Chapter Thirteen
The gas station’s lights were off, and the doors were locked. I huddled under the eave, having hoped the building would cut the wind and keep me warm, but it didn’t. I was shivering when James found me squatting with my sweater pulled over my legs and my head tucked to my knees.
“Abby?” I didn’t move. James wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pulled me in to his chest. “What happened to you?”
His worried voice melted over me, and all the fear I’d been holding washed away. I fell against him, and for a moment, everything was right.
“Let’s get you warm. Come on.”
He helped me stand, and sucked in a breath when he took in my appearance. My sweater was dirty with mud and grime, and my bare legs were scraped and bloody. He turned my reddened palms up, then pushed at my sleeves. Under the fabric, my skin was angry and raw. Dried blood was crusted around the cuts made by the plastic bindings, and there was dirt caked thick under my fingernails. His face crumbled with sorrow before hardening with anger.
“Who did this to you?” He searched left and right, as if the culprits were still lingering.
“They’re gone.” I licked my lips—they were rough and dry—and shook my head. “And I’m okay.” I tried to soothe him, but the tremble in my voice made that impossible.
“I don’t believe you.”
To cover my trembling chin, I pinched my lips against my fist and didn’t pull away until I had control. “I know what I must look like.” I stared at my knees and pulled the hem of my sweater as low as it would stretch. “But I promise, it isn’t what you’re thinking.”
“You need to explain this to me now.”
I didn’t respond. Instead, I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at the dirt ground into my sleeves. “I will, but can we go?” My lips trembled. “I need to go.”
James took off his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders before he pulled me in to his arms. “Can you walk?”
I nodded, and he turned us toward his truck. I slid into the passenger seat and let him buckle my seatbelt, knowing my hands would be shaking too hard to do it myself. When James started the ignition, I let out a breath. I was safe.
Forty-five minutes later, I was seated at James’s kitchen table while he dug through a cabinet, looking for anything resembling first-aid equipment. “I swear I had some alcohol,” he said more to himself than to me.
“I told you, I’m fine.” I walked to the kitchen sink and turned on the water. Pulling up my sleeves, I stuck my hands under the stream and sucked in a breath when the water washed over my wrists.
James grabbed a bar of soap and held it in my direction. “It’s the only thing I have.”
I took the soap but avoided his eyes; I wasn’t ready to answer the questions I knew I’d see. As I washed, the soap lather turned a murky brown as blood and dirt was pulled from my skin. I pretended concentration, but James wasn’t buying it.
“What happened tonight?” he asked.
I swallowed and rinsed my hands under the water. “Roselli. He wants the necklace, and I’ve got two days to find it.”
James scoffed. “That’s impossible. Why would he think you could find it?”
I dried my hands on a towel and met his gaze. “He knows about my drift. He knows I can travel back in time.”
James’s face went blank before frowning with confusion. “How? How did he find out?”
I ran a finger over the marks on my left wrist and flinched at the sting. “I have an idea.”
James rubbed at the scruff on his cheek. “We need to tell McCormack.” He moved to pull his phone from his pocket.
“No,” I said.
James answered with a wrinkle of his forehead. “Abby, he should know. As much as I don’t like him, it’s his job.”
I hugged my arms to my chest. “I don’t trust him right now. He’s withheld so much from me, and then—” Needing to move, I walked into the living room. James was a step behind me. “Roselli mentioned that someone in the FBI led him to me.” I paused to stare out the window overlooking the backyard.
“Did he say who?”
“Not exactly.” The sun was beginning to rise, casting a dull blue light across the sky. Turning from the window, I faced James. “But he told me he and Mack were friends.” James didn’t respond. “They know each other, and from how Roselli spoke—just the tone in his voice—I’d say they know each other well.”
“What did he say? Exactly.”
“I told you, it wasn’t what he said, but how he said it.” I shook my head and looked at the ceiling. “But that’s not all.” I swallowed and blood rushed in my veins with renewed force. “Mack—” I didn’t know how to tell him.
James’s eyes darkened to an impossible onyx, and when he spoke, his voice was slow and held an observation rather than a question. “He’s a part of this, isn’t he?”
I nodded. “Yes.” The tears came hard and fast. I wasn’t able to control the flood of emotion, the hurt, the betrayal, the fear. It was all too much.
