DESTINY'S EMBRACE

by Suzanne Elizabeth

  “Tell you what,” Kristen said, “I’ll dig through these bags and make some breakfast, while you go ahead with your pressing explanations.”

  “Deal.” The woman sat at the table. “First of all, you need to understand that every man and woman has an existence before achieving a temporal birth.”

  Kristen lifted a carton of eggs from the bag, thrilled to find English muffins lying beneath. “Sounds good.”

  “And they are guided by a power greater than their own.”

  “Uh-huh.” Kristen dropped a muffin into her pastry toaster and reached into the lower cupboard for a griddle.

  “Each individual arrives here with an intent in mind, a preordained destiny, so to speak.”

  “Ah, I’m not so sure about that.” Kristen peeled herself a banana. “Belief in free will has always had sort of a special place in my heart.”

  “I am not speaking of free will, Miss Ford. I’m speaking of fate. It is fate that you meet the people you come into contact with every day. Each step in your life is meant to bring you closer to your ultimate purpose.”

  Kristen finished her banana and began cracking eggs into a frying pan. “So we all make free choices in our lives, but those choices inevitably lead us in one planned direction?”

  “Precisely.”

  “I can handle that.”

  “Can you handle the idea that you are living in the wrong century? And that if we don’t act quickly, your soulmate will be lost forever?”

  “Soulmate. You mentioned that once before.” Kristen grabbed a spatula and tended to her eggs. “If you want me to follow this tale, you’re going to have to explain that one to me.”

  The woman frowned. “Tale?”

  Realizing she’d offended her, Kristen corrected herself for the sake of her breakfast. “Your explanation, I mean.”

  “Yes. Well. He’s your soulmate, the other half of you, the complement to who and what you are. As a rule, soulmates are meant to encounter each other during their mutual time frames and share their lives together. Each has specific qualities that balance the other out, like sweet and sour, strong and weak, light and dark. Each set of soulmates has a Spiritual Guide such as myself. Naturally both members of the couple are required to live in the same time and place. But, in your sad case, as in a few others, your Guide erred.”

  “Erred?” Kristen slipped her fried eggs onto a plate and topped them off with an English muffin.

  “Inept is the only way to describe your previous Guide,” the woman muttered. “He sent you and your soulmate to different sites. You haven’t had the chance to balance each other out, my dear, and I’m afraid your soulmate has suffered the most from the separation.”

  Plate in hand, Kristen sat at the table. “So what’s this soulmate’s problem?” She blew on her steaming breakfast and picked up a fork.

  “Well, he’s a…um…”

  Kristen glanced up. “He’s a what?”

  The woman gave her a direct look. “He’s a criminal.”

  Kristen choked on a mouthful of food. “A criminal?! You paired a cop with a criminal,” she said, laughing.

  “You weren’t a cop and a criminal before this life. When you accepted him as your soulmate, you vowed to temper him with your goodness and guide him to a life of morality.”

  Kristen jammed another bite of food into her mouth. “Well, it sounds like it’s too late for the guy now.”

  “It’s not too late. That’s why I’m here. You have no further bonds to hold you to the twenty-first century. You need to take your proper place in time before it is too late for him.”

  Kristen finished off the last of her food and smiled. “I suppose you have a large, metal contraption with lots of fancy propellers waiting around the corner to whisk me back in time to where I’m supposed to be?”

  “It’s not that complicated,” the woman responded. “All I need is your compliance.”

  Kristen stood from the table. “Great. I’ll get my purse.”

  She stifled laughter all the way to her bedroom, where she found her black purse on the floor at the foot of her bed. Spiritual Guide? she thought. What an incredible imagination. She pulled on her long boots and zip them up over her jeans. This Guide of hers was certainly creative if not completely sane. She seemed harmless enough, though—Kristen almost hated to turn her in. But she wasn’t about to let the poor woman wander the streets, ringing people’s doorbells in the middle of the night. She’d coax her into the car and then drop her at the nearest hospital for a mental health eval.

