Free Time Crossed: A Time Thief Novella (A Penguin Special from Signet) by MacAlister Katie Page A

back of his ear. I had the worst urge to run my fingers through his hair, wondering if it was as silky as it looked. I shifted my gaze to his cheek. The faintest hint of golden stubble was visible in the warm light of the torch. “I was . . . erm . . .”
    Dammit! What was wrong with me? I was no stranger to the attraction of a handsome man, but neither was I a giddy young thing who couldn’t talk to a good-looking man without wanting to bite his chin, and run my hands through his hair, and lick his mobile lips.
    “Were you, now?” he asked with a little laugh that made the lines around his eyes crinkle up in a way that made my stomach go warm and happy.
    “Sorry, I’m an idiot,” I finally said, my brain evidently deciding that I’d had enough time to make a fool out of myself. “Nice to meet you, Gregory. Or do you prefer Greg? Or . . . Rory? That sounds kind of like a long shot, nickname-wise, but sometimes people go that way.”
    I was babbling, pure and simple, and for that, I blamed him. If he didn’t look so very . . . golden . . . in the torchlight, I could concentrate and behave in the manner of a normal human being. In desperation, I dragged my gaze away from the stubble that made my fingertips tingle with the need to touch it.
    “Gregory is fine. Only my cousin Peter calls me Greg, and usually then it’s to tease me.”
    A question rose in my mind, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t just pop out of my mouth even though this man, this golden, crinkly-eyed man was about the most dangerous person I could ever come up against. “Why would calling you Greg be considered teasing?”
    “It’s the way he says it,” he answered, smiling again. “He’s around here somewhere with his wife. Perhaps I might introduce you to them.”
    Great, just what I needed—a member of the Watch and his family. A little shudder went through me at the thought of what would happen if Gregory-not-Greg were to turn around and see my mother, the very woman he had been sent out to arrest two days before.
    “Sounds lovely,” I lied, and taking his arm, tugged him in the direction opposite Mom.
    A look of surprise flitted across his face for a moment, but he walked next to me docilely enough.
    “Are you here for the fireworks?”
    “Fireworks?” I asked stupidly, my mind busy wondering how I far I could drag him away from the bench before I released him and called my mother to warn her of his presence.
    He pointed upward. I looked. A burst of red and silver and green exploded overhead.
    “Oh, those. Yeah. We always come to the park for the big festival.”
    “We?”
    He stopped.
    Panic hit me. I moved forward, urging him along with me, needing to put as much space between him and my mother as was humanly possible. “Me. Not we. I meant to say me.”
    “Me always come to the park for the big festival?”
    “Ha ha ha ha ha!” The braying laughter was of a quality that was well over the border of merry and smack dab in the middle of deranged, but honestly, my brain refused to come up with any sort of an explanation, feeling that laughing it off was the way to go. My brain was wrong. “No, of course I meant to say that
I
always come to the park.”
    The look he gave me was no longer one filled with amusement, and that, for some bizarre reason I didn’t even want to examine, made me sad. “I see. Would you think me boorish if I was to inquire where you’re taking me?”
    “Taking you? I’m not taking you anywhere,” I said, pulling on his arm when he tried to stop again. “We’re just out for a little stroll to see the fireworks. Oh! Unless you’re here with someone. Someone female? Or . . . er . . . male?”
    He gave me an odd look. “You’re the second attractive woman in two months who’s hinted that I’m gay. Do I give off some sort of homosexual vibe of which I’m unaware?”
    “No! Far from it! That stubble is really . . .” I coughed and sternly reminded myself that he was The