Doing Time
“An attempt at visualizing the Fourth Dimension: Take a point, stretch it into a line, curl it into a circle, twist it into a sphere, and punch through the sphere.” Albert Einstein
I’m Charity Donovan, a relatively normal forty-two year old divorcee with two grown children and a normal go-nowhere career to fit my go-nowhere life. In walks Gavin Carpenter, a gorgeous, early thirties not so very normal Adonis who abducts me from a party by freezing everyone else, including Time, when I decline to go willingly. See? Not so very normal.
I pass out as all good Gothic romance heroines should, but not being an experienced heroine, I figure I’ve been drugged. Gavin says I haven’t, but then he would say that, wouldn’t he. He takes me to his leader, Raphael, no last name just Raphael, another gorgeous early thirties nut case. Together they try to convince me that they’re Time Dancers who repair Time Rifts, or holes in the fabric of time before they become large enough to unravel Creation. Having been married to a lawyer, I’m not so gullible, but Gavin shows me JFK’s assassination, live and in person. Okay, so either I’m as delusional as they seem to be, or more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in my philosophy. I start believing.
Now this next part gets a little dicey. Gavin and Raphael tell me I’m destined to become a Time Dancer. So far, so good, I don’t have any pressing engagements, so why not? Here comes the dicey part. They tell me I need to become a Time Dancer because I’m Gavin’s soul mate and it will take the special, unique energy created by soul mates, us in particular, to heal the rift that’s coming.
The battle between Good and Evil takes a particularly nasty turn every few centuries when Satan makes another bid to uncreate everything ever created. He plans to destroy a Time Frame thereby starting the unraveling that will “unmake” all creation. It all begins with a Time Rift and ends with a pair of Time Dancers, soul mates, healing the rift in time to stop everything from going to Hell in a hand basket.
Call me crazy, but I go for it. I become a Time Dancer courtesy of Raphael who Steps Out with me to when my body was at its peak, eighteen years old, and separates out two time lines—the line my life had already been following and the new line I will now follow. In essence my “other” self will live out my, or rather our, old life, and this new self, the one whose body won’t age past eighteen, will follow the Time Dancer thread.
Hell yes I go for it! An enhanced, eighteen year old body, not to mention the hunk, what’s not to like?
I get changed and enhanced and we start training, mentally and physically. Gavin and I become close, which isn’t very hard considering Gavin touches me every chance he gets and his kisses are to die for. I could get used to this. Yet … there’s something keeping me from committing all the way to Gavin, some reason I can’t take that final step. Lord knows it’s been awhile since I’ve gotten any of that kind of action, but I have this funny feeling.
What they neglect to tell me is that Gavin and I have to “join”, as in sexually, in order to come into our power, and that by joining what happens to one of us, happens to both of us. I overhear Gavin and Raphael talking about “joining” and how it has to happen soon because the big rift is coming sooner than everyone expects.
I’m not planning to become that close to anyone. Sex is one thing, but even great, mind-numbing, life-altering sex isn’t worth tying myself so tightly to anyone, not even Gavin. That’s when it hits me. I’ll never see my kids again or any other family or friend. I could very well die and no one will know why or even that I did.
I get scared and decide to leave for a little while to get my head straight and to come to terms with the situation. I know Gavin will come after me, that he’ll have to, but later. First, I’ll see my children for the last time, then I’ll wait for Gavin at my family’s cabin and we can discuss things.
Of course, Gavin finds me and convinces me that neither of us has a choice. Besides, most everything about joining is not a hardship.
Gavin is a pretty good guy, great in bed, but sort of a training Nazi. Of course, I realize how necessary training is when I meet Satan, who is not a nice guy. I learn that Gavin was a Celtic warrior who was made a Roman slave for nearly half his life. Raphael took Gavin out of Pompeii the day before Vesuvius erupted.
When Gavin was forty, he got back his twenty-five year old body, and has existed for nearly two thousand years. All that time, Gavin knew that I would be coming to him. Patience doesn’t even come close to describing that kind of endurance.
I meet other Dancers and some of Raphael’s siblings. I suspect that Raphael and his brothers and sisters are so much more than they profess to be. They have the names of archangels and the looks and temperaments to match. I guess Gavin’s right though, what does it matter as long as they’re on our side. In the end, Raphael and I have a surprise planned that takes care of everything, but asks a lot from me. What would you give to save everyone you love?
Trigger