Live Love Rewind: The Three Lives of Leah Preston (10 page)

Leah remembered when she’d been asked about her happiness before. How much of what had happened since was through the aliens’ manipulation?

She sensed that the Visitor was still with her, not speaking but waiting for her to continue. She told the presence,
If that was your goal, it didn’t work out, did it? You made a bad choice.

But she knew Jon had been chosen by only one person. She had wanted him in her bed. If anyone had decided poorly, it had been her.

She doubted she’d ever know if the Visitors had pushed the FBI agent into her bed initially. For all she knew, their energies might only have affected Colonel Dahlgren.

It was possible that Jon came to her bed on his own, just because he wanted her. It wasn’t just her he desired, however. He wanted her bank account, too.

I never want to see him again
, she thought
.

If not, why not?

She hadn’t expected a response to this musing. It had been a private reflection, not intentionally shared with anyone else.

It’s time for you to go away,
she told the Visitors.
Whatever this is, some weird telepathy or...or some Star Trek mind-melding invasion of my privacy, I don’t want it. You understand?

Despite her proclamation, Leah sensed the presence was still with her. After almost a full minute, it spoke to her.

Why don’t you start over?

The Visitors had asked this back in Area 72, too. What had she told them the last time?

Wouldn’t that be lovely?

Like Clarissa before her, Leah wondered if the aliens understood that time was absolute. Once passed, it could never be relived.

No one gets to start over
, she told them dourly. 
Not in my dimension.

Now get lost. I need my sleep.

Turning off the table light, she pulled the top sheet over her head. Hidden in this fashion, she finally allowed her tears to fall. They fell slowly at first, then faster, as she cried herself to sleep.

Part Two:

Sex Love and New Beginnings

Chapter One

Sunlight filled the bedroom, its harsh light making it impossible for Leah to sleep. Coming awake, she remained beneath her bed’s white cotton top sheet.

She didn’t know how it happened but, mounted on separate metal frames, her two pairs of black-out shades had managed to fail at the exact same time. It didn’t seem possible but that was the way her luck was going.

Irritation scratched at her. After everything that had happened with Jon, she’d wanted to slumber through the entire day – and, while she was at it, maybe for the rest of the year, too – but fate was conspiring against her. Instead of being wrapped in comforting darkness, she was being forced to confront reality.

I am NOT getting out of bed
, she decided.
I don’t have to. I won’t.

I no longer have a job. Even if I did, even if Clarissa begged me to come in, I’d refuse.

There’s no one I have to see, no one I want to talk to. Not Neal, with his neediness. Not Ronald, whatever his desires.

Not Jon. Especially not Jon.

I just want to be left alone. I want to sleep.

So why isn’t it still dark?

Pulling the cotton sheet from her head, she shielded her eyes to protect herself from the day’s bright beginning. Seconds later, she sat up, letting the sheet fall onto her lap.

When had Ralph, the building manager, wallpapered over the apartment’s beige paint? Was it while she was in Area 72?

Wouldn’t she have noticed?

And had Ralph really spent the money to replace her bedroom’s tacky overhead globe with a stylish, expensive-looking pendant light?

Then it struck her:  “This isn’t my bedroom.”

She licked at her dry lips, her fright growing.

In the middle of the night, she’d somehow been spirited away from the Skyline Apartments to this unknown location. Drugged or knocked unconscious, she’d been completely unaware of the journey.

Could Jon have done this?
she wondered.
Not legally, no, but the FBI probably trains its agents in all kinds of espionage tricks.

Unless Jon isn’t involved at all. What if Clarissa is behind this, playing with my mind?

Leah realized she felt a little dizzy, an impending vertigo threatening to overtake her.

Or maybe Ronald is the culprit,
she worried,
still concerned about his career and taking steps to insure my silence. Maybe he decided I had to disappear so he sent someone to kidnap me. Kidnap me and leave me here. Stick me in this…

Her head swiveled from side-to-side, noting the room and its furnishings.

…this semi-fashionable bedroom, with drapes fluttering from in front of a partially-open window. A clear glass window, without any bars or evidence of an alarm. If I wanted to escape, it would take me all of ten minutes.

Maybe five.

Kicking off the top sheet, she stood up. If she’d been abducted, her kidnappers were remarkably relaxed in regards to their prisoner. There were no guards standing outside the bedroom doorway. In fact, she couldn’t hear anything to suggest there was anyone else was in the building at all.

The attractively-decorated room around her offered a small work desk with a laptop computer sitting on it. A loveseat occupied one corner of the room, while a bookcase lined the wall opposite the window. Hundreds of paperbacks filled the shelves of the bookcase.

There was still another paperback book left beside the laptop and two more novels resting on the bedside stand. The first was a trashy-looking detective novel,
To Protect and Service
. The second,
Love Unexpected
, was written by Leah Preston.

“Leah Preston?” She turned the book over. The author’s photograph filled the back cover.

Fighting a sense of lightheadedness, she stared at the face in front of her. A wrinkle-free version of her own face smiled out at the world.

For some reason, this Photoshopped version of Leah Preston was wearing glasses instead of contacts. Her twin was dressed in a subdued but attractive two-piece outfit, suitable for a book signing.

What’s happening here?

Suddenly, the room felt as if it were growing hotter. It was a struggle to catch her breath.

