Authors: Jennifer Ryan
The nurse took the baby across the room. Cleaned and wrapped, the nurse brought the baby back to Marti and Cameron.
“I see them. Daddy is by Mommy and the baby is so cute now. It’s not crying anymore, it’s sleeping.”
Morgan took her hand from Emma and placed it on Cameron’s cheek and gave him the last picture of him standing beside a tired but radiant Marti holding their child safe and sound.
“Oh my God.”
Morgan broke the contact from Marti and Cameron and fell to her knees beside Emma’s chair.
“Morgan, are you all right?” Sam asked after she dropped.
“It’s fine, Sam.”
“Sugar Bug, your Mommy is going to give birth to a beautiful baby, and she will be fine. You saw her. You have no need to worry. Okay?”
“Okay,” Emma said and bounced up and down on her chair. She looked at all the amazed faces at the table. “I saw the baby born. It was yucky, but then the baby was so cute when it was sleeping with Mommy. It’s okay. I saw it. Mommy didn’t die.”
Cameron looked at Marti and felt all of his worries vanish. “I saw the baby and you. You were both fine.”
Marti put a hand on Morgan’s shoulder. “Thank you. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have their worries taken away.”
Morgan put her hand over Marti’s. “She knows something about the baby that you don’t. She can tell you if you want to know.”
Marti’s eyes lit up. “Emma, is it a boy or a girl?”
Emma looked at her mother. “Oh my gosh. It’s a girl! They wrapped her in a pink blanket. I’m going to have a sister.”
Marti and Cameron kissed as he put his hand over his wife’s stomach. “A beautiful girl, like her mother.”
Jenna couldn’t believe it. “Darn, I thought you were having a boy. Sorry about your shower gift. It’s all boy clothes. I’ll take them back and exchange them.”
Everyone at the table focused on Emma’s transformation from tired and sickly looking to bouncing with energy, as if a weight had been lifted from her.
It took Morgan a minute to get up from her knees. She held the back of Emma’s chair and met Tyler’s gaze. For the first time since she arrived, she felt the door he’d slammed shut on her open a crack. She didn’t feel his anger. His dark eyes went soft when he nodded to Emma and mouthed, “Thank you.”
She gave him a soft smile and a nod, feeling good for helping a frightened little girl, and possibly Tyler if he changed the course of his life.
Morgan felt the shift in the atmosphere. Everyone’s enthusiasm for Emma’s return to her exuberant self helped replenish the energy she’d exerted to make it happen.
The real reason she came tonight walked in the front door.
“Everyone,” she called to get them to stop talking over each other, “I need you to listen to me, right now. Since you have seen what I can do, I hope you’ll believe me now. Something is about to happen, and I need all of you to stay in your chairs. No one can stand up. It’s important.”
“Tell us what you want, Morgan. Who’s going to be hurt?” Jack asked, concern etched in every line of his face and laced in every word.
“I need all of you to stay seated. I mean it, Jack. Remember what I told you about change one thing and I can’t predict the outcome. The future can be changed.”
“I hear you. We’ll all stay seated. How long do we have?”
“Not long. Sam, Tyler, are you armed?”
“No. It’s a family dinner, not a standoff,” Tyler answered.
“You’re wrong about that,” she said. “Whatever you do, do not stand up. And for god’s sake, do not identify yourselves as FBI agents. Let me do the talking, and I will make this right. If you don’t do exactly what I say, someone will die.”
That had everyone’s attention, including Tyler and Sam’s. They wouldn’t risk their family.
“We’ll do what you say,” Sam agreed and clamped a hand on Tyler’s arm before he argued further. “How bad will this be for you?”
“Fastballs, lots and lots of fastballs. When this is over, Sam, I need you to take me somewhere there are as few people as possible. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
A commotion started at the front of the restaurant as the man made his way toward the back. She didn’t have much time.
“Elizabeth, he’s going to ask where the owner is. You are going to say that you’re the owner, but you are not going to stand up. He knows who you are, so you’ll have to talk to him. I’ll take it from there. Understand.”
“Yes,” she whispered, fear in her voice and written on her face. Thinking of her unborn baby, she looked at Sam across the table. Much too far away to hold his hand for reassurance.
