Always and Forever

by L. A. Fiore

"Do what you did before, when you leave just come back."

  "I wish it was that easy, Nickie, I really do because I want nothing more than to be here with you. But I haven't any control over it," she said sadly. "I will miss you, every day."

  Nickie threw himself into her arms. "It isn't fair! I love you!"

  Three little words had the tears spilling down her cheeks. "And I love you," she hoarsely whispered.

  "This all bloody sucks," Thaddeus hissed.

  "We must enjoy every moment together," Archer explained to his son. "We can't wallow in tears. We should be making memories with Quinn. Thaddeus, collect the staff! A day of fishing and a picnic are in order!"

  He turned to Nickie, "It's a beautiful day now and we are together. Let's celebrate it!" When Quinn looked at Archer, she realized the bravery in his voice was entirely for Nickie's benefit.

  Down at the river, the sun was shining brightly. A crisp breeze blew through the valley, and the rustling of the leaves sounded like a whisper. The gentle rumble of the water over the river stones was so very relaxing. The fish weren't biting but no one cared since the day was spent in comfortable conversation. Quinn leaned back against Archer with her feet dangling in the water. Thaddeus, Nickie and Sara were just to their left as the others sat further up the hill under the shade of a large oak tree. All the lines were in as the afternoon sun moved across the sky.

  "Would you tell us another story?" Nickie asked.

  "Sure." Quinn thought on it for a moment before sharing the stories of Snow White, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs. By the time she was done telling the tales, the sky had grown rather dark.

  "I think it's time for someone to go to bed," Archer said to a yawning Nickie.

  "I'm not tired."

  "Sure, you're just catching flies," Thaddeus said as he threw a wink at Quinn while Archer lifted Nickie up over his shoulders.

  "I'll ask my mother to put Nickie to bed so we can take a walk along the river."

  "I like that idea."

  Archer grinned in reply before he said, "Say goodnight to Quinn, Nickie."

  "Sleep well, Nickie."

  "Good night, Quinn," he said and then added, "I love you."

  "I love you, sweetheart."

  Thaddeus leaned over and planted a kiss on her cheek. "Thank you for the stories."

  "Thanks for the friendship."

  "See you in the morning, Quinn." Thaddeus said before he helped Sara up the hill.

  "I'll be right back. Wait for me." Archer brushed his lips over hers, allowing them to linger for a moment, before he pulled back and winked at her.

  "Rogue," she whispered.

  He turned and started after the others as they made their way up the hill to Lady Scarcliff. The glow from the pale moon made them look almost ethereal and then before her eyes they started to fade. Panic gripped her.

  Archer walked up the hill feeling more content than he ever remembered feeling. He had his family, his friends and the woman he loved all living under his roof. Quinn had given him that, she had given him his family back.

  He had just reached his mother when Quinn screamed, "Archer!" and he knew, before he even turned around, that they were out of time. He tried to reach her but wasn't fast enough as she faded before his eyes. Her hand reached out to him, but when he tried to grab it she was gone.

  All that remained of her was her softly spoken vow that echoed into the night, "I will love you, always and forever.

  He fell to his knees and roared his anguish to the heavens.

  Chapter Nine

  "Thank God, Quinn, we didn't think you were ever going to wake up."

  Quinn looked around in confusion then saw her mother standing over her looking as if she hadn't slept in a month. She tried to speak but was quieted by her mother's hand on her shoulder.

  "I'll get the doctor," she said frantically pushing the call button by the bed.

  Quinn reached for her mother's arm and managed to ask, "What happened?"

  "We almost lost you but you're awake now, thank God." The worry was evident in her mother's eyes. "Quinn, you were in a car accident and have been in a coma for over two months."

  And at those words Quinn allowed herself to slip back into the darkness.

  Part Two

  "And miles to go before I sleep......." -- Robert Frost

  Chapter Ten

  When Quinn was finally conscious long enough to understand, her mom supplied her with more details about the accident that led up to her coma. Apparently, Derek and she never made it to Whispering Winds; their car had been hit by another driver who lost control on the motorway outside of London. Derek had suffered only minor injuries where as Quinn, on the side where the car hit, knocked her head so hard she was rendered unconscious, in a coma, for two months. When she first woke, she was agitated and angry, but as the days passed Quinn grew confused. How could she have been in a hospital bed and romancing the past at the same time? Was it possible that her time with Archer had just been a fantastic dream based on the lure and mystery of a place that had captivated her imagination for almost a decade?

  Her parents and brothers were initially distraught but when they realized that she was going to be fine, they seemed to pull it together. A week after she woke, they reluctantly returned to their lives in the States but not before leaving explicit instructions for her to take it easy and call, all of them, every week. Quinn smiled: sometimes being smothered was nice.

  Shortly after her family's departure, Quinn was released from the hospital. The doctors were confounded by her rapid recovery and how no physical therapy was required. She even heard phrases like 'medical miracle' tossed around. In truth, Quinn felt better than she ever had with not a single ache or pain to complain about. How it was possible that she could be in a car wreck that landed her in a coma for two months and come out of the head trauma with no lingering side effects, she didn't know. Of course, Quinn was convinced that she had spent those two months in an entirely different scenario.

