Secrets of Time

by Zoe Matthews

  She would forever be grateful to Keegan for everything he had done. Without him, they wouldn’t be here. She also knew that he made Megan very happy, although the two of them had hardly talked in the last couple of days. She hoped they weren’t having any problems. She would be more than happy if Megan decided to settle down with him.

  She laid her head back against the back of the chair and let herself relax. To her own surprise, her eyelids started to droop. She must have been more tired than she realized. She was almost asleep when she heard a swish of paper fall to the floor.

  That’s strange, she thought. She knew Keegan had already gone to bed and Megan had left for her studio apartment about a half hour ago.

  She stood up and walked towards the kitchen, where she thought the noise had come from. She froze in the foyer, however, when she saw a folded piece of paper lying on the floor in front of the door’s mail slot.

  She tried not to panic but could feel her pulse start to race. Who would leave a note as late as it was? It couldn’t be good news.

  She picked up the paper and slowly unfolded it, hoping with everything she had that it wasn’t anything serious. Her fast-beating heart froze when she saw the words scrawled across the page.

  Don’t think this is over.

  G.M.

  She staggered back to her chair, taking big gulps of air as she stared at the page.

  G.M. George Manning.

  She had thought he had given up. She figured he had never been the one to follow through with anything difficult. Why would things be different with her?

  This note proved just how wrong she had been. She shook at the thought of what he would do.

  Would he follow through on his threat to tell Megan the truth about her birth?

  Would he contact her parents and stir up old ghosts better left in the past?

  Would he get violent with her or Megan?

  Her mind raced as she desperately tried to think of what she should do. She decided it would be better to act as if nothing had happened. She did want to keep the note, however. If she needed to get the police involved, she would.

  She tucked the piece of paper in her purse and prayed that she would be able to protect Megan from whatever George Manning was planning.

  Chapter 26

  It was the day of the grand re-opening, and the shop had been very busy. Megan was relieved that it was going so well. Most of the customers from their old shop were excited to see the new shop, and quite a few of their neighbors around the house also came by to see what they had done to the place.

  Even though she had been too busy to think, a creeping dread kept sneaking up on her; Keegan was leaving tomorrow.

  She couldn’t ask him to stay, and she knew that. She didn’t want him to stay because she asked him, only to resent her later when he realized how much he had missed out on in his own time.

  That didn’t stop her from hoping desperately that he would change his mind and decide to stay on his own. She had been so happy with Keegan; she didn’t remember ever feeling like she belonged with anyone the way she felt with him.

  “Excuse me?” An older woman approached her.

  She mentally shook her head and focused on the shop. She smiled brightly. “Hello, ma’am. How can I help you?”

  “I love your shop. It feels so homey. You have really done this house justice,” the woman said warmly.

  “Thank you,” Megan said appreciatively. “It really was a pleasure to work on it.”

  “I was wondering if you could help me find a book about teas I could make to help stop these old bones from aching so much.” The woman grimaced as she talked, clearly uncomfortable.

  “Absolutely. If you’ll just follow me into the library, I think I have just the book.” Megan led the way down the hall and into the library, then used a step stool to grab a book from one of the higher shelves.

  She handed it to the woman. “I think this should have what you’re looking for. Why don’t you take a seat in one of those chairs, and I will make a blend of teas that I think might help you while you wait,” she suggested.

  “Oh, that would be wonderful. Thank you.” The woman sighed with relief as she settled into a cushioned chair and Megan congratulated herself on picking comfortable furniture. She turned to leave the room to make the tea when the woman spoke again. “Oh, by the way, my name is Victoria.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Victoria, and I am Megan.” She started walking towards the kitchen, thinking that the woman’s name sounded familiar. She just couldn’t remember where she had heard it before.

  Megan was just starting to mix the different herbs together when Keegan walked into the kitchen to refill the platter of refreshments they had set out for the customers.

  “It’s busy out there,” Keegan commented. “That’s good. It means good business for you and your mother.”

  “Yes, I’m happy with the way it has turned out,” Megan replied.

  She avoided looking into his eyes knowing that if she did, it would break her stubborn resolve to let him make his own decision as to whether he should stay or go.

  They sat in an awkward silence, and she kept taking a breath to speak, only to change her mind and close it again.

  Finally, the tea had finished steeping, so she quickly poured it into a disposable mug, and put a lid on it.

  She rushed out of the kitchen, not wanting to think about Keegan and how he was leaving her for good tomorrow.

  She found Victoria in the library bent over the book she had given her. “Here is your tea, Victoria. It is a mix of several herbs that I am familiar with for pain management, as well as some lemon and orange to help with the taste. Be careful, it is still hot,” Megan said as she handed the cup over.

  “Thank you, dear,” Victoria responded and set the tea down on the table next to her.

  “You can take your time in here. We will all be in the next room if you need us,” Megan said preparing to leave.

  “Oh, just a moment dear,” Victoria gestured her forward and patted the chair next to her; an unspoken invitation to sit.

  Megan obliged.

  “You know, my second husband was in love with me long before I realized it.”

