Out of the Past (Heritage Time Travel Romance Series, Book 1 PG-13 All Iowa Edition)

by Dana Roquet

  “I think they’ll be ready for us in just a few minutes,” I said and smiled. “Did you read over all of the verbiage of the contract? Look good?”

  The couple was removing their coats and Margaret unwound a multi-colored scarf from her head and John hung their things on a nearby coat tree.

  “Torie,” he said indicating my coat.

  “Oh, thanks, John,” I said, allowing him to take my coat and hang it for me, beside theirs.

  John took a seat then, across from me and he used his thumb and finger to push his glasses up on his nose, nodding.

  “It is just such a wonderful gift for the genealogical society.”

  “It’s my pleasure, John. I can’t wait for the next five years and to watch all of your plans come to life. To see the property used for educational purposes will be a wonderful addition to Fremont and with the five acres that go along with the house, you will have plenty of space to spread out and grow.”

  “Torie, we’re forever indebted to you. The community of Fremont and really all of the Eastern Iowa counties this facility will serve. Are you sure about the antiques and photographs inside the house? You want to leave everything as is?”

  “Torie, John, Margaret, come on in,” a man’s voice called cordially.

  I nodded my answer to John and taking a deep breath followed Greg Mitchell, a prominent Oskaloosa lawyer and champion of our cause. Greg was forty, handsome, and unattached and he had been a little too interested in me early on in the process but we were on the same page now.

  “Please, everyone, have a seat.” He indicated the chairs across from his desk, and holding his tie to keep it from sweeping the desktop, he took his seat back behind.

  “As we discussed on the phone last night, Torie, this is just a finalization of the contract that you each already approved and once we file the papers with the state tomorrow, the responsibility for the property, will be permanently transferred to the society.”

  I nodded and smiled at John who was looking like a kid on Christmas morning. I fervently hoped that he would make the place everything that he dreamed it could be.

  “Shall we begin?” Greg asked.

  “Please,” I said.

  “As John wished and you agreed, Torie, the formal ownership of your property will become that of the genealogical society with no reference to Mr. Cameron or yourself, however, it is understood that the planned Renovation, Trade, and Farming Sciences addition expected within the next five years will be known as the David Samuel Cameron Learning Center.”

  John looked at me for my approval, and I nodded.

  “Dave would have never agreed to this,” I said. “It’d be too over-the-top for him, but it’s my decision.”

  Everyone nodded immediately in total agreement.

  “Item two. A yearly donation from the Neumann Mills 2012 Charity Trust in the amount of ten thousand US dollars annually to be paid within the first month of each calendar year for the upkeep of the residence and to pay any expenses necessary for the year, as long as the trust remains sustainable. If the trust becomes insolvent, the monetary contributions with be deemed fulfilled. Torie has made the initial contribution for the current year, and the trust has been advanced one million dollars from Torie, pending the publication of her book project still in progress.

  “And lastly, it is understood that the property on 140th Avenue also known as York Avenue in the state of Iowa, County of Mahaska, township of Cedar, town of Fremont will forever and always be considered a public building and will not now or hereafter be used as a private residence. Neither will the property have any overnight visitors or school-related retreats, reunions, or conventions. If this meets with everyone’s approval, then all I need is your John Hancock’s and we’ll be out of here.”

  “John and Margaret, you first,” I said.

  Greg Mitchell moved his pen holder and paperweight, placing the document before John, who signed and then handed the pen to his wife and indicated with his index finger on the document, where she should sign.

  “Be sure to put your title of treasurer,” John reminded her.

