Bree stood up and paced the width of the basement and back to the bench again. They were right—the child her would never have been able to comprehend her father’s depression, let alone get through to him. She sucked in her bottom lip. There was no longer a choice. If she didn’t go back to when her father was young, she would lose him forever. She stopped at her stool.
“Do you think I can get through to him now? Will he even believe I’m his daughter?”
“We know you can,” Mark said.
“Because you’ve seen it?”
“Yes,” Aunt Di said. “Time is a beautiful thing and we have seen so much.”
“Including all your children’s weddings.” It wasn’t a question. Bree knew they had been there—the photographs proved it already. “Why didn’t you say something, let everyone know you were there?”
“We couldn’t,” Mark said. “It was like we were in a different dimension, watching the celebrations but unable to join in.”
The anticipation of seeing Horland again ran through her body like a jolt of electricity. “Do I get married?”
Mark regarded Bree with fatherly concern. “We don’t know. There are still some things we don’t understand about time travel. You going back is one of them. When you meet Garlain, we will be there. We will be able to converse and touch. I don’t know how really, but I’m thinking, for us, thisis our present timeline. We are here and we will be there, but we haven’t gone forward.”
“So, all this is happening for the first time for you?”
They both nodded.
“So, you can talk to Garrett now then.”
“They have.”
Bree started at the sound of Garrett’s voice. She hadn’t heard him come down the stairs.
“You’ve talked?”
Garrett nodded. “Yep, they’ve told us everything. They were lost in time but they’re back now.”
Bree couldn’t help but to smile at that. “That should be interesting for your neighbors.”
Garrett shrugged. “We’ll come up with something.”
“I’m sure you will but right now, I have somewhere I have to be.”
“You go,” Uncle Mark said. “We’ll be along shortly.”
Garrett wagged his brows. “I bet Horland will be glad to see you.”
“I’m not sure he will be,” Bree said, making a doubtful face.
Bree knew it then, though: she would die of heartbreak if she didn’t at least see if Horland felt the same way about her as she did him. She didn’t know when it happened, but she had gone and fallen in love with the guy. She silently giggled. She guessed it was from the first moment she set eyes on him.
She held up the white orb. “Yep, I’m going back. Hope to see you all soon.”
Clasping the white orb, it occurred to Bree that she might end up in the same huge hole that she left. “That could be a problem.”
“What could be?” Garret asked.
“Hang on.” Bree picked up the black orb and turned itupside down. Peering at the coordinates, she could make out she was going back to the same year as she left, but something was different. The number of her contact had changed. She was sure it had been seventy-two, but now it was seventy-three. She looked up at her aunt and uncle.
“Ah yes,” Aunt Di said. “We, um, thought it would be better for your father to be your contact now that you know everything. Your father is the most important one. You’ll go back to where he is.”
Bree nodded. He had to come first. Once she’d helped her father, then she would meet up with Horland again.
She quickly changed the white orb’s setting and lifted her hand to twist the top, but Garrett grasped her arm.