  Megan listened politely but hoped this wouldn’t turn into a long story. She did have a lot of customers in the other room.

  “We were friends, so to speak, for years, and I never knew how he felt because he always kept his feelings to himself, hoping one day I would come to him with my feelings first. Our relationship didn’t start until he took the leap and told me he wanted more out of what we had together.”

  Megan nodded, wanting to listen, while hoping she wasn’t leaving customers waiting.

  “My point is, dear, that when you want something with everything you have, you need to go get it. You can’t wait for a certain young man to figure out what is going on in your heart.”

  Megan stopped worrying about her other customers and looked straight into Victoria’s eyes. The way the older woman was talking made Megan wonder if she knew how Megan felt about Keegan. But, that was impossible, wasn’t it?

  The woman smiled, as if glad that she had finally gotten her message through to Megan, then turned back to study the book in her lap.

  Megan stood and walked slowly out the library door into the other room. She absentmindedly started straightening a display table, thinking about what Victoria had said.

  You need to go get it.

  She looked at Keegan. Maybe Victoria was right. It was time to let Keegan know what she wanted. If he didn’t feel the same, well, he lived in 1902, so she would never have to worry about running into him.

  ****

  Megan plopped down on a chair in the front room, having finally helped the last customer for the day. She could hear her mother in the next room, still talking pleasantly to the last customer while planning on locking the door right after they left.

  They had stayed open an hour later than they had planned on. The custo
mers had just kept coming in, and they weren’t about to turn them away. It was good to know that they had so many customers excited about their shop already. Megan relaxed as she knew that her mother would now finally have the success with her shop that she had always dreamed of.

  She thought again about Keegan and what the woman had said. Victoria couldn’t have possibly known about Keegan and what she was feeling all day. She had never seen Victoria before. Regardless, the advice she had given was good advice, and Megan knew it was time to listen to it, along with the advice she had received from Abby and her mother.

  Just then, Abby came in and sat in the chair next to her, clearly exhausted. She had come by the last two hours the shop had been opened since she had also worked at the pediatric office earlier that day.

  “You guys had an awesome turnout,” Abby commented with a tired grin.

  “Yes, we did,” was all Megan could muster. “I am exhausted.”

  “Me too,” Abby agreed, her eyes starting to droop. After a moment, they snapped back open. “Oh, I have been meaning to talk to you for days! You are always too busy.”

  Megan laughed. “Well, I have been opening a shop. That takes some work.”

  Abby didn’t laugh, she just sat up and looked straight into Megan’s eyes. “You can’t let Keegan go home tomorrow.”

  “What? Abby, we have talked about this,” Megan started.

  “No, it’s different this time. I know I have been bothering you about this, but something else has happened.”

  “What happened?” Megan asked curiously.

  “I can’t tell you,” She shook her head. “You just have to trust me. Go talk to Keegan, and find out how he feels. Tell him how you feel.”

  Megan sat for a moment, thinking about Victoria’s words, and now Abby’s. “Okay. I’ll go talk to him.”

  Her heart pounded as she made her way up the stairs and towards his bedroom, but she didn’t let herself second guess her decision.

  When she got to his door, she knocked. No one answered. She waited a minute, then knocked again. Again, no one answered. She finally cracked the door open and peeked inside.

  He was sprawled across his bed still in his clothes, snoring softly. Clearly, she and Abby weren’t the only ones who were exhausted. She couldn’t wake him up now.

  All the adrenaline went out of her. She would come back first thing tomorrow and tell him. She shut his door quietly and made her way back downstairs, making a promise to herself that she wouldn’t change her mind overnight.

  Chapter 27

  The next morning, Megan was a bundle of nerves as she drove back to Keegan’s house. One minute, she would be certain that telling him how she felt was the right thing to do. Then the next minute, she would change her mind and decide that Keegan needed to choose to stay because he wanted to.

  She pulled up in front of the house, turned off her car, but didn’t get out. Should she ask him to stay? No. That wasn’t fair of her at all.

  If she was thinking about being fair, he should at least know how she felt. If he went back to his own time never knowing how strong her feelings were, he might miss out on something that he had wanted.

  She flushed as she realized that it was bold of her to think that he would want her so bad. She sighed and stepped out of her car, still not knowing what she was going to do. She opened the door to find the shop ready to go. Everything had been swept and straightened the night before. She went to the kitchen to start prepping the food they would serve that day. When she got to the kitchen, she found Keegan already there, chopping vegetables. She inhaled and could smell the coffee already brewing.

  “Hey,” was all she could manage. She made a beeline for the coffee maker. She usually preferred tea to coffee, but this morning she needed a little something extra.

  “Hi. I felt bad about falling asleep on everyone last night while you were all cleaning up, so I started on the food. I know I won’t be much help later today,” Keegan said.

  “Thank you,” Megan replied, trying not to think about why he wouldn’t be there to help. She didn’t want to take him up to the mountains to go home. She sat sipping the coffee for a few minutes. The coffee seemed to give her a little boost. She took a deep breath and decided just to tell him how she felt.