“Hey.” He pulled me to his chest and stroked the length of my hair, his fingers catching in the tangles. “Don’t cry. I promised I would figure this out, and I meant it.”
“This is all so messed up. How am I supposed to find something lost a hundred years ago when I don’t even know where to look?”
“You’re not.” I pulled away and looked at James in question. “Not this instant, anyway. You need to sleep.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to,” I said as I moved toward the sofa.
Just as I was about to sit, James redirected me to the first bedroom in the hall. It was sparsely furnished. His full-size bed was made up simply with a blue patchwork quilt, and stacked in a neat pile next to the bed were several sketch pads and a jar of charcoal pencils.
“I’ll take the couch,” James said as he straightened the sheets and pulled down the quilt.
I ran my fingers over the bedding and looked back to James.
“You’ll be okay in here?” he asked, and when I nodded he continued. “There’s a bathroom through there.” He pointed to an adjoining door. “And towels are in the cabinet.”
We stared at each other for another few seconds before he left the room with a parting nod. For a moment, I stared at the door and debated the shower, but one look at my scraped knees and filthy clothes and I turned toward the bathroom.
My skin burned under the heat, but it was a good kind of burn. The kind that scoured my skin and left me red and tingling. I wrapped a thin towel around my body as I made my way into the bedroom.
I pulled the string hanging from the closet ceiling and turned on the light. James’s clothes, like his furnishings, were sparse. He had exactly three pair of blue jeans, five hanging shirts, two sweaters, a sweatshirt, and one pair of sweatpants. It looked like he hardly lived here at all.
Grabbing his sweatshirt he single shelf, I slipped it over my head. His smell surrounded me before winding its way through me. It was a familiar smell that evoked so many different emotions. There was the immediate thrill of feeling so close to him, followed by an overwhelming contentment that put me at ease.
An ache that began in my center seared its way up to my heart and filled me with an incredible sense of loss. It was as if a forgotten wound, spread apart by an event too distant to remember, opened in my chest. I shrank away from it and clenched the fabric of the sweatshirt between my fingers. Bringing it back to my nose, I inhaled, and memories of late summer nights and days by the beach encircled me. Warm ocean air tugged at my hair, and dense, muddy sand pulled at my feet.
I sat because I could no longer stand, and I closed my eyes. When I did, I tasted salt in the wind before my drift pulled at my consciousness. Pressing my back against the wall, I let myself go. Not because I wanted to, but because I knew I had to.
Lounging back on his hands, James stared at the rolling ocean as the water kissed his toes with every breaking wave. He had been sitting still for so long I’d have thought he’d forgotten about me.
“Do you want to tell me what you’re thinking about?” I asked him as I wrapped my arms around my knees and dropped my cheek against them. James took a breath before turning toward me.
“I’m just glad I found you.”
The expression in his dark eyes made me uncomfortable in a way that caused me to smile and roll my eyes. “That is not what you’ve been chewing over these last two hours.” He had the decency to look wounded. “But I’ll take it.”
He smiled, slow and deliberate. “You’re wrong. It’s exactly what I’ve been thinking.” He sat up and dusted the sand from his palms. “But you’re also right. There’s something else.”
“I knew it,” I said with a triumphant shake of my head.
James stared back out at the ocean and twisted his lips into grimace. “It’s my brother. I think he’s mixed up with something bad.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. He told me he’s in love.”
“The travesty,” I said with a laugh, but James didn’t so much as crack a smile. “Is that such a bad thing?” I’d often heard James wish Thomas, as the older brother, would hurry up and get married so their parents wouldn’t keep harping about it. He has a responsibility to the family, he’d said. They both did. It was one of the reasons I never understood his interest in me. I mean, it wasn’t like he could actually marry me.
James eyes were dark and serious. “No, definitely not a bad thing. Some people wait their whole lives to find love, and some people find it when they least expect it.” There was a silence, a too-long beat where a thousand things were said. James looked at his toes. “But, something’s off. He won’t tell me who she is, only that if her father found out—well, he thinks he wouldn’t approve.”
“Of Thomas?” I asked, surprised.
“Sounds that way.”
The very idea was ridiculous. James and Thomas came from money, lots of it, and beyond the money, they were the golden boys of Galveston. Smart, funny, charismatic. Everyone loved them.
“I don’t know.” He sighed. “Maybe it’s us he’s worried about. Maybe he thinks we won’t approve of her.”
