Now and Forever: Time Travel Romance Superbundle

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by Bobby Hutchinson


  Her exhausted horse, the two riderless ponies in tow, picked its way around the massive rock fall and started wearily up her rutted driveway.

  Relief washed over her when she saw that the house, unharmed, looked just the way she’d left it. Could it only have been the night before?

  She felt as if centuries must have passed, that when she looked in the mirror, her hair would be white, her face lined and old.

  She slithered down from the buggy, aware of the weight of Bill’s money belt around her waist. She hurried up the steps, concerned that there was no smoke coming from the chimney.

  The kitchen was empty, the stove out, the air frigid. She could hear Virgil coughing. Her heart hammering, she raced down the hallway.

  “Thank God you’re safe, lass.” Virgil’s voice was little more than a whisper.

  A terrible premonition made her throat go dry. When at last she could speak, she whispered, “Tom? Eli?”

  Her father met her gaze, consternation in his red-rimmed eyes. “The mine, lass, Eli went to warn the miners, and Tom went after him. It was just before the Slide, and neither of them came back. I’m worried. Go, now, and see what you can find out in the town.”

  Zelda found Dominion Avenue choked with horses and buggies and purposeful men and women hurrying here and there. A citizens’ meeting had been held at dawn in the lobby of the Imperial Hotel, organizing search parties to look for survivors, soup kitchens to feed the hungry, and volunteers to organize temporary shelter for the homeless. Everyone was doing what they could to help.

  Among the first to prepare food, organize shelter, and gather clothing were the women from the Tenderloin, and it was Ethel Parker who told Zelda there’d been no word so far as to the fate of the underground miners.

  Frantic, Zelda asked one man after another if anyone knew whether Tom or Eli had actually gone into the mine. The answer was always a shake of the head.

  The lampman, who’d know for certain, and the men working on the tipple who might have seen them the night before, were all presumed dead, buried beneath the rocks.

  Zelda fought against hysteria. It was unthinkable, to have come through all that she had, only to lose the ones she loved. She wanted to run, fast and far, until the masses of limestone and the terrible mountain itself were far behind her. She wanted to go home and crawl into bed, pull the blankets up over her, allow her mind to go blank and empty.

  But there was work to do. “Send anyone who needs a meal and a makeshift bed to our house,” she told Ethel, and she hurried home.

  It was when she took her coat off that she again became aware of the money belt, heavy on her waist. Unhooking it, she looked inside.

  Her mouth dropped open. Inside were neat bundles of hundred dollar bills. She drew them out, one after the other, her lips moving as she counted. Forty... perhaps fifty thousand dollars in all. It was a fortune.

  It was freedom, from the mines, from the poverty that Tom hated.

  Had it come too late?

  She couldn’t – wouldn’t – let herself stop hoping. She stuffed the money back in the belt and shoved it under her mattress. Then she lit the stove, cared for Virgil, and began to cook, forcing herself to think only of flour, yeast, molasses, salt.

  She put her alarm clock on the kitchen table.

  Tom had said the miners would dig their way out by five in the afternoon. When that time came, Zelda would be there, waiting.

  In the town, a few bodies were recovered, but most would remain forever beneath the Slide. Some occurrences were unexplainable. A baby girl was found alive on a bale of hay which had been inexplicably flung from a livery stable a half-mile to the east. Another child, Fernie May Watkins, had been tossed from her bed and was found, cold, dirty, and crying, on the rocks not far from where her family’s cabin now lay buried.

  Shortly after five in the afternoon, word flashed joyfully from one survivor to the next. By some miracle, the miners had dug their way out. They were safe, they were making their way down the mountain. Cheers went up and everyone rushed to greet them.

  The bridge across the river was a useless mass of twisted metal. A rope had been strung from bank to bank, and a makeshift raft shuttled the miners across. Wagons waited to transport any who were injured to Dr. Malcolmson’s hospital, and friends and relatives waved and cheered and wept as the ferry brought the first load of men across the frigid water.

  Shouts and glad cries of welcome greeted them as they climbed off the raft. Many faces, inky dark with coal dirt, were streaked white with tears.

  Photographers were on hand to record the event for posterity.

  Zelda hadn’t given a single thought to a camera.

  Frantically, her eyes went from one man to the next, but Tom and Eli weren’t there.

  The ferry returned for a second load, and she prayed and cursed and strained to see across the water. But the remaining men stood huddled in an undistinguishable mass on the far side of the river.

  The raft was halfway across again when she saw them. Tom’s arm was tight around Eli and both their black faces split in identical wide, white grins when they spotted her.

  She ran forward to the water’s edge, waving her arms and calling to them. Alarm filled her when she saw the dried blood on Eli’s face, but the moment the raft landed, she was reassured. Eli was upright, and he was smiling. He couldn’t be too badly injured.

  “Zelda.” She heard Tom’s voice, and the tears she’d been holding back for hours began to rain down her face. A welter of thoughts and feelings filled her heart and mind as she threw her arms around both of them.

  Eli hugged her and Tom kissed her, and she tasted coal dust and thought of love, of the mysteries of time and place that had brought them all there at this particular moment.

