Out of the Past

A little taste of a perfect chemistry

Out of the Past (Heritage Time Travel Romance series, book #1)

A second place finisher in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards


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     I returned from my book tour on May 16^th and had only one day at home to do laundry and clean house before I drove to Des Moines to stay with Derek for the weekend and to schmooze with some of his clients for dinner and drinks both Friday and Saturday night.

     So on Saturday night, I found myself sitting in downtown Des Moines at the lovely Cosmopolitan Lounge, stirring my very apropos Cosmo drink and nodding mechanically at the stylish, dripping-with-expensive jewelry, and very young wife of Derek’s client who I refer to privately as, Mr. Middle-Aged Moneybags. I listened to her describe how she had lived enough to fill ten novels with her exploits into the fast-paced world of the rich and famous.

     “You should do it. You should write a novel,” I urged her with as much sincerity as I could muster.

     “Oh, I just couldn’t!” she hooted, followed by a ringing high-pitched cackle of a laugh that sounded a bit like a deranged hyena. Derek glanced over briefly, likely as surprised as I was that a sound like that could come out of a human being, but he went back to his conversation without missing a beat. My companion placed a hand over her mouth briefly with a self-conscious flush coming up in her cheeks, floored by the notion.

     “Oh no, not me but if you ever run out of ideas, I would be more than happy to share,” she offered magnanimously.

     “I’ll definitely keep that in mind—can’t have too many good ideas,” I said distractedly as I reached for my black clutch that was vibrating on the oversized-leather chair beside me. I pulled out my smart phone and swiped open the face to read a text message. It was from Dave.

“Wow, that little black dress is killer!”

     In shock, I looked up and around the room, finally finding him seated at the bar halfway between me and the stage at the far end. He was relaxed, seated on a bar stool, drink in hand. He raised his glass to me in salute and grinned.

     Oh, I thought seeing his smiling face, I had missed Mr. Cameron. I hadn’t had a chance to see him in Fremont before I’d left to come to Des Moines for the weekend and having not seen him for over two weeks, it felt as if it had been ages.

     “Would you please excuse me?” I said absently to the table in general, and then I scooted my chair out and on my little black stiletto heels, made my way across the room.

     Dave watched me approach with a friendly enough smile on his lips but those eyes of his; they roamed over every inch of my body, from the tips of my high-heeled shoes to the very top of my head and back down again, ending with a ‘have mercy’ roll to them as if to swoon, just as I arrived.

     “Would you mind going back and doing that one more time? I want to be sure to commit that strut to memory for my future private use,” he requested dreamily.

     I shook my head and rolled my own eyes at his rather bawdy remark.

     “How’s the hand?” I asked to change the subject.

     He immediately lifted it for my inspection and I held it in my two hands, smoothing an index finger over the back of his hand and along what was now no more than a thin pink line marring the golden brown of his tanned skin.

     “Looks good,” I said approvingly. “Glad to see that you’re still in possession of all five of your fingers,” I observed and released his hand from my grasp.

     I crossed my arms over my waist and gave him a look up and down not unlike he had just given me, from the top of his head to the tips of his very expensive looking black dress shoes.

     “No missing extremities,” I observed. “All body parts appear to be present and accounted for. I’m very happy the see that you survived my absence unscathed.”

     “Very funny,” he said dryly.

     “So now my next question must be what on earth are you doing in Des Moines? And how is it that you just happen to be in the same bar as me?” I asked flabbergasted. “Taken up stalking me, have you?”

     “I’m not saying that wouldn’t likely be an extremely entertaining endeavor, all things considered but—no,” he said playfully. “I knew Max Eubank was playing here tonight, and my date lives downtown at the Plaza, within walking distance so—”

     “Your date?” I interrupted, goggling at him open-mouthed. I don’t know why that should surprise me so much but it did.

     “She’s in the restroom just now,” he said easily with a grin, obviously amused by my reaction. He reached out an index finger and lightly touched my chin.

     I promptly closed my open mouth.

     “Hmmm,” I murmured as I tried to digest this new development.

     I was a little shocked by the incalculable coincidence of seeing him in this place and seeing this other side to Dave Cameron that I’d never really considered. He was meticulously groomed and dressed in a great looking dark-blue dress shirt and tie with some nice gray trousers, and those dress shoes—something other than the work boots that were his usual daily wear, at least in my experience. Not that I don’t appreciate the way that he looks on a day to day basis. I can honestly say that I’ve never seen him looking anything but perfect to my discerning eye but this—he looked amazing. I couldn’t even think of any eloquent adjectives fitting enough to describe his sexy hotness, and I’m a freakin’ writer!