  Mr. Mitchell looked at me next and slid the paper over and I quickly added my signature. Finally over and done, I thought and I had mixed emotions about that truth. I felt a huge sense of relief, as if a heavy weight had been lifted off of my shoulders and I was thankful that no one else would ever face the horror that I was unable to save Dave from experiencing but I would and already did miss seeing my ancestors, so many people who were lost to me now forever—Lucy, Rose, Grandpa Henry and so many others that I had come to know and love. I would cherish what I’d lived and learned from them and I was determined to use those lessons to make my own life rich and full. I know now that I am capable of giving myself completely to a man now and how to be successful at it because thanks to Grandma Rose and the rest, I have many good examples of loving relationships to draw from.

  We all stood and shook hands, and I hugged John and Margaret and swept my hand before me indicating that they should precede me.

  “Hang on, Torie,” Greg said.

  I stopped and looked back at him leerily, wondering what he had in mind. I hoped that he wasn’t going to say anything that might make me feel uncomfortable or require me to awkwardly refuse his advances again. I didn’t quite know what else we had to settle.

  “Go ahead, John, Margaret. Don’t wait for me. I’ll be calling you soon.”

  As the couple left and closed the door behind them, Greg took a seat at his desk.

  “What is it, Greg?” I asked not taking the chair that he offered with a gesture of his hand.

  “I had just hoped that maybe I could trouble you for—” he said as he reached into his desk drawer and then pulled out a hard cover copy of my novel. “—an autograph?”

  “What!” I laughed. “You’re a romance reader?”

  “No, but my sister is. Her birthday’s next week.”

  I had to shake my head at this and reached for his pen.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Julia,” he said.

  “There you go,” I said after writing one of my standard lines and closing the cover, handing the book back to him while placing his pen back into its holder.

  “I really need to get going but again thank you for all your assistance during the transfer.”

  He rose from his desk and escorted me to the waiting room.

  “I hope to see you again someday, Torie,” he said and smiled with genuine warmth.

  I really hoped that I wouldn’t have any need for a lawyer in the foreseeable future but shook his hand, retrieved and got into my coat, and plopped my blue knit hat upon my head, moving toward the door.

  “Thank you. Good-bye, Greg.”

  ***

  As I stepped out into the cool early October evening, the harvest moon was just rising over the square and a tumble of dry, crisp autumn leaves, scattered by the wind, danced out of my way.

  My Nissan Pathfinder was parked at the curb before me as I came down the steps and leaning against the side, with his hands in the pockets of his Hawkeye jacket was a very curious lawbreaker.

  “Hey, I think that you are in a no-parking zone, boss.”

  “You gonna tell me now why I wasn’t invited to this little meeting?” Dave asked and gave me his most serious expression.

  “You wouldn’t have approved of all of the details of the agreement.”

  “Hmm, that doesn’t sound good,” he decided as he stepped forward to meet me on the sidewalk and with his hands still in his coat pockets, leaned forward to give me a warm kiss.

  “Hey, you’ll have to read all about it in the papers tomorrow. We’ll go out early for breakfast and pick one up,” I offered.

  “Not too early. They’re saying thunderstorms in the early a.m., and you’re going to be in my bed and in my arms until the last rumble of thunder, my love,” he said seriously, and I knew that he meant every single word.

  Chapter 43

 
“Dave, sweetheart, are you sure about this?” I asked and slid over beside him on the seat of his Ford F-150.

  He let the engine idle as we sat on the edge of the drive into the Arbor Hill’s Cemetery in Ottumwa and I put my chin on his shoulder and kissed his cheek. It had been two weeks since we had given the house to the genealogical society, and we had just passed the one-month anniversary since that horrible last time warp had come to an end.

  We had made it through so much over the last month and I didn’t know whether this trip, on a gloomy October afternoon, was a mistake or if he was strong enough yet, to handle it. Dave was staring down the long, winding drive and I could tell that he was having second thoughts himself, likely fearing what it might do to the fragile state of his mental health.

