Trapped in Time Read online

  “Is it you?” she asked again, almost afraid to believe she was awake.

  “It’s me, my darling.” He crushed her to him and then pulled back just as abruptly. “Or no—I do not have the right to call you that. Not after the way I have treated you.”

  “You…I…” Caroline shook her head. “Why are you here? I thought you were going back to your own world.”

  “I was…but I did not want to go. Also, I was told by the Goddess to come to you.” He frowned. “I know that does not make much sense. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  “I have a hotel room. Come on.” The diner she’d been at was just across the street from the Holiday Inn. It wasn’t the fanciest place to stay but it was clean and quiet—it would do as a place to talk.

  Richard followed her in silence until they were in her room with the door closed. Caroline sat on the bed and gestured for him to do the same. He settled beside her, an anxious look on his sharp features.

  “All right.” Caroline made a motion with one hand. “Go on—explain what you’re doing on Earth and how you got here just in the nick of time to keep me from becoming roadkill. You said the Goddess sent you? You mean the Kindred Goddess?”

  “Yes.” Richard nodded. “But before I explain all that, I must earnestly beg your pardon. I have treated you abominably these past few weeks and for that, there can be no excuse.”

  “Well…you have a right to your feelings.”

  Caroline shrugged, trying to hide the mix of emotions bubbling up inside her. Hope…uncertainty…anxiety… Had he only come to save her because the Kindred Goddess told him to and now he was going back to his own world after all?

  “I mean, if you don’t care for me like you did the other Caroline, it’s not your fault. You can’t make yourself care,” she elaborated when he looked at her uncertainly.

  “But I do care. When I saw that hulking vehicle nearly run you down, I thought I would die if I lost you,” he said in a low, intense voice. “It was then that I realized how deeply I love you.”

  “What?” Caroline frowned at him. “You love me all of a sudden? After two weeks of not speaking to me? I’m sorry, Richard, but that’s kind of a fast turn-around for me.”

  He shook his head. “I do not blame you if you are incredulous. It took our meeting today—when you insisted on seeing me—to make me realize that we belong together.”

  Caroline put a hand on her hip. “Well if you realized it then, why didn’t you say something? Why tell me to have a nice life and act like you were going back to your own world?”

  He sighed and raked a hand through his hair.

  “Because…I thought I had other obligations.”

  Caroline raised an eyebrow. “Other obligations?”

  “My cousin, Emmeline,” he elaborated. “She is all alone in the world, now that her parents have cast her out. I thought it my duty to go back and take care of her—to convince her to go up to the Mother Ship or at the very least to make certain that she was safe.”

  “Oh…I guess I can understand that.” Caroline nodded. She had seen the great affection that Richard had for his cousin—he seemed to regard her more as a little sister—and she knew that Kindred had very strong protective instincts towards the women they considered to be under their care. Also, Emmeline was in an extremely precarious situation. Living in a brothel and having just given birth with no family to love and protect her—it was hard to imagine how a woman could be more vulnerable.

  “I was prepared to sacrifice my love for you and any future we might have together in order to go back and care for her,” Richard said in a low voice. “I will understand if you cannot forgive me for that. For putting blood above love.”

  “No…” Caroline said thoughtfully. “No, actually, I like it that you wanted to take care of her. You’re an honorable man, Richard—I wouldn’t want you to be any other way, even if you were prepared to put me second. So, why didn’t you go back to her?”

  “The Goddess.” He spoke in a low, reverent voice. “She appeared in the brass frame of the PORTAL machine’s window just as I was attempting to cross. She told me that I did not need to sacrifice our future together to care for Emmeline—apparently she is sending her another protector.”

  “She is? And she really appeared, just like that?” Strangely, Caroline wasn’t quite as skeptical as she might have been. She remembered the soft, strong, feminine voice that had comforted her and told her everything would be all right when she had been so frightened in Richard’s world. The voice she had heard and the visage he had seen must be one and the same.

  “She did.” Richard nodded. “Sylvan and Sophia and Olivia saw her as well. She told me that Emmeline would be protected and that I should come back to you quickly, as you were soon to be in imminent danger.”

  “Well, she was right about that,” Caroline remarked, shivering as she thought of the near miss she’d had with the jacked-up truck. She would have been flatter than a pancake if that thing had hit her—if Richard hadn’t swooped her out of the way just in time.

  “She was,” he agreed, nodding.

  “So…” Caroline bit her lip. “Were you just sent to save me and now you’re going back again? The same way you did when you saved me from Lord Harkens?”

  “No!” Richard exclaimed. Leaning forward, he took her hand in his. “No, I’m here to love you, Caroline. If….you still want me to, that is,” he added in a low voice.

  Caroline looked down at their hands, her much smaller fingers entwined with his long, strong ones.

  “It’s partly my fault,” she said. “I mean, the way you felt about me before. If only I had told you the truth about myself instead of trying to cheat my way into your life, we could have avoided a lot of confusion and pain.”

  “You were afraid I wouldn’t believe you,” he said gently. “And to own the truth, I am not certain I would have. The idea of my true mate switching places with the woman I thought was my mate is passing strange and difficult to comprehend.”

  Caroline looked up at him. “Your true mate? You mean me?”

  “Yes, you.” Richard nodded firmly. “You were right—it was you I was Dream Sharing with, not the other Caroline.”

  “But it was her you Joined with and made memories with,” Caroline pointed out.

  He laughed bitterly.

  “What memories do I have of her except those of rejection and pain? She never wanted to tie her life to mine. From the moment we Joined, she and her mother were constantly scheming to get free of me.”

  “It doesn’t sound very pleasant,” Caroline admitted.

  “It wasn’t,” Richard said soberly. “But it was all I knew and so I clung to it—clung to her—long after I should have let her memory go.”

  “Well, two years of marriage is a lot to let go of in just two weeks,” Caroline said.

  He shook his head. “Why are you excusing my actions? Why do you forgive me so easily for wounding you? I deserve no such mercy.”

  “Maybe…” Caroline licked her lips nervously. “Maybe because…I love you, too,” she whispered, scarcely daring to look up at him. “I know I should be angry and put you off for a while but, well, I don’t want to—don’t want to punish you. I just…just want to feel your arms around me again.”

  There she went, being shamelessly obvious again. A modern man would probably think she was needy and clingy, but when she dared to look into Richard’s face, she saw nothing but love and gratitude.

  “My darling,” he murmured and gathered her to him.

  Caroline went willingly, flowing to him as easily as water flows downhill. His warm, spicy, masculine scent filled her senses and his arms were like flexible steel bands around her, making her feel safe and cherished and protected all at once.

  She tilted her face up to his and Richard took her mouth in a kiss that made her feel like fireworks were being set off all over her body. With a hungry little moan, she licked delicately at the seam of his lips. He parted for her and Car