“I can sympathize,” I said, and my cheeks warmed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
James moved with lightning speed. He grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me back on the sand. His body partially covered mine as he threaded our fingers together over my head.
“My family will love you.” He searched my eyes. “Just like I do.”
I blinked several times, not at all believing what I’d just heard. I shook my head and swallowed.
“I don’t have family or money. You have both of those things. You’re expected to marry both of those things.”
“I have one of those things. The money isn’t mine, it’s my parents’, and I can marry whomever I choose.” His gaze devoured mine. “I love you.”
It was the first time he’d said it out loud, and my insides jerked as the weight of his words settled over me. “I love you, too.”
James leaned forward and placed a feather-light kiss on my lips before pulling back, his face inches from my own. His black eyes were ablaze, and the heat inside them flickered over my face before settling on my lips. I placed my hands against his neck and curled his hair around my fingers.
Applying pressure, I pulled him close, and this time when our lips met, something exploded. He tasted of salt and sea, and a warmth that had nothing to do with the setting sun burned in my lower belly. I pressed up and into his chest, feeling his body firm over mine, and finding it wasn’t enough. I wanted the confines of our bodies to fall away. I wanted to become a part of him, for our skin, bones, blood, and tissue to melt and mold together. To know that we were one person, now and forever.
James pulled away first, his breath harsh above me. I opened my eyes, breathless and confused. “What’re you doing tomorrow evening?” he asked.
“What?” I was on the verge of physically combusting, and his question—and its abrupt intrusion—confused me.
“There’s something I want to ask you. Something important.”
His words collided with me as if they had weight. “I don’t have plans.”
His eyes smiled. “There’s a party.”
“A party?” Hesitation edged its way between us.
“It’s kind of a big deal. My parents will be there, and I want you there, too.”
My breath caught in my chest. “I don’t know, James.”
“Just say yes.”
“I don’t know if—”
“Please,” he interrupted. “It’s just a party. Don’t overthink it.” His smile spread, and I couldn’t help but feel the tickle of excitement begin to flutter in my chest.
“Just a party?”
“Just a party,” he confirmed before running his lips against my jaw.
I nodded, and his lips moved across my cheeks and nose. But not until I verbally said yes did he cover my lips with his. I pressed my hands against his shoulders and ran them down the length of his arms, back up, and across his back. His skin jumped under my touch, and I reveled in the way his muscles bunched and relaxed as he moved on top of me.
“Hey,” a booming voice called from our right. “This here is private property.”
James rolled to his side and then to his feet, pulling me with him in one swift motion. “Sorry,” he called with a laugh as we ran up the dune.
Our feet slipped and sank in the fine-powder sand and laughter burst from our lips. We made it over the edge and back to James’s car, where we fell into each other’s arms.
We moved together like magnets, unable to stay apart. James wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pulled me into an embrace. I craned my head back to see the smile still lingering on his lips.
“You told me we were allowed to be there,” I said.
The chuckle in James’s chest vibrated against mine. “What’s the fun in that?”
“You call that fun?”
“I call that exciting.”
“I call you crazy.”
James’s smile faded. “Marry me.”
I shook my head. “James, you know you can’t.”
“I can do whatever I want.”
“I don’t fit in your world.”
James leaned down, wrapped his arms around my waist, and lifted me off the ground so that our eyes were level. “You are my world. Without you, I don’t exist.”
I wanted to reply with something witty or even sarcastic, but the way his gaze caressed mine, like he was looking through me, sucked the words from my lips and left me breathless.
“You don’t have to answer. Not now.” He set me on my feet and ran his fingers through my hair. “I want you to meet my family so you can put these ridiculous fears to rest.”
“They aren’t that ridiculous.”
James scrunched his face and tilted his head to the side. “They’re pretty ridiculous, but think about it all the same. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
I shook my head. “James,” I began.
“Listen,” he interrupted. “There isn’t a part of me that doesn’t want to be with you. If you don’t say yes, I’ll get over it, but just so you know, there won’t be a lifetime that’ll go by where I won’t be there trying to change your mind.”
He didn’t give me the chance to answer before he bent toward me and erased all my fears with a single kiss. I was going to marry James Bellingham, and I knew in my heart, a single lifetime would never be enough.
