Time Enough for Love Read Online Free Page A

all. Most of the work done in their R&D labs dealt with computer software, not time travel. In fact, there was no mention of time travel in any of the information Maggie had been given about the corporation.
    She headed quickly out to the parking lot and unlocked her little car.
    It had been sitting in the sun for hours, and the temperature inside was ovenlike. Maggie pulled down all the windows and turned the AC on full power as she headed onto the main road.
    What if he were telling the truth?
    The thought was a tiny one, but it niggled at the back of her mind obstinately.
    He wasn’t telling the truth, she told herself firmly. He was insane. And she would be, too, if she started believing him.
    The air coming out of the vents was starting to feel cooler, so she closed the windows. She turned onthe radio, too, determined not to think about anything at all until she got home. Then she’d think only about dinner. And after dinner, she’d finish up the copy for that landscaping brochure and—
    “… reports now say that the airliner carrying over three hundred passengers went down around two A.M. , London time, over the Atlantic.” The normally ebullient country-station DJ sounded sober and solemn. “I repeat, World Airlines flight 450 from New York to London exploded in midair over the Atlantic Ocean around two o’clock this morning. There are believed to be no survivors.”
    She was only a block away from her house, but Maggie had to pull over to the side of the road. She could barely breathe despite the fact that the air conditioner had fully kicked in.
    How could Chuck have known? Somehow he’d
known
.…
    “The investigating agencies have issued a short statement saying that the explosion was the result of a terrorist act. Apparently attempts were made to negotiate with the terrorists onboard. A tape of those conversations will be released at a later date.”
    Terrorists. A terrorist’s bomb brought the plane down. Chuck had told her about it. He’d warned her. But she’d done nothing. She’d called no one.
    And over three hundred people had died.
    Maggie did a U-turn, tires squealing, heading for Tia’s.
    Chuck saw Maggie pull up outside of the restaurant. She was driving much too fast, and he knew she was here because she’d heard the news reports about Flight 450.
    He went out on the sidewalk to meet her.
    As he moved into the late-afternoon sunshine he was struck again, as he had been repeatedly since yesterday, by the sense of freedom he felt. For the first time in years he was able to go wherever he pleased without a pair of bodyguards watching his back.
    “I tried to warn them,” he told Maggie before she could say even a word. “I remembered it was World Airlines, and I called them right after you left last night, but the jet had already departed from Kennedy Airport. I was too late.”
    “How did you know?” she asked. There was suspicion in her eyes, and her face was almost ashen.
    “I told you how I knew,” he said quietly, aware that the clerk from the nearby convenience store had come out onto the sidewalk to have a cigarette and was eyeing them curiously. “Why don’t you comeinside, and I’ll buy you a drink. You look as if you could use something.”
    She backed away from him. “You knew because you’re one of them. You’re one of the terrorists who planted that bomb.”
    “Oh, come on. You don’t believe that. That’s ridiculous.”
    “And your claim that you’re a time traveler isn’t …?”
    She did a double take then, as if really looking at him for the first time. The Santa Claus pants and makeshift sandals were gone. Her eyes were wide as she took in his jeans, his nearly brand-new polo shirt, and the expensive leather of the new cowboy boots he’d picked up just this morning. He knew he looked a lot different from the wild-eyed man who’d pounded on her door just over twenty-four hours ago.
    “Where did you get those clothes?”
    “I’m not a terrorist,”