by Dee Brice
They filled her—one in her ass, one in her pussy. The destruction they wrought as they all climaxed together felt like a death that left her alive, but unable to think or move for the next century. Perhaps she would never move again. If this was losing control, she welcomed it. Gratitude for the gift her men had given her added to her sense of oneness with them. Was that what love was all about? Feeling as if you’d touched each other’s souls, minds and bodies? As if you’d—she would know without being told how to soothe them, both physically and spiritually? As if—no matter how far apart they were they would feel each other’s joys and sorrows?
Every constraint she’d ever placed on herself, every prohibition her parents, teachers and bosses had imposed on her fell away. She felt so light she could walk on clouds without leaving footprints.
Yet she felt her body rise, warm hands at her shoulders, hips and feet. The weight of her unbound hair bowed her neck backward. Opening her eyes, she found Adrian smiling down at her. Panic filled her voice as she gasped, “Jason!”
From his position at her feet, he grinned, saying, “Everything is as it should be, milady.”
Adrian and Walker all but shouted, “Mine!”
As if they had snapped their fingers to create a whirlwind, she tumbled through the past lives of that other Diane.
Arnaud’s blue-eyed children, now grown, smiled at her as she spun by. Their mothers rocked grandchildren while a young husband paced a spacious hallway, his head lifting as a newborn’s cry rang out. He rushed into a well-lit chamber, his eyes focused on Adrian’s medieval but now grown-up niece, who smiled up at him. Exhausted yet proud, she held up a swaddled, red-faced babe, but the new father remained intent on her.
When he stroked her damp hair from her forehead, Diane saw him through the young woman’s eyes. Black hair, black eyes. William! But not William who’d not yet been born. William who’d never betrayed such tenderness or love for anyone.
The images continued to fly by, jumbling and tumbling houses and animals like that tornado that had swept through Kansas, carrying Dorothy to Oz. Carrying Diane farther and farther away from her men until they couldn’t hear her screaming their names. Spinning her, her arms and legs flailing futilely, then driving her to earth.
She landed with an oomph, tangled in her own hair and aching in every bone and muscle.
Dread filling her soul, she forced herself to sit up. Her hands shaking as if the whirlwind still held them captive, she shoved her hair off her face, then opened her eyes. Sunlight stabbed through the slats of the plantation shutters on her bedroom windows. Rainbows danced over her hardwood floors, making her dizzy and nauseous.
Her own bedroom. Her own house in San Francisco if she could believe her own eyes. A dream, nothing more. All those months she’d spent in those other times and places. All those people she’d met and grown to care about. Those three men who’d taught her about her body and a little more about her heart’s true longing. Gone in an instant. Talk about a black moment! Returning to her own time was the most horrible thing that had ever happened to her.
All a dream. Just like Dorothy. Except Diane felt only bitterness and hated where she was. There’s no place like home.
What a crock of crap!
* * * * *
A month dragged by, then another. Without Margaret to dress her hair, Diane had it cut to shoulder length. Almost the same day it grew back to her waist, compelling her to tie it with ribbons that matched her sexy underwear. As if lacy bras and bikini briefs might lure her men to her! Yet another dream and just as impossible.
She thought about telephoning Adrian, demanding to know what and why this had happened. She did call him once—just to reconfirm that he did exist in this time and place. Hearing his voice, its tones awash in misery, she couldn’t say a word. That other Diane’s vindictiveness proclaimed he deserved whatever he suffered. So did Walker and Jason.
Jason, pah! He’d promised he wouldn’t fuck her. And he’d kept his word—at least in a physical sense. But he sure as hell had fucked with her mind. Claiming he was destined to love someone else. Someone close to her.
“Not yet,” he’d told her, “but soon.”
