A Husband in Time. Maggie Shayne

hand connected with his face in a streak, and he didn’t have time to duck it. It thoroughly amazed him when her blow knocked him off balance. He landed on the bed, blinking up at her. Lord, why was he so weak? So dizzy? Had he been ill recently?

      “Get out,” she ordered.

      “Enough,” he said softly, still baffled by his physical state. “Are you daft? Must I prove to you that this is my home? Shall I send for the sheriff to have you carried out? Is that what you want?” He shook his head, lifted a hand and pointed toward the table near the window, its shape just visible in the darkness. “There is a worktable. Not the main one, of course, but I do keep one here in Benjamin’s room. Some of my experiments are there. My tools. My notes. They’re secret, naturally, but a common doxy like you could make neither heads nor tails of them anyway, so go ahead and look.” He pointed to the far wall. “There is the hearth, and upon the mantel are a pair of oil lamps and some matches. Do light one, so you can see for yourself where you are, woman. And then kindly remove yourself. I have work to do.”

      The woman only stared at him, completely puzzled. And then, slowly, she moved to the wall. She touched an appendage there, and the room was suddenly flooded with light. Zachariah Bolton nearly fell on the floor in shock.

      Three

       J ane searched the floor, spotted the baseball bat and snatched it up again as she watched an apparently bewildered man gazing around Cody’s bedroom as if in disbelief.

      “What is this?” he shouted. “Where is the slate board? My notes? Lord, woman, who installed this confounded electrical illuminator in here, and what have you done with my notes?”

      “Look,” she said, holding the bat up in front of her. “I don’t know who the hell you are, or what you’re talking about, but—”

      “My tools!” he yelled, turning this way and that, pushing a hand through his nearly black hair. “What in tarnation have you done with my tools? And my worktable? Woman, where is Aunt Hattie’s credenza?”

      The man was sick. And not just mentally, either. His face was pale, and thinner than it should be, and dark circles ringed his deep brown eyes.

      “Thank heavens,” he said at last, and fell to his knees on the floor, grasping that small box. “The device is safe, at least. The device…” He looked even more confused than before. “But…but I hadn’t finished it yet.”

      She wanted to run from the room. Right that second, run down the hall to grab Cody, and then take him right out of this house. But the man on his knees in the center of the floor was looking at her, and she thought, maybe, he was remembering… The pain that slowly shadowed his face said more than words could. But he spoke all the same, staring hard at her.

      “You’re Jane.”

      She nodded, not moving. Telling herself to leave, call for help. And telling herself not to go to him and try to ease the confusion from his brow.

      “And the boy…he’s your son… He’s not Benjamin.”

      “That’s right. You remember, then,” she whispered.

      He closed his eyes. “I remember. Benjamin…my little Benjamin…he’s…” His head bowed, and his shoulders began to shake. “He’s dying. How could I forget that, even for a moment?”

      Jane blinked. Dying? He had a son, who resembled her own, and that son was dying? “My God,” she whispered, and the bat fell to the floor with a bang. “My God, no wonder you’re so messed up.” Warily she moved forward. And when she stood close to where he knelt, she touched his hair, stroked it away from his face and felt the tears that dampened it.

      His arms closed around her legs, his head resting against her thighs. “I meant to go back, Jane. I meant to go back, so I could save him. Before he was ever exposed to the blasted virus. I meant… But I failed. A miscalculation. Something. I failed, and now I might have lost him forever.”

      Crazy talk again. But then, how sane would she be if she ever lost her Codester? A little chill raced up her spine, but she went right on stroking his hair. His entire situation resembled the history of Zachariah Bolton. No wonder he’d wandered here in confusion. “It’s all right,” she whispered, because there was a lump in her throat that prevented her speaking louder. “It’s going to be all right. I’ll help you. Okay?”

      He said nothing. But she knew he was devastated. He clung to her, shaking, crying perhaps, confused and in terrible pain.

      “What’s your name?” she asked him.

      “Zach,” he muttered. “Zachariah Bolton.”

      She stiffened, and he must have felt it, because he straightened away from her. He pressed a hand to his forehead, as if trying to rub away a pounding headache, and then he slowly got to his feet. “I’m sorry. I’m falling apart. What must you think?”

      “I think,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “that you’ve been through something horrible and it’s left you…confused.”

      “Insane, you mean.”

      “Of course not.”

      He shook his head and paced away from her. “You look at me as if you believe I’m insane.”

      “I…well…look, it’s just that Zachariah Bolton would be over a hundred and thirty years old today.”

      He stopped pacing and stood, toying with the black box in his hands. “Zachariah Bolton,” he said softly, “is thirty-five years old, Jane. He was born in 1862.”

      “That doesn’t make any— What is that thing you’re playing with?”

      He looked up, blinked. “So the house belongs to you now?”

      “Yes. My son and I, yes.”

      “Your husband…is he at home? May I speak with him?”

      “I don’t have—” She bit her lip, averted her gaze. Since when did the handbook on survival in the nineties advise women to tell insane housebreakers that they were all alone? “He’s not here right now.”

      The man who claimed to be Zachariah Bolton frowned, and his gaze shifted downward. To her left hand, she realized belatedly. “You’re not married, are you?” She didn’t answer. He shook his head in wonder, and looked down at the box in his hand once more. And then he swayed a little, blinked as if his vision were blurring.

      “You’re not well,” she told him.

      He drew a fortifying breath and eased himself down onto the edge of the bed. “No. No, physically, I’m not at all myself. Side effects, I suppose. I hadn’t expected them to be quite so severe.”

      “S-side effects…to what?”

      He looked her squarely in the eye. “You’ll run off to send word to the local asylum if I tell you. But I don’t suppose I have much of a choice right now, do I? I need you, Jane. I need you to… Ah, but I can’t make you understand this way. Come here.”

      She blinked, took a step backward, eyeing him as he patted the spot on the bed beside him.

      He frowned, and then his brows went up and he nodded. “Yes, I don’t suppose I behaved as a gentleman when I found you here earlier, did I?” And his eyes, for some reason, fixed on her lips, and remained there a moment too long. “I don’t know what that was, Jane. A memory lapse of some sort. Side effects, as I said. I was remembering a time when two of my colleagues hired a…” He gave his head a shake. “No matter. I apologize for that. Please, come over here, just for a moment. If you stand there, you might be hurt when I show you what this device does.”

      She tilted her head. “What is it, some kind of stun gun?”

      His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know that term, but no, that’s not what this is. I only want to show you how I got here, Jane, because