*
ABOUT A MONTH LATER, I paced the floor, with my cell in one hand and the house phone in another. Where was DJ? I raked my fingers through my hair before staring at my cell, willing it to ring. I dialed DJ’s number once more, but again it went straight to voicemail. It’d been twenty-four hours since the Andersons had notified me that DJ never showed up at their place.
He was supposed to be back already to get ready for Lauren Kate’s visit.
Lauren Kate’s visit? In the chaos of calling the police and getting a photo to them and answering questions about his personality and emotional state, and if I thought he had run away, I’d forgotten to call her.
I lifted my cell again to dial, when I realized I didn’t have her number. I rushed to the stairs and took them two at a time until I got to DJ’s room. I walked over to his desk and started rummaging through his papers and notebooks, looking for her number. I needed to let her know. We didn’t have the guest room ready. I didn’t know where DJ was. She would have to get a hotel room for the night before flying out tomorrow.
The doorbell rang, and I stopped. My heart jumped to my throat. What if it was the police with news—bad news? I shook the idea from my head, raced down the stairs and threw open the front door. The air ceased to move in or out of my lungs. It was Layla.
She’d said I would see her again, but I was supposed to go to her. She was dressed exactly like the first time we met. Black pencil skirt, lots of blonde hair I later learned were extensions when they started coming out, big hoop earrings, and the stupid false lashes that had made her look like a Bond girl.
I choked and swallowed. “I’ve missed you so much. You said you would come, and you did.” I grabbed her and pulled her close, smelling her hair, breathing deeply. It was just as I remembered. The scent long gone from our pillows, and the few items of hers I’d kept. I pulled her face from me, holding both cheeks in my hands to look into her dark eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me, too. I’ve missed both of you. You have no idea how much.” She blushed and pulled away like she was a little uncomfortable. “Where’s DJ? I’m dying to see him. It’s been so long.”
I grabbed hold of her again and pulled her to me, encircling her in my arms. How could I tell her? How could I say our boy she left me to raise was gone? That I didn’t know where he was. I swallowed and put it off with my own question. “How? How’d you get here?”
“I used a rental car.” Her answer was matter-of-fact.
I stepped back. “A rental car?”
“Yeah, I emailed DJ with my plans.” She straightened her skirt. “Mr. David, I thought DJ told you. He said it was okay with you for me to stay here tonight. I’m on my way back from the National Farms Insurance conference. DJ said I could stay here overnight, and I’ll take a flight back to California tomorrow afternoon.”
Oh my God.
“I wanted to look at Grandma’s place next door and see you guys while I was here. He told me you knew and were okay. But if you’re not, I can get a room somewhere.”
I let go of her, stumbled back, and swallowed. I trained my eyes on her and took her in from top to bottom, then glanced back at the wall of pictures of my life with Layla, then back to the girl in the foyer. I struggled to breathe, like I’d been running. Sweat beaded on my back and forehead.
“Do you still keep your inhaler in your shirt pocket?” She reached into it and handed it to me. “I think you need to use it.”
I took it from her and inhaled a couple puffs from it before I allowed the words out. “Lauren Kate?”
She walked off into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of Cheerwine. “Sip this. Yeah. It’s me. Who did you think I was when you hugged me?”
“I…you’ve changed.”
“I went blonde since you last saw me and bought myself extensions with my bonus last month. Two grand on a hairstyle is kind of crazy, but I always wanted that bouffant glamorous look. I’m doing really well. I think Grandma would be proud.”
I stumbled over to the sofa and collapsed, putting my head in my hands.
“Mr. David, what’s wrong?” She entered and bent down to look me in the eye. “Are you unwell? Is DJ here?”
I shook my head. “No, he’s missing. He was supposed to go home with a friend after track practice last night, but he never made it there. The Andersons called me last night wanting to know if he was sick. I’m waiting on a call from the police.”
