The Preserver & Protector Series

Blake was exhausted. He managed to crawl on hands and knees to his great-great-grandfather's grave marker. He pushed back onto his butt, and for support, he leaned his weak spine against a small tree. Unlike moments earlier, the air was still. The woods were quiet. No birds chirping, no insects flying—nothing but silence. Odd for this time of year.

His swirling stomach nauseated him. Sweat beaded on his brow and upper lip. He swallowed several times to tamp down the bile rising in his throat. It wasn’t working. He swallowed harder. Within seconds, he pitched the contents of his stomach into the underbrush. A sharp pain shot through his supporting arm. He pulled his weight from his throbbing limb. His pulse pounded in his ears.

Still leaning against the tree, he rested for a moment, holding his aching left arm to his chest. What the hell is wrong with me—and why does it feel like there’s a knife stuck in my arm? After working up the strength, his gaze slid to his sore arm, but he saw no knife.

Slowly, so he didn’t further upset his stomach, he turned his head and looked at the brush tunnel he'd passed through earlier. Tidbits of memories bombarded his mind like a kaleidoscope. He recalled soldiers wearing blue uniforms and some wearing gray as they fought in a smoky field. Musket balls and canisters flew through the sulfur-infused air. The earth exploded at his feet. Soldiers fighting for the cause in which they believed fell to their deaths. His young, brave, great-great-grandfather beat on a drum and then threw it down to stab a Confederate soldier who was about to kill his ranking officer.

Blake squeezed his eyes shut. This didn't make any sense. Yet, it seemed so real.

The scenes of war disappeared, only to be replaced by a vision of an angel patting his forehead with a cool cloth. Her angelic voice had worked to soothe him, while her bright blue, comforting gaze held his as someone tugged at his aching arm. He recalled wanting to reach up to touch her cheek. Her porcelain skin looked smooth—appealing. Oddly, she was dressed in a man's uniform. Why? Was she one of the four hundred plus females who'd disguised themselves as young men to fight beside their husbands or brothers in the Civil War? Who was it she fought beside? Husband? Brother? His heartbeat ratcheted up a notch. Brother, he hoped.

Good grief. What am I thinking and why do I care? This was a dream about a war that took place over one hundred and fifty years ago. Just a dream, he reassured himself.

Blake opened his eyes and took note of the small flags that lay strewn over the dirt a few feet from him. It was time to place them on the graves as he'd originally intended to do, and then move on to the next cemetery.

He unfolded his arms. A slicing pain ripped through his left bicep and up into his shoulder, reminding him why he'd steadied his limb in the first place. He unbuttoned his shirt and gingerly pulled his pained arm from the sleeve. Dried blood surrounded a horrid looking, fresh stitch-job. His pulse quickened as he recalled being shot in his dream—vision—reality. What in the hell?

He sprang to his feet and wobbled slightly as he pulled his shirt back over his shoulder. He didn’t know what was happening, but the one thing he knew for sure was that he wanted out—away from this place. Standing in the mass of tightly woven brush, he searched for an exit other than the tunnel-like one he’d climbed through to get inside the cemetery. Without a saw or clippers, there was no other way to exit. He’d have to go back through the same passageway that had thrust him into the Civil War.

Remembering the three flags, he bent over to snatch them off the ground. His head swirled. He let out a slow breath as he gingerly straightened his spine. Once his head stopped swirling, he placed the flags on the grave markers of the veterans, doing his great-great-grandfather’s last. Even with as bad as he wanted out of the cemetery, he paused at the headstone and took the time to say a silent prayer.

He ran his fingertips over the nearly unreadable words on the marker, worn from years of exposure to the elements. You were a brave young soldier—a hero. I’m so proud of you, so proud that I come from a line of such bravery.

Now that he’d seen the battle firsthand, or so it seemed, pride and conviction consumed him. The stories passed down from generation to generation were true. Ben Cornelis, his great-great-grandfather, was a war hero.

