Crosse Harbor Time Travel Trilogy Book One
Historian Emilie Crosse dreamed of a love that would last forever
Who knew she'd have to sail across two centuries to find it?
When her ex-husband Zane Grey Rutledge showed up at her door with a Revolutionary War uniform that was part of his grandmother's estate, neither one suspected that their lives were about to change in ways they couldn't possibly imagine.
Swept back in time to 1776 where a nation is struggling to be born, Emilie finds herself torn between two men: Zane, her ex who still holds the key to her heart, and Andrew McVie, the Patriot hero of her long-ago dreams…
 | Genre: Time Travel Romance |
Trailer, Books 2&3, Excerpts & More
Somewhere in Time Trailer:See excerpt below after books 2 & 3 covers and blurbs
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by Barbara Bretton
Crosse Harbor Trilogy Book Two
Timeless Lovers…
Different Worlds
Shannon Whitney didn't believe she had a future until Andrew McVie crash-lands his time-traveling hot-air balloon in her backyard one summer afternoon and changes her life forever.
He is a Revolutionary War patriot
She is an independent modern woman
Their paths should never have crossed but apparently fate has other plans.
See excerpt below after book 3 cover and blurb
Tomorrow and Always Purchase links: Amazon B&N Smashwords
Crosse Harbor Trilogy Book Three
It's not every day a woman goes traveling through time
Dakota Wylie is a wisecracking, unemployed, overweight psychic librarian from Princeton
Patrick Devane is an angry, hard-headed spy with a six-year-old daughter who hears voices
The only thing they have in common is New Jersey
But when Dakota leaps from the basket of a hot air balloon to help his crying child, little does she know that she's leaping into history…and love.
Scroll to bottom for an excerpt.
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Somewhere in Time Excerpt:
Near Philadelphia
Zane Grey Rutledge downshifted into second as he guided the black Porsche up the curving driveway toward Rutledge House. Gravel crunched beneath the tires, sending a fine spray across the lacquered surface of the hood and fenders. He swore softly as a pebble pinged against the windshield, leaving behind a spider-web crack in the glass. A pair of moving vans were angled in the driveway near the massive front door and he eased to a stop behind one of them and let out the clutch.
He didn't want to be there. Rutledge House without his grandmother Sara Jane was nothing more than a haunted collection of faded bricks and stones.
"One day it will all matter to you," Sara Jane had said to him not long before she died. "I have faith that you'll see there's nothing more important than family."
But he didn't have a family. Not anymore. With Sara Jane's death he had moved closer to the edge of the cliff. The lone remaining Rutledge in a long and illustrious series of Rutledges who had made their mark on a country.
Lately he'd had the feeling that his grandmother was watching him from somewhere in the shadows, shaking her head the way she used to when he was a boy and had been caught drinking beer with his friends from the wrong side of town.
He leaned back in his contoured leather seat and watched as the treasures of a lifetime were carried from the house by a parade of moving men. Winterhalter portraits of long-dead Rutledges, books and mementoes that catalogued a nation's history as well as a family's.
His fingers drummed against the steering wheel. He'd done the right thing, the only thing he could have done, given the circumstances. Rutledge House would survive long after he was gone. Wasn't that what his grandmother had wanted?
"Mr. Rutledge? Oh, Mr. Rutledge, it is you. I was so afraid I'd missed you."
He started at the sound of the woman's voice floating through the open window of the car.
"Olivia McRae," she said, smiling coyly as she prompted his memory. "We met last week."
He opened the car door and unfolded himself from the sleek sports car. "I remember," he said, shaking the woman's bird-like hand. "Eastern Pennsylvania Preservation Society."
She dimpled and Zane was struck by the fact that in her day Olivia McRae had probably been a looker.
"We have much to thank you for. I must tell you we feel as if Christmas has come early this year!"
He shot her a quizzical look. She was thanking him? In the past few days he had come to think of her as his own personal savior for taking Rutledge House and its contents off his hands.
"A pleasure," he said, relying on charm to cover his surprise.
"Oh, it's a fine day for Rutledge House," she said, her tone upbeat. "I know your dear departed grandmother Sara Jane would heartily approve of your decision."
"Approve might be too strong a word," he said with a wry grin. "Accept is more like it." Bloodlines had been everything to Sara Jane Rutledge. No matter that the venerable old house had been tumbling down around her ears, in need of more help than even the family fortune could provide. So long as a Rutledge was in residence, all had been right with her world.
Although she never said it in so many words, he knew that in the end he had disappointed her. No wife, no children, no arrow shot into the future of the Rutledge family
"Just you wait," Olivia McRae said, patting his arm in a decidedly maternal gesture. "Next time you see it this wonderful old house will be on the way to regaining its former glory."
"It's up to you now, Olivia."
