Here With Me

by Beverly Long

  Melody got to her feet. “I don’t understand what’s going on,” she said. No one answered.

  He knew he should be a man, he knew he should tell her. But he was scared. She’d been lied to once by a man that she’d thought she’d loved and it had hurt her. Would she understand why he’d lied as well? “Melody, it’s a difficult thing to explain.”

  “Somebody tell me. . .”

  She stopped, her face paled. She was looking past him, toward the door. Before George could move, she said, “Louis?”

  George turned and he saw the man. He was drenched, his clothes sticking to him, and water ran off his bald head. He waved a rifle around, his motions as wild as his eyes.

  “Put down your gun, Louis,” George said.

  “Shut up,” the man screamed. He waved the gun and stepped into the room. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. It should have never happened like this.” He paced back and forth, swinging his rifle. “This should have been mine. All of it should have been mine.”

  He whirled toward Genevieve. “You got your share,” he screamed. “All those years ago, you got yours. And now more. It’s not fair.”

  Pearl reached out her hand. “Louis, you need to leave. Now.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do. You’ve been telling me what to do for years. I should have been the one giving the orders.”

  Bernard stepped forward. “Louis, it’s over,” he said. Bernard looked somewhat apologetically at Pearl. “I didn’t want to say anything until I had all the proof.” He turned back to Louis. “I know that you’ve been having an affair with Mickey Maloni’s wife. I know about the men who are trying to blackmail you.”

  The late-night visit to the tasting room suddenly made more sense. George looked at Melody and could see by the look on her face that she was also putting the pieces together.

  “Shut up,” Louis screamed.

  Bernard shook his head. “Mickey Maloni is one of the most powerful men in Reno. And he doesn’t play nice.”

  “You’re not going to be telling anyone,” Louis said, pointing his gun at Bernard.

  George shifted and got ready to move.

  “I don’t need to tell anyone. The men who are trying to shake you down are not the only people who have a copy of the photos, Louis. I’ve got a set, too. They’re locked in a drawer in my office. I’ve given instructions to my own attorney that upon my death, the drawer should be opened.”

  Louis made the kind of sound a cornered animal makes.

  Genevieve stood up. “You’re a desperate man, aren’t you Louis?” she taunted. “A man like you is probably desperate enough to pay someone to run my sister and my great-niece off the road?”

  “Damn you,” he said, his eyes darting back to Pearl. “I couldn’t wait any longer. It was taking too long for you to die.”

  Now it was Melody making sounds, like she was gasping for air. Louis swung his gun toward her.

  George charged him. And there was a terrible sound, a mixture of screams and storm and the crack of a rifle. And terrible pain as a bullet tore into him.

  Melody. Melody. He struggled to hold on, had to. But the pain and the darkness and the evil grabbed at him and it took him. And as he slipped away, he heard another gunshot and he knew he’d failed again to protect the woman he loved.

  ***

  He woke up to a soft whiteness and he wondered if it was heaven. It took him a minute to take it all in. He was in a room, in a bed. The walls were white, the curtains on the windows were white, even the sheets he lay on were white.

  But yet the room was almost dark, lit only by a small light on the far wall. He could hear a terrible wailing that seemed to come from outside the window.

  He moved and pain streaked from his shoulder to his arm.

  “I’d move a little slower than that if I were you.”

  Jesus. He turned and saw Genevieve standing next to his bed.

  What the hell? “Where am I?” he asked.

  She looked amused. “Calm down. You’re in the hospital. The power is out. They’re working off emergency generators. And by the way, you’re going to be sore for a couple weeks but your shoulder is going to be fine. The bullet nicked an artery—that’s why you lost consciousness so fast.”

  “Melody?” he asked. His throat was dry and it hurt to talk.

  She patted his hand. “She’s fine. You know you save her life.”

  That couldn’t be right. “I heard another shot.”