What tore her apart was imagining she saw them. A glint of light on hair with strands of gold and light brown mixed with white-blond had her following a stranger as he grocery shopped. A crisp British accent on her car radio made her pull to the curb then stare at a passerby as if he were Walker, looking…hoping, praying that he would appear. Sleepless nights she paced her house, peering out her front windows, longing to see Jason riding her paperboy’s bicycle across her lawn.
She played mind games with herself, imagining arriving at her parents’ fourth wedding to each other with two, possibly three studly hunks. Attending charity balls or being interviewed on TV with her men at her side. And how stupid was that?
Pretty damn stupid.
* * * * *
For some inexplicable reason the call from her agent didn’t surprise her. Although she hadn’t left her house in two weeks, she reported to Jane English’s office at ten o’clock on a Thursday morning four months after her unexpected return to the U.S.
Jane’s welcoming smile did surprise her—its warmth a direct conflict with her usual “Hello” grimace. Her brown eyes sparkled behind wire-rim glasses as she motioned Diane into the office. Picking up her desk phone she said, presumably to her receptionist, “Send her in.”
“What’s up?” Diane demanded as she sank into a crushed velvet wingchair.
A soft rap preceded someone entering the office. Looking behind her, Diane’s breath caught in her throat. A young woman smiled at her, her eyes sky blue, her reddish curls streaked with blonde highlights. “Diane, meet Meg Lansing—your publicist.”
“Pardon?” Still stunned, Diane watched the young woman come toward her, her slender hand outstretched. She felt as if she had met the young woman eons ago.
“Your last book has been in the top ten on several bestseller lists for the last five months,” Meg explained, settling on the matching side chair. “Your publisher wants you to tour to promote your next book.”
“I-I don’t have one,” Diane confessed. In truth, she felt so depressed she’d avoided even trying to write. A month or so ago her muse had rapped her in the head with so many ideas Diane had banished the female to someplace else. That place alternately burned or froze, depending on how Diane cursed or missed her men.
“What’s this?” Jane held out a disk with Diane’s name on it, a title beneath. Passion’s Quest. “You sent this just last month.”
“I did?” She rubbed her temples, but that did nothing to ease the ache building behind her eyes. Her heartbeat pounded between her eyebrows like a sinus infection begging to cause even more pain. Damnation, writer’s block unblocked, followed by selective amnesia? “I need a vacation!”
Jane laughed.
Meg said, “Tours are seldom vacations, although you may have time to complete your research.”
“Research?” Blast it! Now she sounded like a parrot learning a new word.
Meg reminded her how much her readers enjoyed her descriptions of architecture and landscapes. “Next to hot sex, that’s why folks buy your books.”
Underlying the praise was a subtle criticism. Heaven knows you can’t write emotions.
But she could and had. Her last book proved it. Could she write another one? Her agent and publisher seemed to think so. Otherwise why would they want her to tour?
“Who’s paying?” she demanded, sounding so rude she wanted to sink into a hole and never come out. This whole situation stank like three-day-old unrefrigerated fish. Either that or her emotions had taken charge, leading her to hope and pray her men—her lovers, her best friends—were behind this wonderful, unexpected but dreamed-of invitation.
“A company that wants you to write a book about several old houses it owns,” Jane told her. “After you finish your own book, of course.”
“Of course,”
she echoed, her tone wry. “What company? And why me? Other writers specialize in coffee table books.” She shrugged, silently praying this offer was a sign that her life was about to get better. That her men were behind this curious offer. That her sense of having met Meg before was not yet another sign that she was losing her mind.
Jane rattled off a name Diane didn’t recognize, then added, “Meg vetted the company. Legit all the way.”
Grinning, the young woman tapped her portfolio. “Two first-class tickets to London. Open-ended as to a return date.”
Disappointment warred with hope, her emotions settling somewhere in between. “When do we leave?” she asked in a whisper as if afraid a normal volume would burst the bubble of joy blossoming in her heart.
“Late afternoon this Saturday,” Meg said, standing in preparation to leave. “I’ll give you a ride home if you like. Help you pack.”
