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  In her next breath, she opened her eyes, and there they were. Susie gasped.

  “My God! You did it!” Michael said in awe.

  She blinked at him as her mouth dropped open. “I… I did it! Holy cow! I did it!” She felt as if she’d been hit by a Mack truck, but she did it!

  “I knew you could!” he said.

  “Did you really?” she asked, not hiding the skepticism in her voice.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Do you really think I would have stepped off the edge of a building if I didn’t?” he asked.

  It didn’t take a moment of thought to answer him. “No, I guess you wouldn’t have.”

  “I just don’t understand how someone as powerful as you could ever doubt your own abilities,” he said, shaking his head.

  She could only shrug. “I guess it’s because I wasn’t raised to be Vallen. I’m not used to it, and… I like being an ordinary person. I don’t need power.”

  “Except to help me to breathe, and to get us home from the sixteenth century,” he said with a laugh.

  “Yeah, except for that.” She giggled.

  She let go of Michael’s hands and looked around. It was exactly the same as when they’d left. Nothing had changed but…

  She turned back to Michael. “How are you feeling?”

  He seemed to turn inward for a moment as he assessed himself. “Fine. I feel fine!”

  “You weren’t sick in London,” she pointed out.

  “No, I wasn’t and… I don’t feel sick now. Is it possible?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She ran out to the nurse’s station. “Would it be possible to get Mr. Werloga tested for the coronavirus?”

  The nurse looked at her oddly but shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose so, but why? We know he’s got it. He’s already tested positive.”

  “Yes, but he’s feeling much better,” Susie said.

  “Okay. I’ll be in in a minute.”

  Susie went back into Michael’s room, where he was sitting at the edge of his bed. A moment later the nurse came in with the swabs she needed to administer the test. Afterward, she said, “I’ll be back in about an hour with the result.”

  “Thank you,” Susie said.

  She smiled at Michael, who was rubbing a little at his nose.

  “Michael, I did it,” she said, again, still hardly able to believe it.

  “Yes, you did,” he said, taking her hand. “You’re a very powerful Vallen. Not only that, but you’re a pretty amazing woman. I think you can do anything you set your mind to doing.”

  “Anything?” she asked, an idea tickling at the back of her mind.

  “Absolutely anything!”

  She sat there thinking about it.

  “What is it that you’d like to do?” he asked with a slight tilt of his head.

  She pressed her lips together. “I told you I’ve always wanted to go to nursing school, but I’m horrible at science. I barely passed chemistry in college.”

  “Chemistry? Are you kidding? I’m a chemist! I can help you with chemistry,” he scoffed.

  “But can you teach it?”

  “Susie, I teach at Georgetown University. Beginning chem and orgo.”

  “Orgo?”

  “Organic chemistry. You need it to go to either nursing school or medical school. I know, my class is full of pre-meds,” Michael said with a little laugh.

  “Oh, right. I knew that.” She paused and then asked, “And you can teach me?”

  “Well, you’ll have to apply and get into a nursing program, but, yes. If you have any problems with organic chemistry, I can teach you.”

  “I’m thinking that maybe I just didn’t apply myself when I was in college. I had my older brother graduating summa cum laude, and my younger siblings all being their amazing selves. Maybe if I take it now that I’m older and more mature…” she explained. “And I love caring for people.”

  “And you do a fantastic job of it,” he said, smiling at her. “You’ll make an amazing nurse.” He paused and then added, “And I did promise your mother I’d take care of you and do everything I could to make you happy.”

  “We can count you helping me with chemistry as taking care of me.”

  “But I’d like to do more than that. I’d like to… be with you. To see you… if you don’t mind.”

  His insecurity was adorable. “I’d like that—a lot.”

  “Even though I’m a powerful Vallen?” she asked with a little laugh. “You did say that you didn’t like powerful Vallen girls because they were so full of themselves.”

  “Did I?”

