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I just shrugged. I didn’t care where we flew from.
I just wanted to get it over with.
CHAPTER 56
SAMUEL
“I knew you’d be back,” Daniel said, taking a seat on one of the rockers on his veranda. His old hound dog settled down beside and put his head down.
“How did you know?” I asked. “I didn’t plan on coming back.”
Daniel stretched out his legs and propping his feet on the railing, rocked slowly back and forth.
He took a pull from his cigar and blew a ring of smoke into the evening air.
“The women from the future can not be resisted.”
“Is that so?” I asked, sitting next to him and following suit.
The gentle rocking of the chair was surprisingly soothing.
I ran the cigar he’d handed me beneath my nose. I didn’t plan to smoke it, but I enjoyed the scent of it nonetheless.
“I’ve seen it too many times,” Daniel said.
“But it didn’t happen to you,” I said.
“No.” Daniel shook his head. “I got lucky with the missus. Met her in New Orleans, actually. Getting her away from there was the hardest part of the courtship.”
“So,” I mused. “She came from a different place, not a different time.”
Daniel looked at me with bemusement.
“I suppose you’re right. We Becquerel men have issues with where we find our women.”
“How do you think I got involved in all this?” I asked. I actually had a theory, but I wanted to see what Daniel would tell me without me asking.
Daniel took a pull on his cigar and looked at me through squinted eyes.
“Has your father told you much about his history?”
I shook my head. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Said he grew up poor, but always knew he wanted to be a doctor. So he put his head down and studied everything he could get his hands on. And somehow got a lucky break and was able to go to medical school.”
“I figured as much.” Daniel nodded.
“There’s more?” I asked.
“There’s a whole lot more, but I figured he would have told you. Especially after you met Melissa.”
“It seemed like there was something he wanted to tell me,” I said. “but I guess he decided not to.”
“Sometimes when you keep a secret too long, it becomes almost impossible to share it. Especially with people you love.”
“What secret?” I asked, my stomach winding itself into a knot.
An owl hooted in a nearby tree. The hound dog sat up and barked once.
“It’s alright, old Blue,” Daniel said, patting the dog’s head. The dog barked again, but laid back down.
Daniel took another puff of his cigar.
“Is it something you can tell me?” I asked.
“Your father won’t like it, but I think you need to know.”
I stopped rocking and squeezed the arm of the chair, my nails digging into the hard wood.
“Your father and I grew up together.”
“I see.” That didn’t surprise me so much, seeing as how they seemed to be distant, but good friends.
“Your father is my brother.”
My feet slid off the railing and landed hard on the floor.
“Your what?”
“My half-brother, actually. His mother worked here at the time and my father got her pregnant a year before he married my mother.”
“My father has Becquerel blood.”
Daniel nodded. “Yes, he does. And my father took care of him. He sent him to medical school.”
This changed everything.
“My mother?” I choked out.
Daniel stopped rocking and looked into my eyes. I could see his indecision.
“She was here. For a short spell. Not very long.”
“I don’t remember her,” I said.
“You wouldn’t,” he said. “You were still a baby.”
“But…” I had to ask. “My father is my biological father?”
“I’d bet my life on that one,” Daniel said. “Never seen any two people more in love than they were.”
I released the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. It didn’t matter whether or not he was my biological father. He had always been and always would be my father.
But somehow it seemed important.
“Samuel,” he said. “Your mother was from the future.”
As my thoughts scattered, I looked at Daniel.
And my thoughts fell into place like the pieces of a puzzle.
My father had Becquerel blood.
And my mother had been from the future.
CHAPTER 57
MELISSA
We left the hotel early the next morning. I sat in the passenger seat as John drove along the highway that led us out of Natchez.
I leaned my head against the leather headrest and stared out the window.
Houses zipped past, then trees. Pine trees and oak trees. The steady passing of electricity poles.
We rode in silence.
John wasn’t much of a morning person to begin with and I was pretty sure he didn’t know what else to say to me.
Not even his well-honed psychological skills had been able to penetrate the wall I’d put up around me.
There was nothing he could say anyway that would make me talk to him.
John was very understanding as both a psychologist and a brother, but the flip side of that coin was that he was a psychologist by training and a concerned brother.
If he thought I needed psychological help, then that was the direction he would go.
I squinted against the glare of the morning sun against the water and realized that we were following the Mississippi River.
I sat up straighter in my seat.
This was farming country here along the river road. Just as it had been hundreds of years ago.
