Smith's Monthly #17 Page 8

  She had agreed, if she could stay for a month and do some research and the institute had agreed at once and was willing to pick up the tab for the entire time. Considering she lived mostly on her teacher’s salary and what little money her books brought in, that was a welcome relief.

  But she would wait and see. It sounded almost too good to be true, and that bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

  The breakfast in The Grand hotel had been wonderful and filling, with a light fruit salad, some freshly scrambled eggs, and toast. She then got her rental car out of valet parking and headed east out of town, eventually finding the large, five-lane avenue called Warm Springs.

  It seemed the Historical Studies Institute occupied one of the huge Victorian mansions on the river’s side. That had surprised her. Clearly the institute had great funding. She would need to find out from where before she ever agreed to work with them on anything.

  She had found parking on a side street that looked like a residential area built in the 1930s, and walked back to the institute carrying only her small black leather tablet case that also functioned as a purse. With its leather strap, it hung off her shoulder and never got in her way. Most of the time she felt that just carrying a tablet was easier than carrying a heavier laptop case.

  A ten-foot tall hedge covering a stone wall, well maintained and recently trimmed, blocked her view of the institute from Warm Springs Avenue. The hedge had clearly grown for decades over a tall, river-stone wall.

  She glanced at her watch. It was just nine in the morning mountain time. Pretty early for her, but she had wanted to get an early start, and could never sleep late while traveling anyway.

  She managed to get across the five lane busy avenue and on the sidewalk in front of the institute grounds.

  What looked like an extremely old metal plaque that was set into the stone in the hedge had the name of the institute on it and nothing more. Very stark and official looking, enough to make her wonder if she had even found the right place.

  Scaring away unwanted guests was more than likely what the sign was for.

  A wide wrought iron gate blocked a wide driveway to her left and a smaller metal gate blocked the sidewalk in front of her leading to the mansion. The pedestrian gate had a more modern hours sign on it.

  The hours were from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays and Saturday. A buzzer and intercom stuck out of the thick green hedge beside the gate. She at least made it here during the open hours.

  She rang the buzzer and waited, looking around the wonderful historic neighborhood. She would wager every building within her sight was on the historic register. What an amazing neighborhood. It must have really been something back at the turn of the 20th century.

  It was still something now.

  The intercom cracked and then a male voice said, “Good morning. Please state your name and your business with the institute.”

  “Isabelle Russell,” she said leaning into the intercom. “I was invited to come talk to Director Parks about a position.”

  There was a long pause that made her wonder if she had been heard or if she had needed to push some unseen button somewhere. She was about to say something else when the male voice came back clearly.

  “Welcome, Dr. Russell. It is an honor to have you visit our institute. Just follow the sidewalk up to the front door and come inside.”

  There was a buzz and the gate clicked open.

  She felt slightly surprised at the suddenly warm welcome. Clearly they knew about her books and different degrees and areas of study since they had invited her here. But she wasn’t often called Dr. Russell these days. Mostly, if anyone called her anything, it was professor.

  She stepped through the gate and let it close and latch behind her.

  As she did, it felt as if she had stepped into another world. The traffic noise on the busy street behind her dimmed to almost nothing.

  Around her was one of the most beautiful and luscious green front lawns she had ever seen, accented in various flowerbeds. The lush green lawn flowed around the flowerbeds and the trunks of the massive old oak and cottonwood trees like a river around stones.

  “Wow,” she said out loud to herself as she studied the front area and then the large two-story Victorian mansion with a painted-white porch across the front. Two massive round towers reached for the blue sky up through the trees and large stone pillars held up the second floor above the porch.

  “This place really, really has some funding,” she said aloud.

  And that sentence made her again wonder what they wanted from her.

  The mansion had tall windows with drapes pulled open across the front to let in light. The driveway went past the mansion to the left and toward the back where she could see some other buildings all painted to match the white and stone of the main building.

  A hedge over other walls ran along both sides of the massive estate, blocking anything but a view of the top floors and towers of the Victorian mansions on either side.

  She went up the five stone steps and onto the wooden front porch, her tennis shoes making almost no sounds. Three different settings of furniture were grouped along the porch. The chairs were all period chairs and short couches that would be appropriate to when the mansion was built in the late 1980s. A wonderful touch of detail.

  A couple of the settings had clearly been used recently. She stopped and looked back at the beautiful shaded yard. She would have no trouble at all sitting here sipping on an iced tea and just relaxing.

  Not even the sounds of the traffic from the busy Warm Springs Avenue beyond got over that wall and into this sanctuary.

  So what was this place?

  And how in the world did they get so much funding? That question was going to drive her nuts until she got an answer.

  She turned back to the big ornately carved front door with a bronze “Welcome” sign beside it.

  Looked like she was about to find out.

