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young boy was much better at than she could ever hope to be. Today Hans seemed down. Worried, she prodded him as to what was wrong.
“I’m not here to burden you, miss,” he said quietly. A gentleman, and in this world almost a man, he was always sure to keep the door wide open when they painted together so nobody could accuse him of unsavory deeds. He forced a smile to his lips. “I just want to make certain you are happy in your new home. And I enjoy painting the pictures we make together.”
Wai looked the boy up and down. He seemed to have aged years in the matter of days. “You aren’t a burden,” she promised, motioning toward a crude pine chair at the table. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“It’s my father,” Hans sighed, sitting down next to her near the small fireplace. He ran his hands over his breeches. “He grows more ill with each passing day. I fear he won’t live much longer.”
Wai closed her eyes against his words. No, Samuel wouldn’t live much longer. She remembered that gravestone with stark clarity, too.
She was quiet for a moment and then, “What is your father’s favorite Biblical passage?”
Hans thought that over for a moment. “The Star of Bethlehem.” He smiled. “Papa always liked that the angels sent word of the Christ’s birth to the shepherds, the lowest amongst us, rather than to the rich kings.”
A chill of awareness slowly crept down Wai’s spine as she recalled the painting that she’d seen in the Schoenbrunn schoolhouse before she’d hit her head and woken up two hundred years earlier. “I bet your father would be very touched if you painted a special picture just for him. Why not paint the scene as you see it in your head?”
Hans seemed pleased. “I should have thought of that myself.”
Wai’s eyes were gentle, kind. “You’ve had a lot on your mind.”
Hans set to painting and Wai set to thinking. The one thing she hated about all of this was knowing what would happen before it happened. Her little friend would lose his father—Samuel would die soon. She sighed, realizing it was her destiny to be Hans’s rock and help him weather the storm.
* * * * *
Samuel died three days later.
At his funeral, Wai stood between Hans and his mother Elizabeth, her hands threaded through both of theirs, comforting them in the only way she knew how.
Elizabeth was strong and proud, but sadness was etched into her sunken eyes. Dressed in a plain white dress and bonnet with a black shawl, her shoulders seemed to stoop 187
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just a bit. Wai prayed the widowed woman would be able to rest tonight—she’d spent weeks caring for her ailing husband.
“Thank you for being so kind to my son,” Elizabeth said quietly after the ceremony ended. “He needed the distraction. I hated for Hans to sit in the cottage and watch Samuel rot away.”
“He loved his father deeply.”
“Yes. And Samuel loved him.”
Wai smiled softly. “Did he like the picture Hans painted especially for him?”
“More than anything.” Elizabeth straightened her spine, apparently determined to get herself under control. “Samuel was so proud,” she said a bit shakily. “He even asked that I hang it in the schoolhouse so all the children can see it that they might remember God loves us all.”
Wai closed her eyes against Elizabeth’s words. Yet another destiny fulfilled.
Soon it would be Jack and Wai’s turn to enter the graveyard. She wondered how much longer they had left.
Come back to me soon, Jack. Our time is almost up. I want to spend every moment of it with
you…
“If you need anything,” Wai whispered to Elizabeth, “anything at all…you know where to find me.” She squeezed her hand. “The same for Hans.”
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Chapter Seven
It was so bloody hot. Removing the tie-dyed dress she still secretly wore as a nightgown, she threw it over her head and against the dirt floor. She refused to sleep in the too-warm cotton gowns colonial women donned every night. This night she refused to sleep in any garments at all.
A slight creaking sound startled Wai into total wakefulness. She knew the door had opened, but she didn’t know who had entered. It was too dark to see anything.
“Wai,” a voice whispered.
Her heart began to dramatically pound in her chest. Jack! He’d come back!
Naked, she sat up in the tiny straw and animal hide bed as she watched Jack light a single beeswax candle. Her breasts heaved up and down in time with her labored breathing. She didn’t know how much time they had left, what day it was that they were fated to die, and she wanted to make every moment count.
“Jack…I’ve missed you so much.”
The candlelight shadowed his chiseled face, but not so much that she couldn’t make out those blue eyes. They were on fire. She watched his eyelids grow heavy as he stared at her.
