Stolen Time: A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Novel (Primetime of Life Book 2) Read online

  Stolen Time

  Primetime of Life

  Book 2

  L.A. Boruff

  Copyright © 2021 by L.A. Boruff All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design Copyright © 2021 Glowing Moon Designs Book Design by Gina Writes Words: Author Services Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2021

  Dedicated to Alexandra Sherrod

  Thank you for being amazing.

  Chapter 1

  Spandex, check. Leg warmers, check. Olivia Newton-John getting physical on MTV, check. I had to sit around and wait for the next job at a safehouse in the eighties, so I was going to have fun with it. This assignment from TIME was one of those hurry up and wait kind of situations that left me with plenty of free time and nothing to do with it.

  I glanced at Fred. “You ready?”

  My miniature fire-breathing dragon companion snorted and a little flicker of flame shot out of his left nostril. “I was born ready.” He spoke with a hoity-toity British accent and an extra flap of his wings as he hovered beside me.

  “Fae are born, right? You guys don’t have eggs?” I didn’t know much about him. Not how he came to be or why he’d been unlucky enough to be assigned to me.

  He rolled his eyes at the egg comment. “Mind your business, Missy. And keep your mind on what you’re doing.” He nodded to Olivia who was already mid workout. “Rewind. Your yammering has made us miss the best part of the song.”

  Fred was a card, and I grinned. “TiVo hasn’t been invented yet. But if you wait a couple of hours, this song will play again.” Besides, I was hoping for some long-haired Bon Jovi to get down to. “Come on. Let’s sweat to some oldies, Richard Simmons.”

  “Who?” He scratched his purple, scaled head.

  I ignored him and jazzercised across the living room and back again.

  Artie, who was not about any kind of exercise when he wasn’t required to do it, sighed as if my aerobic routine was a personal affront to his religious beliefs or his politics, then laid his head on the table and groaned. “1984 sucks.” He grumbled a bit more, then busted out with, “The eighties suck!”

  He was in a mood, so I ignored him in favor of some deep squats.

  The safehouse was typical of a house built in the early 1900s. Big and airy and musty, but at least it was clean and mostly comfortable and we didn’t have to share a bedroom.

  Definitely better than some skeezy hotel where we would’ve been in the same space every minute we weren’t working. At least this way, we had our own rooms to disappear into when the annoyances came on hard. TIME might not have known squat about how to time a job, but they kept us comfortable when things ran over.

  I was bored enough to poke the Artie-bear. “Why? What’s wrong with the eighties?”

  Instead of answering, he looked up at me, grunted, then banged his forehead when his head dropped to the tabletop again. After a few moments of muttering to himself, he stood, walked to the kitchen, then came back a minute later with yet another cup of coffee in his hand. This had to be at least number four, and I wasn’t halfway finished with the workout yet. It was barely eight a.m.

  Probably he was sucking down coffee because whiskey so early in the day was forbidden. Or at least frowned upon in the politer circles of society.

  He curled his lip as I did a leg kick that would’ve made a Rockette weep with jealousy. “What is your major malfunction today, Artie?” I’d heard that phrase in a movie once and had been excited to use it. I substituted Artie for “numbnuts,” though, because when he was offended he was nine times more grumbly, and Artie wasn’t impressed by terms of endearment that could also pass for insults.

  “Full Metal Jacket hasn’t been filmed yet in this time.” And more grumbling ensued. Something about me disturbing the space-time continuum with my ridiculous pop-culture references. “Just hurry it up.”

  “My workout isn’t the reason we’re still in 1984.” And I’d continue my references. They were fun!

  He sighed and plopped down as he slurped at his coffee. “We should be finished by now.”

  “Uh-huh.” He was right. “But the job isn’t done. And what difference does it make anyway? It’s not like anyone will know we’re gone. We’re witches, and we’re going to return to the minute we left.” Sometimes I had to remind him of the most essential things. As a handler, he was great at accountability. Not so much at morale.

