Read Online A Husband in Time by MAGGIE SHAYNE - Free Book Online

He’ll never become sick, never die. And, Jane, I must do it from here, from this very room.”
    â€œWhy?” she asked him, and she slowly realized that she was believing this man. In shock over what he was claiming, but still believing it.
    â€œThere’s something here, some force, some sort of wrinkle in the fabric of time, as I told you before. My device opens a doorway into that void, and allows me to travel through it. But I’ve attempted opening the doorway in other areas, outdoors, on theground, in other rooms. It doesn’t function, Jane. Only here. Only in this very room.”
    He sighed and lowered his head. “And I must admit, there’s a distinct possibility that the doorway is limited. That my travel will only take me from this time to my own, and back again. I might return only to experience the death of my son, and be unable to stop it.”
    He seemed surprised when he looked down to see Jane blinking tears from her eyes. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost Cody,” she told him. “It would kill me, I think.”
    â€œThen you understand how important this is to me.”
    She nodded. “Of course I understand. I’m a mother. How could I not?”
    â€œThen…”
    Jane licked her lips, drew a fortifying breath, and then saw the plea in Cody’s eyes, identical to the one in Zach’s. “All right,” she said at last. “All right, you can stay. For as long as you need to.”
    He sighed, every muscle in his body relaxing at once, as the tension was visibly washed away.
    â€œThank you. It isn’t enough, I know, but…” He shook his head, as if words failed him. “Thank you.”
    Jane got to her feet, pressed his journal into his hands. “I just hope you can do this—go back far enough, I mean.”
    He closed his eyes as the agony of possible failure washed over him, nearly buckling his knees. “I have to.”
    â€œMaybe not,” Cody said quickly. “What was it that killed your son, Zach?”
    He sighed hard. “Quinaria fever,” he said softly.
    Cody grinned, but Jane’s heart almost stopped beating. She’d forgotten. My God, how had she forgotten? She gripped Cody’s arm to stop him. “Cody, no—”
    â€œWe can cure that now,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about trying to go back to a time before Benjamin got sick. All we have to do is get the medicine for you, Zach, and you’ll be able to make him well again.”
    He stared at Cody, gaping. And then he grabbed Jane’s son, and hugged him tightly to his chest.
    Jane stood there, watching them, trying to breathe, though her chest felt tight and heavy. She knew that she couldn’t let this happen. She had to stop Zach from saving his beautiful, sick little boy.
    Because if he did, there was a good chance she’d end up losing her own.

Four
    S he left them. There was nothing she could do. Not now, not with Cody standing there listening to every word. She had three days. Three days to find a way to keep Zachariah Bolton from returning to the past and curing his dying child.
    My God, she must be some kind of monster to be thinking this way! How could she? But Cody… Cody was everything to her. All she had, all she’d ever wanted. If she lost him…
    She knuckled a tear from her eye and told herself she was right. Benjamin’s death had saved countless lives. It was meant to be, and as painful as that knowledge was, it was there. It was meant to be. You couldn’t just go around altering history.
    She bit her trembling lip. Maybe there was another way….
    Damn, she’d drive herself crazy thinking about this. It made her dizzy when she considered the magnitude of it all, the ramifications, the impossibility of it. She deliberately focused on taking the blueberry muffins from the oven, setting the table. She had time. Three days. For now, she