Between Love and Time: A Thrilling Romance Where Every Moment Counts Read online

  Between Love and Time

  Noelle Diamond

  Contents

  Chapter One: Reflection

  Chapter Two: Turning Point

  Chapter Three: Proof

  Chapter Four: Launch

  Chapter Five: Decision

  Chapter Six: The Plunge

  Chapter Seven: Advantage

  Chapter Eight: Fireworks

  Chapter Nine: Dr. West

  Chapter Ten: Clarion

  Chapter Eleven: Sunrise

  Chapter Twelve: Perseverance

  Chapter Thirteen: The Hunt

  Chapter Fourteen: The Answers

  Chapter Fifteen: 24 Hours

  Chapter Sixteen: Clarity

  Chapter Seventeen: Bear Hug

  Chapter Eighteen: History Repeats Itself

  Chapter Nineteen: The Dogon

  Chapter Twenty: Houdini

  Chapter Twenty-one: Trip the Light Fantastic

  Chapter Twenty-two: Targets

  Chapter Twenty-three: Free Fall

  Chapter Twenty-four: Grounded

  Chapter Twenty-five: Actions Speak Louder

  Than Words

  Chapter One: Reflection

  Murmurs of excitement buzzed down the line of girls sitting on the metal bench. My swollen feet throbbed and begged for relief, so I ignored my teammates and knelt to loosen the double knots of my cleats. Suddenly, a cold chill frosted through me and numbed my intentions. I dropped the black laces, stood up and looked around; it was a warning I could not ignore.

  To my right, was the faculty parking lot and I recognized Coach MacNeil’s old Honda and the few other cars that were always there in the late afternoon. The rest of the school grounds were quiet and empty and the cherry trees surrounding the area’s perimeter innocently held their bare branches toward the sky under my investigative stare.

  “It’s him. It’s HIM,” hissed one of my teammates, unable to maintain her composure. My eyes quickly shifted further left and the girls around me who were packing up their gear a second ago were riveted to an approaching figure cutting across the field.

  Oh, I should have known, it was Reid Wallace. He was harmless except for the fact he was the one guy who could make my entire soccer team swoon.

  His hulking frame already made him noticeable, but his exquisitely carved face made it easy to see why there was such a stir when he transferred to Gramercy High School last year. Nothing else seemed amiss and the frigid alarm that shivered through me a second ago seemed unwarranted.

  “Would you look at how he moves?” asked another one of my teammates to no one in particular. The stadium bleachers were behind him and the way he carried his lacrosse stick, helmet and practice gear in his right hand almost made him look like a modern gladiator. His smooth grace combined with a powerful confidence and it made him a bit unusual, I had to admit.

  A teammate hidden in the middle of the metal bench whistled a catcall in Reid’s direction and a dimpled smile flashed onto his face. The entire bench of girls dissolved into giggles and laughter. They should really stop embarrassing themselves, I thought as I pulled out my navy anorak and flip-flops from my backpack. The lightweight fabric of the shell glided over me and I undid my disarrayed ponytail before sitting back down on the edge of the bench to resume removing my cleats. The undersides of my cleats were clogged with dirt and a few stray blades of grass because the field was full of bare spots. I found all the places there was little or no grass; my white uniform socks were probably a lost cause.

  Blair unzipped her backpack and intently sorted through the bag. She pulled out a bandana, compass, flashlight, and binoculars until she found what she was looking for—a beat-up, well-traveled first aid kit.

  “Whitney, use this,” Blair commanded as she held up the green and white bottle of Bactine spray. She tossed me the spray for the dirty scrape on my knee from a slide tackle. As usual, Blair was looking out for me because I had forgotten all about the small cut.

  “Thanks, Mary Poppins,” I joked and followed her order. Blair always had an extensive assortment of supplies for any situation because she liked to be prepared. I hated to think it was because being my best friend for nine years had included us starving for three weeks at survival camp and taking regular Kung Fu lessons, but it was hard not to assume my dad’s adversity creed “to be able to persevere, defend, evade, and escape” hadn’t had an effect on her.

