Rendezvous With Yesterday (The Gifted Ones #2)(116)

When she had been grieving, thinking him dead—sure, she had cried. But this?

Robert kissed the top of her head. “’Tis still there.”

Snorting, she glanced around the clearing. “Boy, I really blew it, didn’t I? I can’t believe I sat there and blubbered while the cell battery died. I have no idea how we’re going to get out of here now.”

“I can give you a ride,” a deep voice offered.

Robert abruptly released her, swiveled and drew his sword all in one motion.

Beth drew her Glock, aimed it, then gaped. “What are you doing here?” she asked when she saw the speaker.

Seth stepped from the trees.

A very different Seth.

Instead of knightly garb, he wore black jeans, heavy boots, and a black T-shirt that contrasted nicely with his tanned skin and outlined some very nicely defined muscles. His long, thick hair was pulled back from his face and secured with a strip of leather. A pair of dark shades rested on the bridge of his nose.

Robert sheathed his sword. “I thought you could not accompany us.”

“I could not.” Reaching up, Seth removed the sunglasses. “I can open the dimensional doorways that allows one to travel through time, but have found that it’s best if I refrain from doing so myself.”

“Why?” Beth pressed.

Smiling, he said nothing.

She frowned. Well, if Seth hadn’t come with them and avoided traveling through time then how was he here? “Wait. Are you saying you’ve lived over eight hundred years?”

No answer. Just the same handsome smile.

It seemed a confirmation. And a pretty unbelievable one at that.



But Beth had had enough brushes with the unbelievable lately to consider it the truth.

She contemplated him curiously. “Who exactly are you, Seth? Or perhaps the better question would be: What exactly are you?”

He strolled forward. “I knew your cell battery would die before you could ask your brother to fetch you, so I thought I would drop by and offer you a ride.”

“How did you know the battery would die?” She pounced. “I just charged it yesterday.”

He arched a brow. “Shall we go?”

She looked at Robert. “He isn’t going to answer me, is he?”

“Nay, he seems disinclined to do so.”

“Fine,” she muttered, holstering her weapon. “But I gotta tell ya,” she groused, “the mystery part of this whole tall, dark, handsome, mystery-man thing you’ve got going can really be annoying sometimes.”

Seth’s smile widened. “So I have been told.”

Shaking her head, Beth looped her backpack and the tent strap over one shoulder and followed him through the dry summer foliage, Robert at her side.

Several steps later, she glanced up and found Robert glowering down at her. “What?”

“You think him handsome?”

“Oh, please.” Beth shoved him hard enough to make him stumble slightly. “You know I don’t want any man but you.”

“Yet you do think him handsome.”

“Of course he’s handsome, Robert. But you are the only man who is handsome in a way that makes me want to rip your clothes off and have my way with you twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.” She sighed wistfully. “If only there were three-hundred and sixty-six.”

His expression lightened with amusement.

Beth smiled up at him, then frowned.

His face was very flushed. Perspiration beaded on his forehead and trailed down his temples and cheeks in thin rivulets. He pushed back his mailed coif to let the hot summer breeze comb through his thick hair, which clung damply to his head. But Beth doubted it would help. Summer breezes in Texas were about as cooling as a space heater or a hair dryer.

Concerned, Beth tugged one of her jacket sleeves down over her hand and used it to pat his face dry. “Hey, are you okay?”

Robert nodded. “’Tis hot, is it not?”

Swiping her sleeve across her own face, she sent him a wry smile. “Welcome to Texas.”

His look turned skeptical. “Such is common here?”

If his face got any redder, she was going to insist they stop and divest him of his mail and hauberk before they went any farther.

She shrugged. “This kind of heat and humidity is pretty standard for Houston. I may not like it, but I’m used to it.”

“I begin to understand why your feet were always so cold at Fosterly.”

She laughed. “Only when you weren’t there to warm them for me.”

The trees in front of them parted to reveal a large, sleek black vehicle with windows tinted as dark as the body.

“You drive a van?” Beth asked, somewhat surprised.

“Yes.” Pulling the keys from his back pocket, Seth pressed a button that disabled the alarm and unlocked the doors. Beside her, Robert jumped when the van emitted a chirping noise. “Why? What were you expecting?”

“An SUV. Or maybe a sleek sports car.”



He shrugged. “This serves my purpose better.”

“Mm-hmm. That purpose wouldn’t by any chance include sneaking in some afternoon romps in the back with your ladylove, would it?” she teased.

Seth laughed. “Alas, it does not.”