I knew this route. This was the same drive I’d taken to the bed and breakfast. The same road John had driven when he’d picked me up in his car and taken me back to town.
We were nearing the Becquerel Bed and Breakfast.
We were almost to the bend in the river. It would be on the left. Right up ahead.
My heartbeat quickened and I suddenly felt more alive than I had the day John had taken me away from here.
I recognized the wooden fence and knew that the road leading to the house was just up ahead.
I turned and looked at John.
“Wait,” I said, meeting his gaze for the first time.
“What is it?” The car slowed as he tapped the brake. “What’s wrong?”
I pointed up ahead.
“Pull over,” I said. “In the driveway. Just for minute.”
The tasteful wooden sign came into view.
Becquerel Bed and Breakfast.
I could sense John’s uncertainty. He was on a schedule to get us to the airport. He wouldn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.
“Please,” I said. “I need this.”
It was all John needed to hear.
His desire to help me outweighed his schedule.
The tires crunched on the gravel as he turned off the highway onto the curvy dirt road that flowed beneath the tall moss-draped oak trees to the house.
He put the car in park and turned to look at me.
“Thank you,” I said, opening the door and stepping out.
“Wait,” he said, opening his own door. “You said you only needed a minute.”
From here, even through the stand of oak trees that followed the road, I could see the outline of the stately white plantation house up ahead.
Behind it, open fields stretched to the horizon.
I put a hand over my eyes and strained to see into the distance.
There was a horse and rider standing in the fields. They were facing away from the house.
I took a step forward, then stopped.
It could be anyone.
It could be a trick of the light.
But it could be Samuel.
Dropped my hands, I turned back to where John stood next to the car, but the glare of the morning sunlight made it hard for me to see him, too.
I felt almost like I was standing in a bubble. I couldn’t see in any direction.
I looked back at the rider on horseback.
He was facing this way now.
And even though I could see his silhouette, I knew.
It was Samuel.
It made no sense that I knew, but I did.
Whirling around again, I walked straight back to my brother and wrapped my arms around him.
“Please understand,” I said. “I have to do this.”
He didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what he was seeing, but he was silent.
As I pulled back, he took my hands as he looked into my eyes.
“Take care of yourself,” he said.
I nodded. “You too.”
Then I pulled away and turned back toward the rider on horseback, still hazy in the glare of the sunlight.
He was riding this way now, ever so slowly.
I started walking down the lane toward him.
I was acutely aware that I was leaving my brother and the life I knew behind me as I walked toward the past that was my future.
As I stepped out from beneath the trees, my vision cleared and I could see clearly.
It was Samuel.
And he was riding toward me.
I started to run.
CHAPTER 58
SAMUEL
I’d gone out riding. Mostly to clear my head.
I was here, at the Becquerel Estate, where my father had grown up.
But I had no direction.
I had more information about myself. About my family. But I didn’t know what to do with it.
Even though I knew that Melissa was what I wanted, I didn’t know how to go about finding her.
It was a puzzle that I didn’t know how to solve.
I didn’t even know the rules of the game and it left me feeling helpless.
It made sense, though, why I’d always felt different from everyone else.
I had the blood of the future running through my veins.
I wished my father had told me about this, but I understood why he hadn’t.
Instead, he’d let me believe that my mother wasn’t here anymore.
So she’d given birth here, then returned to her own time.
I had so many questions.
Had she wanted to go? Had they not figured out that the time travel was related to this area?
How had my father made the decision to leave here and live in town with his son?
I nudged the horse, turning her around, to head back to the house.
When I saw my father again, I would ask him.
But in the meantime, I had things to figure out for myself. Things that had nothing to do with my parents.
As I rode across the fields, I shaded my eyes against the early morning sun, but the glare blinded me.
The way I had it figured, I was going to have to stay here.
I’d ask Daniel about renting out the garçonnière.
Hell, he’d probably give me a plot of land to build a house on.
After all, I was his nephew.
Damn. I never saw this coming.
There was some movement up ahead. There, in the trees along the road leading up to the house.
Perhaps the Becquerels had a visitor.
But I couldn’t make out who it was or what they were doing. If someone was coming to visit, they’d stopped just off the road leading to town.
There could be any number of reasons why someone would stop. And it wasn’t my business.
But my blood raced through my veins and I found myself nudging the horse to move along a bit faster.
I was edgy, that was all.
But then the sun shifted and my eyes began to adjust.
I was too far away.
I could barely see.
Then I knew. I just knew.
She started walking toward me.
