Spelled, page 22
No love of my life.
CHAPTER 51
MELISSA
I leaned against the oak tree and took in big gulps of air.
The tears had stopped finally and I could breathe again.
My eyes were still blurry from the tears, but something seemed different.
Using the tree to help me stand, I looked toward the river.
The river was the same murky, dark, slow moving mile wide body of water that it had always been.
A white bird swooped low and skimmed the surface, coming up with a fish in its mouth.
Then I saw the trail of white high in the sky.
Following the white stream with my eyes, I quickly found what I’d expected. What I’d dreaded.
I leaned back against the sturdy oak tree.
And watched as the airplane made it way toward the horizon.
I was no long in 1856.
I was in the future.
In my time.
But not the time I wanted to be in.
I wiped my face on my sleeve.
I felt like someone had beaten me up and left me for dead.
With no emotions left inside me, I just stood there. Staring at the sky.
I’d endured more these past couple of weeks than should be asked of anyone.
I’d lost my fiancé.
Realized I was pregnant.
And then, of all things, I’d gone and fallen in love again.
But that wasn’t all.
I’d left my new love centuries in the past.
This was so abnormal that I couldn’t tell a single soul.
Not even my own brother.
He would have me in a psychiatric ward so quick, it would make my head spin.
Dark clouds were brewing in the west.
I didn’t care if I got drenched.
But I couldn’t stay here forever.
I had to think about my child now. My life was no longer just about me.
I pushed off the tree and started walking back toward the house.
It was time for me to go home.
The thought calmed and saddened me all at the same time.
But the feelings were somewhere just out of reach. Hidden by the numbness.
As I walked along the way I’d run just minutes earlier, I heard a car coming toward me.
I stepped off to the side of the road, but ignored the car.
I had nothing to say to anyone.
But the car slowed and then the driver’s window slowly lowered.
“Melissa? What are you doing out here?”
I turned and blinked, my mind unable to process.
“Melissa?”
Then it clicked. It was my brother, John.
He put the car in park and stepped out of the car to stand in front of me.
“My God, Melissa,” he said, grasping my shoulders. “What’s happened to you?”
I just looked blankly at him, unable to answer.
And though I hadn’t even realized it, I was trembling.
“You’re in shock,” he said, taking me by the arm and leading me toward the passenger seat.
It was a few minutes later while I was staring out the window that I realized he’d turned the car around and was headed back toward town.
CHAPTER 52
SAMUEL
When I got back to the office in town, there was a note on the door stating that my father was out for two days.
Damn.
My father had picked up my slack, doing what I was supposed to be doing.
Since coming back from medical school, I’d been seeing the outlying patients, allowing my father to stay close to home.
It allowed him to enjoy his older years without the stresses of traveling.
He’d been enjoying sitting on his front porch, having a cigar in the evenings, then sleeping in his own bed.
I’d let him down.
Knowing that twisted my thoughts in knots.
I wanted to help him out. Had always planned on helping him out in the business.
But I wouldn’t give up my time with Melissa for anything.
Not even my father.
I removed the sign and stepped inside the office.
I was here now, so I may as well see any local patients that might need assistance.
As I unpacked my bag, I came across my journal.
It stopped me in my tracks for a moment.
I just stood there, holding it.
Thinking about Melissa.
Hoping that wherever she was, she was both happy and safe.
I may never know what had happened to upset her so much. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. She was gone.
If she’d vanished under different circumstances, I might have waited for her again.
But it didn’t make any sense to wait when she’d ran from me.
I’d told Daniel what had happened. He’d just looked at me with something akin to pity.
That was all it took.
I couldn’t have people feeling sorry for me.
If Melissa didn’t want to stay here, then I would be foolish to sit there and wait for her.
So, without overthinking it, I had packed up my things and ridden off.
My heart had been heavy since I’d planned to take Melissa with me when I left the Becquerel Estate.
It was strange how everything could change in just a short time.
Since I didn’t know where my father had gone, I settled in to wait for him.
And to wait for someone to need a doctor.
When evening came, I lit a lantern, poured myself a glass of bourbon, and went to sit in my father’s office.
He had journals dating back years, for as long as he’d been practicing medicine.
Picking up one at random, I sat at his desk and opened it to the middle.
1846
I just returned from the Becquerel Estate.
When I had arrived there, I feared for my friend Daniel’s life. He had a terrible case of yellow fever.
But it was his son Beau who concerned me even more.
Beau, always a quiet man, was even more quiet than usual.