  Dave had returned from that last time warp at the last possible moment. He had heard the blast and had waited for the pain of that final bullet to enter his brain, but he had never felt it. When he had returned, his head had been in my lap, and he had just buried his face in my chest, his arms coming around me fiercely as he had pulled me down beside him, hugging me so tight, just saying my name over and over again. When he had finally pulled back enough to see my face, he had reached out with his hands and smoothed my tears away, kissing me softly and we had left Rose’s house immediately that afternoon and had not returned to spend the night there again.

  The first few days after that last warp Dave had been like a war veteran, experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. We had gone back to the house later that same day and had gathered up all of the newspaper articles from where they had been scattered about my bedroom and we had taken them home to Dave’s house and he had read every single article regarding the murders, more than once and then he had talked—he had talked to me for hours and hours, going over it again and again. It had been hard for me to hear, but he had needed to talk about it so that he could get it all out and begin to deal with it.

  There had been many difficult memories from that day, but the most painful for him were those regarding Ricky. It tore Dave to bits to talk about it, because he had wanted to reach out to help Ricky but he’d had no time. He recanted every moment; from when Ricky had been ripped from him grasp by the impact of the bullet, to the burning pain in his own head when a bullet had struck him in his left temple; his left eye instantly filling with blood and completely blurring his vision as he had hit the floor. He said that then it had been just total frenzy as his sudden instinct to simply survive had kicked in and he had left Ricky behind as he had run, just as Tim had done fifty years ago; running for his life.

  Dave Cameron, the thirty-eight-year-old man that he had been on the inside that night—could not reconcile that he had left an innocent young child behind. It made him question his own ability and his courage—not sixteen-year-old Tim’s courage, but his own. He had been an adult on the inside that night and he felt that he should’ve been able to do something.

  “Tim couldn’t have saved Ricky’s life, Dave. He couldn’t even save his own life and Ricky was dead before Tim ever ran out that door,” I gently reminded him, as he wiped a tear from his face with the palm of his hand and nodded, unable to speak.

  He had found himself questioning why he had survived when all of them had died and even though it had been fifty years ago and he’d had no power in the situation and could not have re-written history, he still felt guilty over his inability to stop it from happening. He had shed many tears for the victims, especially for the young kids whom he had come to know so well over the course of the experience and we had made pilgrimages, to all of the points on that journey that he had lived through that terrible day and he had told me everything.

  When we had stood on the bridge over the Des Moines River, he had talked about the pointless hours that he’d spent hiking. The abuse that he had endured as a slight and defenseless young boy as Thompson’s bizarre behavior had escalated to the point where he had nearly thrown Tim off of a steep cliff. Dave felt that he should’ve known that something big was about to take place but I reminded him that he’d had no way of knowing what had been coming.

  When we’d stood where the cabin had once been and which had been bulldozed and the remnants removed fifty years ago, he had told me about the horrible bruises that had been on Tim’s body and he was and still is angry that not one article had brought those up and that Thompson had gotten away with that crime and Dave still wondered what story had been there beneath the bruises that no one would ever know about. Then he had shown me and we had walked the path that he had run that night in the pouring rain and he showed me the boat dock which had been his goal and where he had stumbled and fallen to the ground and where Tim Thompson had died.

  I came back from my musings when Dave took a deep determined breath.

  “I need to do this,” he said quietly.

  I nodded, and he leaned over to kiss my temple as he turned the truck into the entrance and we drove along the park like setting looking for section “D”.

  I climbed out of his driver’s door after him while he reached into the bed and lifted the six blood-red rose covered wreaths. I took a couple from his hands, and together, we started searching for the markers.

  “Torie!” he called to me softly as we had started to get separated as we browsed. “Here they are.”

  I hurried over to his side and saw the unassuming stone for Cindy and the five smaller stones for the children. The six matching dates of death, July 3, 1959, told of some tragic happening, and would be obvious to any visitor, even without knowing their sad story—those matching dates spoke volumes.

  Dave dropped down onto one knee before the stone for Tim, placing the wire holder and pushing it into the earth, then mounting the wreath above his marker as he absently brushed a dry leaf off of the face of the headstone.

