Chapter 30

Morgan and I stood near the picnic site and watched the wagon slowly drop out of sight. May had been ensconced on her mother's lap while April had held onto the back of the driver's seat to the right of her father. Just before they dropped below the crest of the hill, Lilly waved, followed by April's.

"I want to take them with us," she said in a very tearful voice.

"I'd like to do that too," I told her. I sighed and held Morgan tightly to me. "If only," I said in my own unsteady voice.

"This is their time," she finally said. "I understand that. But that doesn't make me not long for their company in the future."

"They will all live full lives," I assured her. "And like you said, this is their time.

"We've been able to be a part of their lives only because we can time shift. Actually it makes it harder on us because we leave more people behind than normal lives."

"Can't we come back in a few years and see how they are doing," Morgan asked.

"There is only one problem with that. Our time is not their time."

"Right, I understand," she said.

Once again, Morgan proved she was right up there with the understanding of my special ability by saying, "Yeah, we could shift there right now and see them, say in five years. But we would still be the same age we are now.

"No way would we be able to explain that."

"That's the problem, you're right about that," I agreed. "Just like their lives, we have to let time pass to get older. It passes the same for us but we aren't tied to the absolute time line they are."

"I'd still like to take them with us," Morgan said, with a hint of pleading in her voice.

Then after a minute she said, "Yeah. I understand. It's just like mom and dad. Would they be able to cope with the huge shift in the way things work."

"Like your first crack at TV and my cell phone," I mentioned.

While we'd been talking, we had started up the hill and had reached where our house would be. "It's beautiful here," she said and then was quiet for a while.

"I'll always remember them," she said.

"Me too," I whispered to her as I lifted my hand and picked up a single tear which was falling over her cheek. Then we kissed. It was a soft kiss, with a tinge of sadness in it. Passion wasn't there and it was OK with me.

I put my arms around Morgan and held her tightly to me. "I love you," I said.

She returned a single word, "More."

Then she asked me if we were really going to Memphis. "No. Not today," I explained.

"I just said that as a place they knew that was not too far away and sounded reasonable. We're going back to New York City to find your parents," I said in an effort to cheer her up.

But she was right there once again with, "Yeah, but we have to go back to your house to get what we need, money and papers, first.

I had to laugh at her next question. "What?" she'd asked when she heard me laughing after she'd said, "How far is it to your parent's house?"

Of course, it was a hundred-and-sixty-five years away but she laughed too when I simply said, "Oh about two miles that-a-ways," letting her see where I was pointing into the distance.

It cracked me up when she said, "If we walked, do you think we'd get there in time for dinner?"

Her beautiful devilish smile helped. She knew exactly what she'd said. I loved her for that and pressed our lips together. "Do that a dozen times more and I'll make you take me home and force you to do the nasties with me."

"Sounds like a plan," I told her giving her a broad smile. I got a giggle from her then she said, "You meanie. I'm supposed to say that."

Of course, taking after Lilly, she landed a love pat on my shoulder, and gave me a stern, "Behave!"

When I giggled at her I waited for just a second, added another "Sounds like a plan," and took off in a trot, stopping a short way down the hill. Her correcting hand missed me by a mile.

Calling back to her I said, "Let's take a look where we're going to build your parent's house!"

I had baited her. Her only retort to that could be another, 'Sounds like a plan.'. She sure tried that one but trust me, she never got out more than an elongated "Ssss" that quickly blended into a "What???"

If you remember what I'd mentioned about us being in the JCPenney's bedding department and watching the clock spin fast, you'll get a kick out of the result of what buzzing at the correct pitch can do.

You see, if I vary the buzz while I'm moving, I can make it appear to the observer that I'm moving around, from as slow as super slow to up to extremely fast. You've seen that stunt in movies where an actor moves at an abnormal speed in a scene. Think Kung Fu fight scenes and you'll get it.

Speed and time are completely variable for me, like they do in the movies, when I change my buzz frequency.

Anyway, at the split second Morgan opened her mouth, I did a "Dash Shift', as I call it. So as she tried to speak, I was right up to her nose and gave her a kiss. Then I did a spin around to behind her. Seeing me do that the first time, she was just a little confused.

Hence, her 'Ssss' was silenced by my kiss, and the 'What?' came as a result of my instantly disappearing behind her.

Also, before she was able to figure out actually that I was behind her, I let my hands in regular time-speed, cover her eyes. I followed that motion with the usual, "Guess Who?"

Morgan was the master of surprise. I fully expected her to lift her hands and trace over mine and take a casual guess like 'Normal' people would do. Needless to say, she ain't a normal kind of fish and specifically she didn't do that.

First she reached her hands backward and got ahold of my hips. I knew she had me when those soft hands slid between us and you know just what she searched for. Finding her target, she gave me a gentle squeeze and laughed as she said, "Mister Watson, I presume,"

"Close but no cigar," I told her.

Her retort broke me up. "It sure feels like one to me!"

I was laughing so hard, my hands fell from her eyes. She really got me, with that one. It took me quite a few moments to calm my laughter. Of course, she laughed with me and soon she'd turned around and we held onto each other lest we both actually fall down.

I pressed her face to my chest and gave her just one more of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of kisses I'd be able to place on her crown. "You're silly," she said to me as her chin rose up and her lips sought out mine.

My, "You're sillier," was almost cut off as our lips joined. Man, I could get lost in eternity in them, I thought. That would be a wonderful way to go.

But, we did have places to go and people to see. As our kiss broke off, we joined hands and began our short walk over our meadow toward the wooded area. A path, wide enough for us to walk side-by-side, was there leading to the clearing I'd mentioned to Jim a while ago.

"I like the woods here," Morgan commented as we wound along the path that led between the two meadows.

"Me too," I told her adding, "We have timber here that I want to harvest. It's real good wood."

"Don't cut it here, though," she said.

"Nope. We have hundreds of acres way over the hill to do that. Plus I'm going to make sure Stanley replants a tree for every one that's cut."

There that was, in my face again. Her smile. "I like that idea," she said, then suggested, "Can you have Jim make a picnic table near that spot by the stream from some of our trees?"

"I'll have him make it out of real heavy wood so it will last a real long time," I promised Morgan.

"Great," she said and after a lover's quick kiss, we were back on our walk to the small clearing. As soon as we stepped onto the edge of the meadow, we heard a horse clicking down the road.

In one of those, 'You never know' moments, we heard, "Hi son," as the trotting pair, and I mean horse and rider, appeared around the edge of the clearing and moved into the little meadow with us.