  The cold squirt had a strong medicinal smell and I let the liquid wash some of the dirt away before wiping it off with my towel.

  “Check it out, Barbie and Ken are getting together,” Blair joked and nudged me with her elbow. Blair was always keeping a cool eye on the social scene. Predictably, Reid Wallace was talking to Liz Cooley: the handsome hunk chatting up the mannequin with fake blonde hair and a fresh manicure. Liz looked yearbook photo ready and was shining with pride that she had snagged Reid’s attention. I had heard he was smart, but his current conversation choice made me chalk that up to rumor. Nothing was new there, I thought to myself, and took off my splattered socks. Blair took a drink of her Gatorade and her Irish green eyes danced with entertainment as if she was settling in to watch one of her favorite television shows.

  “So, Liz, did you all win your game?” Reid’s deep voice carried toward us. I stood up and slid into my flip-flops, tossed my socks and cleats into my backpack, and quickly zipped it closed. The noise of the zipper announced my readiness to leave and it was obvious Reid was not staying long either; his feet remained turned in the other direction.

  Liz noticed his polite but fleeting interest because she seized the moment to shake her hair to make sure he continued to notice her as she happily trilled the news we had won.

  “Looks like it was tough out there,” he said with an amiable grin and a slightly sarcastic edge. Liz’s socks were gleaming white, and her shirt was tucked neatly into her shorts. He must have known she had not played in the game.

  “Glad you all won,” he continued as he curtly nodded a goodbye. He took two steps away from Liz, but she was regrouping. She was not going to let him leave without giving it her all because no doubt she had much bigger plans for the two of them than idle chitchat. Liz gave an indignant squeal of his name in a way that made me want to cover my ears, but it did not delay him.

  She picked up a soccer ball and launched it at Reid. He caught my eye and the ball and dropped the ball to his feet and launched the ball to me. I trapped the ball under my flip-flop and Liz crossed her arms in annoyance that her attention-seeking missile was a dud. It did not make sense to me why he decided to head my way because I did not know Reid, and, just as puzzling, my warning chill returned alerting me there was something requiring my immediate attention.

  Reid easily covered the ground between us and embraced my shoulder like I was a fellow conspirator in his plan. His smoky brown-colored eyes were flecked with gold and they twinkled with amusement as he pulled me toward him. I tried to ignore the tingling that was racing through my body, but it was unrelenting. I could not control it. I was a government identified precognitive, better known as someone with ESP. Something was going on here.

  “I wasn’t sure Liz would have known what to do with a soccer ball heading back in her direction. You seemed like a more logical choice, Whitney. That dirt on your legs—it was a dead giveaway,” he said, enlightening my confusion in a low voice with a suggestion of laughter. Reid released me from his grasp just as I concluded he was an impossible flirt. He patted my shoulder as if to tell me to keep up the good work and walked away.

  Blair,
quietly mischievous, coughed on her sip of Gatorade as she choked out, “Your legs were a giveaway? Excuse me? And since when are you on a first name basis with Reid Wallace?” She twisted the orange lid back in place and stood up next to me. She was taller than me by almost four inches. Her shiny chestnut ringlets were restrained in a clip but one escaped curl she fixed with her fingers.

  “I’m not.” I shrugged, tucked the ball under my arm and slung my backpack onto my shoulder to head toward the locker room. As I neared the school, I noticed the brown branches of the dozens of cherry trees dotted with rosy buds that seemed to glow under the pink sky. The cherry blossoms were my favorite flower and I looked forward to seeing their blooms each year. Today was the first official day of spring, and, in a few weeks, there would be a grand explosion of blossoms that would not last long.

  Blair fell into step next to me and teased, “Lost in thought about Reid Wallace?”

  “Nope, not thinking about him at all,” I laughed, keeping my thoughts to myself. Blair would not like my choice of favorite flower. She liked flowers that could be delivered by the florist or made into a corsage.