“You sleep naked,” he rasped.
“Yes.”
“Very sexy.”
“Like you.”
He set the beeswax candle down in a holder on the table and began to undress.
“There were some things I had to take care of. I had to invent a believable cold trail. I’m sorry I was gone so long.”
She ignored the enigmatic statement. Wai didn’t care why he’d been gone—she was just glad he was back. She wanted him to make love to her for whatever time they had left together.
We’re almost out of time, Jack!
Wai didn’t say the words, just thought them, felt them with every ounce of her being. Time wasn’t on their side. They needed to make the most of it.
“It doesn’t matter.” Her breath caught in the back of her throat. “Please just come to bed, Jack. I need to feel you inside me.”
His jaw tightened in that rugged, primal way he had about him. He’d been like that in her dreams whenever he wanted fucked. He was like that in her reality, too.
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“The only reason I’m taking you like this,” he rasped, removing his breeches and freeing his erection, “is because I’m marrying you tomorrow.”
Wai already knew that. She’d read the gravestones.
“No more talk,” she said, desperation tinting her voice. “Just be with me, Jack.”
She took matters into her own hands—literally. The moment Jack neared the bed, Wai came up on her knees, palmed his cock, and took him into her mouth. She deep-throated him in one smooth swallow. His answering hiss fueled her fire, making her want him all the more.
“Oh God.
Wai
.”
Jack’s calloused fingers threaded through her hair, tightening in it, as she sucked him off. Her head bobbed back and forth faster, her mouth taking him in deeper and without mercy. The sound of suctioning mouth meeting hard flesh permeated the cabin.
The low growl that resonated in the back of his throat told her all she needed to know—
he loved it.
Wai sucked him like a wild woman, moaning as she tasted his pre-cum on her tongue. She’d had him like this a thousand times in her fantasies. Finally, she had him like this for real.
“Stop,” he ground out. “Now.”
She kept sucking. Jack groaned, unable to endure the torture. “I’m going to come in your mouth if you don’t stop, honey,” he said hoarsely. With a hiss, he forced her greedy mouth away from his cock. It unlatched with a popping sound.
“Sweet lord,” he panted, pushing her down onto the bed. “I’ve got to have some more of that later, sweetheart. Right now I want to be inside you.”
Wai smiled as she fell onto her back and spread her legs. “I want to be with you in every way possible as many times as possible.”
One light-brown eyebrow inched up. “Good. Roll over,” he growled. “I’ve been fantasizing about watching your sexy ass jiggle while I ride you for more years than I can count.”
She immediately complied, as eager to make love as he was. Realizing there wasn’t enough room on the bed to sustain both of their bodies in this position, she knew he’d have to stand up while he took her.
Wai got on all fours and shoved her butt up into the air for him. She heard his breathing grow heavy as he palmed her fleshy ass cheeks, kneading them.
“You’re the sexiest woman in the world,” Jack gritted out, poising the head of his cock at her anus. “Will you let me fuck you in this hole after I finish with that sweet pussy?”
Her butt wiggle and grin told him all he needed to know. Taking a deep breath, he released her round butt cheeks and dug his hands into the flesh of her hips.
Jack entered her body on a groan, sinking into her to the hilt. “I love your pussy, Wai,” he rasped, thrusting in and out of her. “I’ve always loved it. It’s
mine
.”
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The possessiveness in his growl spoke to some primal need in Wai to be owned in every way by this man. She
was
his. She had always been his. Her body, her heart, her soul—everything she had to give belonged to him.
“Jack,” she breathed out, “I want it harder—
please
.”
His nostrils flared, the vein at his neck bulged. “Like this?” he arrogantly asked, sinking in and out of her. He pumped her mercilessly, territorially, branding her with every stroke. Flesh slapped against flesh, moans echoed in the sparse cabin. He rode her body hard, ruthlessly, never wanting the moment to end.
“Oh God,” Wai groaned.
Her tits jiggled beneath her with each of his thrusts, the same as her ass cheeks jiggled every time their flesh slapped together. The extreme sensitivity the abrupt movements caused in her body induced a familiar knot of tension to coil in Wai’s belly.
