Stay With Me

"I found STAY WITH ME to be one of the best
time travel books I’ve ever read. This story caught my attention
from the beginning and held me spellbound until the surprising
conclusion.”

Teresa Henson--
Romance Junkies

"I loved this story and the characters from
the moment Sarah drops into John's life until the surprising
ending.”

Jani Brooks--
Romance Reviews Today

By Beverly Long

Copyright 2012, Beverly Long

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If
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purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com
and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work
of this author.

This is a work of fiction. All names,
characters, and settings are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual
names, events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead,
is entirely coincidental.

Present Day

“You can’t just quit.”

Sarah Jane Tremont smiled at Melody, the
woman who had been both her friend and her co-worker for the last
six years. She walked across the office and grabbed her diplomas
and her professional license off the wall. “Actually, I can,” Sarah
said, dropping the frames into the cardboard box, not caring when
they scraped together.

With more care, she removed the remaining
frame. She’d picked up the old black-and-white photo last year
while walking through an antiques mall. Just a simple nine-by-seven
print, it had stopped her in her tracks. It was a picture of a
woman, sitting on a log, facing a campfire. Her back was to the
camera, her long skirt touching the ground, her hair ribbons
dancing in the wind. The photographer had captured the sun just as
it slipped behind the mountains in the distance.

But what had captured Sarah had been the man.
He stood off to the woman’s side, just a foot or so back. He had
one leg propped on a tree stump and his lanky frame was bent over
as he rested an elbow on his thigh. He watched the woman as she
watched the fire.

The photographer had chosen an angle that
offered just a hint of the man’s profile, just a peek at a strong
chin. He wore a cowboy hat and a long coat. Sarah reached out and
traced the man, letting her finger run down the length of his body.
A tingle started in the tip of her finger and traveled across her
hand, causing the hair on her arm to rise.

She yanked her hand back and rubbed her still
tingling fingers together. They felt almost hot. She raised her
hand toward her face and sniffed her fingers. She could smell the
campfire, the burning evergreens.

“What the heck are you doing?” Melody
asked.

Dreaming.
“Nothing,” Sarah denied.
Before she lost her nerve, she reached for the picture, careful to
touch just the frame. She lifted it off the wall and gently laid it
on top of the rest of her things.

She pulled the small nails and dropped them
into the garbage. “Who knows?” Sarah said, waving a hand toward the
faded wall. “Maybe this will be a good excuse for them to paint the
office.”

“I don’t care about paint,” Melody said, her
eyes filling with tears. “I care about you. I don’t understand why
you have to leave.”

That was easy. “Because I can’t stay,” she
said. She stood next to the door, her half-full box propped on her
hip, and took one last look around the small, windowless office.
For the next months, as long as it took, she’d do what she could
for the Lopez family. When that was over, she didn’t have a clue
what she’d do. All she knew is that she couldn’t come back
here.

These kids and their families deserved
better—certainly more—but she had nothing else to give. She was
empty.

Melody brushed a tear off her cheek with an
impatient swipe. “For God’s sake, you’re a social worker, Sarah,
not a miracle worker.”

That was too bad because Rosa Lopez and her
sweet eight-year-old son had needed a miracle.

“I’ll call you,” Sarah said, as she wrapped
one arm around her friend’s shoulder and pulled her close. “Maybe
not right away. But I will.”

When Sarah left the four-story brick school,
she heard the click of the metal security door as it closed behind
her. Without looking back, she walked across the deserted cement
lot, stepping over the wide cracks. Two basketball hoops, looking
forlorn with their torn netting and scratched poles, swayed in the
brisk spring wind. A slide, more rust than metal, stood off to one
end.

During the day, kids played in the front and
staff parked in the back two rows, separated from the busy street
by a wire fence that did little to protect the children from the
local drug dealers but caught every piece of garbage that blew
around the gray streets.

When she got to her car, she threw her box
and her purse in the trunk. As she eased her six-year-old Toyota
into traffic and headed west, she saw Mr. Ramirez flip the sign on
his front door. During the day, he sold gas and magazines to the
teachers and candy and soda to the children. At night, he pulled
the grates over his window and got, as the saying went, the hell
out of Dodge.

Except this wasn’t Dodge. It was Salt Flats,
the poorest suburb of Los Angeles. Sixty percent of the population
earned under what the government defined as the poverty level. In
actuality, almost everybody in Salt Flats lived in poverty. If it
weren’t for the drug dealers and the hookers, there would have been
no real commerce.

Twenty-five minutes later, Sarah took her
exit, just like every other night, but at the last minute, she
turned left, heading for the ocean. There was no need to go home to
her tiny apartment with its white walls and beige carpet. There
were no files to read, no case reports to dictate, or telephone
calls to return.

Well, that was mostly true. An hour ago the
harried school secretary had jammed a note in her hand with a name
and number that she didn’t recognize. Sarah had slipped it in her
pocket. She supposed the least she could do was call from the beach
and let this person know that she wasn’t going to be able to
help.

