Forever, Lately

by Linore Rose Burkard

  Where you go, I shall go; where you die, I shall die, and there will I be buried.” Rosamund Hodge

  CHAPTER 69

  The Trailblazer landed on its side, on the median between the north and south tributaries of the turnpike, facing the wrong way. Omar was bleeding but he blinked and looked around. Clarissa didn’t have a scratch that he could see, but she was out cold.

  The Capri was farther down the turnpike—or at least he thought it was, for all he could see were huge semis, engines smoking, laying at odd angles across the road. He felt a pang of conscience for causing such a mess, but some things were worth making messes for. Time travel was one of them.

  The windshield was shattered, and Omar could feel his face was bleeding. But he’d have to get over to that car and grab the shawls before those two had a chance to stop him. Except when he tried to move, he realized he was stuck. He couldn’t feel his legs. Uh-oh.

  He took another look ahead. Truck drivers were now standing outside their vehicles, assessing the situation. Two of them were on cell phones. There—ahead of the first truck—it was the Capri! Just as he spied it, it burst into flames. No! No! He fought to move himself out of the vehicle but couldn’t budge. The door was smashed in.

  Clarissa moaned and blinked. She came to, slowly sat up and got her bearings. Her body ached. Her head ached. Men appeared outside the car, opened her door and helped her get out on shaky legs. She seemed, miraculously, to be mostly unharmed.

  “Hey!” Omar called. “You okay?”

  She looked in at him, grimaced, and turned away. She never wanted to see Omar again. She’d never even speak to him again.

  The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands.

  Psalm9:16b

  CHAPTER 70

  Claire opened her eyes and saw St. John gazing at her lovingly. She wasn’t dead! Julian wasn’t dead! She gasped and sat up. They were in his house! On the settee in the library!

  “We’re here!” she cried. “We’re really here and in one piece!”

  He kissed her forehead.

  She threw herself into his arms, blinking back tears of relief. “I thought I’d lost you! I thought we were both done for!” She moved apart from him. “You realize it’s the same day, the day that you—that you—might have—”

  “Shhh,” he said. “I know. But I’m here.”

  “But the shawl was in your pocket,” she said. “How did you get it to your chest?”

  “I managed to get it in hand, that’s all I know. And you had yours, and here we are.” He drew her upon his lap. She fell against him again as they both took in the enormity of their close call, and how they had managed to escape the spectre of death. Claire’s heart still pounded at the image of the semi ahead of them as they went careening toward it—thanks to Clarissa’s driver, who’d apparently gone bonkers! She snuggled her face into Julian’s chest gratefully.

  “Thank God that’s over!” she murmured. “No more worries about Clarissa chasing you on the road!”

  To show his agreement, he lifted her face and kissed her. Then he said, “We’ll send for Lady Ashworth, and she’ll come to collect you. Tomorrow, the day after I might have—you know—we’ll leave for Gretna.” He gave her a searching look. “Unless you prefer to wait and have a traditional ceremony? I comprehend these things may matter to a bride.”

  Claire gazed up into the handsome face she loved so well. The blue-grey beautiful eyes were intently upon her. She circled his neck tighter with her arms and leaned up so their faces almost touched. “Prefer to wait? Mr. St. John, I assure you.” She smiled impishly. “I was born for speed.” She kissed him with her whole heart.

  EPILOGUE

  A year later

  Officer Jones and his partner, the policemen watching cars whiz past from a cruiser on Maine Turnpike, came to attention when their radar detector beeped. Jones started the engine as a green Jaguar darted past in the left lane. This would be a reckless endangerment ticket—good income for the township.

  He switched on the siren, setting off the lights simultaneously. It was early for a speeder, and fortunately the road was mostly empty. He crossed the highway.

  Hearing a siren, Claire glanced at her side-view mirror and saw the lights of the oncoming cruiser. She took a breath. “You’d better slow down and pull over.”

  Julian glanced into the rear-view and sighed. “Already? We’ve hardly been out.”

  “We’ve been out fifty minutes,” she said with a glance at the dashboard. “We’ve gone almost a hundred miles.”

