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It was odd that he’d asked about her, though. Right after I’d found the yellow rose.
I grabbed at my hat to keep a gust of wind from sweeping it off my head.
Though I tried to keep my expression blank, Ralph must have seen something there anyway.
“I apologize,” he said. “I shouldn’t have asked. Not my business.”
“No,” I said. “She’ll be back. As soon as she can.”
Ralph just nodded once and led my horse into the barn.
And as I walked along the path toward the house, the wind whipping around me, I realized that I believed it.
Madilynn would be back.
CHAPTER 39
MADILYNN
My ears buzzing, I dropped to my knees right there on the attic floor.
I was less than three feet away from Vaughn and the girl.
They couldn’t see me.
And I could barely hear them anymore.
I squeezed my eyes tightly closed and blinked rapidly, but the sun’s glare was worse now.
Either that or they were fading.
They were definitely fading.
As I sat there on the floor, the sun shifted, climbing higher in the sky, leaving behind an emptiness.
The trunk was still there.
But the women were gone.
And the stacks of paper were back.
I sat back on my heels and pressed my fingertips against my forehead.
What had I just seen?
Ghosts?
A vision?
The legendary Vaughn, for sure. But had it really been her? Or had I seen a vision?
And the girl. Oh. My. God.
Was the girl my daughter?
If the girl was my daughter, then…
Then I had gone back in time.
But then I’d left again.
This portended something to come.
I’d lost all my interest in going through the trunk.
I needed to get outside. To take a walk to clear my head.
The attic was suddenly suffocating.
After quickly tossing all the papers and books back into the trunk, I closed the heavy lid and walked carefully down the steep stairs leading to the second floor of the house.
The only sound was the echo of my sneakers on the wood floor.
I normally didn’t mind being here alone.
I’d been enjoying the quiet time to myself.
But after seeing the images of Vaughn and the girl who may very well have been a vision of some kind of my daughter, I felt edgy.
I quickly made my way downstairs to the first floor and, without looking at the silent wounded grandfather clock, I walked through the foyer and turned right toward the kitchen.
My hands shook as I turned on the faucet and filled a glass with water.
I drank quickly, like I’d been wandering in a desert.
The glass empty, I set it down and walked out the back door.
I stood on the veranda and looked across at the building that was going to be a café. On the same spot where the kitchen had been in the 1800s.
The single fence post was still there. All that was left of the white fence that had separated the house from the kitchen back in the day.
A breeze tugged at the hair I’d pulled back into a ponytail at the back of my head.
I sat on the nearest rocker and pulled my feet up beneath me.
I rocked, consoling myself.
Whatever it was I had seen, it had been real.
I hadn’t imagined it.
It frightened me, yet at the same time, I felt a little thrill of anticipation.
I would see Beau again.
If I was to believe what I had seen, then I would not only see Beau again, but we would have a child together.
I put a hand over my mouth.
That could only mean one thing.
Beau was my destiny.
Thunder rumbled in the distance and I noticed a gathering of dark clouds coming in from the west.
A storm was brewing.
CHAPTER 40
BEAU
I walked slowly along the path toward the house.
There was an electricity in the air.
Whatever it was put my nerves on edge.
Something was about to happen.
I could see the roof of the house in the distance.
Smoke curled from the chimney, sending a wisp of white into the sky.
I reached the edge of the fence where Mother’s red roses bloomed.
I stopped at the fence post and looked again for the yellow rose, but it wasn’t there.
Standing straight, I looked around. I didn’t see anyone who might have picked it.
The little rose bud had been tucked in among the red flowers. Hidden. No one would have come out here looking for it.
There was no one who would picked in in the short time it had taken me to stable my horse.
I looked again, not caring that the briars picked at my skin, drawing little streaks of blood.
But it wasn’t there.
Maybe I had imagined it.
Putting my hands on my hips, I stood and looked toward the back of the house.
No one was on the veranda.
My father was out in the cotton fields. Mother was upstairs in her room and Bailey was probably with her.
The two of them had spent a lot of time working on her wedding trousseau, but it had been completed a long time ago.
The last time I checked, they’d been working on embroidering new cushions for the chairs in the parlor.
Tedious work.
Something I would never have the patience for.
I turned back around and faced the fence again.
That’s when I saw her.
Kneeling on the ground, her hands tangled in the rose bush.
“Madilynn.” Her name came out on a breath, barely audible.
But she heard me and turned.
Dropping her hands to her sides, she just stared at me, as though she didn’t really see me.
