Timeless Whisper (Timeless Hearts Series Book 1)
Timeless Whisper
Sandra E. Sinclair
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Timeless Spirit Excerpt
About the Author
Also by Sandra E. Sinclair
Copyright
Introduction
Timeless Whisper is the first book in the Timeless Hearts -Sweet Western Time Travel Series.
This multi-author series ties into one central concept of two women, in different times, who help people find their true love…even if it isn’t in their own time.
Each book is a standalone story, however it is suggested that you read the short prequel book, which you can get FREE. Click here for Timeless Hearts Prequel on Amazon
The books will be released between February - June 2017. You can find them all listed on the Amazon author page - amazon.com/author/timelesshearts (Be sure to click “Follow” to be notified of any new releases).
We hope you enjoy the series that will show you love knows no boundaries…even time itself.
Sandra E. Sinclair, Peggy L. Henderson, Anna Rose Leigh & Kay P. Dawson - Timeless Hearts Authors
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Chapter 1
Raven Eyez, you wake up this instant, there’s work to be done. You have to make things right. Lance needs to know I’m sorry. The voice in her head didn’t give her a moment’s peace. It felt as if she’d only closed her eyes for a moment. Now it was back. A constant whisper inside her head, she wished would simply go away.
It started six months ago when her father first told her of his trouble. Troubles she had no idea would have such an impact on her own life, stripping away everything she’d built. She was back to square one.
Raven groaned, straining to open her eyes. She flipped over in bed onto her stomach and glanced over at the bedside clock. It was six-thirty in the morning. She groaned again and placed her pillow over her head, both hands pressing it down against her skull.
She didn’t want to face the day.
Already penniless, and in four hours she’d be homeless too. The clock began to vibrate against the surface and chime. A novelty she once thought cute was now just an annoying timepiece. It was time for her to get up and continue what was likely the second or maybe the third worst day of her life.
Snatching the pillow from her head she swung it toward the annoyance, swiping the clock off the bedside table, and hurling it to the ground. It smashed against the hardwood floor. Then she tossed the pillow across the room.
A growl escaped her lips as she pushed herself into an upright position and rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palms. She couldn’t fight it. There was no more fight left in her.
“Coffee I need, coffee,” she said aloud to the empty room, which echoed her voice back to her, hollow and empty like her heart and bank account. She looked around her bare apartment. Everything she’d owned was sold and in boxes, waiting to be collected and sent off to their new homes.
Weary from the weight of the enormity of her situation, she slid her feet into her slippers and wandered from the bedroom into the kitchen to switch on the coffee maker. She may have lost everything else but she’d be taking her coffee maker with her. It was the first thing she bought for her hope chest, when she thought she and Lance Thornton would one day be married.
“Yep, and look how well that turned out for me.” She exhaled, pouring the coffee. Hope had become hopelessness. “Maybe I should leave you behind. You could be the reason for my bad luck.” She examined the pot in her hand and placed it back on its stand. Without a doubt, she was losing her mind. How could a coffee maker be the cause of her problems?
It was the men in her life that messed everything up. She’d be fine if there were no men. Just peachy on her own, doing her own thing.
Well she was single after all and likely to stay that way for a while, if the voice in her head didn’t shut up about Lance. She thought she’d closed that chapter in her life when she left Heartsbridge—that miserable little town…population eight thousand. She’d transferred to a school in New York to be with her father after her mom died.
That was the day she considered to be the worst day ever. Lance had broken up with her only hours earlier, saying he thought they should see other people. They were getting older and would be going to college, and had only ever dated each other. He thought the only way to know if they were truly meant to be together was to separate.
I mean, who does that, for crying out loud? How in the hell was seeing other people going to improve their relationship? Come on now…it was a total copout. He was too much of a coward to simply come out and say it wasn’t working for him, using that old platitude “it’s not you, it’s me.” It was absolutely him—the waste of space.
After the news of her mother’s passing, she couldn’t take anymore. She’d emptied her hope chest, removed the coffee maker, and a handful of clothing. She’d taken a coach to Houston, then the redeye to New York and arrived at her father’s door a blubbering mess.
She’d been in such a state, her father had left her in New York alone and returned to Heartsbridge without her, to attend her mother’s funeral.
She hadn’t been back since. That was five years ago. The road back to Heartsbridge would be a painful one. She’d be returning the same way she’d left, with very little baggage, no money, and a coffee maker. She couldn’t understand why the machine meant so much to her.
Maybe it was because it was the first thing she’d ever bought with her own money. Money she’d earned from working part-time at the local bakery with her mother. Or was it because she used it to christen the hope chest her mother had surprised her with? Whatever it was, whenever she used it, she would remember her mother and how proud she was of her when she’d purchased it.
