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Jack turned the sign on the door to the ‘Closed’ side and flipped the bolt. Thank God it was closing time. He doubted he could muster one more smile or greeting to a customer. This had to be the longest and most depressing day of his life, counting those he’d spent in Vietnam. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure how he would face another day knowing his weekly visits with Gwennie and Blake had come to an end.
He flipped off the lights and wandered on his sluggish feet through the dim kitchen accessories aisle to the back of the store. If not for the street lights peeking through the front plate-glass windows the shop would be completely black. Pressing the palm of his hand to the door leading to the storeroom, he gave a slight push and stepped through into an even darker room.
“Jack.”
He flinched and threw his hand over his chest, snapping his head in the direction in which the voice had rung out. He steadied his stance, firming it up in a defensive manner. “Who’s there?”
“A friend, Gabriela. No need to worry.”
As his eyes adjusted, a small framed figure came into focus. “Don’t move!” he ordered, keeping his gaze drilled into the lady as he took a few sidesteps and outstretched his arm to flip on the storeroom lights.
Less than five feet away, almost an arm’s reach, stood a woman who couldn’t be more than five and a half feet tall. Long blonde hair framed her pale face. The slightest of crows-feet shone on the corners of her ocean-blue eyes and made him think her middle aged. Her gaze held warmth and familiarity, but he couldn’t completely place her. Still, his tense muscles relaxed.
“How did you get in here?”
She lifted her thin arm and pointed to the door.
He obviously didn’t see her enter the store, and effective immediately he was going to start locking the storeroom door.
“Do I know you?” he asked, not recalling he’d ever met a lady named Gabriela.
“Sort of, I think.”
What kind of answer was that? “Sort of?”
“I think so. Something isn’t right, and I’m trying to figure it out. It’s going to be hard to explain and believe.”
The more she spoke, the more he was convinced he’d heard her voice before. Color him curious, he needed to know what this woman had to say.
“Is there a place we can sit and talk? This could take some time. Maybe upstairs in your apartment.”
A tinge of unease snaked up his spine. How did she know he lived above the store? Had she been watching him?
“It took me a while to find you. I had to ask around,” she replied, answering his unasked question.
He contemplated her request, and the overwhelming familiarity of her outweighed the disconcerting way she’d chosen to approach him. He motioned for her to follow him up the stairs. When they entered his tiny apartment, he gestured toward one of the two unmatching chairs positioned at the kitchen table.
She sat, rested her forearms on the tabletop, and clasped her hands together.
He took the other seat, swiped his sweaty palms over his pant leg, and studied her from across the table, trying to place from where he knew her.
“I’m not sure where to start. I only ask that you please hear me out no matter how crazy this sounds to you. Can you do that?” she asked.
The seriousness in her gaze caused him to nod.
“Do you believe in time travel?”
His pulse ratcheted up and he shifted in his chair. Of all the possibilities that ran through his mind regarding what she might say to him, time travel was not one of them. Was this lady a loon?
If not for the fact he promised to hear her out, he would have risen off his chair and escorted her to the door. Instead, he lifted his arms from his lap, rested them on the table surface, and leaned forward. A gesture to show her he’d make good on his promise. “No, but go on.”
She sucked her ruby red bottom lip into her mouth and clasped it between her teeth for a moment before releasing it. “I do. You see. There are what we call Preservers, Protectors, and Modifiers. Preservers travel back in time to preserve history when evil travelers—Modifiers—try to change it for their own benefit.”
Good Lord, this lady was crazy.
Her head bobbed up and down and she blew out an exaggerated breath. “I know. It sounds ridiculous but please, just hear me out.”
The desperation in her tone had him nodding again.
“Preservers preserve their family line’s specific history. Protectors are assigned to Preservers to help them do such. Protectors serve many Preservers, not just one.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
The woman’s shoulders lifted with the deep breath she took. “You’re a Preserver, and I’m your Protector.”
He was already having a shit day, and the last thing he wanted was to have to deal with a crazy lady. “I’m sorry, but we’re done here.”