     “Hey, you clean up nice, buddy,” I finally managed to say nonplussed.

     He sat up a little taller in his seat, lifting his chin which showcased a knife sharp jawline and with a wry twist of a half-smile, straightened his tie and gave me his famous one-liner.

     “I have my moments.”

     Just then, a very beautiful and very young woman, blonde and stylishly dressed in an expensive designer outfit that flattered her numerous curvaceous attributes, arrived and stood next to me and I belatedly got the hint and moved to provide her access to what was apparently her seat next to my employee.

     Dave rose from his bar stool and kept standing briefly until she had seated herself with, I noted, effortless grace and fluidity. She swiveled on her stool toward me and I couldn’t help but notice her reach out to lay a familiar hand on Dave’s upper thigh to steady herself while she crossed her impossibly shapely legs and joined our conversation.

     “Sharon Johnson, I’d like you to meet, Torie Mills. Torie this is Sharon,” Dave gestured between us, making the introductions and Sharon and I shook hands and made small talk about how nice it was to meet each other, how much we were both looking forward to hearing the singer tonight, blah, blah, blah—while Dave sat placidly sipping at his drink and looking on with his head tilted to one side and a slight smile upon his lips, seeming to be enjoying this little tête-à-tête immensely.

     “Well,” I finally said extricating myself when our conversation had quickly stumbled to an awkward pause. “It was very nice to meet you, Sharon.”

     “Nice to meet you, Torie,” she reciprocated with another shake of my hand.

     I moved my attention back to Dave, finding his eyes were on me and a soft smile was upon his lips.

     “Dave,” I said. “I need to get back to Derek, but I’ll be able to help with the house part of next week.”

     “I’ll be there, bright and early,” he assured me, nodding and taking my hand into his for a cordial shake and said softly. “Really great to see you.”

It was just then that the lights dimmed, bringing any further conversation to an end as Max Eubank took his place on stage to a round of enthusiastic applause and began strumming the intro to “I Won’t Make You Feel Romantic.”

     Sharon wiggled her manicured fingers toward me in a final friendly farewell and swiveled her chair around to face the stage while I quickly retreated to my table at the back of the room but I couldn’t help my eyes drifting again and again, across the room to watch Dave and his date as they sat cozily together, enjoying the music and quiet conversation with each other. Dave had his arm along the back of her chair, leaning in to whisper over her shoulder and she was leaning back against his chest, tilting her head so that he could speak directly into her ear and doubtless his lips were lightly touching there, his breath probably tickling and warm against her neck. I had to admit to myself that they appeared to be sharing a very romantic and intimate connection with each other as they listened to the singer and his acoustic guitar.

     Me? Oh, I was treated to listening to Derek drone on and on about market conditions and equity index funds while at the same time shamelessly stroking his client’s already inflated ego like a two-bit car salesman and expecting me to do the same for the guy’s gold-digging trophy wife!

 

Forevermore Book #3 of the Time Travel Trilogy

Forevermore

Forevermore

 Heritage Time Travel Romance Series Book #3

 Amazon LinkForevermore

Snippet

     “Okay, so who is gonna hold the rope?” Jeff asked.

     “Wait a minute! Who says you’re going down there?” Dave argued. “I think I should be the one.”

     “Why’s that? I’m the one with climbing experience,” Jeff said.

     “Yeah, climbing around on rooftops,” Dave barked back.

     “Well, I have the safety harness and line and pulley in my truck bed right now so I guess I win,” Jeff countered, trumping any argument Dave might have had in the wings. The testosterone was heavy in the air. I decided I needed to put the kibosh on the direction this conversation was heading.

     “No one is going down there,” I insisted raising my voice loudly. “We are simply going to turn on the camera and lower it.”

     The four of us stood on the precipice of the black void of the abandoned well, with a pile of old wood and a large concrete disk tossed to the wayside. We had found it about two hundred feet back from the road after I had led the way as we had climbed between the strands of barbed wire and up the barely discernible gravel drive. 

     The old homestead was completely gone, but as we walked I was replaying the time warp in my head and mentally recalling when I had looked back toward the drive. I could recall standing before the original house, as I described to them the journey Lindy and Coyle had taken, as the others followed along behind me.

     Just beyond where the house would have once been and walking in the direction the barn had once stood, we found the well fairly quickly. It was covered by a large concrete slab and it took all four of us and two shovels as levers to get it to slide off the cavernous hole.

     The guys were not willing to simply take finding an old well as evidence unless I could find some other traces that would make it indisputable. After an hour of scouring the sites that I felt for sure once held the house and barn, I'd had to give it up. Besides, Allen’s buildings from his 1904 homestead had been razed again at some point after 1981 when I had visited this old farm with my dad. 

