Chapter Twenty-Four.

Saul watched Reegan close the door behind the last jaunter and turn the lock. It engaged with a satisfying click. They'd juggled a full schedule all week. This was the first night in seven that Blast in the Past had been dark and silent before nine. The lights had faded, then gone out as guides and tourists separated. The only thing making a sound was Maxie's aquarium bubbler, its plop plop plop drifting down the long hallway to the front doors.

Saul pushed off the frame, meeting Reegan halfway across the glossy granite foyer of Blast in the Past. He flicked the edge of Reegan's hat. Olive green today. His Walmart find. "As hot as it was, you still wore that."

"It's a thing. Brings me good luck."

Saul stripped it off, running a hand through Reegan's sweat-damp hair. He'd waited all day for a moment alone, losing each opportunity to one mini crisis after another. One good thing had come of the chaos. Maxie had left early, leaving Saul to handle any post-jaunt trouble that Reegan might have cooked up. His track record in that regard still outpaced any other guide on the payroll.

He set Reegan's hat on one of the hooks by the front doors. "Come sit down for a minute. I need to talk to you."

Saul took his hand and led him to the main jaunt room, the same one he'd emerged into last year after surviving the trip from 2020. "How was tonight?"

Reegan ducked down for a bottle of water from the cooler behind the bar.

"No problems?" Saul narrowed his eyes at the answering silence. "Reegan?"

Slowly, like a rabbit emerging from his den, Reegan's head appeared over the top of the bar. "A tiny one. I handled it."

"How tiny?"

Reegan covered a wince in his water bottle. "We were challenged by a sentry."

"What?"

"It was no big deal. Don't go crazy."

Saul grabbed Reegan when he got close and pulled him onto the sofa. "You don't get to say that to me. I told you going into situations like that alone is insane. You need someone with you."

"What situations?"

"Dangerous ones."

Reegan arched his back into a stretch and linked his hands behind his head. "According to you, a trip to the zoo would be dangerous." He kept his tone light but sincere.

So Saul had a thing about Reegan's safety. It would have been childish to pretend otherwise. This was the second close call in as many weeks. Reegan had brushed the first one off too. Eventually, his luck was going to run out, and Saul wasn't going to be sitting idle when that happened. "I want to start going with you."

"Out of the question."

"Reegan."

"No. We beat the odds once. I'm not letting you back in that portal unless I'm completely sure you'll come out again."

Efforts to deflect Reegan's stubbornness rarely succeeded. Saul tried anyway. "Maxie did some research. There are one or two precedents, you know. Others like me. He said it should work. You need the backup."

"Maxie can kiss my ass. Let him experiment on his own..."

Saul rubbed away the smile that quivered on his lips. "His own...?"

"Please don't push this. I'm not going to risk you. Never again."

The stormy expression on Reegan's face convinced Saul to leave the topic alone for the moment. Nearly a year into their relationship, he'd learned to pick his battles. He took Reegan's hand, stroking over the knuckles with his thumb. "Got a visit today. From a lawyer."

Reegan froze mid-stretch. "Someone else who wants to exploit your amazing, and might I add, very romantic story?"

"Funny."

"Hey, you have a fan base. Live with it."

Their story had attracted a fair amount of interest. Being connected to Silvia, to Victor D'arco and a different century had made Saul an overnight sensation. That fame had bubbled over into a sharp rise in business for Blast in the Past. Maxie had promoted Saul to "new best friend" within weeks. Reegan hadn't been stung. Much. He and Maxie were finding their way back to each other. Slowly, but surely.

"Nothing like that. This was something else." Saul lifted the envelope from the side table where he'd set it earlier and handed it to Reegan.

"It's a paper document? Did you open it?" Reegan peered at the package and its official-looking seal.

"Not yet." Saul yanked it back when Reegan made a grab. "I was waiting for you."

"Who's it from?"