He pushed his chair back from the table to rise, but before he could stand the woman reached out and placed her hand over his. A spark of electricity shot through his system and ground him to the chair.
Gabriela’s gaze intensified as it bored into his soul. He froze in place. Her hand tightened around his. Her eyes seemed to serve as a portal to another world—another time. In the ocean blue depths of her gaze, a scene played out. He saw himself at the controls of a war plane, crashing into the bloody water. Then he was in waist-deep water helping a wounded medic onto a landing craft. Then boarding a navy ship.
Little pricks of pain tugged at his earlobe. He wanted to touch his ear, but he still couldn’t move.
Everything went black. When his vision returned, a new movie shone in the woman’s eyes. This time he was in Vietnam and watched himself at the controls of a Huey helicopter. Strange, since he wasn’t a pilot. The show continued. Soldiers loaded wounded onto his chopper. The loud woosh of the rotors wasn’t enough to drown out the pop...pop...pop... of the gunfire. His gaze focused on his bloody hand, then on a bullet hole in his helmet.
Pain ripped through Jack’s right hand and left eye as if the injuries happened in this instant as he watched this movie. Straining through swollen eyes he saw himself lying on a hospital bed. A nurse spoke to the soldier in the next bed, then turned her attention to him. The likeness of the crazy lady across the table from him and the nurse was astonishing, but not identical.
The movie reel went black, and he blinked, then it started up again, he was back in Vietnam. This time he helped carry a fellow soldier to an evacuation chopper. Unlike the other views, he remembered this clip as if it had happened yesterday. What he realized now though, was that the tiny woman across the table from him was the soldier who’d assisted him. She was dressed in a man’s uniform and strong as one, too. He watched himself glance to the shuttering blades of elephant grass a short distance away and followed the line of sight. Horror seized his heart. He gasped and snapped his free hand over the healed wound on his shoulder.
“I was there to protect you,” she finally said. “But you saved my life that day.”
“How did you know...why were you there? But you’re a woman,” Jack stuttered.
She released his hand and leaned back in the chair. “I’m your Protector,” she reminded him. “I time travel when you travel. It doesn’t matter where you travel to, I’ll be there.”
Between her annoyed glower and taut facial muscles, he knew he’d insulted her. He hadn’t meant to, but a woman combat soldier in Vietnam was unheard of.
This was bizarre.
“My apologies. I didn’t mean to infer you weren’t capable—”
Her hand flew into the air, cutting off his words. “I know what you meant, but I’m not here to get in a philosophical debate about that right now. We have more important things to deal with at present, such as getting your rightful past, present, and future back. If it was just you, it wouldn’t matter so much, but your family’s rightful destiny impacts so many other people and the future of the American people as a whole. We can’t sit idle and do nothing.”
What in the hell was this lady talking about? For heaven’s sake, his dad was a janitor, and he was just the manager of a dime store in small-town USA. How did they have any impact on the American people?
Gabriela leaned forward and squinted at him, forcing her penetrating gaze back into his soul.
Not wanting to be subject to any more of the outlandish visions she somehow put in his head, he turned his gaze away from hers and stood. “I think it’s time for you to leave.”
She didn’t move.
“I’m not leaving until we figure out what to do. It took a long time for me to track you down, and I broke the rules to do so. That’s how important this is.”
“Rules?”
“The rules of engagement for Preservers, Protectors, and Modifiers. Outside of time travel, we are not supposed to communicate or attempt forced travel. But I can’t figure out another way to get things back on track unless the rules are bent. Arthur is in the catbird seat since he was able to alter history—the future. He has everything he wants right now, so he has no reason to initiate a time travel. But you, you have every reason.”
He knit his brows and kept his gaze on her. Hearing the vile man’s name roll off her tongue had him wanting to know more, especially since she claimed Arthur was a time traveler, too. Good Lord, what was he thinking? Why was he starting to buy into this story? This was stupid. He needed her out of his house.
Jack gestured toward the door. “You need to leave.”
Gabriela lifted her tiny body from the chair. Yeah, right, like she could be a soldier with that petite frame.