It wasn't without hesitation that he stood, spun, and headed toward the narrow tunnel to exit the cemetery. Fear saturated every cell of his being as he hunkered down to pass through it, hoping he would do so without issue as he had dozens of times in the past. Nerves rattled his body. Sweat soaked his shirt. It was the longest ten feet he’d ever walked—crawled in his life.

Once out of the tunnel, he straightened his spine and sucked in a breath of relief.

* * * *

Ariel

Ariel sat on the edge of her bed. What a day. She’d nearly lost the man she was supposed to protect. It was Blake’s job to preserve history and hers to watch over him so he could do so. Only, the poor guy hadn’t been properly informed or trained in the slightest. What was Jack, Blake’s dad, thinking by not prepping his son for his role as a Preserver?

She’d completed only one mission with Jack after her mother died, passing the power on to her. She liked the man, but if he were standing in front of her right now, she’d give him a piece of her mind for not preparing his son for what was to come—especially since there had been time to do so. In fact, Jack was supposed to have relinquished his power to Blake before the last mission he completed, but he refused to do so, claiming he wasn't ready. But the frail old man was ready, whether he wanted to believe it or not. He'd grown so weak with his illness that he'd become more of a liability than anything else in terms of missions.

Poor Blake looked so confused during the whole travel episode, she'd felt sorry for him and couldn't imagine what was going through his mind at present. Time travel, Preservers, Protectors—this was all hard enough to understand if properly informed and well trained. Blake had been neither.

The mission could have been blown, but somehow, his natural instinct took over and he saved his great-great-grandfather, who in turn, saved the commanding officer so he could lead his troops to win the battle. Blake had successfully preserved history.

Ariel wanted nothing more than to go to Blake now to explain things, but she couldn’t. The timing was off. She’d been sent into the future to the year 2020 in the midst of a new mission, and Blake had been sent back to his normal reality in the present 2016.

As a Protector, she had more than one person to worry about at any given time, unlike a Preserver such as Blake, who was only responsible for preserving the history of a single bloodline—one generation at a time. She sighed. There was no way for her to reach him now, not until he was sent on his next mission, and nobody, other than the gods, would know when that would be. Even the gods would have little notice, reacting to Satan’s Army of intruders.

A tinge of hope crept into Ariel as she recalled her mother speaking of a special power her Protector grandmother had that allowed her to access a time period without being summoned. Her mother, like most Protectors, did not possess that power. It was said her grandmother didn't pass on the knowledge because it was frowned upon by the gods, and punishable. However, Ariel was still tempted to try to figure it out. Tempting, like eating the forbidden fruit.

She lay back on the bed, her weary body melting onto the soft mattress. The Civil War mission—any mission, really—usually exhausted her. She needed a few minutes of shut-eye before heading out to Times Square. The gods had caught rumblings of a potential bombing. The Preserver hadn’t arrived yet, so she had nobody to watch over.

Her eyelids fluttered shut. Visions of Blake’s dark brown gaze fixed on her when she'd held down his lean body so the doctor could tend to his wound pierced her heart. The man had been in so much pain, and there was nothing she could do for him. From prior experiences, she knew the gods would not transport him back to real time until his wound was stabilized. Time travel was too dangerous—exhausting with any type of injury.

She wondered what the poor guy must be thinking right now with no one to go to for clarification on the matter of time travel, and with an unhealed musket ball wound to his arm. A first mission was hard enough to begin with, but to the unprepared, it must have been devastating.

An overwhelming need to beg the gods to send her back in time, to 2016, tugged at her, but she knew it didn’t work that way. Still, she wanted to be with him. Even with all the cannon fire and musket balls flying by them, she took notice of her attraction to him. A level of magnetism she hadn’t felt for any man since she’d first met her ex-husband in college. Sadly, he was the same man who’d left her over five years ago when her time travel had taken its toll on their near twenty-year marriage. Her abrupt, strange, unexplainable behavior at times sent him on his way. So many times, she’d wanted to explain to him what was going on, but the code among Protectors and Preservers was secrecy, and he was neither.