      There was absolutely no sign of any structures. So here we stood, as Dave and Jeff had now decided that the best evidence would be to go down the well and see if they could find any of the girls’ physical remains.

     “Risk the camera? Nope! Not happening. We don’t even know how deep it is,” Jeff snapped.

     “Hey, it’s my camera and I don’t care if we risk it. You think it’s better to risk one of your lives rather than a three-hundred dollar camera?” I snapped back. “We don’t even need to do that. Let’s just keep looking for remnants of the barn or the house. The house was back that way about a hundred feet.”

     “Torie, we’ve been looking for an hour and have found nothing substantial. The only way to know if this is the place is to try and get to the bottom of this well and see if we can find anything. If the girls really are here, we’ll find bones; at least a skull,” Dave said firmly.

     “Carrie, help me out here,” I whined. I gave her a wide-eyed silent plea to help me rein in these idiots before it got any more out of hand.

     “Let’s grab one of those large rocks over there and drop it down the well,” she said as she pulled out her smart phone. “We can time it and then I can find,” she paused and turned her phone to show us. “Got it—a calculator. I love technology! It states that it’s accurate to within twenty or thirty feet allowing for the variables of the weight of the item being dropped, gravitational pull…yada, yada.”

     “Carrie! I wasn’t kidding! No one is going down there,” I said again but as I spoke, Jeff went to grab the rock and Dave fell to his knees beside the hole.

     “It’s our best option for being sure we have the right place and proving that your dream really was a warp,” Dave said, and by the tone of his voice I could tell I was going to have an uphill battle to win against the three of them.

     “No, I vote to just dangle the camera down there and pull it back up and see if it catches anything,” I said firmly. “None of you are going to put yourselves at risk.”

     “Hardly a risk if we are lowered in a harness,” Dave argued. “We can back my truck up and hook the line to the trailer hitch and just lower one of us…”

     “No!” I said. “That’s crazy! We have no idea how deep it is. It could be full of water. There could be dangerous gasses. The walls could collapse.”

     “Doubtful,” Jeff called as he came back across the scruffy weed-filled farmyard with several rocks in his hands; he was juggling them as he approached. “Okay, let’s do this, and I’m going to be the one to go down,” he corrected Dave. “It’s my harness.”

     Carrie sat on the ground near the lip of the well and flexed her index finger at me. “Come on, we need your ears, Torie. We all need to listen for it to hit bottom.”

     I resigned myself to accepting the plan and joined the others at the well’s edge and I got goose bumps as I looked down into the pitch blackness. The chill air that wafted out of the depths  smelled eerily familiar. I could recall the cool earthy odor as Lindy Smith crashed through the wooden cover. I could even remember the feeling tightening in her middle as she tumbled. That feeling like when you go down the first big hill of a roller coaster and your stomach seems to be dropping out.

     “First a smaller one just to see if we hear water because if it’s full of water, then any remains of the girls will be history,” I said with a heavy sigh of resignation.

     “I agree,” Dave nodded.

     Jeff crouched beside us and took the smallest of the rocks, about the size of a peach, and dropped it down into the inky blackness. We all listened carefully and heard a flinty dry sound as it landed in just seconds.

     “No water,” Dave confirmed. “So now a large one and I’ll time it.”

     Jeff chose a rock about the size of a brick.

     Dave studied his watch for a few moments and then ordered     “Now.”

     Jeff let it go and the depths returned a loud echoed reverb as it struck bottom.

     “About three seconds,” Dave announced and looked at Carrie.

     She quickly typed the information into her phone. “Okay, with variance for gravity, weight of the rock, and the time it took for the noise to bounce back it’s roughly two-hundred plus feet.”

     “Whoa,” Jeff chuckled and jumped to his feet, slapping his hands together to remove the dust. “Okay, show time."

Insight into 'Into the Future'

The 2nd book in the time travel adventure of Dave and Torie Mills Cameron is my personal favorite of the series. I've gotten some feed back about the fact there is nothing about the future in the novel. At the time it was written in 2013, most of the story did take place in the future, 2015, 2016, 2017. However, now real life has caught up with the story. The blurb which is on the back of the paperback, isn't on the e-book version and might also cause the confusion. Maybe. Maybe the fault is with me for choosing a wrong title but I stand by my reasons for naming this 2nd book of the series Into the Future.

To me, Into the Future is really Dave's story and the lengths he will go to in order to give Torie and their baby Rose Lynn some sense of normalcy in a world gone absolutely insane all around them while their own life together has been torn to shreds by the fallout from one terrible night. Dave and Torie are both holding on to their sanity by sheer dint of will and when Dave keeps to himself a secret that would surely be the last straw and the end of their marriage and life together.