  She often thought of Archer and missed him to the point of pain. He had said that she might not believe that their time together had been real, so as soon as she was released from the hospital she made the journey to the village near Whispering Winds. To save her sanity, she needed to find Morgan's grave where Archer had buried her betrothal ring. When she reached what should've been the cemetery her disappointment was almost painful because where there should have been headstones were instead a field of grazing sheep.

  It didn't pass her notice that the village she walked through looked nothing like the quaint little village she had "visited" before her accident but then Quinn apparently never made it to Whispering Winds or this village.

  Was it all a dream? She couldn't make herself go to the castle for fear that she would see it as she had, empty and desolate, proof that her adventure really had only been in her head.

  Chapter Eleven

  Two weeks after she returned to her home in the Cotswolds, Quinn received her first email from her boss, the man whose identity had always been kept secret, Gabriel McCabe.

  Dear Miss Shaughnessy,

  I was very sorry to hear of your accident and I do hope you are feeling better. I'm not writing to try to convince you to come back to work, take all the time you need. If there is anything you require, please do not hesitate to ask. Your job will be waiting for you when you are ready to return.

  I don't wish to overstep but sometimes it helps to talk about it when one suffers a trauma like you have. If you need someone to talk to, I've been told I am a very good listener.

  Gabriel McCabe

  Dear Mr. McCabe,

  I was both surprised and delighted by your letter. It's nice to finally have a name to go with the man behind the curtain! Thank you for your understanding. It has been hard trying to get back into the flow of things but I do hope to return to work soon.

  I have not gotten my head around what happened. For me, the time I was in the coma felt mor
e like a magical dream. To wake and find it was all just in my head, that none of it was real, is a bit overwhelming. Perhaps you were just being nice but I think you are right, talking about it may just help me move past it. Would you like to hear my story?

  Quinn

  The correspondence between them lasted for months, several emails a day. In that time, Quinn began to really know the man who was her boss. He was reserved but he had a wicked sense of humor which came out more and more as they grew to know each other. He studied anthropology and loved all things old. He loved classic rock and had an affinity for mysteries. What really touched her, though he had never mentioned it in any of his emails but Cole, her boss, had let it slip, was that Gabriel had come to the hospital every day when she was in the coma.

  Three months after she was released from the hospital she was ready to go back to work. She had come to accept, reluctantly, that her time in the past had just been a lovely dream. Archer wasn't real. He was just a wonderful figment of her imagination. She needed to come back to reality and so it was time to go back to Whispering Winds.

  Cole was quiet as he drove along the country road and then quite suddenly he turned his head to Quinn and said, "I'm glad you're back. We've missed you."

  "I'm glad to be back." She shifted in her seat before she asked, "Derek's been at Whispering Winds this whole time?"

  Quinn noticed the clenching of Cole's jaw at the mentioning of Derek. "As soon as he was given the all clear from the doctors he was out the door. The ink on his hospital release papers hadn't yet dried. He never called to check-in and see how you were doing and then he left us even more short-handed when he insisted on taking his accumulated months of vacation to pursue a self-funded dig at Whispering Winds."

  Quinn's head snapped in Cole's direction in response to that tidbit. Derek was searching for something at Whispering Winds, just like in her dream, was that a coincidence? "Has he found anything?" Quinn asked.

  "He has yet to drum up the media circus, so I'm guessing no," Cole said sarcastically.

  "Are you surprised by Derek's greed, Cole?"

  "No."

  "Why do you put him on so many digs when clearly you don't like him?"

  "It isn't my call. The boss wants him there..." Cole glanced over at her and grinned, "And he is as much a fan of Derek's as I am."

  "We've been writing to each other."

  Cole continued to watch the road as he answered her. "I know."

  "I like him."

  "He likes you, too. He's meeting us at Whispering Winds."

  Quinn turned in her seat and looked out the window but her anticipation at finally meeting Gabriel in person made the drive the longest in her life.

  When they approached Whispering Winds, her heart hammered hard in her chest. This was not the same place she found all those years ago. Tour buses lined the paved area about a kilometer from the castle as hordes of people milled around the lush landscape with cameras in hand snapping photos. Quinn's voice sounded strained even to her own ears when she asked, "Has this placed always been like this?"

  "What? A major tourist attraction? Yeah."

  She was fairly certain that she was experiencing shock. It took her months to convince herself that her time in the past had been a dream but now she was seeing evidence that suggested otherwise. Had she really traveled back in time and somehow managed to change the future? She couldn't deny what her eyes were seeing and her heart leapt because maybe, just maybe, Archer had been real.

  "This is still the Scarcliff family's main residence but they spend three months a year at their estate in the Cotswolds so the Duke agreed to allow visitors to Whispering Winds when the family was not in residence."

  Quinn's head snapped around to face Cole. "Scarcliff?"

  "Yes, surely you've heard of them? It isn't really possible to live in England and not know of the Scarcliffs."

