Time and Again

time he threw you out of the house?"
    "Both." He had to grin. "He said you'd be back in six months and that I'd end up selling daisies on a street corner. Fooled him, didn't we?"
    "That was nearly twenty-five years ago."
    "Don't rub it in." He fingered his beard. "Doesn't it bother you that they're here-together?"
    "You mean that they're lovers?"
    "Yes." He dug his hands in his pockets again. "She's our baby."
    "I remember you telling me once that making love was the most natural expression of trust and affection between two people. That hang-ups about sex needed to be eradicated if the world was ever to experience true peace and goodwill."
    "I did not."
    "You certainly did. We were crammed into the back seat of your VW, steaming up the windows, at the time."
    He had to grin. "It must have worked."
    "It did, mostly because I'd already decided you were the one I wanted. You were the first man I'd ever loved, Will, so I knew it was right." She held out a hand and waited until he'd clasped it. "That man downstairs is the first Libby's ever loved. She knows what's right." He started to object, but she tightened her grip. "We raised them to follow their hearts. Did we make a mistake?"
    "No." He laid a palm on the gentle slope of her belly. "We'll do the same for this one."
    "He has kind eyes," she said softly. "When he looks at her, his heart's in them."
    "You always were overly romantic. That's how I caught you."
    "And kept me," she murmured against his lips.
    "Right." He toyed with the hem of her sweater, knowing how easy it would be to slip it over her head, and exactly what he would find beneath. "You don't really want to sleep, do you?"
    With a laugh, she overbalanced so that they both tumbled onto the bed.
    "It's so strange." Libby dropped down on the grass beside the stream. "Thinking that my parents are going to have another child. They looked happy, didn't they?"
    "Very." Cal settled beside her. "Except when your father was scowling at me."
    She laughed a little as she rested her head on his shoulder. "Sorry. He's really a very friendly man, most of the time."
    "I'll take your word for it." He plucked at a blade of grass. It hardly mattered if he had her father's approval or not. Soon Cal would be out of his life, and out of Libby's.
    She loved it here beside the water, which ran fresh and cold over the rocks. The grass was long and soft, dotted along the bank with small blue flowers. There would be foxglove in the summer, growing as tall as a man and bending over the stream with its purple or white bells. There would be lilies and columbine. At dusk deer would come to drink, and sometimes a lumbering bear would come fishing.
    She didn't want to think of summer, but of now, when the air was as fresh as the water, with a clear, clean taste to it. Chipmunks raced in the forest beyond. She and Sunny had hand-fed the friendlier ones.
    Wherever she went, to remote islands, to desert outposts, she would remember those early years of her life. And be grateful for them.
    "That's going to be a very lucky baby," she murmured. Then she smiled as a thought struck her. ' To think, after all these years, I might have a brother."
    He thought of his own, Jacob, with his flaring temper and his sharp, impatient mind. "I always wanted a sister."
    "There's something to be said for them, too. But they always seem to be prettier than you are."
    He rolled her onto the grass. "I wish I could meet your Sunbeam. Ow." He rubbed a hand over his side where she'd pinched him.
    "Concentrate on me."
    "That's all I seem to do." He braced his arm beside her head as he studied her face. "I have to go back to the ship for a little while."
    She tried valiantly to keep the sorrow out of her eyes. It had been easy to pretend there was no ship, and no tomorrow. "I didn't have a chance to ask you how it was going."
    Quickly, he thought. Too quickly. "I'll know more when I check the computer. Can you make an excuse to your parents if I'm not back when they get up?"
    "I'll tell them you're off meditating. My father will love it."
    "Okay. Then tonight-" He lowered his head for a gentle kiss. "I'll concentrate on you."
    "Concentrating's all you'll do." She linked her arms around his neck. "You're sleeping on the couch."
    "I am."
    "Definitely."
    "In that case-" He slid down to her.
    Later, during the night, when the fire was burning low and the house was quiet, Cal sat alone, fully dressed. He knew how to get back. At least he knew how he had gotten where