  “You should be,” Blair answered with a tight-lipped grin.

  • • •

  Reid and his entourage of friends started cutting through our soccer field before practice started increasingly often. I tried to never let him see me watching him even though I was curious if he was a natural leader or if people followed him for his wealth, his looks, or his athletic ability. Maybe it was the entire glittering package. He would be the perfect match for Liz, who, assuming his presence was for her, was on an all-time high and even snobbier than usual. Her clique of friends on the soccer team threw her knowing looks every time Reid appeared. They could be Barbie and Ken together forever, I thought, wanting to gag on the artificial sweetness of her fake laughter that warbled out of nowhere the minute Reid came into view.

  A few weeks after Reid started cutting through the soccer field, I caught sight of my reflection in the gleaming paint of a black BMW convertible that pulled up next to me—I was carrying a netted bag of soccer balls on my shoulder and I looked like a grimy Santa Claus.

  The top was down, and my eyes scanned the glossy leather interior of the car. It looked brand new and when I faced the driver, I saw it was Reid. He turned down the Led Zeppelin that was blasting from the speakers and I was unprepared when he offered me a ride back to school from my team’s practice field.

  “Are you sure you want to give me a ride?” I asked, giving him an out. I stared directly at him, but he gave nothing away. “I’m pretty disgusting,” I said, studying my muddy socks and cleats. If that were my car, I would not let me in it and I braced myself for him to say that he would see me later.

  He flipped up his sunglasses and his eyes shone with amusement. What was so funny? I was being serious.

  “You definitely don’t look disgusting to me,” he answered, and the smile I was starting to get used to flashed across his face. “Just get in. I am sure the car will survive.” His voice rolled with an easy rhythm and it made his words seem more persuasive. He put his sunglasses on, implying he was ready to go.

  “OK, it’s your car to clean,” I answered, and happily tossed the netted bag of balls into the back seat. A ride would get me back to school much faster and I eagerly climbed into the car.

  “Why are you the last one out today?” he asked. The inquisitive expression on his face seemed genuine even though I could not figure out why he cared.

  “Whenever I go to my literary magazine meeting, I run the laps I missed at the beginning of practice at the end,” I said nonchalantly. I saw myself in the waiting gaze of his sunglasses and released my ponytail to let my sun-streaked brown hair take flight. In that second, I felt the unmistakable spark of a connection between us and he felt too close to me in the driver seat. “That’s my deal with Coach,” I managed to finish.

  “Literary magazine? That’s right. I heard you were pretty smart,” he said, beaming his charming smirk directly at me. It gave him an unfair advantage of attractiveness and the buffer of the car’s center console seemed to be getting smaller by the minute.

  “Yeah, I am,” I agreed, and he laughed. I shook off the flattery that he had been asking about me or that he had bothered to make it seem that he had. Just to be sure, I skimmed over Reid. He was relaxed behind the wheel and his breathing was steady. It seemed to confirm that he had been asking about me and that was strange since I was not his type. What was going on? This was a question I was not used to asking myself and the possibility the ride was not an accidental encounter rattled through my brain.

  All too quickly, he pulled the car into the rear parking lot by the girls’ locker room. I hoped he was not planning to ask me out. I would have to say no. I would not go out with him just because he was brutally handsome and Mr. Popular. My life was complicated enough without a boyfriend. I did not want a boyfriend. Definitely not.

  “Thanks,” I said, popping my seat belt before we came to a complete stop. I did not want him to think I was reluctant to leave so I sprang out of the car…probably a bit too fast. Darn it, I thought. I acted so much cooler when I thought he was flirting with me only to entertain himself.

  “That’s it?” he said, acting offended. Stunned, I stood there trying to figure out what he meant until he put his hand up like I was leaving him hanging. “No tip?” he quipped, and I told myself to get it together.

