Free Reaching Through Time by Lurlene McDaniel Page A

surprises.”
    She fell into step next to him. He felt awkward at first, but once more, she didn’t seem to care how crazily he walked. Inside the house, she called, “Daddy, Drake’s here.” She led Drake into the first room off the hallway. “This used to be the dining room, but with only me and Daddy living here, it was expendable. We turned it into a library, and now, your workroom.”
    The room glowed sunny and bright from a large bow window. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases stretched along one wall, and a long oak table had been set up in the middle of the room. Boxes were stacked like steps on a third wall.
    “Are those the boxes from the basement?” Drake asked.
    Gina nodded. “I told Daddy it was wrong to make you work down there like a mole, so we moved the boxes.”
    He wondered if his handicap had spurred them to make the change. Embarrassing. An old man and a girl catering to his problem. What next? A ramp up the porch? “Did you and the professor carry them up?”
    “No, silly,” she said. “We have a dumbwaiter in the hallway. We loaded the boxes and brought them up here.”
    A dumbwaiter—a device once used in old houses to move goods and food between floors before elevators. It made sense, but he still felt inadequate. “I like this room better.”
    “Me too.”
    Dennison bustled into the room. “Good morning.”
    “I like the move upstairs,” Drake said. “Thanks.”
    Dennison waved him off. “Let’s get you started.”
    Drake crossed to the table just as the clock in the hall chimed. He counted the gongs silently while listening to the professor’s instructions. He heard eight gongs. Impossible. He’d left his house at eight o’clock to drive here and yet now the clock was chiming eight. Yesterday it had been right on the money about hitting eleven, but now itwas off by over an hour. It was the weirdest clock he’d ever been around.
    “When you leave, no need to hunt for me—I’m often preoccupied in the afternoons.” He turned away. “Until tomorrow, then. Same time.”
    Drake watched them both leave the room. He sighed and limped over to the pile of boxes, heaved one onto the table and set to work.
    By noon, Drake had hardly made headway on the first box. Reading the old, brittle and faded labels attached to each artifact was difficult, and recording each on paper by hand was intense slow work. He didn’t want to make a mistake, so he checked and double-checked his spellings and descriptions before laying each piece aside. He missed his computer, where it was easy to correct errors.
    He worked in silence, hearing the chime of the clock every hour. He decided that not having Gina around him while he worked was probably a good thing; her presence would have distracted him. He felt a powerful attraction to her. Usually he became invisible once girls saw his deformity—a pathetic truth he’d learned to face. Yet when he looked into Gina’s eyes, he felt whole. Stupid, he told himself. There were no jocks around to impress her. No other guys vying for her attention. Hadn’t she told him she and her father lived alone in the house?
    When Drake’s stomach growled, he stretched, laid down his pencil and picked up his bag lunch. He decidedto go outside because he wanted to check out the place—not because his mother had asked him to. He went around to the backyard and found a wooden bench in the middle of a path surrounded by colorful gardens. Roses scented the air and bees hummed around flower heads. Sunshine warmed his back.
    “How do you like my gardens?”
    He looked up to see Gina on the path, her hands full of gardening tools. The sun’s rays bounced off her dazzling white blond hair like dancing fireflies and made his heart skip.
    “Beautiful,” he said, telling her two things at once.
    She laughed and settled beside him on the bench. “Want some lemonade? I made it this morning. I can run up to the kitchen for it.”
    “I’m good,” he said, not wanting her to leave,