  CHAPTER TWO

  June 9th, 2020

  Boise, Idaho

  LOGAN ZANE THOMAS had never expected to go to work today and meet the woman of his dreams. He had known that Dr. Russell was coming for the last few days, but he had not seen a picture of her, or even thought anything of meeting her except pure excitement.

  One hundred years in the future, she was one of the most famous genetics experts there was, and today was her first visit to the institute. And he was here to meet her on her very first visit.

  He couldn’t believe his luck.

  He did a quick real-time search on her just to make sure he wasn’t mixing up details he knew about her from the future with where she was now at this moment in time. That would not be a good idea, especially since he was trying to stay undercover and not let anyone here know when he was from.

  In his time, his name was Zane Logan, but in this time he went by Logan Zane Thomas.

  He studied the computer screen in front of him quickly. Up until this point in time, Dr. Isabelle Russell taught at Stanford and had three well-respected books on the use of genetics and genealogy. Zane had read all three of them and enjoyed them.

  He had also read numbers of her books that she hadn’t written yet and enjoyed them as well.

  In all his imagination, he would never have expected to be sitting here when she first came to the institute. She would become the founder of the genealogy section of this very institute, using genetics to track every human who had lived.

  In his time, she was a legend. Considered a founder.

  He was going to be honored beyond belief to meet her, and he sure hoped like hell he didn’t screw this up. This was not at all what he expected to be doing here.

  On the orders of the institute’s director in 2120, he had come back secretly to this time and spent seven years establishing an identity here, including a number of degrees. His credentials and real specialty from his own time were in the research and exploration of various caves around the world.

  In other words, he was a caver, m
aybe the best there was in 2120.

  He had already written two books on the subject under this false name in this time, and he really wanted to go farther back in time at some point to find some of the lost caves that were only rumored to exist.

  He had come from New York City to the institute here in Boise last fall to research a new book for a month, and they had offered to let him stay and he had taken them up on the offer.

  Since he was spending so much time in the institute’s massive library down near the Idaho Historical Center off Capitol Boulevard, he had asked Director Parks one day if he could help out in any other way.

  Jesse Parks, the Institute Director, and the only one of the fourteen founding members of the institute that Zane had met so far, had hired him on the spot to work the front desk part time for far more money than the job was worth.

  Zane didn’t need the money. No one in the institute needed the money, but he most certainly wanted the job. It kept him on the front side of what was happening with the institute without actually being invited downstairs into the caverns yet.

  He wasn’t supposed to know about the huge caverns under this building.

  Most days, he just sat in the big front room of the old mansion at a large desk and not a person came through the door. A big glass chandelier dominated the center of the room hanging from the high ceiling. The reception desk was an antique and sat in the archway leading into a formal dining room behind the desk.

  Dark wood trim and light paint on the textured wall gave the room a feeling of seriousness, like a library. The wall of old leather books across from the massive stone fireplace didn’t hurt the feeling at all.

  This room looked almost exactly the same one hundred years in the future in his time.

  As he sat at the desk facing the front door, to his left was a grand staircase made of polished dark mahogany that led to the offices upstairs. In front of him and to his right was a massive stone fireplace with a large seating area in front of it on an area rug over the polished pine floors.

  The furniture was period to the house’s building and was actually very comfortable.

  The reason Director Parks gave for hiring Zane was that Director Parks wanted someone with a historical background and some credentials to greet whoever came through the front door.

  So Zane and a guy named Boone traded off the hours the institute allowed visitors. Boone was doing research on the old small-town newspapers of the Old West and seemed like a nice-enough guy. But Zane knew he would never actually be part of the institute, never invited below.

  When no one came through the door, which was most of the time, they were both free to use a major research computer at the front desk to work.

  Now Zane quickly put away his notes in a drawer and shut down the research computer as he heard Dr. Russell’s footsteps on the porch. He quickly hit a hidden buzzer to let Director Parks in his office upstairs know Dr. Russell was about to come in.

  Zane forced himself to take a deep breath and calm down. This wasn’t the famous Dr. Russell who started an entire arm of the institute over the next ten years. This was a real human being from this time, and he needed to be careful, just as those traveling from this time back to 1900 needed to be careful.

  Dr. Russell hesitated on the front porch as Zane remembered doing his first time through that door a hundred years in the future. He moved around from behind the desk to greet her as she pushed the big wooden front door open.

  She didn’t really see him at first, since she was glancing around at the wonderful mansion front room, the carved woodwork, and the big crystal chandelier that hung in the middle of the room.

  Zane suddenly found that he couldn’t breathe.

  He had been nervous to start, but now that changed to something much stronger.

  Dr. Russell had long beautiful brown hair that she had pulled back away from her face so that it cascaded down her back.

  She had dark brown eyes and beautiful skin that seemed to almost glow. She was wearing a green Stanford sweatshirt and jeans and carrying a small tablet case over her shoulder on a long leather strap.

