Time and Again

mugs. "We call it a sink.
    They do have sinks in Philadelphia, don't they?"
    "Yes." He took a chance, depending on his research. "I've never used one quite like this."
    She relaxed a little. "Well, this place is a throwback."
    "I was thinking exactly the same thing."
    As the kettle began to sputter, she turned to make the tea. As she worked, she carelessly pushed her sweater up to her elbows. Long, limber arms, he noted. Deceptively fragile in appearance. He rubbed his own forearm. He'd already had a sample of their strength.
    "Maybe Cal didn't tell you that my parents built this place in the sixties." She poured steaming water into cups.
    "Built it?" he repeated. "Personally?"
    "Every stone and log," she told him. "They were hippies. The genuine article."
    "The 1960s, yes. I've read about that era. It was a counterculture movement. Youth against the establishment in a political and social revolution that involved a distrust of wealth, government and the military."
    "Spoken like a true scientist." A weird one, she added silently as she brought the mugs to the table. "It's funny to hear someone who was born during that time talk about it as if it were as far removed as the Ming dynasty."
    Following her lead, he sat down. "Times change."
    "Yes." Frowning, she watched as he rubbed a fingertip over the table's surface. "It's called a table," she said helpfully.
    He caught himself and picked up the mug. "I was admiring the wood."
    "I'm pretty sure it's oak. My father built it, which is why there's a matchbook under one of the legs." At his blank look, she laughed. "He went through a carpentry phase. Almost everything he built in this place wobbles."
    He could barely imagine it. Oak split from an actual tree and formed into a piece of furniture. Only those with the highest credit rating could afford the luxury. Even then they were limited by law to a single piece.
    And here he was, sitting in a house made entirely of wood. He would need samples. It might be difficult with her watching him, distrusting him, but it wasn't impossible.
    Thinking it over, he sipped the tea, stopped, then sipped again.
    "Herbal Delight."
    Sunny lifted her mug in salute. "Right the first time. We could hardly drink anything else without risking a family crisis." With a shake of her head, she studied him over the rim of her mug. "It's my father's company. Didn't Cal tell you that, either?"
    "No." Baffled, Jacob stared into the dark, golden tea in his mug. Herbal Delight. Stone. The company, one of the richest and most expansive in the federation, had been established by William Stone. The myths about his beginnings were as romanticized as those about the nineteenth-century president who had been born in a log cabin.
    No, not a myth, Jacob thought as the fragrant steam rose from the cup. Reality.
    "Just what did Cal tell you?"
    Jacob sipped again and struggled for patience. He wanted to record all of this as soon as possible. "Just that he had-flown off course and crashed. Your sister took care of him, and they fell in love." The old resentment welled up in him, and he set down his mug. "And he chose to stay with her, here."
    "You have a problem with that?" In a movement that mirrored his, Sunny set down her mug. When they eyed each other now, there was as much dislike as distrust in their looks. "Is that why you didn't bother to show up at the wedding? Because you were annoyed that he decided to get married without clearing it with you?"
    His eyes, shades darker as anger grew, snapped to hers again. "No matter what or how I felt about his decision, I would have been here if it had been possible."
    "That's big of you." She shot up to snag a bag of cookies from the pile of groceries. "Let me tell you something, Hornblower. He's lucky to have my sister."
    "I wouldn't know."
    "I would." Sunny ripped the bag open and dug in. "She's beautiful and brilliant, kind and unselfish." She gestured with half a cookie. "And, if it's any of your business-which it isn't-they're happy together."
    "I have no way of knowing that, either."
    "Whose fault is that? You've had plenty of time to see them together-if it really mattered to you."
    There was fury, rash and dark in his eyes now. "Time has been the problem." He rose. "All I know is that my brother made a rash decision, a life-altering one. And I intend to make certain it wasn't a mistake."
    "You intend?" Sunny choked on a cookie and had to snatch up her mug and drink before she could speak again. "I don't know