say another word.

  * * * * *

  Richard sat there, stunned and strangely bereft. She was gone—truly gone—and he had just let her go.

  Don’t be foolish—she was an imposter. None of what you felt for her was real, he tried to tell himself, but this time, the words rang hollow and false.

  He couldn’t help remembering the way he’d felt when Caroline had first reacted favorably to his touch. It had been during his first examination of her—when he believed she had been the one struck by lightning. Her body had lit up for him, her breathing quick and light, her whole being yearning towards his as he stroked her lovely breasts and gently teased her nipples.

  She had begged him to touch her, told him she longed to feel his hands on her.

  And I, like a fool, thought it was my own wife who was begging for my touch, he thought. The anger that accompanied the thought wasn’t directed at Caroline but at himself.

  How could he have been so self-deluded? No