“Ha! I’m sure you do.”
“Come on, I’m dying of suspense. Things changed between you two since I went home for Christmas, and you haven’t shared any details. And what was that book you were hiding on your lap?”
Isla lay on her side and tucked her hand beneath her cheek, facing her younger friend. Juliette mirrored her pose.
“You were right. I like him a lot, Juliette.”
Juliette squealed, then laughed. “Well, that much I gathered.”
Isla felt her cheeks warm. “It just feels so natural. I don’t know when it happened—it crept up on me. But once I admitted it to myself, it was as though everything finally fell into place.”
Raising her brow, Juliette pulled a mock look of horror. “Isla, for all your genius, you’re certainly no romantic poet.”
Chuckling, Isla rolled onto her back. “No, I suppose not. But poetry or no, I’ve never felt anything so certainly. My words may stumble ... but my heart does not.”
“That was actually quite poetic. Are you in love with him?”
Isla hesitated. Was she? She hadn’t spoken the words, but her heart was moving decisively in that direction—and the realization didn’t frighten her. She drew his journal from beneath her pillow.
“He gave me this. It’s a record of his feelings for me.”
“Oh my goodness! I never knew Andrew had it in him. Have you read it all?”
“No. I promised I’d only read one passage a day at his request.”
“It wasn’t that long ago you despised the man.”
“Despised is rather strong.” Isla shifted, embarrassed at how wrong she’d been. “But, like any good scientist, I’m glad to revise my hypothesis when the evidence points to a different conclusion.”
“I’m sure kissing helps to change a hypothesis!”
“Juliette!”
“I’m just saying—add in a variable like that and you’re bound to see a dramatic shift in your data.”
Isla lifted one of her pillows and whacked her friend with it.
Juliette just laughed. “Isla, seriously. Kissing releases enough chemistry to throw off any experiment.”
Isla joined her friend in her laughter. It felt good to laugh when things were so difficult.
When Juliette finally quieted and drifted into sleep, Isla opened Andrew’s journal. She opened to her daily passage, but the words stopped her cold.
She blinked, checked the page again. The date was impossibly old—centuries ago. He had told her he had memories of times gone by, and here he was about to share one with her. The journal in her hand was modern, but this memory was not. He had lived during times gone by! Her pulse quickened as she read.
Line after line unfurled his devotion: of how much he admired her in his previous life, the nerves he felt when they first held hands, the sheer awe that she had chosen him. His words breathed with such reverence that Isla felt them reach through the years and wrap around her.
When she placed her hand in mine, I understood the desire to be with someone for eternity.
Her throat tightened. Andrew had known her before—truly known her. He had wanted her then. It seemed he wanted her now.
Would he always? Could love like this outlast even time itself?
Her heart pounded. She wanted to read on, to discover his other memories. She had always feared she wasn’t wanted, that she wouldn’t belong anywhere–but reading his words, she felt the truth of it. She couldn’t define why or how it was all possible. She couldn’t explain it away with science. But she somehow knew that Andrew was her home. He was her safe place to land. That she was enough—that he saw her, knew her, and wanted her.
Not only did he want her, but she wanted him just as desperately. She loved how in tune to her needs he was, eachtouch, each glance given when needed. She loved that he pushed her, believed in her.
She read on and gasped lightly as she read of their wedding day.
