Page 64 of Stolen Time
The words drifted away. Was there any point in finishing that sentence?
“Nothing’s changed,” she told him, her tone now emphatic. “I wouldn’t have come here today if I hadn’t wanted to spend the time with you. I wouldn’t have kissed you if that hadn’t been exactly what I wanted. You cared about me when you thought I was a civilian, so what does it matter that I’m a witch?”
“‘What does it matter?’” he repeated, knowing how incredulous he sounded. “Being a witch or a warlock is the very basis for who we are! How can you possibly say that it doesn’t matter?”
“In my case, it doesn’t,” Devynn said, her voice now very firm, very sure of itself. “Yes, I may be a witch, but I’m also a thousand other things. It doesn’t define me. I won’t allow it to, especially when one of my talents is so unpredictable — so dangerous — that I would much rather have never had it at all.”
Underneath his anger, pity stirred. His own gift had always been so strong, so predictable and there for him whenever he needed it, that he had no idea what it would have felt like if it was as capricious as Devynn’s. Would he have been so proud to be a McAllister warlock if his magical talent might have sent him toLondon one time and to the North Pole the next, all without any conscious direction from him?
That would be no way to live.
“I like you, Seth,” Devynn said then. Neither her face nor her tone were pleading as she uttered those words. No, it was more that she wanted to make sure he understood how she felt, and he could do with that information as he willed. “I like you a lot. The whole time, I’ve been trying to think of a way to let you know who I really was and where —when— I came from. But I suppose I was a coward.”
Her voice faltered just the slightest bit on that last word, and Seth found himself wavering. It was all very well and good to feel righteous about the way she’d concealed her identity and her past from him…but he wasn’t a woman. He had no idea what it would feel like to be thousands of miles and more than a hundred years away from everyone she knew, from anyone who might have stepped in to protect her.
No wonder she’d thought she needed to hide her witch nature — and everything else about her identity — until she was absolutely sure of him.
“It’s all right,” he said…even as he wondered if it actually was. He needed some time to think about what had just happened, what he’d learned. “But I should probably take you home now.”
The moon had risen enough that its cool light had begun to filter through the trees. Deborah looked paler than ever as she gazed at him, expression especially troubled. “Are you going to tell them?”
Some people might have said that he needed to let the entire clan know about the witch from the future who’d been hiding in their midst. But Seth understood how precarious Deborah’s position was here. The last thing he would ever do was jeopardize the shelter Ruth and Timothy had provided for her. Maybe that was being dishonest, but he knew they enjoyedhaving her there, now that their youngest child had married and moved on to make a life of her own.
Eventually, sure, Deborah would have to decide what to do next, since she obviously couldn’t live on the McAllisters’ charity forever. For now, though….
“No,” he said clearly. “I’m not going to tell them.”
Yet,he added mentally.
19
COVERT OPERATIONS
When push came to shove,I still hadn’t told him everything. I couldn’t have. Bad enough that he knew I wasn’t really Deborah and that I’d landed in 1926 from a time more than a hundred years in the future. But to also reveal I was half Wilcox?
That, as my father might have said, was a bridge too far.
Okay, sure, I’d been lying to Seth for the past two weeks…out of pure self-preservation. But once he discovered I was a witch — once that insanely amazing kiss we shared somehow short-circuited my one reliable power and let him know exactly what I was — my brain had gone into instant damage-control mode.
It was one thing for him to realize I was a witch.
It would be something entirely different for him to learn that I was also a Wilcox, a member of a clan all the McAllisters despised. My lies had already stretched the connection between the two of us to the breaking point. If I told him who my mother was, where I’d been raised…I honestly didn’t know whether we’d recover from that revelation.
We drove back down to Jerome in silence, and although Seth was still the soul of politeness, opening my car door and walking me up the porch steps just like he always did, I couldtell something was different. He didn’t try to take my hand, and he didn’t smile. No, he just bade me a good evening and then headed back to his convertible, even as I did my best to ignore the sinking sensation in my gut.
I didn’t linger there to watch him drive away like I might have a few days earlier. Instead, I went inside, glad that the house seemed dark and still except for one crystal-accented lamp on a table in the foyer.
That way, I could get upstairs before Ruth appeared to ask me how my date had gone.
Somehow, I managed to hold it together until I was safely in my room with the door closed behind me. Then I stumbled over to the bed and fell down on it so I could let the tears come.
Not noisy sobbing, though. I didn’t want to take the smallest chance that either Ruth or Timothy could overhear me. Better to lie there and allow the tears to silently slide down my cheeks, releasing all the worry and hurt and fear that had been building for the past two weeks.
This whole time, I’d never had an endgame in mind. How could I, when I had no idea how long I might remain lost in the past, thanks to a gift I couldn’t control and which appeared to have deserted me?
But some part of my mind and heart had envisioned a future with Seth McAllister. Despite the mess I was in, I knew I couldn’t deny how I felt when I was around him, how I was safe and happy…and also aroused by the smallest brush of his fingers against mine, even the way those clear blue eyes of his would meet my gaze.
If I couldn’t go home, I could make a life with him here.