Was it really her? Or was I imagining it?
She was wearing pants, like she’d been wearing the first time I’d seen her. She had returned from the future.
I took a step forward, my boots, crunching on a fallen twig.
She gasped as though she suddenly realized that I was really there.
“Beau?”
“Madilynn.”
I reached her in about half a second and was on my knees, pulling her into my arms.
“Mon Dieu,” I said, kissing the top of her head. “You came back.”
She smelled like vanilla and honeysuckle combined with the scent of the roses.
I sat back and pulled her into my lap.
This time, I vowed, I was not going to let her out of my sight.
Whatever it took to keep her here in this time with me, I would do it.
CHAPTER 41
MADILYNN
I sat in a big oversized rocker on the back veranda of the house.
Beau sat on the chair next to me.
He had a hand on my shoulder and hadn’t let go of me since he’d pulled me into his arms out in the yard.
I’d gone outside, drawn to the fence post with a burst of wild roses climbing to its top.
They were red roses.
I’d been focused on the incoming storm and hadn’t noticed them at first.
But when I saw that they were red roses, I’d been drawn to them.
How were there suddenly little red roses climbing around the abandoned fence post?
I’d spied a yellow rose near the ground nestled in a cluster of briars.
So that’s why I’d been on my knees when the thunder had started.
But the odd thing was, once I was on my knees, the yellow rose was no longer there.
It had vanished.
That’s when I’d heard Beau calling my name.
“How are you here?” he asked. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” I said, looking up in his blue eyes. They were bluer than I even remembered. And I’d thought I remembered every detail about him.
“Nothing was different?” His hand was comforting on my shoulder. And as long as we had that contact, I felt grounded. Like I could stay here. In this time.
I remembered having that feeling before with him.
And that’s when he’d let go…
He’d left me to go to the dining room to get me a drink of water.
So my feeling had some basis to it.
“No,” I said. “The yellow rose…”
“I saw it, too,” Beau said.
“You did?” I put a hand on his arm. “But… it was gone.”
“No. I think it’s there. Unless…”
“Unless what?” I asked. “What are you thinking?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. It just seems like maybe sometimes time gets crossed.”
“Like the boundaries are blurry,” I said, looking out across the lawn toward the fence with its beautiful red roses spilling all over it.
It was like in the attic when I’d seen the two women and the trunk filled with gowns.
“Are you well?” he asked, kneeling in front of me and searching my eyes.
“Yes,” I said with a little smile. “As well as can be… considering how abruptly I left here.”
“I know, love,” he said, taking my hands and kissing the backs of my fingers.
My heart swelled.
The love I’d been feeling for him was returned.
I couldn’t help but think about Vaughn and the girl I’d seen in the attic.
She’d asked about her momma. About Madilynn.
Was she my daughter?
Mine and Beau’s?
“I can’t control the time travel.” I was mostly talking to myself, but I said it out loud.
“I know,” Beau said, standing up, but keeping a hand on my upper arm. “I have a plan.”
“What kind of plan?” I asked.
“We have to get out of here.”
I looked down at my hands clasped in my lap.
That was what I wanted. Wasn’t it?
To stay in this time with Beau. Even if it meant leaving here.
Then why did his words strike such trepidation in my heart?
“Madilynn?” He knelt again, searching my face.
I looked back into his eyes.
The idea of my life being scripted left me feeling ill.
Did that mean that my life had already happened?
That it was over?
CHAPTER 42
BEAU
I’d imagined this moment a thousand times.
And every time I imagined it, Madilynn was happy.
Not once in my imaginings did she have this fear-stricken expression on her face.
What had happened? What had changed?
It had been a long time. Six months. A lot could change in six months.
Perhaps she was betrothed to someone else.
Perhaps she no longer wanted to be with me, much less marry me. We hadn’t talked about marriage. There hadn’t been time. She’d been here for such a fleeting time.
But that fleeting time had been so intense—so life altering—that it very well could have been much longer.
Yet here she was.
But had it been an accident? Maybe she hadn’t wanted to come back here.
My mind raced with possibilities.
Something had changed. Something was different.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, fearing the answer.
She met my gaze again and tried a smile, feeble as it was.
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “It’s just been so long.”
Her eyes were full now as though with one blink, tears would stream down her cheeks.
“I didn’t know if you would still be here. If you would wait.”
I squeezed her hands.
“I would wait for you until the end of time. I didn’t get to tell you that, but I will.” I took a deep breath and kept going. “I want to take you away from here. We’ll leave now. I never want to be apart from you again.”
