“I’m right here,” he murmured in understanding, rolling me to my back with extreme care, parting my lips with his in order to kiss me deeply; I was ready at once but he eased within in gentle increments, never breaking our kiss, building the pleasure by degrees. Case knew me down to the tiniest detail, knew how to draw out an orgasm until I was panting with need. He continued his unceasing motion, on and on, slowing when I was close, tasting hot, salty paths over my flushed skin – finally, the sun well above the horizon, I could hold back no longer and was wracked by pleasure, crying out as I clung to him for dear life. And it was only then that he allowed his own release, groaning as he filled me with jolting bursts of wet heat.
When I’d returned to my senses, slick with sweat and still trembling, I muttered, “Show off.”
His laughter tickled my stimulated skin and he kissed my closed eyes, one after the other. Low and teasing, he rumbled, “That was nothing. Wait ’til tonight.”
Breakfast at Clark’s led to a day spent at the Rawleys’, all of us lounging on the couches in the living room while the kids played, ranging in and out of the house. Wy, caught somewhere between child and young adult, pretended exasperation when Camille’s girls begged him to play “monster” but gave in every time, leaping from the couch with a roar as they shrieked in delight, racing to escape his clutches. It wasn’t difficult to see that Millie Jo was especially infatuated with him, her pretty eyes bright with joy when he caught and subsequently threw her over his shoulder, upside-down. Meanwhile, Mathias, Camille, Case and I shared with Clark, Sean, and Quinn everything we’d discussed last night.
“I thought that from the first,” Sean said, pounding an emphatic fist against the rounded leather arm of the sofa. Marshall’s brothers resembled him so much it hurt; it seemed inconceivable that Marsh wasn’t about to lope around the corner from the kitchen, complaining that there was nothing to eat. “Together we have to pull them back here where they belong. It’s up to us.”
“But how, exactly? Do we sit in a circle and hold hands, like a séance?” I was not attempting to sound facetious, only trying to make sense of something beyond all logic.
“I don’t think that seems totally unreasonable,” Mathias said, accepting the sleeping bundle of his youngest into his arms. Camille, who’d just rejoined us after nursing the baby, slid beside him and kissed his jaw before settling into a more comfortable position. Smoothing a hand over the length of Camille’s thigh, Mathias went on, “Both of us feel closer than ever to the past now that we’re out here. Just like the time we drove this way together, back in 2006, when we first met you guys.”
I sensed Camille’s increasing but unspoken concern the way I would a change in the air; the sudden, inescapable chill that pierces through summer warmth, warning of a tornado beyond the horizon. She didn’t have to speak a word for me to understand her fear; so quickly could someone be robbed of another. In a matter of seconds life could change course. Time plodded onward in a forward march, not back –
But maybe not always. Obviously, under the right circumstances, it moves of its own accord. Fluid rather than fixed.
“Could it work right now? Should we give it a try?” Quinn’s forehead wrinkled in a speculative frown.
Case leaned forward earnestly, his face graced by an expression almost stern in its sincerity; his serious gaze held each of us in turn. “We should, but not here. Out by the foundation of the old homestead, that’s where I’d put my money.” Dressed in faded jeans and an untucked flannel shirt of dark blue plaid, his hair still a little messy from my questing fingers, I wondered if there had ever been a more desirable man to walk the earth since the beginning of time. He elaborated, “Marsh said the first time he ever felt the force field of the past, that’s what he called it, it was out by the old foundation.”
“You’re right.” Excitement swelled in my blood. “If Ruthie and Marsh found the Rawleys in the nineteenth century, like we believe, that’s where they would be. Here, but not exactly here.” It was such a strange thought; I curbed the desire to peer over my shoulder, as if the Rawleys from another century hovered like ghosts near the hearth or along the edges of the spacious room, watching us in silent reflection.
“They seem so close.” Camille unconsciously echoed my thoughts, her gaze alighting on the west-facing windows, toward the site of the old homestead; her longing for knowledge of not only Ruthie and Marsh, but of Malcolm Carter, flowed from the very depths of her soul. I saw it and I knew Mathias saw it, and understood. Her voice was very soft, almost as though she was not speaking as much as thinking aloud. “What separates one time from another? What stands between them and us? Is it a physical barrier? A wall? A freaking mist cloud? Why can some people pass through it?”
“Aunt Jilly believes that time is ongoing, all around us,” I said, and Case’s grip on my ankle, bent toward him on the couch between us, instantly tightened. The memory of Ruthann dissolving before our eyes remained visceral
