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Authors: Wendy Saunders

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BOOK: Crossroads
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‘I suppose I owe her an apology; I was pretty rude to her earlier.’

‘Yes you were, and although it was understandable there’s really no excuse for bad manners.’

‘Alright, I’ll go and find her later. I just want to find Theo; I can’t focus on anything else right now. I have to find him.’

‘Olivia,’ Evie sighed, ‘you’ll find him, when he wants to be found.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Theo has his own issues he’s working through right now.’

‘So what are you saying? That I shouldn’t look for him?’

‘No, I’m saying it may be harder than you think to find him and while you are looking make the most of the advantages that come your way.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Olivia, you must’ve noticed by now that the sun hasn’t set.’

‘I did actually,’ she frowned.

‘Time has no meaning here,’ she tried to explain, ‘time is passing at a different rate in the real world, just as it passes differently in every realm and dimension. While you are here, time has slowed to an almost infinitesimal rate. When you return to the real world, things are going to happen very fast. You need to be ready, so while you’re here take the time to learn what you can.’

After a moment she nodded and Evie relaxed.

‘I have to go now,’ she told her, ‘but there is one more thing.’

‘What’s that?’

Evie pointed over the road to Jackson’s pub The Salted Bone.

‘There’s someone over there who needs you.’

‘Theo?’ Olivia breathed hopefully.

‘No, someone else you will recognize but might not exactly be the man you know,’ she replied cryptically.

‘What?’

‘Just go and take a look,’ she nudged her off the bench.

‘Will I see you again?’ Olivia asked quietly.

‘Oh I expect we’ll run into each other, sooner or later. What is it my friend Fiona is so fond of saying? The dead never stay dead.’

Olivia smiled and turned towards the pub.

‘Oh and by the way,’ Evie called out causing Olivia to turn back, ‘cut Mags some slack. She was only doing what I asked her to and it hurts me when she hurts.’

Olivia nodded and headed towards the pub. Her thoughts drifting back to Mags, she’d been pretty hard on her too. It hadn’t helped that she had found out the truth about her friend’s relationship with her late Aunt and that she had kept her silence for years, allowing her to believe that her Aunt hadn’t loved her or wanted her. A fresh wave of guilt left a sour taste in her mouth as she pushed the door to the pub open and stepped into the darkened room. Maybe she should make peace with Mags when she got back, if she got back.

She made her way through to the bar area, easily navigating the tables and chairs in the dim light. She could see a figure with dark hair sitting at the bar with his back to her, an open bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue on the counter next to him as he raised a glass to his lips. She stepped closer and caught his reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

‘Sam?’ she gasped loud enough for his back to stiffen and for him to turn slowly on his stool to face her.

‘Sam?’ she breathed in relief as she moved closer to him, ‘I’m so glad to see you, how the hell did you find me?’

It took a moment to realize something was wrong. Sam didn’t look as if he was pleased to see her, in fact he was looking at her very strangely and as she stepped closer to stand directly in front of him she got a bit of a jolt. He didn’t look right, in fact he looked younger, much younger. The man she knew was about the same age as her, if not slightly older, but this Sam looked barely more than seventeen.

‘Sam?’ she asked uncertainly.

‘How do you know my name?’ he asked accusingly, ‘and who the hell are you?’

Olivia’s heart plummeted. Great she thought, that’s just great, the one person in the world who could’ve helped her find Theo and find a way back to the real world and he didn’t have a clue who she was.

 

Chapter 5.

‘Who the hell are you?’ Sam asked angrily. ‘Did my father send you?’

‘I have no idea who your father is,’ she replied carefully.

‘How do you know who I am then?’

Suddenly his eyes lost some of the anger and he focused on her more closely, as if he were seeing something for the first time. ‘You don’t belong here.’

‘No kidding,’ she murmured.

‘No, I mean you’re not dead. You’re not a spirit,’ his brow furrowed in confusion, ‘you still have a mortal body. How did you get here?’

‘Hades,’ she answered honestly. Even if he didn’t exactly remember who she was, he was still the closest thing she had to a friend on the other side, and if she was going to find Theo and get the hell outta Dodge she was going to need all the help she could get.

‘Hades?’ his eyes widened, ‘THE Hades?’

‘Yeah, that’s the one.’