  Genevieve nodded, no longer looking amused. “Louis is dead. Tilly shot him in the back. None of us, including Louis, I’m sure, even knew she’d been carrying a gun in her purse for months. She came back when she heard Louis yelling.”

  Oh, God. It was all so senseless. But what mattered was that Melody was safe. Her child was safe. “Melody wasn’t hurt?” he asked again.

  Genevieve shook her head. “No. But she knows.”

  He jerked his head around, causing his shoulder to move and a whole new pain almost took his breath away. He struggled to sit up. The room started to spin and he felt like he was going to be stomach-sick. But none of that mattered. “What?”

  “She knows everything. Who you are and where you came from. Pearl and I told her.”

  He had a thousand questions but none of them mattered. “I have to see her.”

  Genevieve put her hand on his arm. “There’s no time,” she said, her voice serious. “Or you won’t be able to go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Back. Back to your time, your place.” She pulled back his sheet. He was wearing the same kind of gown they’d put on Melody when she’d been in the hospital. When he pulled at the neckline of the gown, he could see the thick white bandage taped around his shoulder.

  “You need to get dressed, now. I know it hurts like hell but you’ll make it back. I’ll see you through.”

  “See me through? You told me before that you couldn’t help me go back.”

  She sighed. “I lied. I’m sorry about that. And while you have every reason not to trust me, you’re going to have to go on faith. I can do it. I can get you back to your time.”

  “How?”

  “People like you have the ability to negotiate the portal but not at their will. There are only a few like me, who can choose to go and come back.”

  His head was reeling and he didn’t know if it was the pain of being shot, the worry about Melody and her child, or the craziness of what Genevieve was saying. “So you’ve been to my time?”

  “Yes.” She handed him a sack. “Put these clothes on.”

  He waved the sack away. “You brought me here?” he accused.

  “I did not,” she said. “I didn’t even know about you until you’d arrived and then I realized what my sister had done.”

  “Pearl?”

  “Yes. She’s never traveled although I suspect she could if she tried. We are, after all, sisters. She limits herself to helping those who need it.”

  He had needed the help. He would not have made his way out of the darkness without Pearl’s strength pulling him to the light. “I’m grateful,” he admitted. “But why me?”

  Genevieve smiled. “Pearl and Melody are very close, connected in so many ways. Last Christmas, Pearl knew something was very wrong when Melody didn’t come home. And when Melody told her about the pregnancy, Pearl knew that she was lying about having a husband. She guided you to Melody.”

  “So all this happened because Pearl made it happen? Melody and me?”

  Genevieve shook her head. “No, my friend. You and Melody did it. Pearl helped you get here and then she was done. When she told me, I went back to your time. That’s where I was the night you came to my room. I should have told you right away. I had no right to keep what I knew to myself. I did it for Melody but it was wrong.”

  He couldn’t think. It was too much. And the noise from outside the window was deafening. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know about your wife and how she died. I know about the two me
n who’ve already died. More important, I know who and where the third man is.”

  He grabbed her hand. His head was beating so rapidly that he thought it would jump right out of his chest. “What are you saying?”

  “He’s a circuit judge. Funny, isn’t it?” she asked, looking disgusted. “A man like that getting to cast judgment on others.”

  “How do you know?”

  She shook her head and looked nervously toward the window. “George, you don’t have time for this. Just know that I know. And I will take you to him. But we have to go now.”

  He couldn’t leave now. He had to see Melody. Had to explain why he hadn’t told her the truth. Had to explain why he was leaving.

  She’d been left behind by so many others.

  “I can’t go now. I need to talk to Melody first.”

  “George, you don’t have that choice. If you wait, if you delay, you’ll never be able to go back. It’s now or never.”

  The screeching and screaming from outside was so loud he covered his ears. It was a horrific sound and he knew that he’d only heard a similar noise one time in his life. Right before there had been complete and utter silence. Right before the footprints had appeared outside the changing station. Genevieve wasn’t lying.

