Peter's words were still echoing in my mind nearly an hour later. I was sitting at a bus stop, with my hands on my lap and my mind so twisted up, the knots would probably never unravel.

The ache in my chest was so huge, I could barely breathe around it.

Glenn was involved with somebody else.

Did he love her?

I was torn between wanting to cry and giving into the well of jealousy that threatened to overtake me.

I’d been gone for three years—how could I not have expected something like this?

Okay, granted, I hadn’t read anything about him falling in love. But that didn’t mean anything.

A noisy car rattled down the street, belching smoke and making so much noise the couple next to me raised their voices to be heard. They’d been there for a few minutes and were on their feet as the next bus slowed down.

I’d been sitting there for what felt like a life time, watching as people came and went, trying to figure out what to do.

The couple climbed onto the bus and others disembarked, a cycle I’d watched several times over. What was I going to do? Peter wasn’t likely to help me.

I had no money. I had no food.

I had no way of finding Glenn, not without Peter’s help. If he was on location, it could be weeks before he got back.

Had I been wrong, thinking that I should come back? Wanting to come back? Maybe I’d been fooling myself all along, and this time flux I was caught in had nothing to do with fate—and everything to do with time just screwing around with me.

If I was meant to actually be with him, why had three fucking years passed?

Why had I come back when he was involved with another woman?

Why had I disappeared at all?

Swearing, I dropped my head into my hands.

“Um…lady?”

The voice caught me off-guard and I jerked my head up, looking over to the boy next to me. He was skinny and red-faced, tugging his hat as I met his eyes.

“Are…um…” He stammered, tripping over every syllable. “Are you oh—oh—okay?”

“What?”

He started to say it again.

Shaking my head, I held up a hand. “I’m fine.”

I wasn’t, not really.

But I doubted this poor kid wanted to hear me tell him about how I was from the future, how I’d come back to the year 1962, fallen in love, gone back to the future and now here I was again, with three years gone by and the man I was in love with now seeing another woman.

That didn’t sound crazy at all.

Giving him a weak smile, I said again, “I’m fine.”

I looked back down at my lap as a bus slowed down. Checking the time on my watch, I saw that another half hour had somehow passed. I needed to figure out where to go, what to do.

But what was I supposed to do?

I didn’t really know anybody here. There was Glenn. Peter clearly didn’t want to have anything to do with me. Not that I could blame him. He’d said I’d destroyed Glenn’s career, that I’d almost destroyed Glenn. Peter was probably more worried about Glenn’s career than Glenn himself, but regardless, the man wasn’t going to help me out. He just wanted me to leave and never come back.

Maybe I should.

It wasn’t like there was a glaring sign telling me that I needed to be here.

Last time, at least I’d understood that I needed to help Florence.

Maybe you’re here to help Glenn this time…

My mind had shied away from every small tidbit I’d caught when I’d been researching. After finding that one article that referenced me, I’d avoided trying to find out much about Glenn’s future. It had hurt too much. But I did know that Glenn’s life had fallen apart.

If I was here to help him, then maybe…

Okay, so in a way, that made sense. Of course, if I hadn’t disappeared to begin with, I wouldn’t have to help put Glenn’s life back together. But I couldn’t think about all of that. I couldn’t try to understand why I was here now instead of coming back closer to when I’d disappeared, and I couldn’t start to understand why I’d disappeared anyway.

The necklace I wore heated, and I was tempted to take the damn thing off and throw it—hard.

But I didn’t.

The boy next to me cleared his throat, and I managed to give him a polite look.

“Is that your bus?”

“No.” Shaking my head, I watched as it pulled to a stop. If I’d had the money, I might have gotten on, ridden as far as I could, as fast as I could. It would be a way to escape everything in my head. For a while at least. I could have avoided thinking, avoiding sitting there feeling lost and lonely.

But I had no money. No fiancé. No real friends, either. The only people I really knew were Glenn, Peter, and Florence.

“Take care, lady,” the boy said as he stood and started toward the bus.

“Yes.” My voice was faint.

But my heart was racing.

Florence.

I had to get to Florence.

Maybe Peter didn’t give a damn about me, but I’d bet anything that Florence would be willing to talk to me.

* * *

“Oh, my goodness…Maya!”

Florence all but threw open the passenger door of the car and came rushing toward me. With the scarf wrapped around her hair and a pair of sunglasses obscuring her face, it would have been hard to recognize her—unless you knew her.

But I did know her, and the sight of a familiar face made the tears I’d been fighting off well up hard and fast.

We met in the middle of the sidewalk and she threw her arms around me. I was taller than her and before, I’d felt like I’d been the one protecting her.

But now she hugged me close and made shushing sounds under her breath as if she could sense how torn apart I felt.

After a moment, she drew back and studied me.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, her voice a little husky. “You wouldn’t believe how we worried for you.”

I blinked back the tears.

“Does Glenn know you’re here? Maya, where were you? What happened?”

I glanced back over my shoulder at the gas station attendants. They were being polite with their scrutiny. I could barely tell they were watching or listening, but I knew they were. “I can’t talk about it here, Florence,” I said, shaking my head.

