“Thank you, Fable,” he said softly when they were finished.
“You don’t need to thank me for that,” she protested mildly.
“Why not? Is this intimacy something you share only with me?”
“Of course.”
He smiled and closed his arms around her securely. “I’m thankful that you chose me, my love. This time with you is precious. It always will be. I will always be thankful for it.”
“In that case,” she whispered, “thank you as well.”
He looked as if there was more he would say. He kept silent, save for the chuckle expelling from his lips.
“My father,” he began a moment later, “said you told him things that made him proud to be my father. Thank you for that too. It was something I always wanted–to make him proud.”
Fable didn’t want to ask him if his father still felt the same way knowing they were married. She didn’t want to know.
They slept for a few hours in a tangle of arms and legs.
It didn’t take long once their eyes opened to smile at each other and kiss, and move like a one sensual cloud with Fable gliding over him and then rising up.
She would give up her father and sister, whom she only knew in name, to spend her life with Ben.
He grasped her by the hips and pushed her down the length of him. She arched her back and pulled herself up, languishing in how pleasurable he felt. He yanked her down again. This time, he closed his arms around her and pulled her to him to kiss her, swelling her heart with an overflow of maddening, needful, all-fulfilling love. When he broke their kiss to look at her, his eyes told her what he felt for her in his heart. When he moved beneath her again, she surrendered to all he desired, matching his fervor then slowing again to enjoy their climax together.
As she rested again in Ben’s arms, she doubted the pocket watch was powerful enough to move her. If time truly screwed up and she was Thoren Ashmore’s daughter, who knew what she was capable of?
If the watch tried to separate them, she would smash it to pieces.
#
Elizabeth Black, known to many as Old Lizzie, sat in a wooden chair by an open window in the dark dining room of the B&B. She was staring out, breathing in the softly scented night breeze. Hyacinth and car exhaust. She didn’t like being in the city. She much preferred being close to nature and its animal life.
Lizzie possessed ‘gifts’ that granted her communication with animals, time-travel, teleportation, and seer abilities. She wasn’t as gifted as her sister. Tess had been given possession of the keys to time after her fight against the demon lord Raxxix, saving thousands from the ruby dagger, as well as Josiah Ashmore, beloved of her granddaughter Mercy Blagden. For Mercy, Tess would give anything. When Thoren was born, Lizzie remembered one of the house cats called Fiona telling her that the babe possessed many gifts, that he would die young like the rest of the Ashmore men, save Josiah, and that there would be no more males born to the Ashmore line. Out of all Josiah’s six brothers, none of them had a son.
Lizzie had reported everything the animals told her to Tess, but she had a feeling her sister already knew. Thoren must therefore live. Everything had been going well, but even when Thoren married, he had no sons. And then he used that troublesome pocket watch and messed everything up.
Lizzie suddenly angled her head, as if she could hear what no one else could. She froze and then took a moment to breathe before rising from the chair.
Fable, one of the twins upstairs, just became aware that she might have inherited her father’s power. Power she would use against Lizzie and Tess if she felt the need. The girl’s devotion to Captain West was deeper than anything Lizzie or Tess could have imagined.
Chapter Nineteen
Fable waited in the hall with Ben for the Lt. Colonel. Her belly grumbled. She lifted it in her palm to it and blushed.
“I’m fine,” she hurried to assure Ben, but it did no good.
She watched him with a frown as he hurried toward his father's door and disappeared behind it.
“Niece.”
Fable turned and smiled at Lizzie. “Pardon?”
“You’re the daughter of my nephew–”
Fable’s smile didn’t fade or falter. Lizzie was correct. “By how many generations?”
Lizzie looked her over and smiled. “Many.”