Saul took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Cammie." He finally relented, handing the package to Reegan so he could fondle the envelope and examine the writing on the outside. Reegan slid his finger inside the seal, but didn't crack it.

"Why did it come with a lawyer?"

"Technically, a lawyer came with it. Cammie wrote it, but the man couldn't tell me exactly when. It's bounced around from firm to firm over the years. When one closed, they'd pass the document to someone else until it was due to be delivered. That day was today."

Reegan racked his brain for the significance. "Today's date?

"Yes."

"Is it your birthday or something?"

Saul stroked a finger across the thick, ivory stock. "It's the date we left 2020. March 29."

They'd done some research upon their return. Not immediately. First there'd been Saul's quarantine, then the flurry of activity surrounding Silvia's crusade to take her husband's council seat. They spent weeks feeling each other out in an environment they never expected to share. In time, after their lives settled into a routine, Reegan logged Saul onto Maxie's computer and they went digging.

Kildare Consulting had indeed folded less than a year after Saul disappeared. How it had even lasted that long they'd never discerned, but Saul insisted Cammie must have played a role. Her name appeared in Saul's missing person's inquest, then she disappeared.

For two years, nothing. Not a blip on the radar. Then in late 2022, a book titled Paradox Lost hit the New York Times Bestseller list and its author, Camela Martin, rocketed to instant fame. She'd changed their names. Set the book in Chicago. Gave Reegan an Australian accent (a detail that still made Saul dissolve into hysterical laughter) and made Silvia a painter. But the heart of the story hadn't changed. Every so often, late at night while Reegan slept against him, Saul would pull the book up on his tablet and reread his favorite parts. Some scenes were true enough to reality to make his heart pound and his mouth go dry. Her ending mirrored the actual events to a frightening degree. On each of those nights, after putting the book aside, he'd feel compelled to hold Reegan against him until morning.

Reegan reached over and tapped the envelope, shaking Saul from his reverie. "Open it."

After another long pause, Saul did, slicing open the delicate paper with his fingertip and extracting the one-page letter inside. "Want me to read it out loud?"

"Only if you want to."

He wanted to, but after the first line, his throat grew too tight to speak.

Reegan shifted closer, working his fingers into the hair at the nape of Saul's neck, but kept his gaze averted. The paper crinkled under Saul's grip as he read, dissolving at the edges into dozens of tiny tears. For all the work spent keeping track of the letter over the years, no one had thought to try to preserve it. The one page barely held together.

When he felt capable, he read it aloud, voice trembling with emotion.

Saul, There are some things I want you to know.

I never believed you dead, only gone. To where and when I can only imagine, but if you're with Reegan, then I know I have nothing to fear. Some of us don't belong where fate puts us. You were always one of those people, out of step with those around you. I hope you've found your place. And time.

I thought long and hard about what to put in this letter. Each time I sat down to write it, I was transported back to the night it all started for you. The night of President McAfee's speech. I knew you didn't want to go. That watching that man fed every inadequate thought about yourself you'd ever had. Then Reegan came, and Silvia, and the chance to tell you why I wanted you to see the speech never came.

I'm going to tell you now, because what happened after that proved what I've always known.

You're a hero, Saul.

You're every bit a hero as that man you served with. The one who became president. He's a different man, not a better man. This is what you need to understand. Your past isn't a string of bad choices. Your mistakes don't weaken you. And a person doesn't have to save thousands of people to be a hero. He can save two. Or one. He can save himself, and that might be the hardest, bravest task of all.

You were Lisa's hero, and you were mine as well.

May you find happiness and love. In accordance with my optimistic attitude, I'm putting this letter in the hands of a capable attorney, who has promised me it will reach the year 2146 safely. I'll be long gone before then, so consider this my farewell. I've enclosed a newspaper clipping you might find interesting. Do with it as you wish.

Yours, Cammie.

