Asher's Dilemma by Coleen Kwan Page A

couldn’t be. She dropped to her knees beside the prone figure, Quigley following suit. The man she’d sworn was dead groaned again and shifted a foot, his eyes screwed shut. “My chest…hurts like the dickens,” he sputtered.
    “Asher, oh Asher, oh my gracious, you’re alive. Alive!” She glanced at the other man hunkered across from her. “Asher—Quigley—he’s alive.”
    Quigley nodded, stunned into silence.
    “Water,” the man on the ground croaked.
    “Yes, of course.” Whirling to her feet, she dashed about the workshop in search of water. Tiny black spots danced in front of her vision. This had been occurring intermittently all day and had intensified during the past few minutes, but she put it all down to shock. Who wouldn’t become light-headed at seeing the love of her life gunned down only to have him rise from the dead seconds later?
    Finding a pitcher of clean water, she poured out a glass and returned to the two men, the receptacle wobbling in her unsteady hands. She stopped in shock when she saw Quigley probing at the black mess of the fallen man’s chest.
    “What are you doing?” She rushed over, spilling water in her haste. “Stop, you’re hurting him.”
    The Asher on the ground muttered, “No, it’s feeling much better.”
    “But that’s impossible,” she protested. “I saw it happen. I saw the ray pass right through your chest where your heart is.”
    “I know. I felt it too. But look—” He tugged apart the frayed rent in his singed shirt and brushed away a few remnants of ash. “Look, Minerva.”
    Fearful, she squinted at his chest and saw sound, healthy flesh, all intact and unmarked by any violence. She stretched out a hand and touched his skin. It was warm, alive, the hairs springing beneath her fingers. Impossible. Magical. She skated her shaky fingers over him, tracing the line of his pectorals, marveling at his sculpted beauty, her caress frank and filled with wonder. A moment later she caught the gleam in Asher’s eyes and pulled her hand away. Embarrassment flooded her. How inopportune for desire to flourish at such a moment.
    “I saw you die,” she said. “How can you still be alive?”
    Instead of answering, he looked past her at the man who had fired the fatal shot. From above her, Quigley spoke. “So the theory holds true then.”
    Asher nodded. “It would appear so, much to my infinite relief.”
    “Mine too. You must know I would never try to harm you.”
    “You can’t anyway, but remember there’s nothing to stop me from harming you.”
    “Touché.”
    Minerva had been following this exchange with growing impatience. “What are you two babbling about?” she interrupted. “What theory?”
    Asher held out a hand. Quigley helped him to his feet. The two men stood side by side, two pairs of identical green eyes studying Minerva.
    “The theory of temporal paradox,” Quigley said to her. “It means I cannot go back in time and kill myself—” he pointed at his double beside him, “—because then I could not exist in the future. Such a paradox cannot be allowed according to the laws of the universe.”
    “And similarly,” Asher said, plucking at the ruin of his white shirt, “he cannot destroy the very machine with which he was transported to the past in the first place.”
    Minerva rubbed her temples. “So that is why the Viper Ray left your machine undamaged, and also why his earlier attempt to burn it failed too.”
    “Correct.” He flicked at the charred bits crumbling from his shirt before glancing up at the man beside him. His expression altered. “I say, Quigley, you’re wearing my clothes. That’s my favorite suit, you devil.”
    Quigley lifted his shoulders. “Of course. It’s my favorite too. That’s why I took it.”
    “You brazen thief! You’re the one who’s been stealing from the house. Poor Cheeves. No wonder he couldn’t work out what was happening. You must have walked in right under his unsuspecting nose each