Page 61 of Borrowed Time

Startled, she stared back at him with widened eyes. “You can’t really mean that.”

“I do mean it,” he said, even as he hoped the firmness and sureness of his tone would be enough to convince her that he wasn’t just saying this in a bid to please her. “I’ve thought aboutit a lot, and I think you were right when you said there are a lot more complications involved when a person from the future travels into the past rather than vice versa. If you come to stay in 1926, then there’ll always be a chance that your knowledge of the future will somehow meddle with the timeline, even if you didn’t mean for it to. Whereas there’s nothing I can bring with me that can change the future, because everything I would know about has already happened.”

Devynn didn’t reply right away. However, she continued to hold his hand, which seemed to be an indication that she was carefully considering his words rather than rejecting them at once out of principle.

Then she said in a low tone, “Do you even know what you’d be giving up?”

He had to chuckle there, although he tried to keep any bitterness out of the sound. “My family. That part will be hard. But the rest?” He paused, then forged on. “There isn’t that much. I thought I had a career, but the whole bootlegging mess with Charles effectively ruined that. Everything I was building at the mine was gone anyway, and I was going to be back working the counter at the store. And even” — he had to stop again, because he found his voice going thick with emotion, and he didn’t want anything he was saying to dissuade Devynn from this necessary course of action — “and even not being around my family won’t be as hard as it could be otherwise. Going into the future, I’ll at least know what happened to them. If we go to my time, then you’ll never know anything about your family and friends.”

Her lips pressed together, and he got the impression she was holding back all the things she wanted to say, partly out of respect for him and the position he had taken…and partly because she understood deep down that she wasn’t about to change his mind.

“Besides,” he went on, deliberately lightening his tone, “I’ve always wanted to see the future. That’s why I loved reading books by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and why I borrowed those science fiction magazines from my cousin Freddie once he was done reading them. It might have seemed as if I was always focused on here and now, on the clan and my job and all that, but one part of me was always looking forward.”

For the longest moment, Devynn only stared at him. In her clear eyes, he could see a reflection of the slim trees around them, the unwavering blue of the sky.

“I love you, Seth McAllister,” she said simply.

“And I love you, Devynn Rowe,” he replied. “And I’ll be with you in the twenty-first century or 1926 or in a castle in the Middle Ages. That we’re together is the important thing.”

Their mouths met again, this time with an almost dizzying intensity.

Or maybe it was merely the realization that no one else in the world could ever be like her, and that he should be down on his knees thanking the goddess Brigid or whatever forces might be at work in the world that somehow, against all odds, she’d come into his life.

It didn’t matter how long that kiss lasted, since they were utterly alone here, finally given the privacy they’d been craving for the past week. Even when it was over, they clung to each other for another eternity, this time with her head pillowed on his shoulder, as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to break their contact.

Which was fine. He would be here for her just as long as she needed.

When she finally shifted, though, moving so she could look into his face again, her eyes had that dancing light in them again.

“I’m pretty sure the plumbing in castles is even worse than what we’ve got here.”

He had no doubt of that, since he was pretty sure castles hadn’t had any plumbing at all. “Which is why I’m looking forward to your century. Self-driving cars and central air conditioning…”

“…and tankless water heaters and jets that can fly us to Europe,” she finished.

Seth had no idea what a jet was, although he assumed it must be some kind of airplane. “We don’t need a jet,” he reminded her, and she smiled.

“Right.” She paused there and tilted a curious look up at him. “Do you know how far you can travel with your ability?”

Good question. Although he’d been tempted once or twice to look at a picture in a book of Venice or Buckingham Palace and try translocating there, he’d always worried about what would happen if he couldn’t manage to blink himself back home.

Or worse, have his talent come up short and drop him in the middle of the Atlantic ocean to drown.

“The farthest I’ve gone is a couple hundred miles, down to the Phoenix area,” he said. “I haven’t tried anything much more than that. Even if I were able to send us all the way to Europe, wouldn’t there be a problem going into a strange clan’s territory?”

Her expression grew subdued, and he realized she hadn’t stopped to think about that part of the situation. “Maybe,” she allowed. “I got so carried away, I kind of forgot that maybe the French or Italian or whatever other witch clans out there might have an issue with us suddenly popping up in their territory. But still, there are a million other things that make living in the twenty-first century a lot easier than you could possibly imagine.”

“And no Prohibition,” he joked. True, he didn’t have to worry about that here, either, but there were a lot of other reasons why he’d prefer to limit his time in the 1880s.

“None at all,” Devynn said, clearly opting to take his words at face value. “In fact, there are wineries all over the Verde Valley, and they make some really good wine — it wins tons of awards at national and even international competitions. You’d need more than a week to visit them all.”

The picture she was painting was so appealing, it felt as though he could practically see it in his mind’s eye. Was it too rosy?

Well, he supposed he’d find out for himself once he got there.

“I’d like to visit them with you,” he said. “I want to see what my corner of the world is like in your century.”

Her fingers tightened on his. “I think you’ll recognize a lot of it. People have worked hard to preserve the historic charm in places like Jerome and Clarkdale and downtown Cottonwood. But it’s much more populated, with lots of new housing tracts and shopping centers.”

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