  He grabbed for the clothes that Genevieve had tossed on the bed. It took everything he had to pull on his jeans. He was sweating like a pig after the effort. “Untie this,” he said, motioning to the strings around his neck. She did and he let the gown fall on the floor. He slipped one arm through the sleeve of his shirt but let the shirt just hang loose from his body. He wasn’t even going to attempt to put his other arm through.

  How the hell was he going to manage the journey back? The first time had almost killed him and he’d been whole. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Genevieve nodded and held the door open. The hallway outside his room was dimly lit, too, and absolutely empty. He’d taken five steps when suddenly, it was as if all the noise in the world had suddenly been swallowed up.

  “It must be now,” Genevieve whispered. She grabbed his arm and with amazing strength, pulled him to the door at the end of the hallway. In his heart, he knew what he was going to see.

  And he was right. When she opened it, he was looking at a small patch of grapevines that practically butted up to the building. Between the rows of vines, the saturated ground was a mass of mud. But leading away, as clear as if they’d been carved in dry stone, were the footprints.

  He had to go. Had to fully pay his debt to Hannah. He’d failed to protect her once and she paid the ultimate price. He could not fail her again.

  Tears ran down his face. He’d loved two women in his life. One had been brutally torn away from him. The other, he was about to leave. She would hate him for that. Probably already hated him for lying to her. “Will you tell her,” he begged of Genevieve, “will you tell her that I never meant to deceive her? Will you tell her that I loved her?”

  “Yes. Hurry. Go.”

  Forgive me, Melody. He looked up into the swirling dark gray clouds and for the first time in thirty-four years, he prayed. Protect her and the child, God. It’s the only thing that matters.

  He took his first step. He felt the ground shake and he could smell the sweet scent of the lilacs that grew outside his back door. He took his second step.

  ***

  When Melody woke up, her grandmother was holding her hand. They were in the living room and a candle burned bright on the piano. It was daylight but the sky was so gray that no natural light came in through the windows. She didn’t know how long she’d slept, only knew that when she’d closed her eyes, she prayed that somehow she would survive. She had to for the sake of her child.

  George was gone. Had to be, by now.

  Her grandmother and her aunt had told her everything. Melody had demanded it. They sat in the waiting room of the hospital and she had listened and known that as crazy as it all sounded, it was all true. She remembered all the little things that she’d dismissed. The odd use of language, the fascination with radio, the inability to drive a car or to operate a microwave.

  And when the women had finished, she had sat for a while longer, hoping and praying that he hadn’t lost too much blood, that he would be saved, knowing in her heart that if he was, he was still lost to her. He was a man of honor and could do no less than honor the memory of his wife by bringing her killer to justice.

  If she’d needed more proof, it had been waiting for her when she’d finally come home from the hospital. She’d gone straight upstairs, intending to remove George’s things, knowing that she couldn’t bear to open a drawer and see the things they’d bought at Target or the silly straw hat that he wore when he rode Brontë. It had taken less than a minute for her to find the photograph of her grandmother, the one George had taken with his camera. On it were the same thin scratches in the corner that were on the photograph that hung on her wall. The photograph that her aunt Genevieve had told her was Sarah and John Beckett—the photograph George had taken before he’d left his own time.

  She’d put the photograph back in the drawer, unable to look at it, unable to throw it away. She’d left her room, come downstairs, and curled up on the couch. Sometime later, her grandmother had come in and sat with her. They hadn’t talked, had just sat quietly, each lost in her own painful thoughts, and finally, she had slept.

  She heard a noise on the porch and she turned on her side, away from the door. She closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep. She didn’t want company.

  “Melody.”

  She flipped over, flat onto her back.

  He smiled at her.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she yelled. “You’re not supposed to be here.” His shirt was hanging open, unbuttoned, one arm in a sleeve, the other cradled to his side. “Oh, my God,” she said.

