Now and Forever (32 page)

 
"A baby," she said, her hands resting protectively across her belly.

"That first night," he said, struck by the enormity of it all. Not only was this child the visible proof of their love, but their son or daughter was also the product of two centuries.

"Do you need to sit down?" Emilie asked, with a soft laugh.

"I think I'm supposed to say that to you." He drew her into his arms. "How long have you known?"

"I had my suspicions, but I've only been sure for a week."

"You should have told me."

"I--to tell the truth, I wasn't sure how you'd feel about the whole thing."

"I can't think of anything I'd like more than a little girl with your eyes and your zest for life."

Her beautiful green eyes shimmered with tears. "I have my heart set on a little boy who's as adorable as his daddy."

Blinking rapidly, he glanced away for an instant. "We're going to do this right, Em. We're going to be there for our kids...let them know they're loved."

"And we have to get married."

"We'll make it legal as soon as we get to Philadelphia, but no piece of paper could make us any more married than I feel right now." The kiss he gave her was one of communion and she felt it all the way through to her soul. "This time," he said, " it's forever."

Epilogue

Eight months later
-s
omewhere near Philadelphia

"Sit down, Rutledge," Josiah Blakelee ordered. "You're wearing out the floorboards."

Another groan issued from the birthing room next to the kitchen and Zane shuddered.

He stopped pacing and looked at Josiah. "You have six children," he said. "Is it always like that?"

"Sometimes it is worse," said Josiah. "'Tis a woman's lot."

"Why do they do it?" Zane asked as his wife's pain ripped into his heart.

"For love," said Josiah. "Rebekah claims not to remember the pain once the babe suckles against her breast."

"Never again," said Zane, resuming his pacing. "I won't put her through this again."

Josiah simply smiled. The entire Blakelee family had been uprooted from their home in Princeton to begin again on a small plot of Pennsylvania land not far from where Emilie and Zane had settled. The two men had become close friends through their shared work in the spy ring while their wives had simply picked up their friendship where they'd left off.

Right now Zane didn't know what he'd do without them. Every time Emilie groaned he felt waves of pain tearing at his gut. When she was silent, beads of sweat broke out on his brow until he heard the sound of her voice again.

Josiah rose from his seat and handed Zane a bottle of rum. "Drink up," he ordered the younger man. "'Twill be a long day."

#

Morning became night and still she labored.

He might as well have been drinking water for all the good the rum did. His wife's agony was his own.

Zane wanted to be with Emilie the way he would have been in the future, but the shocked look on Josiah's face each time he broached the topic held him back.

Finally, he could take it no longer.

"She's my wife, damn it," he said. "This whole goddamn thing is barbaric. I'm going in."

He strode toward the birthing room and pushed open the door.

"Zane!" Rebekah was horrified. "This is no place for a man."

"Let him in." Emilie's voice was weak. She looked small and pale and exhausted against the plain white bed sheets. Suddenly her back arched and she reached for his hand, gripping with a strength that threatened to break his bones.

"The baby's crowning," said Rebekah. "Push, Emilie! Push!"

The room echoed with his wife's pain as she strained to deliver their child. He found himself horrified, scared, elated and every emotion in between.

"A little more," Rebekah urged.

 
"Just...one...more...push!"

"Come on, Em," he urged.

"I can't."

"You can do it...you can do anything."

"I'm tired...it's too much...I--" Her face contorted with the effort. "It's coming...I can feel it. The baby's coming!" From some hidden wellspring of strength, she summoned up the strength to try one more time.

"It's a girl!" Rebekah shouted joyously. "A beautiful baby girl!"

And then their child's first cry rang out, strong and lusty and miraculous.

"Oh, God--Zane!" Emilie turned her face toward him, tears sliding down her cheeks and mingling with his own.

He thought he had known what love was about. He thought he had learned the secret to it all, but when he saw that beautiful squalling infant placed in her mother's arms, he realized he'd known nothing at all.

Suddenly Emilie's back arched again and she cried out.

"'Tis the afterbirth," said Rebekah, still positioned between Emilie's legs. Rebekah placed her hand on Emilie's distended abdomen and an odd look passed across her features.

"What is it?" asked Zane, fear striking his heart. "Is something wrong?"

"Take the baby," she ordered in a clipped voice. "It seems Emilie's labors are not yet over."

Take the baby? He stared at the tiny, fragile infant in Emilie's arms. He couldn't take the baby. He didn't know the first thing about--

"Take the baby!" Rebekah's voice brooked no argument. Long ago he'd heard someone say you scooped up a baby the way you scooped up a football. Since no one was offering any new suggestions, that's what he did and to his relief, it worked. She was so little, so perfect, so--

"Push!" Rebekah barked, sounding like a 20th century drill sergeant.

