Timeless Whisper: Timeless Hearts Series, #1

By Sandra E Sinclair

Tainted by scandal, Raven Eyez leaves New York to return to her mother’s hometown of Heartsbridge, Texas, penniless with her reputation and career in tatters. If that wasn’t bad enough, she reads in a celebrity magazine her childhood sweetheart, who broke her heart five years ago, is getting married. 

The stress is unbearable, and when she starts hearing voices whispering for her to right a wrong she has no recollection of making, she’s sure she is going mad. Things go from weird to completely unbelievable when an innocent trip to a diner leaves her stranded in Heartsbridge in the year 1880.

Lance Thornton suspects his neighbors helped his fiancee leave him at the altar, so he’s determined to ruin them. On his way to the bank to insist they foreclose on them for a loan he made, he bumps into Raven, mistaking her for his runaway bride, Charlotte. He decides he’s not letting her get away this time, and refuses to listen to any of her claims that she isn’t who he thinks she is, and that she is from the future.

He’s going to make this woman pay for embarrassing him in front of the entire town. Can Raven convince Lance he's seeking revenge on the wrong woman?

• Language: English
• Publisher: 13 Doors Publications
• Release date: Feb 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386277583

Book preview

Chapter 1

Raven Eyez, you wake up this instance, there’s work to be done. You have to make things right. Lance needs to know I’m sorry. The voice in her head didn’t give her a moment’s peace. It felt as if she’d only closed her eyes for a moment. Now it was back. A constant whisper inside her head, she wished would simply go away.

It started six months ago when her father first told her of his trouble. Troubles she had no idea would have such an impact on her own life, stripping away everything she’d built. She was back to square one.

Raven groaned, straining to open her eyes. She flipped over in bed onto her stomach and glanced over at the bedside clock. It was six-thirty in the morning. She groaned again and placed her pillow over her head, both hands pressing it down against her skull.

She didn’t want to face the day.

Already penniless, and in four hours she’d be homeless too. The clock began to vibrate against the surface and chime. A novelty she once thought cute was now just an annoying timepiece. It was time for her to get up and continue what was likely the second or maybe the third worst day of her life.

Snatching the pillow from her head she swung it toward the annoyance, swiping the clock off the bedside table, and hurling it to the ground. It smashed against the hardwood floor. Then she tossed the pillow across the room.

A growl escaped her lips as she pushed herself into an upright position and rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palms. She couldn’t fight it. There was no more fight left in her.

Coffee I need, coffee, she said aloud to the empty room, which echoed her voice back to her, hollow and empty like her heart and bank account. She looked around her bare apartment. Everything she’d owned was sold and in boxes, waiting to be collected and sent off to their new homes.

Weary from the weight of the enormity of her situation, she slid her feet into her slippers and wandered from the bedroom into the kitchen to switch on the coffee maker. She may have lost everything else but she’d be taking her coffee maker with her. It was the first thing she bought for her hope chest, when she thought she and Lance Thornton would one day be married.

Yep, and look how well that turned out for me. She exhaled, pouring the coffee. Hope had become hopelessness. Maybe I should leave you behind. You could be the reason for my bad luck. She examined the pot in her hand and placed it back on its stand. Without a doubt, she was losing her mind. How could a coffee maker be the cause of her problems?

It was the men in her life that messed everything up. She’d be fine if there were no men. Just peachy on her own, doing her own thing.

Well she was single after all and likely to stay that way for a while, if the voice in her head didn’t shut up about Lance. She thought she’d closed that chapter in her life when she left Heartsbridge—that miserable little town...population eight thousand. She’d transferred to a school in New York to be with her father after her mom died.

That was the day she considered to be the worst day ever. Lance had broken up with her only hours earlier, saying he thought they should see other people. They were getting older and would be going to college, and had only ever dated each other. He thought the only way to know if they were truly meant to be together was to separate.

I mean, who does that, for crying out loud? How in the hell was seeing other people going to improve their relationship? Come on now...it was a total copout. He was too much of a coward to simply come out and say it wasn’t working for him, using that old platitude it’s not you, it’s me. It was absolutely him—the waste of space.

After the news of her mother’s passing, she couldn’t take anymore. She’d emptied her hope chest, removed the coffee maker, and a handful of clothing. She’d taken a coach to Houston, then the redeye to New York and arrived at her father’s door a blubbering mess.

She’d been in such a state, her father had left her in New York alone and returned to Heartsbridge without her, to attend her mother’s funeral.