"We would welcome your input," the older woman said. "And we would most certainly like to have a Rutledge on the board of directors at the museum."
"Sorry," he said, perhaps a beat too quickly. "I think a clean break is better all around."
The woman's warm brown eyes misted over. "How thoughtless of me! This must be dreadfully difficult, coming so soon after the loss of your beloved grandmother."
Zane looked away. Little in life unnerved him. Talk of his late grandmother did. "I have a flight to catch," he said. No matter that the plane didn't take off until the next afternoon. As far as he was concerned, emotions were more dangerous than skydiving without a chute. "I'd better get moving."
Olivia McRae peered into the car. "You do have the package, don't you?"
"Package?" His brows knotted.
"Oh, Mr. Rutledge, you can't leave without the package I set out for you." She looked at him curiously. "The uniform."
"Damn," he muttered under his breath. The oldest male child in each generation is entrusted with the uniform, Sara Jane had told him on his twelfth birthday when she handed him the carefully wrapped package. Someday you'll hand it down to your son.
He hadn't forgotten about the uniform. He knew exactly where it was: in the attic under a thick layer of dust, as forgotten as the past.
"You wait right here," said Mrs. McRae, turning back toward the house. "I'll fetch it for you."
He was tempted to get behind the wheel of the Porsche and be halfway to Manhattan before the woman crossed the threshold. For as long as he could remember that uniform had been at the heart of Rutledge family lore. His grandmother and her sisters had woven endless stories of derring-do and bravery and laid every single one of them at the feet of some long-dead Revolutionary War relative who'd probably never done anything more courageous than shoot himself a duck for dinner.
Moments later Olivia McRae was back by his side.
"Here you are," she said, pressing a large, neatly-wrapped parcel into his arms with the same tenderness a mother would display toward her first-born. "To think you almost left without it."
"Heavier than I remembered," he said. "You're sure there isn't a musket in there with the uniform?"
Mrs. McRae's lined cheeks dimpled. "Oh, you! You always were a tease. Why, you must have seen this uniform a million times."
"Afraid I never paid much attention."
"That can't be true."
"I'm not much for antiques."
"This is more than an antique," she said, obviously appalled. "This is a piece of American history . . . your history." She patted the parcel. "Open it, Mr. Rutledge. I'd love to see your face when you –"
"I will," he said, edging toward the Porsche, "but right now I'd better get on the road."
"Of course," she said, her smile fading. "I understand."
She looked at him and in her eyes Zane saw disappointment. Why should Mrs. McRae be any different? Disappointing people was what he did best.
He tossed the package in the back seat and with a nod toward Olivia McRae, roared back down the drive and away from Rutledge House.
He was almost at the Ben Franklin Bridge when he noticed the needle on his gas gauge was hovering around E. He whipped into the first gas station he saw and couldn't help grinning at the crowd of attendants who swarmed the sports car.
"Fill it," he said. "And it's okay if you want to check under the hood."
He was thinking about where he'd stashed his passport after his weekend in London last month when out of nowhere he heard Sara Jane's voice.
You didn't think I was going to let you get away without a fight, did you?
He jumped, cracking his elbow against the gear stick. Sara Jane? Ridiculous. It was probably his guilty conscience speaking.
It's not too late, Zane. Open your eyes to what's around you and your heart will soon follow . . .
What the hell did that mean? It sounded like something he'd read in a fortune cookie.
He glanced toward the package resting on the seat next to him. Experience had taught him that the best way to handle anything from a hangover to a guilty conscience was the hair of the dog that bit you. He might as well get it over with while he waited.
"Okay," he said out loud, unknotting the string then folding back the brown paper. There was nothing scary about a moth-eaten hunk of fabric, even if he was hearing voices.
~~~~~~
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Tomorrow and Always Excerpt:
Late August, 1776
Andrew McVie sat on the slope behind the lighthouse and waited. He wasn't certain what it was he waited for, but the need in him was so great it could not be denied.
He had awakened near Milltown before dawn that morning, as sharp of eye and clear of head as if he had slept a full night and more. The innkeeper, a good woman named Annie Willis with two sons serving under General Washington, had offered him fresh coffee and bread still warm from the ovens but he found himself unwilling to spend the time.
"A body cannot subsist on patriotism alone." She wrapped a loaf of bread in a clean white cloth then handed it to him. "Think of Mistress Willis when you sup and pray her boys come home to her again."
Patriotism. The very word that had filled his soul with fire not so many years ago held no meaning for him now. Indeed there were times when he felt as if he'd never known what it truly meant to sacrifice everything on the altar of revolution.
They called him a hero. They said he risked his life to go where others feared to tread because he understood that the need of the Colonies far outweighed his own pitiful need for comfort. But they were wrong. All of them. Since he lost Elspeth and David he had been moving through the days both blind and deaf to anything but the pain inside his heart. It was easy to risk everything when you had nothing of value left to lose.