  Oh, she knew of them. But she was surprised that he did since there were no documented records on the castle or its owners, or at least there hadn't been. She was glad she was sitting because her legs suddenly went weak. And then she realized what else Cole had said. "Duke?"

  "Yes, Nicholas Archer Scarcliff, the Duke of Scarcliff."

  Nicholas Archer! Oh, that couldn't be a coincidence. She felt as if her head was going to spin right off her body. She definitely needed some time to process all of this and as she pondered the impossible, she asked, "When was the family elevated to the status of a duke?"

  Cole's eyebrow rose ever so slightly in response, "1896."

  A smile cracked over Quinn's face knowing Archer's legacy now included a dukedom.

  "Why are you grinning, Quinn?"

  "Just happy."

  Cole pulled the car behind the castle to a private parking lot discreetly hidden among towering trees. Even though the place could now handle the tourists, access was done so subtly that when the buses and people were gone you wouldn't notice the added lots. Once parked, Cole climbed from the car and held open a back door of the castle for Quinn. She was bewildered -- she'd never seen this room before.

  "This is the restoration annex," Cole offered in response to her look of confusion. When Quinn's eyes adjusted, she saw the computer lab and library dedicated to research, clean rooms for the delicate fabrics and papers that couldn't be exposed to all the contaminants in the air, rows and rows of tables where people were working on precious artifacts. They walked through the annex, out another door, and into the main castle. As soon as Quinn entered, she felt the tears sting her eyes because it still looked as it had in Archer's day except for the small guided tours milling about. As they passed, Quinn heard little tidbits about the Scarcliffs through the generations and knew she would be among one of the tour groups later. Cole reached for her hand.

  "There's Gabriel," Cole said gesturing toward a man standing a bit of a distance from them: a man who only had eyes for her.

  Gabriel McCabe was dressed formally in a beautiful black suit, his one concession to casual was a charcoal-colored shirt unbuttoned at the collar, but there was no denying the magnificently built body under the tailored clothes. He was tall and muscular with broad shoulders and a thick chest that tapered to a flat stomach and narrow hips. His black hair was cut short and spiky.

  But it was his eyes, a clear emerald green, that seemed to look right into her soul. Gabriel's face was beautiful but hard, as if his life experiences were carved into his features -- sort of his trophies of battles fought and won. Quinn's breath halted in her lungs as an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu swept over her. He approached, his stride easy and deliberate, and stopped just in front of her, reached for her hand and lifted it to his lips.

  "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Quinn."

  His lips barely brushed her knuckles but still she felt her knees go weak and wondered how she didn't fall into a boneless heap on the floor. At first, words would not come so Quinn just stared.

  She snapped out of it when Gabriel asked, "How are you feeling?"

  "I'm fine, now, and I thank you so much for coming to visit me in the hospital."

  Quinn didn't miss the stealthy glance Gabriel threw Cole, so perhaps that wasn't news he wanted shared. But he recovered quickly and offered quietly, "As I've mentioned, I was very upset to hear about your accident."

  There was an undercurrent to his comment but Quinn couldn't exactly place what emotion was fueling it.

  "It could have been a lot worse, I'm just grateful to be here." She gestured to the grandeur around her and realized someone was missing.

  "Where's Derek?"

  There was no question what emotion fueled the dark look that crossed over Gabriel's face before he offered rather cryptically, "He's off looking for buried treasure no doubt."

  Quinn couldn't help grinning at the note of repugnance in Gabriel's tone. Cole heard it too, and sought to change the subject, "Quinn are you available for dinner tonight? Gabriel and I were going to check out a new place in town."

  After a bit
of exploring the research area, Quinn jumped into one of the tour groups. She was astounded! None of this was here before. There were no records at all of who had claimed the place as their home, and yet now the Scarcliff name really was linked to Whispering Winds. And incredibly, the castle looked as it had in Archer's time: the tapestry weren't faded beyond recognition, the furniture was much the same, and she even remembered the weapons on the wall.

  She had been here just after graduating and the place was desolate. And now it was teaming with people. She had convinced herself that her time in the past had been a dream but how could she really believe that?

  In her heart she knew that she had gone back in time, but how? How did she go back over three hundred years in the past? She stood in Archer's home as sadness enveloped her. She missed him and he was gone and had been for centuries. The thought made her heart hurt.

  Quinn was only half-listening as the tour guide recited the same spiel she'd clearly recited more times than she could count. But there was no tour guide speech for what had really happened here. People had lived here, loved here and the evidence of that was all around her. When they reached the portrait gallery, Quinn's focus was immediately drawn to the portrait of Archer. He looked as he did whenever she closed her eyes and she couldn't help but think about the last time she had seen him. She loved Archer, as real a love as any, and he was gone now.

  She absently wiped the moisture from her cheeks as she turned her attention to the next portrait: Nickie. He was older than when she knew him maybe early twenties, and he looked so much like his father. She wasn't quite ready to hear about how they spent the rest of their lives since that would force her to face the reality that they were quite literally history.

  The group moved from the portrait gallery and started up the winding stone steps to the circular room. Remembering the magic she and Archer had shared in that room had Quinn daydreaming apart from the group and forced her downstairs and outside for some fresh air.