Folded inside the envelope sat a faded screen print. Saul unfolded it, scanned the picture and the words beneath it, then handed it to Reegan, swallowing his surprise at what he spied in the photograph. He wondered how Reegan would react. The timing of their previous conversation seemed fated suddenly.

According to the caption, the article concerned the shooting of Adel Hamdi at the 2035 World Hunger Summit.

"Do you know anything about this event?" Saul asked.

"Sure. The 2035 hunger talks were groundbreaking. Attended by all but seven nations. The meetings paved the way for the global standardization of the organic matter we use to produce food. I've never made the jaunt, although other guides have." He pointed to the picture. Grainy and faded, it depicted the keynote speaker. "This man, Adel Hamdi, was assassinated on the last day of the summit. See him on the ground there? The panicked crowd, and the soldiers storming the stage? His death fueled weeks of riots in Egypt, his home country, and in other places around the world. Really brought the subject to the forefront of current policymaking." Reegan studied the picture for a moment. "I'm not sure why she would have sent this photograph in particular."

Saul leaned to tap his finger against the corner of the picture, where the crowd looked on, horror and fear on their faces. Reegan went still.

Just behind the web of lasers that separated the crowd from the stage and podium, Saul stood, straining forward, mouth open as though shouting a warning. Reegan was beside him, arm thrown across Saul's chest. His faithful hat hid most of his features from the camera. The two of them appeared to be rushing toward the chaos. Not away.

Reegan traced the two figures with his finger. "I'll be damned."

The date on the article spoke of an argument already won. "Looks like I will be jaunting with you."

"We'll talk about it."

"Apparently we already did."

Lips pressed tight, Reegan refolded the letter, sliding it with great care into its envelope. His hesitation had understandable merit. But Saul still thought him overcautious on the idea, and he wasn't going to back down. If Reegan insisted on jaunting, Saul would be going along to keep an eye on him.

He cupped Reegan's neck and turned his head for a kiss. "Don't look so worried. This could be the start of a beautiful partnership."

"I thought we already had that."

Saul threw a leg over Reegan's knees and straddled him. Strong hands gathered him close, curling around his hips, and Saul melted into the embrace. "We do. Shall I demonstrate?"

Will they be able to let go of their pasts in order to

have a future?.

Discover this captivating male/male contemporary.

romance by Libby Drew, available now!

Bending the Iron.

Michael feels trapped. In his conservative, poor hometown where he has to keep his sexuality hidden. In his dead-end job. In caring for his alcoholic grandfather. Everything changes when he meets Eric, the new curator for the railroad museum. His curiosity about the passionate man quickly gives way to an intense attraction-one that Eric happily returns.

Carefree and refreshingly confident, Eric guides Michael to places he's forgotten, reminding him that it may not be too late to follow his dreams for something more in life. But the truth is, Eric knows exactly how it feels to be stuck in a bad situation. A failed relationship has left him with personal demons that may hurt his connection with Michael.

To give their future a chance, they both must fight being trapped in the past.

About the Author.

Libby glimpsed her true calling when her first story, a Winnie the Pooh/Shakespeare crossover, won the grand prize in her elementary school's fiction contest. Her parents explained that writers were quirky, poor and often talked to themselves in supermarket checkout lines. They implored her to be practical, a request she took to heart for twenty years, earning two degrees, a white-collar job and an ulcer, before realizing that practical was absolutely no fun.

Today she lives with her husband and four children in an old, impractical house and writes stories about redemption, the supernatural and love at first sight, all of which do exist. She happens to know from experience.

Libby's first novel, State of Mind, received rave reviews for being fast, clever and relentless. It was the Top Pick for March 2010 at Dark Diva Reviews and went on to be nominated for a Bookie Award by Authors After Dark for Best M/M Novel of 2010.

An avid supporter of gay rights, Libby donates her time and writing talents to both the Trevor Project and other organizations working to repeal California's Proposition 8.

Where no great story goes untold.

The variety you want to read, the stories authors have always wanted to write.