The bare closet came into focus, and century-old emotions flooded my bleeding heart.
How could life be so cruel? I loved him more than I loved myself, and I had no doubt that if James had proposed after the party, my answer would’ve been yes, but he never had the opportunity. He was murdered that evening. I swallowed, reliving the seconds of bliss as we fled the party, and the final moments before Thomas approached us.
The bedroom door creaked open and James called my name. It was there, sitting on his closet floor, wrapped in his clothes, that he found me.
“What’re you doing in here? Are you okay?”
He knelt at my side, concern etched in his eyes. “We were perfect. Life had been perfect.”
His lips closed in a frown. “You had a drift?”
I nodded.
“Tell me about it.” A flush crept up my neck and reddened my cheeks. “That bad?” he asked in response.
“No. Not this time.”
“Then what?”
I folded my arms around my knees. “Our lives—my life—it was a fairy tale. The kind of story girls dream about. And then, in a blink of an eye, you were gone and Mack was there.”
I looked at James in time to see the understanding dawn across his features.
“You were together? You and McCormack?”
My silence was my answer.
“I knew there was a reason I never liked that guy.”
“It’s more than that. Colin killed Thomas. He killed you.”
James’s shoulders stiffened and his fingers curled into his palms.
“I didn’t know,” I said. “When I left with him that night, after you’d been murdered. I didn’t know.” My voice faded and silence ensued.
“That’s why I was coming here tonight. I’d just seen him, us, and everything fell into place. I’d married the man that’d murdered you. I’d been fooled into trusting him.” I sniffed and tried to calm my nerves. “He was working for Roselli then, and now—I feel so stupid.”
“Shh.” James pulled me into his lap where he crushed me into his side, his arms wrapped protectively around me. “What happened to us in the past is done. We can’t change it, so don’t blame yourself or feel guilty. It wasn’t your fault.” He sighed into my hair.
“There’s a reason I’m drifting,” I said. “A reason I’m seeing our past, and I think it has to do with the diamond. I mean, that’s the one thing that connects us all. If I find it, I think I can stop everything from happening again.”
“Stop what happening again?”
I leaned back and looked into his eyes. “I just have a feeling. Like history’s repeating.”
James shook his head. “Don’t think like that.”
“It’s hard not to. Mack turned out to be the same liar he was then. Who’s to say the rest won’t pan out the same way?”
“I’m not going to die.”
“I bet you thought that then, too.”
He stared at me without saying a word, but I could see the conviction in his eyes. The determination to help me, to fix things, to make this better. “All of that is in the past. This, now? This is different, a new life, a new chance.”
“You don’t know that. What if we’re destined to repeat our mistakes? What if we don’t have control? What if it’s all an illusion?”
“We don’t, but that doesn’t mean we don’t try.”
“I have to find that necklace.”
James nodded. “Okay. We’ll start tomorrow.”
I shook my head. “No, whatever it is, it’s got to be me. Somehow, I failed in the past. I didn’t do what I was supposed to. That’s why I’m seeing it again. To fix it. To stop it.”
Disagreement shadowed James’s face. “Then why am I painting you? Why did I see you at all if I was never supposed to help you?”
I stared at the hard planes of his face, so familiar and so loved. My chest swelled, not with tears but with something more. Something that convinced me that no matter where I was, what I was doing, this was where I was meant to be.
“Losing you again…it would kill me.”
He brushed the wet hair from my face and wound his hands through the mass at my back. He pulled, forcing my head back and my chest forward. The air felt alive as it hissed and spit some kind of electric current in, around, and between us.
James moved first, his head inching toward mine at a pace that was almost painful. I reached forward, wrapped my hands around his neck, and closed the distance. My eyes closed and my insides ignited with flame. We rolled until I was on my back and pressed to the floor under his weight.
His lips, soft and hot, traced the edge of my jaw and then down my neck as I ran my fingers through his hair. Arching my back, I dropped my head so he could move lower, and my heart began an erratic beat, thumping heavy and hard. It deafened my ears and blinded me to everything. All I could feel was James, and even with my eyes closed, all I could see was James. He lived inside me, and it was in that moment that I realized he always had.
Before I knew his name.
Before I’d seen his face.
My heart. My body. My soul. They belonged to him as much as they belonged to me. We were two halves of the same whole, bound together for eternity, and this time, I wasn’t letting go.