The life of a Protector was lonely. If not for her son, Wyatt, she’d have nobody.

An uneasy sensation raked through her. Soon, she’d have to start preparing Wyatt for his destiny. She wondered how he’d take it when he found out he was a Protector. A rewarding job, but punishing at times.

Ariel indulged herself, allowing for a few more minutes of fantasies of Blake. The depth of his sincere, dark eyes enthralled her when they’d locked gazes. The peek into his soul assured her he was a good man and would embrace his role as a Preserver, especially once he’d figured it out.

Her inner Protector alarm went off. She sprang from the bed and shot off to Times Square. The Preserver she waited for had arrived.

* * * *

Blake returned home from visiting the graves of his veteran ancestors, which included his great-great-grandfather who fought in the Civil War, great-grandfather who fought in the Spanish-American War, a grandpa who served in WWI, WWII, and the Korean War, and his dad, who was a decorated Vietnam veteran. He couldn’t be prouder of his lineage.

His sluggish steps brought him to his bathroom. He grimaced in pain as he slipped out of his shirt, then he eyed his injured limb through the mirror. Denial of the whole incident flooded him, but the slightest movement of his aching arm made him a believer. He’d traveled to the past—to the Civil War. He'd worn a Union uniform. He shook his head. Impossible. No, it was possible, because had he been wearing the shirt he'd just taken off, it would be blood-stained and would surely sport a hole where his arm had been injured. The shirt lying on the counter had neither a hole nor blood stain. ~What in the hell?~

After dampening a washcloth, he patted away the dried blood surrounding his wound before he choked a couple pain relievers down his dry throat.

It wasn’t even dinner time yet, and all he wanted to do was sleep. He stripped down and slipped between the cool sheets on his bed and closed his heavy eyelids.

How odd; the entire time he'd spent in the Civil War registered zero minutes in real time. Or so he assumed based upon the time it took him to place the flags in the old county cemetery. So, had he been standing next to someone when he time traveled, would they have even noticed? Probably not. He'd never noticed his dad disappear, yet he must have at times. Did his dad travel on Memorial Day as well? Did he travel to wars? How many times had his father traveled and how often?

Through dark lids, the events of the day replayed through Blake's mind. He searched for anything to make sense of it all. No logic whatsoever surfaced.

According to the beautiful woman who’d helped him, his time travel was a power passed down from his father, and his father before him, and so on. How, at forty-eight years old, had he never caught wind of this before? How could his dad not have prepared him for such a lifealtering event? It wasn’t like his dad’s death was sudden; he’d been ill for months. There'd been plenty of time to tell him. And it’s not like they weren’t close—they were. They talked about everything else.

Now, what about his daughter, Eva? Would she inherit this ability upon his death, or was it a power passed only through males in their line? How could he prepare her when he didn’t even know what was going on? Who could he ask? His distant cousin Evan who was in prison? Or was he out of prison now? The man did show up on the battlefield hoping to kill Blake's great-great-grandfather. But why? Blake knew the answer. To change history. To make his family line the heroes of war, rather than mine. ~If he'd succeeded, would I have wound up in prison, rather than him? ~Blake sprang into a seated position in his bed. ~Shit!~ His heart slammed against his rib cage. The ante just went up. He'd need to embrace his role as a Preserver and figure it out. There was too much at stake to ignore it, to hope it would simply go away.

Within a few minutes, exhaustion overtook the panic, and Blake lay back down. His eyes drifted closed. A vision of Ariel hung in his mind. Her soft, reassuring voice and gaze had comforted him during his time of need. He could sure use her now to explain things to him. That was it; he needed to find her. But how? They’d had such little time together, he was lucky to find out what he had. He didn't even know her last name. How would he ever find her?

When would he be beckoned again? Would she be the Protector with him when he did get called upon? He hoped so for more than one reason. The second she’d laid her tiny hands on him to hold him still while the doctor worked on his arm, he’d felt a connection to her. The same connection he’d only felt once before in his life, and that was to his late wife, Patti—the love of his life.

