Garret by Izzy James

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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