I think it shows the depth of Dave's strength to live trapped in a personal hell he cannot leave, a hell that will cost him dearly in mental torment as nightly he goes to battle and heroically lives through and witnesses the unimaginable. While at the same time he is putting on the face of a man who has it all together, for the world's and more importantly, for Torie's benefit.  This part two of the story also shows the depth of Dave's humanity, his gentle and caring spirit and his courage. I feel it makes the reader love him even more and he proves he is worthy of adoration. 

As one reviewer put it: "Dave is stunning. With all the travels and the emotions they raise in him, it is impossible to describe just how touching they are."

Back Cover Blurb:

When author Torie Mills moved to tiny Fremont, Iowa, she found the love of her life and the place where she finally felt she belonged. Five generations of Dave Cameron’s family had inhabited the large idyllic Victorian house he and Torie now called home. They settled in, started a family and seemed to be living the perfect fairy-tale ending.

Fast forward two years INTO THE FUTURE. The Cameron family, including little one-year-old Rose, have been chased from their home by the time travels they believed they had left behind. Quiet Mahaska County has become a Mecca for fans of the psychological thriller Where Evil Lived, which Torie wrote concerning the 1959 mass murder of her Mills cousins. It was just meant to be a way to help Dave heal and put it behind him for good. Now it had taken on a life of its

While Torie searches desperately for the  answers that will fix her fractured family and allow them the happily ever after they desire, Dave struggles to hold onto his sanity and keep a secret from her that will test him to the limits of his endurance as he comes to terms with the time travel gift that neither he, Torie nor their child will be able to resist or control.

 The ebook is $2.99
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Apple iBook/iTunes link here

Out of the Past snippit

Out of the Past...snippet. FREE READ
Paranormal, Sci-fi, Time Travel

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Sitting cross-legged, with my elbows braced upon my knees and hunched over Dave’s supine body as I was; I imagine that I likely resembled a medieval gargoyle perched precariously upon the ledge of some Gothic building. I closely observed his face and marveled at that eerily blank and yet oddly tranquil repose that I’d glimpsed upon my own countenance when I’d recently videotaped my own time travel experience. It was entirely different though, seeing it manifest itself upon someone else’s face.
     I’d been back for nearly an hour now and using the time to note the other physical effects of time travel upon the human body, namely Dave’s body, as he continued to remain unresponsive. Such as the change in his skin temperature going from heated with a sheen of sweat beading upon his forehead, to a coolness that was a little creepy and corpse-like. Both of these were somewhat indicative of him going through non-REM and REM sleep cycles except that there was no movement behind his gently closed eyelids, hinting at any dreaming, even though he definitely appeared to be in a deep enough sleep that he should be dreaming.

     Also, in spite of his wildly fluctuating skin temperature, his breathing and heart rate continued to remain slow and regular. Even his usual nocturnal tumescence, referred to by Dave as his ahem—morning glory had yet to arise this day, if you get my meaning and no I hadn’t molested the man in his sleep, I’d just looked and with a purely scientific interest. http://amzn.com/B009ZZDVJS

Out of the Past

FREE READ book #1 of the Heritage Time Travel Romance series. Read Out of the Past, with 51 five star reviews on Amazon and a 2014 finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards. It is a stand alone novel with a (HEA)Happily Ever After ending but that isn't the end of the amazing story. A contemporary romance with a time travel twist.  

When Torie Mills moved to tiny Fremont Iowa to find her roots and start a new life, she found more than she ever imagined possible. Start the adventure for free for your ereader.

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Heritage Time Travel Series

The meeting of reality with fiction is a unique feature of my time travel series.

The Cedar Township cemetery which is the epicenter of the story is real, and some of the true historical characters created for the story are actual people who are at their eternal rest in that cemetery, such as Dr. Jacob Krout, Samuel McFall (fictional Dave's, 3rd great grandfather), Octavius Waltman, Johnny Baitsell, to name a few. I was able to bring those long gone true historical people to life and give them all parts in my fictional world and also tell a bit of their life stories because with the characters traveling back in time, anything is possible. 

Other touches of reality, Jimmy Thomas, who  is an internationally known book cover model. He is on all three covers of my series, representing my stories hero Dave, who just happens to share a very strong physical resemblance to Jimmy. Jimmy also is the man on the covers of  fictional character Torie Mills' novels and in another twist of the story, Jimmy Thomas agreed to a cameo appearance in the novel Out of the Past as himself, which was great fun and another little touch of reality added to a fictional world.

