by Jill Cooper
“Your mom is waiting for us.” Donovan reaches for the door and opens it, allowing me to exit first. “We can’t leave her with Cameron.”
“Any more than we’d leave her with a pack of wild wolves,” Marcus says with a grin.
****
Mom’s giant squeeze says how worried she had been about me. She fusses with my hair and pats my cheek. Somehow, it makes her feel better, which in turn comforts me. “You all right?”
I nod. “Just a fright, I guess, after everything Cameron said.”
“It’s nothing personal, I assure you.” Cameron’s voice comes from behind me and it jars me. When I turn, he smiles at me. “You’re a fine person, a champion for what time travel can do. We just have…a difference of opinion.”
Crossing my arms, I puff out a breath of air. “Delilah agreed with me. I don’t know how you got that document signed, but my guess is it took some work.” I glare at Cassidy. Cameron keeps her hand in his, a short leash for his attack dog and I know I need to get her alone. I need to talk to her when we aren’t trying to kill each other.
“And I can guess how you got that done.”
Cassidy smiles at me and extends her hand. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Crane—I’m sorry, Ms. Montgomery.” Her smile spreads and I want to rip it straight off her face.
“No apologies necessary.” I don’t shake her hand. Instead, I wave to Donovan and signal I’m ready to go. “Tomorrow, Mr. Kincaid, I’ll meet you in the conference room. You might be ready to get rid of me, but I’m not ready to bow out.”
Cameron’s face hardens into a plastic smile. “Here I thought you’d at least want to leave with dignity.”
Me? Dignity? “A Crane fights to the end.”
He bows at the waist. “Let the best opponent win then. I warn you, Lara, I’m a street fighter. Fighting dirty is what we do best.”
I have no doubts about that. As he leaves, I breathe a sigh of relief. “That was awfully brave of you.” Mom’s eyes widen as she watches Cameron and Cassidy leave. She has no idea what’s going on and it’s best if it stays that way.
“You ready to go?” Jax asks as he comes up behind Mom. I watch the way he rubs her shoulders. Strange for them to be touching. Then, Mom tilts her head and accepts a kiss from him, as if they’re together. As if they’ve reconciled.
How had I missed that?
It makes me happy. I’ve been rooting for them for a while. “Will I see you both here tomorrow?”
Mom nods and she places her hand on Jax’s chest. “They’ll have to throw us all out.”
Good. As I leave her, I meet up with Donovan and Marcus. Donovan slides his arm around my waist and the three of us head out the front door. Marcus flags down an attendant to signal that we’re ready to go.
“Have any lawyers you can call?” I ask Marcus, “I’m not ready for us to be forced out.”
“Oh, I have my ways. Cameron won’t get off that easy, I assure you.”
The limo pulls up and the rear door is opened for us. “See you tomorrow, bright and early then.” I step into the limo first as Donovan shakes Marcus’s hand.
Once Donovan slides in beside me, I sigh as I signal to the driver it’s time to leave. “Well,” Donovan says, “that was quite the…experience. Nothing is ever dull with you, that’s for sure.”
So, he always says. I hope for dull eventually. Just a little dull would be nice for a change.
“Anywhere special you want to go? Just home?”
I check the time on my watch. “I told my dad I’d stay with him tonight. I should swing by.” I give Donovan a flirty smile. “Pick up my stuff for tonight and then maybe we can have that talk.”
“Your dad?” Donovan’s face pales as he speaks and fear glints in his eyes.
“Umm-hmm. You remember him, don’t you?”
His eyebrows furrow severely. “Of course, I remember him. How could I forget—but Lara…” Donovan rubs his face. I’m not sure what he’s about to say but it’s bad. Real bad. My breath catches in my chest.
“What is it, Don?”
“Lara,” Donovan’s voice drops as his hand squeezes my shoulder, “Lara, honey, your dad’s dead.”
Chapter Sixteen
I back up from Donovan as if I’ve been struck. I rip my hand away and my voice shakes. “What?” When he moves to speak, I interrupt him, “We were just with him tonight. You came over. You brought me the—dress.”