She pulled up a chair from the desk on the other side of the room and sat down in front of me. “Oh no, what can I do?”
I looked her up and down, so very confused. “Are you and DJ…I don’t know, like long distance boyfriend and girlfriend.”
Her eyes grew wide. “No way! He’s sort of like a little brother to me, but not exactly. I’ve never thought of him in a romantic way, and I know he doesn’t think of me that way either. I was more like a surrogate mom when I lived here. He said I sang him the same songs his mom used to sing to him.”
I let out a sigh as I tried to get over my shock.
Layla took a seat beside me. I glanced at her, but all I could see were Layla’s dark brown eyes. She nodded. “I’ll wait here with you until we hear something.”
When the doorbell rang again, I jumped up and ran to the door. My mind was a mess, and I didn’t know what to think. Lauren Kate was the absolute spitting image of Layla. DJ was missing. I answered the door to find the Hearts and Flowers delivery guy standing there. I took the flowers from the man and walked in, not bothering to shut the door. I tore open the card.
“David, I can’t even imagine how worried and confused you are at the moment. You’ve seen me again… only it’s not the way you expected, because I also told you it would be the day you discovered time travel. But don’t worry. The call from DJ is coming in just a moment and all is well. I’m so sorry that the me you are looking at doesn’t know you yet, but she will, if you let her. She’s had a crush on you for years. If she doesn’t go back to 1994, she won’t meet 17-year-old you. She won’t fall so madly in love with you that she is willing to face the future she knows she has to prepare for and prepare you for. She won’t get pregnant with the most wonderful little boy in the world. He’s special too. He lost his mother and couldn’t do a thing about it, and you see what that triggered in him. Lives will be saved because of the boy we made together. Every bitter tear and pain was worth bringing him into the world. I’d hate the thought of a world without our DJ.
I’m so sorry that it’s not the joyful reunion you’d hoped for—the one where you get to rescue me. But I want you to know, my short life with you was so worth it. I would absolutely do it all over again if I had the choice. And today you have that choice. If life with me, even with the loss, was worth it all, send her back to spring break 1994 at Myrtle Beach. If it wasn’t, then send her packing tomorrow on the plane back to LA. But I think DJ deserves to exist, and I can’t imagine that a future in California had anything better to offer me than what you gave me. So I’m giving you permission and my blessing to send that poor girl into a place she doesn’t know, so that she can become the woman you will help her become. And she will help make you the man that you are now. The phone should ring very soon. I just know things and now you know why. I love you so much and am certain my life continues in Heaven where I’m waiting to see you and DJ again. No one has ever loved anyone the way I love you. So until we meet again, either on earth or in heaven.
Forever,
Layla
“Are those your flowers from heaven? What does it say?” Lauren Kate asked just as my cell phone rang.
I pushed the answer button and lifted it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Dad, it’s me.”
I let out a deep breath and collapsed in the chair. “DJ, where are you?”
“I’m…with you. A you from the future.”
I jumped up and paced, trying to take it all in. “And you’re okay?”
“Yeah, Dad. More than okay. You did it
. You discovered time travel. You…future you... have found investors for my laboratory. They believe I really have found a cure for cancer. It’s going to be a reality.”
“When are you coming home?”
“Tomorrow. I’m sorry if I’ve worried you, Dad…gosh, this is confusing, but this version of you showed up when I was getting out of my car at the track practice and said I needed to go with him, that it was important for all our futures—I had to see some things that will happen when I finish my studies some day.”
I swallowed and rubbed my aching head while squinting my eyes. Eye surgery had long corrected my vision, but when I got stress headaches, my vision still blurred. “I…understand. I’m glad you’re okay. I’ll see you when you get home. I love you, son.”
“I love you too, Dad.”
I hung up the phone and smiled. I let out a breath, the tension gone from my shoulders. I turned to face Layla…Lauren Kate. “It was DJ. He’s fine. He got…caught up in some plans with… that project he’s working on.” I waved my hand in a dismissive manner.
