Page 58 of Borrowed Time

“It’s because I messed up,” I said. A glance past his shoulder had told me the curtains were pulled tight, but with dusk now well upon us, the room was very dark. We probably should have gone to light one of the lamps, and yet I was content to stay here like this for just a few more minutes, to reassure myself of how real and how strong he was, and how I couldn’t begin to imagine going through all this without him at my side.

At once, he pressed a kiss against the top of my head. “You did not mess up. Remember, only a few days ago, you would have been thrilled to be off by that much when you were traveling through time.”

As much as I didn’t want to admit it to myself, I knew he had a point there. I’d been afraid of my gift for so long that I’d been conjuring worst-case scenarios for years. Being so successful during my first try with the amulet had made me think that maybe I was now bulletproof and that I had nothing left to worry about.

Today’s experiment had definitely proved me wrong. Still, even while it might not have been optimal, I’d managed to stay close to my target and only be an hour off. It wasn’t as though I was calculating a trajectory to land a Mars rover or something; in the grand scheme of things, a single hour really wasn’t that big a deal.

“True,” I allowed, then pulled away the slightest bit so I could look up at him. Even as dim as the room was, I could still see enough detail of Seth’s features to know his was the only face I would ever love like this. We were safe and quiet here, almost cocooned, and it was hard to believe that an entirely different world lay outside the windows.

But it did…and my body was telling me that it needed some nourishment after that eight-hour time jump, especially since I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast.

“We’ll count this as a partial win,” I said, and went on my toes so I could kiss him on the cheek. “But for now, let’s get some dinner. “

Neither of us wanted to go too far afield for our evening meal, so we once again ate in the hotel restaurant, lingering over our food because we knew we’d need to go to our separate rooms afterward so as not to invite any suspicion. So far, we’d been lucky and no one seemed to have paid too much attention to our comings and goings, but all it would take was one nosy patron to notice that Miss Prewitt appeared to be spending an inappropriate amount of time in her “brother’s” room late in the evening, and then we’d have to face questions we really didn’t want to answer.

And I had to admit I was a little glad of the solitude, glad I could finally take off my heavy dress and confining corset, and climb into the flannel nightgown I’d found among my mother’s belongings. Once upon a time, I wouldn’t have been caught dead in such a thing, but I had to admit that it helped me stay warm at night. The potbellied stove in my room managed to keep things from being utterly freezing, and yet it still wasn’t anything close to having central heat.

Just another reason why I really wanted to get the hell out of here. I didn’t know whether houses in 1926 had real heat, either, but if we returned anytime close to when we’d left, then we wouldn’t have to worry about cold November nights for months.

As tired as I was, I couldn’t seem to get comfortable, and rolled onto one side and then the other, trying to find a position that would allow me to go to sleep. One part of the problem might have been the amulet hanging from my neck; just as I’d promised Jeremiah, I’d placed it there as I got ready for bed, figuring that was probably the safest spot for it to be. I never slept in my jewelry — well, except for a couple of notable times in college when I’d gotten wasted at a friend’s party and face-planted fully clothed in bed once I got back to my house — and having the heavy bronze pendant lying against my neck felt strange, alien.

Eventually, though, I drifted off, but even then, my sleep was anything except peaceful. My dreams didn’t seem to have any real plot to them as they often did, and instead seemed to be bits and pieces of scenes that didn’t make any sense — a sleek black car that looked like something out of an old black and white movie, a tall dark-haired man with his back to me.

A dim room filled with people wearing black robes that covered their faces, the only illumination a couple of flickering candles.

After that last one, I woke up all the way, staring into the darkness, glad of the dancing flames in the potbellied stove across the room. For one moment, my brain thought it might have found some sort of common thread in all those disparate images, but just as quickly, that sensation of coherence vanished, and I was left with nothing at all, only vague memories that faded even as I tried to grasp hold of them.

Well, they were just dreams. They didn’t have to make sense.

At least, that was what I tried to tell myself as I rolled over in bed.

Thankfully, sleep came quickly that time.

15

LOCKETT MEADOW

Seth could immediately tellsomething was wrong with Devynn when he knocked at her room the next morning to fetch her for breakfast — while she would never look less than lovely to him, he also couldn’t ignore the shadows under her eyes, the way her fine skin didn’t seem to have as much color as it normally did.

“Is everything all right?” he asked her, and she only hitched her shoulders.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just tired, I guess. I didn’t sleep very well.”

Had she still been giving herself grief over the slippage in her last time-travel experiment? At dinner the night before, it had seemed to him that she’d put the incident aside, but now he couldn’t help wondering if she’d lain awake until all hours, unable to let go of what she clearly saw as a failure on her part.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t press her for details, as an elderly couple left their room right then, followed by a bellhop carrying their bags.

“Then breakfast should be just the thing,” he said, pitching his voice a little louder so their audience would know they’d been discussing something completely innocuous.

“I could definitely use some tea,” Devynn replied. “And some bacon and eggs.”

He was a little cheered by the way she brightened when she spoke of what she would like to eat, and he could tell after she’d eaten breakfast and drunk a cup of coffee that she seemed to be doing much better.

“Let’s go for a walk,” she suggested after he’d handed their waiter several coins for their meal and they’d gotten up from the table. “It’s such a pretty day outside.”

That it was. The clouds from the day before were gone, and everywhere was only bright blue sky. True, the clarity of the weather revealed that the San Francisco Peaks had received a new dusting of snow overnight, but Seth wouldn’t allow himself to worry about that. It hadn’t snowed down here in town, and that was the important thing.

They headed out of the hotel. Because the sun was so fierce, he didn’t bother to button his overcoat, and it seemed Devynn was just fine with her shawl, even though he guessed the actual temperature was only in the upper forties at best.

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