Ariel’s soft, warm hands had sparked every nerve ending in his body. The depth of her bright blue eyes had sent his heart thudding in his chest, briefly taking his mind off the fact the doctor dug into his raw flesh.

A collage of images of his day played through his mind, starting with him standing at the podium in front of city hall delivering his Memorial Day speech, recognizing soldiers—heroes who gave so much for this great country. He remembered his daughter standing proudly with the other active-duty troops.

He recalled the large crowd of civilians that had gathered around the memorial. Some faces were familiar to him, others were not. He remembered how oddly nervous he was at the podium, then the calming effect that that washed over him when he'd shared a glance with a blond woman with piercing blue eyes. During that brief moment, it was as if she was the only person in the audience.

A rush of adrenaline shot through his veins and his eyes popped open. It was her—Ariel. She’d been at the Memorial Day event. He’d seen her before his time travel. She’d been right in front of him, in his hometown. He sprang out of bed and grabbed his phone to call his buddy who’d videotaped the program. He needed to watch the video, to see this mystery woman.

“Chad, this is Blake. Can I get a copy of today’s video?”

“Sure. I’ll send the file over.”

“Can you do it right away?”

“Yeah. Are you okay?” Chad asked.

Why would his friend ask that? “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

Was he fine? No. But there was no way he would even attempt to explain his day to anyone. They'd think he was crazy.

“Blake, are you sure? You looked so out of it when Tori and I saw you at the stoplight on Madison Ave earlier today; we were a bit worried. And now you sound so…frenzied.”

“Madison Avenue?” Blake repeated.

“Yeah, you were stopped at the red light. We walked in the crosswalk in front of you. We waved, and you just stared out over us. I took a step back to knock on the window, but the light turned green, and you took off.”

Good Lord, he didn’t remember seeing them.

“I’m sorry. I have a lot on my mind with Eva being deployed. I guess it just hit me kind of hard today, being Memorial Day and all.” Okay, so he lied to his friend, but what was he supposed to tell him? Oh, by the way, I time traveled to the Civil War today, got shot in the arm with a musket ball, and preserved history. Yeah, that would go over well.

“I can understand that. I sent the file. Did you receive it?”

Blake checked his email. “Yep, it’s here. Thanks. I’ll catch you later.” He quickly disconnected the call. The anticipation of seeing Ariel on the video nearly killed him.

The video started with a quick panning of the three hundred plus crowd, then landed on him at the podium. After a few words, the camera angle steadied on the soldiers for a moment before settling on the crowd directly in front of him. There she stood, a couple of rows back. Her ivory skin glowed in the small ray of sunshine peeking through the overcast sky. Within seconds, the sunbeam disappeared.

Strands of silky hair fell beyond her shoulders, but from the angle of the camera, and with those kids standing in front of her, he couldn’t quite tell exactly the length of it. On the battlefield, and in the hospital, it'd been pulled up and tucked under her uniform hat, helping to disguise her as a young man.

As he continued to watch the video, when he acknowledged the soldiers who were present, she clapped along with the rest of the audience. Her plump, pink grapefruit-colored lips tilted into a full smile, making the corners of her eyes crease. Now that he’d had time to get a better look at her, he guessed her to be in her late thirties, maybe forty. But more importantly, she had been in the neighborhood. His heart hammered in his chest. Was she from Door County? Did this mean he’d be able to locate her?

He hit pause and stared at the screen, unable to pull his eyes from her. Remembering her touch to his skin warmed him. Her soft, comforting voice replayed through his head. The depth of her penetrating blue-eyed gaze, even through the computer monitor, was as intense as it was when she sat at his side in the makeshift hospital.

He needed to find this woman, and for more than just answers to his time travel questions. His heart fluttered. His stomach swirled. He needed to get to know this woman, Ariel, on a personal level. Finding her was his new life mission.