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Isabeau wanted to leave right away, but she couldn't find Leif. She grabbed her camera from her room and walked around the back of the house.
Pierce was engaged. It hurt her like hell to think about it, but perversely, she couldn't stop thinking about it. She'd found him against all odds and lost him not once but now twice. Anguished, she wondered why she had she been allowed to remember. She stopped suddenly, hope leaping inside. Could Pierce be engaged to her? Could this be another time warp? No, she had just arrived a day ago. They technically had not even met in this time.
She needed to see Pierce one more time, then she must leave.
Isabeau stood in the back gardens, raising her camera as a dark bird flew into the sky, straight up into the sun. She lowered the camera and turned, catching her breath as pain shafted across her breastbone.
Pierce stood behind her.
He wore black jeans, white shirt and a light grey jacket; and she couldn't take her eyes from him. He didn't say anything, just gave her a welcoming smile.
Isabeau closed her eyes, clutching the camera to her breast. The shutter clicked once again. Dazed, she relaxed her grip, then slowly, slowly, she brought the camera up and took his picture.
The thoughts in her head were crazy, she knew it. She wanted to run before he spoke a word and said something that told her he no longer remembered they loved each other.
She drank in the sight of him, the wide shoulders, warm blue eyes, rakish dark hair falling over his brow. His hair was shorter. He was the man she loved with all her heart.
"Sweetheart, I've been looking for you."
Isabeau sagged in relief.
"Sorry I'm late, but I finally made it."
Shaking the hair back from her eyes, she said softly, "I'm glad you're back."
"Did you finish the job?"
"Job?" she repeated, perplexed.
"The commission for the Virginia Wildlife Society."
She was losing it; she didn't know what he was talking about.
"I saw the pictures you spread out in the salon. You must be just about finished. They're flawless. I know Mrs. Forrester will be very pleased."
Mrs. Forrester? Isabeau backed away from him, afraid she would break down. She couldn't take any more. "I-I have to go."
"Wait, Isabeau -- go where?" He came after her.
"Home."
"This is your home," he said, suddenly strained.
That stopped her in her tracks. Slowly, she spun on her heel to face him. Dear God, she prayed, don't let this be a sick cosmic joke.
"We discussed this. We're going to live here after we're married."
"Married?" she squeaked.
"What's the matter, sweetheart? Don't you remember?"
She saw a sudden comprehension on his face.
"Isabeau." The gravelly whisper tore at her with its familiarity. He took the final step and his arms enfolded her slowly, as if he wasn't sure how she would react.
"Sweetheart -- I understand, I understand now. I hope you're going to tell me you remember everything. You looked so shocked, as if you didn't know me." He leaned back. "Mrs. Cummins told me you passed out while I was gone. My God, I wanted to be here when this happened -- and I was away. You've been to 1894, haven't you?"
She frowned in confusion. "You didn't know?"
"Isabeau, think about it. When you disappeared in 1894, I never knew what date you reentered this life. How could either of us know since this hadn't happened yet?"
"You're right!" she exclaimed. "I thought you were engaged to someone else when Mrs. Cummins talked about your engagement party."
"There's only you." He paused."I don't want to overwhelm you, but our family history has changed. I know you may not recall what's happened since we met in this time, but I'm hoping you'll want to pick up where we left off. Because of the way history was rewritten, we actually met six months ago."
Incredibly, from an inner jacket pocket Pierce withdrew a small book, its edges worn and bent. "I've carried this every day since I came back and found it again."
Eyes wide, Isabeau looked at the gold strap, then up into his face.
"But Mrs. Cummins asked me if I was leaving right after the party --" Isabeau said in confusion.
"I had told her we might drive to DC to deliver your photographs."
"Okay," she said slowly. "The photographs in the salon?
"No."
With a grin Pierce grabbed her hand and pulled her with him across the hallway into his office. Furniture on the right side of the room had been removed and replaced with several easels depicting various enlarged photographs.
She fell back against him in disbelief, emotion clogging her throat. "Pierce, these are my pictures from 1894. How --"
"I don't know for sure, but I'm thinking Malry had a hand in it. I found your developed pictures when I was going through some estate records that turned up in the attic about six months ago. The photographs had been carefully and I'd say, professionally, stored."
Isabeau walked up to the easels, staring in wonder at the collection of photographs. The seamen aboard The Lady, Pierce as Hawk Morgan, Malry with a heavy scowl, Lila and Megan, James, the photos she'd taken of New York City. All the pictures she had taken in another time. There was even a picture of her aboard The Lady, as she looked out to sea. In wonder, she pointed to that picture.
"Not as good as your pictures," he said, "but I took that of you on the way to New York."
"Where are we taking them?" she asked.
"There's a lab in DC that specializes in antique photographs. They're going to enlarge them for your show."
"Wow, I've been busy," she said, faintly dazed. She began to laugh. "How will the show be presented? Obviously, I can't be called the original photographer."
"You listed it as a private collection from the Morgan family estates."