  She slung her purse over her shoulder and headed back to the kitchen. “I’m all set.” She grabbed her cellphone and slipped it into her purse. “What do you say we pass on the H. G. Wells model, though, and take my car?”

  The woman stood, her dark eyes wide and assessing. “So you’re agreeing?”

  “Sure. Why—”

  Kristen didn’t feel a thing.

  Nothing flashed or went black.

  She didn’t pass out or even fall down—she doubted she’d blinked.

  She was standing in the center of a railroad track, the stench of dirt mixed with manure filling her nose, and a hot wind whipping through her hair.

  In front of her were three mounted men sitting atop large, snorting horses. The men’s faces were covered with faded red bandanas, and they were staring down at her with cold, menacing eyes.

  Kristen gasped. “What the…”

  READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE

  AVAILABLE NOW!

  Book #2 in the award-winning Destiny Series

  REVIEWERS’ CHOICE AWARD WINNER:

  Historical Time Travel Romance Of The Year

  “The most delicious, thrilling, rambunctious time-travel adventure to come along in a long time.” –Romantic Times Magazine

  CHAPTER ONE

  San Jose, California 2017

  Josie Reed tucked a stray piece of dark, curly hair behind her ear and refocused her eyes on the computer screen in front of her. She was only halfway through a twenty-four-hour shift at the hospital, and she was already beginning to feel burned out. She’d need to grab a few hours of sleep before her shift ended at five if she hoped to make it through an all-nighter at the free clinic downtown…and then she had her monthly evaluation with her advisor the following afternoon. Any other resident would have balked at her demanding schedule, but Josie thrived on it. She’d devoted her entire life to becoming a doctor, and she was determined to be the best.

  In college, she’d given up any semblance of a social life to complete her undergrad in just three years. She’d graduated at the top of her class in med school, won two Women In Science Awards, and scored a 272 on her USMLE, assuring her a choice of elite hospitals in which to serve her residency. She’d chosen UCSF in San Francisco. They had a top-notch family practice residency, and Josie had grown up in Oakland and wanted to give back to the community.

  Now, at twenty-six years old, Josie’s drive had yet to falter; she was the youngest third-year resident at the hospital, and her career path was on track for opening her own private practice by the time she turned twenty-seven.

  The other residents claimed she was some sort of phenom, as if her success had come easily and not without sacrifice. They called her Doogie—short for Doogie Howser— but she got even with them during occasional poker games in the call-room. It seemed that years of focus and study had not only rocketed her ahead of her peers, it had left her with a remarkable ability to bluff at cards.

  She pinched the bridge of her nose and reached for the open can of Diet Pepsi sitting beside her on the desk. She’d never developed a taste for coffee. She preferred her caffeine in a sweeter form.

  A med student stuck her head in the office door. “You’ve got a familiar patient in three.”

  Josie looked up. “Who?”

  The med student smirked. Josie couldn’t recall the student’s name, but remembered she was from Illinois. “The GOMER.”

  “Mr. Belamey? I sent him t
o Behavioral Health.”

  “And BH sent him back. He says his leg hurts.”

  Josie dug her fingers into the back of her neck to work loose a cramp. “Give it to Miser. I’ve got three peer reviews to get through before—”

  “Already asked him. He said the guy was your turf so now he’s your bounce.”

  Brent Miser was another third year, so Josie couldn’t pull rank. She was going to have to deal with Mr. Belamey again.

  She leaned back in her chair and nodded. “Give me five.”

  She finished reading through the current page on her computer, and then left her office and headed down the long corridor toward room three.

  When Josie entered the room, the patient waiting on the exam table gave her a warm smile.

  “Hello, Doctor Reed.”

  Josie frowned at the small woman. “I’m sorry. I was expected in another room.” She exited and glanced at the number on the wall. The number 3 stared back at her.

