The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (24 page)

Cami reached in the pocket of her jeans for the coin, but instead drew out the white gaming chip.

Her vision wavered. Oh no, not now! What about Seth? Everything in the room spun and then went dark.

Flashing lights slowly came into focus. Cami once again stood in Caesars casino in front of the modern roulette table. A pang of disappointment shot through her elation. She was home.

The man in the white shirt and black vest stood inches from her, his gaze making her body tingle. He had Seth’s gorgeous eyes, but they now seemed a lighter green. Cami also noticed his hair was shorter and his face leaner, less angular than Seth’s.

“Your wildest dreams will come true.” He smiled, no dimples forming. “It’s written on the chip, so it must be true.”

Cami scanned the casino. All seemed normal. No time appeared to have passed in this place. Cami held up the white chip. “You knew this chip wasn’t mine. Why
me
?”

He shifted on his feet. “I saw you standing there, beautiful, yet lost. I wanted to meet you. I guess you could say the men in my family have a thing for redheads.”

There was vulnerability in his tone that touched a place inside her.

He held out his hand. “I’m Shaun Warner.”

Warner? Hope swelled her heart. Because of Seth, for the first time in a long time, she felt there were possibilities to be explored.

Cami took his hand in hers. “Cami Desmond.”

When their hands touched, she had a brief flash of déjà vu, but it passed. This time was for her.

“My wildest dreams have already come true.”

Michelle Maddox

I saw the little boy standing on the corner crying his eyes out. Lugging my heavy portfolio, I went directly to him.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as I crouched down in front of him.

“My mommy’s gone,” he sobbed.

“I’ll help you find her.”

“You will?”

I nodded. “I promise.”

He looked at me warily through damp, but clear, blue eyes the exact same colour of the sky today. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Sophie Shaw. What’s your name?”

“I’m Adam.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Adam.”

He sniffed and looked at my portfolio. “What’s that?”

“This is where I keep my art.”

“Your art?”

I unzipped the top and reached in to grab a small self-portrait I’d done on a scrap piece of paper that morning while looking in the mirror. Practice makes perfect after all. I had a hard time with eyes, getting that spark of life to come into them, but in the simple five-minute pencil sketch I felt like I’d done a decent enough job.

“See?” I said. “That’s supposed to be me.”

He took the sketch from me and looked at it with wide eyes and smiled. “Cool.”

With a review like that, I really wished the kid was an art buyer. Since he didn’t look more than seven years old, I could only hope he’d grow up to be one. A rich one.

“I’m trying to be an artist,” I told him. The more I spoke, the more his mood seemed to brighten. “I have a show next week at a gallery right around the corner from here. My first one. Now, enough about me. Where do you live?”

He looked around. “I don’t know.”

I stood up and offered him my hand. “Let’s go find your mom.”

“Really?” He seemed surprised by this and hope filled his blue eyes.

I nodded. “Really.”

“That will be difficult since his mother is dead,” a deep voice said. I turned to see a man standing next to us. If I were to draw his eyes, there wouldn’t be a whole lot of friendliness there.

My stomach sank. “Oh, I . . . I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I thought he was just lost.”

“He’s my nephew and he lives with me now.” Something that vaguely resembled a smile crept over the man’s face. He reached out his hand. “Come, Adam.”

But Adam didn’t let go of my hand, instead he held it tighter. My heart broke for the little boy, crying on the sidewalk because his mommy was gone. And she wasn’t coming back no matter how hard we would have searched for her.

Since I’d lost my mother when I was about his age, I could definitely sympathize.

“Be brave for me, Adam. Can you do that?” I touched his face, wiping a tear away with my thumb before brushing the jet-black hair back from his forehead. “You’re going to be OK, I know it.”

“I’ll be brave.” Adam inhaled, and it sounded shaky. He still clutched my sketch in his left hand. “Th-thanks, Sophie.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You’re nice.”

I smiled at him. “Your uncle will look after you now.”

He shook his head as he finally let go of my hand. “He’s not really my uncle.”

I frowned. “But I thought he said—”

“You should mind your own business. It’ll get you in trouble one day.” The man pulled Adam away from me, his large hand clamped on the boy’s small shoulder.

I looked over my shoulder to see if there was someone around to help. A police officer would come in real handy right about now. “If you’re not his uncle, then who—”

When I turned back, they were both gone.

Feeling confused and shaken I walked up and down the street for ten minutes but there was no sign of them.

It was as though they’d vanished into thin air.

The bus nearly killed me.

My heart rate went a million miles a minute as I stood shaking on the sidewalk. Somebody had yanked me back just in time and saved me from my monstrous stupidity. I’d been glancing down at my BlackBerry to check an email that had just come in and wandered on to the crosswalk before the light changed.

I was also still distracted about what happened last week with the little boy. I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him, seeing his sorrow-filled little face whenever I closed my eyes, and worried about where he’d gone and if he was OK. I’d lost a lot of sleep that week over Adam.

However, just because that man wasn’t really his uncle by blood, it didn’t mean he wasn’t an official caregiver. Adam would be OK. I hoped like hell I was right about that.

Looked like I really should have been more worried about myself, though. One wrong step – one moment frozen in time – put me inches away from becoming a splattered piece of modern art on the pavement.

“You didn’t even see the person who saved your life?” my best friend Anna asked that night at the gallery.

“Nope. There were a bunch of people there witnessing me wandering aimlessly about in traffic like an escaped mental patient, but my guardian angel never revealed him- or herself.”