  From the looks of her thin frame and the style of tennis shoes, she was clearly a runner.

  Zane forced himself to take a deep breath and get hold of his mind again. He had been around his share of beautiful women in his life. His ex-wife had done modeling around the New York area in his time before he joined the institute.

  But there was just something special about Dr. Russell that Zane was instantly attracted to.

  Not like him at all. In fact, since coming to this time and then moving to Boise, he hadn’t even had any dates. His research and building his cover and his regular trips to major cave formations had kept him busy. His only relaxation had been to learn to ski last winter at a nearby ski area.

  “Welcome to the institute, Dr. Russell,” he managed to say, stepping forward with his hand out.

  He was damn glad his voice didn’t squeak.

  His words seemed to bring her back from staring around at the room and she smiled and looked into his eyes.

  And then she seemed to freeze for a second as they held each other’s gaze.

  He was back having trouble breathing again.

  Damn, what the hell was going on? She was going to be a founder of this institute. He couldn’t be in lust with her. He just couldn’t.

  But he was.

  She finally took his hand and it felt like a jolt of electricity had gone through him. He had never had this kind of attraction to a woman before in his memory.

  She glanced down at their hands together and then back into his eyes.

  Clearly she felt something as well.

  Wow. He really needed to get hold of himself here before he screwed something up royally.

  Finally, she shook his hand and let go, which disappointed him. Her wonderful skin felt fantastic against his.

  “Thank you,” she said, managing to nod.

  Her face had flushed slightly and he had a hunch his face was flushed as well. It seemed they both clearly had a reaction to the other one.

  Weird.

  And nice. Damn nice.

  He pointed to a seating area in front of the big desk that had a large couch, three overstuffed period chairs that went with the age of the mansion, and a wooden polished coffee table. The seating area filled the area in front of the large stone fireplace.

  “Director Parks will be down in a minute,” Zane said. “In the meantime, can I get you something to drink? Water, tea, coffee are the options.”

  She shook her head without looking back at him, as if she was afraid to. “Thank you, but I think I’m okay at the moment.”

  As far as he was concerned, she was more than okay. She was flat stunning. Brilliant, a legend, and stunningly good-looking. How was that possible?

  As she sat down in one of the big chairs, her tablet case tucked beside her, he said, “My name is Logan Zane Thomas, but everyone just calls me Zane.”

  Her head snapped up like he had shouted fire or something. Her eyes were actually seeing him it seemed for the first time as he dropped onto the couch.

  “Dr. Logan Thomas?” she asked. “The caver?”

  He nodded. “But I hate that Dr. stuff. Makes me sound like I should be doing prostate exams or something.”

  Thank God she laughed at his stupid joke, a wonderful laugh that seemed to just float in the room for a moment.

  “I hate it as well,” she said. “But not because I don’t like prostate exams. Please just call me Belle.”

  Zane laughed and said. “I walked into that one. I sure enjoyed your books. You are doing some groundbreaking work in combining genetics with genealogy.”

  “And I enjoyed your books as well,” she said, smiling. “Do you really also have advanced degrees in geology, historical library research, and physical training?”

  Zane managed to at least nod. “Far too much time in school,” he said. In his time he actually had two other degrees bes
ides those areas, but those three were set for cover in this time. “Although I got through a few of them at the same time.”

  “Yeah, I did the same,” she said, smiling.

  The silence between them filled the big room for a moment before Zane finally got himself back on the institute script that he was supposed to attempt to follow with someone new coming in.

  “I need to ask what you think the institute can do to help you?” Zane said.

  She smiled. “Director Parks called me here to interview for something,” she said. “Paid my way. So here I am.”

  She smiled at Zane, staring into his eyes. Damn, he could sit and stare into her eyes for a very long time if she would let him.

  “But besides whatever the institute is offering, I have a twofold reason to come here,” she said, finally seeming to get up enough nerve to tell him. “I have heard the institute has vast resources to help historical researchers with projects of various kinds.”

  “It does,” Zane said, nodding. “I’ve been here since last fall doing research on historical lost caves for a new book and haven’t begun to use all of what is available.”

  “I am not rich,” Belle said. “So I would need to know how much spending time in various forms of research would cost.”

  “Nothing,” Zane said, “if you are approved, and considering they asked you to come, that seems very likely. And the institute wants no credit or anything else from your work. The institute exists to help historians such as ourselves to get our facts right.”

  He was very proud of himself for not slipping there, since he knew for a fact that if he didn’t blow this, she would be here at the institute for a very long time to come.

  She seemed to be taken back by that. “This place must have some serious funding.”

  He laughed. “It must, but I have no idea what it might be.”

  There were some things he flat had to lie about instead of just twist the truth, and the funding was one area. The institute had vast resources. Money was easy when you traveled in time and knew what was going to happen.