Now and Forever: Time Travel Romance Superbundle
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
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Contents
Now and Then
Now and Then: Chapter One
Now and Then: Chapter Two
Now and Then: Chapter Three
Now and Then: Chapter Four
Now and Then: Chapter Five
Now and Then: Chapter Six
Now and Then: Chapter Seven
Now and Then: Chapter Eight
Now and Then: Chapter Nine
Now and Then: Chapter Ten
Now and Then: Chapter Eleven
Now and Then: Chapter Twelve
Now and Then: Chapter Thirteen
Now and Then: Chapter Fourteen
Now and Then: Chapter Fifteen
Now and Then: Chapter Sixteen
Now and Then: Chapter Seventeen
Now and Then: Chapter Eighteen
Now and Then: Chapter Nineteen
Now and Then: Chapter Twenty
Now and Then: Chapter Twenty-One
Now and Then: Chapter Twenty-Two
Now and Then: Chapter Twenty-Three
Now and Then: Chapter Twenty-Five
Now and Then: Chapter Twenty-Six
Yesterday's Gold
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter One
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Two
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Three
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Four
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Five
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Six
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Seven
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Eight
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Nine
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Ten
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Eleven
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Twelve
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Thirteen
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Fourteen
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Fifteen
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Sixteen
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Seventeen
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Eighteen
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Nineteen
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Twenty
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Twenty-One
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Twenty-Two
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Twenty-Three
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Twenty-Four
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Twenty-Five
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Twenty-Six
A Distant Echo
A Distant Echo: Chapter One
A Distant Echo: Chapter Two
A Distant Echo: Chapter Three
A Distant Echo: Chapter Four
A Distant Echo: Chapter Five
A Distant Echo: Chapter Six
A Distant Echo: Chapter Seven
A Distant Echo: Chapter Eight
A Distant Echo: Chapter Nine
A Distant Echo: Chapter Ten
A Distant Echo: Chapter Eleven
A Distant Echo: Chapter Twelve
A Distant Echo: Chapter Thirteen
A Distant Echo: Chapter Fourteen
A Distant Echo: Chapter Fifteen
A Distant Echo: Chapter Sixteen
A Distant Echo: Chapter Seventeen
A Distant Echo: Chapter Eighteen
A Distant Echo: Chapter Nineteen
A Distant Echo: Chapter Twenty
A Distant Echo: Chapter Twenty-One
A Distant Echo: Chapter Twenty-Two
A Distant Echo: Chapter Twenty-Three
A Distant Echo: Chapter Twenty-Four
A Distant Echo: Chapter Twenty-Five
A Distant Echo: Chapter Twenty-Six
A Distant Echo: Chapter Twenty-Seven
A Distant Echo: Chapter Twenty-Eight
A Distant Echo: Chapter Twenty-Nine
A Distant Echo: Chapter Thirty
A Distant Echo: Chapter Thirty-One
A Distant Echo: Chapter Thirty-Two
A Distant Echo: Chapter Thirty-Three
A Distant Echo: Chapter Thrity-Four
A Distant Echo: Chapter Thirty-Five
A Distant Echo: Chapter Thrity-Six
A Distant Echo: Chapter Thrity-Seven
A Distant Echo: Chapter Thirty-Eight
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NOW AND FOREVER
Time Travel Romance Super Bundle
Now and Then
Yesterday’s Gold
A Distant Echo
Bobby Hutchinson
Now and Forever
Copyright © 2015 by Bobby Hutchinson
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written consent of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Now and Then
Copyright © 2014 by Bobby Hutchinson
Yesterday’s Gold
Copyright © 2015 by Bobby Hutchinson
A Distant Echo
Copyright © 2015 by Bobby Hutchinson
One more tiny little favor—if you enjoy NOW AND FOREVER, would you be generous and kind enough to leave me a review on Amazon? I’d be forever grateful.
Contents
NOW AND THEN, Book One
From now to the can happen in an instant—
But can Doctor Paige Randolph gifted obstetrician find happiness and fulfillment in a time, of savagery and war?
One moment, she's dealing with life and death in a modern hospital, sadly mindful always of her own lost baby. The next, she's back in 1883 on the rugged Canadian prairie. It's a time of savagery, war, and primitive medicine. Dying in childbirth is the norm rather than the exception. Surgery is more often fatal than not. Obstetrics as a specialty has yet to be invented. And she has nothing, no adequate clothing, no instruments, no medical supplies--and no money.
Surgeon Myles Baldwin of the North West Mounted believes at first that Paige is mentally deranged.