Even as Daniel improved, Beau would walk past me without even acknowledging my presence. It was as though he was in a daze.
That’s when Daniel told me about the time travel. About the woman from the future. Beau had fallen in love with her. Just as his brother had fallen in love with a woman from the future.
A man didn’t choose who he loved. Or when.
It was just one of those things that happened.
So many modern men thought they could just choose a woman based on her standing in the community. Her parents, basically.
They were fools. All of them.
Love was like lightning. It only struck a man once.
And when that lightning struck, there was nothing a man could do about it other than to accept it.
As far as loving a woman from another century?
It made life a hell of a ride.
I slammed my father’s journal closed.
This wasn’t one of his medical journals. This was a personal journal.
I had no right to read my father’s personal thoughts.
But now that I had, I couldn’t unread what I had just read.
My hands trembling, just a little, I put the journal back on the bookcase where I’d found it and went back to my father’s chair.
Mon Dieu.
Were there no available women in this century?
But no matter how much I tried to make light of the situation, I was deeply troubled by what I had read.
Full of nervous energy, I stood up and went to stand at the window.
Men and women walked up and down the street outside our home.
They rode in buggies like they were supposed to.
I placed a hand on the window sill and my thoughts tangled with each other, coming to a screeching halt as one thought in particular occurred to me.
Had my mother been from the future?
CHAPTER 53
MELISSA
I woke to the sound of machines beeping.
Sounds that belonged in a hospital.
My eyes flew open.
Was I back here again?
After the accident?
We’d been driving. Zach and I had been driving back from a weekend in the mountains.
Something had happened… I… I swept my fingertips across my cheek.
“Melissa?”
It was John standing next to the bed.
After the accident, I’d been alone.
It had been hours before John had been notified and could get there.
“You’re ok,” he said. “You’re in a hospital.”
“Why?” I asked, my throat raw. “I don’t understand. What’s happened?”
I felt dizzy, like it was happening all over again.
“Melissa,” John said. “You were in shock. And…”
Right. I’d been in Mississippi. At a bed and breakfast.
John had come to the bed and breakfast.
In a car. He’d stopped and picked me up. We’d gone back toward town.
I didn’t remember anything after that.
My thoughts were disjointed. Confused.
John took my hands.
I looked at him, forcing myself to take deep breaths.
There was so much I needed to tell him.
But I didn’t dare.
Maybe it had all been a dream.
Maybe none of it had happened at all.
“Zach?” I whispered, looking away.
“Melissa,” John said. “There’s something you need to know.”
I shook my head, looking at the white wall across the room. He had no idea.
No idea what I’d been through.
He took a deep breath and leaned forward to speak softly. For my ears only.
“You’re pregnant.”
I didn’t even blink.
Pregnant. Right. I had known that.
“Samuel,” I whispered.
John took a step back and dropped into the chair next to the bed.
“Who is Samuel?”
I hadn’t meant to say his name out loud.
But being reminded that I was going to have a baby reminded me of Samuel.
“No,” I shook my head. It was supposed to remind me of Zach.
“Yes,” John said, misunderstanding me. “They ran tests. And the baby is fine.”
I just looked at him.
The baby might be fine, but I wasn’t.
My thoughts were all tangled up.
I was here because I had gotten… disturbed that Samuel and Zach were so much alike.
The two men were starting to blur in my mind.
And I couldn’t tell anyone. Not even my brother.
Especially my brother.
CHAPTER 54
SAMUEL
I walked along the river bank, the morning sun in my eyes.
The sunlight reflected off the water, obscuring the other side of the bank across the mile wide river.
After a restless night of absolutely no sleep whatsoever, I’d thrown on my black cloak and started walking.
I had no destination in mind.
I just needed to walk.
There was already a steamboat coming upstream, veering close to the dock.
I followed the dry, dusty road downward toward Natchez Under the Hill.
It was the only place with any activity this early in the morning.
And I needed to be near people. Normal, everyday people going about their normal everyday activities.
Having eggs and toast for breakfast. A strong hot cup of coffee to start the day.
As the boat came to the shore, its loud mournful whistle announcing its arrival, dock hands appeared to unload whatever cargo it carried.
The words in my father’s journal haunted me, but I had left it alone.
I didn’t need to read any more of his private thoughts.
When he came home, hopefully today, I may talk to him. Or I might not.
I found a spot out of the way and took a seat on a wooden cracker box. From here I could watch people, hear them talking about mundane, everyday things while I blended into the background.