  He raised a brow. “One of these days I won’t slow. I’ll outrun them.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Claire said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  Julian crossed the highway and came to a stop at a shoulder. The police cruiser pulled up behind them.

  He turned to her. “If I had ID I’d take the ticket and be done with it.”

  “I doubt it. They’d confiscate your license at these speeds—if you had one,” Claire grinned. Looking in the rearview she said, “Here he comes. Are you ready for this?”

  He turned and kissed her forehead. “Clarissa won’t like it.”

  “No, but she’ll get the car back after they impound it. She always does.”

  He nodded. “It helps having a world-famous author beholden to one, does it not?” He watched as Claire put a brand new shiny silver guinea under the floor mat.

  “One who adores cashing in perfect, antique coins for ready money,” Claire agreed.

  “Perhaps next time we should leave her 50 pounds sterling. She’ll get a fortune for it on today’s market.”

  Claire smiled. “Whatever you like; though if you would stay nearer the speed limit, we wouldn’t have to go through this again. And neither would she.”

  “Keep nearer the speed limit?” He gave a roguish grin. “My dear Mrs. St. John—surely you know by now—I was born for speed.”

  After checking the car’s plates in the database, Officer Jones was about to leave the car when his partner said, “Let’s just keep going. Forget this one.”

  Jones said, “Forget it? Why? We got him clocked at 100.”

  His partner, a black, middle-aged paunchy man named Curtis, shook his head. “I’ve stopped this car twice before. I got the license plate memorized. Every time I get to the window, there’s no one inside.”

  Jones raised a brow and looked ahead at the vehicle. “There’s two in there, now.”

  Curtis nodded. “Yup. They won’t be there when you reach the window.”

  Jones stared at Curtis. “Come with me. Don’t let ’em run.”

  Curtis shook his head. “They don’t run. They vanish.”

  Jones stared at Curtis, who raised his hands and said, “I know, I know it sounds crazy. I’m telling you, man, they disappear! I looked into this car. Some big wig writer by name of Clarissa Winthrop owns it. Maybe she’s a magician, too, I don’t know. But the car is on record for being impounded at least five times for being parked illegally like this on the side of a highway. But not a single speeding ticket’s been issued.”

  Jones was growing annoyed. “Look, there could be lots of explanations for that. I don’t care about the owner or the history of the car, okay? I can see two people in there—” he stopped and peered ahead to double check—“and I’m gonna give ‘em a citation.”

  Curtis folded his arms across his chest. “You do that.” He leveled his gaze on the shadowy forms of the two figures in the Jaguar.

  Jones gave his partner a strange look, got out of the cruiser, tightened his belt and approached the car. Curtis was usually level-headed, so he didn’t know what to make of this. Looking ahead, he saw the two figures in the front seats and relaxed. If Curtis was right and somehow they’d escaped the scene in the past, they wouldn’t get away this time; not on his watch. He’d give the driver an earful about endangering their lives, not to mention innocent motorists, and issue the ticket.

  At the door to the vehicle, he squinted and bl
inked. Wait a minute! He’d seen two people only seconds ago! He tried the door, and finding it unlocked, threw it open, and searched the front and back. Empty! He looked around the car, at the highway, and saw no one. Feeling foolish, he nevertheless looked under the car. Nothing. He glanced at the trunk and opened it. Empty. He scratched his head. It was impossible—but the driver and passenger had vanished!

  Curtis was chuckling when he climbed back into the cruiser.

  “I told you, man. I told you,” he said. “Don’t write it up. We’ll get it towed; that’s all we can do.”

  The mystery of how the driver kept escaping the law remained a mystery.

  And probably, to this day, it still is.

  Julian and Claire were back in the library of their townhouse, on the settee from which they’d shared their first kiss. It seemed like ages ago.

  “You realize I’m ruined for carriage racing?” he asked, as he nuzzled her face with his nose.

  “I do,” she said smiling. She kissed him and wrapped her arms about his neck. “Good thing, too, for now you must die of old age; it’s what your obituary says.” Clarissa had told them this, to Claire’s great relief. It was the only reason she agreed to visit the future with him on occasion so Julian could get in some recreational driving. Happily, Grandmamma’s claim that the return path had dried up for her turned out to be not quite true. What had really happened was that the tallit had simply disappeared on her once she married the marquess. Fortunately for Claire, it had returned to the cottage for her to find.

