Page 54 of Always on My Mind

Tessa stepped aside and allowed Jamie over the threshold into the flat.

“Did you see Niamh on your way in?” she asked. “She asked after you.”

“I must have missed her,” Jamie said. “I’ll text her later. There’s something serious I need to speak with you about.”

“Serious, is it? Let me put the kettle on.”

Tessa wondered what Jamie thought was urgent enough that she came to Tessa’s flat before the club seemed to know that she was alright. She let the water boil and retrieved two cups, placing small bags in them. She picked a blend without caffeine, for Jamie’s sake. She wasn’t sure, but it seemed like a good precaution to take for someone with a concussion.

When the tea was ready, she brought it out to the small dining table where Jamie sat waiting. Jamie didn’t take the cup right away. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a tattered hardback book. She slid it across the table, and Tessa sucked in a sharp gasp. It was the Emily Dickinson book. The one she had given to her in their last lifetime.

“Does this mean anything to you?” Jamie asked.

Tessa held her breath as she glanced between the book and Jamie’s face. “Where did you get this?”

“So it does?” Jamie pressed. “Mean something to you?”

Tessa gingerly picked up the book, and it instantly warmed between her palms. Memories flashed through her mind like a film reel of when she was Rosie and Jamie was Dinah. Sneaking kisses between shifts on their ward. Falling asleep leaning against each other after a long surgery. Letting their hands brush as they passed each other in the corridors.

“Yes,” Tessa said, voice thick with emotion. “It means something to me.”

Jamie swallowed. “It means something to me too.”

Tessa’s heart slammed into her chest. Could it be that Jamie remembered? Was getting kicked in the head the key to unlocking their soulmate connection? It hadn’t taken that for Billie and Ethan or Jordan and Laci, but maybe with their extra lives, it required more. Tessa didn’t know. All she knew was that there was hope.

“Something happened when I went down yesterday,” Jamie continued. “I saw things. Things I think I always knew, but they were buried in my soul.”

Tessa cleared her throat. “Such as?”

“I saw us together, only in the past. Not three years ago, I mean, centuries ago. We looked the same only in different clothes and we had different jobs. No matter what, we kept finding each other.”

It was happening. Finally, it was happening. Jamie was getting there. But Tessa needed more. She needed absolute certainty that Jamie remembered what she remembered.

“Tell me everything,” Tessa said. “With as much detail as you can remember.”

Jamie launched into the stories, explaining that the first one, where they jumped ship together, she had already seen once in a dream. Then she told Kitty’s story from the American Revolution and her turmoil in choosing between love and family. And finally, she told Dinah’s story, and her desire for peace, not struggle, once the Great War was finished. Verity, Aisling, and Rosie, all surviving in Tessa’s soul, ached.

They ached for the women with no choices. They ached for the lost love. They ached for a time where a love like theirs could be celebrated. Could it be now? Had the world changed enough? Hadtheychanged enough?

Tessa blinked, and a tear rolled down her cheek. She was finally not alone. Jamie remembered. At last, they were together, at least in this.

“I never thought I believed in soulmates,” Jamie said. “But there was always something. Even before we broke up, I remember feeling like you were familiar every time I kissed you. It was like coming home.”

“It was the same for me,” Tessa said. “And then I saw my friends find their soulmates, and I had to know for sure. I went to see a psychic, and I saw everything. It was—”

“Hold on,” Jamie stopped her. “You what?”

“Well, she’s not really a psychic, she’s a past life regressionist—”

“No, Tessa, it’s not that. Are you telling me that you’ve known about this connection between us since before we saw each other again?”

Jamie’s brows were drawn together over her eyes and her mouth was turned down into a scowl. Tessa blinked.

“Are you angry?” she asked.

“Yeah, a little!” Jamie cried. “Here I was thinking I was bringing this revelation to you, only to discover you knew the whole time!”

“But I—”

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