“I’ll leave if that’s what you want, but let me just ask you a couple of questions first.”
If that meant she’d leave soon without issue he’d agree. He nodded.
Her gaze landed on the left side of his face. “How did you get that scar on your earlobe?”
Instinctively, he reached up and touched it. How had she even noticed the faint scar? “Fishing accident, I guess. I don’t really remember. My father told me that when I was young, he and I were on the shore fishing with one of his buddies, and when the guy cast the hook it caught me in the ear. Nearly ripped the lobe off.”
“Are you sure?”
Recalling the vision he’d had minutes earlier about him crashing a war plane into bloody water sent a small amount of doubt to coil in his stomach.
Her gaze lifted to meet his, then drifted up. “And the scar above your eye, the one that extends upward toward your temple. How did you get that?” she asked with an arched brow.
Jack pressed his fingertips to the jagged scar. “I wiped out on my bicycle when I was ten or so.”
She pursed her lips. “Are you sure?”
Thinking back to a few minutes earlier, he remembered the vision he’d had about flying an evacuation chopper in Vietnam and getting shot through his helmet causing the scrape to his head. He lowered his hand to inspect the thick, ragged scar at the fatty part of the V between his thumb and forefinger.
“Is that from your bike accident, too?”
Her tone let him know she didn’t buy the story, planting a larger seed of doubt to sprout in his mind. “Y-yes.”
“Right. One more question, and I’ll be on my way. The bullet scar on your shoulder, where did that come from?”
The blow of that question nearly knocked him off his feet. That scar was concealed. How could she possibly know about it? She had mentioned it took a while for her to track him down. Maybe in her search, she’d found someone in town who knew of this injury. Yeah, that was it...unless the third vision he’d had moments earlier was true?
Reservation had him drumming for an explanation other than the possibility she told the truth about time travel.
“I can see you still don’t believe me. I’ll give you a couple of days to think about this, but I’ll be back.”
She spun and took two steps toward the door before she paused and glanced over her shoulder. “One more thing. That woman you’re so in love with, the one married to your cousin—she’s actually your wife. And the boy...he’s yours as well. Arthur stole them when he stole your family’s history. That connection you feel for them is real.”
Jack would be lying if he said her words didn’t send a thrill of excitement to whip through him at the thought of Gwennie being his, but how was that possible.
“No. It can’t be.” There was no use in holding hope on this, he wasn’t that lucky of a guy.
Gabriela shrugged. “Well, suit yourself. Just stand by and let him go on beating her.”
Those words sliced through his heart like a knife. He stared after the woman as she stepped through the doorway. Guilt squeezed his chest.
“Wait!” he called after her and lunged for the door.
From halfway down the staircase, the lady glanced over her shoulder at him. “Are you ready to fight for what’s rightfully yours and do right by the American people?”
He knew in his heart she spoke the truth. He didn’t understand how all this could have happened or what exactly the fierce woman meant regarding the American people, but deep down he knew Gwennie was his soulmate and Blake was his son, and along with that came something that contributed to the greater good.
“Yes, but I don’t know where to start...what to do.”
“Me neither...well, I do have an idea, but...” She paused and shook her head. “We’ll figure it out. No matter the cost. It’s the right thing to do,” she added gravely.
No matter the cost. What did she mean by that?
Gabriela marched up the stairs not stopping until she was back in his kitchen. She leaned back against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.
Jack stood opposite her in the tiny room, waiting her out as his mind worked to process the information she’d given him. A time traveler. Not easily believable, yet in his soul, he knew this life he lived wasn’t right.
She cleared her throat. “I was on a mission one time with another Preserver, long ago, and he said something to me that got me wondering if Preservers and Protectors could indeed force a travel. At the time, I didn’t think much about it because all my missions had been successful, and there was no need to force a travel.” She paused and drew in a breath. “Well, not until several years ago when we failed to preserve history. Since then, the possibility gnawed at me every day.
The curiosity level in him rose with every word she spoke. “What was it the Preserver said to you?”
