Page 29 of All The Time You Need (Magic of Time #1)

Annie felt like an astronaut, going through her countdown checklist. Surely none of them could ever have been any more excited than she was at this very moment.

She’d donned the gown she’d worn here from the past, so that was good. Her slippers, though not completely authentic, were comfortable and sturdy and would last her a good, long time.

“What’s that you’re wearing on your back?”

Syrie stood just outside the open gate, a frown of concentration wrinkling her brow.

“You mean my backpack?” Annie grinned, adjusting the straps on her shoulders. “Just a couple of necessities I thought I might like to have with me. Just in case.”

“Just in case what?” Syrie asked, starting forward but stopping and backtracking, as if she dared not step inside the arbor. “You realize it would never do for you to carry with you items that might survive you. Things which simply couldn’t be explained away if someone were to find them one day.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Annie hurried over to where Syrie stood, throwing her arms around the older woman and squeezing tightly. “There’s not really anything too out of the ordinary. Just a few things that will be used up soon enough. More or less.”

“More or less,” Syrie repeated in that way of hers that made Annie feel as if she owed the woman an explanation.

“Okay, fine. A couple of chocolate bars. I promise I’ll burn the wrappers, okay? A few matches, because I suck at trying to start fires.” Annie thought Syrie almost smiled at that. “A tube of first-aid cream. Some prenatal vitamins. Little things like that. Okay?”

“Prenatal vitamins! Is there something you haven’t told me?” Syrie’s tone conveyed the shock in her expression.

“No,” Annie said with a chuckle. “I’m not keeping any secrets. Don’t worry. I don’t need them yet. But there will come a time when I’ll want them, and I’d like to be prepared. I put them in little paper sacks, so there’s not even a plastic bottle as evidence. Good enough?”

Syrie chewed on her bottom lip as if trying to consider all the implications of the items Annie carried. Finally she sighed, giving up her side of the argument.

“There’s been worse done, I suppose,” Syrie said, folding her hands in front of her. “Go on with you now, Analise. I’ll see to things here as we arranged. You take good care of yourself. And of that Highlander of yours. They take a lot of work to keep them happy, but they’re worth every minute of it. I, of all people, should know.”

With that, the older woman turned and walked away, fading into the trees.

“That’s it, then. All set for takeoff,” Annie murmured, hurrying back to sit down on the bench before fitting the stone heart inside the hole where it belonged.

She was prepared this time when the wind began to whip around her. Prepared for the lights and the noise. She held on to the arm of the bench as the ground began to rumble, her laughter blending in with the heavy buzz of the Magic. Not even the nothingness that engulfed her as she fell weightlessly into the void concerned her this time.

She was going home to the man she loved.

* * *

Though the sun had already begun to peek over the horizon, the arbor still hung heavy with shadows. Not so many shadows that Alex couldn’t tell that it was as empty now as it had been when he’d left through this same gate last night. Fighting back the disappointment he’d grown so familiar with, he unlocked the gate and let himself inside to take up his daily vigil.

“How long do you plan to keep this up?” Finn had been waiting for him when he’d returned to Dunellen last night, his face lined with concern. “Yer sister has told us the stories of yer grandda. The woman he waited for never returned. She could no’ bring herself to give up the delights of her world for the primitive conditions of his. Have you considered that—”

“I’ll allow no’ a single doubt to be voiced in my presence,” Alex had interrupted, stalking off to leave his worried friend behind.

Had he considered that Annie might feel the same way? That she might not be willing to leave her world for his? Of course he had. Through the long days of sitting here in the arbor waiting, his mind had tortured him with every possible outcome, most of them not to his liking. But he couldn’t give up. Not yet. The pendant he’d placed in the hole in the bench was gone, so he had to believe Annie had received his message. Everything was up to her now.

For his part, he would continue to wait, to be here for her if she chose to return.

“When,” he hissed, correcting his own traitorous thoughts.

When, not if.

Still admonishing himself for his own lack of faith, Alex took up his regular spot, on the ground, directly across from the bench. He leaned back against a rock, sparing not a thought to his discomfort. This was the best place for him to be, a place where he would see Annie the moment she returned.

He would see her and scoop her up into his arms. He would tell he how he felt. He would give her the words she seemed to need so much so that he would never again have to fear losing her.

He closed his eyes, picturing her there in front of him, allowing his mind to sweep him away into the world of dreams where his Annie still filled the empty space in his heart.

* * *

“There you are, at last. I feared I dreamed still.”

Annie swam up out of the darkness, fighting her way toward the words that echoed in the pinpoint of light just ahead of her. Her eyelids flickered as she tried to bring the world around her into focus.

She knew that voice.

“I’ve been waiting for you, my love. I knew you’d come back to me.”

As her vision cleared, Annie found herself staring into the eyes of the man she’d thought of, dreamed of, every single day for the past two months.

“I missed you so much,” she managed to say, as Alex lifted her into his arms, crushing her to him in an embrace she never wanted to end.

“I love you, Analise,” he said at last, his voice husky with emotion. “I’m so sorry I was too great a fool to see the importance of saying the words before. I’ll shout it from the parapets or the center of the great hall. Whatever you want of me, you’ve but to ask. I never want to lose you again.”

“There’s no need for you to do that,” she answered, pulling back to meet his gaze. “I’ll never leave you again. I’m sorry I was too great a fool to see that you were already telling me in the only way you knew how.”

He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips, lingering there as she returned his kisses.

When he lifted his head, his face wrinkled, as if he were about to make a great confession.

“It is possible, in the great number of years I plan to spend with you, my love, that we will misunderstand one another again, aye? I’d have yer word now that when such a thing happens, you’ll be patient with me. That you’ll take the time to explain yer needs as if yer talking to a man who kens nothing of the ways of women.”

“I promise,” she whispered, pulling his mouth back down to meet hers again, savoring the taste she had missed so much.

Annie had no doubt that they would face problems as they settled into their lives together, as all couples did. For now, though, all she wanted was to lie in her husband’s arms, safe in the knowledge that he loved her as much as she loved him.

Together, they would have all the time they needed to work out their differences.