  “Calm down,” he pleaded. He pulled the loose shirt tighter around his body, hiding his shoulder from her view. He glanced at her grandmother. “Good morning, Pearl.”

  Her grandmother was crying. “Good morning, George. I must say I’m very glad to see you.” She stood up and walked toward the hallway. “I imagine you’d appreciate some privacy.”

  Melody struggled to sit up on the couch. “Where is Aunt Genevieve? You’ve got to get out of here.”

  He shook his head. “It’s too late.”

  She put her hand over her mouth, terribly afraid she was going to be sick. “Oh, no. The storm passed before you were ready to go. That’s it, isn’t it? Oh, George, I’m so sorry.”

  He took another three steps toward her and sank down on his knees in front of the couch. “I started to go. I could have made it.” He rubbed a hand across his face. He looked so tired. “I was wrong, Melody. I should have told you the truth. I’m so sorry.”

  “George. Do you understand what this means? Aunt Genevieve said you only have one chance to go back.”

  “Please, just listen. Hannah was right. She told me that vengeance will not heal the pain. But you know what does?” He reached for her hand. “Love. Love heals. I love you, Melody. And I want to stay with you and help you raise your daughter. I want to be here, now.”

  She thought her heart would burst with joy. “I thought I’d lost you,” she said. “And I knew that for the sake of my child, I was going to have to get up every day and eat and work and pretend I was living. But I didn’t know how I was going to be able to do it.” She pulled their linked hands up to her lips and kissed the back of his hand. “I couldn’t ask you to stay here with me. I couldn’t ask.”

  He smiled at her. “You didn’t have to.” He placed his hand on her belly. “Everything still fine?”

  She nodded. “Actually, I had a little time to think while somebody was in surgery. I know you’re not crazy about the name Jingle. What do you think about Sarah Miguella Tyler?”

  “Sarah Miguella Tyler.” He repeated it, almost reverently.

  “You came because of Sarah, because of Miguel. I want to honor th
em.”

  He couldn’t hold back the tears. They rolled down his cheeks and he made no effort to hide them. She opened her arms and he gathered her close.

  “I love you, George Tyler.”

  He pulled his head back and looked her in the eye. “I love you more than I ever thought possible. Will you marry me, Mrs. Johnson?”

  EPILOGUE

  As they rocked in the porch swing on a warm, early October night, George kept one arm around his wife. In the other, he cradled his one-month-old daughter. She was up to nine pounds and he swore he’d seen a smile yesterday.

  He looked up when he heard the front door open. Genevieve stood there. She plucked a pink feather from behind her ear and brushed the soft part against Sarah’s baby face. “I missed you, pumpkin,” she said, before nodding at Bernard, who sat in his chair, across the porch, like he so often did in the evenings. “It’s the middle of the crush, Bernard,” she said, her tone teasing. “Shouldn’t you be out fretting over the grapes?”

  Bernard shook his head. “Give me a break, Genevieve. This is the first chance we’ve had to sit in two weeks.” He inclined his head toward George. “Besides,” he added, sounding satisfied, “my partner already took care of that.”

  Melody sat up and smiled at her aunt, who’d been gone for several days. “Safe travels?” she asked.

  Genevieve nodded. “The Becketts send their love. Their boy just turned one and Sarah’s pregnant again. She’s proud as can be of her family and I swear, he’s one of the happiest men I’ve ever seen.”

  Through Genevieve, they’d been able to reconnect with Sarah and John. “No happier than me,” George said.

  “I told them about Pearl,” Genevieve said.

  They’d buried Pearl a little over two months ago. The days leading up to her death had been painful and sad but there’d been moments of quiet joy. They’d all be there. Even Tilly. The woman had been sober, thoughtful, and mother and daughter had shared much. George and Melody had been by Pearl’s side when she’d passed from this life to the next and they had taken comfort when she’d told them that she was content to go now that she knew everything was in good hands.