Time Enough for Love by Suzanne Brockmann

his face with a hand towel, still watching her in the mirror. “You can pinpointlocations by using the numbers from the face of a clock.” He pointed directly to his right. “The bathroom door is at three o’clock. The sink is at twelve. Right now you’re standing at my seven—”
    “And directly behind you—where you’ve already been before—is your six.”
    He gave her a slight smile. “Right.”
    “So, what, did you learn that in the Data Tech employees’ manual or something?”
    “Or something.”
    Maggie sat down on one of the beds. The mattress was soft and springy. Sitting down felt good, though. And lying down would feel even better. She sank down onto her back, her feet still on the floor as she stared up at the cracks in the motel-room ceiling. “Would it really kill you to be more specific?”
    She heard the creak as Chuck sat down on the other bed, heard the double thuds as he took off his boots and tossed them onto the floor.
    She was actually surprised when he finally spoke.
    “Shortly after the news leaked out that I was working on the Wells Project, I started getting death threats. Some were just threats, but some were real. A few were near misses. At the time I had a friend who was thinking about retiring from the Navy. He was in the SEAL units, and he had some … skills that I thought would come in handy. I hired him asa security consultant. He taught me a bunch of nifty little tricks.”
    “Where was he when the Wizard-9 agents tried to ambush you in your lab?”
    Chuck didn’t answer right away, and Maggie turned her head to look at him.
    He was still sitting on the edge of the other bed. His feet were bare, and his elbows were resting on his knees, his shoulders bent with fatigue. Or despair. He was resting his forehead in the palm of one hand, rubbing it slightly as if he had a headache. But he glanced up as if he felt her gaze on him.
    “He was dead,” he answered. “They shot him in the back of the head at close range before I got to the lab that morning.” He paused. “You saw them do it.”
    Maggie’s breath caught in her throat. “Oh my God.”
    He looked away from her, breaking the almost palpable connection that had shimmered between them. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you that.”
    Maggie sat up. “No,” she said. “Chuck, I want you to talk to me. I wish you would tell me
more
.”
    He stood up. “We should get to sleep.”
    Maggie felt a surge of frustration. Why wouldn’t he talk to her? She could see his pain etched into the lines of his face. He tried to hide it, tried to pretendit didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but fixing the mistake he’d made.
    But the desperation and anguish of the wild-eyed man who’d first pounded on her back door was not gone. All those emotions were still inside of him, despite being carefully locked away. He worked hard to stay in control, never to lose sight of his single goal.
    His control had slipped only when he’d given in to passion. He’d dropped his guard only when he’d kissed her. He’d kissed her as if there could be no secrets between them, as if their hearts beat in perfect unison, as if they were two parts of a single whole.
    But those kisses were wrong, or so Chuck said when he’d regained his precious control. They were mistakes that weren’t meant to happen.
    Maggie fought the frustration that rose up into her throat, choking her. Across the room, Chuck unwrapped the dress they had bought at the mall.
    The mall. Maggie nearly laughed aloud. It had been hardly more than twelve hours since she’d met him outside of the movie theater. It had been hardly more than twelve hours since her life had been forever and irrevocably changed. But what had changed it most? The rain of bullets that had very nearly taken her life? Or that incredible, soul-shattering,heart-stopping kiss she’d shared with Chuck immediately after?
    When Chuck had kissed her, she thought she’d found all of the answers she’d