Page 66 of Across Time

He glances at me and bites his lip, leaning back in his seat, the glass floating lazily against his palm. He looks sad, though he says nothing.

I picture myself leaning over, brushing my mouth over those full lips of his. Would he be shocked? Would he respond? I think he might. I think he might lean into the kiss, pull the hint of wine from my lower lip. And my hand would go to his cheek, rasping against the beard that’s grown in over the course of the day. I’d breathe him in then, trying to capture him inside me somehow. His smell, his taste, his warmth.

"We should eat," I say quickly. "The wine is going to my head."

He leans back in his chair, watching me in that way of his, like he understands what's going on inside me better than I do. "And what do you suggest we eat?" he asks.

We could do bread and cheese and ham, as always. But for some reason I’m thinking of the night I ran away, when we came back here and divided Marie’s latest creation between us with two forks.

“I think we should make a pie."

"We?" he asks.

Pie is not something I'd suggest under normal circumstances, particularly as I've only been a part of the pie-making process once in my life. If I’m going to attempt it, I’m not doing it alone.

"You don't expect me to make it all by myself?"

He grins. "Yes, obviously it would be unthinkable, making something all by yourself." He's teasing but he rises, pushing his sleeves above the elbow. "Put me to work, ma reine." My queen.

"Is that another word for thief?" I ask.

"Yes," he replies. "But worse."

He follows me to the kitchen and I wrap my braid on top of my head while he pours us both more wine. "That isn't going to improve my baking skills," I warn as I take the glass.

"No," he says, "but it will help dull our senses before we are forced to taste the fruit of your labors."

“Our labors.”

I push the apples and cutting board toward him, while I take the seat on the other side and try to remember what Marie did that morning. I watch her measure the flour—exactly two and a half cups, watch as she mixes it with baking powder and then takes the butter and chops it into the flour, with small knives and rapid hands.

"You're doing it again," he says softly. "The shimmering."

My eyes open and I settle into my body, with a need to argue that is almost instinctive. Henri’s now claimed to have seen it twice and what does it mean if he’s correct? It means this is something I might do in front of Mark. Will do, if we live together eventually. And how the hell will I explain that?

“I wasn’t time traveling,” I insist, grabbing the flour and the butter. “Maybe I just lose my place a little when I’m focusing on something.”

"There wouldn't be anything wrong with it if you were time traveling, you know," he suggests casually, winding the knife with clever hands around the apple's surface.

I measure the flour just as Marie did, and begin to cut the butter into it. “Did I actually shimmer? Tell me the truth."

"You did,” he says. “You looked like a candle in a storm.”

"God," I say, cutting the butter into the flour with hands moving even faster than Marie's did, but mostly out of distress. "I sometimes do it during tests. Do you think anyone's seen me?"

He raises a brow. “I don’t know, but if you want to convince people you don’t time travel, you might want to cut that out first.”

I sigh as I grab the rolling pin. “Hard to accomplish when I don’t even know I’m doing it.”

“Then may I suggest that you don’t wind up with someone who has no idea who you are?” he asks.

I flip him off. He doesn’t seem to mind. “I think we may need cinnamon,” he says.

I can’t explain why I’m so intent on succeeding with this pie. It just feels important.

"Yes, we do," I reply, and before I can change my mind, I close my eyes and fade, clicking back one day, and then the next. I shouldn't be wasting my energy on this, yet I don't care right now about returning home. I just want to make a pie with Henri.

I land in the barn, as always, and grab the blanket. The sun is out, and when I peer through the open barn doors, I catch a glimpse of blonde hair and a white dress in the garden: me, watering the pumpkins. I race across the yard and into the house where Marie is scrubbing the floor. Her jaw drops when she sees me walk in the door.