"I can't," said Emilie, gripping the bedpost with white-knuckled hands.

"You must."

Emilie's back arched.

"Push...push...sweet Jesus!" Rebekah's tears were mixed with laughter. "You have a son."

"A son?" Zane stared down at the child in his arms. "I thought we had a daughter."

"Twins?" asked Emilie, sounding both exhausted and triumphant. "We have twins?!"

"'Tis a wonderful day," said Rebekah, wrapping the second newborn in a receiving blanket and handing him to his mother. "The Almighty has seen fit to bless you twice."

She turned, tears of joy running down her cheeks, and left the room to announce the exciting turn of events.

"We're a family," Emilie whispered, meeting his eyes. "A real, live family."

He looked at his wife and their children and knew that he would lay down his life to keep them safe from harm. Suddenly his future seemed very clear and he threw back his head and laughed with joy.

"I love you," he said, wishing the words didn't seem so inadequate when it came to describing the wondrous feelings that lived inside his heart. "I couldn't live without you."

"Poor Zane," she said, as he bent to kiss her lips. "This isn't the life you planned on, is it?"

"No," he said without hesitation. "I got lucky."

"No regrets?"

"Not a one."

It's about time you realized it.

Emilie's eyes widened. "Did you hear something?"

He grinned. "I was wondering when she'd come back."

"Who?"

"Sara Jane."

"Your grandmother?"

He nodded. "In a way she's responsible."

"I don't understand."

"You will," he said. "One day I'll explain the whole thing."

I'm proud of you, Zane. You've become a fine man--a true Rutledge.

"I heard her again," said Emilie, glancing around the room, "but I couldn't make out the words."

He smiled as a feeling of peace settled itself inside his heart. "I think she just said goodbye."

The door to the room swung open and in burst Rebekah and Josiah, Charity and her husband Timothy, Isaac and Stephen and Benjamin and even baby Aaron, who was beginning to walk.

The babies were proclaimed absolutely beautiful and as clever and brilliant as their besotted parents.

"But they don't have names yet," said Rebekah. "What are you going to call them?"

Zane met Emilie's eyes and she nodded.

"His name is Andrew," said Emilie, as their newborn son yawned.

Zane smiled as their daughter waved her tiny fist in the air. "Sara," he said. "We'll call her Sara Jane."

And so it began....

~~The End of Somewhere in Time~~

Tomorrow & Always

Book 2 – Crosse Harbor Time Travel Trilogy

by

Barbara Bretton

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 1993, 2012 by
Barbara Bretton. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day,

that my child may have peace.

--Tom Paine, 1776

Prologue

Late August, 1776

Andrew McVie sat on the slope behind the lighthouse and waited. He wasn't certain what it was he waited for, but the need in him was so great it could not be denied.

He had awakened near Milltown before dawn that morning, as sharp of eye and clear of head as if he had slept a full night and more. The innkeeper, a good woman named Annie Willis with two sons serving under General Washington, had offered him fresh coffee and bread still warm from the ovens but he found himself unwilling to spend the time.

"A body cannot subsist on patriotism alone." She wrapped a loaf of bread in a clean white cloth then handed it to him. "Think of Mistress Willis when you sup and pray her boys come home to her again."

Patriotism
. The very word that had filled his soul with fire not so many years ago held no meaning for him now. Indeed there were times when he felt as if he'd never known what it truly meant to sacrifice everything on the altar of revolution.

They called him a hero. They said he risked his life to go where others feared to tread because he understood that the need of the Colonies far outweighed his own pitiful need for comfort. But they were wrong. All of them. Since he lost Elspeth and David he had been moving through the days both blind and deaf to anything but the pain inside his heart. It was easy to risk everything when you had nothing of value left to lose.

But now even his effectiveness as a spy had been taken from him.

He shifted position on the rock and rested his head in hands. His journey to Long Island to warn General Washington of a plot against his life had resulted in naught save embarrassment. Not only was General Washington not there but the soldiers he'd spoken with had looked at Andrew as if he was daft.

"Surely you have spent too much time in the sun," one had laughed at Andrew's expense. "His Excellency is safely ensconced in Trenton now as we speak."

Later, he had sought solace in a tankard of ale but there was no solace to be found anywhere on God's green earth. The truth was plain as his face in the glass each morning. His time was past. He could see that now. The torch had been passed while he dreamed, passed to men who were younger and stronger than Andrew. Men who were willing to fight the battles Andrew no longer understood.