Return to Summerhouse (The Summerhouse 2)

“You did what?” Zoë said at last. “What do you mean by ‘everything’?”

“Time travel, the works.”

Both Zoë and Faith fell back against their chairs and stared at her.

“I had to explain why he and I couldn’t…” She looked down at her plate, then up at Zoë defiantly. “Why we couldn’t do what you and Russell are doing all over this estate.”

Instead of being embarrassed, Zoë smiled. “Lusty man is my Russell. Think I could take him back with me?”

“You don’t fool me,” Amy said, her eyes narrowed. “When we leave here you’re going to leave your heart behind.”

“And you aren’t?” Zoë shot back. “The way you and that gorgeous babe look at each other could melt the silver. I hope you aren’t trying to make us believe that you aren’t bouncing around in his bed every night.”

For a second Amy’s eyes blazed with anger, then she let out her breath, put her elbows on the table, and her head in her hands. “I should be so lucky. It was easy when all he wanted from me was sex. I could get away in ten minutes, then go cry myself to sleep. But now he wants information about the future.”

“What kind of information?” Faith asked. “About cell phones and that sort of thing? Or who’s going to win the next election?”

“The stock market?” Zoë asked.

“No,” Amy said tiredly. “He wants to know all I can dredge out of my tired brain about modern medicine.”

“Good thing he didn’t ask me,” Zoë said, “or he’d be out the door in five minutes. Why don’t you send him to Faith?”

“He’s already sent the village to me,” Faith said. “How can I take on more? Most of what I do is tell them to take a bath and brush their teeth. If I stayed here…” She looked at them. “I think I might end up being burned as a witch.”

“Wrong time period,” Zoë said. “I think. When did that happen in Salem?”

“Could we get back to the problem at hand?” Amy said. “We only have three more days.”

“Yes,” Zoë said, and there were tears in her voice. “Three more days. How will I live without him?”

Faith put her arms around Zoë and hugged her. “And I don’t know how I’ll be able to return to a life of uselessness.”

“You both have your times to go back and change your futures,” Amy said. “Remember Madame Zoya whom neither of you believed in? She said you will have your own lives to fix.”

“What good will that do?” Zoë asked, sitting upright and out of Faith’s embrace. “Russell is here, not there. Even if I take another three weeks with him, that’s all I’ll get.”

“I think you need to find out what happened to you in our time,” Faith said in a motherly way.

“Look who’s talking. I think you should find out who killed your boyfriend.”

As soon as she said it, Zoë clamped her lips shut. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”

Faith looked at Zoë, then Amy. “What is it that you two know that I don’t?”

“I don’t think now is the time to go into this,” Amy said. “I called you two here to talk about Tristan.”

Faith stared at Zoë. “I want you to tell me what you know.”

“Go ahead and tell her,” Amy said, frustrated that she could never seem to get the women to talk about what she thought was their reason for being there.

Zoë took a breath. “I saw it on the Internet. Six months ago a skeleton was found at the bottom of a cliff in your hometown. He was identified as Tyler Parks.”

Faith looked as though she’d been slapped. “Ty is dead?” she whispered. “When did it happen?”

Zoë looked at Amy as though asking her for help.

“Tell her all of it,” Amy said.