  One by one, we placed the wreaths for each of the others, and then Dave took a deep breath as we stood back a pace and looked at our work. He put his arm around my shoulders, and I put my arm around his waist and looked up into his eyes, which were bright with unshed tears.

  “I’m ready to move on from this, Torie. I think I can let it go now.”

  I turned to hug him tight, as he bent to kiss my lips tenderly and I reached up and used my thumb to brush away a tear from his cheek, and he used his index finger to smooth a tear away from my cheek as well and we both smiled.

  “I love you, Dave. Let’s go. We have our own lives to live now.” And with a last look and wrapped in each other’s arms, we turned and started toward our waiting truck.

  Epilogue

  The fire crackled with a relaxing effect as I sat at my desk in the family room and looked out of the large wall of windows to the empty fields that stretched out before me, lying under a blanket of fresh snow. To the left I could glimpse the gas grill and deck furniture that were all tucked in warm and cozy under tarps to wait out the long Iowa winter ahead.

  It had been a whirlwind of a November for Dave and me. We’d married quietly at the county courthouse in Oskaloosa on my birthday, the second day of the month and Mindy and Dave’s high school buddy Jeff Allman had stood up with us as witnesses, and afterward, we’d all come back to Fremont and had lunch at the Finish Line to celebrate. Char had given us each a piece of apple pie à la mode on the house as a wedding gift and the entire day had been just the most perfect low-key event—just perfect.

  On November 4th, after we dropped Shadow off at The Barking Lot kennel in Urbandale, we had driven to the airport and were off for a honeymoon getaway to Naples, Florida which had included a romantic three day sailing cruise around the Florida Keys, courtesy of my dad, before making the pilgrimage to his home on Marco Island to spend a couple of days with he and his step wife Sandy. Next we rented a car and drove to Tampa so that I could meet Dave’s brothers Mike and Kyle and their families before driving on to Birmingham, Alabama to meet Dave’s brother Adam and we had spent a couple of days with his family, before heading home to Iowa.

  We will
meet the rest and celebrate three events: our marriage, New Year’s Eve, and Dave’s thirty-ninth birthday, on December 31st when we will be hosting all of our family and friends at a mega party and reception in Las Vegas for a four-day extravaganza at the Bellagio. Our wedding might have only cost us the fifty-dollar court fee to the state of Iowa but our million-dollar reception is going to be legendary!

  When we had returned to Fremont after our trip, we’d headed out for another short trip, to Cedar County to look at all of the locations of mine and Claire’s novel, Claire White of Cedar County Iowa. It had been just what I’d needed to get my creative juices flowing again, so that I could finish and I’d just typed the last word only minutes ago.

  “Hey, boss,” Dave said as he placed a mug of coffee beside me.

  I looked up, and he bent down to give me a kiss on my lips and then he put his arms around my shoulders, kissing my neck gently.

  “Paper says we officially got four inches,” he said looking over my shoulder and out the window.

  “Another long, cold Iowa winter but I don’t think that I’m going to mind it this year, not with you sharing it with me,” I confessed, leaning my face close to his as he rested his chin on my shoulder.

  “You finished with it?”

  “Just now,” I said and scrolled to the beginning of the novel and showed him the title that I’d officially decided on.

  “Nice. I think that Claire would be pleased.”

  I scrolled to the first chapter and pointed to the screen.

  “There you are, that’s your character and check this out,” I said opening a file on my computer. “Judy Bullard just sent this final a few minutes ago, the official cover photograph.”

  The photo depicted a battle-ravaged scene of the Civil War in the background and in the foreground my beautiful leading lady Claire with long dark-brown hair and sky-blue eyes and her handsome man; he holding his musket in one hand and dressed in a navy-blue Union uniform; taking her into his arms for a last desperate, passionate farewell kiss.

  “You decided on Jimmy Thomas I see.”