She’d come for Jack a hundred times in the dream world. And now…
“
Oh. God. Jaaaaaaack!
”
Wai burst on a loud groan, the knot springing loose. She came long and hard, throwing her hips back at him as he sank into her pussy over and over, again and again.
“I’m coming,” Jack gritted out. She could hear his breathing grow heavier, could feel his fingers digging even deeper into her hips. “
Wai.
”
Jack came on a loud roar, his hips pistoning back and forth like a man obsessed. She could feel his hot cum spurt up inside her, warming her insides, bonding them even closer together.
Oh, Jack, I wish we had forever…
It was a long moment before their breathing came down to a manageable level. As soon as it did, he collapsed on top of her backside—and the straw bed went down with them.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Jack asked, worry evident in his tone.
Wai began to laugh, giggling beneath Jack.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said drolly.
From underneath Jack, Wai wiggled her way onto her back, then invited him to come lie in her arms on the dirt floor. Her smile was luminous.
“I think we’ve just set the standard for the greatest sex ever,” she said, chuckling.
His grin was as wicked as ever. “Let’s try again.” He winked. “Just to be sure.”
* * * * *
Jack and Puawai Zeisberger were married by Jack’s father in the elder Zeisberger’s cottage. Only the bride, groom, preacher, and two witnesses—Elizabeth and Hans—
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were present. The ceremony was small, quaint, and done in secrecy. Later, when the five of them walked to the cemetery, Wai found out why.
She stilled as they stopped before two eerily familiar headstones. “What the…?”
There, plain as day, were the two jagged grave markers she’d seen before traveling into the past—hers and Jack’s.
Jack squeezed her hand. “It’s the only way, sweetheart. We have to leave here.”
“You’ll return to the area someday soon,” her new father-in-law promised through gentle, compassionate eyes. “When the war is over.”
Wai was so stunned, so relieved, that she could only smile. She had thought her time with her husband was limited. In her wildest, most wonderful dream, she never would have thought that she and Jack would be faking their deaths and leaving Schoenbrunn.
Their time was anything but limited. In fact, it was boundless. They could have babies and grandbabies and great-grandbabies together! Elation surged through her.
Throwing herself into Jack’s arms, Wai hugged him tightly. He was the man of her dreams and now he was also the man of her realities. Tears gathered in her eyes, tears that glistened but which would never spill. “I love you so much, Jack Elliot Zeisberger,”
she gasped. “God, how I love you.”
His smile was tender, protective. His embrace was possessive and territorial.
Everything that was Jack. “And I love you.” He held her tighter, whispering into her ear so that only she could hear. “Thank you for coming through time to find me,” he murmured. He smiled when her body tensed up—she now knew he understood her secret. “I’ve been waiting for you my entire life.”
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Epilogue
Present day
Mr. and Mrs. Zeisberger followed Julie from the reception center to the first cottage.
“The last time I saw her,” the high school girl said, “she’d gone through the doors and was making her way toward this cabin.”
“She probably decided to hightail it back to North Carolina,” Mr. Zeisberger said on a nod. “You know how flighty them city people are.”
Julie popped a loud bubble. “Yeah.” She frowned. “Her car’s still outside, though.”
“It was just a rental. Still, I’ll ask Sheriff Rogers to check things out.”
The phone rang, blaring out from the reception center. “I better go answer that,”
Julie threw out over her shoulder. “Let me know if you need anything.”
After Julie left, Mr. and Mrs. Zeisberger smiled at each other. And then, hands threaded together, they walked up the hill until they arrived at the cemetery.
Stopping in front of his long-departed grandparents’ fake graves, Mr. Zeisberger blew out a breath. “Well, Jack,” he said proudly, “I did as you asked and made sure Grandmother found her way to you. A pretty girl, she was. You’re a lucky guy.”
Mrs. Zeisberger patted her bun of neat, white curls. “As pretty as I was at her age?”
Mr. Zeisberger winked. “Now Mattie Mae, you know there ain’t nobody prettier than you.” He patted her on the rump, making her yelp. “Let’s go home, honey. Our work here is finally done.”