CHAPTER 4
PRESENT DAY
Micah Whittaker lay in the dark, listening to his wife Cara as she struggled with yet another nightmare. It had been four months since Mead returned home. Night after night, he prayed she would come to accept the circumstances and learn to live with them.
“Come here, my darling,” he cooed, pulling her into his arms and holding her close. “It’s all right. Shhh, you must not torment yourself so. I’m not going to leave you, not ever.”
“You will,” she whispered against his bare chest as her tears fell. “You know you will. I feel it growing closer every day.”
He too was worried, but he worked hard to convince her everything would be all right. Mead would not let them down. Witt knew she corresponded with Morgan frequently. Both of them tried to reassure her, but it was impossible. As a scientist, she sought confirmation, not empty promises that everything would be ‘fine’.
Cara was far too intelligent and pragmatic. Her brilliant mind knew when she was being lied to. She would never fall for being treated like a poor little woman who needed reassuring bullshit; a typical masculine response when there wasn’t much else to say.
“Mead is working hard to repair the damage. We have to trust him.”
“I do, but Morgan is cursed. Everything he touches goes to shit,” she sighed as she slipped back into an uneasy sleep.
Their marriage was in danger. His very existence threatened, and should Mead fail in his attempt to correct the mistakes that had been made, it was over. Witt would disappear as if he had never been. Cara simply could not cope with the potential catastrophe hanging over their heads.
As her husband, Witt tried everything to comfort her, but in his own mind he too knew it was a risk there was no escaping. Things had been done, decisions made more than two hundred years ago, and he and Cara were likely to be the ones to bear the repercussions. It was simply a fact, and Micah Whittaker was a realist.
Most nights his wife slept little, and when she did, it ended in one of two ways. Either she would curl into a fetal position on her side of their bed, weeping copiously and so alone it broke his heart, or she would launch herself at him in desperation, clawing her way to his side and holding him so tightly he could barely breathe. Some nights, it was difficult to pry her choking arms from around his neck.
He repeatedly tried to soothe her, promising he would never leave her and that surely Mead would let them know any day now that Matthew had married Mrs. Dixon, assuring Witt’s future and his continued presence in her life. She didn’t buy it, and probably wouldn’t until she received word that the deed had been done. Even then, she would not relax until they produced a child.
Lately she’d began to believe Morgan himself was doomed, quite a stretch for a woman who lived in a world dictated by facts. They argued over it more than once.
“How can you say such things?” Witt demanded. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Think about it,” she insisted angrily. She poured herself another glass of wine as they sat raking through old newspaper articles. “He gets hurt, which prevents him from playing pro ball. Then his brother dies on his very first military mission. Morgan enlists under some sort of fucked up sense of obligation and both of his parents die in a house fire while he’s deployed.”
“Watch your mouth, Cara Mia”, Witt warned. “Come outside. We need a break.”
“Sorry, but think about it. He’s injured and discharged from the service,” she spat out as she followed him to a seating area beside the pool, bringing the bottle of wine with her.
“Honorably,” Witt pointed out calmly as he lit a fire in the fire pit.
“Agreed, but he was a mess, a fucked up mess and it ruined our marriage,” she continued almost sadly.
“Did you love him?”
“I cared for him…but no, I didn’t love him. Still, I hated to see him that way.” Her dark blunt cut hair swung forward and covered her face for a moment. Then she snapped her head back and glared at her current husband. “Don’t you see, everything he touches goes to shit!”
“My darling, I love you dearly, but that language has to stop,” Witt sighed. “I’ve cut you some slack in the last few months, knowing the stress you’re under, but watch your mouth. I won’t have it, and if you don’t stop it, I’ll spank you.”
“You would,” she nearly sneered. “Knowing I’m losing my mind, you would still spank me.”
“It centers you,” he informed her.
For a moment Cara glared at him in resentment, then she nodded, refilled her wineglass and dropped into a chair.
“Maybe,” she conceded. “At times, but this is not one of them. I tell you, he’s cursed!”
“He’s happy now,” Witt stated. “He’s very much in love with his wife, Callie Mae, and by Mead’s account, they are well-suited.”
“Oh, he’s happy. Well, isn’t that nice,” she snapped back, rising again and storming to his side. “At whose expense?” she demanded. “Who is paying for Morgan’s happiness? Mead, when he got shot at The Duchess? Or maybe we are? Maybe our lives, our love, will be the sacrifice? Is that the price I will pay for my sending him back in time? Am I the one who will be punished in the end? Answer me, Witt!”
“Stop this at once, Cara,” he ordered. “There are no answers, and you know it. Only time will tell if Mead is successful, and put that glass down. You’re getting drunk.”