  Frowning, she re-entered the room. “I’m looking for Mr. Belamey.”

  Mr. Cecil Belamey was a tall, overweight man in his mid-thirties—impossible to mistake for a five-foot-tall, middle-aged woman wearing a gray suit and pearls.

  “Mr. Belamey is safe and sound,” the woman replied.

  Confused, Josie laughed. “Okay. Well. What can I do for you, Ms…?”

  “Guide.”

  “Ms. Guide.”

  “Just Guide.”

  “What can I do for you…Guide?” The stories were true, the weird ones always came out during full moons, and Josie had learned not to argue with them.

  “Actually,” the woman replied, “I’m here for you.”

  Josie folded her arms. “For me?”

  “Tell me something, Doctor Reed. Have you ever met a man who could really make your heart pound?”

  Josie blinked. That was an odd question out of left field. “No,” she answered slowly. “I can’t say that I have.” And if she ever did, she’d run him out of her life as fast as she could. “Do you have an ailment or injury, Miss—uh, Guide?”

  The woman smiled. “They say people tend to find what they’re searching for in the last place they’d ever think to look.”

  “Uh huh. Well, right now I’m looking for a reason for you to be in my emergency room.”

  “You know,” the woman went on, “love is a remarkable thing. It can turn the coldest day to warm, the saddest heart to joy, the darkest soul to light—“

  “It makes the world go around.” Josie interrupted. “I’ve heard the song.” She stepped further into the room. “Do you mind if I look you over?”

  The woman pulled back. “I assure you, I am in perfect health.”

  Josie’s favorite kind of patient: One who comes to the doctor but doesn’t want to be touched. “Okay… Are you injured? Maybe you hit your head?”

  “Doctor Reed, don’t you harbor any hope for eventually finding your soul mate?”

  “My life is pretty good just the way it is.” The woman didn’t look ill or injured. Maybe another one for BH? “Did someone bring you here today? Do you have a family member with you?”

  The woman persisted. “What would you say if I told you exactly where you can find your perfect man?”

  “You mean after I finished laughing?”

  The woman gave her a bland look, but remained undaunted. “What if I told you he lived in New Mexico in the nineteenth century?”

  Yep. Behavioral Health. And, unlike Mr. Belamey, this one was going to stick. “Isn’t it just like a man to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?” Josie joked.

  “What if I told you I could send you back there to be with him?”

  Josie ignored the question. “Are you taking any medications we should know about? Lithium? Aricept?”

  “Doctor Reed, tell me…would you go back in time to be with the one man who could make you happy for the rest of your life?”

  Josie smiled patiently. “Let me get a nurse.”

  She left the room and caught the attention of the head nurse. “The patient in room three,” she told her, “needs a psych eval.”

  The nurse shook her head. “BH just send Belamey back down here. He says his arm hurts.”

  “He told the med student it was his leg.”

  The nurse shrugged. “Told me his arm.”

  Josie rolled her eyes. She didn’t have time for this. “Belamey isn’t in room three. It’s a white female in her forties with delusions.”

  “White female?” Now the nurse looked confused.

  Josie followed her back to room three where she pushed open the door and found Mr. Belamey seated on the exam table. The large man immediately went into theatrics. “My back is killing me,” he whined.

  The nurse arched her brows at Josie. “Long shift?”

  Josie stood in the doorway with her mouth hanging open. Other than Mr. Belamey, there was no-one else in the room. The little woman had vanished.

  Josie jammed her car into fourth and sped up the entrance ramp and onto the freeway toward downtown. It had been a long twenty-four hours at the hospital—she hadn’t even bothered to take off her scrubs before leaving. She’d just grabbed her clothes and her backpack full of supplies for the clinic, and headed out. She’d only managed to sneak in four hours of sleep between patients, but that—and Diet Pepsi—were going to have to be enough to keep her going for the rest of the night.

  “Hello.”

  The voice startled Josie so badly she swerved into the next lane.

  “Doctor Reed! Watch out!”

