“Is this real?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper. “Is it really you?”
I take three long steps to pull her into my arms. I just saw her, and yet it feels as if we’ve been apart a very long time. “Yes.”
She begins crying, face pressed tight to my chest. “I’ve missed you so much. Every day and night for more years than you can imagine.”
And even though it seems to me no time has passed, I feel something coming together inside me, a hole that is finally closed. Nothing in my life has ever felt warmer or sweeter than this, her pressed against me, solid and real.
“Are we—” She looks around, at the untidy barn and the roof that sorely needs repair above us. “Are we in heaven?”
I smile. “I don’t think so. There’s a church down the way and surely in heaven, church is beside the point. I think we’re on the island. The one from my mother’s stories.”
“I wasn’t sure,” she weeps. “I didn’t know if it would work out like the twins said.”
I freeze. “The twins?” I ask. “Did we have twins?”
She laughs through her tears. “No, our daughter did, or is about to anyway. Quinn’s the product of two first families, and Nick—her husband—is the product of the other two, I’m certain. And the twins are the circle of light. From the prophecy.”
“And it all happened because of you,” I say, my hands framing her face.
“It happened because of us,” she replies.
I lean down and kiss her. I don’t want to stop. My mouth presses to her jaw, to her temples, to her cheeks. She is too warm and real to be a dream. “Please tell me this isn’t going to end.”
“I don’t think so,” she replies. “I think maybe we’re in a place where time works differently, a time that existed before our deaths. And now we’re waiting for our granddaughters to set the world right.”
“But I can’t time travel,” I argue. “You might be able to go back in time, but how did I?”
“I don’t know. That’s a mystery for Quinn and her daughters to solve,” she says. “But you can always ask the twins yourself when they come visit us.”
“Visit? Here?” I ask, kissing her again. “Nothing you’re saying is making sense.”
Her smile is so joyful it makes me ache. “I suspect we have a very long time to go over the details.”
I push her hair back from her face. “Yes. But my wife is naked, and we appear to have this entire place to ourselves. That’s enough for me right now.”
She goes on her toes and presses her lips to mine. “Then take me inside, and let’s begin our next chapter.”
THE END
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Also by Elizabeth O'Roark
Before ACROSS TIME and ACROSS ETERNITY, there was Quinn and Nick’s Story.
Acknowledgments
As I write this, we are two weeks into a quarantine that may last for months, and I’ve never been more grateful than I am now for the online community of readers and fellow authors who’ve become friends.
The members of the Across Time/Across Eternity spoiler rooms have been especially magical during this period, as well as the months preceding it. They inspired me when my interest lagged, and their enthusiasm for these books pushed me to work harder than I ever have before, solely because I didn’t want to disappoint them. Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart. You’re a big part of how Henri and Sarah’s story evolved.
Thanks to the many people I leaned on to help me tell a very tangled tale: my content editor, Tbird London; my editor, Stacy Frenes at Grammar Boss; Julie Deaton for a first round of copy edits and—because I couldn’t stop revising—Janis Ferguson for the second round. Thanks also to my beloved beta readers: Shannon Vick Alley, Kimberly Ann, Faye Hooker-Graves, Amy Burke Mastin, Katie Meyer, Brenna Rattai and Erin Thompson.
On the marketing and design end of things, I need to thank Dani Sanchez at Wildfire Marketing for pretty much everything you can imagine, Wander Aguilar for his amazing photos, Lori Jackson for this gorgeous cover...and model Andrew Biernat for inspiring Henri in the first place.
Patrick, Lily and Jack: I promise I’m done talking about World War II. I mean it this time.
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