“Oh.” She laughed a little, a nervous sort of sound. “Of course not. How silly. Come on. There’s somebody I want you to meet.” She caught my hand and tugged. “He can get your bags, if that’s alright?”

“I don’t have any bags,” I said.

I don’t know if she even heard me. We had only taken a few steps when Florence let go of my hand to reach for the man who had been watching us from a few feet away.

He was tall with dark eyes and short, neatly cropped black hair. His skin was a pale, pale gold, hinting at something in his ancestry—either that, or he had taken to worshipping the sun.

“Maya, this is Astor…my husband.”

“Hi.” I smiled at him, wishing I could feel something more than exhaustion and confusion. I was happy for Florence. It was clear by the way she looked at the man in front of me that she loved him. But I couldn’t work up any kind of enthusiasm just then. “It’s nice to meet you.”

He took the hand I’d held out and gave it a firm squeeze. “The feeling is mutual. I’ve heard a great deal about you, Maya. And I owe you my thanks.”

“For what?” Perplexed, I studied him.

“You saved Florence’s life. If you hadn’t done that, I never would’ve met her.” He skimmed a hand down her shoulder and tugged her in close for a hug.

She lifted her cheek and he kissed her gently, as though they’d rehearsed those movements a thousand times.

Envy whispered through me, but I crushed it. Florence was happy. She deserved that.

The muffled roar of an engine pulling into the gas station interrupted the odd, stilted silence that had settled between us, and I summoned up a smile. “I guess we should get moving. We’re just standing around and taking up space. I didn’t even buy any gas.”

“You don’t have a car,” Florence said.

“I know.” I couldn’t even summon up a laugh. “It was a joke.”

* * *

“You haven’t spoken to Glenn at all?”

Florence and I sat near a pool that shimmered a serene turquoise. She’d had some of my old clothes. I’d asked her how she’d come to have them, and she had just shrugged in response. I had a feeling I wouldn’t like the answer, so I didn’t push.

Now, as we sat by the pool, I looked away and focused on the endless stretch of blue sky. “No. I haven’t talked to him. I went to see Peter and he…well.”

I lifted a shoulder, not willing to describe the conversation we’d had.

“I take it Peter was a bit of an ass.” She sipped from a glass of lemonade, her eyes steadily on mine.

“I can’t say I blame him.” Pushing my hair back from my face, I twisted my hands in my lap.

“No. I don’t suppose you can. You disappeared for three years, after all. Glenn went crazy after losing you.”

I heard no accusation in her voice, and when I looked at her, her eyes were kind.

She seemed so much stronger now; so very steady.

“What happened, Maya? Where did you go? Why did you go?” she asked.

“I…” Licking my lips, I struggled for a way to explain. But how could I? And what would I say?

“Is it too hard to talk about right now?” A concerned expression in her eyes, Florence reached out and took my hand, squeezing gently. “If you can’t bring yourself to talk to me, I understand. But you should talk to somebody. However bad it was—”

“No.” I tugged my hand free and pushed myself upright, pacing over the edge of the pool. “It wasn’t…I…hell. I can’t talk about it right now. I just can’t.”

“Alright.” Florence nodded. “Perhaps if you can’t talk to me, you can consider talking to Astor.”

I shot her a narrow look. “I don’t even know him.”

“That’s partly why it might make it easier,” she said gently. “I didn’t know him either. And it was…easier to tell him than to tell anybody else.”

Shaking my head, I went back to looking over the pool’s shimmering blue-green water. “I don’t get it.”

“He was one of the doctors at that hospital.”

For a few seconds, I stood there, processing what she’d said. Then I spun around, gaping at her. “You married one of your doctors?”

The ethical issue in that just about blew my mind, but then, as Florence closed her eyes and leaned back in the chaise lounge, the light glinted off the pearls at her throat. Her dress fell around her in demure folds. She was a picture of by-gone elegance. Or to my modern mind, what seemed like by-gone elegance.

Things were different in the sixties. Very different.

Still, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that a doctor had married one of his patients was completely mind-boggling.

Florence told me how she and Astor had fallen in love; how she’d been out of the clinic for over a month and hadn’t so much as received a call from him, then he showed up on her doorstep with roses in hand.

“We spent a month pretending that we were just dating. Then we stopped playing around and he asked me to marry him.” She sighed happily. “He’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“I’m happy for you.”

She looked over at me. “Thank you.”

Nodding, I turned back to the pool.

“Are you going to try to talk to Glenn?”

Florence’s question was one I’d asked myself a dozen times over the past couple of hours. I had to talk to him, didn’t I? He was the entire reason I’d come back.

But what would I say?

“I don’t know.” Scared and embarrassed, I turned to look at her once more. “I don’t have any money. I don’t have anywhere to go. And I don’t know what to do.”

“You need help.”

“Yes.” Swiping my damp hands over the legs of my jeans, I said quietly, “I need help. I don’t have any right to ask, but—”

“You saved my life,” Florence said, cutting me off. She rose from her chair and put the lemonade down before she came to me. “You saved my life, and most importantly, you’re my friend. You have every right to ask.”

She caught me in another hug and squeezed tight. “You’ll stay here for as long as you need to.”