Her grave gaze held his. “He said I was as fierce a fighter as my mother.” Gabriela’s eyes watered, and she averted her gaze. “He said he and my mother, like us, had failed at a mission. Said my mother vowed to do whatever it took to reclaim history and his rightful destiny.” She paused and swiped a tear from her cheek. “And, it was too bad what happened to her. Though her selfless act cost her life, it probably saved thousands of lives.”
“She died on that mission?” he questioned.
His Protector swallowed hard, “No, she returned home, but passed away shortly thereafter. I can’t say for sure, but I bet she’d forced a travel. Even with knowing the potential consequences, she did it anyhow, risking it all for the greater good.”
Though he wanted to know how her mother died, he was afraid to ask—know. Judging from the apprehension emitting Gabriela’s gaze. He’d bet his last dollar her mother died a horrible death.
“So, how would we force a travel? Get to the correct place? Know what to do when we got there?” he asked.
Gabriela tapped her finger against her lips a few times before she lowered her hand. “I don’t know for sure. I’m in new territory here. But recently, I recalled a comment my grandfather made about forcing travel when I was a teenager when he and my mother had begun to prepare me for my role as a Protector. He didn’t come out and say Preservers and Protectors could force a travel, it’s like he spoke in some sort of code. Being young and dumb, I didn’t listen as attentively as I should have, but I clearly remember him warning against forcing a travel as it was against the rules and punishable by the Gods.”
Her gaze landed on the floor for a few beats before she lifted it to meet his again. “Knowing what is at stake here, I tested a forced travel on a minor incident. It worked. I think we should try to do this. Force a travel with Arthur to reclaim your rightful history and future.”
If the woman thought he could get his right life back, he was game and all ears. He’d do anything for Gwennie and Blake. Anything to prevent Arthur from laying a hand on her again. Anything to make them his again.
But, could he actually go there knowing the outcome likely wouldn’t be good for his Protector. Well, she was the one that brought it up. Dread coiled in the pit of his stomach. Would he really be able to let her risk her life for this? To correct his history? Reclaim his destiny. No. He wasn’t that selfish.
Jack held his hand up. “I can’t let you do this, take this risk. I won’t be a part of it.”
Her appreciative gaze intensified, then hardened. “We don’t have a choice. It’s not about me. History needs to be corrected so the future gets back on track. Your heirs are destined for great things...important things. The destiny of the American people lies in the Cornelis’ hands.”
“How do you know this?”
The woman’s gaze landed on the floor. “I’ve already said too much. To keep you shielded, I’ll say no more except we need to correct history. Now.”
“How do you propose we go back?”
“The best I can figure is that we have to find a way to make your cousin want to go back. To the exact point in time, he’d changed history. Again, it is his kind, the Modifiers, who generally dictate when travel occurs. Right now, he’s got everything he wants, so he has no need to travel. We need to create a need, make him angry, or reveal some sort of future failure that will make him want to go back to re-route things to ensure he can keep your life. This will be our chance to reclaim your history and future.”
How in the hell was he supposed to do that especially when he didn’t even know his role?
“We need to think. What could we do to make him need to time travel?”
Adrenaline shot through his veins. He had an idea. He stepped closer to Gabriela. “Touch my arm. Like you did before.”
“Huh?”
“When you touched me before, I had two visions of what happened in Vietnam while I was there. In one I was a pilot, in the other a ground soldier. Conflicting visions...roles. In both, I was injured.” He paused and thought for a moment. Unease snaked up his spine. “In the second one, I was shot by a U.S. soldier.”
She nodded knowingly.
He swallowed hard. “I’d like to see that vision again. Maybe’s there’s something I can learn from it to help us.”
“Perhaps you should sit for this.” She gestured toward the worn-out lounger.
Gabriela pulled over a kitchen chair next to the recliner and sat.
He eased onto the lumpy cushion, leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and cleared his mind of everything but the scene he desired to relive.
The cool pads of his Protector’s fingertips touched his arm. In that instant, the movie reel began to play in his mind. Unlike the first time he’d had this vision, he wasn’t shocked and found himself able to focus on the smaller details. He closed his eyes, and his concentration intensified.