Donovan speaks low and slow as if I’m a child. “I picked you up at your mom’s. You were having cocoa with Jax.”
That wasn’t how it had happened. I struggle to breathe, vomit rising in my throat, but then an image flashes in my mind and I grasp my temples. The pain is so intense, my knees clench tightly together, and I fight the urge to fold right over.
In the memory, I’m sitting in Mom’s old house—the one we had shared with Jax—the one she’d sold after the divorce. Only now, there was no divorce. Jax leans back in a chair and two mugs of cocoa sit between us on the table. On his finger, is a golden wedding band.
When the doorbell rings, I jump. “What am I going to say to him?”
“Be honest, give it time. Just like with your mom and me. Sometimes, time is the only thing that can make a situation right,” Jax says.
The memory fades as the limo slowly pieces itself back together in my mind. Donovan is staring at me with a look of desperation, and all I can think of is my dad. How can he be dead? I’d just seen him. I’d just saved him. I know what the truth is.
And where does that truth lead? Exactly where I might expect.
It leads to the answer; Cassidy changed time. She’s gone into the past and ripped my dad from me.
“Lara,” Donovan leans forward, “you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
“Get us to apartment 27 Tremont Street.”
His eyes widen. “Your dad’s old apartment?” he sighs and shakes his head, “Lara…”
“Just do it!” The edge of the world slips out from beneath me in that familiar way. Soon, it’s going to spiral into a whirlpool I can’t escape. “Please.”
God, please.
Donovan signals the driver and we deviate from our current path. I know he thinks I’m crazy. I know to him, my dad’s gone and buried. Everyone accepts this as fact, but for me, it’s not. I remember the other timeline when no one else does.
I have to make it right.
When we get there, the apartment is all wrong. Donovan pays the new occupant, a lonely old woman, to stand out in the hall so I can have a moment alone. Even he doesn’t follow me all the way in; instead he hangs back on the threshold of the front door. His eyes are on me and I can feel his worry circling around me.
Everything about the room is wrong. The table is a bad knockoff, the sofa is angled wrong, and the kitchen decor is all roosters and chickens. Something I’m sure my Dad would’ve laughed at, or joked about…if he had been here. If he was alive.
Images flash in my mind. I remember helping my dad move in. Donovan had been there, too. Dad had carried in the big boxes and had teased Donovan for being more of a manager than a heavy lifter. Then we sat around, ate pizza, and drank soda. It had been a good day.
Such a good day.
My memories roll over into a new one and it sucks me in as if it is the present. I stand in the kitchen, with my hand on the counter. I’m in a form-fitting black skirt and my heart is so heavy, it’s being torn in two. My eyes are sore and I’m so tired, it’s as if I haven’t slept in days. Against my fingers, a letter in my dad’s handwriting.
I’m sorry, Lara. I tried to move past it all… I tried to build a life without your Mom.
No, no. No. Dad wouldn’t have taken his own life. He wouldn’t have survived ten years in prison to just give up.
Tears fall to the page and I turn to Donovan. “How could he just leave me? After everything I did to get him back?”
But he didn’t. He wouldn’t just give up and kill himself.
With a gasp, I’m back in the present and the memory trail lingers. I can feel the heat from Donovan’s body as he creeps up behind me. “When did he…kill himself?” The words rebel as they come up my throat, but I force myself to say them, needing to embrace them if I’m going to learn enough to fix this.
Catch Cassidy before she destroys anything else.
“Three years ago. Right after grad. He tried, Lara. It was just—.”
I refuse to look at him. “Where?” I bark out the word, chewing on my inner lip, desperate to stay ahead of the pain. But it’s clamoring. It’s running for me and I don’t know if I can.
“He was found in the back of the alley. Shot himself.”
Not ‘an’ alley. The alley. Does that mean what I think it does? “The same alley where my mother—.”