  “You did.”

  “Well, you’ve proven me wrong,” he said with a shrug.

  “Michael, I got your tests back, but I’m certain there was some sort of mistake,” the nurse said, coming into the room and interrupting them. She was looking down at a piece of paper in her hand. “According to this you don’t have any COVID-19 antibodies in your system at all. That can’t be right because just a few days ago, you did.”

  “Could that test have been wrong?” Susie asked, giving Michael a wink.

  The nurse looked at her. “I… I wouldn’t think so. He was definitely sick.”

  “Perhaps he just had a regular flu, and it seemed as if it was COVID-19,” Susie suggested.

  The nurse shrugged. “Let’s keep you here overnight and monitor you. We’ll do another test in the morning, and if that’s clear Susie will be able to take you home.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Michael said, giving Susie a big smile.

  Oh, yes, so did she.

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  I do hope you’ve enjoyed reading Susie and Michael’s story. It has been simmering in the back of my mind since 2016 when I published Erin’s story, Falling—the first book of this series. I had so much fun writing a contemporary/medieval time-travel romance – it was actually the first time I’ve ever written a contemporary story—I simply had to repeat the experience!

  In Falling, we very briefly meet all of the Freyn siblings. When I wrote that, I knew that each and every one of them would need to have their own story. I was given the opportunity to write Dylan’s story in Falling for a Pirate when I was asked to write a gay pirate book to be part of a Kindle World that, sadly, no longer exists. And now, thanks to Meg Napier, Susie has had her day as well.

  Hopefully, it won’t take me another four years to get around to writing the other stories of the Freyn siblings. But if you enjoyed this book, you might like the other books in the series, or possibly even the origin story of the Vallen world which spans the three books of the Children of Avalon Series: Air: Merlin’s Chalic, Water: Excalibur’s Return, and Fire: Nimue’s Destiny.

  Thank you so much for taking this journey with me! Stay safe, wear a mask whenever you venture out, and stay well!

  Merry

  Second Drop

  Meg Napier

  The reporter’s voice and the static battled for supremacy as the road dipped and climbed. The static won. Of course it did. Lizzie resisted the urge to look at and manipulate the tuning icon and instead jammed the power button off. It was too risky in this horrific weather to take her attention from the road for even an instant.

  Daniel had suggested she stay the night in Charlottesville, but that wouldn’t have worked. She would be leery of staying in a hotel right now in any case, but she had Blue with her, and he was a disaster in hotels, whimpering when she so much as closed the bathroom door. Ninety-five pounds of canine scaredy-cat, that’s what he was. Even now, she could feel the slight shaking of the car as he trembled in the back in terror of the storm.

  She couldn’t win; she had been doing all she could to be a good, understanding, and supportive mom to her son, but she was obviously being a horrible mother to her beloved Golden Retriever.

  How she wished Daniel had opted to stay at home. The last three... no, it was almost four months, at home, had been a sweet refuge in the middle
of a nightmare. Daniel had returned from his University of Virginia spring break to Arlington, instead of to campus, and had finished the semester—classes, office hours, group study sessions, and finally exams—at their kitchen table, Blue by his side. The Covid-19 Coronavirus had succeeded in stopping modern life as they knew it dead in its tracks.

  The silly dog hadn’t understood there was a pandemic. He only knew that his beloved boy was home and that she, his “mom,” was also home ALL the time. Canine heaven! They had enjoyed long walks at least three times a day, regardless of rain or wind, and the dog had slept every night tucked up against Daniel.

  But Daniel had been earnest and convincing in his argument for returning to Charlottesville. He had already signed a lease to live in off-campus housing for the upcoming school year, and the summer paramedic training program he had signed up for was now more important than ever. Or so he persuasively argued. And besides, he had insisted, even if classes ended up still being online in the fall, he was responsible for his lease, and he had made a commitment to his friends.