This time, the vision was not in the third person to him. He saw it exactly as he’d lived it. The Huey quickly lowered from the sky. The swooshing air of the rotors kicked up the soil. He couldn’t wipe the grit from his eyes because his hands were occupied with carrying Gary Tebon, Gwennie’s brother, to the evacuation chopper, so he jerked to a pause to press his watery eye to his upper arm in the hope to clear his vision enough to make his way to the Huey.
Enemy fire sparked up.
“Keep moving!” the soldier helping him yelled.
Tebon’s drooped head lifted. The man’s eyes went wide. “Fuck me,” he whispered before his head fell forward.
Jack glanced to where Tebon had been looking. His heart slammed in his chest. A beefy U.S. soldier aimed at him. The man’s eyes glowed red like he imagined the devils would. Among all the chaos, a low, feral snarl hissed from that same direction as the gun fired. Jack pivoted his body, shielding the others. In that instant, a breath-stealing, sharp pain ripped through his shoulder. He fell forward into Gary and the other soldier, and they all tumbled to the ground.
Jack opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on his Protector. “It was Arthur. He shot me!”
Her eyes widened at his declaration.
He sprang from his chair and paced the tiny room like a wild animal in a cage, not knowing what to think—do. He ran the back of his hand over his forehead to wipe away the sweat.
His Protector was much calmer than he was about the fact his own cousin had tried to kill him. “Why?”
Gabriela stood and planted her hands on her narrow hips. Then she arched a brow.
He stopped pacing and stared at her. “To steal my life, my wife, and family.”
“Yes.”
Jack squeezed his eyes shut. Visions of his Purple Heart surfaced. He opened his eyes and in two quick steps, he was at the shelving unit in his living room. He plucked his wooden keepsake box from the surface and opened it. He stared at the Purple Heart he received for being injured in war. At the time, he didn’t know his injury came from a U.S. Troop, let alone his own relative. His heart pumped hard as if it pushed blood as thick as peanut butter through his veins. How could Arthur have done this to him?
He picked up the medal and ran his thumb over the surface. As realization set in, his heart beat faster and faster as if his blood had now thinned and his heart couldn’t get enough of it. Those medals of Arthur’s, the ones he could never stop bragging about weren’t his at all.
Jack snapped his head in Gabriela’s direction. “And, to steal my family’s decorated military history...” He almost choked on his words.
Her facial features softened with an understanding of how hard it was for him to accept this bizarre truth and altered reality.
She nodded. “Yes. Those medals, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Air Medal are yours, not his. They belong to the Cornelis line, not the Dupont lineage.”
“Oh my God.”
“It’s you, Jack. You are the war hero. Not him, nor his father or grandfather before him. The Cornelis lineage is rich with decorated military history. The heroic actions of you and your ancestors positively impacted so many lives through the years, but that all changed when Arthur stole your history. More importantly, there’s a future event that needs to occur in order to save the American people. That event is contingent upon your and Gwendoline’s great-grandson’s existence. And right now, he won’t exist.”
Jack swallowed audibly. “Gwennie and I have a great-grandson?” he replied in not much more than a whisper.
Gabriela averted her gaze.
“You’ve said too much?”
She returned her gaze to him. “As for your future, it’s not for me to divulge, it is yours to discover and experience one moment at a time.”
She smiled warmly for a moment before it dissipated, and her ocean-blue eyes darkened with trepidation “So yes, I’ve said too much, But, my role is to protect you as you preserve history, no matter the cost.
He wasn’t sure how to respond. It was his nature to protect people, but he had a feeling there wasn’t anything he could do for her now outside of not trying to change history back. She was in too deep and had revealed too much to reset the course. Still, he couldn’t accept that reality for her. He stiffened his spine. “I can’t let you do this.”
“You don’t have a choice in the matter. You have a bigger responsibility here other than just getting your life back and trying to save mine. The survival of the American people lies in your hands,” she replied sternly.
“But you’ll...”
She raised her hand, cutting off his words. “The mission to reset the course starts now.”