“Yeah,” Donovan says sadly, “I know, it’s ironic, but maybe that place meant something to him.”
It wasn’t ironic. It was mean. A message delivered straight from Rex and Cassidy. They were practically mocking and laughing at me. “And no one saw?”
“Lara,” Donovan sighs, “Why don’t you remember any of this? What’s going on? If it was anyone else but you…”
Thank God for Donovan’s faith in me, in every timeline I’ve ever been in. “Before I passed out tonight, he was alive. He was alive, and now he’s not. And I’m the only one who can make this go away. Fix it.”
“But the system…if someone was traveling in time, the TTPA would know, wouldn’t they?”
“They didn’t when that stock information was stolen for you.” A pained expression rolls over his face as I say it, but it needs to be said and I don’t have the time to coddle him. “The TTPA system was designed on my frequency, but someone else…well, she’s running on a different frequency.”
“She?” Donovan’s words cut off as the old woman from the hall comes in. Her hair is done up in tight pink rollers and she’s in a purple nightgown. It’s her place, but I feel like she’s intruding and I glower as she opens a cabinet and pulls out a small wooden box.
“When I first rented this place, I was told you’d come, Ms. Montgomery. I always thought it was a joke.” The old woman extends the box, encouraging me to take it.
Instead, I only gawk at it. Cassidy is two steps ahead of me and now it’s time to catch up to her.
Stick her in her own damn cage.
****
We take the box home to the penthouse suite. I settle on the sofa while Donovan sits on the ottoman in front of me. His face is drawn and we both watch the box on my lap as if it’s a ticking bomb. I’m thankful he doesn’t think I’m crazy, or that I’m making this all up.
I flip the box open and the inside is lined with crushed velvet. Cushioned on top lays a short note. “You want to stop me, you’re going to have to come back and get me.” Under that is Dad’s obituary from the Boston Globe, but instead of a smiling photo, they had used his mug shot. I cover my mouth with my hand as I read it, dissect it, and memorize every word.
It comes back to me all at once, in a tidal wave.
Mom arriving at the college campus to tell me about Dad. She’s crumbling and in despair.
I lean on Donovan and it brings us closer together than ever.
Watching Mom and Jax forging a new bond as he helps us go through Dad’s things. Helps us clear out the apartment, and, on the day of the funeral…
Squeezing my eyes shut, I block the rest of the memories. I can’t face them anymore. I won’t. This is all temporary.
“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” Donovan asks with a twinge of anger. “You’re going to go and save him.”
My eyes widen, amazed he’d pick now to fight me on this. “Like I have a choice. She’s messing with the timeline to mess with me. She’s started with Dad. Who knows who will be next?”
“Exactly. She wants you. It’s a trap, Lara.”
“Then I go back even further. I go back and study her. What she’s up to. What she’s going to do.”
“And then what?” Donovan asks with narrowed eyes.
I’m frustrated he won’t drop this. “Then I beat her at her own game. My game. She shouldn’t even be here.” I put the letter back into the box and then slam it shut. Sliding it onto the sofa, I hurry into the kitchen. Donovan follows me.
“You’ll get caught. The system is designed to catch you.”
I pull the fridge door open and grab the corked bottle of wine. Nothing would make me happier than to drown my sorrows in a glass, but I need to stay clear-headed. So, I put the bottle back with a sigh.
“Lara, you’ll get caught.” Donovan’s words are more forceful.
“They’ll need to catch me to stop me.”
Donovan shakes his head. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“I’m going to finish the game, but I didn’t start it. You did, the second you took that stock information. So, either help me or get out of my way, Don. If we’re going to be married, if we’re going to be together, we need to support each other. So, are we a team or are we nothing?”
He pales and his eyes fix on the floor. “Just tell me what it is you want me to do.”
****
My duffle bag, the same one I’ve had since the beginning of all this, is packed. The weight of it is heavy as I slip it over my shoulder. The fancy clothes of who I had become, are gone. Now I’m wearing jeans and a blue hoodie, just like I used to before I’d changed the past.