Isabeau shook her head, still bemused. "I'm trying to catch up here." She stared at him in shock. "Pierce, how have you managed to adjust so well when I'm still feeling confused?"
"I returned five years ago," he said.
He gripped her arm when she swayed. "Five years?"
"When you disappeared that last day I began to record it in the journal." He placed the worn journal on the desk surface. "I had the ring you tried to give me. Belva came running into the house all excited. Malry, Hawk and Amelia had arrived."
"Did you meet Hawk?" she asked barely above a whisper.
Pierce had a faraway look in his eyes. "Our glances met for the barest second as I was pulled out of there. The journal remained even though I held tightly to it. I have to think Hawk left it for me to find."
"I'm astonished we ended up in the right place," she said softly.
His eyes met hers. "What's more amazing is I had no idea when this would happen. You and Leif had been to Hawk's Den several times." He gripped her shoulders. "I know this is damned confusing to you. I've certainly had more time to prepare for it than you have."
"The renovations --"
"For us. For our children. I began them three years ago."
"So you waited all this time for me to arrive?"
"It would take more than going through time to forget you." He pulled her close and kissed her. She wound her arms around him, holding on tightly, knowing things could have turned out so differently.
"No one would believe it, would they?" she asked dreamily, leaning her head back against his arm.
"Not a soul," Pierce agreed. "I need to fill you in on the rest of our history."
She snuggled against him. "Mrs. Cummins mentioned you have a whole pack of siblings and your father is alive. I've never heard more wonderful news." She looked up at him. "But tell me what happened when you arrived back here."
"When we talked about this in 1894, the last I knew was my life in 2007. What I didn't know was that I was in a coma because of a car accident."
"Oh, my God, I could have lost you. Is that why you had no memory?"
"Possibly. When I returned here, there was no immediate memory of 1894 either. It took about a month and it all came flooding back. One night, I woke up and drove to Hawk's Den. That's when I found the journal. I'm not trying to scare you, but I became obsessed. I couldn't suddenly arrive in your life and expect everything to fall into place. Besides being too young, you weren't the person you are today."
Isabeau frowned, trying to understand. "So when you woke in 1894, it was from a coma state in your present time?"
"Yes, that's all I can tell you. The rest I've tried to piece together, but a lot of it is guessing."
She looked up suddenly, struck by a crazy notion. "Could anything have changed in my family while I've been gone?" Then she shook her head. "No." She gripped his hand. "Have you met my mom? Is she okay?"
"She's fine. Your mom drove from the airport with me."
Excited, Isabeau hugged him. "Oh my gosh, that's wonderful. I've so missed her. Everything is complete. I have everything I love right here."She smiled at him. "Everyone I love."
"It's only the beginning, sweetheart." He grabbed her hand and pulled her from the room. "Come and meet the family." He laughed. "Again."
Epilogue
Six months later
"Isabeau? Where are you?" Pierce entered the house, expecting to see his wife and her mother, Elise, yet he saw neither.
They had visited with Elise all week and then driven home to Hawk's Den. In the middle of the night Isabeau had a premonition that her mother was in trouble. When she couldn't reach Elise, the feeling solidified into real fear.
Having learned to trust his wife's intuition, Pierce booked a flight to New York. When they arrived back at Elise's home in the Catskills, Isabeau jumped out of the car before he had time to bring it to a stop.
He parked and ran into the house after her. He found his wife standing beside the antique wooden kitchen table. She swayed slightly, a blank look on her face. Looking up at him, she held up a sheet of notepaper.
"What is it?" Pierce asked urgently, pulling her close to his side.
"It's my mother," she said slowly, disbelief written on her face. "She's gone."
"Gone -- but she didn't say anything about leaving --"
"She's gone to find my father."
"Your father -- where?" he asked.
"1846."
THE END
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SOULMATES THROUGH TIME
by Grace Brannigan
About Soulmates Through Time
Book 2 in the time travel series: Thrust from her own time in 1822, Elise has been separated from the man she loves for 24 years. She has adjusted to modern times, raised a daughter, and become successful in her own right. When she stumbles upon the way back, she must make the decision to step back into that time. Will Darien still love her and will Elise be able to turn back the clock and regain the love they once shared? Does she want to turn back time? Can she love today the man she knew back then?
Prologue ~ 1807
Aleanna knew she was dying. There was no sense railing against it, in truth she had lost much of the will to fight with the death of her love.
Mandine's thin boned hand pressed the scented cloth gently across her fevered brow, then moved soothingly along her jaw.
Aleanna's rich brown hair splayed against stark white pillows in a luxuriant, waving mass, framing once radiantly alive features. The eyes were now dull, stripped of the spirit of life, her complexion pale and waxen.
"Aleanna, my Aleanna." The young woman responded to the sorrowful whisper, her head turning on the pillow.
"My baby?" Aleanna's voice was a mere thread of sound, quickly lost in the hush of the room.
"She is here."
Into her line of vision a small bundle appeared, warmly swaddled in soft blankets.
