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."

If I Die Young by The Band Perry and Out of the Past

Out of the Past is FREE for Kindle. http://amzn.com/B009ZZDVJS

 Another great song from the play list of Out of the Past. If I Die Young by The Band Perry. https://youtu.be/7NJqUN9TClM

Excerpt --

Once the family members were seated, a recording of a song began to play over the speakers from some unknown source. It was The Band Perry and their song “If I Die Young” which was perfect but such a heartbreaking choice, and I couldn’t help but think that Claire or maybe one of her close friends had chosen this song for her—someone else who’d known how she’d longed to find her true love.

The crowd all stood as if in one single motion, in a show of respect as we watched the light honey-maple stained casket draped with a large spray of pink roses making its way toward the front of the sanctuary while the words of the song brought tears to the eyes of most of those in attendance.

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.

Out of the Past

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Praise for Out of the Past on Amazon.

AN AMAZING STORY~~I was looking for a really good book, the kind you just can't put down. This was the one! You can't help but love the characters (with one exception as you'll see). I was moved to tears several times, elated at other times. It was just an awesome book with an interesting storyline, and as I said characters you came to know and care for. I can't wait to start the next book in the series.

GRIPPING. COULDN’T PUT IT DOWN~~A unique mix of time travel and romance. Not what you typically find in this genre. Very well written and enthralling right to the end.

NEW WAY TO TRAVEL…LOVED IT!~~Since reading my first book in the time travel genre I have been an avid fan. This book just reinforced that opinion. It is different from any other book I've read (so far)...and I loved it! In this book rather than the protagonist finding themselves traveling through time by one means or another and remaining there, Torie (protagonist)finds herself warping back and forth between the past and present. Not only that, it is different each time. Loved this idea. Add to this a the dreamy Dave who is helping to restore Torie's home and I was anxiously waiting my "reading" time each evening. I've never read the author before, but I will definitely be reading the next book in this series. I enjoyed the story and her writing. I recommend the book, especially to lovers of the time travel genre, however I feel that almost anyone would enjoy it.

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Out of the Past-Johnnie Baitsell

     I noticed at that moment the young pre-teen boy sitting off to the side behind the counter with his arms folded across his chest, trying not to show his amusement at the situation playing out before him as a smile warred for control of his expressive, homely face. He was the store owner’s son, Johnnie Baitsell and I recognized him easily and had a lump in my throat as I goggled at him in amazement.

    Johnnie Baitsell is buried in the Cedar Township cemetery in Fremont and I’d had the single most exasperating time trying to locate his grave. I knew that he had to be buried there because I’d found his name on the list from the WPA grave registration survey. That survey was conducted in the 1930’s when the government, in an effort to create jobs for citizens during the Great Depression, had hired people to, among other things, walk the cemeteries and record the headstone information for every person buried in Iowa. That information, by the way, has become an invaluable resource for genealogy buffs like me. 

     I had doggedly kept searching the cemetery for Johnnie every time I came to work on my research but always to no avail. Then one day on impulse I squeezed around behind his parents headstone which is on the furthest east edge of the cemetery in the very last row of graves and up against the barbed wire fencing that butts up right against the woods, and low and behold there on the backside of his parent’s headstone was Johnnie’s information, along with that of his half-brother and baby sister who had also been on my list of graves that were MIA.

     Johnnie died when he was fifteen years old, from consumption which is the name for the end stage of tuberculosis, far away from his home in Iowa, down in Texas, where his mother had taken him for the warmer climate in hopes of restoring his health. I have his obituary which describes how he and his mother had decided to come home to Iowa but his doctor had advised and persuaded them to remain in Texas for just one more week. They’d agreed and only four days later Johnnie had died, cradled in his mothers’ arms and he never got to lay his eyes on his home or his family again. His last words as his mother held him close were, “Praise God.” His mother had returned by train a few days later bringing his coffined body home to his eternal rest at Cedar Township Cemetery. His story has always stayed with me because it was so very sad but also because of another strange twist and an amazing story in itself.

     I know that the boy I am looking at right now is Johnnie Baitsell because I have his portrait and it came about in a very peculiar way. There’s a man who lives out in California and at almost the exact same time that I was finally discovering Johnnie’s grave in Iowa, this man had been browsing for collectables at a flea market. At a booth selling old original tintypes, the image of a well-dressed homely boy with slightly too big ears had caught his eye and totally piqued his interest when he’d turned the tintype over and found scrawled across the back the words “Johnnie Baitsell, Mahaska County.” Thinking that he could perhaps do some investigating and discover the story behind it, he’d purchased the tintype and in a short amount of time he’d come upon the online memorial for him and added the portrait.

     The coincidences of me finding Johnnie’s grave and the man finding his photograph in California almost simultaneously more than a century after he’d passed away and now this, seeing him here alive before my very eyes; gave me a rush of goose flesh up my arms and the hair prickled at the nape of my neck. This is a meeting that I will forever treasure and an amazing alignment of the fates.

Johnnie’s father motioned to him now, and he jumped nimbly down from the stool he’d been perched upon and came around the counter.

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