I should’ve worn the damn corset.
“Haven, dear, as uncomfortable as the dress may be, you must endeavor to hide your annoyance. Grimacing in company is never good form, and tugging at your dress will only make people wonder if there are rodents in your chemise.” Millie’s voice was stern, but her eyes danced with laughter.
“I can’t help it. Dresses in 2025 aren’t as stiff.”
Why in the world do Regency women wear so many damn underclothes?
She blew out a puff of air and groaned.
Patting her hand, Millie cajoled, “Well, since you can’t disrobe and burn the thing, we can have a much-needed chat and get to know each other.” Millie scooted closer and bent her head. “So, tell me about you in the year two thousand and twenty-five.”
Haven raised her eyebrows and whistled. “I don’t know, there’s a lot to tell. I’m twenty-five years old, I’ve experiencedmany things, and I’ve done many things.” She pictured Elgin. “I’ve made many mistakes. I think it would be easier if you narrowed the questions and asked me something specific.”
Leaning back, Millie tapped her chin in thought. “Very well, tell me about your parents.”
Blood drained from her face. She stuttered, “I, uh, wow, let’s start with the hardest question, right?” Laughing nervously, she twisted her hands in her lap. “There isn’t much to share.”
Millie took Haven’s hands in her own. “Not to worry, dear, we can forego talk of your parents.”
Wise, kind, and much too perceptive.
Relief cascaded through her, and Millie smiled knowingly.
“Instead let’s talk of other things—school. Did you attend?” Haven nodded. “What did you study?”
“Well, what everyone else studied, history, which I guess would be considered present and future to you, math, music, science, economics, language, writing, reading, and art.”
“I suppose in two thousand and twenty-fiveyourhistory would bemyfuture. How fascinating. I won’t press you for information, no fear of my running off to prevent a war or assassination. Much too old for such things.”
Haven laughed. “You’re right, I probably shouldn’t say anything. Wouldn’t want to mess up the space-time continuum or something. When I get home, I want to make sure America is still America, andnotthe United Colonies of Her Majesty Queen Millie.”
Laughing, the darling older woman replied, “Now that would be quite the future indeed. I cannot fathom it. Now, enough of this talk of Queen Millie. Let’s get back to you.”
Haven offered an anxious grin. “I guess I could talk about high school….”
High school was four years of B's and C’s, and staying away from home. She’d spent a lot of time getting bad-mouthed andbullied by the popular girls, hanging out behind the school with the bad kids, and refusing to go home until it was too dark to differentiate between the hills and the sky. Once night settled, she’d drag her feet along the sidewalk and make her way to the house she shared with her mother.
And her stepfather.
The delusional punching bag with a weakness for pills, and the drunken waste of life.
Winterhaven, Pennsylvania.
God, her hometown held so many memories and experiences that shaped her into the woman she was today: the time traveling exotic dancer with a chip on her shoulder, and an unfortunate, yet well-deserved, distrust of men.
Those Winterhaven days behind the high school were spent breaking beer bottles, turning down offers of ‘a swig’, sharing stories of town vandalism, over the shirt groping with the bad boys, and making out with whichever loser was the least drunk. Luckily, despite many arguments and pleas from the guys, she’d never allowed the proverbial baseball game to go any further than second base. If she had, her experience with her own mom convinced her she’d never graduate high school. She’d be pregnant and bitter, a younger version of her mother who’d gotten pregnant at nineteen and was left to raise the baby on her own.
After Haven turned seven, her mother met and married Mr. Albert Dross. He was a truck driver who stopped in town occasionally and would sweet talk her while shoveling down pancakes and tar flavored coffee at the diner where her mother worked. After a few months of pit stops, pancakes, and pretty words, her mother married step-daddy Dross at the office of the Justice of the Peace.
“But what about work? Isn’t he going to be gone a lot?” she asked her mother the morning of the ceremony, tryingdesperately to get her to recognize her mistake in marrying a man she’d only seen a handful of days a month.
Tucking her limp, graying, once-black hair behind an ear, her mother looked at her reflection in the mirror. “Nah, honey, he’s gonna quit that job, but he’s gonna get a job at the propane company driving trucks for local deliveries.”
That was a nice idea, except step-daddy Dross didn’t get a job. He didn’t even try. While their romance was considered sweet by those who’d watched them smile and chat with each other at the diner, it had a few fatal flaws—the most obvious being her mother, only seeing him when he was in town and sitting on a diner stool, never got to understand thetrueAlbert Dross.
He was an alcoholic.
The first five years of Dross-Edwards homesteading were lonely for Haven. Her mom sent her to school, would go to work, and wouldn’t come home until Haven was curled in bed, staring into the ceiling, and wishing her dear stepdad would stop guzzling Jack Daniels, burping, and grumbling under his breath about his worthless wife, her useless brat, and his ulcer. Despite the verbal and sometimes physical abuse, her mother continued to keep the bastard around. She’d work twelve or more hours a day, come home exhausted, and get handed a pile of bitter disappointments by a man too drunk to even turn the porch light on for her.
