Page 8 of Borrowed Time

“You’re a Wilcox?” he demanded. “So, the part about your father’s name being Rowe was a lie, too?”

I couldn’t help wincing a little at the “too” in that sentence.

Then again, I kind of deserved it.

“No, that part was the truth,” I said. “My father is Robert Rowe. His mother was part of the Winfield clan in Massachusetts, and his father was a civilian — a nonmagical person,” I added hastily, since I still didn’t know for sure whether the witch clans of Seth’s time used that epithet. “But my mother was Danica Wilcox.”

For several long, excruciating moments, Seth didn’t reply, only continued to sit in his chair and stare at me. His expression was now almost blank, as though he wasn’t quite sure what to do with the information he’d just been given.

Then, to my surprise, one corner of his mouth lifted just a little. It wasn’t exactly a smile, but it was a much friendlier response than I’d been expecting.

However, I doubted I could let myself relax yet. We still had a whole lot of air to clear.

“Well, I suppose I can see why you might not have wanted to tell me that part,” he said.

I allowed myself a tiny smile in reply, although it felt tentative, as though I knew we weren’t quite out of the woods yet.

“I’m sorry about the lies,” I murmured, and plucked at the quilt with nervous fingers, not sure whether I should look at him directly. “But I didn’t know what else to do, not when our two clans were still such enemies in your time.”

Something that might have been surprise flitted across his features, which I took as my cue to continue.

“Things are very different in my time,” I said. “In my world, the Wilcoxes and McAllisters are pretty closely connected, and definitely friendly. That’s why I was in Jerome in the first place — I was working at McAllister Mercantile.”

He blinked. “It’s still there?”

“Definitely,” I replied. “The town’s doing great.” I paused there, figuring it probably wasn’t the time to launch into a history lesson about what Jerome went through during the middle part of the twentieth century before it finally started to bounce back in the ’60s and ’70s. “Anyway, my mother’s gift is working with time — she can give herself an extra five minutes whenever she needs it.”

“That would come in handy,” he said, and now his expression seemed almost brooding.

Was he thinking of what he might have done if he’d had an extra five minutes back at the mine? He could have bundled me into the truck and driven away, and that horrible encounter with Lionel Allenby would never have happened at all.

Too bad I couldn’t make my own talent work for me like that.

“Yes, she’s used it quite a bit,” I responded, figuring I should try to keep things neutral for now. “Anyway, she started to wonder if she could use it for more than getting those extra five minutes, and with some training from a Navajo man, a kind of shaman, she actually learned how to travel back in time.”

Seth nodded. “So she came back to Flagstaff in 1884 to prevent your father from dying at the Wilcox cabin.”

Clearly, I wouldn’t have to go into the nuts and bolts of the whole process. I’d always known Seth was smart, but it was moments like this when I saw again how quickly his mind worked.

“Exactly,” I said. “She pretended to be a woman named Eliza Prewitt, who was supposed to be the new schoolteacher but who never showed up. Obviously, Jeremiah Wilcox figured out right away that my mother was a witch, and that’s when she told him she was a member of the Landon clan and had run away to escape marriage to a cousin she disliked.”

“I suppose that story would have made sense back in Victorian times.”

Did his comment mean arranged marriages were no longer a thing in the 1920s? Maybe.

Well, except when it came toprimaschoosing their consorts, I supposed…a fate Seth had narrowly escaped.

“Long story short,” I continued, “my parents met in 1884 and fell in love. Things got complicated because my father was here on a mission from the Winfields to try to goad the Wilcox clan into using their magic openly. It got really ugly when my father bought a piece of land Samuel Wilcox had been negotiating for, though.”

Once again, Seth inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Jeremiah made some kind of off-hand comment about his brothers. I get the feeling there wasn’t much love lost there.”

“No,” I said. “Samuel kidnapped my mother and took her to the cabin, knowing my father would come to her rescue. Which he did, and that’s when Samuel shot him.”

“But I thought — ” Seth began, then stopped, obviously unsure what to make of all this.

A little shiver went down my back as I thought of how close it had been. If it weren’t for Jeremiah Wilcox, neither I nor my brother or sister would even exist.

“That’s where my father died originally,” I said, making myself say the words without hesitation. “That’s why my mother saw his ghost at the cabin — Samuel ambushed him and shot him in the heart. But this time, she was there, and she and Jeremiah somehow combined their magic to send her and my father into the future, back to her home. They got married about six months later…and the rest is history, I suppose.”

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