“But what if…” She stopped herself in mid-sentence. Shook her head.
“Has something changed? Something is different.”
“No,” she said. “I just don’t understand what’s happening.”
I smiled. “You’re here. That’s all that matters. And we’re meant to be together.”
There it was again. That shadow that crossed her features.
I sat back on my heels, with my hands lightly pressed against her soft white shoes.
I had to keep a hand on her somewhere, no matter how lightly.
I couldn’t stand the thought of her traveling through time again.
If she did, I was planning to go with her.
I didn’t know how it worked. And it might even kill me, but I wasn’t letting her go without a fight.
At least not until I figured out what was bothering her.
If there was a reason for us not to be together, that would change things.
Then I remembered the glass I carried with me. Reaching in my pocket, I pulled out the black glass with the apple on it and pressed it into her hands.
“Oh my God,” she said. “How?”
“You left it under your pillow.”
She nodded as though remembering.
“It’s important to you?”
She nodded.
“What’s it used for?”
“People… carry them… to stay in touch.”
I grinned. “That explains it. It explains why it why me feel close to you. We were communicating.”
Leaning forward, she put her hands on my shoulders.
“Do you believe in destiny?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. I didn’t even have to think about that one.
“And fate?”
I nodded. “I believe that we’re meant to be together.”
She nodded slowly.
“I think that true love brings people together no matter when they’re born. Look at my Uncle Nathaniel and my brother. Both of them found love across time.”
She searched my eyes, looking for… something.
Maybe answers.
I didn’t have the answers she was looking for.
I only had the answer that was in my heart.
CHAPTER 43
MADILYNN
He believed it. I could feel the conviction that ran through his veins.
And I had to admit that I believed it, too.
Especially after what I had seen.
That meant that everything that had happened to me up until this point had all happened to get me here. Right here to this moment in time.
Bennett and his death had led me here.
I’d come here to get away.
If Bennett hadn’t died, I would have stayed in my old job, in my old world. I wouldn’t have answered a random ad for a job in another state.
I’d loved Bennett, but it had been a comfortable, calm love.
He’d been a safe haven in the storm of life.
We’d gotten through high school together, then college. We’d grown up together.
But now he was gone.
And I’d opened myself up to a different kind of love.
A love that sent my blood pounding through my veins.
A love that haunted me day and night.
His hands were on my shoes right now.
He wasn’t letting go of me.
Even that simple touch of his hands lightly resting on my shoes sent my heart racing.
I could barely think while he was this close to me.
Instead of a safe haven, he was a whirlwind for my emotions.
And I’d traveled through time to get to him.
I believe he was right.
If it hadn’t been meant to be, it would not have happened.
And I had chosen him.
I had chosen to stay here in this house after returning to my own time.
I could have chosen to go back to Birmingham. It would have been the sensible thing to do.
But I couldn’t. Anytime I’d thought about leaving, I’d been physically ill.
So I’d stayed.
And I’d waited.
I’d waited until this moment when I would be swooped back to his time. His world.
Beau was my soul mate.
I inhaled sharply.
I’d always imagined that Bennett was my soul mate. But instead, he’d merely been a stepping stone to get me to Beau.
No. Not just a stepping stone.
I’d love him.
But it wasn’t like this.
Nothing I’d experienced prepared me for the overwhelming feelings I was having right now being back in Beau’s arms.
Even if it was predestined.
Perhaps because it was predestined.
“Okay,” I said. “Where are we going to go?”
Surprise registered on his features.
“You’ll come away with me?”
I nodded, feeling a smile that I couldn’t hide.
When he grinned, I grinned, too.
He swooped me up in his arms and before I knew what he was about, I was sitting in the rocker in his lap.
“I haven’t figured that out yet,” he said. “I just know that we have to leave here.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“No,” he said, placing a finger lightly on my lips. “Don’t apologize. I don’t want to stay here on this farm for the rest of my life. I think I’ve just been waiting for you.”
He lowered his head until his breath mingled with mine.
Then after that moment’s hesitation, his lips were on mine.
He kissed me with all the passion of a love starved man.
And I matched him kiss for kiss.
CHAPTER 44
BEAU
We had to go.
Holding her hand tightly, I led her to the stables.
Fortunately, there was no one else around to ask questions.
I’d planned this out to the letter.
At first I’d stashed everything in the loft, but it had occurred to me that I’d have to leave her in order to climb up there and get to it.