  Lizzie wanted him nowhere near medical training of any kind right now. She wanted him home in their safe, protected bubble, far away from sick people who could infect and possibly kill her only child. But she would never admit that aloud—would not even allow the treacherous thoughts to form full sentences in her head.

  Daniel was doing what he knew to be important and right. She was going to keep her mouth shut and never, ever, let him know how the incipient terror threatened to overwhelm her. Because Daniel was all she had. The fear was always there; the Covid-19 horror just magnified it. After Miguel’s sudden and completely irrational death ten years ago, she and Daniel had become a family of two. Lizzie was estranged from her own parents, who had rejected the idea of her marrying a Cuban-American. Miguel’s father was dead, and yes, Lizzie was still completely in love with Mama Alicia, her mother-in-law, but the dear woman lived in Florida within a network of cousins, nieces, and nephews. While they spoke on the phone at least once a week, Alicia played little role in her day-to-day existence.

  Lizzie had swallowed back tears when she brought Daniel to UVA his freshman year. (“Mom, we’re called ‘first years’ here,” he had reminded her. “It’s a UVA tradition.”) She was just grateful he had chosen a school within a few hours’ drive instead of one of the more hoity-toity schools up north he had considered. And the years had gone by easily. She drove down occasionally, with Blue, to deliver a winter jacket, or for some other fabricated reason, and he came home for Thanksgiving and Christmas and had worked from home last summer. But he had registered for the paramedic training course last December, excited and invigorated by the idea of learning vital skills and participating in community life off campus. (“We say ‘off grounds,’ Mom. Remember?!”)

  So here she was, driving back up Rt. 29, which on the best of nights was dark and tedious, in torrential rain, heavy winds, and with no radio signal. She should have put on a podcast instead of the radio, but she had known herself to be too sad to give anything her full attention and had chosen the radio. The DC area all-news station shared a frequency with the Charlottesville NPR station, so she had been lazy and not done anything more than push the power button.

  She was usually a happy, upbeat person, but the ever-escalating death tolls from the virus combined with the recent social unrest had left her feeling unmoored and on edge.

  The rain seemed at times to be falling almost horizontally, directly against her front windshield, and her knuckles were tense against the steering wheel. Another thirty minutes or so until Warrenton —please let it be only thirty minutes —and then she’d be back in civilization, of sorts, or at least back in the land of streetlights on the highway.

  The lightning and thunder were almost simultaneous now—the thunder earth-shakingly loud despite the noise from the rain, the wipers, and the blowers. And yet amidst the cacophony, Lizzie could still hear Blue’s whimpers.

  The strike that came next was so bright and vivid that Lizzie flinched, and her eyes closed instinctively. But having her eyes open wouldn’t have helped. The tree came down and right through the front of her car, knocking it sideways as Lizzie screamed and tried to hold on. Her foot instinctively went to the brake, but the tired SUV seemed totally indifferent to her attempts to control it and took its time before finally coming to a stop.

  Lizzie couldn’t see anything. Somehow, miraculously, her windshield had remained intact, but all she could see was darkness.

  Shaking in fear and shock, Lizzie groped for her phone in the cup holder. Her fingers were trembling so hard it took her several tries just to put on the flashlight, and she held it up to the windshield in disbelief. Pine needles were smashed against the trapped wipers—pine needles that were part of a pine tree that seemed to have flattened the entire front of her car.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered over and over. Blue was half-barking, half-crying now, his own terror seconded only by her own. What in the world was she going to do?

  The car was dead. All the dashboard lights were out. Lizzie tried pushing the hazard lights button, but if they were working, she couldn’t hear the familiar clicking sound.

  Okay. Think. You’re still alive. Blue’s alive. Call 911. She pressed the number, trying to stop herself from hyperventilating.

  “Due to unexpected call volume, your call will be answered as soon as we are able. If this is not a true emergency, please hang up. Otherwise, please stay on the line and your call will be answered momentarily.”