It's only when he sees how adept she is medically that he's forced to reconsider her preposterous tale of coming from another time.
Two vastly different doctors with a common goal—
To provide the very best medical treatment possible to those patients they encounter. To do so, they're forced to put their differences aside and work together.
But working together means falling in love. And Paige is determined to find a way back to her own time.
Can she leave Myles behind, in spite of the feelings they share? Can she leave him behind, because of those same feelings?
YESTERDAY’S GOLD, Book Two
Hannah Gilmore is about to be married, to a member of one of Victoria, B.C.'s notable families. But first, she's promised to take her mother, Daisy, to Barkerville, historical
site of a B.C. goldrush, to search out the resting place of an ancestor. But the trip becomes impossibly complicated when her mother invites her difficult friend, Elvira, along--and insists on bringing her incontinent dog.
And then a bridge collapses—
And suddenly Hannah and her irritating companions are in Barkerville. But it's 1868, the height of the Cariboo goldrush. They have to accept accommodation from a saloon keeper named Logan McGraw, a mysterious, handsome man who fought in the Americal Civil War, and who has a secret agenda for being in Barkerville.
Hannah and her companions quickly learn that women have no rights in this time and place.
But stubborn, intrepid, and imaginative, they set out to bring a semblance of woman's liberation to the primitive and harsh conditions, always hoping to return to their own time.
Hanna was about to be married—But now she’s falling in
Logan is accused of murder, which means he'll hang. Hannah needs to find a way to free him. But as with everything else, nothing goes according to plan in this western historical time travel.
A DISTANT ECHO, Book Three
A mountain slides across the small town of Frank, Alberta, trapping and killing the residents beneath a million tons of rock.
Tom and Jackson, fortune hunters, watch the catastrophe in a movie--the disaster occurred over a hundred years ago.
But suddenly, inexplicably the two adventurers are transported back in time. The town of Frank is intact, the disaster still a year ahead.
Can they warn people about what's about to happen?
What can they do if no one is prepared to believe them?
They have no usable money, nowhere to stay--and they're thrown in jail, suspected of robbery.
They're about to learn lessons involving kindness, generosity, and the power of love--but they're also about to encounter brutality, disbelief, poverty and frustration.
The lives they had before are nothing more than a distant echo.
Is there a way back?
They have a plan, but it will mean leaving behind all those they've come to love and abandoning the town on the very night of the disaster.
Love and money—Tom and Jackson much choose between the two.
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Now and Then: Chapter One
Dr. Paige Randolph was grateful that at three in the morning, the rain washed Vancouver streets were almost deserted and driving was easy.
She shivered a little in the predawn chill and switched the heater on; she'd leapt out of bed and pulled on corduroy slacks and a heavy sweatshirt, but she hadn't stopped to grab a jacket. August was supposed to be summer, even in the damp reaches of the Pacific Northwest, but it felt more like January this morning.
Paige stepped harder on the gas. Her powerful little car responded with a surge of energy, and she sailed through yet another yellow light, thinking more of the patient waiting at Grace Maternity Hospital than her driving.
Liz Jackson's husband had called half an hour earlier.
"The pains started five minutes apart, and her water broke right away, Doctor. I thought we'd get more warning. Should her water have broken so fast?" Terror was evident in Dave's husky voice.
Paige had asked detailed questions and then done her best to reassure Dave and calm him down, but the whole time her own heart was pounding as it always did when the phone ripped apart her sleep. It had been happening regularly for years, all during her internship, her residency in obstetrics and gynecology, and certainly since she'd opened her own clinic three years ago, but she'd never become even remotely used to it. She doubted she ever would.
She'd suggested an ambulance for Liz, but Dave Jackson insisted he could drive to the hospital in the time it would take to summon one. As she pulled into staff parking on the hospital lot, tires screeching on the wet tarmac, Paige hoped fervently that the expectant father had managed to calm down before he got behind the wheel.
"Mornin, Doc." The sleepy looking parking attendant waved and grinned at her. She gave him a distracted smile and an absent nod. Her thoughts were now all on Liz, reviewing the woman's history, trying to anticipate what could possibly happen during the next few hours.
Trying to second guess a delivery's just plain stupid, she reminded herself as she bailed out of her car and jogged into the hospital. When are you ever going to learn to just take it as it comes?
The elevator seemed to be waiting for her, and she emerged a few seconds later at five, the delivery floor.
