“Three-thirty in the afternoon,” Janice said, “July 19th, 2015.”
“And no time will have passed for you at all from this moment until then?” Dawn asked.
“True,” Janice said. “But one year of real time will have passed for you. I hope you remember us.”
All Dawn could do was laugh at that.
There was no way ever she could forget them.
Ever.
They had saved her life, kept her sane, made the winter enjoyable, and kept the magic in her favorite place.
She hugged Steven, then gave Janice an extra long hug.
Then she stepped back. “Thank you both for your friendship and helping me survive.”
They both nodded.
“Everyone got their notebooks?” Janice asked. “We all have books to write.”
Dawn patted her apron she wore under her two coats. The notebook was still there.
Steven patted his notebook as well and smiled.
Dawn picked up all of her possessions, most of them tucked into her saddlebag.
She still had on her heavy coat and Madison’s long coat and his hat.
“Have a great year,” Janice said to Dawn, smiling.
Then Janice reached over and pulled the wire from the machine.
And the next moment Janice and Steven were gone.
And Dawn found herself standing, touching the machine, beside Madison.
Duster and Bonnie were on the other side, also touching the machine.
“Oh, my God,” Bonnie said, lighting up. “You made it!”
Dawn dropped her saddlebags and turned and looked at the man of her dreams. He was staring at her, with a very puzzled look on his face.
He was as handsome and healthy as ever.
It had worked.
It really had worked.
She was back in her own time.
She hugged Madison and then kissed him hard.
Then she pushed him back and looked over at Bonnie, smiling.
“I did make it, didn’t I?”
Bonnie had just kissed Duster just as long and as hard as Dawn had kissed Madison. She just laughed, her smile filling her face from ear-to-ear.
Duster was looking very confused, considering that his wife was wearing a very thin hospital gown that smelled awful.
Madison had on a suit coat, a tie, and no pants.
None at all.
And Dawn looked like a person who belonged in the Old West in her cowboy hat, long coat, and saddlebags.
And she did.
She knew without a doubt that she did.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
AFTER DAWN KISSED MADISON AGAIN, long and even harder than the first time, she took off his coat and handed it to him.
He looked puzzled for a moment until Dawn pointed to the fact that he had no pants.
He turned a bright red and took the coat, slipping it on quickly.
“Oops,” Bonnie said and then laughed.
“Just never thought about it,” Dawn said, smiling at Bonnie and Duster.
“Someone’s going to have to explain to me what exactly happened,” Madison said, shaking his head as everyone laughed. “Last thing I remember was breaking my leg and Duster getting me back to the cabin.”
“Explain what happened to me as well,” Duster said. “Last thing I remember I was dozing off on a train.”
“There’s an entire winter I don’t know about either,” Bonnie said, smiling at her husband. “I was stuck all winter in a hospital in Caldwell.”
“Oh, god,” Duster said, a frown crossing his face as he gently touched his wife.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Gave me time to do a lot of thinking all about the nature of the echoes through timelines. We’ll talk about that later. What I need right now is a change of clothes and a long, hot shower.”
“I think all of us would agree to that idea,” Duster said, “Especially a shower. A very good idea.”
Bonnie just took him and kissed him hard. “Next time, don’t fall into a stupid river.”
“Is that what happened?” Duster asked as the four of them headed for the big supply cavern.
Dawn could only smile and keep her arm firmly around Madison as they walked. She just kept staring up at the man of her dreams until he finally took his hat off her head and kissed her again long and hard.
She just let herself go into his arms and his kiss.
When they finally reached the kitchen area, they learned that the supply cavern was also decked out with a modern restroom and shower with water being pumped in from a well.
They let Bonnie go first while Madison and Dawn sat at the table, not even talking. He just kept starting at her and smiling and she kept smiling back and squeezing his hand.
Madison finally went to get a change of clothes from the other side of the cavern.
When Bonnie came out, dressed in 2014 clothing and drying her hair, she let Dawn go next.
The modern hot shower felt wonderful, and putting on her own modern clothes also felt great. More than likely she took too long, but she didn’t care. Time seemed to be relative anymore.
When she came out both Madison and Duster had put back on the clothes they were wearing when they got to the cavern earlier that same morning, yet a lifetime before. Madison was sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of iced tea in front of him.
Bonnie and Duster were both standing in the kitchen, their hips touching, working on some sort of lunch for all of them.
“Now that we’re all back,” Madison said, “someone want to start the story of what exactly happened?”
Dawn walked over to him and reached out her hand. “First, I’ve got to see what’s outside.”
“Me too now that you mention it,” Madison said, standing.
“Good idea,” Bonnie said, turning to smile at Dawn. “Lunch in fifteen minutes.”
She and Madison walked in silence back down the mine tunnel, then after checking to make sure no one was out there, she opened the big metal door and stepped into the hot summer air.
After a winter of being cold, that felt fantastic, she had to admit.
And a little shocking.
She had forgotten how warn it had been on the day they came up here.
She walked to the edge of the mine tailings and looked down. Below her Silver City was only a few buildings of a ghost town. Trees again covered the once bare hills. And the Cadillac sat parked across the slope, the same slope she had just crossed in deep snow what seemed like just a moment before.
“Amazing,” Madison said, squeezing her hand as they looked down. “We were only gone for a couple of minutes.”
“And a lifetime,” Dawn said.
Madison looked at her with real concern and worry. “Bonnie said you spent the entire winter in the valley alone. Are you all right?”
“Now that you are standing here beside me again, I’m perfect,” Dawn said.
And she felt that way as well.
“Do you want to go back?” Madison asked, clearly worried.
“Are you asking me on a date, Professor Rogers?”
He laughed. “I suppose a little trip back into the past could be a date, Professor Edwards,” he said. “But I was hoping for a little more.”
“More?” she asked, smiling up into the handsome face that she had dreamed about every night all winter long.
“Not just a date,” he said. “How about a lifetime?”
She kissed him long and hard. The hot air of the afternoon surrounded them with the silence of the mountain.
Then she finally pushed him back and said, “No, not for just a lifetime, because as I discovered, that can pass very fast.”
“Then what?” he asked, smiling at her.
“A hundred lifetimes,” she said. “Maybe a thousand. One here in the present, the rest in the past.”
“I love the sounds of that,” he said. “And I love you. When do we start?”
“How about after lunch?” she sai
d as they turned and headed back into the old mine.
“As long as I’m with you, that sounds perfect,” he said.
“As long as I’m with you, it does,” she said. “But in the next lifetime, try to stay alive, would you?”
He laughed that wonderful laugh and then said as they headed deep into the mountain and toward the past and their future once again. “I’ll do my best.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith published more than a hundred novels in thirty years and hundreds of short stories across many genres.
He wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, they wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies.
He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown.
He now writes his own original fiction under just the one name, Dean Wesley Smith. In addition to his upcoming novel releases, his monthly magazine called Smith’s Monthly premiered October 1, 2013, filled entirely with his original novels and stories.
Dean also worked as an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books. He now plays a role as an executive editor for the original anthology series Fiction River.
For more information go to www.deanwesleysmith.com, www.smithsmonthly.com or www.fictionriver.com.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Part Two
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Part Three
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Part Four
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-two
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Copyright Information
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