  “I have something I need to talk to you about,” she announced with as much courage as she could.

  Keegan looked at her sharply as if he knew what she was going to say.

  That made her nervous and she scrambled for a way to tell him her feelings. “When I was about 15, I started to have this dream about a boy who was around the same age as me. Usually, we would talk and sometimes nothing was said between us. I would just see him in my dreams.

  “As I got older, the dreams continued, and the boy grew up with me. At first, I would have a dream only every few months, but soon after I graduated from high school they started to become more frequent. I still have them now, probably about once every few days.” Her voice was shaking. She couldn’t believe she was telling him this. She hadn’t meant to tell him about her dreams. She was just going to tell him how she felt, but her dreams were a huge part of this. He needed to know about them. “Now, we are usually doing everyday stuff, like watching movies, cooking dinner, going on walks.

  “I can’t help but feel like dreaming about one person since I was 15 is kind of significant, although I didn’t want to let it make my decisions for me. I didn’t think I’d ever find him or that he would ever find me.”

  She stopped rambling and took a deep breath. She looked over at Keegan who looked extremely sad and she wondered why. She almost chickened out. But she started this conversation and she needed to finish it. She would never forgive herself if she didn’t. She didn’t give herself any more time to think.

  “Keegan, that man is you.” She stopped talking again, wanting to run out of the room.

  Stop being a coward, she told herself. She looked up at him again, terrified that he was going to laugh at her, or worse- pity her. He wasn’t laughing though or looking at her like she was pathetic. In fact, she couldn’t decipher what he was thinking.

  He still didn’t say anything, so she continued to ramble. “I was so shocked when I saw you for the first time in the field. I recognized you right away, but I didn’t want to say anything. I also didn’t want to fall in love… I mean we are from different times. How could it work out?”

  “Megan.” Keegan stopped her.

  She looked up at him, desperately hoping he wasn’t going to tell her she was crazy.

  “Did you fall in love with me?” Keegan looked deep into her eyes as if he could see the answer before she even spoke the words.

  “Yes,” she said simply.

  Instead of saying anything, he walked towards her. All at once, she was in his arms. He held her tightly and kissed her hard. The sudden change in emotion took her by surprise, so it took a moment before she responded, kissing him back, and pulling him to her tightly.

  He pulled back. “Why didn’t you say something sooner about your dreams?” he asked as he pushed her hair away from her face.

  “I…I didn’t want my dreams to influence our relationship. I didn’t want you to think you had to be with me because I have dreamed about you my whole life.”

  “Then, why didn’t you say you loved me?”

  Tears pricked in her eyes. “Because you are going back to your own time.”

  He kissed her again, just for a moment. There was so much passion in that one kiss, she thought her heart would burst.

  “No. I am not going back to my own time. I love you, too.” He smiled down at her. “I have to thank you for having the courage to tell me when I should have been upfront with you from the beginning. The truth is, I followed you to your time because I couldn’t let you go.”

  They kissed again and then started to laugh. He picked her up and spun her in a small circle. Tears did roll down her cheeks, but they were tears of happiness and relief. She wouldn’t have to sa
y goodbye. He loved her, too.

  “Finally!” The voice startled both of them, and they looked over to see Abby watching from the doorway, clapping her hands in delight. “It took you two long enough to figure it out!”

  They all laughed. “Would you expect anything else from me?” Megan joked.

  Keegan kissed her forehead. “I’m so glad you came to talk to me,” he whispered in her ear.

  Megan sighed and leaned against him. Everything felt just right; exactly how she had always wanted it.

  Epilogue

  Eight months later, Megan was ringing up a customer, unable to wipe the giddy smile off her face. The ring on her finger shimmered in the light as she handed the customer his change. Her smile grew.

  Keegan had proposed the night before. He had taken her horseback riding through the mountains. He had led her in circles before they arrived in the meadow where she had picked all the herbs, where the portal was.

  She had been surprised and a little nervous. She didn’t want to go anywhere near the portal. But he had gotten right down on his knee and asked her to marry him.

  Delighted, she had said yes. She had been smiling ever since.

  Megan walked over to the kitchen, knowing her pastries would be ready to come out of the oven soon. The shop had been doing wonderfully as well; they had already seen a large increase in their profits, and this was during a slow season.

  She breathed in the heavenly smell of the pastries as she cracked the oven to check on them. Just a few more minutes, she decided. Turning around, she ran into Keegan who had been waiting for her.

  “I brought lunch,” he announced with a grin.

  She smiled brightly at him and kissed him. How had she gotten lucky enough to be engaged to the man of her dreams? Over the past few months, her love had grown for Keegan. He was the only one she ever wanted to share her life with.

  She had been impressed on how well Keegan fit into her time. He had learned how to drive a car. He wasn’t able to work as a doctor, but he was a great help in their shop, and he shared knowledge Megan and her mother hadn’t learned about some rare herbs, which in turn helped their customers. She knew that he missed his family, but he was happy with his new life. They both were. For some, true love came only once, and it lasted forever.