Caring hands shaped Aleanna's limp arms into a cradle, and a weight suddenly lay against her breast. A warm, wanted weight.
Her child.
With immense effort, Aleanna looked down at the child in her arms.
"My darling," she whispered. "Your hair is red." A pleased smile played upon bloodless lips, then she leaned her weary head back into the pillow.
She was so tired -- she wished only to close her eyes. She fought the sensation, for she knew there was something she must do.
Weakly, she lifted one hand and caught the hand of the woman who hovered beside the bed.
"Mandine, you must --"
The dark-garbed figure bent closer to catch the words Aleanna could barely get out.
"Tell me, Aleanna," her caregiver, the woman named Mandine, urged. "Tell me of your wishes. Do you wish vengeance?"
"Protect my daughter."
"I shall protect her from that one," Mandine hissed balefully. "I shall take her away this night."
"No." Aleanna clutched Mandine's forearm with surprising strength, her face, if it were possible, growing even more ashen. "No, you know he will find you, track you down. Hurt both of you. I wish it were otherwise, but --" She lay back, utterly exhausted. "I ask that you guide her. Shield her as best you can."
The dark-garbed figure picked up the infant, held her closely against her breast.
"You know I will do what is best for your child." Mandine bowed her head, dark eyes burning. "I will protect the wee one as if she were my own."
"Yes," murmured Aleanna faintly, her eyes flickering for the last time, "I know you will take care of my Elise."
Mandine placed the infant in a small cradle, swaddled her in the softest of wool.
"My dearest Aleanna, you barely cling to life and so it is time." With a flick of her gnarled fingers, Mandine cast tiny particles across Aleanna's bed. In the shadowy room, each particle captured fragments of light from two lit candles beside the bed. Every corner of the room filled with a splintering rainbow of glorious color.
Mandine leaned over the young woman she had raised since she was a five-year old orphan. Gently, she closed Aleanna's eyes. "And so it is, the journey begun."
Present Time
Chapter One
The car turned the corner and disappeared from sight.
Elise let her hand fall to her side. "Isabeau. She is so happy."
She lifted her face to the deep blue heavens, praying her daughter would fare better in love than she had. Elise left the porch and entered the house. Almost restlessly, she wandered into her office, the cozy corner where she penned her novels.
Narrowing her eyes against the bright sun slanting into the writing corner, Elise opened the window and allowed the unseasonable warmth of the day into the room. The massive oaks framing her yard were beginning to bud with new green, announcing the arrival of spring.
She stared at the distant horizon where the mountains had shed their gray, wintery look. She questioned, as she had done countless times before, the hand which fate had dealt her. At thirty-nine, Elise had long ago let girlish dreams drift into the mist of her past. It had saved her sanity, and undoubtedly the life of her then-unborn daughter, but a part of her had ground to a standstill one night twenty-four years ago.
When her daughter Isabeau was an infant, Elise had nearly driven herself crazy with desire for the man she loved. As her daughter grew older, Elise had come to realize it would be a grievous error to take Isabeau from the security of the life she knew. It was for that reason that Elise, for all intents and purposes, had let her past die, crushing every memory which was destined to bring her heartache. For the sake of her daughter, the past had remained undisturbed until now. Until today. When her daughter had shared with her -- her own experience of traveling through time, it had awoken in Elise a long buried ache, the yearning for the life that had been taken from her. The life she had left back in 1822. Her life was devoid of the love she had once embraced so joyfully, yet so dangerously. Darien.
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sp; Her writing gave her immense satisfaction. It was a career that developed in the long nights she'd spent working as a night shift operator for a local business. Now, she lived quite comfortably on her earnings and had even learned computer skills with her daughter's help.
In the last twenty-four years Elise had grown quite independent, had learned to rely on herself, and had made a new life for she and her daughter. But even her success as a historical fiction writer did not compensate for the absence of the man she had loved.
Elise picked up the review of her latest novel. She smiled because really, at times she felt an utter and complete fraud. Elise Lancaster certainly brings a new freshness to her latest novel set in the early nineteenth century. The daily life and customs are so exquisitely detailed and researched, one would think she lived in that era. And she had.
She had been lucky in this life, blessed with more than many people, and for that she was thankful, but somehow, in some way, she needed to extricate her thoughts, longings, and desires from the past, so that she could move forward in the present.
Thinking back over time, she reflected on the events which had occurred in this world and beyond. She knew firsthand the power of thoughts and longings. Long ago she had learned that time was split into many frames, and even though she could view only one at any given moment, she knew other realities existed. Time moved and changed continuously in accordance with the decisions which were made. She had often wondered if there was a way to flit between times, but that had been dangerous thinking for a woman with a small child.
And so Elise had accepted her path, but God! How lonely it had been at times.
With a soft catch of her breath, Elise choked back the tears, touching the delicately unfolding petals of a purple iris her daughter had brought for her. It was too early to be planted outside, despite the day's endearing warmth. She knew firsthand how harsh and unyielding the mountains could be to those who didn't adapt.
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