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Love, Secrets, and Second Chances—February’s Must-Read Books Await!

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Excerpt of My Life, My Heart by Joanne C. Berroa

Purchase


Rebel Ink Press
November 2012
On Sale: November 17, 2012
Featuring: Brett Darby, PhD; Colonel Sebastian Rogers; Elena Martin
220 pages
ISBN: 1940315042
EAN: 9781940315041
Kindle: B00A8INOOS
e-Book
Add to Wish List

Romance Historical

Also by Joanne C. Berroa:

On Angels\' Wings, February 2013
e-Book
My Life, My Heart, November 2012
e-Book

Excerpt of My Life, My Heart by Joanne C. Berroa

Her fingers found the ignition switch again. The odd contraption coughed and died, but Elena was determined. "You're going to work, you ugly mess of bolts," she said.

With shaking fingers, she tried the ignition once more. Her hands were shaking, not from fear, but because she wanted her time machine to work. Outside a flash of lightning sliced through the black night, followed by the booming of thunder. She grinned. The setting was perfect. As if in agreement, the time machine didn't spurt or cough or croak. It purred. Her heart raced, skipping a few beats.

Then suddenly the lights inside the time machine went out and she was in total blackness. Her head began to throb as though her blood pressure was rising. Elena's stomach reeled and she felt faint. Beneath her feet a motor hummed then the motion stopped and she lost consciousness.

A fraction of a moment later, when she again opened her eyes, they were met with a thick black void. Little by little light broke through and she could see again. She was still in the time machine, but instead of Princeton University's Bowen hall where it sat for almost a year, it rested in a giant field of clover and it was daylight. Gone was the night and the storm. She was utterly alone.

Had she traveled through time?

She squinted against the sunlight then looked at the clock on the time machine's panel board. Eleven a.m. Only moments ago, it had been midnight. Or at least it seemed like moments ago. She looked around. In the distance were tall trees and the bright blue sky was filled with cumulus clouds. Otherwise, there was nothing. No animals, no chirping of birds, humming of bees, or the chatter of humans. It was surreal. She looked at the time machine's gauges. One gauge was made to disclose what time period she was in. It hadn't moved. Suddenly she wanted out of there, and fast. She had to get back to the University to document this. It was obvious some additional calculations had to be made before her flight could be accomplished again. The gauges and compasses should've read where she was and what period it was. The time machine was designed to remain stationary, yet it had moved. Something was amiss.

Elena started the ignition again, saying a little prayer the machine would in fact take her back to the University. What if it didn't work? Would she be stuck in this soundless dimension forever?

She felt the now familiar droning of the machine beneath her feet. Again, she lost consciousness. Expecting to awaken in Bowen hall, she was startled when she awoke to complete darkness again, and the same unnerving silence. She reached out with both arms to feel around her, but her hands touched the nothingness of space. Panic surged through her along with cold fear. If she were inside the time machine, she should feel the coolness of the metal walls. The controls should be at arm's length.

Yet her hands touched nothing. Suddenly the disturbing silence was shattered and she heard sounds, loud sounds, unintelligible at first then gradually becoming clear. Through the fuzziness of her brain, she deduced it was men's voices, thick guttural sounds and they were shouting.

She stifled a cry as blinding light filled her senses. Her pupils narrowed, trying to adjust to the brilliant light. Then, like gazing through a kaleidoscope, it all came into focus, the voices and the bodies. All around were soldiers in uniform, barmaids serving beer and whiskey and she sat on a wooden bench minus the time machine against the planked walls of a tavern. Her heart was pounding. Where was she?

From the looks of the men's attire and the blue and khaki color of their uniforms, she deduced she was hundreds of years in the past, perhaps sometime during the eighteenth century. "Oh my God," she whispered. "My time machine does work." Einstein's theory of relativity left open the possibility of time travel. He saw incongruities with the way scientists saw space–time. His theory was that moving through time was possible, and she, doctoral student Elena Martin, had proved it.

Excerpt from My Life, My Heart by Joanne C. Berroa
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