  For those few minutes up on the hillside in the early, awful dawn, with the sound of the Slide still reverberating in her ears, she’d looked into the future. This grim cascade of limestone that lay now like an ugly scar across her valley was still there, but it was no longer the overwhelming tragedy it seemed here and now.

  Instead, in that future time, the Slide was peaceful, strangely beautiful. Time had changed it from tragic to awe-inspiring.

  “We’re safe, Zel, all of us. That’s really all that matters.” Tom’s lips tickled her ear, and she smiled up at him through her tears.

  As soon as possible---today, tomorrow--- they’d wed, with Virgil and Eli on hand to celebrate with them. She thought of the money belt, and the freedom it represented.

  “Jackson and Leona?” His voice was anxious.

  “Gone,” she managed to say, relief and sadness mingling inside of her. Dear friends, lost forever to the future.

  But they’d talk of them often, she and Tom. They’d remember.

  She thought of the glowing white building and shivered.

  She had so much to tell Tom, but there was plenty of time.

  They’d grow old, sharing their memories, loving one another with a steadfast intensity that had no age.

  Like the limestone rocks, they’d weather as years passed. The tragedy of the Slide would become only a memory to relate to their grandchildren, a distant echo, a reminder of the beginnings and endings that make up eternity.

  —The End—

  One more tiny little favor—if you enjoyed NOW AND FOREVER, would you be generous and kind enough to leave me a review on Amazon? I’d be forever grateful.

  More Books by Bobby Hutchinson

  Another Time Travel

  ALMOST AN ANGEL

  A Futuristic time travel about a klutzy vistor from far in the—And the down to earth P.I. who believes she can’t be what she claims

  Klutzy, loveable Sameh Smith, an aspiring Adept, was born 500 years from now. She's sent back from 2500 to give us a helping hand with developmental issues we need to master in order to evolve. Trouble is, Sameh is no expert in teleportation or healing.

  What’s going on in P.I. Adam Hawkins head when he first sees Sameh is defini
tely X rated. He’s never met anyone like her before. Who has? He figures she’s a nutcase, even though she does look--well, almost like an angel.

  A short romantic novel you’ll love...

  SNOW KISSED CHRISTMAS

  1903 Christmas in a western coal mining town: Christmas Eve, Snow, a new baby coming soon, and no money!

  Another Christmas Story

  CAROL’S CHRISTMAS

  More Historical Novellas

  SILENT LIGHT, SILENT LOVE

  It's 1896 on the Canadian prairies, and Betsy Tompkins wants to be a photographer.

  Western prairie women have two choices: marry, and be a wife, or stay single, and be a spinster. Betsy knows the spinster option is the only one for her. She's deaf, and hearing men live in a different world. Also, wives simply don't have careers--they cook, clean, and raise children.

  Sergeant James Macleod of the north west mounted has a dark and troubling secret.

  A LANTERN IN THE WINDOW

  Mail Order Bride—A Western Prairie Brides

  Ever wondered what it might be like to be a mail order bride?

  Or the groom, already married to a woman he’s never laid eyes on?

  On the Canadian prairies in 1886, having a mail order romance wasn’t unusual. Noah Ferguson desperately needed help on his farm. Annie Tompkins knew she couldn’t go on working in Lazenby’s cotton mill.

  So she’d been a little less than honest in her letters, was that really so terrible?

  It was unforgivable, Noah fumed. He’d wanted an older widow, and Annie was a young virgin. But even that wasn’t the full extent of her lies.

  Problem is, Noah hasn’t exactly been straight with Annie, either, and his secret has the power to break Annie’s heart.

  Can even a special Christmas gift make their marriage work?

  Some of Bobby’s other Hot Romances you’ll love…

  ISLAND SUNRISE

  A LEGAL AFFAIR

  LOVE OF A RODEO MAN

  KNIGHTS OF THE NORTH

  PLUS MORE…

  HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL

  FOLLOW A WILD HEART

  SPECIAL EDUCATION

  HOW NOT TO RUN A B&B

  GRADY’S KIDS

  Another Time Travel Romance you’ll love…

  PASSAGE THROUGH TIME

  About The Author

  Bobby Hutchinson was born in small-town interior British Columbia.

  Learning to read was the most significant event of her early life.

  Bobby married young and had three sons. Her middle boy was deaf. He taught her patience. The other two were rambunctious. They taught her forbearance.

  After twelve years of marriage she divorced and worked at various odd jobs: directing traffic around construction sites, caring for challenged children and selling fabric by the pound at a remnant store.

  Eventually, she mortgaged her house and bought the store. Accompanied by her sewing machine, she began to sew one dress a day. The dresses sold, the fabric didn’t, so she hired four seamstresses and turned the store into a boutique.

  After twelve successful years, Bobby sold the business and decided to run a marathon. Training was a huge bore, so she made up a story about Pheidippides, the first marathoner, as she ran. She copied it down, sent it to Chatelaine short story contest and won first prize.

  Presto, she became a writer.

  She married again, divorced again, writing all the while. She published about fifty-five books for major publishers and is always writing more, e-books now. After many adventures and many moves, she came home to Sparwood, the coal-mining town in the Rocky Mountains where she was born.

  She lives alone, except for two rabbits. She has two of her six grandchildren living just down the street. She walks, reads, writes and likes this quote:

  “When you change the way you look at a thing, the thing you look at changes.”

 

 

 


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