  He sighed again, this time slowly, like a deflating balloon. “Have you forgotten everything you learned on the first day?”

  I grinned at him. “You mean how to blow people up or how to freeze them?”

  Artie curled his lip and narrowed his eyes. Frustration on Artie looked a lot like he was trying to impersonate Elvis. “No, smart gal. The longer we’re in a place the more chance there is we’ll affect the timeline.” He gave me an up and down look. “And knowing you, it’ll certainly involve blowing something up or freezing it.”

  Now he was just being rude.

  “I’m going to take a shower. Then we can go out again after you make my breakfast.” He grunted again, playing his tune of woe like a one-string banjo. “Fine. But it’s going to take longer.” I popped a bagel in the toaster then speed cooked my eggs and bacon with the help of some easy magic while Fred hovered at my shoulder, backseat cooking.

  “You should flip that egg.”

  When I didn’t, he instituted a battle round for the skillet. As we grappled for the handle, the little guy a lot stronger than he looked, the egg flopped over the side of the skillet onto the floor.

  Fred lamented with a long sigh. “Moment of silence?”

  We lowered our heads. “At least he didn’t suffer.” He swiped an imaginary tear away from my eye with the edge of his wing.

  I just glared at the little menace. “Maybe you could let me cook this time?”

  He sighed. “Fine, but I don’t like runny eggs or crispy bacon.”

  We’d been together long enough. I knew all of his breakfast demands. “Fine.”

  When Artie had taught me to fast cook, instead of it just being about the food, he’d turned it into a lesson on using the same magic to barbecue a mortal so they looked as if they’d died naturally from a high fever. That seemed like forever ago, but it had only been a matter of weeks.

  After my shower, when my hair was fifty-percent of my body height which was fifty-percent taller than I’d been at this time in the 21st century, I pulled a can of Waternet hairspray from the cabinet and sprayed. I even had to move into the hall because the haze in the bathroom was too thick.

  To his bad luck, Artie walked by as I sprayed. I coated him in a layer of his own. “Spare the ozone, Ro. We’re going to need one to go back to.”

  His grumbling was reaching its crescendo. I hoped so anyway because he was wearing me out and it wasn’t even nine yet. I really cared about Artie but he wore on the nerves something fierce.

  “Look, Artemis.” I was trying variations of his name for fun. “We already know how the past plays out. No harm, no foul.” I was born in 1977, so t
his time in the 80s was delightful. A new world because last time, I’d seen it through a seven year-old’s eyes. This time, I was going to milk as much experience out of this era as I could. It was one of my favorites.

  Plus, even though I was forty plus, the training and the magic made me look young. Younger, anyway. Mid-thirties tops. I was unscarred by adult acne the magic had taken away, and my body was toned and tanned. It had been a while since I looked this good, if ever. I was going to flaunt it, big hair and all.

  Fred perched on my shoulder and used a wing to poke my hair. “It’s quite bulletproof.”

  Artie held the door for us. “Dear Lord. The things I have to deal with.”

  “Cheer up, buttercup. We’re almost home free.”

  But until we made it back to the 2020s, the 1980s were my jam.

  Chapter 2

  Some days I didn’t blame Artie for his attitude, but today was not one of those days. He was ruining 1984 for me with his aversion to the eighties. “I can’t be friends with anyone who doesn’t love Michael Jackson.”

  Artie sighed. We’d been discussing my undying love for the king of pop because a news report on the radio of this decade old deathtrap—a 1974 AMC lime green Gremlin that was anything but inconspicuous—said that Michael Jackson had been injured when his hair caught on fire while taping a Pepsi commercial. Back in 2021, I’d been listening to a report of his family suing because he’d been killed by being given too much pain medication for migraines he’d suffered since this incident. It was wild, knowing what was coming and knowing I couldn’t do anything to help.