  But the two halves of the shawl hadn’t disappeared on Claire. She’d even stitched the edges of them nicely, painstakingly copying the embroidery so they no longer looked torn and ragged, but complete and pretty.

  Trips to the future were such fun. It was somehow comforting that the world she’d grown up in was still there, even as she and Julian continued to live in the past. And Clarissa was so amiable now! Marrying Adam seemed to transform her. She had moved into her new career with nary a bump, did book signings all over the world, and continued to publish Regency romances which Claire edited for her, to great success.

  There was a story going around, started by the wheelchair bound Omar Rashid, that she was a time-traveller come from the past.

  Of course, he was laughed to scorn.

  Other Books by

  LINORE ROSE BURKARD

  Before the Season Ends

  Inspirational Regency Romance sparkling

  with heartwarming humor in the vein of Georgette Heyer.

  Miss Ariana Forsythe is sent to her wealthy aunt in London just in time for the season. Thrust into the world of the upper crust, she is soon embroiled in scandal, and must team up with the Paragon, the darkly handsome and powerful Phillip Mornay, to quench it. Ariana can trust God’s hand in her life, but can she resist Mr. Mornay’s increasing claim on her heart? When she finds herself betrothed to him, she is faced with a terrible choice— and she must make it soon, before the season ends!

  The House in Grosvenor Square

  Mystery, perils and romance beset Miss Ariana Forsythe, our lovable heroine from Before the Season Ends.

  With only two weeks until Ariana is to marry the handsome Phillip Mornay, what can possibly go wrong? Everything!

  Ariana encounters one threat after another while Mr. Mornay is determined to protect his irrepressible adventuress, even if it means keeping her under lock and key! From London’s criminal nurseries to the poshest men’s club, readers will hold onto their bonnets while enjoying Ariana’s breathtakingly convoluted march to the altar!

  The Country House Courtship

  What are wealthy sisters for, if not to help younger sisters marry well? Beatrice Forsythe is ready for a romance of her own!

  Five years have passed since Ariana Forsythe married the Paragon, Phillip Mornay. Now Beatrice Forsythe is ready for a romance of her own. Who better to help her get it than her fashionable elder sister? But the Mornays are happily embedded in domestic life at their elegant country estate, and Beatrice despairs of ever getting a come-out into society. When two eligible men appear on the scene, one of them must be the right man for a country house courtship like no other! But one dark secret may undo everything…

  The Pulse Effex Series

  By L.R. Burkard

  Available individually through Ingram and other booksellers

  “Takes readers into a chilling possible future for America while affirming the power of faith in the darkest of times.”

  SUSAN K. STEWART, Vine Voice

  Book One: Pulse

  (World Gone Dark)

  Book Two: Resilience

  (Seeking the Light)

  Book Three: Defiance

  (Against All Odds)

  “Had me spellbound! You won't want to miss this gritty and powerful series!”

  NORA ST. LAURENT, CEO, The Book Club Network

  About the Author

  Linore Rose Burkard is a serious watcher of period films, a Janeite, and hopeless romantic. An award winning author best known for Inspirational Regency Romance, her books opened the genre for the CBA. Besides historical romance, Linore writes contemporary suspense (The Pulse Effex Series, as L.R. Burkard), contemporary romance (Falling In), and romantic short stories. Linore has a magna cum laude English Lit. degree from CUNY which she earned while taking herself far too seriously. She now resides in Ohio with her husband and family, where she turns her youthful angst into character or humor-driven plots.

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  Watch for these upcoming books by Linore:

  Brides of Mayfair

  A trilogy of light hearted Regency Romance

  Miss Tavistock’s Mistake

  Miss Fenshawe’s Façade

  Miss Weatherham’s Wedding

  Coming 2020 -21*

  Also:

  Ship of Dreams:

  A Triumphant Love Story of the Titanic

  Love, Undercover

  A trilogy of romantic suspense stories

  *Publication dates subject to change