Rendezvous With Yesterday (The Gifted Ones #2)(106)

“Aye, Beth,” she said with a smile. “I would have done so without your request.”



“Thank you. Now, why don’t I start by showing you my homeland?”

As soon as Alyssa took her hand, Beth closed her eyes and pictured a map of the world laid out before her. “Okay, there’s Europe. There’s England. And way over here to the west are North and South America.”

Alyssa’s hand tightened on hers. “I have read ancient scrolls that suggested there was land far to the west, but I never guessed ’twould be so much.”

The map in Beth’s mind molded itself into a sphere and settled into orbit around the sun with the other planets all in their places.

Alyssa gasped and jerked her hand back.

Beth opened her eyes. “What?”

“You know the Earth circles the sun,” Alyssa whispered, then looked at Robert.

Robert raised his hands. “I did not tell her. She already knew.”

Beth nodded. “Everyone knows that in my time. The Earth is round and revolves around the sun, along with seven other planets and three dwarf planets.”

When Dillon and Alyssa just stared at her, Beth fidgeted uncertainly. “Do you wish to continue?”

Nodding hesitantly, Alyssa again took Beth’s hand.

Beth pictured the globe again and let a map of the United States overlay itself atop the North American continent. “This is the country I was born in, the United States. This is Texas.” Mentally, she zoomed in on the Lone Star State. “And this is Houston, the city I’ve lived in all of my life.”

“’Tis so large,” Alyssa breathed.

“It is,” Beth agreed. “I think at last count there were around six million people living in the Houston metropolitan area.”

Both Robert and Dillon expressed shock at such a high number.

“’Tis true, Dillon,” Alyssa said as Beth showed her the tall buildings and the masses of people. “Look at all of the glass windows!”

Glass windows, Beth had come to understand, were very rare and expensive in this time.

“Oh!” Alyssa exclaimed. “What are those?”

Beth smiled. “Cars. Also called automobiles. You might understand them better as horseless carriages or wagons. Most are powered by a liquid fuel, rather than animals, and can travel three or four times faster than the fastest horse you’ve ridden.”

“Oh, I wish you could see this,” Alyssa told the men, her voice high with excitement.

“You know what’s even cooler than the cars?” Beth asked with a grin. “Airplanes.”

Beth recalled as vividly as possible her last trip to the airport. Walking through the long boarding tunnel, taking her seat, then watching out the window as the plane took off and the land fell away beneath them.

Alyssa abruptly jerked her hand back and broke contact.

Opening her eyes, Beth saw that this time the woman looked pale and shaken.

“You were flying through the air,” she whispered.

Robert and Dillon regarded Beth with wide eyes.

“I wasn’t flying,” she corrected. “The plane was. Airplanes are like automobiles, except they can fly through the air and travel at much greater speeds. People frequently use them to cover long distances in the briefest amount of time possible. I’d have to look it up to be sure, but you could probably fly from London to Paris in just a couple of hours.”

All three simply stared at her.

Alyssa turned to her husband. “She truly is from the future. ’Tis miraculous, all that she has shown me.”

His face unreadable, Dillon brushed the hair back from Alyssa’s pale face, then resumed his scrutiny of Beth.



Beginning to feel uncomfortable, Beth turned to Robert, who studied her with astonishment.

“Oh, no you don’t,” she griped. “Don’t you start looking at me funny. You already knew all of this.”

Robert forced a smile and draped his arm across her shoulders. Encouraging her to lean into him, he kissed her temple, then turned to Alyssa. “Can you tell us if Sir Geoffrey was the man who came to her and carried her through time?”

Beth looked to Alyssa for her response.

“I have never known Geoffrey to accomplish such a feat. He would have told me if he could do so.”

Dillon stroked her arm. “When you acquired your new gifts, they unsettled you so much that you would not admit you possessed them and only spoke of them when I forced you to.”

Beth would love to hear more of that story. Alyssa had acquired more gifts? How? And when?

“Mayhap Geoffrey has done the same,” Dillon suggested. “Mayhap he has acquired a new gift and is too unsettled by it to speak of it.”

The notion clearly disturbed Alyssa, who extended her hand to Beth. “Show me what happened that day.”

Her stomach turning over, Beth clasped the woman’s hand once more.

“Robert,” Alyssa said, “you will either have to quiet your thoughts or cease touching her.”

Beth glanced at Robert.

His eyebrows rose. “You can hear my thoughts?”

Alyssa nodded. “Quite clearly. ’Tis a bit like listening to two people speak at once.”

Beth eyed him curiously. “You didn’t know it could work that way?”