She was done helping.

She needed time to breathe, to think, to find
her center again. She’d sit in the sun, jog in the park, maybe even
take up the piano again. She’d missed the music, the sense of peace
playing gave her.

When she got to the beach, she pulled into
the empty parking lot, grateful that it was really too cool to be
there. She didn’t feel like sharing space with anybody else
tonight. Shifting in her seat, she kicked off her shoes, then
reached under her long silk skirt to yank off her pantyhose. It had
felt odd to have a dress on at work. Her standard uniform was
slacks and a blouse, something that could survive milk carton
missiles in the cafeteria, gum on chairs, and vomit from nervous
kids.

She’d dressed up for the pot-luck, the
going-away party that Melody had insisted upon. The symbolism of
the event hadn’t been lost on her. She’d dressed the way she might
for her own funeral, and the well-wishers had milled around,
staring at her, talking in low tones, not really sure what to say.
What
was
the right thing to say to someone who was giving
up?

All she ever wanted was to make a difference.
But it was too late for that. She wasn’t going to get her wish.

Sarah opened her car door and, at the last
minute, slipped out of her conservative suit jacket. She’d freeze
in her sleeveless blouse but she wanted to feel the harsh spray of
the cold water on her skin. She grabbed her cell phone and put it
and her keys in her pocket.

Sarah loved the beach, especially at night
when the tide rolled in, each wave more aggressive than the last,
leaving jumbles of seaweed and all kinds of other treasures in its
swift retreat. She could spend hours looking across the water,
searching for the exact point where the dark blue sea met the
purple sky, and the two became one, a perfect welcome mat for the
moon.

Tonight’s sky had streaks of pink and
lavender, and a splash of red where the sun barely kissed the
horizon as it slipped away. It would be dark soon. She strolled
along the deserted beach, stopping every so often to examine a
pretty shell or an unusual piece of wood. When she slipped one of
the shells into her pocket, her fingers brushed the message slip.
Before the light faded completely, she needed to return the
call.

She’d dialed the first three numbers when she
saw the footprints. They started thirty feet in front of her. She
watched as the bubbles of the gurgling tide swept over the prints,
and she waited for them to disappear.

But they didn’t.

She dialed the remaining four numbers and
took another few steps. A wave washed first against her calves,
then flowed over the footprints. Their perfection remained
undiminished.

The phone rang three times before a man
answered. “This is Sarah Jane Tremont,” she said as she put one
bare foot inside the first print. It stretched inches beyond her
toes. “I’m returning your call.”

“Thank you,” he said, then paused, as if he
was trying to remember why he’d called. “Oh, yeah. Here’s the file.
I’m a customer service representative for Dynasty Insurance. You
had called a couple of weeks ago about a policy that Rosa Lopez
purchased last year.”

She’d called about twenty times. She wondered
which time he was referring to. She took another step and thought
she might be crazy. It almost seemed like the footprint fit better.
“Yes.”

“I’m not sure how to tell you this, but I
think we made a mistake. We…”

Sarah listened and walked and realized that
this was the miracle that Rosa Lopez had been waiting for. When the
call ended, she snapped her cell phone shut, stunned by the turn of
events.

It took her a minute to realize that the
footprints had become a perfect fit.

A sizzle started in her toes, jumped over the
arch of her foot, streaked up her leg, and lodged itself in the
middle of her chest. She felt as if she’d stuck a knife in the
toaster. She wanted to move, to fling herself forward, to hurl
herself back, to protect herself, but she couldn’t.

A jagged spear of lightning split the
now-dark sky and thunder roared. Wind, so strong it pushed her to
her knees, came from behind. Sand whirled around her, biting into
her skin. She squeezed her eyes shut and cupped her hands over her
ears. The ground shook, sending her sprawling face down in the
sand.

Her cell phone flew. “No,” she cried. She had
to call Rosa Lopez. Now.

Then she heard it. The noise. A hundred times
louder than the thunder, a hundred times more frightening. She
opened her eyes. A wall of water swept across the ocean, heading
right toward her. Sarah screamed as the first spray hit her
face.

***

She woke up flat on her back. Every bone in
her body ached, her head throbbed, her eyes felt glued shut, and
her tongue seemed too big for her mouth. She licked her dry lips
and tasted salt.

She’d undoubtedly drowned. She was dead.
Done. Finished. The fat lady had sung.

She wiggled her fingers and her toes.
Everything moved. She patted her arms, her cheeks. Everything felt
pretty solid. So much for all that stuff about ashes to ashes, dust
to dust.

She pried one eye open, then the other.
Rolling to her side, she got to her knees, and then stood up. She
felt a little light-headed, the way she did when she skipped both
breakfast and lunch.

In the moonlight, the trees, their branches
full, cast long shadows. She saw mountains in the distance. Stars,
brighter than any she’d ever seen, sparkled in the sky. Grass, a
whole field of it, tall enough to reach her waist, swayed in the
soft breeze. It smelled sweet, like spring flowers.