I checked once more that no one saw me on the street. Baby me was sucking on her thumb.
I opened it and read.
Helen,
I know we’ve never seen eye to eye about Pete. I love him, and nothing will ever change my commitment to him, nor his to mine. Not even this little girl. She’s not his, but mine. Her father doesn’t matter.
I can’t explain why, but motherhood is not a role I can embrace, not this late in life, just before I hit the big five-oh. Call me selfish. I won’t deny it. But don’t take your judgment out on this new life, this new beginning, because I know she deserves more. You deserve more than living a life in solitude in this empty, quiet house.
When we argued back in college, I mentioned needing to keep some things safe here at Mom and Dad’s house. Instead, now, I’ll only ask you to hold on to Everly and love her as I can’t, as another owns my heart and soul.
Yours forever,
Valentina
I rocked back on my haunches, letting this goodbye fit into what I knew. Or could guess at. Pete had jumped Valentina through time while she was pregnant, probably playing a game of leapfrog to keep her safe while agents hunted him down.
Then she must have brought me to Aunt Helen, now, later than when I would have been born when the sisters were too young for parenthood anyway. Perhaps as another way of safeguarding me? Why else would she pose as being almost fifty, instead of eighteen? Aunt Helen would assume she’d aged…
“Wow,” I whispered to myself.
At least…the agents never realized I was a variable in the mix. Even if Pete was willing to “adopt” me and call me his own, out of his love and acceptance for Valentina.
“Everly.”
I turned to see Jake running up to the house.
“Over here,” I said, relief swamping my already overwhelmed state of mind.
Relief that he was alive and okay. Intrigue about this adventurous life, he—they all led. Sadness that Valentina had sacrificed herself for love. Curiosity at how Aunt Helen accepted this situation thrust on her.
“Where’s Valentina?” he asked, dropping to hug me.
“Dead. Freddy stabbed her for Pete’s jumper and the marces he’d given her in the parking lot. Then the other agent showed up and told him to take her body to some other time.”
His arms tightened around me, hugging harder.
“I’d already assumed she’d died…” But now I’d have closure in knowing, knowing how. And why.
“Pete jumped from the garage, the same as the agent.”
I nodded.
“You okay?” he asked, cradling my face and thumbing across my cheeks.
I hadn’t cried. I wouldn’t. How could I? Nothing had…changed. I had only seen real-life history—my history—play before me.
I leaned forward to kiss him. A reassurance I would be okay.
“Hey…” His eyes widened. “You.”
I smiled as he noticed the baby version of me.
“What’s that?”
I set the letter back in the envelope and returned it to the box. “Valentina’s goodbye to my aunt, asking her to take me in.”
“And that?” He leaned around me, pointing at a purple blob.
Scrunching my face, only a little confused but more amused, I picked it up. “Aunt Helen said it was my grandmother’s. Some old sack toy that was popular. She said my mom liked it when she was a kid, thinking it’d be valuable as an antique one day.”
I set the soft, cloth-covered toy in his hand. He weighed it, frowning. Purple made up the shape of a gourd, and yellow formed something like a beak and feet. “Patti the platypus. It’s a…Beanie Baby.” He’d read the information from a small, worn, heart-shaped tag attached to it.
“Helen showed it to me when she put my—this—baby blanket in storage. I’d needed it for show-and-tell in grade school, and she took the box out of storage. We just…left it in the attic.” Like everything else about my mom. Set aside and never mentioned. No wonder I’d always wanted closure.
He nodded, tilting his head as he continued to weigh it in his hand.
I slanted my brows at the clinking sound. “Those are…beans?” Seemed loud.
A slow grin split his lips. “Marces, too. I bet they hid some in here.”
His fingers pinched and rolled something within the toy.
“Cut it open.” I shrugged at his raised brows. “It’s been stored in a box my whole life, probably still would be in that box if I went back to 2071.”
“If?”
Whoops. I hadn’t told him my idea yet. “Open it. I know we shouldn’t alter stuff that can change the future and whatever, but Aunt Helen won’t notice this toy not being there.”
He pulled his knife from his pocket and sliced the fabric.
Small white pellets tumbled out with cotton. I caught a couple. “Plastic. Of course.” I scoffed. “Why’d they call them Beanie things? These aren’t beans.”
“Plastic Pellet Babies doesn’t have a nice ring to it?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Look.” He held up a handful of marces. They sure were small when they weren’t in a storage cartridge strip like what Pete had given Valentina. They looked like tiny fuses. Miniature cylinders that rivaled the size of plastic toy pellets.
I stopped counting when he rolled twenty of them in his palm.