Uncertain her legs would support her, Diane stood as well. “We should arrive at Heathrow…”
“Early morning. Sunday.”
Of course! Finally, Sunday would arrive.
* * * * *
Georgian grace. Diane hadn’t noticed it before, too intent on Jason and getting to the folly to even look at her home. Now, however, as their chauffeur drove them up the wide, seashell-topped road, she saw all of the house’s symmetry. Equal numbers and sizes of windows on each story. Two sets of stone stairs leading from the second floor to the portico sheltering the ground-floor entrance. Beyond the structure, lush green lawns disappeared into formal gardens. Meg followed her out of the limousine, looking as awestruck as Diane felt.
“His Grace,” the butler said, meeting them before they reached the doors leading inside, “and Lords de Vesay and Leveson await you on the terrace.” An outstretched hand indicated they should take the left staircase.
Diane knew either set would take them to the same location, but didn’t argue. Easier to follow directions than try to explain how she knew what she knew.
Reaching the terrace, she spotted Jason lounging against the balustrade. No one else. Disappointed, her spirits rose when Jason’s smile bloomed and he came forward. Casual clothes suited him. A chocolate-colored polo shirt hugged his impressive torso. Belted beige slacks accented his trim waist and long legs. Odd, his usual fluidity seemed missing and his warm brown eyes kept returning to Meg. Diane turned her head, taking in her companion’s dumbstruck expression.
Ah. This was the someone close to Diane Jason had expected. The reason their lovemaking had not happened. A spark of jealousy flared, but died for lack of fuel. Diane silently wished the young couple a smooth journey to their happy-ever-after ending.
After introducing them, she strolled away, not at all concerned that Jason still held Meg’s hand. He guided her to a wrought iron table shaded by a large red-and-blue-striped umbrella, then pulled out her chair. For a long moment they seemed inclined to kiss, but Meg looked around, spotting Diane, and that moment went away.
Aware of movement at her side, Diane looked up.
“At last,” Adrian said, taking her hand.
“About bloody time,” Walker declared, his smile at odds with his words. “You look…rested.”
Like Jason, her men wore polo shirts that matched their eyes. Adrian’s white slacks and deck shoes gave him a nautical look. Walker, all in black, still resembled that powerful yet sleek cat.
“I slept most of the flight,” she told them, wanting to hug them both. Although they looked happy to see her, they appeared as uncomfortable as she felt. Lovers. Friends of a sort. Strangers. They also had circles under their eyes—as if they hadn’t slept in days. Perhaps they also dreaded this day of reckoning.
“Is this something your friend should hear?” Adrian asked, his gaze on the oblivious young couple several yards away and engrossed solely in each other.
“Probably not, but…yes. Just in case Jason thinks otherwise.” Men being men, they always viewed information as power and withheld as much as they could.
“Trust me,” Walker said, clearly out of sorts with the lordling, “he’s insisted on telling the entire story.”
“No matter how fantastical it sounds,” Adrian muttered darkly.
“Haven’t you said something about our pasts?” Walker said. “To your companion?”
“Only as a premise for my next book.” She laughed. “After I write your coffee table book, of course.”
Both men looked down at their feet.
“You found us out.”
“I guessed,” she admitted, looping her hands around their elbows and tugging them toward the table. “You buried yourselves so well under corporate fronts even Meg gave up trying to dig deeper.” Arriving at the table, she waved Jason back to his chair then reached to pull out her own. Walker and Adrian waged tug-of-war with the chair until she cleared her throat. Their smiles sheepish, they waited for her to sit before they sat as well, then introduced themselves to Meg.
“Are you the time travelers Jason’s been telling me about?” she demanded to know. Her excitement made them all groan.
“Gullible,” Walker observed, his smile removing the sting from his words.
“Accepting,” Adrian corrected with a grin at Meg.
“One of us,” Jason informed them, his tone saying, Mine.
“There’s no such thing,” Adrian began.
