Beneath a Beating Heart

by Lauri Robinson

  She bit down on her trembling bottom lip and sucked in a deep breath before turning his way. Reaching for the mirror lying on the floor, her hand froze before it touched the handle.

  The mirror was on the floor. He wasn’t holding it. Neither was she. Yet, she could see him. He was a bit translucent, but she could see him. At this moment, she didn’t know if that made things better or worse.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Beth?”

  He hadn’t called her that since she’d entered the house, and the sound of his voice echoed inside her head. The fingers on one hand curled over the edge of the trunk as the air in her lungs turned fiery and her vision blurred.

  The sensation of falling into a dark abyss over took her. It was suffocating, but unlike before, it was peaceful, serene. The further she fell, the more tranquil she became, as if on the edge of entering a deep, welcoming sleep.

  On the verge of giving in completely, of letting the sleep overtake her, she was broadsided by a powerful force.

  Panic hit her just as hard. Making her thrash. Her lungs burned as she was propelled upward so fast water rushed up her nose, stinging. She opened her mouth to scream, but it instantly filled with water, choking her.

  Another unexplainable force overpowered her then. Stole all her abilities. It commanded her arms and legs to move, making her body swim through the water faster and faster. There was no fighting it. No denying it.

  When her head broke through the surface, her lungs were scorched and couldn’t hold the air she gasped before the waves pushed her head back under.

  She wanted to give up, to float back into the darkness still clutching to unknown parts and dragging her back downward, but that obscure force inside her shoved her upward again. This time it was as if someone was holding her, dragging her upward, through the water with great urgency. When she broke through the water’s surface this time, she was thrust into the air and hoisted over the top of something hard.

  Air filled her lungs, causing her to cough and spit water, and to shiver.

  She was cold, so cold, and tired. So tired.

  Rance tried again and again, and again, but his hands went right through her, couldn’t grasp onto anything. She’d collapsed on the floor in front of him. Worse than that, he feared she’d stopped breathing. The gasping had stopped. The thrashing of her arms and legs had stopped.

  He tried again, but his hands only dragged across the floorboards, splinters catching beneath his fingernails. His heart pounded and his mind swirled. Frantic at how blue her parted lips had turned, and unable to do anything else, he leaned over her and blew into her mouth.

  He blew and blew and blew.

  The idea of losing her again enraged him. So furious, so raw, he pounded a fist on the floor. “No, damn it,” he bellowed. “I won’t let you take her from me again! I won’t!”

  He had no idea who he was shouting at, no idea who he challenged, but he’d win. This time he would win. This was his wife, and he’d fight hell and high water to save her. “She’s mine! You can’t have her.”

  Tears blurred his vision as he blew into her mouth again. “You’re my wife. My wife, and I won’t lose you again,” he said between breaths. “I don’t give a damn if your name is Beth, or Liz, or Esmeralda, damn it. You’re my wife, and I won’t let you go. I won’t.”

  Wanting her to hear him, he grabbed her shoulders and was instantly shocked when his hands folded around her flesh. He pulled her off the floor, onto his lap, and shook her, pounded on her back, and shook her again. “Come back to me, Beth. Come back to me.”

  The hint of a whimper made him freeze. Cautiously, for he very well could be imagining things, he carefully tilted her head upward, and then cried in earnest when her breath mingled with his.

  After a moment of thankful bliss, of hugging her, he scrambled to his feet and carried her to the bed. Not wanting to let her go, to ever let her go, he crawled onto the mattress and laid his head on her chest, listening. The steady beat of her heart, the rise and fall of her chest elated him. After scooting her up until her head rested on a pillow, he laid on his side. Holding her face with both hands, he kissed her forehead, her eyebrows, the tip of her nose.

  “Wake up, honey,” he pleaded. “Please, please, wake up.”

  Her lips were no longer blue, and as he kissed them, he whispered again, “Please, Beth, wake up.”