  She straightened the car, then looked over to see the female psych patient from earlier that day sitting in the passenger seat.

  “What the… What are you doing in my car?!” she demanded.

  “We need to finish our conversation.”

  “What conversation?!”

  “The one about your soul mate.”

  “Oh for God sake.”

  Josie pulled off at the next exit and sped down the freeway ramp. She took the first right, and then headed back toward the hospital parking lot where she pulled up short beneath a lamppost and cut the engine.

  “Come into the hospital with me so we can get you some help.”

  “I don’t need your help,” the woman responded “you need mine. I can give you what your soul is crying out for.”

  “My soul isn’t crying, lady. I am fine.”

  “You are alone.”

  “And what’s so bad about that? I get a lot done by myself. No husband to answer to. No children.”

  “No love.”

  Josie flinched. There was that, but she’d learned to fill up the loneliness with more work.

  The woman leaned closer. “An unfortunate mistake has been made, Doctor Reed. Within each person’s lifetime there exists one other who is their perfect match. However, you, my dear, were born in the wrong century. Your true love exists in another time and place.”

  Josie rubbed her forehead. She suddenly felt so tired. “Are we back to this again?”

  “Trust me. Let me guide you to your soul mate, to the place where you truly belong. Let me help you find your true destiny.”

  “Look, Guide, I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine. My life is perfect just the way it is.”

  “You’re wrong. Neither one of you can get along without the other. If you stay apart much longer, the consequences will be tragic. All you must do is agree to meet him.”

  Josie laughed. “You mean like a blind date?”

  “Of sorts.”

  She leaned back against the headrest and sighed. The woman obviously thought of herself as some kind of magical match maker. The lady needed serious help. “If I agree to meet this guy, will you agree to come into the hospital with me?”

  The woman didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely.”

  “Then, fine. I’ll meet the guy. When and wh—”

  Josie suddenly found herself standing in an old wooden doorway. She took hold of the splintered frame to ste
ady herself and heard a dull thud. She glanced down at a dirty plank floor and found her backpack resting at her feet.

  Fear, deep and strong, coiled inside her stomach. What had just happened to her?

  The sound of muffled voices caught her attention. She slowly looked up and stared in stunned silence at two men standing by an old metal bed across the room. They were awash in the dull yellow glow of lantern-light, and were so intent on the form lying on the bed in front of them that they’d failed to notice her presence.

  “He’s out again,” the heavyset man said.

  The tall, balding man nodded. “With that infection, he likely won’t make it to morning.”

  “Then there ain’t nothin’ for it, Doc?”

  The tall man sighed and began rolling up the full white sleeves of his shirt. “Get the saw, Deputy Green. I’m taking the leg.”

  READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE

  AVAILABLE NOW!

  Book #3 in the award-winning Destiny Series

  “Unforgettable characters, believable stories of the outrageous, and laugh-out-loud humor. Ms. Elizabeth pens some of the best dialogue in the business.” –A Little Romance

  Carmel, California 2017

  Tess could barely breathe. For that matter, she could barely hear and barely see. This cold was killing her. It was plugging up her head and squeezing the life out of her.

  She'd been stuck in bed for three days, binge-watching Netflix, surrounded by wadded up tissues and living off Sudafed. She longed to taste something other than menthol cough drops and ramen soup.

  She lifted the remote, clicked off the television, and grabbed a Kleenex just in time to catch a throat-grating sneeze. Her eyes watered. Her head pounded. She groaned and sank back into her goose feather pillows.

  At this rate, she'd be dead in a day. They'd find her limp, lifeless body buried amid gooey, used tissues, her hair matted, her makeup smudged. Twitter would say that Contessa Harper, daughter of tech moguls Travis and Patrice Harper, had been found dead in a stained Justin Bieber nightshirt with a box of cold medication clutched in her fist. Not exactly a graceful exit. Her mother would throw a fit—and probably kill her all over again.