Page 75 of Misadventures with a Time Traveler

I wheel away from them. “Oh, my God.” At once, mesh my hands behind my head. “So you’re really telling me that if Max De Leon doesn’t lock down some true love in another twenty-six days, he’s going to be deported back to seventeen eighty-nine?”

“Exactly.” Drue’s rejoinder is swift and sharp. “Or maybe worse.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Pasca couldn’t give us the whole scoop on that part,” Drue admits. “She simply doesn’t know, Allie. Nobody does.”

A laugh spurts from me. I yearn to punch it into a scream.

My name is Maximillian George Jean Valence De Leon. I swear it to you…on my own life, which is just a pittance now…

“Just a pittance.” My whisper is muted by my painful swallow. I turn away, struggling not to compare my brain to the chaos of the trees. Massive failure. I’m dizzy, and it has nothing to do with the Crémant in my blood.

Just a pittance.

Was he speaking words of prophecy or lunacy? I’ve been so convinced of the latter, I didn’t stop to consider the fallout of the former. The repercussions of what it would really mean…

Not just that Maximillian has actually time-jumped here from 1789.

But that he thinks he’s done it because of me.

To fall in love with me.

Incredible.

Impossible.

I don’t know how to fall in love.

For the last four years alone, maybe longer, I’ve done nothing but dream of what’s going to happen after that airplane ride back to New York tonight. This is the moment I’ve been waiting and working for. The affirmation that I can bring some beauty and worth to the world—without the conduit of a man.

Even if it means leaving behind the man who brings beauty and worth to my world.

Who sees all the beauty and worth in me.

But it’s not meant to be.

Max needs something more. Someone more.

Now, even the metaphorical meaning of the trees is too much to bear. I circle back to Drue and Raegan as the heat behind my eyes becomes the ugly cry on my face. But weirdly, it doesn’t come. I’m a damn dryer sheet now, smelling like a forest but feeling like a desert.

A desert hiding a thousand fault lines.

“Hey.” Rae’s the first to pace back over and gently cup my shoulders. “You all right?”

I jerk my way through a nod. Still, Drue points at my head. “Yeah, but the hamsters in here are still sprinting too fast.”

“It’s okay.” Unsurprisingly, Rae moves in for a full-contact hug. “You can talk to us, honey. What are you thinking?”

Despite their combined care, I hunch in on myself with a leaden gulp. I fight to keep the cracks in check, the fault lines from erupting…and my heart from spilling out.

“I’m thinking that irony is a bitch and that I must’ve really pissed her off this time.”

With the words, I’ve somehow peeved Mother Nature on top of Lady Irony. She splits open the sky on us, sending down a squall that has us shrieking, grabbing the panniers, and dashing for cover beneath a thick oak. The panic takes care of my heartache for a few minutes, at least. I laugh with sincerity while huddling with my friends and tearing into our soggy farewell picnic.

As we savor the sandwiches, cheese, and fruit tarts, I’m secretly glad for the rain. The coincidence has nothing to do with hiding my nonexistent tears…and everything to do with exposing the agonized corners of my heart.

Chapter Twelve