Free Love Came Just in Time by Lynn Kurland

knew the day she decided she didn’t like him would be the day they’d need snow tires in hell.
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    AN HOUR LATER, Abby held up a dollar bill to the firelight. “This is George Washington. He was the first president of the United States.”
    â€œNo king?”
    â€œNope. That’s why we said ‘no thank you’ to England in the 1700s. We’re all for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without a monarchy to tell us how to go about it.”
    Miles looked with interest at her wallet that sat between them on the blanket near the fire. Abby had appropriated his sleeping blanket as a carpet. The chair was too uncomfortable for sitting, and the floor too disgusting for intimate contact.
    â€œWhat else have you in that small purse?” he asked.
    â€œNot as many things as I would like,” Abby said with a sigh.
    She had her little wallet on a string, her gloves, and her keys. Her sunglasses had been stuffed inside her coat. The only other things she’d had in her pocket were a plastic bag of gourmet jelly beans and some soggy lint. But he’d been fascinated by it all. She’d been fairly certain he’d believed her when he’d hit the floor in the kitchen, but there was nothing like a bit of substantial evidence to slam the door on doubt.
    He’d examined her jeans closely, seemingly very impressed by the pockets and copper rivets. Her down coat was still dripping wet, but she had the feeling they’d be fighting over that once it was dry. Her underwear and bra she’d finally had to rip out of his hands. It was then she’d given him her Garretts-don’t-do-it-before-marriage speech. She’d expected protests. Instead, she’d gotten a puzzled look.
    â€œOf course you don’t,” had been his only comment.
    So, now they were sitting in front of his bonfire, examining the contents of her wallet and munching on Jelly Bellies.
    â€œAaack,” Miles said, chewing gingerly. “What sort is this one?”
    She learned forward and smelled. “Buttered popcorn, I think.”
    â€œNasty.” He swallowed with a gulp. “Is there this chocolate you spoke of?” he asked, poking around in the bag hopefully.
    â€œI wish,” she said with feeling. She’d had one lemon jelly bean and given the rest to Miles. Unless sugar found itself mixed in with a generous amount of cocoa, she wasn’t all that interested. Now, if it had been a bag of M&M’s she’d been packing, Miles would have been limited to a small taste and lots of sniffs. “Chocolate doesn’t even get to England until the seventeenth century. Trust me. This is history I know about.”
    â€œWhere does it come from?”
    â€œThey grow it in Africa.”
    â€œOh,” he said, sounding almost as regretful as she felt. “A bit of a journey.”
    â€œYou didn’t see any on your travels?”
    He shook his head. “Not that I remember.”
    Abby leaned back against the chair legs. “What made you decide to go to Jerusalem?”
    â€œI wanted to see the places my father had been in his youth, I suppose. My father had gone on the Lionheart’s crusade, first as page, then squire to a Norman lord. My brothers followed in his footsteps to the Holy Land, even though there was no glorious war for them to wage.” He smiled faintly. “I think I simply had a young man’s desire to see the world and discover its mysteries. Instead, I saw cities ravaged by war, women without husbands, children without fathers.” He shrugged. “I don’t think fighting over relics was the message the Christ left behind Him. Perhaps I found it even more ironic because I overlooked the city of Jerusalem on Christmas day.”
    â€œI take it that count you insulted didn’t feel the same about it?”
    Miles smiled. “Indeed, he did not. And I am not shy about expressing my opinions, whether I am in