Page 54 of The Lovers (Echoes from the Past #1)

THIRTY-NINE

Surrey, England

It took Quinn several hours to get to sleep after the confrontation with Gabe, and when she finally managed to doze off, her sleep was fitful and plagued by strange dreams. She was in seventeenth-century London, alone and terrified.

Everywhere people were dying of the plague, and piles of dead bodies were carelessly left to rot, the stench so overpowering that it was nearly impossible to draw breath.

She tried to run, but her huge belly slowed her down, and she felt exhausted and out of breath after only a few steps.

Each street wound up being a dead end. Quinn felt overwhelming panic as she tried to find a way out of the labyrinth of tiny alleyways, but everywhere she went, there were red crosses on wooden doors and carts full of corpses.

Quinn breathed a sigh of relief when a carriage pulled up, driven by Rhys Morgan, who looked right at home in seventeenth-century attire.

He smiled at her and invited her to get in.

Quinn felt tremendous relief as she climbed in, but it was short-lived since the carriage wasn’t empty.

Gabe was slumped in the corner, his head resting against the side of the vehicle.

He was gray and clammy, his eyes vacant as he stared at her.

He was obviously ill. Quinn reached out to him, but he pushed her hand away, lifting his arm to reveal an egg-size bubo in his armpit.

Quinn screamed and jumped out of the carriage, which drove away without her.

Quinn woke with a start, her heart pounding with fear and her forehead covered in cold sweat.

It took her several minutes to calm down and remember that she was at home in her own bed.

She put a hand to her stomach, breathing a sigh of relief to find it still flat.

She’d never been pregnant, but the love she felt toward the baby in her dream had been all encompassing.

She would have done anything to protect her unborn child, anything at all.

Quinn turned on a bedside lamp and angrily wiped the tears from her eyes.

She supposed the feeling must have been there all along, but she was conscious of it for the first time.

She didn’t just want a child. She’d never feel complete without one.

Luke wanted a family but was never ready to commit fully to the idea, so she resigned herself to possibly never becoming a mother if she married him.

It had been a sacrifice she was prepared to make, but now, suddenly, she realized that she’d never actually thought it through.

They had both been busy with their careers, their lives too hectic to start a family, but now she was nearly thirty, and the desire for a baby filled her with the kind of longing that took her breath away.

Was she channeling Elise somehow? Elise hadn’t wanted a baby, but once she found out she was pregnant, her maternal instinct took over, her love for her baby as natural as day turning into night.

Quinn got out of bed and went to get a glass of water.

She was still shaken by the dream. It left her confused and weepy.

She sat down in front of the cold hearth and stared into the ashes of last night’s fire.

She’d been unusually emotional since “meeting” Elise, and some of Elise’s feelings seemed to find their way into Quinn’s own heart.

She’d never experienced this before, not with any of the people whose lives she’d been privileged enough to see, not even Grandma Ruth’s.

She’d always been an impartial observer, not a participant.

“You’re really losing the plot, Allenby,” she said out loud as she finished her drink and padded back to bed. “Get a grip.”