Julie Demuesy and her wonderful organization Dreamcatcher's Equine Rescue in Fountain Colorado is another real person and place that inhabit the landscape of Out of the Past and who graciously agreed to be part of my story as herself. She just happens to also be my sister who I am particularly proud of and who is making a difference in this world. Now she just happens to be a character in a novel...how novel.

The wonderful downtown Fremont, Iowa, where the street dance in Out of the Past takes place and where Dave and Torie dance the night away was actually transplanted from another small Iowa town and to see the street you would actually need to travel about 60 miles away to a little town called Grimes. The band Toaster who rocks the dance is an actual regionally famous band who agreed to be in my story. 

Another true life character who inhabits fictional downtown Fremont is Bill the barber and those scenes with him, are a fictionalized version of how I met him and what we shared. He graciously agreed to appear as himself.

Bartender, Tim Dinsmore, although a fictional character, is descended from actual Fremont pioneer William Dinsmore and Tim's cousin Keith Dinsmore (another real person) who is a good friend of Torie's was actually someone who I knew and collaborated with briefly on his book Forever Fremont Iowa before his untimely passing and those passages regarding Keith and his life are actually times I spent with him and conversations he and I shared regarding our mutual love of family history.

Almost all of the time travel adventures that Dave lives in Out of the Past and Into the Future are true stories from the late eight-hundreds and early nineteen hundreds of Iowa's past, although the names are changed.  The gun mishap in Forevermore is based on what happened to a distant cousin of mine. I found the story in an old newspaper article.

The death of William McFall in Foreveremore is actually the story of the death of my children's 2nd great grand uncle. Even the Thompson family who are important central figures of the series are a fictionalized version of family members who met their same fate decades ago.

Just a few of the real life touches that make my fictional series unique.

Amazon Kindle links

Out of the Past FREE
Into the Future $2.99
Forevermore $2.99

Out of the Past

Out of the Past snippet

History, family and a contemporary suspense filled time travel adventure

 

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50 five star ratings

   

  I glanced down at my free left hand and noted the thin gold wedding band and the young unmarred skin before surveying the delicate white silk of the long-sleeved blouse and floor length skirt I was wearing which was all hand-beaded with sparkling clear glass brilliants woven around the wrists of the blouse and I knew that I’d seen the outfit before in a photograph. It all came together in a flash and I knew with certainty that I must be my grandaunt Jennie Andersen Mills, and this must surely be her and Wyatt’s wedding day.

     “I wish you nothing but happiness,” a voice was saying close at hand and I became aware of the hum of conversation in the room.

     I looked at the young woman who’d approached me with her curly-brown hair pulled up into a lovely bun at the crown of her head and I lost all my nervousness at once as I accepted her hand in greeting. She was my frequent and most beloved of time travel buddies, my grandaunt Lucy Mills, Wyatt’s sister.

                                                                 “Oh Lucy, thank you so very much,” I said.

                                                                “We are sisters now, you and I,” she said excitedly.

                                                                “Yes, what fun we shall have together,” I agreed with a light squeeze of her fingers before releasing her. She moved to stand before her brother at my side, looking up at him with an impish grin.

     “Wyatt, my wish for you as well, dear brother,” she said sweetly and I glanced up at Wyatt and saw a wide grin on his happy face as he leaned down to accept a light kiss upon his cheek from Lucy.

     “Thank you, kiddo,” he replied with affection, straightening back up tall.

     Oh my, he’s a good-looking man, I marveled silently admiring him. It came to me all at once that with his hair combed back, glossy smooth and chocolaty-dark brown and with his piercing dark eyes, high cheekbones and firm jawline, that he looked exactly like Christian Slater, but a really young Christian Slater like in that movie Heathers or maybe Untamed Heart.

     I have a couple of wonderful photographs of granduncle Wyatt Mills in my genealogy file at this age including he and Jennie’s official wedding tintype that would have been taken at some point on this day with him looking very dapper in this dark-gray serge suit and waistcoat, with a stiff white collared dress shirt and a gray-and-white-striped bow tie. Just gorgeous, I thought as I smiled up at him, his face flushed with happiness and hopes for the future. Sadly, I already knew what the future held for dear granduncle Wyatt; that he will die at the age of thirty-four from a bout of influenza only about fifteen years from this day, that he and Jennie will never have children and that Jennie will go on to marry again and have a forty year marriage and two sons with her second husband.

     Turning my mind from these sad truths, I continued my detective work regarding this current time travel experience. I knew that Wyatt and Jennie were born, one year apart but shared the same birth date, and that they’d chosen to marry on that same date as well, making the occasion triply special. With this knowledge I knew, without doubt, that today must be June 9, 1912.