The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance Read Online Free

He was going to try to get her to join his church or his cult or his drive to eliminate the secret magnesium vapours the government was putting in our food.
    She began to pull away. “Ah, Patrick, um –”
    He caught her. “You have a dog named Klondike, your sister’s name is Liz and you hate the White Stripes.”
    Kate blinked, alarmed. He was right – on all counts. He saw her attempt to cover the surprise. “Anyone could have told you that,” she pointed out carefully. “Besides, doesn’t everyone hate the White Stripes?”
    The flecks of green danced in his eyes. He liked her sense of humour, which lowered the creep-out quotient considerably. She’d let this go on a little longer. “So, you’ve been asking questions. This is election year. You’re, like, what? Part of the opposition?”
    He relaxed his grip, flashing an apologetic look. “In a sense. But this has nothing to do with politics.”
    “My sister and my dog. Not exactly Harry Houdini stuff, OK?”
    The corner of his mouth rose, buoyed by her challenge, and his eyes narrowed in a calculating squint. “I’m walking a fine line here between trying to convince you and trying not to scare you,” he said after a long pause.
    “Oh, you passed that line a few minutes ago, my friend.” She gazed at the bronze of his skin and the intricate pattern of hairs peeking from his sleeve. His was a fine hand to hold, she noted objectively, strong and generous, and that odd tingle of connection still burned pleasantly across the surface of her palm. That, more than anything, made her curious enough to continue.
    He gestured to her clutch. “Are your keys in there?”
    She nodded.
    “You stuff your purses with Kleenex to make them hold their shape, you always carry some kind of lime-green-coloured lip balm, and your keychain has a Powerpuff Girl on it – Buttercup, I believe – which, for a reason I have never understood, seems to represent both empowerment and revolution to you.”
    He picked up her purse. “May I?”
    She was too shocked to do anything but nod. He gently shook out the contents of her bag: about a dozen crumpled tissues, Buttercup on the ring that held her keys, Bonne Bell Kiwi Lip Smacker lip balm, a twenty, a Triple A card and her cell phone. He picked up the keys with his free hand. “More?”
    “You had access to my purse,” she pointed out. “I left it on the table.”
    “Fair enough. You went to Sarah Lawrence and majored in politics,” he said, “though you should’ve probably majored in literature, since you’re a voracious reader, mostly historical fiction and mysteries, though when no one’s looking you pull out one of the romances you keep hidden under your bed. There’s some tiresome character named Jamie in one of them you wish all men would emulate. You drive a shiny new Subaru; you made the down payment on it with your first pay cheque, which is one of the things that first made us friends, because I drive one, too. You love to rollerblade, and you always wear a helmet, but a knee injury from ninth-grade tennis tends to make you look like a penguin on wheels, and you’re about to make the biggest mistake of your life.”
    Kate exhaled, her mind racing in every conceivable direction. Was this a trick? These things weren’t impossible to know, and yet, why would anyone bother? “I … I … don’t believe you.”
    “About the mistake?”
    “About any of it.”
    “Kate, your mother had a lump removed from her breast. You feel guilty because it happened while you were doing your finals senior year and you think you should have been there, and your worry for her is something that’s always in the back of your head.”
    “What do you want?” He’d gone too far. Her shock had boiled into anger. “This is rude.”
    “But she’s going to be OK,” he said quickly. “All right? She’s going to be OK. I promise.”
    She froze, the thin layer of defence that keeps our emotions at bay torn away, and against