  “What is your obsession with all these relics?” Artie asked. He flipped off the radio when the fourth Michael Jackson song played. “For God’s sake, I would rather listen to that Beaver boy.”

  I let the words roll through my head for a minute, trying to decipher who he meant. “You mean Bieber?” I chuckled. “He isn’t even a sperm in his dad’s Levis yet.” This must’ve been hard on Artie, who was horrible with all forms of change, even the ones that sent us backward, because being a mentor wasn’t his destiny. He should’ve been on a beach in Florida by now, his years with TIME ended by retirement. But then, they’d stuck him with me. He’d helped me of his own accord at first, not expecting them to stick us together semi-permanently. But in the last week, he’d stopped even pretending to be a good sport.

  “Could we just stop talking and look for the rogue?” A rogue witch was an enemy with power and for reasons I didn’t understand or care to, I had to find this one and eliminate him. On the whole, it sounded way more glamorous than sitting in a car with Artie reading a file while he grumbled.

  “Fine. The file says his name is Simon Sharpe.”

  Artie scoffed. “He is going by Simon Sharpe. That isn’t his name.”

  Semantics were Artie’s pet peeve. And I was one correction from shoving a semantic up his left nostril. If I did, he would have no one to blame but himself, since he was the one who insisted I train to be able to do it.

  I forced some annoyance out of my head but it landed in my voice and lowered it. “Says he is low-level, but connected.” My orders were to capture and interrogate, if possible, then eliminate. And I was secretly excited. I’d never been allowed to interrogate anyone but Fred, who was always my practice subject.

  I could’ve definitely put an end to him before he even knew I was there, on his tail, sniffing his scent, going for the gusto. But this had the potential to be more fun. And Artie, Fred and I were enjoying the eighties. Well, Fred and I were enjoying. Artie could tell his own story about it.

  I climbed out of the car and walked into a soda shoppe straight out of the Barbie decorated buildings. Light pink, backless barstools sat in front of a long white counter, a young boy behind the counter in a pink and white striped apron over his crisp white shirt and white pants with black shoes and a boat hat.

  The smell of fresh fried cone batter sweetened the air and the boy smiled.

  I motioned toward the lad. In this time, boys were still lads. Mostly. “My treat, Artie. Pick a flavor.” Actually, TIME’s treat, but it was coming out of my time-appropriate currency stack for “necessities.” Today, ice cream was necessary.

  The boy smiled. “We have thirty-one flavors.” Then like he was being tested, he started naming them. All of them.

  For all the kid’s trouble, Artie grumbled—yet again—and threw in an eyeroll because it wasn’t clear enough that he was grumpy and he needed to add another layer. “I don’t eat anything with that much sugar.”

  Behind the kid, Fred, who was invisible until he didn’t want to be, used an ice cream scooper to send a dollop of Butter Brickle into a wide arc he caught with his cone. I grinned. With the lad completely oblivious, Fred juggled the cone, another scooper full of Strawberry Fields Forever, and a container of sprinkles. When Artie cleared his throat, the whole mess fell with a clatter, and the kid turned to find the mess as Fred faded to fully invisible.

  The kid stared down his mouth open, then Fred, ever the joker, buzzed around the kid’s head like an annoying and invisible fly. The poor guy twisted in circles trying to swat my naughty little companion. I fake coughed. “Enough, Fred!”

  I ordered my two scoops of Blueberry Wishes and Muffin Dreams, and waited while the kid plopped them into my waffle cone and added sprinkles. There was one shaker left Fred hadn’t managed to drop.

  I glanced at Artie. His narrowed-eyes, thinned mouth, and flared nostrils either meant disgust or jealousy. I didn’t know…I also didn’t care which, so I smiled and stuck my tongue out.

  He inhaled and the air whistled through his nose. “Hurry up.”

  Fred appeared beside me with a new monstrosity of a cone. It was four scoops tall and two scoops wide in a cone he could’ve bathed in. It was a masterpiece of sprinkles and color and chocolate.