‘How do you know who I am? What do you want with me?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘Look, I know this is going to sound strange. I don’t know why you don’t remember me or why you look about fifteen years younger than the last time we met, unless of course you have a hell of a plastic surgeon, but we have met. We’re friends, sort of.’

‘Friends?’ he replied skeptically, ‘but you’re human.’

‘Yeah and you’re not, I get that.’

‘You know what I am?’ his eyes widened in surprise.

‘Well no, not exactly. I know you aren’t human and I know you can kind of,’ she did a strange little flapping gesture with her hand, ‘you know, appear and disappear and travel from one place to another instantaneously.’

‘Translocate,’ he replied curiously.

‘Oh, okay then, translocate yourself from one place to another, and that you can…’ she stopped and frowned. ‘What do you call it when you jump through time.’

‘Through time? Are you mad? No one can translocate through time. Distance yes, over different dimensions yes, but not through time.’

‘You can,’ she shrugged. ‘I’ve seen you do it.’

‘Impossible,’ Sam scoffed.

Sam lifted the glass back to his lips, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinized her thoroughly, perhaps trying to figure out why she would make up such an outrageous lie.

Olivia watched him observing her and a sudden thought occurred to her. Every time she had met up with Sam, or rather the older version of Sam, he had been adamant he knew her, that they had met before but she knew she had never met him. What if the tables had finally turned, if the Sam she had known had travelled back to her time. What if she had finally caught up with an earlier version of him and from his point of view they were just meeting for the first time.

‘God,’ she breathed with the sudden realization, ‘time travel is enough to give you a brain hemorrhage.’

She took the glass from his hand and downed the contents in one go.

‘Hey that’s mine.’

‘Oh please’ she sighed, ‘are you even old enough to drink?’

‘That’s a human rule’ he frowned.

‘Okay here’s the thing,’ she took a deep breath, ‘you can believe me or not but it’s the truth. At some point in your future presumably you are going to discover you are capable of skipping back and forth through time. That’s how we meet, well how I met you. You apparently are just meeting me for the first time now.’

‘Huh?’

‘Try and keep up Sam, we don’t have all day. The older version of you’ she continued, ‘the one I know, travelled back to the year 1695 to a town called Salem in Massachusetts. You save a man named Theodore Beckett, from burning to death in a barn. You pulled him out minutes before the barn collapses in. The people in his time assume he has died in the fire but you pull him forwards over three hundred years into his future and drop him in my lap or rather in front of my car, in my hometown of Mercy.’

‘Let’s just say you’re right and that you are telling the truth about the whole travelling through time, and I’m not saying I believe you but, why would I do that?’

‘I have no idea,’ she shook her head and slid tiredly onto the barstool next to him, pulling out another glass and refilling it.

‘He’s important to you isn’t he? This Theodore?’

‘Yes he is,’ she stared into her glass for a moment before taking a sip. ‘I know you don’t know me right now and you have no reason to trust me, but I need you Sam. I need your help to find Theo and get back to the real world.’

‘I can’t help you,’ he frowned.

‘But…’

‘Look Lady…what’s your name?’

‘Olivia,’ she replied, ‘Olivia West.’

‘Well Olivia, Olivia West’ he mimicked, ‘I couldn’t help you even if I wanted to; the truth is I’m stuck here too.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘My father trapped me down here as a punishment and I can’t guarantee when he’ll decide to let me out.’

‘What did you do?’ Olivia asked curiously.

‘Nothing,’ he answered a little too quickly.

Olivia found herself studying him closely, his eyes were guarded and his spine stiff but there was something else in his expression. A sneaking suspicion had her mouth curving into a small smile.

‘Who was she?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Yes you do, nobody puts an expression like that on a guy’s face but a girl, so what’s her name.’

‘Look’ he snapped irritably, ‘I’m sorry but I can’t help you.’

She blinked and suddenly found herself sitting alone at the bar.

‘Well that went well’ she murmured, her gaze catching on the mirror behind the bar as she raised her glass and toasted her reflection.

 

Roni winced as she stubbed her toe painfully on the coffee table. Easing around it she hobbled towards the door and tripped over the pile of books she’d forgotten she’d stacked on the other side of the table. She hit the floor in an unladylike tangle of limbs and with a loud thud. Her elbow cracked sharply against the hard surface and she found herself seeing stars as she let loose an unintentional cry of pain.

