Free Susan Squires - [Da Vinci Time Travel] by The Mists of Time Page B

set the manuscript carefully aside. It was, after all, someone’s life’s work and should be treated with respect. Her movements were almost overly controlled. A bad sign. Inside, her thoughts and feelings caromed around in chaos.
    She had to get out of here. Stalker or no.
    She dressed in jeans and a bulky brown turtleneck sweater and put on her Ariat boots and a slicker. She was going for coffee, damn it. And then maybe she’d walk up to Powell and Market and take the cable car over the hill to the wharf and watch the fishing boats come in and eat crab from the steaming pots on the sidewalk for breakfast. Stalkers weren’t out at five in the morning. Her stalker would expect her to be safely asleep. If she didn’t takeback control of her life, she really would end in an asylum.
    Diana slid in through the door of Moon Donuts, from the dark into bright fluorescent light. The bell over the door jangled. No stalker. She left a note for Medraut, relieved he hadn’t wakened as she tiptoed past the sofa bed. Voilà, her life was hers again. She felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
    The shop was owned by a very nice Korean couple. He made the doughnuts in the back, starting about midnight, and she manned the cash register. Their daughters, nieces, and nephews took turns helping during the busy hours, and ran the place when Mr. and Mrs. Kim went back to Korea for three weeks every year. The shop had a small counter and a couple of booths. The smell of grease and sugar and coffee was heaven. The place was empty, of course. People on their way to work wouldn’t start descending on it until six or six thirty. Mrs. Kim poked her head out from the back.
    “Hey, Mrs. Kim, how are you?” Diana slid onto the stool at the far end of the counter, against the wall. Mrs. Kim would remark on how early she was here.
    “You are up early,” the tiny woman said, going to the coffeepot. She spoke English well but still had an accent. She poured a large automatically.
    “Couldn’t sleep.” Mrs. Kim was about to ask her if she wanted her usual maple bars.
    “The usual?”
    “Crumb, I think, if you have them.” This was a day for breaking out. “Two.” Diana was shocked at what Mrs. Kim would say next.
    Mrs. Kim raised her brows. “Is the writing not going well?”
    Did she order two doughnuts for comfort only when shewas stuck? Apparently. “Not going at all.” She wouldn’t mention time travelers or stalkers or the fact that she could speak Proto-Celtic, and her dreams. . . .
    A terrible thought occurred. What if this whole thing was some elaborate psychosis? They always said that creative people were only a step away from madness, and she’d begun to think that she was going mad anyway. . . . Maybe . . . Maybe none of it was real at all.
    The bell over the door tinkled. Diana jerked her head around with a dreadful premonition.
    He wore a quilted vest and a plaid flannel shirt. His wide belt was rough leather and his jeans fit him like they were custom-made. His boots looked lived in. His black hair was tousled, like maybe he had just gotten up and run his hands through it. Or like he’d never been to bed at all. This close, his eyes were gray. Her heart pounded around randomly in her chest. He didn’t look like a psychotic apparition.
    He didn’t even glance at her but stood perusing the case of doughnuts. If she tried to squeeze past him, he could grab her. Would he do that, right in front of Mrs. Kim?
    “What can I get for you?” Mrs. Kim asked politely.
    “Two crumb doughnuts and a large coffee,” he said.
    His voice was just like it was in her dream, a baritone rumble. Had she ever heard him speak? On the sidewalk when he’d recognized Medraut. That was it. He seemed so familiar! The dark comma of hair flopped over his forehead, the lips . . . Was he ordering what she had ordered just to let her know he knew everything about her? If he was trying to intimidate her, he was doing a bang-up