"Linda Evans - Time Scout 1 - Time Scout" - читать интересную книгу автора (Evans Linda)

formed the private portion of TT-86. Stairways led to corridors on other
levels,
some of them brightly lit, others dim and deserted. Within minutes, she was
hopelessly lost and fuming.
She set the case down again and rubbed her aching palm. Margo glared at a
receding stretch of corridor broken occasionally by more corridors and locked
doors. "Don't these people believe in posting a directory somewhere?"
"May I help you?"
The voice was polite, male, and almost directly behind her.
She spun around.
The guy in the tunic. Oh, shit.... Ever since New York she'd been so
careful-and this was a down-timer, God knew what he'd try to pull
"Are you following me?" she demanded, furious that her voice came out
breathy
and scared instead of calm and assured.
He scratched the back of his neck under the thick bronze collar: "Well, I
couldn't help but notice you passed the Down Time, then took a really wrong
turn
off the Commons. It's easy to get lost, back here."
Margo's heart pounded so hard her chest hurt. She backed away a step. "I
ought to warn you," she said in a tone meant to be forbidding, "I know martial
arts."
"As a matter of fact, so do I."
Oh, God.. .
He grinned disarmingly, reminding Margo quite suddenly of her high school
history teacher. "Most temporal guides do, you know."
Temporal guide?
He held out a business card neatly clasped between two fingers. "Malcolm
Moore, freelance time guide."
Margo felt her face flame. "I ...uh ..." Clearly he knew exactly what she'd
been thinking and seemed to find it amusing. She took the card hesitantly and
risked glancing at it. The card seemed genuine enough. "Uh, hi. I'm Margo."
If he was offended that she'd withheld her last name, he didn't show it. He
said only, "Nice to meet you, Margo, and shook her hand formally. "If you
like,
I'll take you back to the Down Time."
She hesitated.
He pinned. "No charge. I only charge for tours on the other side of time
gates."
"Oh. Okay." Then, grudgingly, because she was embarrassed she hadn't said
it
sooner, "Thanks."
"Don't mention it."
He had a nice smile. Maybe she could trust him, just a little. Should' a
worn
something else, though. His glance slid across her with inevitable-she almost
might have said involuntary-interest. Most guys looked at her that way,
thinking
she was at least the eighteen she tried to appear rather than the
almost-seventeen she was. Yes, she should have worn something else. But the