Timer

I am having a problem with my I2C. I am using a 89C664 philips microcontroller. I have two of these chips talking to each other. I have my I2C implemented in such a way that if the state (S1STA) doesn't match the correct value, my program will just keep waiting. Since this only happen very rarely, I want to implement a timer so it will automatically be forced out of the subrountine after one or two second. The question can I implement this within an interrupt, because my I2C is called based on interrupt. Also, how would I implement this timer. I am new to this, so any help would be greatly appreciated. The whole point of this is so my chip can resend the data or receive the data again if I2C failed.

thanks
Tommy