  The fluttering of her eyelids sent his heart racing fast enough to make it explode. He barely had the wind to say, “Beth?”

  Her eyes opened and closed as a smile spread across her face. “Hello, my love.”

  For the blink of an eye his heart stopped. Completely stopped. Her whisper had been faint, but he’d heard it. The exact same words she said to him almost every morning of their married life.

  With a jolt that would have knocked him on his ass had he been standing, his heart started beating again, and he attacked her. Attacked his wife with an array of kisses she couldn’t keep up with.

  Almost.

  Her lips were as crazy as his. She kissed every inch of his face, as he did hers, and when their lips finally collided, it was a homecoming like no other. Their mouths were open, their tongues curling and twisting around one another. He hadn’t forgotten how wonderful she tasted, or her delicious nectar that made him want more and more.

  He pulled her close, so the length of her body was flush against his. Her arms folded around him and she pressed her breasts firmly against his chest while gently rubbing his crotch with one knee.

  She loved teasing and taunting him with her body. Loved working him into an aching responsiveness that could only be satisfied by one thing. He was no better, he loved fondling and caressing and kissing her until rousting desire overtook her so completely she’d beg him to take her.

  From the first time they’d mated, on their wedding night, their unions had been as explosive as lightning.

  Plunging his tongue deeper into the slick, sweet corners of her mouth, he kissed her until there was no air left his lungs. After drawing in a breath, he whispered, “Lord, I’ve missed you.”

  She smiled and cupped his cheek with one hand. “Missed me? I haven’t left yet.”

  “No—” An eerie sensation had him glancing around, noting the pale light of dawn filling the room, his heart started to pound. Her dress was draped over the back of the chair. That’s what she always did when they got ready for bed. Took off her dress and draped it over that chair. It was blue with little pink flowers, and his favorite. He’d told her that while unbuttoning the row of buttons running down the front of it that day in the front room, when the flowers on the wall paper had come to life.

  A wave filled with everything from relief to excitement washed over him. It hadn’t happened. She hadn’t gone to Billings, hadn’t been in a train accident. It had all been a nightmare.

  “Thank you!” he shouted to whoever, whatever, deserved his gratitude.

  He rolled onto his back while tightening his arms to pull her on top of him, to kiss her, to love her fully, completely, all day long.

  But at the very moment his lips should have found hers, her body should have rolled atop his, the room lit up as if a bolt of lightning had struck the floor, and he swore he heard Beth shout his name. Faint and faraway.

  His arms became empty. No weight lay upon his chest. Nothing but air touched his lips.

  He bolted upright, ready to shout, ready to curse, but he wasn’t alone.

  She laid there. Beside him. He could hear her gasping for air. Or was that him?

  The rise and fall of her chest said she was breathing quietly, restfully. Her hands were on her stomach, and that’s where his eyes stalled, staring at her hands, at her stomach. Her clothes. A pair of those odd short pants with the cuffs turned up at her ankles and a white shirt that didn’t have sleeves.

  That was impossible; yet, as he glanced toward the chair sitting beside the wall, the empty chair, he knew it wasn’t impossible. That it was indeed true.

&nb
sp; Depressed, disappointed, he dropped his head back onto the pillow and shifted his gaze to the ceiling. He’d felt her. He’d kissed her. It had been Beth. Completely Beth.

  He let out a long exhale before taking a chance. Slowly, he reached over, and without looking, lowered his hand in the vicinity of where hers laid upon her stomach.

  His palm met nothing but the quilt.

  The air in his lungs caught and twisted as it made its way up his chest and out of his mouth. His desire, the blistering hunger inside him that only she installed or could satisfy was still there. Now it ate at his insides like a wolf devoured a carcass. There would be no release, no satisfaction. It was more than that. More than a need for release or satisfaction that was tearing him apart. It was the love. The amazing love they shared that he wanted back in his life.

  “How did I get on the bed?”

