Page 1 of Time After Time

CHAPTER 1

Ember

“And that’s his girlfriend,” Mama tells me, tilting her head toward the beautiful blonde standing next to Dr. Ransom Marchand. “She’s an editor-at-large forHarper’s Bazaar.”

Of course, she is.

They look right together. Her light to his dark. She’s sunlit polish: blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect posture. While Ransom…he iseverything.

I’ve always loved his stormy gray eyes, the way they shift like the weather. His dark hair, now streaked with just enough silver to make him look devastating instead of old, falls in an almost careless way.

I remember how he looks with a red and black bandana—his lucky one, the one he always ties before surgery. With it, he doesn’t just look good. He lookslike a god. I remember a time in his on-call room when?—

“I believe he’s going to propose,” Mama drops the bomb effortlessly.

I swallow the searing pain her words bring.

“Good for Ransom,” Aunt Tanya agrees. “He’s been heartbroken since his divorce.”

“Not so heartbroken when five years ago, a year after his divorce, he was fucking me against a wall in his living room, demanding I be his good girl,” I refrain from saying.

“Ember.” Mama studies me thoughtfully. “Have you thought about getting LASIK?”

That came out of somewhere absolutely not good!

I push my glasses up my nose…andwait.

“Or contacts,” Aunt Tanya suggests. “Four eyes is not a good look, especially for a single woman.”

I don’t even bother to frown. “Aunt Tanya, no one calls people who wear glasses ‘four eyes’ anymore. And I can’t wear contacts. Gives me an eye infection.”

On cue, my sister, the famous news anchor, walks in. She’s flush with rosy cheeks, having just come back from skiing.

“What?” she asks, looking at all of us who are staring at her.

“We were just talking to Ember about getting her eyes fixed,” Aunt Tanya supplies cheerfully.

“Fixed?” Freja’s scowl goes full-on nuclear.

“Not everyone has perfect eyes, but that doesn’tmean they have to live with it,” Mama says with an indulgent smile.

“Perfect eyes?” Freja spits out as if she’s having trouble saying the words.

“If only I looked more like you.” I rollsaideyes.

Freja growls.

“Calm down.” Her husband, Jonathan, runs a hand over her arm to soothe her.

Yep! Mybigsister is super protective. As is my brother, but he’s more subtle than Freja.

“I didn’t saythat.” Mama has a hand on her heart as if reeling from the betrayal she believes I’ve inflicted by misconstruing her suggestions about how I can improve my looks.

“Cut it out, all of you.” Freja shrugs off her husband’s hand and glares at Mama and our aunt. “Ember’s allowed to look any which way she likes.”

Mama protests defensively, “We just said she should do something about her?—”

Freja focuses on our mother as she cuts her off, “Nothing! She’s beautiful as she is.”