Sienna watched the sky and waited. She didn’t fancy getting caught in the rain without good cause. A simple shower wouldn’t suffice, there needed to be a storm with thunder and lightning. Without it, heading down to the abandoned depot would be a fruitless walk in the rain.
She closed her eyes and could see his face, his dark hair, long and wavy, and his soul-piercing eyes, the color of dark chocolate. If she concentrated hard enough, she could feel his fingertips touching her skin, smell the scent of his cologne, and hear the sound of his voice, rich and deep. She ached for him with every fiber of her being.
“Stay with me, darling,” he’d said, “and we can be together forever.” Oh, how she wished she’d had the courage to say yes! How could she have known that he was the love of her life? She’d been afraid, too afraid to take a risk for happiness, to take a chance on love.
“I want to Kaden, I truly do, but I have responsibilities at home. I can’t just run off and let everyone think I’ve been kidnapped or, worse, dead,” she’d said to him the last time she saw him.
“Who is everyone?” he’d asked her.
“My cousin, my friends, and the people in my town, the ones that depend on me to help them with finding work, food, and shelter,” Sienna explained. “Without me, they will go hungry or end up homeless. I can’t abandon them.”
“I wish I could convince you otherwise,” Kaden had said sadly, “I’ve actually considered holding you captive until you simply cannot live without me. However, your ability to deny your own happiness for the welfare of others humbles me. People of my time have lost that type of compassion. So, it would be selfish of me to hold you here.”
She remembered how he had drawn her close into his arms and said, “But know this, I will always love you and cannot fathom ever loving another. The storm brought you to me, and it shall bring you home. Should you ever think of me and wish to return, simply follow the storm again and it will bring you back to me.
“I can’t ask you to wait for me,” she said tearfully.
“You’re not asking,” he said with a weak smile. “I just know my heart, and I hope someday you will know yours and follow it back into my arms.”
She touched her bare mound softly as she recalled how they’d made love while they’d waited for the storm. He’d touched her there gently at first, then ravaged her and made her feel more alive than she’d ever felt. She remembered how he brought her to climax again and again, and how he beseeched her not to leave him. She recalled how she took him into her mouth and then rode him with wild abandon as he filled her with his seed.
When the storm kicked up, he made no attempt to stop her, as sad as he was to see her go. She walked, by herself, in the rain and waited for the bright flash. She had changed her mind at the last second, but the strike of lightning snatched her before she could escape its fiery grasp, dropping her back onto the cold wet pavement at the depot half a mile from her apartment building. She’d been gone only a couple days from her time, after spending many weeks in his time, her future.
When she finally made it back home, she looked in the mirror and no longer saw the henna tattoo that Kaden’s sister, Mika, had given her. And gone were the jewels that his mother, Mirren, had bestowed upon her forehead, around her neck, and dangling from her ears. She’d cried, realizing that the symbols she had hoped would be souvenirs from her trip to the future were lost. They had loved her, accepted her, and she’d thrown it all away. And for what? She’d been a fool. She was devastated to realize that she’d given up her chance at happily-ever-after for a dismal existence without love.
In fact, she’d been so forlorn, she spent three days barely moving from her bed except to hydrate and relieve herself. Her cousin Penny, with whom she lived in a duplex and worked together as social welfare agents, finally dragged her out of bed.
“If you don’t get up and go to work, you’ll lose the very reason you used to come back from the future!” Penny chided her.
“So, you believe me?” Sienna asked, rather astonished. She wasn’t sure if she would have believed such a tale if the tables had been turned.
Penny snorted, “Well, duh! I mean, come on, we’ve known each other since we were babies! The Sisi I know wouldn’t let just anyone between her legs! Certainly not some stranger, anyway! There is no other explanation that makes sense to me, Sisi!”
“I could be mistaken; he could have been just some random guy. Maybe I got struck by lightning and hit my head. Maybe I dreamed all of it!” Sienna exclaimed.
“Why did you come back?” Penny asked.
“I told Kaden that I couldn’t leave the families that I help behind. But I think I was just afraid, Penny,” Sienna answered.
Penny sighed, “Afraid of what?”
“Afraid that I wouldn’t be enough for him. He’s a gorgeous, powerful man and a leader of his people. He surely would see, after enjoying me for a while, that I wouldn’t make a suitable mate. Then where would that leave me? In a future world with no one? With nothing? I couldn’t risk it,” Sienna said sadly. “Then, at the very moment that I decided I wanted to stay, the lightning swooped me up and dumped me right back down on the ground in front of our depot.”
Penny hugged her, “Well, then, I suggest you forget Kaden and the future world and clean yourself up. You’ve a dreary life as a spinster to get back to. Dozens of families rely on you for their welfare and there is simply no one else who could ever take your place in finding them food or shelter.”
“Are you mocking me?” Sienna inquired.
Penny ignored the question, “Or, you could count on your very capable cousin to help take over your caseload and get your ass back to the depot during the next storm.”
Sienna took a deep breath, “I can’t ask you to do that for me.”
“You’re not asking, I’m offering,” Penny replied. “Look, I love you and I will miss you terribly. But if the tables were turned, I’d fully expect you to do the same for me! If you stay, you’ll never give yourself the chance to find love. You’re far too entrenched in your work and extremely too compassionate for the less fortunate. But you deserve a life, Sisi! You deserve love and happiness.”
“I don’t know if I love him, but I miss him so much my soul aches,” Sienna admitted softly.
“Sisi, that’s what love and longing feel like! I know because that is how I felt when Roger died,” Penny answered with a hitch in her voice.
“Oh, Penny, that’s one of the other reasons I came back. I couldn’t leave you. I promised to always be here for you!” Sienna said, hugging her cousin.