“As a female master of time,” Walker finished.
Meg laughed. “Of course not. Diane and I are mistresses of time. We are, after all, women.”
Struck mute, they all gaped at the young woman. She smiled at each in turn, then said, “I’ve searched for all of you through a half-dozen lifetimes. I’m so glad we finally connected. And are aware of it.”
His expression fervent, Jason said, “So am I,” and raised Meg’s hand to his lips. Sighing, she blushed, but didn’t pull away.
“I’m so confused I’m dizzy,” Diane told them.
“And no doubt hungry too. She slept most of the way. Woke up just in time to land the plane. White-knuckled flyer,” Meg added sotto voce.
As if responding to a cue delivered by an actor, several young men appeared carrying trays. One by one, they lifted domed covers off plates, then served before disappearing as quickly and quietly as they’d appeared. One returned with an enormous salad bowl and a gravy boat of dressing. Another distributed glasses of iced tea. Then both left.
They dug in, content to delay conversation until they’d filled their stomachs and slaked their thirsts. Diane’s stomach rebelled before she could eat more than a few bites of fillet of sole, green beans and boiled red potatoes.
“Meg… If I understood you correctly, you’ve traveled through time while looking for us? Even me?” Her blue eyes shining, Meg patted Adrian’s hand and smiled fondly at Walker. Diane went on. “You were—are the same person you were in those other lives?”
“Yep.”
“And you remember those lives and the people you met?”
A small shrug, then, “Of course.”
“I don’t,” Diane mumbled. “I mean, I recognized Walker and Adrian the second time we met, but I didn’t the first time. And we—that is they obviously had met that other Diane before they met me. At least it seemed that way to me.”
She looked at Adrian then Walker for confirmation. Adrian shrugged. Walker shifted his attention from Meg to her, but said nothing. Diane caught herself before she reverted to past behavior and lambasted them for withholding information. They deserved a vicious tongue-lashing, but they looked as if they’d suffered as much as she had. Breathing deeply, she exhaled negative emotions. Those feelings had, she suspected, kept them from happiness in the past. She refused to let anything interfere with them being together now.
“Bad karma back then,” Meg said, a scold in her voice. “Each of you plotting against the others. Using one another to further yourselves. Maybe that’s why you don’t remember everything about those times.” Meg shivered.
Diane’s skin dotted with goos
eflesh. “Is that why we kept meeting? To make up for all the bad things in our pasts?”
“Probably.”
“What are the chances we’ll be parted again?” Walker asked in a gentle voice. Almost as if he and Meg had shared a life the rest hadn’t.
Meg flashed a grin. “Hey, I’m a mistress of past times. Can’t see into the future.”
“Yet,” Jason added, recapturing Meg’s hand, then twining his fingers with hers.
“You can,” Diane accused, glaring at Jason.
“Not for myself—at least not only for me. Sometimes…for others I can see a little of the future.”
“Like the Gypsy fortuneteller,” Meg said, startling all of them. “Oh, come on…William.” Her stare at Jason had him blushing.
“How’d you know me?” he managed to ask. “Marget.”
“Holy shit!” Diane swore, then clamped both hands over her mouth, ashamed of swearing in front of her new young friend. No wonder she’d felt close to Meg as soon as they met. Despite not looking like Marget, she was Arnaud’s lover—his first of the medieval time period. As far as Diane knew, at any rate.
Meg giggled, the sound so familiar Diane laughed too. “And no, Diane, neither Walker nor Adrian is William’s—Jason’s—father.”
That assurance didn’t keep her happiness intact. Smile fading, Diane said, “I was that hateful, jealous woman? I was—am that other Diane?”
“Someone’s great-great—” Jason began, shrugged, then continued. “The fortuneteller said you had lessons to learn.”
“The first being compassion.” Adrian gave her a soft smile so reminiscent of her young medieval husband her heart hurt. “You showed it when you allowed Arnaud’s children to stay at Belleange.”