  She should get out and see how bad it was. Shouldn’t she? Or was that a really stupid idea given the storm and how dark the road was? Lizzie turned her head as she reached for the door handle and froze. Her right hand was holding her phone, flashlight still on as the not-at-all-reassuring 911 message played over and over.

  The window of her car door was shattered in a spider web pattern, not broken through, but she could see that part of the monstrous tree had hit and pinned her door, as well as the front of the car. Lizzie’s trembling grew worse, and she realized she was rocking ever so slightly against the seatbelt.

  She was alive. Another six inches, and she would probably have been killed. She and the rest of the world had spent the last several months trying to evade an often deadly virus, when all the time killer trees were lying in wait, ready to pounce and make Daniel an orphan. Falling objects were the killers; Lizzie should have expected as much.

  A freak accident, they had said. Miguel had been walking to the parking garage after meeting a colleague in a Bethesda office, and a sheet of window glass from a building under construction had suddenly slipped and fallen directly on him. No warning. No hint of impending doom. No one else hurt. Just one human life snuffed out in the space of a heartbeat.

  She heard the whimpering emanating from her own lips and forced herself to take a deep breath. The airbag hadn’t gone off, and she could unbuckle herself and move. Why hadn’t the airbag gone off? The thought flashed through her mind and then was gone. It didn’t matter, and it was probably better this way. The car had been on its last legs for years. A 2006 Highlander, they had bought it when Daniel was six and made payments on it for years. It had been a huge purchase at the time, but they had wanted to travel and show their son the country. They had brought the little puppy, Blue, home from the shelter in it just week’s before Miguel’s death, not knowing how much the dog would prove to hate car travel.

  Lizzie had not wanted to part with the car, even as more and more parts needed replacing and modern technology became standard in newer cars. This one had no internet connection, no GPS, no rearview camera; it even required inserting an actual key to make it start. But it was a link to the family that she had once thought would be hers forever, one that had been irreparably shattered by an innocuous plate of falling glass.

  And now a tree had come for her. Tears were running down her face, her nose was dripping, and she was starting to sweat. After a tortuously cold spring, summer had arrived w
ith a vengeance, and with the air conditioning gone, the car was getting sticky.

  Lizzie shone her light and found her purse on the passenger seat where she had left it and awkwardly pulled the strap over her shoulder. She pushed herself over the console into the back seat, and then reached out for Blue, who was cowering in the rear compartment.

  “It’s okay, my good boy. Everything's okay.”

  Everything was absolutely, positively, not okay, but the dog knew that as well as she did.

  Lizzie reached out and tried the door handle of the driver-side back seat. It opened. Thank God. She pulled it shut and tried to think. The damn recording was still playing over and over, and in a fit of pique, she pressed the red end button. Yes, there was a pandemic going on, and yes, the weather was no doubt wreaking historical damage, but 911 should work, shouldn’t it?

  But nothing was working now as it should. Her own sense of normalcy had been splintered to pieces ten years ago, and now the rest of the world had turned upside down as well. Food was missing from grocery stores, shops were open one day and closed the next, gas prices were at ridiculously low levels, but a package of meat or brand-name toilet paper cost a fortune. Social unrest had come to a history-changing moment as people of color demanded an end to unjust treatment under the law. Almost nothing in day-to-day life resembled what it had been a year ago.

  More knocking. Wait. Knocking? Was that a new sound or something that was part of the storm? She turned away from Blue and saw a dim light shining through the window of the door she had proved could open and realized someone was, indeed, now pounding against the glass.

  Thank God. Followed immediately by, Oh God, please let this be someone trying to help and not a serial killer. The car’s electrical system dead, she couldn’t lower the window, so she moved to push the door open slowly and immediately flinched when her savior/killer’s light shone directly in her eyes.

  “Are you all right?” His words were shouted over the noise of the storm, but he didn’t sound like a killer. Right?