Here and Now by Constance O'Day-Flannery

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Here and and Now

A woman alone, just weeks before she is to deliver a new life into this world, Suzanne McDermott is determined to remain strong and accept whatever the future might bring. But she never dreams it will bring her ... the past.

The stranger who washes up on the New Jersey shore is badly injured — and unprepared for the world into which he is about to walk. For the last thing Charles Garrity knew, it was the Roaring Twenties, and his life's ambitions were about to be realized. Yet a beautiful woman is telling him it is nearly eight decades past his time! Suzanne has rescued him and has...opened his eyes and soul to new wonders. Now it is he who must save her — heart and his own — with the power of something neither of them has ever known:real love.

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Chapter One

"This can't be happening," she whispered in numbed shock. Stuff like this just didn't happen in her life. This was like the craziness of tabloid television!

Breathing deeply of the late spring air, Suzanne McDermott looked out to the Rancocas Creek and then stared at the diamond-studded wedding band in the palm of her hand. Secretly, she'd always thought it was too heavy and gaudy for her taste. The sunlight glinted off the raised, gold setting and she registered a moment of surprise that after six years of constant wear the ring still shined brightly -- unlike the marriage.

A thick lump formed in her throat and her chest ached with an unbearable heaviness. She had stuck by the rules. She'd played fair her whole life, but she didn't get to live happily ever after.

An image of her husband and her dearest friend assaulted her mind, and she groaned with a bitter, heart-rending pain. Betrayal. She honestly didn't know which tore at her the deepest -- the man with whom she had shared her life and planned for a future and a family, or the woman who had shared her intimate thoughts since she was a child in seventh grade. She had honestly thought they were each other's best cheerleaders in life. The two people in the world that she'd trusted most had just ripped apart the foundation of her belief system, and she had nothing to hold on to any longer. She felt as though everything was falling away and she was sinking. No matter how she tried, she couldn't seem to wipe away a mental picture of Ingrid and Kevin together. How could her brain make sense of it when hermind continued to haunt her with fantastic scenarios of them making love, while she...she...

Looking down at her extended stomach, she felt fresh tears begin to surge up within her. Eight and half months into a pregnancy was one hell of a time to have a husband walk out on her for her best friend.

Rules? There are no damn rules now!

She wanted to scream, pull her hair out, and pull out Kevin's hair and Ingrid's too! She wanted to fight, to make them hurt the way she was hurting. She wanted to shriek her denial that everything she had dreamed about was never going to happen -- for in that one horrid conversation her world had tilted crazily and she couldn't seem to find her equilibrium. But she couldn't, wouldn't harm the baby. Somehow, by some miracle in the universe, she had to keep it together. She could not afford a nervous breakdown. Not with a baby soon to be born.

Taking a deep breath in a feeble attempt to calm down, she tenderly ran her fingers over her belly and mentally whispered, We're going to be all right, you and I. I don't know how, but we'll get through this madness.

Immediately her mind snuck past her best intentions and once more began to torture her with outrage. How could they go behind her back and betray her at a time like this? Sniffing through more tears, she looked out to the river and heard Kevin's voice in her head. He was sorry, and the timing couldn't be worse, but he and Ingrid had been having an affair for over a year. He had to be honest and confess they were in love and now they wanted to be together. She'd listened carefully, yet at the time thought she was having an out-of-body experience as he went on and on about how sorry they both were. None of it felt real. It actually was like one of those tabloid shows! Her life had been so sane, so perfect...or so she'd thought. A great husband, a beautiful home, financial security, a baby on the way. What more could a woman want?

The truth, maybe?

She'd told him to get out, to leave the farmhouse, the only piece of land left after he'd sold over 150 acres to a land developer. And the kicker was that she'd been so damn liberated and so sure the marriage would last forever that she'd signed a prenup six years ago. What a fool she'd been. Why hadn't she seen even a hint of this coming? Had she been too self-absorbed with the pregnancy? What was wrong with her?

"Arrrgh!" The yell escaped her lips and she felt better for it. Why was she making excuses? Why was she blaming herself? Kevin was the one who was self-absorbed. He was the one who had broken the marriage vows, though he still claimed to care about their unborn child. And now here she was, standing at the edge of the Rancocas Creek, her favorite place since childhood, a place where she always came for peace of mind.

It wasn't working. Not this time.

This time there was no easy fix. Her brain spat out the facts: Her husband had made it clear he wanted out of the marriage. She was pregnant. He wanted to marry Ingrid. She had signed away her security. She was alone in the world.

As if in protest, she felt the baby move.

Okay, she wasn't alone.

Tears ran down her cheeks as she stared at her swelled body, encased in a blue knit maternity dress that looked like a gigantic sweatshirt. She felt so ugly, so unwanted, so pathetic. "I'm so sorry," she sniffled, wishing with all her heart that she could provide this child with a stable environment. At thirty-four, she was without extended family now. Her parents had died within a year of each other. First her father was killed in a car accident almost five years ago and her grief-stricken mother just didn't wake...