‘Roni?’ Jake’s muffled voice came from the other side of the door. ‘Are you okay?’

Groaning she took a deep breath, hauled herself off the floor and limped slowly to the door. He always seemed to have an unfortunate knack for being around when she was at her most ungraceful. As she swung the door open Jake stood watching her carefully. He had Olivia’s rather appealing puppy tucked under one arm, it’s blue leash dangling down to the floor. As soon as Beau saw her he scrambled against Jake trying to get to her, his tail wagging madly.

Jake’s gaze tracked slowly down her body, from her tank top and pajama pants to her bare feet and back up, until he met her eyes. She flushed under his intense appraisal. She thought she saw a flash of something in his eyes, heat perhaps, but dismissed it. He didn’t see her like that, he only saw her as a kind of cute klutzy sister type. She really needed to stop obsessing about him she thought, as she took in his gorgeous face and blonde hair. It was starting to fall forward into his eyes a bit, he obviously needed a haircut and she found her fingers twitching slightly. Fighting the urge to reach out and push his hair back she swallowed and cleared her throat. It shouldn’t be awkward between them, over the past month or so they had settled into an easy friendship and she was finding lately that she enjoyed his company more and more. She didn’t want anything to change that, after all it wasn’t his fault she had a pathetic crush on him. She watched as his jaw clenched and his eyes involuntarily dipped to her chest again. It was only then she realized in horror that she wasn’t wearing a bra, dammit. Her face flushed pink and she automatically folded her arms over her chest.

‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ she muttered in mortification.

‘You called and left a message earlier,’ Jake explained after a moment.

‘Yes, but it was getting late so I assumed you’d just call me back tomorrow.’

‘Yeah,’ he replied ruefully, ‘sorry about that, I would have called you earlier. I got called out on an emergency, but…’ he held up a bag of takeout, ‘I brought dinner. If I know you, you’ve been so caught up in Olivia’s books you probably forgot to eat anything.’

She looked down to the bag and her mouth watered at the scent wafting towards her. He was right she had forgotten all about eating.

‘Oh alright,’ she sighed, moving back so he could step into her small apartment.

She closed the door as he placed Beau down on the floor and unhooked his leash. The minute the puppy was free he scrambled across the floor and began to sniff everything in sight, acquainting himself with his new surroundings. Jake watched him in amusement for a moment as he bumped into another pile of books and rolled over on the floor.

‘He’s as clumsy as you are,’ he smiled fondly.

Veronica’s heart sank. That was probably how he looked at her, with that same indulgent smile. He’d never see her as a sexy confident woman, who the hell was she kidding? He was way out of her league.

‘I’ll get some plates,’ she sighed softly in resignation.

‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ he frowned at her tone.

‘Nothing, I’m fine,’ she turned towards the kitchen.

‘’Did you hurt yourself?’ He noticed her limping slightly, and as she cradled her elbow his frown deepened.

‘It’s nothing,’ she replied. There was no way she was embarrassing herself further by telling him that she not only tripped over her own feet but also the coffee table and the books, in the short distance between her couch and the door.

‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’ He dropped the bag of food down by the door and scooped her up effortlessly into his arms.

‘Jake,’ she flushed again, ‘it’s really not that bad. Put me down.’

‘Be quiet, he murmured as he headed towards the couch, easily dodging the small land mines of books scattered across the floor.

He was so agile and full of quiet understated strength as he moved fluidly, settling her on the deep cushions of the couch.

‘Stay there,’ he ordered quietly as he scooped up the bag of food and disappeared into her small kitchen.

She heard him rustling around, the clank of plates being lifted out of the cupboard and the tinkle of glasses clinking together. Taking a moment to draw in a shaky breath she willed her heart to settle into a normal rhythm. It was mortifying having this reaction around him. All he’d done was carry her to the couch because she was being a klutz again, but the smell of him as he’d pressed her against his chest and his arms had tightened around her. She shook her head and blew out the breath she was holding, she was beginning to annoy herself. She needed to get rid of this fluttery schoolgirl feeling whenever she was around him and settle into the friend zone where he was already firmly planted.

BOOK: Crossroads
8.28Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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