But now even his effectiveness as a spy had been taken from him.
He shifted position on the rock and rested his head in hands. His journey to Long Island to warn General Washington of a plot against his life had resulted in naught save embarrassment. Not only was General Washington not there but the soldiers he'd spoken with had looked at Andrew as if he was daft.
"Surely you have spent too much time in the sun," one had laughed at Andrew's expense. "His Excellency is safely ensconced in Trenton now as we speak."
Later, he had sought solace in a tankard of ale but there was no solace to be found anywhere on God's green earth. The truth was plain as his face in the glass each morning. His time was past. He could see that now. The torch had been passed while he dreamed, passed to men who were younger and stronger than Andrew. Men who were willing to fight the battles Andrew no longer understood.
A bitter laugh rose from the darkness of his soul. Indeed it would be better if he lay dead on the sandy soil of Long Island. He had nothing left to give, nothing left to offer, save a lifetime of regrets. Words he should have said, actions left untaken, the sad procession of mistakes made by a man who should have known better.
The ambitious young lawyer from Boston had been replaced by a patriot who no longer believed in the rebellion other men gave their life's blood to pursue.
None of it mattered any longer. He knew how it would all end. The Patriots would be victorious. The Crown would become an ally. The sun and the moon and the stars would all remain in the heavens. And Andrew McVie would be alone.
He looked up at the lighthouse and shook his head at the absurdity of it all.
He'd never thought to set eyes upon the place again. Indeed he had no understanding how it was he'd come to this particular spot on the New Jersey shore when he had been traveling toward Princeton. All he knew was that the need to be here had overtaken him, driving reason from his brain.
In truth he should be sitting at Rebekah Blakelee's table at this very moment, eating her fine food and considering how it was his life had amounted to so little.
He had neither wife nor child, no home where he could lay down his head and rest his weary heart. The loneliness he had accepted as his punishment ofttimes rose up from the depths of his soul and threatened to choke off the very air he breathed.
Other men had friends to share a summer's night or warm a cold winter's afternoon. Andrew had nothing but regrets and those regrets had grown sharp as a razor's edge these few weeks past, cutting him to the center of his being.
For a little while this summer he'd rediscovered his heart and believed that happiness could be possible for him in this lifetime.
Emilie Crosse had come to him on a morning such as this, in this very spot, spinning a story about a big red balloon that had carried her through the centuries. At first he had thought her mad and vowed to grant her a wide berth but he soon found it impossible to turn a blind eye to her considerable charms.
She intrigued him with her fierce intelligence. She delighted him with her saucy wit. At times her independence enraged him and he found himself longing for the more docile women of his acquaintance but again and again he found himself drawn back to her side.
Andrew was not a man given to flights of fancy. He did not believe in ghosts or portents or a world beyond the one in which he lived. But on the day he met Emilie Crosse in the cellar of the lighthouse he had the unyielding sense that his life would never again be the same.
She was taller and stronger than the good women of his acquaintance and she carried herself with a sense of purpose he envied, but still it was more than those traits that had captured his imagination. It was the world she'd left behind. A world of wonders so miraculous his mortal mind could scarcely comprehend their scope.
She talked of flying through the air inside a shiny metal bird, of men leaving their footprints on the surface of the moon. In her time existed contraptions that could outthink a man of Jefferson's intellect or Franklin's invention. Music could be captured on a shiny brown ribbon and listened to whenever you wished. Indeed entire libraries could be contained on an object the size of a saucer. The poorest of citizens possessed riches beyond Andrew's wildest dreams. Not even Fat George on his English throne could fathom the wonders of which Emilie spoke.
And still she talked of these things as if they were of little value, as if she cared not if she returned to her own time and place.
Not so the man she'd traveled through time with. Zane Grey Rutledge had no use for Andrew's world. He was a man of his own time and Andrew knew Zane would move heaven and earth to return there again with Emilie, to the world where they belonged.
And there was the rub.
To Andrew's everlasting dismay, Emilie had traveled backward through time with the man she'd once been married to. Andrew had watched helplessly as the couple had found their way back to each other, wishing with his entire being that he could be the man she loved. That she could somehow make him whole again in a way that neither rum nor revolution could accomplish.
But it wasn't to be. Emilie and Zane belonged together. In truth Andrew had known it from the start, known it deep in the part of his heart that had died with his wife and child so many years ago. A man might say Emilie and Zane were bound by the past they shared, the world they'd left behind, but Andrew believed a force more powerful than commonality linked their souls together.
~~~~~~
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Destiny’s Child Excerpt:
Dakota Wylie had spent every summer of her youth in the back seat of her parents' van, wedged between her younger sister Janis, who existed on mascara and diet soda, and her twin brothers, Conan and Tige, whose joint claim to fame was the ability to play Disco Inferno with their armpits.