  Turning his attention away from the carnage happening inside him took considerable effort, but he found enough to say, “I carried you.”

  “You carried me?”

  “Yes. For a short time, I could feel you. Touch you.”

  Silence bathed the room. He was grateful it gave his body time to collect itself, but also hated it because it gave him time to remember holding her, tasting her. For a moment, his life had been whole again.

  “Beth saved my life.”

  He twisted enough to look at her.

  She rolled onto her side and placed both hands beneath her cheek. “I don’t know how it was possible, but Beth saved my life.”

  Whether she was wearing different clothes or not, nor his inability to hold her hadn’t changed his love for her. He shifted onto his side to lie face to face. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because she did. The accident I told you about, the one when my parents died. The train pushed our car into the river just south of Billings. I’ve never remembered anything about it. Never really remembered much about my life before living with Gladys and Norman, but…” She held her breath for a moment and when she released it, a little frustrated-type grunt came out. “I don’t know how, but I saw it all, felt it all, when I opened the trunk.”

  He tried laying a hand on her side, just for reassurance, but his palm once again passed right through her image and landed on the quilt. “Saw what? Felt what?”

  “The accident. Me. I was little. Barely five years old, and I felt myself falling to the bottom of the river. I wasn’t frightened, or trying to swim, I was just sinking…” She shrugged one shoulder. “And falling asleep. I was tired. Exhausted. I must have given up and I was drowning. I guess. I-I don’t what else to think.”

  “But you didn’t drown?”

  “No, before I sank all the way to the bottom, Beth caught me, or-or.” Her eyes turned misty as she shook her head. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “It’s all right. I’m here. I’m listening.”

  She looked away and back again. “It was as if she entered me and forced me to swim to the top—which makes no sense because I never learned to swim. I still don’t know how.” She shook her head. “But I swam to the top and after I did, when the waves kept pushing me under, she pulled me through the water and up into the air again.” She shivered slightly. “I hate water. Hate rivers.”

  “Rightfully so.” He flinched at his own words. He wasn’t trying to make light of her story but could understand someone who had almost drowned would never want to get back in the water.

  “She, or we, swam until we found the trunk, and then she hoisted me over it. I was so tired, so cold, I wanted to go to sleep, but she wouldn’t let me.” Sliding her hands out from under her cheek, she held up the left one. “She put this ring in my hand, and told me not to let go of it. That I couldn’t go to sleep because I might drop it, and that I couldn’t drop it, because then it would be lost forever.”

  He held his hand before hers, palms facing each other. It was strange, because he couldn’t feel her hand, but he could feel his ring touching hers. Her eyes said she felt it too, and they both saw how the sunlight shining through the window glistened against the gold.

  “I told her I was tired and cold. She said she’d keep me warm, stay with me until someone came. Until someone found me.”

  “And she did.”

  She shrugged, and tears shimmered in her eyes. “Beth’s soul, her spirit, must have been under the water for almost a century waiting to save someone. Waiting to give them the ring.” She lowered her hand and pulled the ring off. “She must have wanted you to have it.”

  He shook his head. “She must have wanted you to have it.”

  “I was just a little girl, and—”

  “I can’t touch it,” he pointed out. “I can’t take it because I can’t touch it.”

  She bit her bottom lip as she slid the ring back on her finger. “I forgot that part.”

  “I didn’t,” he said with a sigh. There had to be a way for him to touch her again. He hadn’t imagined that. Hadn’t imagined kisses her, and wouldn’t give up until he could kiss and touch again. He hadn’t imagined something else, either. This was and wasn’t his Beth. She was just who she said she was. Liz Baxter from the future, while also being his Beth from the past. From his time. The two had become one in the river the night of her car accident. “What’s in trunk? What made you remember all this?”

  Her face scrunched as she squeezed her eyes tight. He couldn’t read her thoughts but knew whatever they were; she didn’t want to tell him.

  “You can tell me,” he coaxed. “There’s no reason to be afraid. Even if I could touch you, I’d never hurt you.”