Raven glanced around her apartment. She’d miss the place but would she miss the hustle and bustle of living in New York? She doubted it. She was a country girl at heart and always would be.
The small-town life she’d led before coming to New York had been awesome, up until the point it wasn’t anymore. She’d missed not knowing who her neighbors were and even the gossip of everyone knowing everyone else's business. Except when it was her business which became the talk of the town, then not so much.
Well there was no point delaying the inevitable. She needed to get washed and changed, then call the funeral home. Torin would be here soon, and it wasn’t fair to keep her best friend waiting. Especially when she barely knew the deceased. He’d been her father, and she’d come to realize, she’d barely known him either.
Chapter 2
Dressed in only her underwear, Raven stood in front of the sink washing her coffee maker. The little black dress she’d be wearing hung from a hook in the doorway to the kitchen. She was in the midst of drying the coffeepot when Torin let herself into the apartment, her heels clacking against the hardwood.
“What you up to? Aren’t you ready? You know I hate waiti
ng,” she said, placing her purse on the countertop.
“I’m sorry, I guess I shouldn’t have used this, this morning.” Raven held up the jug, as she rubbed it dry. “I’m taking it with me.”
“Why would you want that old thing?”
“Because it works, and it’s mine. I don’t need any more reason than that.”
“You could leave it, or bring it if you moved in with me.”
“I told you. I’m not a charity case, someone for you to pity. I had a life before New York. I’m simply going back to it.”
“It’s not charity. I could give you a job as my assistant,” Torin said, her eyes darting around the room. She swiped her fingers across one of the boxes, then sat on it.
“No, thank you. I didn’t spend four years at culinary school so I could hold your equipment while you chase tornadoes. It not on the list of things I’d want to do. Even if I do think it’s wacky, that’s your dream, not mine.”
“So what will you do when you go back to this Heartsbridge? A town I’ve never heard of, by the way. You must have been the first and only person in town to ever leave.”
“There have been many people leave. They probably just say they’re from Texas, it’s easier.”
“And how many of them went back, once they’d escaped the rabbit hole?” Torin laughed.
“You’re not funny. I wouldn’t expect you to understand being a New Yorker. I dare say you don’t know anything else.” Raven didn’t have the nerve to tell her friend she was wondering the same thing. But she had an undeniable urge she just couldn’t shake, to go home.
“I’m a storm chaser, and do it for a living. Of course I know what you mean.”
Raven began to pack the coffee maker back into its original box.
“Are you telling me you kept the box too?”
“Where I come from, if you’ve got the original packaging you can get an exchange or your money back…so yeah, I kept the box.” Raven had no idea if what she said was true. She bought the thing when she was thirteen and thought herself in love with her first and only boyfriend.
“I’m sure that might have been the case five years ago. I doubt it still works today.”
“Doesn’t matter if it does or doesn’t. I won’t be exchanging it anyway.”
“Well hurry up. I want to stop by the office on the way.”
“You’re going to work?” How could Torin think about work on a day like today?
“Only to drop off some stats. It won’t take long. We’d have been on our way by now if you’d been ready. So you can stop with the accusing eyes.” Torin looked away and began to examine her expertly manicured nails.
“Okay. I just need to slip into my dress, then I’ll be ready to go.”
Torin was right, she should have been ready. This wasn’t Torin’s issue, it was hers. It wasn’t fair to try and take her frustrations out on her. Raven needed to accept the fact, it was her father who had embezzled money from a Fortune 500 organization, not Torin’s.
The media would be aiming their cameras and clicking away at her, telling her life story like they knew her. If Torin got exposure from it and increased the popularity for her TV show, so be it. She’d proven to be the only friend Raven had left from the elite social circle she’d once been a part of. That ceased after the news of what her father had done leaked out.
Then he’d killed himself, preferring death to jail before the case went to trial—leaving her with nothing. His assets were frozen and her little bakery had been a part of it. She’d used what she had left to clear what debts she could.
It had cost her this apartment and her reputation. She was going home because she didn’t have a choice. But it was also coupled with the deep yearning within her, which had woken her from her bed in the middle of the night. Then that same morning, her father was at her door, telling her how sorry he was, and it had been his intention to put her bakery in her name. Now it was too late.
He was in trouble, the kind of trouble it was hard to come back from. She’d gotten the rest of the story courtesy of CNBC at the crack of dawn.
Hurry up, Raven, the sooner we can get this day over with, the sooner we’ll be on our way to save Lance from himself.
“What did you say?” Raven asked Torin, who’d been busy texting on her phone.
“I didn’t say anything. But you do need to speed things up a bit. I’m parked in your underground parking bay. The media are outside in full force. We should be all right in my car. The windows are blacked out. But I can’t say the same for the funeral parlor.”
