I am tickled to introduce
you to Garrett the second novella in my Yorktown Christmas Time-Travel novella
series.
Walking into historic
Yorktown gives me the feeling of walking into a toy village. The houses that
remain from colonial times look very like they would have in the eighteenth
century. It feels like I could walk up and touch a roof, and I’m only five foot
tall
As I wander its streets
my mind takes trips back in time. It was on one of those days that I imagined
Thomas Nelson and his wife, Lucy, waving at me from their garden. What would we
talk about? What would they think of my blue jeans and boots?
So Max and Olivia’s story
was born. In Max, Max Ballard comes forward in time from 1769. He meets Olivia
and she introduces him to the twenty-first century. It was fun to imagine a
character from the eighteenth century finding himself plopped into ours. Book
two takes us from our century to 1769.
Garrett is Olivia’s best
friend. When Max comes forward in time Garrett gets caught—he thinks
accidentally—and winds up in 1769 just in time to meet Mercy at her most
vulnerable moment.
Blurb:
Garrett Tyler thought he
was leaving Ballard House, secure in the knowledge that Fate and love had
finally won-out—even over the span of 250 years. Instead, he steps out the door
and into the past, 1769 to be exact. But once again, Fate is at work. Garrett
finds a beautiful woman being attacked. He makes sure she gets home and because
of his kindness, she allows him to stay in an outbuilding—even believing his
time travel story—while he figures out how he will get back to his life in the
future. The more time they spend together, the deeper friendship they build,
but one thing is going to rip her world apart.
Mercy Hansford is an
independent woman for her time, running her own tailor shoppe, but her life
will be forever changed by the attack. Now pregnant, she will have to leave her
home for no one will do business with a loose woman, worse, she can no longer
wed the man who wanted to marry her because she's been compromised. Yet, her
strange boarder offers a solution: Go back home with him to the future,
assuring her that unwed motherhood in the twenty-first century is not what it
is in the eighteenth.
Should Mercy trust a man
she barely knows? How can a man who couldn’t possible love her, love an unborn
child conceived in violence? It might take a Christmas miracle to make this
right.
Excerpt:
Max shimmered by him as
Garrett stepped down from the back steps into what should have been the back
yard. His foot landed on a polished wooden floor instead of the grass he’d
helped plant at the Ballard House. A room took shape around him. The chamber was
as Olivia’s grandmother had described. Windows on three sides. A piano decked
one wall. It must be Max’s conservatory. Max must have come back through time
once again to meet Olivia. Garrett spun to follow Max, to see the look on
Olivia’s face. It was only, what, an hour ago she’d told him she’d despaired of
ever seeing Max again? One look into the adjoining room stopped him cold.
It was all wrong. The
room was full. Furniture. Papers. Books. Stuff. All the historic houses he knew
were basically empty accept for a few well-chosen period pieces. He grabbed his
head to ground the floating.
An Elizabethan voice
sounded from somewhere beyond the door. Garrett dodged back into the
conservatory.
A lurch in his stomach
told Garrett his organs were all in place. He flattened palms against his
middle and decided then and there that beaming around the universe was
definitely not for him.
Garrett dropped to get as
far below the wall of windows facing him as he could. He slipped into a corner
next to a table with long legs to gather his thoughts. He ducked under the
table as a man dressed in breeches and large white shirt stepped into the
room.
“He’s not here.” The man
called back. Spun on his heel and left.
Garrett slid moist palms
down his cotton pants and tried to calm his breathing. At least he’d arrived at
whatever time this was in his docent costume. He pulled out his phone.
No bars. Full battery.
He rolled his eyes. Of
course there were no bars. He didn’t know what year it was, but by the looks
and sounds of things it had to be the seventeen somethings.
Fear clenched his
stomach. What would they do if they found him with a phone?
With shaking hands he
turned the device off and clutched it to his chest. There was no telling what
kind of trouble he’d get into if he was found with a ringing phone. Did they still
burn people at the stake?
Maybe he should bury it.
Wait.
No one could call him
here.
At least he didn’t think
so. No telling what the crazy inventors of the seventeen hundreds could’ve
managed without realizing it. He grinned at the electrical experiments he’d
read about. Muffled voices sounded from the front of the house. This time his breathing
had slowed enough to register footsteps.
He had to get out of
here. Garrett eased from under the table and stood. Three steps to the door and
he’d be free. The door creaked. Garrett reached the side of the house just in
time to hear the man call for Max again.
He stilled. He thanked
God for the cover of night. Moist air hugged his clothes to his skin. Awfully
warm for December. He needed to find out where in time he was. If his history
was right he wouldn’t be able to tell from a newspaper.
A cacophony of smells
overwhelmed him. Horses. Mud. Salty river. Wood-burning fires. Food.
Sounds filtered into his
consciousness. Laughter. Clinking of metal and glass. The Swan Tavern would be
open. In all his time working at Yorktown he’d never seen anyone but tourists
in the Swan. Of course it was just a replica anyway. The original tavern blew
up during the Civil War.
Too bad he couldn’t take
a picture. Now that would be something. If he could get back home.
The sun hadn’t been gone
long judging by the placement of the moon. Curiosity pulled him to the York
River. He crossed Main Street. What Olivia would give to see this. What he
would have given to share it with her.
The sleepy historic town
with its empty lots, gone. Every lot was full of houses and their dependencies.
Yorktown was downright crowded. Smells of horse and salty river tinged his
nostrils. Laughter from another tavern ablaze in the dark reached him. The
grass-lined path of The Great Valley still present in his time was more defined
now still overshadowed by William Nelson’s house. Candlelight glowed in one
downstairs room. Mr. Nelson at his books? He passed Nelson’s store and
continued down the sloped path. Warehouses lined the waterfront instead of the
boardwalk he knew. Ships creaked at the docks.
The bridge to Gloucester
had yet to be built.
Three drunken sailors
weaved into him nearly knocked him to the unpaved street. “Watch where ye’re
goin’,” the tall one slurred. A distant
history lesson of press gangs flashed into Garrett’s mind. He needed to find
shelter until he could make out where and when he was. He’d no desire to be
conscripted.
He ducked into the first
street that offered itself, moving quickly down past a third tavern bright with
light and ruckus.
A scuffle just beyond
lifted the little hairs at the back of his neck. A man straightened from
leaning face into a wall. He bumped past Garrett before he knew what happened.
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