It’s time to start over,
a playful voice said inside her head.

Leah tried to keep herself from falling. Dropping to the bed’s mattress, she closed her eyes before surrendering to the blackness.

# # #

These Boots Are Made for Walkin’
sang from her cell phone, waking her. Leah caught a glimpse of her bedside alarm clock as she answered the call.

It was 4:57 PM.

I’ve slept the entire day away
, she thought. 
Again. Ah, the life of the self-employed.

Reaching out for her glasses, her hand swept over the bedside table without success. Too late, she remembered she’d left them in the living room.

My fault for binge-watching
King and Country
until the sun rose. Even if Chris Starks is too hot to be believed.

One fine day, I’ll hang a pair of blackout curtains in the bedroom and I won’t care what the hour is.

She slid her thumb across the face of her phone. “Hello?”

“Guess who I saw today?”

It was Mary Ellen Brewer, sounding much too spunky for this early in the day. Even if it
wasn’t
quite so early in the day.

“Oh, please.”

“You’ll be surprised.”

Leah tried, “Robert Downey, Jr?”

“Wouldn’t that be cool?”

“Extra cool if I’d ever owned a set of Iron Man Underoos.”

Mary Ellen said, “It was someone you used to know. You knew him intimately.”

Intimately?
“That narrows the list. Brandon?”

“Van Keuren? Didn’t he get disbarred for bribing a judge?”

“Just tell me.”

“Your favorite ex-boyfriend.”

“Tanner?”

“Right the second time. Tanner Boyd, his very own self.”

Without intending to do so, Leah heard herself sigh. “What’s he doing in your part of the world?”

“Something edgy and dangerous, I’m certain. Cliff diving. Paragliding. He didn’t say.”

“How’d he look?” Part of her hoped he’d escaped through the years unchanged, still tall and muscular, with short-cut black hair and a slightly crooked nose on his very masculine face.

A smaller, less generous, part of her wished he was pot-bellied and balding.

“A little older but not even a touch of gray. He’s still on the right side of magnificent.”

“Good for him.” Reaching in her bedside drawer, Leah pulled out a hand mirror. Her hair was wrinkled, her eyes were puffy, and she was so far from magnificent, she could barely stand to look.

I should have married Tanner when he wanted
, she thought.
That would have taught him a lesson.

“He asked about you,” Mary Ellen said.

Oh.
Giving her image a second glance, Leah decided she maybe didn’t look so terrible, after all. “I take it Vanna wasn’t with him.”

“Not since the  –” she gave it a little pause, “d-i-v-o-r-c-e.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

This revelation gave Leah pause. Once upon a time, Tanner Boyd had won her heart. That had been years ago, when she was young and foolish enough to think he might be her soul mate.

When she realized he didn’t believe in her goals, didn’t truly believe in
her
, she’d dumped him. Three months later, Tanner married Vanna Janssen.

Leah had never liked Vanna. Tanner knew it, too.

“He asked for your number,” Mary Ellen continued. “I took his, instead. Promised to give it to you if you were interested.”

“Get rid of it.”

“You’re positive? He’s looking fine.”

“He doesn’t want me. He wants Suzy Homemaker, baking cookies while he chases bad guys. Tanner’s too rigid to ever change.”

“You don’t know for sure.”

“He talked me into dropping out of film school. He told me I’d never make it as a writer.”

“He used those exact words?”

“Not specifically,” she admitted. “He said it wasn’t practical to think I’d earn a living. I could stay home, making babies, or I could get a real job. As if writing would never be anything but a hobby.”

“You showed him. I wonder if he knows you’re a world-famous author.”

Mary Ellen was being kind. With twelve novels to her name, Leah survived as a mid-list talent, averaging enough in advances and royalties to keep a roof over her head and pay her bills but not much more.

“Maybe I should give him a call,” Mary Ellen teased. “Think he’s a chubby chaser?”

“You might want to run the idea past your boyfriend first.”

“What boyfriend?”

“The man who’s been sharing your two-story condo for the past year.”

“I say again but a touch louder, what boyfriend?”

Curiouser and curiouser
, Leah thought. “When I asked you about Hunter last week, you blew me off. All you said was, you were cleaning house.”

“I
did
clean house. I cleaned it of everything he owned, every single item. Toiletries, clothing, all the incidental crap he’d collected over the last five years. Everything went out the window.”

Leah said, “Your bedroom is on the second floor.”

“Nothing broke,” Mary Ellen told her ruefully. “Not enough, anyway. A bottle of his cologne,
Eau de Cheating Bastard
. A couple of his bowling trophies, thank goodness. I was so tired of dusting them.”

“You could have told me you were having troubles.”

“I didn’t want you to worry.”

“So how did Hunter take it?”

“He gets home, sees all of his crap on the front lawn, and he knows. I’ve put up with a lot from him but not anymore. Not when he’s unfaithful. He threw a few things into his pick-up and left. I haven’t heard from him since.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“If you still lived nearby, I’d open a bottle of wine and have a good cry.”

“Wine!” Leah blurted. She checked the time on her cell phone. “I’m supposed to be bringing a bottle of wine over to Astrid’s tonight.”

“When?”

“A half hour ago!”

“Go then,” Mary Ellen said. Before she could escape, her friend added, “Do you think there are any good men left? I mean, for women our age?”