“The cancer project?”
I blinked hard. “You know about that?”
She nodded. “He’s told me about it through emails.”
DJ had been talking about this with her? I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter now. He’s safe and on his way home. Sorry about the uncomfortable hug when you came in. I was distraught. Not myself.”
She grinned back, and there was a moment of awkwardness. “That’s understandable with what was going on.”
“Would you like to come see what I’ve been working on in the basement while we wait on DJ?” I grinned at the girl, knowing what I had to do.
“Are you still working on time travel?”
“Nope, not working on it. Done. Want to go on a trip with me while we wait? I can get us back to this exact time, so it’s like we never left.”
“Really? Where are we going?”
“I’m thinking 1994.”
Chapter 23
March 3rd 2003
Layla
DAVID WALKED OUT TO GET DJ, and I stared at the silver-haired David and the stranger. I waited until my David was gone before I turned on him.
“What are you doing here? We’ve been over this. If I don’t die here, you never discover time travel, I’m never sent back, and DJ is never born. So you and your associate there can go back where you came from. DJ is more important than us. Don’t you get that? I didn’t get enough time with him, but I think the world deserves to have DJ be born. His notebooks are more valuable than yours.”
“Mom?” The dark-haired familiar looking man in his mid-thirties said.
I turned my attention to him, examining his features. “DJ?”
Silver-haired David stepped closer. “You are going to die, as far as everyone here is concerned. DJ is going to put you in stasis, and you are going to request cremation. The David here is going to work night and day to see you again, and DJ is going to see visions of how to change cancer cells back to healthy cells. And then we are going to come save you, father and son working together.”
“But you can’t change the past.” I swallowed, looking at a version of DJ I had never lived to see. My heart broke. I wanted to go with them, but I couldn’t risk it.
David stepped closer. “You’re right, we can’t change history. I’ve experimented with it. It isn’t possible to stop the Titanic from sailing or sinking. No one can kill baby Hitler. The time stream seems to be guarded and traveling along it can only be used to visit fixed points. If they happen, they happen. They cannot be altered.”
“If they can’t be altered, that means you can’t save me.”
“Actually, I’ve been to the future and seen an older version of you. This too is fixed.” Silver- haired David reached out his hand to me and grinned. “You should have known we would find a way to save you. It’s in all the storybooks and comic books, remember?”
I choked back tears at the hope I had never allowed myself to have. “But it was all on me to save everyone else.”
“No, it was never all on you to save anyone.” He stepped closer, his hand on my shoulder as his beautiful blue eyes, still unaltered in his older face, gazed deep into mine.
“But I was told…” I returned his stare, trying to understand.
“Who told you that?”
I looked at David, and then at nothing, as I considered it. “It was me. I told myself that.” I turned my attention to DJ who had stepped up to take my hand. I choked out the question. “What happens now?”
DJ’s hand was firm. I inspected him, realizing he was older than my current age. “You’ll stay in stasis until the curing process is over, and then we’ll wake you.”
David’s finger traced down the side of my cheek as I looked back at him. “And I go from being the kid with the hot older wife to being the old guy with the hot younger wife…if you’ll still have me.”
“You mean I don’t have to say goodbye?”
David did his goofy sideways smile. “Not yet, but I’m twenty-five years older than you are. At some point, you’ll know how I have felt all these years.”
“But with no hope of going back to get you.” I blinked as I considered that.
DJ pulled out a syringe. “Are you ready, Mom?”
I looked at my guys, father and son who I was willing to sacrifice everything for, only to now have them rescue me. “Yes, I’m ready.”
I took hold of David’s hand as the medications began to take effect. “Until we meet again, either here or in heaven.”
###
Be sure to check out other books by Melissa Turner Lee:
The Earth Painter
The Man Painter
The Difference Between Night and Day
Armored Hearts
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Forever Layla: A Time Travel Romance Page 20