“So this is what it feels like to find a hidden treasure,” I murmured.
He chuckled, but his amusement was cut short when footsteps neared.
Aunt Helen! She briskly strode down the dirt path where a paved sidewalk likely once was. Why was she here? Now?
Jake pushed me to hide behind a straggly yet thick briar bush. Drought resistant and mostly alive. We scrambled to hide before she saw us. He folded the toy together so the insides wouldn’t slip out again. I held my breath, watching my only family member approach.
Older than what I’d seen in 2020, Aunt Helen was still a knockout in 2051. More wrinkles lined her face, and I bet once she made it to the stoop and saw me as a baby, it would be the beginning of adding more grooves in her pale face.
“What…” She shook her head, coming to the door. “So much for a calm lunch break,” she mumbled to herself. “Now I’ll need to put all these groceries away. But when did I order them?”
I smiled. Her habit of talking to herself was from when she was younger, too.
“Oh!” She spotted me and picked me up, cooing to me as I gurgled. “Where did you come from.”
Uh, 2020, actually…
She cradled me close, looking around the street. Then, she noticed the letter in the box and picked it up. I watched as she read it, her head shaking gently and tears forming in her eyes. As she finished reading, she blinked. A tear fell and splashed on the paper.
“Oh…Tina…” She sniffled and hugged me closer. Love. I was witnessing the purest show of deep love. For me. She’d been strict, but she’d been there for me, despite my faults and how we’d never agree.
“Everly…” She sighed, closing her eyes as she swayed with me. “What kind of an adventure will I need to talk you out of someday?”
I blinked back a tear.
“But for now, while you’re here…let me take care of you, mmm?”
She unlocked the door after wiping her eyes dry, still holding me close. A retinal scan wouldn’t operate if eyes were too watery.
After a sniffle, she got the door open. With her foot, she nudged the box inside and then closed the door.
She’d taken me in, without hesitation, but somehow, from the first sight, she just knew…I’d have more in store than life with her.
“Come on,” I whispered to Jake.
If she took me to the sitting room in the front of the house, she’d be able to see us through the window.
A light turned on inside. “Like now.” I grabbed his sleeve, and we jumped up to head away from the house.
We walked, hand in hand, down the path lining the street I’d grow up
on through the next twenty years. My home until I’d grow into…the real me—now.
Jake tossed the bean-pellet baby plush in his hand. Up and down. Like a ball.
I tapped the jumper he’d given me. Back and forth against my thigh.
“So…where to?” I asked after a long moment of letting everything slot away. The relief, sadness, fear, and all. The only thing driving me now was the intrigue.
He stopped and faced me, stepping close in something of a hug. His hand settled at my ass, pushing me close.
“Your call.” He swallowed. His nervousness, his…struggle for patience was adorable.
“Well, when’s your next mission?”
“Really?” He narrowed his eyes at me, holding back a full smile.
I nodded, framing his face.
“Are you s—”
I kissed him quiet. Drowning in the sweet promise of what felt like my only future.
He slid his hand under my shirt, teasing his fingertips higher up my spine. Goosebumps trailed across my arms, and I shivered. “Maybe…we should continue this elsewhere.”
He brought the jumper up, wielding it within my hand, between us. “Then pick a time, and hold on.”
Acknowledgments
I am so fortunate to have a village to help me bring my stories to life.
For editing, I thank Expression Editing and C.J. Pinard at www.cjpinard.com. For proofreading, I thank PSW.
For all the never-ending encouragement, suggestions, and cheerleading, I thank a great team of betas: Allyson, Dawn, Kirsten, Kat, and Rachel. I treasure your input and am so glad to have you in my corner!
About the Author
Amabel Daniels lives in Northwest Ohio with her patient husband, three adventurous girls, and a collection of too many cats and dogs. Although she holds a Master’s degree in Ecology, her true love is finding a good book. When she isn’t spending time outdoors, or wondering how to negotiate with her mightily independent daughters, she’s busy brewing up her next novel, usually as she lets her mind run off with the addictive words of “what if…”
For more information about Amabel’s work, please stop by www.amabeldaniels.com.
You can sign up for her newsletter HERE.
Other Books by the Author
Newland Family
Better Than the Best (FREE!)
Appetite of Envy
Resisting Redemption
Covert Identities
Don’t Go Back
Always Was
Indeed
Across From You
Next To Me
Flawed Plan
Project Xol
Seek
Lost
Find
Stolen
Reclaim
Given
Olde Earth Academy
Secrecy
Discovery
Mastery
Victory
Challenged
Threatened
Endangered
Attacked
In the Wrong Year (Double-Check Your Destination Book 1) Page 15