“Did the storm wake you?”

“Yeah.” It wouldn’t be the last lie he told her. Though he was sorry for the necessity of it, Cal smiled and settled in a chair by the fire. There was something charming about being in a place where a simple rainstorm could leave you in the dark, dependent on candles and firelight. No computer could have set a better scene. “How long do you think it’ll be before you regain power?”

“An hour.” She tasted the soup. It nearly calmed her. “A day.” She laughed and shook her head. “Dad always talked about hooking up a generator, but it was one of those things he never got around to. When we were kids, we’d sometimes have to cook over the fire for days in the winter. And we’d sleep all curled up here on the floor while my parents took turns making sure the fire didn’t die out.”

“You liked it.” Cal knew people who went into preserved areas and camped. He’d always thought they were strange. But the way Libby spoke of it, it seemed homey.

“I loved it. I guess those first five years helped me handle the more primitive parts of digs and fieldwork.”

She was relaxed again. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice. Though a nervous Libby held a definite appeal for him, he wanted her relaxed now. The more at ease she was, the more information he might glean.

“What era do you study?”

“No specific era. I’m hung up on tribal life, mainly isolated cultures and the effects of modern tools and machines. Things like how electricity changes the sociopolitical mores of the traditional man. I’ve toyed around with extinct cultures, Aztecs, Incas.” This was easy, she decided. The more she talked about her work, the less she would think about that jolting moment in the kitchen and her own inexplicable reaction to it. “I’m planning on going to Peru in the fall.”

“How’d you get started?”

“I think it was a trip to the Yucatan when I was a kid, and all those wonderful Mayan ruins. Have you ever been to Mexico?”

Looking back, he remembered a particularly wild night in Acapulco. “Yes. About ten years ago.” Or a couple of centuries from now, he thought, and frowned into his bowl.

“Bad time?”

“What? No. This tea . . .” He took another sip. “It’s familiar.”

Grinning, she tucked her legs up under her. “My father will be glad to hear that. Herbal Delight—that’s his company. He started it right here in this cabin.”

Cal looked down into his cup, then laid his head back and laughed. “I thought that was a myth.”

“No.” With a half smile forming, she studied him. “I don’t get the joke.”

“It’s hard to explain.” Should he tell her that over two centuries from now Herbal Delight would be one of the ten biggest and most powerful companies on Earth and its colonies? Should he tell her that it made not only tea but organic fuel and God knew what else? Here was Cal Hornblower, he thought, sitting cozily in a chair in the cabin where it all began. He noted that she was staring at him as if she were going to check his pulse again.