“Elizabeth, do what I say and you’ll be fine,” Morgan assured her.
Elizabeth nodded as the man came toward their table wielding a gun. A waiter got in his way and tried to stop his progress. The man yelled for the owner and waved the gun.
Morgan grabbed little Sam and moved him into his father’s lap. Jack automatically wrapped his arms around his little boy and held him tight.
Everyone sat stunned when the sound of gunfire erupted. Sam clamped his hand down on Tyler’s shoulder to keep him from getting up. The gun had gone off twice. Both shots screamed past everyone seated at the table and went into the back of Matt’s chair. Luckily, Morgan had been fast enough to grab him from his seat.
The anger and rage coming from the man nearing the table almost sent her to her knees, but she held Jack’s son Matt protected in her arms.
“Where is the owner?” he shouted. The gun wobbled in his hand. It only made it and the man more dangerous. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his eyes were wide and wild. Everyone at the table recognized a man strung out on drugs and half out of his mind.
Elizabeth took a breath and looked toward the man and recognized him immediately. He’d recently applied for a job and she’d turned him down.
“I’m the owner.” She remained seated like Morgan instructed. She kept her arms folded over her growing belly and felt overwhelming love when Jenna inched ever so slowly in front of her, blocking her view of the man standing only a few feet away from their table and obstructing his aim at her.
“Get up. You’re going to open that nice big safe in your office.” He waved the gun around, making sure everyone knew he meant business. He took care to point it at each man at the table. He didn’t want any of them being cowboys. Funny, a couple of them looked like cowboys. They even looked exactly alike. All of them looked mean.
Morgan moved around the table and dropped Matt in Cameron’s lap on the way. He wrapped a protective arm around Emma. Matt, none the worse for wear, curled up in Cameron’s lap. Morgan kept moving around the table, grabbing a bottle of wine and hiding it behind her back. When the man took his gaze from Elizabeth, she seized her opportunity.
“Robert Parks, put down that gun this instant.”
Robby looked at the woman coming toward him, and whether the drugs, the booze, or a trick of the light, he swore she changed from a beautiful blond angel into his grandmother before his eyes. He shook his head and tried to see clearly, but the pills he’d downed with half a bottle of tequila had left him bleary-eyed and flying high. Nothing could touch him.
That bitch hadn’t given him the job he’d tried so hard to get. He’d sobered up and put on the cleanest clothes he’d had for the interview, and still she’d turned him down. Not enough experience. Hell, how much experience did you need to clear tables and wash dishes in a fancy restaurant? He could do that stoned and drunk, which is how he usually spent his days and nights. The tips from all the wealthy people who ate there would keep him high all the time, and he wouldn’t have to resort to stealing and pick-pocketing.
He hadn’t slept in two days and he was getting to the point where he’d have to take more pills to come down enough to sleep a few hours. He needed to score more drugs. To do that, he needed money. He’d seen the old-fashioned safe in the office. It reminded him of the old western movies where bandits stormed the bank and used dynamite to blast it open. He wished he had some dynamite. It’d be one hell of a show.
His grandmother came toward him and he took a stumbling step back and raised the gun to her. He leaned a little forward to get a better look at her. Maybe he was hallucinating. He hated it when he took too much and started seeing things.
“Grandma? Is that you? You’re dead,” he slurred.
“And you’re supposed to be finishing school and getting good grades,” Morgan said. “I taught you better than this. You come in here drunk, stoned, waving a gun, and scaring these folks. What’s the matter with you, boy? Don’t you have any respect for yourself? For me?”
Robby didn’t know what to do. That safe had to be full of cash. He imagined it all stacked up. She wanted to stop him from getting all that money. His anger erupted and he took a step toward her and aimed the gun at her face.
“You’re dead. You can’t tell me what to do anymore.”
“Boy, you best put that gun down, or I’ll smack you into next Tuesday.”
She would. He’d had her riled a few times when he skipped school and she’d shown him what for. Then she died and he wound up in a foster home. The woman didn’t care about him. She only wanted to collect her check and watch daytime soaps. So he’d dropped out of school, started hanging out with some of the local guys, and they’d kept him busy doing petty crimes like stealing and shoplifting. One of the guys gave him some weed and another gave him some pills. Now all he thought about was making his next score and getting high.