Two men walked past, pulling a wagon loaded down with crates.
“Did you give it to her yet?”
“Not yet. I will though.”
“Don’t wait too long.”
The rest of their conversation was lost to me as they continued on their way.
Love. It was what made the world go around.
It caused wars and stopped them.
It caused men to do things they would never do otherwise.
I looked to the sky.
Wondering what it must be like to see a flying carriage. To ride in one.
Would it be so different from the riverboats?
I would never know.
By the time that happened I would be dead and gone. Forgotten.
Did I have the blood of the future running through my veins?
Was it possible that my own mother had come here from the future?
It made me question whether my father was really my biological father.
I could be the son of a man who lived hundreds of years in the future.
Not that it would matter.
I had been willing to marry Melissa and raise her child as my own.
I would have thought nothing of it because I was in love with Melissa.
And I would do anything to be with her.
The steamboat whistle filled the air, momentarily blocking out everything else.
Its mournful sound echoed the emotions running through me.
I would do anything to be with Melissa.
But I hadn’t.
I had not done anything.
I had given up on her.
At the first sign of trouble, I had just walked away from any possible future with her.
If she did return to my time, I wouldn’t be there for her.
And… it was very, distinctly possible that if I wasn’t there, she wouldn’t be able to return even if she wanted to.
After studying what had happened to Bradford and Beau and even their Uncle Nathaniel, I had a theory about the whole thing.
True love brought them together.
But in order for the whole thing to come together, both of them had to be in the same place at the same… time.
The same time… centuries apart.
That’s how the rip in time brought them together.
A young lady with a basket of roses walked toward me.
“Morning, Sir,” she said. “Would ‘ya like to buy a rose for yer lady?”
I reached into my pocket and absently pulled out a coin. Held it out to her.
Her face brightened as she took the coin.
“A special rose for you,” she said, handing me a yellow rose bud. “May it bring ‘ya eternal love.”
I held the stem of the yellow rose bud in my hand as she walked off, smiling over her shoulder.
Eternal love.
I stood up, knocking the cracker barrel over.
No one seemed to notice.
No one noticed that I had just figured out what I needed to do.
I knew how to find my eternal love.
CHAPTER 55
MELISSA
I paced the floor of the Natchez hotel.
My brother had sent for my luggage and had it brought to the hotel, so I was wearing my own jeans and t-shirt now.
He sat in a chair, calmly watching me walk back and forth.
“It’s time for you to go home,” he said.
I reached the window overlooking the Mississippi River.
The morning sun reflected off the murky water. There was a barge on the river, slowly making its way past. Nothing else.
A couple of white birds glided near the edge of the water.
I turned and walked back toward the door.
“I know you’re still trying to deal with everything,” John said. He was using his best psychologist voice on me now.
He only thought he knew what I was dealing with.
If I told him he might take me home with him back to Denver, but the minute I stepped off the plane, he’d have me put in a white jacket and carried off to a padded room.
“Melissa,” he said to my back. “You know you can tell me anything.”
I shook my head, but turned around to face him.
I imagined that he was analyzing me. That I was standing near the door. Poised to escape the conversation.
He wouldn’t be wrong.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice catching. “For being here. For everything.”
“It’s what family does.”
I took a deep breath.
Yes. I’m pregnant with Zach’s baby. But I went back in time and fell in love all over again with a man who reminds me of Zach. His name is Samuel… Yes. I know it hadn’t even been three weeks since the accident that took Zach’s life.
Nope. I could not tell my brother just anything. Family or no family.
“There’s nothing more to tell,” I said. “You were right though. Spending time at the bed and breakfast was a good idea.”
John smiled wryly.
“Didn’t look like such a good idea when I picked you up on the side of the road.”
“It was a bad day.” I rubbed my arms. That, at least, hadn’t been a lie.
But running off from Samuel, like I had, hadn’t been a good idea.
I never should have done that.
If I hadn’t done that, I might still be back in time. With Samuel.
But now, it had been three days.
And I was too late.
Samuel had been ready to leave that morning. He’d been planning to take me with him, but after I ran off from him, he’d have no reason to think that I had wanted to go with him.
No reason to stay there and wait for me.
I had missed my chance. I was certain of it.
“Alright,” I said with a nod. “You’re right. It’s time for me to go home. Time to get back to work.” And to pick up the pieces of my life.
“Good,” John said. “I booked us a flight for tomorrow morning. We’ll have to drive to Alexandria, though. It was the only thing available.”