  “I know,” she said sadly. “It’s just that sometimes, words hurt the worst.”

  “Yes, they do. “But you can still tell me. I can handle it.”

  She licked her lips and drew a deep breath. “Beth—” She swallowed as if her throat burned. “The trunk is full of baby clothes. Beth was pregnant when she drowned.”

  She’d said it all in one breath, as if knowing she wouldn’t be able to tell him if she didn’t hurry. Despite the pain of knowing their child had been taken along with Beth, he smiled. She was his Beth.

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  The grimace on her face was nothing shy of adorable.

  “Yes, I do.” He cleared his throat, needing to push aside the handful of gravel that had settled there. “I knew Beth’s body as well as my own. I loved it more than my own. Over the past few weeks, it had changed. Nothing had interrupted our nights together, and I’d guessed why.”

  “But you never told her.”

  He shook his head.

  “Why?”

  “Because she wanted to surprise me. That’s why she wanted to go to Billings. I thought about telling her to just see the doctor in town, but knew she wanted her mother with her when the doctor examined her, so…” He shrugged. “She went to Billings.”

  “She didn’t know you knew.”

  “No, I made sure she didn’t. I didn’t want to spoil her surprise.”

  “She was hoping for a boy, and to name him Rance.”

  He smiled. “How do you know that?”

  “I know a lot of things.” After a brief shake of her head, she added, “More than I should. I guess because we share the same soul. I have memories of you and her. Memories of her parents. Conrad and Millie. And her sister, Abigail.”

  His mind clutched onto one thing she’d said. “You believe you share the same soul?”

  “We must. How else would I know all this?”

  Excitement gathered ground inside him. This was progress. “You believe you are Beth?”

  She closed her eyes. “It doesn’t matter what I believe.” A tear slid out from beneath her lashes as she whispered, “It doesn’t change anything.”

  “It might.”

  “No, it won’t. No matter what I believe, the fire department is going to burn this house down tomorrow, and I’ll never see you again.”

  He shot up and flipped his legs over the edge
of the bed.

  “Where are you going?”

  Looking over his shoulder as he stood, he said, “To stop them.”

  “Rance—”

  He spun around. “No one will take you away from me again.”

  She climbed off the bed. “It’s not a matter of taking me away. We live in two different centuries.”

  His hands balled into fists at the need to take her shoulders, to make her understand just how deeply his love for her lives inside him. “I don’t care if we live a thousand years apart, we belong together.”

  “But that’s not possible.”

  “Like hell it’s not.” He’d felt it a moment ago. Felt her in his arms, tasted her lips, and he would do that again. Arguing wouldn’t get them anywhere, so he walked toward the door. “Come on, I may need your help.”

  She followed. “I already tried helping, you wouldn’t listen.”

  He continued into the hallway. “There is another way, one that doesn’t include me marrying anyone else.”

  Liz grabbed the doorway to keep her balance. The idea of him marrying Cindy, or anyone else, had never pleased her. Now it tore at her heart as if someone had shoved it inside a paper shredder. Probably because her libido was still in drive. She’d awoken more hot and bothered than a pole dancer, or the person watching the pole dancer—whichever way that went. She’d never seen a pole dancer in person, but certainly had been thinking about their provocative moves lately, which was as out of character for her as everything else when it came to Rance.

  Such as the sex high she’d just experienced. No, sex hadn’t happened, but it had been about to. Somewhere in time, and the memories still dancing in her head said Rance was an exquisite lover. He and Beth had held nothing back when it came to the bedroom. That was part of what she meant when saying she knew more than she should. Parts of her where still overheated because she knew what it was like to make love with him, and that left her so hot and bothered, she might remain that way for the next twenty years.

  Which was enough to tell her she couldn’t live the rest of her life loving a ghost. One way or another, she’d need these cravings satisfied at some point. Sighing, she asked, “What other way?”