“You died,” he screamed, and spittle came out of his mouth with all the rage. “You died and you left me with no one.”
Morgan’s strength waned. He had the gun trained on her face, and although his hands weren’t steady, at this range he wouldn’t miss if he fired. The overwhelming sadness underneath the anger made her push on. This boy missed his grandmother. She’d been the only one to care about him. She’d kept him on the straight and narrow after his mother dropped him with her before leaving for parts unknown. He’d never known his father and couldn’t be sure the man they thought had done the deed was for sure his dad.
“It’s time for you to grow up, boy. You don’t have me to keep you on the right path. You’ve got to do for yourself.”
“I can’t. I’m all messed up.” He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
“Sure you can. Didn’t I always tell you, you’ve got to do for yourself? Ain’t nobody gonna give you anything. You’ve got to work hard.”
“I’ll make her give me the money. Then, I can do for myself.”
“She’s done nothing to you, and here you are holding a gun wanting to hurt these folks. You don’t want to hurt them. You put the gun down,” she said softly.
He wanted to leave. He didn’t want to see his dead grandmother anymore. He wanted to go back to that bug-infested apartment and sleep on his mattress on the floor. He’d let his mind clear and figure out what to do later. He just wanted to get away.
The sound of sirens and people shouting brought him back to the scene in the restaurant. He’d been there too long, and the lady hadn’t even gotten up to open the vault. He’d never get away clean now.
“This wasn’t how it was supposed to be,” he yelled at his grandmother. “You aren’t supposed to be here. I’m supposed to get the money and go.” He shook the gun at her face with each word. The police poured into the restaurant and people directed them to him in the back. He didn’t want to go to jail, or be killed.
Morgan feared he’d shoot. Exhausted, she wanted to shut down and block it all out of her mind. His rage and sadness were everywhere around her, like a thick blanket smothering her.
She took her chance when he glanced over his shoulder at the approaching police. She swung the wine bottle and knocked the gun out of his hand. It went flying across the floor.
“No.” Robby grabbed the knife on his belt and slashed at the woman in front of him. His grandmother disappeared. He cut the woman across the arm before she swung the wine bottle at his head, and he didn’t see anything anymore.
He dropped to the ground unconscious along with Morgan. She couldn’t take any more. As she fell to the floor, she hoped Sam would keep his promise and take her somewhere quiet and isolated from others.
T
YLER FELL TO
his knees beside Morgan and carefully rolled her over, revealing the bleeding knife wound across her arm. The blood didn’t particularly worry him, but the gray translucent color of her skin disturbed him. He opened one of her eyes. The vibrant blue had darkened to almost black. Her beautiful golden hair that always seemed to glow had gone limp and dull.
Her gift physically drained the life out of her. From the time she’d fallen to her knees after helping Emma see the future, and now, becoming a completely other person to a drugged-out boy, she’d given everything for them. He couldn’t believe what his own eyes saw her do. Every time he’d tried to get up to help her, Sam held him down. She’d gotten right in the guy’s face. He didn’t understand how she managed to change her voice, or the way she spoke, making the guy think he was talking to his grandmother.
How did she do that? The crazy woman walked right up to a man with a gun.
Make that a boy. At first sight, he thought him a young man of about twenty or so, but as he approached the table it became apparent he was no more than sixteen or seventeen.
“You crazy woman. What the hell were you thinking?” His fear from a moment ago turned into anger as he leaned over her. She could have been killed. The thought sent a chill down his spine.
Morgan’s skin broke out in a clammy sweat. Tyler brushed his shaking fingers over her cheek and leaned down and touched his forehead to hers.
“Wake up, sweetheart. Please.”
Sam clamped a hand on his shoulder and pulled him upright. “She saved Matt’s life.”
Tyler stared in shock at Sam, and then down at Morgan’s blank face.
“What?”
“Look at the two bullet holes in Matt’s chair. They hit right about head level for the little guy. She’s known about this happening for years. She’s waited all this time, making sure nothing changed in the vision, not seeing you again until this night, all to save that little boy. He was meant to die tonight. She changed the future.”