“You almost died.”

“Yeah.” It was still a stomach-churning thought.

“Dead on arrival. Like, you wouldn’t have even had a chance.”

“Thanks for rubbing it in. Really helpful. And by the way it was an email from
you
I was reading at the time, smarty-pants.”

“Don’t even try to pin the blame on me, Sophie.” Anna grinned, obviously not taking my brush with death even remotely seriously.

It was so great to have friends who cared.

She snagged two glasses of sparkling wine off a passing tray and handed one to me. “To your first official show. May Sophie Shaw and her fabulous talent with oils become the next big thing.”

I clinked glasses with her. “I’ll drink to that.”

“You know what’s funny?”

“Please tell. I could use a laugh.”

“If you’d died today, every painting here probably would have gone way up in value.”

I drained my glass in one big gulp. “The sad thing is you’re probably right. Only I wouldn’t have been here to enjoy spending money frivolously for the first time in my life.”

She grabbed me another full glass. “Then I think we should toast to a long life, to huge success, big bucks and to the guardian angel who kept you from dying before you’ve had the chance to really live.”

I looked at her. “Is that a crack at how boring my life is?”

She gave me innocent eyes. “I have no idea what you mean. Me, making a crack about your wildly exciting and romance-filled life?”

“I’m focused on my career right now. I’ll find a man when the time is right.”

“Sure you will.” She nodded as if to humour me. “OK, so let’s drink to the life of an eccentric twenty-something artist who hasn’t dated anybody in as long as I’ve ever known her. One who creates gorgeous paintings of romance and love and desperate, aching need even though she chooses not to partake in such unsavoury endeavours herself. Until the time is right, of course.”

“‘Eccentric’,” I repeated. “Sounds way better than pathetic, doesn’t it? I’ll definitely drink to being eccentric.”

“You would.” Anna rolled her eyes and laughed. “Cheers, Sophie.”

Anna left the gallery early, but I stayed till the bitter end. Three paintings sold, although they were some of the cheaper ones. Still, a minor victory and one that would pay the majority of my rent for the next three months.

I’d had too much wine and tottered unsteadily on my heels as I made my way to the street to hail a cab. That was when somebody grabbed me from behind.

A scream tore from my throat but was muffled by a foul-smelling cloth clamped down over my mouth. My attacker held me there prone until my head went cloudy from whatever chemical was on the cloth and I fell head first into darkness.

“Wake up.”

It was a command not a request. And when I ignored it since I was only semi-conscious, I felt the stinging pain as a slap resounded across my face. My eyes shot open and I gasped for breath.

I found myself seated in a hard chair and my hands bound behind me. The room was dark but there was a light shining in my face – a flashlight, I thought.

“What’s going on?” My mouth felt dry and the words rasped out.

“That’s a very good question,” a man said. I couldn’t see him clearly apart from a shadowy outline. “And something we’re trying to figure out as well.”

I pulled against my restraints but the rope bit into my wrists. “Who are you?”

“We’re the ones asking the questions.”

Panic gripped my chest. I’d been kidnapped. It was the sort of thing that happened all the time, but I never thought it would happen to me. Which was probably why I’d felt confident leaving the gallery after midnight by myself – something I’d done dozens of times before.

“Sophie Shaw,” he said. “Born December 17, 1983. Raised in Albany and moved to Manhattan to attend the New York Academy of Art. Never married, no dependants. Both parents deceased. Is that right?”

My mouth moved but no sound came out. How did they know me? What did they want?

He smacked me again and my head rang from the pain.

“Is that right?” he asked again.

“Y-yes, that’s right.”

“Dammit, Harris,” another voice said sharply. “There’s no fucking need to abuse her, is there?”

“Just let me do my job.” I heard paper shifting together. “Date of death is listed as September 15, 2009.”

I stopped breathing for a moment. That was today’s date.

“What?” I managed. “Please, I don’t know what you’re looking for, I just want to go home.”

“That’s not possible, I’m afraid,” he said. “Tell me about the bus, Sophie.”

“Th- The bus?”

“The one that was supposed to end your life today.”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“What happened?”

“I almost got hit but I didn’t. It was close.”

“Yes, so I’m gathering. Not close enough, unfortunately.” He sighed and it sounded annoyed. “You are causing me a great deal of paperwork, do you know that?”

I felt utterly confused and totally afraid. “What do you want from me?”

“Answers only. According to my papers you’re supposed to be dead. That bus, the one you avoided by the skin of your teeth? It was supposed to kill you. You were fated to die today. So what I want to know is why you’re not lying in a morgue right now.”

How could he say something so horrible with such a cool, detached tone? “Fated?”

“Yes.”

“I . . . I don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t suppose you do. I’ll let my associate explain the rest to you since he seems to have a problem with my bedside manner right now. He’s more than welcome to take over.”

Another man shifted partially into focus behind the light, but he was mostly a shadowy outline. I could see broad shoulders and the edge of a strong, stubbled jawline as he turned to look at the other man. A glint of light brushed against his cheekbones and brow.

“It’s law that we explain it to you first,” he said. His voice was much more pleasant than the first man – less detached and cold. Unfortunately, a nice voice didn’t change my situation one little bit or lessen my fear.

“Explain what?”

“The Books of Fate. They’re . . . transcribed daily by seers. The names of people who die as well as those who are born. And they are rarely wrong –”