Two hours and three pizzas later, Beth sprawled next to Robert on the sofa, so full she could barely breathe. Across from them, Josh leaned forward in his favorite chair, elbows on his knees, and pored over the photos spread across the scuffed-up coffee table between them. He had uploaded them from Beth’s cell phone and printed them while they waited for the pizzas to arrive. All colorful pictures taken of Fosterly and its inhabitants.
“Do you believe me now?” Beth asked around a wide yawn. Just as she had known he would, Josh had panicked halfway through her tale, believing she had suffered some kind of mental breakdown. Hence the pictures.
“How can this be?” Josh murmured, spearing a hand through his thick brown locks. “Time travel isn’t possible. It just isn’t.” He shook his head. “Do you know how screwed up the world would be if time travel were possible?”
Robert grunted. “’Tis precisely what Beth told me when she sought to convince me of the truth.”
Josh frowned and held up a photo. “Is this William Shatner?”
Beth grinned. “No. His name is Edward. But he looks a lot like him, doesn’t he?”
Josh continued to examine the photos. “What about this one? This teenager. Why does he look familiar to me?”
Beth took the picture and studied it. “I don’t know. Something about him seemed familiar to me, too, but I could never figure out what. That’s Marcus, Robert’s squire. I wish you could meet him, Josh. He’s the sweetest kid.”
“Hmm.”
She returned the picture to the array on the coffee table. “Come on, Josh. You know me. You know I would never lie to you. I have no reason to lie to you about where I’ve been or why I haven’t contacted you. So the only explanations left are that I actually did go back in time or that I’m delusional.” She settled back against the cushions once more and motioned to the coffee table. “You can’t take pictures of delusions. And be honest. Aside from claiming I went back in time, does anything else about me seem off? Anything that would indicate I’ve suffered some kind of breakdown or have been… I don’t know… mentally reconditioned to believe I went back in time by some captor?”
He pursed his lips. “You are speaking Middle English. Mostly.”
She rolled her eyes. “What are the chances I would even remember that language if I’d really lost it?”
Josh sighed and resumed his perusal of the photos.
Robert took Beth’s hand and linked his fingers through hers, giving it a squeeze. “Beth?”
She glanced up at him. He looked as sleepy and sated as she felt. “Aye?”
His lips turned up slightly at their corners. “I like pizza.”
Laughing, she raised his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles. “I do, too.”
She returned her attention to Josh.
Though his head was still bent over the photos, her brother’s piercing brown eyes watched the two of them intently.
Uh-oh.
“Why do I get the feeling you haven’t told me everything?” he asked, his voice ominously soft.
Beth lowered Robert’s hand to her lap and toyed with it as anxiety rose. “Umm.”
“Beth?”
“Do you believe that I was in the thirteenth century?” she asked, procrastinating.
A long pause followed. “Yes.”
“You hesitated!”
“Well,” he said defensively, “admitting you believe in time travel is a little hard to do. It makes me feel like I’m the one who is delusional.”
Robert squeezed her hand. “You had a difficult time admitting it yourself, sweetling.”
“Thanks so much for reminding me,” she grumbled.
“So what haven’t you told me?” Josh pressed.
Beth squirmed beneath his gaze, afraid he would blow a gasket when she told him the little part she had left out of her tale.
The little part about getting married.
“The fault lies with me,” Robert said. “As you are the head of her family, I should have waited until I could speak with you. But, in truth, I knew not if I would be able to, or that I would accompany Beth here when she left Fosterly.”
Josh’s face remained impassive. “What are you saying?”
“I fell deeply in love with Bethany and, fearing I would soon lose her to the future, did convince her to wed me a little over a sennight ago.”
Josh slumped back in his chair, his expression stunned. “You’re married?”
Beth leaned forward. “I know. You’re thinking I should have waited. Or maybe that I shouldn’t have married him at all, because he’s a total stranger to you. And it did all happen pretty quickly. But I really love him, Josh. And I didn’t know if I would ever be able to come back here. And even if I had known and had waited, we couldn’t have gotten married here anyway, because Robert doesn’t have a birth certificate or a social security number.”
Josh looked from her to Robert to their clasped hands, then back to her. “You’re really married?”
“Yes.”
“Happily?”
“Very much so.”
“You really love him?”
“More than I ever thought I could love someone.”
“No doubts at all?”
“None whatsoever.”
He looked to Robert. “And you love her?”
“Aye. I would give my life for her.”
Beth swung on him with a scowl and punched him hard in the shoulder. “Damn it, stop saying that!”