A Little Time In Texas. Joan Johnston

get a cup for myself.”

      Before he could stand, she laid a hand on his bare chest. “Don’t get up.”

      Dallas couldn’t have moved if his life depended on it. Even though she was barely touching him, he was distinctly aware of her fingertips on his flesh.

      Angel was amazed at how hot his skin felt. She was intimately aware of the crisp hair under her fingers, of the firm muscle that tensed beneath her touch. She withdrew her hand ever so slowly, as though she were escaping a trap that might spring closed if she weren’t extremely careful.

      She set the coffee cup on the low wooden table beside the sofa, said “I’ll be right back” and turned to go.

      Dallas stood and caught her wrist before she had gone two steps. “Don’t leave.”

      Angel glanced over her shoulder and froze at the sight of him. The hair on his chest arrowed toward his belly. Her eyes followed the dark line down until it was cut off by his jeans. The top button was undone, and they had slid down his hips. Beneath the worn blue denim was the unmistakable proof that he was as aware of her as she was of him.

      Angel didn’t resist his hold on her wrist, merely poised herself to flee or fight, whichever alternative should offer her the best chance of survival.

      Only, to her surprise, Dallas released her.

      “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said.

      “You didn’t,” Angel lied. She saw him wince as she rubbed her wrist where he had held her.

      “Did I hurt you?”

      “No.” He hadn’t, she realized. But she could still feel his flesh on hers. The sensation had been stunning.

      They weren’t touching now, but an invisible bond seemed to hold them in thrall. Neither moved, neither broke the spell until finally Angel realized that she was waiting for him to make the first move, to touch her again. That wasn’t fair to him…or to her. She had gone her whole life without being touched by a man as much as Dallas had touched her in the past twenty-four hours. It was foolish to get embroiled in something she wouldn’t be around to finish.

      “Can I—” She had to stop and clear her throat before she could continue. “Can I make you some breakfast?”

      Dallas smiled. Trust a woman to think of a man’s stomach at a time like this. “A couple of fried eggs and some bacon would be fine,” he said. “I’ll come along and show you where things are.”

      Angel hesitated and then nodded.

      Once they had something to do, it wasn’t so hard being in the same room with each other. The tension was always there, but they could channel it into action and thus defuse it.

      Angel found the contents of the refrigerator a marvel. Imagine the convenience of a dozen eggs in a plastic carton and bacon already sliced and ready to fry! She laughed when Dallas showed her the pre-made biscuits in a cardboard cylinder. They weren’t half-bad.

      Dallas didn’t say much while they ate, but it wasn’t a peaceful silence. Angel knew he was agitated. He opened his mouth several times to speak, then snapped it shut again. She didn’t press him. In her experience it was best to let a man do his thinking without interruption. When he was ready, he would talk.

      Only, when Dallas finally spoke she wasn’t at all pleased with what he had to say.

      “I made a mistake bringing you here, Angel. I should have taken you to San Antonio, to a hospital or somewhere they can take care of you.”

      “You don’t believe me,” she said flatly. “I mean, that I’m from the past.”

      His eyes were bleak. “No, I don’t.”

      “Then take me back to the cave,” Angel said.

      He shook his head. “That wouldn’t solve anything. The tunnel’s gone. If—and it’s a big if—you did come from the past, there’s no going back.”

      “There must be another way, another tunnel. I have to get back where I came from,” Angel said, her voice strained with the effort to remain calm. “There’s someone—”

      “You said you don’t have any family,” Dallas interrupted.

      “It’s not—You don’t understand.”

      “Then explain it to me.”

      Angel took one look at the implacable man sitting across from her and realized he wasn’t going anywhere until she talked. “All I can say is that I have business, unfinished personal business, that needs tending to in San Antonio. In the past.”

      Dallas wondered whether her personal business involved another man. He felt a stab of jealousy at the thought. “Anything you can share?”

      “Believe me, I’d tell you everything if I thought it would make a difference,” she said. “But there’s nothing you can do to help—except get me back to the past.”

      Dallas scratched the dark beard on his jaw. He really ought to shave. With that thought came the memory of why he hadn’t shaved, why he had been in the cave in the first place. He realized that somehow his guilt over Cale’s death had eased. Angel had done that for him in the darkness of the cave. So maybe he owed her the chance to prove to him that she was from the past, and perhaps to help her find her way back to wherever she came from.

      “All right,” he said. “We’ll go back to the cave. We’ll look for another exit. But if we don’t find it—”

      “We’ll find it,” Angel said. “We have to.”

      “And if we don’t?”

      The air in Angel’s lungs hissed out, but she managed a tremulous smile. “Then I guess you’re stuck with me.”

      Dallas liked that idea too much to spend time contemplating it.

      They didn’t say anything more, just finished the food on their plates. Angel offered to wash the dishes before they left for the cave, but Dallas grinned and opened a door under the sink. “Automatic dishwasher. All you have to do is stack the dishes inside and the machine does the rest.”

      “Now that’s something almost worth staying in the future to have,” Angel said. “Almost,” she repeated, when it looked like Dallas was going to suggest she do just that.

      The drive back to the cave was no less harrowing in Angel’s eyes. She couldn’t get used to the speed of Dallas’s truck. Somehow everything in the future seemed geared to happen in a hurry. It was like landing on a bucking bronc. She wanted off. She wanted things to slow down, so she could breathe easily again.

      “I lost most of my gear in the cave-in, so all I’ve got is a couple of flashlights,” Dallas said. “We’ll stay together. At least you won’t have to worry about the dark. There’s only one other tunnel I haven’t followed, and that’s because it starts wet and stays that way.”

      “Wet?”

      “An underground river runs through the tunnel. It’s shallow—what I’ve seen of it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t get deeper. Or end up going underground.”

      Dallas didn’t believe they would come out of the cave in another century, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He carried all the usual cavers’ supplies—and brought along his gun. He carried the same .45 Colt revolver his father and his father’s father had carried, rather than the automatic weapon the department issued.

      “Expecting trouble?” Angel asked as he slipped the gun into a holster at his side.

      “Never hurts to be prepared,” he said.

      The way back through the cave didn’t seem to take nearly so long with flashlights. Dallas took Angel directly to the spot where the cave had come crashing down behind them.

      “There’s no going back that way,” he confirmed.