If I’m going to do this, I want to do it soon. I don’t want to linger in a timeline where my dad is dead. One in which John Crane had committed suicide? My skin itches just being here.
Donovan and I linger in the living room. “I didn’t mean to come at you so hard earlier,” The apology isn’t easy for me, but it’s one I need to make, “I’m sorry.”
He just shakes his head. “He’s your dad. I know what he means to you. I’m just…scared. I thought this part of our life was over.”
“And if it’s never really over? Do I still have you?” My chest tightens and I’m afraid of the answer.
Donovan’s eyes are sad. “Live like this forever? I don’t know if I can, Lara,” he shrugs and I see the beginning of tears in his eyes, “I just don’t know.”
We might as well be standing worlds apart. There’s so much grief drowning me, that I barely hear the doorbell.
Donovan gets the door and ushers Marcus inside and after the usual greetings, Marcus leans against our mantle. “You’re going to have to hang in there a little longer. Cameron is still at the TTPA. I don’t know what he’s doing there so late—.”
“Then I’ll take my chances.” I have to move and it has to be now.
Donovan and Marcus exchange a glance and I know that’s not good. “If they catch you, you’ll be harnessed and arrested, Lara. You won’t get another chance.”
“You said yourself,” Donovan says, “that since you’ve retapped into your power, you can’t control it. If you rush it, you don’t know where you’ll end up. Or if it’ll work at all.”
“Look what happened earlier tonight. The cage. Rex. If you skip into the wrong timeline…” Marcus says to try to talk me down off the ledge, but I won’t be reasoned with.
I hold up my hand. “I get it.” Listening to them makes me nauseous. “I can’t take listening anymore. I get it, but there has to be something you can do.” I swallow and think hard, trying to come up with a plan. “Donovan could call Cameron. Arrange a meeting with him. They have a history together.”
Donovan’s eyes narrow as I get too close to revealing his secret, but I hold firm. I won’t tell Marcus more than he needs to know.
“When he does that, you can go in and deactivate the system. Then I’ll travel back in time and hope no one catches me on the other side.”
Marcus sighs and Donovan wipes his mouth. “Okay,” Donovan says gently, “Okay.”
“This might not work. We might all end up behind bars.”
I smile sadly. “Your political connect
ions can get you off, but if you’d rather not involve yourself…well, I understand.”
Marcus takes my hand and I avoid his gaze. “I know how much he means to you. And I will always do whatever I can to help you. Just remember, they want you to time travel, they’ve been pushing you toward this for days. You need to find out why. Outsmart them. Use your gifts wisely.”
Donovan watches us. “I’ll call Cameron. Pull him out to meet me in half an hour.”
Marcus nods. “I’ll get into position. You too, Lara, but please…”
“Careful. I got it.” I wiggle my fingers at him in a final greeting. I hope that one day soon, none of this will be necessary. That no one but me will even remember this happened.
He says goodnight, but I can’t find anything to respond with. All I can do is sulk and gaze across at the mantel. Donovan shows him out, and when he returns, his arm slips around me. Inside, I stew. He set a lot of this in motion, but even he had been manipulated by Cameron. I can’t hold it against him, but parts of me want to.
He pulls out his cell phone, still holding me as he brings Cameron’s number up on speed dial. Our eyes talk to each other the entire time. Both of us with so much to say.
It’s time for this to end, but I fear it’s only the beginning.
When it’s done, we both prepare to head out. The spoken…and unspoken angst between us festers, but still I watch him, longing cementing in my chest. “Be careful, Don.”
As he slips on his jacket, his eyes darken. “You too.”
There’s nothing else to say. He moves toward the door, but at the last second, changes his mind and we embrace for a final time. I cling to him in a way I haven’t in a long time and I stroke his cheek.
“We’ll turn out on top.”
His eyes aren’t so sure. “Will you fight for us?”
My lips press tight into a thin line and we share a kiss. “Always.”
Even if I have to fight against all my doubts and myself. Always.
