Yesterday's Sun by Amanda Brooke

up the courage to leave for my own protection, but I could for my son, although it took some hard lessons before I realized that.” Jocelyn’s voice had withered to a whisper and the age-worn wrinkles around her eyes seemed to cut deeper into her face. Her whole body shuddered, despite the warmth of the morning sun streaming through the window.
    “Are you all right?” Holly asked.
    “I’m fine. I think someone just walked over my grave.” Again, there was that furtive glance toward the window. “I’m sorry, Holly. It’s so hard to go back to that part of my life.”
    “No, it’s me who should apologize. I don’t think I quite realized how awful a time you had here. I’m so sorry,” said Holly.
    “Don’t be sorry. Be hopeful. Don’t give up on your dreams yet, Holly.”
    For a split second, Holly didn’t think about her dreams but her nightmares. “Perhaps I should be careful what I wish for,” she said to Jocelyn. “Now, enough serious talk; these cakes aren’t going to eat themselves.”
    “Belgian chocolates? You go to Belgium for six weeks and the best you can come up with is Belgian chocolates?” growled Holly sleepily. She had been woken abruptly by Tom jumping onto the bed like an excited puppy and announcing that he was home. It was two thirty in the morning.
    “But look at the wrapping!” Tom replied loudly to make sure Holly was fully awake.
    Holly blinked her eyes, still trying to adjust to the painfully bright bedroom light that Tom had just switched on. Her heart was thudding in her chest, partly from the shock of the early morning wake-up and partly from the joy of Tom’s return. She looked at the large red chocolate box. “It’s not even wrapped,” she complained.
    Tom undid the top buttons on his shirt and slipped the box inside. “How about now?” He was kneeling with his legs on each side of Holly, pinning her down. He leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose.
    “You smell,” she teased. “It would be like peeling a clove of garlic.”
    “Peel away, Mrs. Corrigan.”
    She kissed him, softly at first and then with a hunger that came from deep within. In her mind, she chased away the shadows of the past and more importantly the shadows of the future. Everything she needed was in the present. All she needed was Tom.
    The box of chocolates disappeared beneath a sea of bed linen and eagerly discarded clothing. “I missed you,” she whispered as she lay in his arms. She curled her fingers through his unruly hair and pulled his head back to look into his eyes. They were the same eyes she had looked into during her moonlit nightmare, only now they glinted green and held no hint of the grief that had consumed the man her warped mind had created. Try as she might, Holly couldn’t shake the picture she had now created of Tom in her mind. The fear for the future that Holly had tried to ignore sparked into life and doubt crept in. What if the moondial had summoned the vision? What if it really had shown her the future?
    Tom frowned as he recognized the look of sadness in Holly’s eyes. “You must hate me for doing this to you,” he told her. “Uprooting you to the country and then abandoning you. I’m a lousy husband.”
    “You’re the best husband I could ever have. I’m blessed to be loved so much. Never forget that.” Holly wrapped Tom tightly in her arms and squeezed away the tears and the doubts. Fully awake and thinking only of the present, Holly’s mind did a double take and she pushed Tom away from her again so that they were face-to-face. “Hold on. Why are you here? You were supposed to be staying over in London tonight, ready for the showdown with the studio tomorrow. What’s happened?”
    Tom sighed and closed his eyes. He leaned forward and rested his head on Holly’s as if the weight of the world were bearing down on him.
    “It’s bad, isn’t it?” Holly said, her heart hammering.
    Tom lifted his head and tried to smile. Holly knew he wasn’t about