Page 21 of Timeless

“Blackberry.”

“Oh, I love blackberry pie,” he said.

“Who loves blackberry pie?” Delilah asked when she walked back into the kitchen, holding on to her belly.

“Uh…” Harriet hesitated. “I brought this over for… Um…”

“Dessert,” Deb finished for her with the obvious answer. “Harriet’s mama makes the best blackberry pie in town, and I know how much John David and Jacob both love it, so I asked Harriet if she wouldn’t mind bringing it over.”

“Yes. And it’s fresh out of the oven,” Harriet added and moved to Deb to hand her the pie.

“I can’t wait,” Jacob said.

“You love blackberry pie?” Delilah asked her husband. “I didn’t know that. I always make you cherry or apple.”

“I love cherry and apple, too,” he said, trying to cover for them all.

This wasn’t the first close call. It wasn’t even the first close call with Delilah specifically. Their first close call, if Deb wasn’t counting the shed the day after her wedding over two years ago, was when Jacob had been seen slipping out of John David’s bedroom one morning shortly after her mother-in-law had stopped by unexpectedly. They’d explained that away fairly easily because Jacob had begun working on the farm. The next close call had been when Harriet’s father had found the two of them walking near the river. He’d been out hunting when he was supposed to be working. Luckily, Deb had seen him before he saw them, so she’d dropped Harriet’s hand just in time. They’d told him that they’d been looking to pick some wild berries, and he hadn’t cared enough to question where that berry patch might be.

Overall, over the past two years, there had been more close calls than she could count. That should’ve scared her, and in a way, it did, but every time they’d been almost caught, they’d just learned about how not to get caught that way again. John David had moved into a small bedroom off the kitchen. It was the smallest room in the house by far, but it meant that Jacob could come and go more easily. Harrietalways checked on where her father might be before she left the house to find Deb, and they would walk a little farther into the woods before starting any kind of touching, always bringing baskets with them to pretend to pick berries.

Deb’s own room was on the second floor, which made it a little more complicated for Harriet to come and go than it was for Jacob, but they’d figured out a system. With the window in the bedroom facing the front of the house, they could look out before Harriet tried to leave to make sure no one was out there. There was also a ladder at the window in another bedroom. It was off to the side of that window, and Harriet could make it down the hall, into that room, move the ladder over, and take it down if they were in a pinch. They’d also discussed places where she could hide if it were a real emergency. Under the bed was an option, but there was also the small closet and one of the other bedrooms in the large farmhouse. Deb hated that they had to have these plans, and they spent far too much of their limited time together adding new plans to their existing ones, but it was all in service of them remaining together and undiscovered.

“Well, I should get going, then,” Harriet spoke.

“Thank you for bringing this by,” Delilah said dismissively.

That only made Deb want to tell her thatshewasn’t the welcome one in this house;Harrietwas. But she didn’t say anything.

“Of course,” Harriet replied as she looked at Deb, silently asking her what to do.

Deb gave her a small nod, hoping she understood, and Harriet nodded back.

“Be quiet,” Deb whispered to her as Harriet moved past her. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Harriet,” she added loudly for Delilah to hear.

“Yes, tomorrow. For that… lunch.”

“What lunch?” Delilah asked.

Deb closed her eyes and shook her head.

“Just a lunch that Harriet and I are having,” she replied. “So, I’ll see you later for that,” she added to Harriet.

“Well, I’d love to get out of the house tomorrow. If you can have a third at that lunch, I’d love to join. I can bring something.”

Harriet opened the door, and Deb wished she’d never brought up the idea of having lunch.

“We’re talking about something personal for Harriet tomorrow, but maybe another time,” Deb lied.

“Oh. All right,” Delilah said.

“Who wants blackberry pie?” Jacob asked loudly.

Harriet left without another word, and minutes later, Deb hoped that Delilah didn’t hear the sounds of someone climbing up a ladder and into the house. She still coughed a few times, though, for good measure, pretending that she’d choked a bit on the pie.

???

“I thought she’d never leave,” Harriet said when Deb walked into the bedroom nearly an hour later.

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