“I called ahead, they said they’re already there.”
“Cameras poised to the ready, I bet. Well, it can’t be avoided. I guess for now, you’re big news.”
“Yeah.” Raven sighed. “Let’s just go, I’m done here. Can you take the coffee maker for me, and I’ll get my purse and carry-on?”
Raven called down to the doorman, letting him know she’d left the keys inside the apartment and to supervise the collection of the things she’d left behind.
As she threw her carry-on into the trunk and placed her coffee maker next to it, she wondered how she’d come to be reduced to this. One bag and an appliance she’d purchased ten years ago. If anyone had told her this was what her future looked like six months ago, she’d have laughed them to scorn.
She’d been thrown into the realization that the things she’d taken for granted weren’t permanent and could be ripped away at a moment’s notice.
They drove to Torin’s office in silence which she was thankful for. Torin must have sensed she’d didn’t want conversation. She just wanted to sit quietly and wallow in her own misery.
In minutes, they were outside Torin’s building. “I won’t be long. Ten minutes’ tops.” Then she was gone.
Raven looked around the car and spotted a copy of Vogue on the backseat. She reached across and picked it up.
Her heart stopped for a breath, her mouth went dry, and her hands trembled from the weight of the magazine—and the face grinning back at her.
Chapter 3
It may look like he’s smiling, but his heart is being ripped apart. Hurry, Raven, only you can save him. Only you can make things right. I’m counting on you.
What nonsense was she thinking? None of the thoughts running through her mind lately made any sense. Looking at Lance’s incredibly handsome, smiling face, the only thing she could see wrong with this picture was that the woman standing next to him wasn’t her.
Her hands shook as she flicked through the pages, looking for the article which would tell her what she needed to know. Although deep inside she already knew what she’d find, and what it would say about the heir apparent to the Thornton dynasty. Bile rose to her lips as she swallowed. Why was this happening to her? History repeating itself. Only this time, it was her father passing. Lance, even when over two thousand miles away, was destined to ruin everything—compounding her grief here too.
What was wrong with the universe? Couldn’t it have waited until she’d at least said a proper farewell to this parent, in a way her cowardice had denied her saying a proper good-bye to her mother?
This was all she needed, a wedding announcement about the man who had broken her heart on the same day she’d lost her mother. Now again, when she needed to focus on the memorial service of her father. The actual cremation had been days ago. Why should Lance be happy, while she was disgraced and penniless? She’d had to abandon her business and clear out her savings to pay for everything.
In a few short hours, she’d be on her flight to Texas. Then a coach to the backwater of a town she’d run away from, only to be confronted with the bride and groom.
Life sucked.
The fact she was losing her mind didn’t come into it.
She couldn’t stop the tears that washed her cheeks and soaked the pages of the magazine. Raven cried for the loss of her father, and her life in New York. It hadn’t been perfect, but it had been good. Most of all, she cried for the loss o
f the life stolen from her by the selfish fool smiling up at her, who was about to marry someone else. To make matters worse, she recognized the model who stood next to him in the image. She’d been in her bakery before the scandal and had hinted to Raven she might be thinking of hiring her to make her wedding cake.
What a cruel twist of fate that was. Had she been the one to make their wedding cake, Lance Thornton would have been wearing said cake over his tuxedo at his wedding.
She couldn’t go home and watch the happy couple walk down the aisle. The wedding was in the morning. Everyone who was anyone would be there, including her relatives. She’d have to listen to the church bells chiming and know it sung out for them. She didn’t even have the funds to change her ticket. She was trapped in this never-ending nightmare, which was her life. And this silly voice in her head that kept telling her to save him.
Judging from this photograph, the only person that needed saving was her. Raven tore up the magazine and tossed the pieces over her head. Then fished into her purse for a tissue. She’d done crying over Lance Thornton. What she needed to do was put on her big girl panties and stop feeling sorry for herself, then face the world head-on.
Lance had moved on. It was high time she did the same.
Torin came back to the car and gave her a curious stare. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, can we just go now, please.” Raven stared straight ahead. She wasn’t going to cry. She’d done crying over things she couldn’t change.
Like a well-trained bodyguard, Torin managed to weave her in and out of the paparazzi with minimum effort—covering her head with her jacket. Even with all the protection in the world, she wasn’t prepared for what greeted her in the funeral parlor. She gazed around her in astonishment.
Yes, her father had proved to be a thief and a scoundrel. But he had also done a lot of good and sponsored many charities. He’d been somewhat of a modern-day Robin Hood. Yet she could see rows and rows of empty seats. The only other people in attendance were his staff from his apartment building and his secretary.