Time and Again

resemblance to make her certain that this was Cal's brother.
    His eyes were green, and even in the photograph they were uneasily piercing. A tough customer, she decided and shifted her attention to the third man in the photo.
    He seemed slightly befuddled. His face wasn't as blatantly handsome, but there was kindness in it.
    Trapped in time, she mused. That was what a photograph did. It trapped people in time. Just as Cal was trapped now. She lifted a hand, but she caught herself just before she stroked the image of his face.
    It was important to remember that he was only here until he could break free. He had another life, in another world. What she was feeling about him, for him, was impossible. Just as impossible, she thought as she pressed the cool bottle to her brow, as the fact that she was standing in a vehicle designed to travel through space.
    Abruptly weary, she sat down on the bed. It was crazy, all of it. And the craziest part of all was that she had fallen in love for the first time in her life. And the man she loved would soon be far beyond her reach.
    With a sigh, she stretched out on the slick, cool sheets. Perhaps it was all a dream after all.
    He found her there more than an hour later, curled up on his bed. She was sleeping, as she had been the first time he remembered seeing her. It brought him an odd, unsettling feeling to watch her now.
    She was lovely, but it was no longer her beauty that drew him. There was a sweetness about her, a combination of compassion and shyness. She had strength and passion. And innocence-an incredibly alluring innocence. He wanted to go to her now, to gather her up and make love with her in the softest, gentlest way he knew.
    But she wasn't for him. He wished it could be like a fairy tale, wished she could go on sleeping for a hundred years, for two hundred and more, until he awakened her and claimed her for his own.
    He wasn't a prince, he reminded himself. He was just an ordinary man caught in an extraordinary situation.
    Moving quietly, he crossed to the bed to draw the sheet over her. She stirred, murmured. Unable to resist, he reached down to stroke her cheek. Her eyes fluttered open.
    "Cal. I had the strangest dream." Then she was awake and pushing herself up to stare around the cabin.
    "Not a dream."
    "No." He sat beside her. No matter how much he lectured himself, he couldn't deny the pleasure it gave him to share his bed with her, if only as a friend. "How do you feel?"
    "Still a little rattled." She combed both hands through her hair, holding it away from her face for a moment before she let it fall. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize I'd fallen asleep. I guess my mind needed to shut off for a while."
    "It's a little much to take in all at once. Libby?"
    "Yes?" She glanced distractedly around the cabin, trying to let it all settle in.
    "I'm sorry. I have to." He closed his lips over hers and savored. She was warm and soft from sleep. He couldn't have explained to her how badly he needed that yielding texture. Reflexively she lifted a hand to his shoulder. But there it relaxed.
    It took all his willpower not to touch her and, with the need raw in his gut, to draw away.
    "I lied," he murmured as his gaze dipped down to her mouth. "I'm not sorry." But he rose and moved away from the bed. She stood up and tried to keep her nervous fingers from fiddling with the hem of her sweater.
    "Is that your family?"
    "Yeah." He'd been staring at the picture, wishing life could be as simple as it had been at that moment.
    "My brother Jacob and my parents."
    The love, somewhat wistful in his voice, was unmistakable. Moved by it, she laid a hand on his arm.
    "This is Jacob?" she asked, indicating his brother. "But they don't look old enough to be your parents."
    "It isn't difficult to look young." He shrugged. "Well, it won't be."
    "And that's your home?"
    "I grew up there. It's about twenty kilometers outside the city limits."
    "You'll get back to them." She buried her own yearnings. Love, no matter how suddenly it came or how deep it reached, was selfless. "Think of the story you'll have to tell."
    "If I remember."
    "But you couldn't forget." The possibility struck her painfully. She couldn't bear it if he forgot her, if even her memory no longer existed. "I'll write it down for you."
    He shook off his black mood and turned to her. "I'd appreciate that. Will you let me go back with you?"
    She felt a flutter of hope. "Go back?"
    "To the cabin. I've done about all I can for now. I