The blow was less painful for Fable because of the shock of Lizzie’s words. Thoren Ashmore was her father. She would have called the seer a fruitcake if she hadn’t been assailed by the sudden visions–memories?– of a man and his two twin, red haired daughters, Magnolia and Fable.
According to Lizzie, Fable and her sister were originally born in 1682 to Lady Patrice Pruit, who died during childbirth, not Kittie Ramsey who found the two-year-old and kept her, and the Earl of Dorset, Lord Thoren Ashmore, first and only son of Lord Josiah Ashmore, Earl of Winterborne, and his wife, Mercy Blagden.
Was it possible? She and her sister, Magnolia ended up in the twenty-first century when their father used the pocket watch’s magic without knowing how to control it. He was brought here with his daughters and like Ben’s parents, they were separated, but Thoren was never able to find them. In his desperation to return to the time before he’d used the watch, he mistakenly sent himself to Ben’s time.
Fable remembered what Lizzie had told her. Her alleged father lived every waking moment in search of his daughters.
It would be his feet coming through the future’s doors.
It was still too difficult for her to imagine she had a father, and such a devoted one as that, living somewhere, a prisoner in the past. And Ben was the only one who could save him. What about her ‘twin sister’, Magnolia?
Crazily enough, according to Lizzie, Magnolia had the ability to see and hear spirits of the departed. The spirit of Lord Ashmore, their father had already found her and had taken care of her as Thomas Black, an old gentleman who took her off the streets. Magnolia had seen him as he wished to be seen by her- as an old man. She never knew the good samaritan Mr. Black was the spirit of her father, who by 2024 had been long dead.
Did Fable care about any of it really? They were her sister and her father in name only. She didn’t know them. She didn’t love them. Not the way she loved Ben.
When she reached the door to her room, she stopped and closed her eyes, while she listened to Ben and his father.
“We will speak more in the morning,” the Lt. Colonel told his son. Then, “Good night, Fable.”
She turned, cringing a little, to look at him. She almost backed into the door when he came closer and took her by the shoulders. “Sweet dreams, daughter.”
Daughter? Did he accept her then? Did they have his blessing? She looked at Ben and smiled, then smiled at his father.
When Ben didn’t follow him to the room, Fable felt her cheeks go up in flames. She hurried to put the key in the door before the Lt. Colonel realized what was going on and demanded that Ben follow him.
Once she was inside, she flipped on the lights. Ben recoiled, then laughed softly at himself. “That’s hard to get used to.”
She laughed with him and then grew silent and went to him. “Ben?” she asked, disappearing in the circle of his arms. “There is so much to get used to. I never had a father. The thought of meeting him is overwhelming.”
“I will not leave your side until you wish it,” he whispered into her ear, not letting her go.
“A girl can know a thousand people and not one has ever given her what her heart needs.” She looked up into his devoted gaze when he stepped back to see her while she spoke. “She can live her entire life and die without ever meeting such a person.” She shook her head. “It’s a pity. But not for me. I found that person who fulfills my heart’s every desire. It’s you, Ben.”
He gave her a surprised look, then his playful smile warmed with affection. “Fable, I hope you know how I adore you?”
She hoped the tears filling her eyes and staining them red, along with the tip of her nose, convinced him that she knew.
“My heart was dead,” he told her softly. “The things I lived for had destroyed me. But while I was perishing, you, illuminated in your fiery light, slipped through the gates of my misery. You swayed my thoughts from cares I thought were bigger, more important to thoughts of love and devotion.”
Her smile widened remembering telling him there were no concerns stronger than love and devotion.
When he ran his knuckles over her jaw and tilted his head to kiss her, she closed her eyes. Her pounding heart grew louder. How would she live without him if she had to?
His lips were soft and pliable as he pressed them to hers. Every thought fled at the passion he ignited in her. Curling her arms around his neck, she deepened their kiss and sighed dreamily into his mouth when his arms coiled around her waist and he lifted her off her feet. He carried her to their bed, kissing her and pausing to smile at her.
“I love you,” she whispered, pressing short, soft kisses on his lips and cheeks. “I’ll never love anyone but you.”
She gazed into his eyes when he laid her down on the bed. “Why are you crying, Ben?”
He shook his head. “I sometimes feel as if you will disappear in my arms–just as you appeared there.”
She laughed softly. “I didn’t appear. I arrived.”
He smiled, but Fable could tell he was afraid of losing her.
“Let’s leave tomorrow’s concerns for tomorrow,” she suggested, not letting him go, but pulling her down, closer to the heat of her body.
He nodded and smiled as he moved over her and lay beside on the bed. His kisses were hungry but polite, reigned in but eager enough to snap the tethers of his self-control.