Frederick and Ginny Wylie believed that the best education they could give their children was to be found at 60 mph on Interstate 80 as they crisscrossed the country paying homage to every national monument and rest stop they encountered. Other kids went to Camp Winnemukluk and learned how to braid lanyards and smoke cigarettes without inhaling; Dakota learned the location of every Stuckey's between Princeton and the Grand Canyon.
Her father, a professor of physics, spent the dreary winter months with his desk littered with road maps and notebooks while he planned every step of the summer's journey. He approached the project with mathematical precision and an engineer's sense of efficiency. Getting there wasn't half the fun for Dr. Wylie; it was everything.
Her mother, a bona fide, card-carrying psychic, indulged her husband's love of ritual and technology but she despaired when she saw those careful traits rearing their heads in her children. Ginny knew life's greatest adventures were the ones that were unplanned and of her four children only her oldest seemed to understand.
Which was how Dakota Wylie--unmarried, unemployed and overweight--found herself that fine late summer morning in the gondola of a hot-air balloon bound for the eighteenth century.
At least that's where Dakota thought they were headed. It suddenly occurred to her that, considering the circumstances, she was taking a great deal on faith.
When you were about to challenge the laws of nature, you'd think there would be trumpets and fanfare, some kind of celestial sendoff that acknowledged the enormity of what was about to happen.
It wasn't every day a woman went leaping through time. Except for Einstein, most rational human beings put time travel up there on a par with the existence of the Loch Ness Monster and Easter Bunny. Fun to think about, but not bloody likely.
For weeks Ginny had told her something was on the horizon, an adventure more amazing than anything either woman could imagine, but Dakota had been so busy trying to figure out what Andrew McVie was all about that the signs had passed her right by until it was almost too late.
Every time she saw Andrew she'd passed out at his feet, overwhelmed by the force field his presence generated. It hadn't taken her long to realize he wasn't part of the twentieth century, and even less time to discover that he and Shannon Whitney, the woman he'd traveled across the centuries to find, had to go back through time to the place where they both now belonged.
Still, she hadn't figured they'd be taking her with them.
The basket shuddered as an air current buffeted it from the east, and Dakota glanced around. She was all in favor of adventure but why couldn't it take place at ground level. Shannon and Andrew were wrapped in each other's arms, oblivious to the fact that the only thing between them and instant death was that puny fire that kept the bright red balloon aloft.
"Sure," she mumbled. "What do you care if I'm a fifth wheel in two centuries?" This was their destiny, after all. As far as Dakota could tell, she was just along for the ride, comic relief to keep them laughing as the decades whizzed by.
"You won't be here forever," Ginny had said a few days ago. Dakota had thought she meant the library where she worked. Why was it her psychic abilities were able to zero in on everybody else in the western hemisphere with laserlike precision but when it came to her own life, she invariably came up empty?
For instance, it would have been nice to have some advance warning. If they were really traveling through time, she was going to need a makeover from Martha Washington as soon as they landed because her dusty Levis, worn Nikes, and Jurassic Park t-shirt weren't going to win any fashion awards. Then again, neither was her coiffure. She reached up and touched the close-cropped mop of jet black curls that had probably never been in fashion, no matter the century.
Next to the beautiful Shannon with her elegant bone structure and glossy tresses, she probably looked like a boy with a severe water retention problem.
"I have a question," she said to the embracing couple who shared the basket with her. "How do we know if we're going the right way? I mean, this thing doesn't come with a road map. What if we end up back in the 70s or something?" A lifetime sentence of leisure suits and disco. It was enough to make her leap overboard.
"You are the one gifted with second sight, Mistress Dakota. Do you not know the outcome?" He wasn't a handsome man by any account, but even Dakota had to admit he was quite something when he smiled.
"That's right," said Shannon. "You're psychic. You should know these things. We were counting on you to keep us on course."
"Just because I'm psychic doesn't mean I have a sense of direction," Dakota shot back. "You'd think there'd be some way to steer this thing." An odd prickle of apprehension twitched its way up her spine as she had a sudden and clear vision of thick woods and a child too young to find her way home.
"Dakota?" Shannon's voice reached her as if from far away. "Is something wrong?"
"I don't know," Dakota said. She shivered as a glimpse of tear-stained cheeks and tangled hair spun past. "I must be flashing on last night." She'd spent the night in the woods with some residents of the battered women's shelter in an Outward Bound experiment, meant to enhance self-esteem and independence. Dakota had spent most of the hours after dark worried that one of the kids would wander away and get lost and she'd have to venture deeper into the bug-infested woods to look for the child.
"Mistress Dakota has no fondness for nature's wonders," said Andrew. "She was most distressed when a spider took up residence on her arm."
~~~~~~
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