  Poor Artie. He wasn’t enjoying the eighties because he didn’t know how to do it right. I was not so afflicted.

  Chapter 3

  I walked beside Fred out of the shop and Artie lagged behind. There weren’t many people outside—a couple skateboarders, a Gilmore Girls style Troubadour and a lady walking about seven dogs on a short leash. But across the street, wearing parachute pants and shirt with random zippers across the front, Simon Sharpe stared at me for a second while I stared at him in utter shock. Okay, maybe I hadn’t actually expected to run into him.

  At the same moment I recognized him, he took off running like he knew I was a TIME witch, which was something I'd been assured many times wasn’t a trait like hair color that could be assessed upon meeting me. He shouldn’t have been able to tell.

  Dammit. I’d only gotten two licks of my ice cream. I dropped my cone and took off. “Swear to god, if he made me throw my ice cream away, and I don’t catch him, and he doesn’t have information that saves the freaking world…” I trailed off because I had to round a corner, and I was always a little cautious. No telling when a fist or a well-timed knee could cripple a girl.

  He dashed into an alley ahead, littered with trash fallen out of an overstuffed dumpster, and too bad for him, but it was a dead end. Unfortunately for me, it smelled like every wino and stray dog had taken a leak against the buildings on either side.

  Behind me, Artie huffed and puffed because for all the working out he made me do, the hours of training, the dietary restrictions and protein shakes, he was so out of shape I’d be lucky if he arrived before Tuesday. And Fred, probably back with his ice cream, or bloated from shoving it all into his snout, was nowhere to be seen.

  Simon smiled. He was kind of cute for a rogue. Tall and semi-dark, from his zippered shirt to his Tom Seleck mustache, he had a Magnum PI vibe I could’ve gotten into if he hadn’t been my new mark. I shook my head. If he’d been dressed like the guys from Miami vice with their neon T-shirts and rolled-sleeve jackets, I wouldn’t have given him a second glance, but Magnum was my crush. Maybe interrogating this guy wouldn’t be so bad.

  I started a simple restrain
and retain spell, but before I got to the second line out, Simon moved his hand like he was about to attack. I spoke faster. An attack, while I was alone in the alley, could’ve crippled me. Killed even if Simon was so inclined, or I got the protection spell wrong.

  But in front of him, the blurred edges of a portal appeared. “Catch you later, Rowena Butler Hembree.” And he disappeared through the portal he then closed before I had the presence of mind to jump through with him.

  I could already hear Artie’s, “Rookie move, No-go Ro,” in my head. Following him would’ve been a bad call.

  “This is not good,” I muttered to myself as Artie wheezed up beside me.

  “What happened?” He was out of breath and bent to brace his hands on his knees.

  I barely gave him a glance. Barely looked away from the spot where my rogue assignment had opened the portal. “I don’t know, but he knew my name. He saw me. Knew who I was. Probably why I was here.”

  Artie’s panting slowed as he stared up at me. “This isn’t good.”

  I withheld my no-shit-Sherlock only by the power of clamped lips.

  He continued. “Part of what makes for an effective assassin is anonymity to the targets. If they know you, you're useless to us.”

  This time, a “Duh!” almost slipped, but my pinched lips and shallow breaths probably said what my voice didn’t. If not, Artie wasn’t nearly as bright as I thought.

  Before I could confirm my assessment, Fred appeared.

  “Thanks for the help, flyboy. Where the hell were you?”

  I didn’t usually swear at Fred, so he pulled his head back and hovered in front of my face, the chocolate streak on his snout not a valid disguise for his indignance.

  I was about to get smacked down by a miniature dragon and damned if I cared. I’d bungled an assignment, somehow, and I was beyond that now. I was seasoned. Had an assignment under my belt. This shouldn’t have happened.

  Fred tossed his little head. “I was here the entire time.”