  “Here’s a five,” I wittily salvaged, holding out my hand for a high five and then pulling it back as he reached out to swat it. “Too slow!” I joked, grazing his hand. The raised calluses on his palm from his lacrosse stick scraped against my fingertips and, for a second, it was hard to remove my hand from his. There was a frictional drag that almost felt like there was some kind of magnetic field connecting us and the tingle of my ESP ignited and burned my hand. What was going on with this guy and me?

  “Very funny, very funny,” he conceded as I grabbed the soccer balls from the backseat and headed for the school. As I approached Gramercy’s doors, I imagined Liz having a temper tantrum at the sight of Reid dropping me off while Blair would have probably done a cartwheel in front of the marching band she would have hired. I smiled at the thought of Blair and how she was going to love to analyze this tonight when I spent the night at her house. This would be what Blair would call “juicy.”

  Even without Blair’s help, one thing I already knew for certain was that I had to stop making assumptions with Reid. He seemed to override all my senses; the only one that was missing was taste and I couldn’t imagine what would happen to me if I kissed him. I erased the thought. That was not going to happen. No way. This was just a strange fluke and he wouldn’t pursue me further.

  • • •

  But the “fluke” idea didn’t seem so plausible a week later. I smacked into Reid as I walked out the door of my Latin class. He literally collided right into me and after I caught my breath, I asked if he was lost. I had never seen him on that hall at that time.

  “I think remedial math is on the first floor. DOWNSTAIRS,” I said loudly. I had heard a rumor Reid’s PSAT math score was perfect and I liked that my joke was especially ridiculous.

  He lightly held onto my arm a second as he answered, “Thanks, was that your last class?”

  The sparkle in his eye and his witty retort made me chuckle. “Touché,” I acknowledged with a smile as I turned and walked away. The hall was crowded but I could feel his eyes on me as I left.

  And then, the next day, I heard, “Hey, Whitney, wait up!” The call echoed down the long hall toward the gym lockers and I instantly recognized Reid’s husky timbre. My pulse raced faster than I would have liked so I didn’t turn around. Maybe he would keep going to his locker bank on the other side, I thought as I scrambled for a plan. His uneven footsteps loped down the deserted hall and they were getting louder. Nope, evasion was not going to work so that only left persevere, defend and escape according to my dad’s survival t
raining rules.

  As he hurried behind me, I could hear his duffel bag of lacrosse gear thump against his leg and I braced myself for the clean and crisp scent of him that made me think of blue skies and open wilderness. The thought of it made me want to cozy up to Reid to inhale it again. Cozying up was not part of my survival plan, I reminded myself, and instead I took a deep breath of the hall’s dry and stagnant air.

  Fortified with dust and stale oxygen, I looked back at the tall figure and his eyes locked on mine. The unshakeable feeling he could see through me prompted me to pop a pretzel in my mouth from the bag I held in my hand since I wanted to have a reason all the words in my head seemed to be clogged in my throat.

  “Awesome, I’m starving!” he said, reaching over my shoulder and trying to snatch the pretzel bag. I was petite, but only Reid seemed to remind me of it. He dwarfed me and his presence forced me into a new level of personal awareness, probably because he was always bumping into me. I easily spun away from under him in a reflexive, self-defense move. “Come on, just one pretzel? All I have is a roll of Certs!”

  “Whose fault is that?” I asked, and playfully defended the bag of pretzels. Bewilderment knotted his face, and, with renewed determination, he moved directly in front of me. My shoes gave a small squeak as I stopped short so that I did not to run into him. It was remarkable Reid could so often create the reason to make physical contact. I needed to be more aware of what my coach would call his “style of play” and refrain from giving him his preferred advantage.

  “Besides, these are my favorite kind,” I huffed in mock annoyance as I tried to explain my defensive actions to avoid him with logic.

  “What if Rold Gold pretzels are also my favorite?” Reid asked as he tried to snatch the bag from me again. He equalized my argument and closed in on my space until I artfully twisted away from him.

  “Congratulations. You have good taste in pretzels. Your current sparring partner isn’t too shabby either,” I answered smugly and tried to repress a laugh at his overdramatized scowl.