"Mrs. Jackson's in labor room three, Paige. The resident examined her, her cervix is five centimeters dilated." Annette Evans, a nurse Paige knew and liked, greeted her and added, "The monitor indicates that the fetal heart rate's a little low, around one-thirty-five. Mother's blood pressure and pulse are good, though."
A normal fetal heart rate was 140, so nothing was too serious yet.
"I thought you were on leave, Dr. Randolph. Someone said you were going to Saskatchewan for a conference this week," Annette commented as they hurried down the hall.
"I'm leaving tomorrow," Paige confirmed. "Today," she corrected, squinting up at the clock. "I'm supposed to be flying out at noon. I'll be gone a week. I'm looking forward to it. My brother and his family live half an hour's drive from Saskatoon, on a farm. I haven't been there in a year, and I'm looking forward to seeing how much my two nephews have grown."
It was the first break she'd taken in months. Her partner, Sam Harris, had bullied her into filling out the application forms and making the plane reservations.
"You're getting bitchier every day, Randolph," he'd accused with a grin that belied his words. "My prescription is either a holiday or a hot love affair. God knows I've offered my services often enough for the latter, but you keep turning me down. I can't believe you'd choose Saskatoon and a midwifery conference over my body, but I guess it's better than having you stick around here and alienate my patients as well as your own."
Sam was a great partner and a good friend. He and Paige had known each other since their early days in med school, and she often wished she found him sexually attractive. She knew he was more than half in love with her, and that his suggestive bantering was just his way of admitting that he reluctantly accepted the parameters she'd drawn for their relationship; the occasional, casual dinner, a rare game of squash, or a jog together around the park on Sunday.
“Too bad baby Jackson decided tonight was the big debut, you could've had a good night's sleep before you left, Paige," Annette remarked. "You're gonna be wiped right out tomorrow, probably snore your way through most of the lectures."
Paige grinned at the nurse. "Me, get a good night's sleep? You want my system to get totally out of whack?" They both laughed, and Paige added, "Anyhow, I'm glad I was still around for this delivery. Liz Jackson's sort of special."
Annette gave Paige a teasing look. "I've heard you say that about nearly every one of your patients, Doctor."
"Yeah, but this time I really mean it," Paige joked. She was fond of Liz, and she wanted nothing more than to deliver her of a robust, healthy child. This was Liz's second pregnancy, and she wasn't supposed to be due for another two weeks. She was 37, and her first baby, a boy born two years ago, had been stillborn. According to all reports, the pregnancy had seemed relatively trouble free, gone full term, normal delivery, and then inexplicably ended in tragedy.
Paige hadn't been Liz's doctor at the time, but she'd studied all the lab reports with meticulous care, searching for a reason. As sometimes happened with stillbirths, no definitive answer was evident. There were no congenital defects, no real basis for the baby's death. It seemed a perfect baby, but it had simply never breathed.
A shiver ran down her spine as she washed up. Perfect babies who didn't breathe were her special nightmare. She'd had one herself, a long time ago.
She made certain she had a wide, confident smile on her face a few moments later as she breezed into
labor room three.
"Hi, you guys. So I hear this kid's in a rush to meet all of us."
"Gosh, you got here fast, Dr. Randolph." Liz tried for a casual note, but both husband and wife looked profoundly relieved that Paige had arrived quickly.
"Lucky thing young Jackson decided to do this tonight instead of tomorrow," Paige said. "I think I told you I'll be away for a couple of days, and I'd have hated to miss this."
"I'm glad too. I really want you to deliver me." Liz's smooth blonde hair was fashionably cut and even now in far better order than Paige's own wildly curly, disheveled dark mop.
Propped on pillows in the high bed, wearing a hospital gown, belly huge and encircled by the external fetal monitor strapped around her abdomen, Liz still managed to look attractive. Her color was good, and she returned Paige's warm smile with one that was only a trifle strained.
"Well, let's see how we're doing here." The monitor used ultrasound waves to record the baby's heartbeat on a console beside the bed, and Paige checked the black needle that marked on graph paper each beat of the baby's heart. It was holding pretty steady at 135 beats per minute.
Paige examined Liz next, and felt a bit disturbed when she found that the baby's head wasn't descending into the dilating cervix the way it ought to be. It was still high in the pelvis, which meant that birth was a long way off.
Paige remembered that Liz's first labor had progressed rapidly.
Obviously, this one wasn't following that pattern.
As Paige finished her examination, Liz had a contraction. It was powerful and lasted a full two minutes. Liz panted through her mouth, face contorted. Toward the end she lost control of the breathing and cried out with the pain.