She hadn’t been back since. That was five years ago. The road back to Heartsbridge would be a painful one. She’d be returning the same way she’d left, with very little baggage, no money, and a coffee maker. She couldn’t understand why the machine meant so much to her.

Maybe it was because it was the first thing she’d ever bought with her own money. Money she’d earned from working part-time at the local bakery with her mother. Or was it because she used it to christen the hope chest her mother had surprised her with? Whatever it was, whenever she used it, she would remember her mother and how proud she was of her when she’d purchased it.

Raven glanced around her apartment. She’d miss the place but would she miss the hustle and bustle of living in New York? She doubted it. She was a country girl at heart and always would be.

The small-town life she’d led before coming to New York had been awesome, up until the point it wasn’t anymore. She’d missed not knowing who her neighbors were and even the gossip of everyone knowing everyone else's business. Except when it was her business which became the talk of the town, then not so much.

Well there was no point delaying the inevitable. She needed to get washed and changed, then call the funeral home. Torin would be here soon, and it wasn’t fair to keep her best friend waiting. Especially when she barely knew the deceased. He’d been her father, and she’d come to realize, she’d barely known him either.

Chapter 2

Dressed in only her underwear, Raven stood in front of the sink washing her coffee maker. The little black dress she’d be wearing hung from a hook in the doorway to the kitchen. She was in the midst of drying the coffeepot when Torin let herself into the apartment, her heels clacking against the hardwood.

What you up to? Aren’t you ready? You know I hate waiting, she said, placing her purse on the countertop.

I’m sorry, I guess I shouldn’t have used this, this morning. Raven held up the jug, as she rubbed it dry. I’m taking it with me.

Why would you want that old thing?

Because it works, and it’s mine. I don’t need any more reason than that.

You could leave it, or bring it if you moved in with me.

I told you. I’m not a charity case, someone for you to pity. I had a life before New York. I’m simply going back to it.

It’s not charity. I could give you a job as my assistant, Torin said, her eyes darting around the room. She swiped her fingers across one of the boxes, then sat on it.

No, thank you. I didn’t spend four years at culinary school so I could hold your equipment while you chase tornadoes. It not on the list of things I’d want to do. Even if I do think it’s wacky, that’s your dream, not mine.

So what will you do when you go back to this Heartsbridge? A town I’ve never heard of, by the way. You must have been the first and only person in town to ever leave.

There have been many people leave. They probably just say they’re from Texas, it’s easier.

And how many of them went back, once they’d escaped the rabbit hole? Torin laughed.

You’re not funny. I wouldn’t expect you to understand being a New Yorker. I dare say you don’t know anything else. Raven didn’t have the nerve to tell her friend she was wondering the same thing. But she had an undeniable urge she just couldn’t shake, to go home.

I’m a storm chaser, and do it for a living. Of course I know what you mean.

Raven began to pack the coffee maker back into its original box.

Are you telling me you kept the box too?

Where I come from, if you’ve got the original packaging you can get an exchange or your money back...so yeah, I kept the box. Raven had no idea if what she said was true. She bought the thing when she was thirteen and thought herself in love with her first and only boyfriend.

I’m sure that might have been the case five years ago. I doubt it still works today.

Doesn’t matter if it does or doesn’t. I won’t be exchanging it anyway.

Well hurry up. I want to stop by the office on the way.

You’re going to work? How could Torin think about work on a day like today?

Only to drop off some stats. It won’t take long. We’d have been on our way by now if you’d been ready. So you can stop with the accusing eyes. Torin looked away and began to examine her expertly manicured nails.

Okay. I just need to slip into my dress, then I’ll be ready to go.

Torin was right, she should have been ready. This wasn’t Torin’s issue, it was hers. It wasn’t fair to try and take her frustrations out on her. Raven needed to accept the fact, it was her father who had embezzled money from a Fortune 500 organization, not Torin’s.

The media would be aiming their cameras and clicking away at her, telling her life story like they knew her. If Torin got exposure from it and increased the popularity for her TV show, so be it. She’d proven to be the only friend Raven had left from the elite social circle she’d once been a part of. That ceased after the news of what

Reviews for Timeless Whisper

[carolyn · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The plot was interesting however there is nothing cute or romantic about a man who abuses a woman. The hero of the story has severe anger management issues. I certainly wouldn’t want a man whose entire mental stability depends on my actions or even just his perception of my actions.