Penny smiled and broke off the embrace. She grabbed Sienna’s shoulders and looked into her eyes, “And you have been here for me, my sweet girl. I found the love of my life with Roger. Then the plane crash took him away from me, and I was devastated. You took me into your home. You helped me finish my schooling, and you got the agency to hire me. But it’s been five years, Sisi, and we both need to move on. I can’t be the reason that you lose your chance to be with Kaden, and I have to stop being so comfortable here that I don’t get back out there and live my life!”
“And what if I said I was content with my little co-dependent life here with you?” Sienna asked, smirking.
“Then you’d be lying, and we both know it,” Penny answered. “It’s time we both stopped just being content.”
“So, what happens next?” Sienna asked wearily.
“We wait for the storm, you go back to Kaden, or forward, I suppose. Then, I finally push myself to find my happily-ever-after again,” Penny said.
Sienna nodded, “What if Kaden’s found someone else?”
“Then, my little time walker, you come right back here with me!” Penny giggled.
“You mean time traveler,” Sienna corrected.
“Time walker, time traveler, same thing!” Penny shrugged. “I think of time travel as requiring a machine of some sort. But you simply walked to the depot and rode the storm to the future. So, I suppose that’s why I think of you as a time walker.”
So, here she sat, looking out the window as the rain fell softly. There had been rain three times this week, but no lightning. She drifted off to sleep, praying that if she ever did get the chance to time walk again, it would be into the arms of Kaden.
She was roused from her sleep by a huge clap of thunder. Penny woke up too and shouted, “Sienna, get up! Where there’s thunder, there’s lightning! Hurry!”
Sienna hugged Penny, “Thank you, cousin! I’ll never forget you and will always be grateful for your encouragement!”
“And I will never forget you and will always be grateful for your support. Now go! Before you miss your chance! Walk to the depot and travel forward to 2221 and your Kaden! I love you, Sisi!” Penny said tearfully.
“I love you too, Penny!” Sienna answered.
By the time she got to the depot, the storm was raging. Lightning and thunder filled the night sky with sights and sounds that rivaled any rock concert light show. Sienna found the place where she’d stood the first time and waited. Her heart was pounding, and she felt giddy. Just as the lightning was about to strike, she realized her mistake. She was standing on the south side of the tracks instead of the north side. But it was too late! The lightning struck and carried her off, not to the future, but to the past.
Sienna woke up in a bed, with a handsome stranger sitting on the edge mopping her forehead with a cool wet cloth. Her eyes fluttered open and the stranger breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“You’re awake,” he said in a low voice. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it through the night. But here you are with your eyes open and I am so grateful for that.”
“Where am I? Where is Kaden?” she asked, confused.
“I don’t know who this Kaden is that you speak of. I’m Jacob. I found you on the ground out in my field. You weren’t moving or breathing, and I thought you were dead. But I couldn’t just leave you there. So, I brought you here. I stripped off your wet things and put you in one of my nightshirts and have been watching over you all night,” he said. “I ran and got the doc, who checked you out. He said you seemed okay but to let him know if you didn’t wake up. I promise I was a gentleman when I undressed you. I just couldn’t leave you in wet things.”
Sienna smiled weakly, “Thank you, I am certain that you were. Thank you for saving my life. My name is Sienna.”
“Sienna is a beautiful name. I imagine you were named so because of the color of your hair. I’ve never seen a woman with hair such as yours. It’s beautiful,” he said, then blushed. “I’m sorry, that was quite forward of me. I am but a simple farmer, and I don’t have the polished manners you must be used to.”
Sienna’s mind started to clear, “What year is it?”
He was puzzled by her question, but answered, “Well, it’s 1821 of course.”
“Of course, I’ve walked to the past, not the future,” she said, her heart nearly breaking.
“I beg your pardon?” Jacob asked.
She shook her head, “I’m just tired, and I’m not making any sense. May I have some water please, Jacob?”
“Yes, I’ll be right back. I need to pump a fresh pitcher full of water,” he replied.
Alone for a few moments, she allowed a single tear to trickle down her cheek. She’d been foolish to think she could time walk to Kaden. And now, instead of two hundred years into her future, she’d traveled that same amount of time into her past.
Jacob returned with a picture of water and poured some into a cup for her. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “I have some bread that I baked just yesterday and some fresh honey to dip it in.”
He was as kind as he was handsome, with sandy brown hair and soft blue/gray eyes. His gentle nature was endearing, even if he wasn’t the sophisticated man that Kaden was. “Yes, that would be lovely. You’re very kind,” she responded.
He stopped and tilted his head just a little, “Why wouldn’t I be kind? I’d like to think if the tables were turned, you’d do the same for me.”
Over the next few days, Sienna regained her strength and insisted on helping with the indoor chores. Jacob didn’t argue and seemed to enjoy having company. He scoffed at her story that she was from his future and chocked it up to her being struck by lightning. Eventually, Sienna agreed that she must be suffering from amnesia and stopped trying to convince him that she was a time walker. Funny, Kaden had accepted her story so easily, whereas Jacob thought it was pure fantasy. While she appreciated Jacob’s hospitality, it was clear this was not where, nor when, she was meant to be. She decided to be a grateful visitor and do her share to help out until the next storm came along.
Three weeks passed and not a drop of rain fell. Jacob sensed her unhappiness and wondered what, if anything, he could do to soothe her. She was not the pale, blonde beauty that he had often dreamed of ending up with, but she was easy on the eyes and the combination of her red hair and blue eyes stirred feelings in his loins that were becoming harder to ignore. He was reluctant to make a move. He was certain that when she regained her memory, she would leave. He tried hard not to develop an attachment to her, but he found himself wanting her in his bed. He knew most of the townsfolk would find that sinful. But perhaps, if he could convince her to stay, she’d marry him.