My heart had already known what my eyes couldn’t see.
It was Melissa.
She had come back.
CHAPTER 59
MELISSA
Samuel was riding toward me.
I didn’t know how, but he was.
I was running, not even looking at where I was stepping.
My foot landed in a low place and I stumbled, but I kept going.
I didn’t even know how I knew it was him.
It wasn’t like I could even make out the rider’s features from here.
But my heart knew.
When we were about twenty-five yards apart, he pulled the horse to a stop and slid off.
Then he was running, too, on foot now.
Within seconds, we both stopped, standing in front of each other.
We stood there for what was probably no more than a couple of seconds, but in those seconds, everything fell into place.
My heart that had been so heavy these past few days felt light now. Like it had been set free.
Then we both seemed to move forward at the same time and I was in his arms.
He picked me up and twirled me around.
I laughed.
I actually laughed. A sound that seemed foreign to my own ears.
Then he slid me to my feet, keeping me pressed against him.
I lifted my chin and looked up into his eyes.
He was smiling at me, his eyes moist.
“You’re here,” he said, running a hand along my back as though to confirm that I was indeed really here and not a figment of his imagination.
I knew because I did the same. I fisted my hands in his shirt and held on to him.
He was here. He was real.
He pressed his lips against mine and I could feel his kiss in every cell in my body.
Whether he was Samuel or somehow another, earlier version of Zach, didn’t matter.
My heart was where it belonged.
With this man.
Samuel.
He pulled back and searched my eyes.
“Is this where you want to be?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, squeezing him tight.
Then, suddenly remembering John, I turned around.
Samuel wrapped his arms around me and held me close.
The tree lined lane was in front of us and the river beyond it.
But there was no car and no sign there had ever been one.
John wasn’t there.
“Did you see…?” I whispered.
“There was a glare,” Samuel said. “I couldn’t see you.” He kissed the top of my head. “I just knew.”
I nodded.
He’d known. Just as I had known.
Our hearts had connected through time and brought us together.
“Are you sure?” Samuel asked.
“I’m positive. No doubts.” I knew what he was asking. He was asking if I was sure I wanted to stay in this time. With him.
“Then let’s get out of here.”
He took my hand and led me back toward his horse who was calmly nibbling on some grass.
Just as though everything was completely normal.
As though nothing had changed.
But it had.
Samuel helped me onto the horse, then he climbed on behind me.
We rode toward the lane, then turned left.
Toward the main river road.
I understood.
We couldn’t stay here at this house.
Time was too volatile here.
The only way for me to stay with the man I loved was to avoid the very place that had brought us together.
I was safe with Samuel’s arms wrapped around me.
The baby I carried would be our baby.
Zach’s baby would have a daddy. A man who loved us.
Out of the destruction… the tragedy… a love had been born.
My brother had been right.
Everything happened for a reason.
My brother’s words had never rang so true.
Sometimes I wondered what John thought. He’d seen me walk away. He’d watched me as I walked back in time.
It comforted me to know that he knew what happened to me.
I wasn’t just another missing person.
I was in another time and I liked to think that he knew it.
That he knew I was happy.
But sometimes just thinking about it brought tears to my eyes.
“What shall we name the little fellow?” Samuel asked.
“John,” I said without thinking.
He laughed.
“And what if it’s a girl?”
“Joan or Joanna.”
“You’ve given this some thought,” he said.
“A little,” I said, sighing against him.
“I think naming our baby after your brother is a good thing. But what about his daddy?”
“You’re his daddy,” I said. “But I think we can name him Johnathan Zachary Sinclair.”
He kissed me on the nose.
“I’m a little partial to the name Zachary since it’s my middle name.”
Just another reason for me to believe that the two men were connected.
“I love you,” Samuel said. “I think I always have. Even before I met you.”
“I don’t think time even existed before we met.”
And for me it hadn’t.
My life had begun when I’d gone back in time and met Samuel.
EPILOGUE
I was big as a house.
Everyone said I was glowing, but they were just being nice.
Someone who was big as a blimp couldn’t possibly be glowing—in a good way. Especially not in this heat. With no air conditioning.
I had gone up to my room to get a blanket I was croqueting. I was thinking it might be time to start moving everything down. The stairs were getting harder and harder to maneuver. And the bottom line was it just wasn’t safe. Not with the baby in my belly.
Samuel’s father, the other Dr. Sinclair, stepped out of the exam room and looked at me.
“You should be lying down,” he said. He was wiping his hands with a bloody cloth.
