"How old are you?" Griffin asked.
"I'm twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nines," Merrie said.
"And you have not married?"
"No," she said, a touch of defensiveness in her voice. "I'm still young. And I've been too busy with my career."
"Then you have a protector? A benefactor who keeps you?"
"What?" Merrie gasped. "No! I keep myself!"
Griffin cursed inwardly. He was not handling this well at all. Though they spoke the same language, he was at sixes and sevens, as if he were expressing himself in Latin or Greek. "Are you considered worthy of respect in this village, even though you invite the company of men into your home without others present?" Now, her expression showed anger and he knew he'd made a hash of things.
"Griffin, I'm going to give you one piece of advice while you're here and I want to you take it to heart. Loosen up. Things have changed. A lot."
"Loosen up," Griffin repeated. "And what might this mean?"
"It means, relax. If you wanted to, you could dress up in ladies' clothes and walk down Main Street and a lot of folks wouldn't give you a second look."
He shifted uncomfortably, not certain what she was implying. "Why would I want to do this?"
"I don't know. The important thing is, you can, and nobody will arrest you for it. They may even find it entertaining."
Griffin tried to imagine such a thing, but couldn't. He decided the conversation had strayed well off the path of his original intent. "So, there is no man that you would have me challenge for your honor?"
"You mean like fight a duel?"
Griffin nodded.
Merrie pushed to her feet and walked to the water, letting the gentle waves lap at her bare feet. She turned to look at him, her smile quirking as if she was about to burst into fits of laughter. "Thank you for the offer, and I'll keep it in mind, but right now I can't think of a soul I'd want you to kill for me."
He joined her at the water's edge and grabbed her hand. "So what are we to do next, if you have no one I might shoot?"
"As soon as the phone is working again, I thought I would call a friend of mine. Kelsey is a physics professor at William and Mary."
"She is a physician?"
"No. She's a physicist. She studies electrons and gravity and about a million other things I really don't understand. If she doesn't know about time-travel theory, she will know where to send us."
"Then we must leave today," Griffin said, trying to control his excitement. "Will we travel by water or by land? Is the college still in the same place as it was in my time? If it is, I vow it would be faster to travel by water. If the wind is with us, it will take us less than a week's time."
"The college is still in Williamsburg. But we don't have to go there. We can just call her…on the telephone." Merrie sighed. "Why don't we have lunch and I'll explain the telephone over toasted cheese sandwiches. After that, I want to go downtown and pick up some clothes for you. If you expect to walk around the island during the day, it would be best if you fit in."
"So there is something wrong with my clothes?" he asked. "They are serviceable garments."
"They're just not quite the rage in this day and age," she said.
"I will not wear a dress," Griffin countered. "I am not that… loose."
Merrie giggled, a warm, musical sound that filled his senses. "Relax. Men in the twentieth century aren't expected to wear ladies' dresses. They just can if they want to."
"Well, I do not want to," Griffin said firmly.
She grinned, her smile teasing and sweet. "I never had any doubt about that, Griffin Rourke."
3
"I cannot wear these garments! I will look the fool!"
Meredith stood outside the bathroom door, her shoulder braced on the wall. "The clothes are fine, Griffin. You can't walk around in that pirate outfit. People will stare. Now get dressed, we're in a hurry."
The door flew open and Griffin stood in front of her, dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts. "They will stare if I wear this. I would not show my knees in public!"
A laugh escaped Meredith's throat. She pressed her fingers to her lips. Finding underwear for Griffin had been the most difficult of her shopping tasks on the island. Most people shopped on the mainland or at the mall in Nags Head for their essentials. But barring a long shopping trip, she'd been forced to settle for the silk boxers she'd found at a local souvenir shop. The fabric was decorated with little buccaneer's heads, each one complete with eye patch, tricorn and dagger clenched between teeth.
Her gaze wandered the length of his body and she felt a delicious shiver skitter up her spine. Griffin had an incredible physique, a body any woman would find attractive. His legs were long and muscular, and the boxer shorts only seemed to enhance his flat belly and narrow waist. His broad chest was tanned golden brown, and for an instant she could imagine him on the deck of a ship, the sun beating down on his skin, the salt breeze whipping his dark hair around his face.
For a moment, she was tempted to tell him that if he expected to live in the twentieth century, he would have to wear boxer shorts twenty-four hours a day. But he seemed so upset by the prospect that she reluctantly decided to tell him the truth.
"You're wearing underwear," Meredith explained. "I bought you several pairs of pants. You put those on overthe underwear."
Frowning, Griffin stepped back into the bathroom and emerged a few minutes later with a pair of khaki cotton pants he'd pulled from a bag. He held them up against his waist and examined them, then tugged them on in front of her as if dressing in front of a female caused him no embarrassment at all.
"Feel better?" she asked.
"I feel warmer, at least," he said. "What is this?" He stared down at the zipper in confusion. "There are no buttons here."
"That's a zipper," Meredith said. "Just tug up on that little tab."
He fumbled with the zipper. "I cannot. You do this for me." He braced his hands on his hips and waited.
Meredith's eyes widened. "You can do it," she urged, twisting her fingers in front of her and giving him an encouraging smile.
"I cannot," he repeated in frustration. "Show me."
With shaking hands, Meredith hesitantly reached out and plucked at the tab of the zipper. If she knew how to swoon, she would have done it then and there. But she'd never fainted in her life. Biting at her bottom lip, she slowly closed the zipper, trying not to think about what was on the other side.
He watched her in amazement. "How does this work?"
She snatched her hands away. "Little teeth," she muttered. "Now put your shirt on so we can go. I've got the computer reserved at the library. I want to hop on the Net and see what I can find out about time travel."
He stared at her for a long moment, then shrugged and returned to the bathroom.
Ten minutes later, she and Griffin were headed down Lighthouse Road to the tiny island library behind the fire hall. Though his presence at her side caused a few curious stares from the locals, no one was nosy enough to ask what their relationship was. And she didn't volunteer any information, except that he was a friend who had come for a short visit. Tourists were not uncommon on Ocracoke, even in the fall, and most of the townsfolk appeared to accept him with little notice.
As they walked, he asked questions about everything and anything-about the quaint lighthouse that stood sentinel over the Sound and the picturesque cottages and shops that dotted the narrow streets. They took the long loop to the library, along the waterfront and then down the narrow street that led to the tiny cemetery that held the bodies of four British sailors. The sailors' ship had been torpedoed offshore by a German U-boat during the Second World War. Griffin wasn't satisfied until she recited everything she knew about the country's involvement in the war and the current state of the U.S. Navy.
"Why are we going to the library?" he asked.