Free Homecoming by Elizabeth Jennings

enough of her time. Her uncle’s time. Mansion Enterprises’ time.
    But it wouldn’t come together. Every time she tried to establish a strategy, the thoughts would burst and fragment into a thousand pieces. It was like trying to push against a black rubber wall. The harder she pushed, the more it resisted.
    It was useless. In her head was a jumble of words—Harry’s Folly, sale, lien—all meaningless, except for the heaviness they created in her mind and heart.
    It was a clear night and the Milky Way was a creamy ribbon spiraling across the sky. The last time Federica had seen so many stars so clearly had been at the Tahiti Mansion Inn last year, though of course the constellations had been in the southern hemisphere, and therefore different and unfamiliar.
    It was easier thinking about the stars than about her life. Safer.
    She tried to recall a sky chart she’d once had as a child. She’d been fascinated by the constellations, the mythology, and had spent many long hours looking out her bedroom window, matching the charts to the stars.
    Just as Federica realized that she hadn’t heard the van’s engine start up, there was the sound of boots on gravel, and the broad-shouldered black outline of a man blotted out Ursa Minor.
    Jack climbed the steps and sat down next to her. They sat that way, in silence, for a long time.
    Jack tilted his head and studied the night sky. “The ancients used to think that the Milky Way was a staircase to heaven. Some think humans became explorers because they wanted to follow the Milky Way to the end.”
    Federica didn’t answer. The tall oaks blotted out great clumps of bright starry sky. In the distance, down in the valley, lights went out, one by one, until only one building was visible.
    “Looks like Stella’s is still open,” she said finally.
    “Looks like it,” he agreed.
    Another long silence followed, broken only by the sudden eruption of a cricket’s seesawing cry and the soft hooting of a night owl. If not for the lights still burning at Stella’s down in the valley, they could have been the only humans on Earth.
    Federica rested her forehead on her knees. “How much time do I have?”
    He was smart. He’d know what she meant. How long could they hold off the start of negotiations? How much time could he give her? She didn’t even want to think of the real question.
    How much time do we have?
    Jack turned his head to her, considering. “I’d say…four days. Five if I push it. Then I’ll have to plug us back in and put Carson’s Bluff back on the map.” He paused for a long moment. “Will that be enough?”
    “I don’t know,” Federica whispered. Four days. Maybe five. It was as if a dense fog had come down and cut her life off four, maybe five, days down the road. She couldn’t see anything beyond the four or five days Jack had just given her. She couldn’t think about what was waiting for her in the fog. “I guess it’ll have to be.”
    “I guess it will.” His deep voice was soft. Federica wondered what he was thinking.
    She wondered what she was thinking. Her mind had switched off.
    But her body hadn’t.
    She could feel Jack’s body heat, though she could barely see him, a large black mass in the surrounding blackness of the night. She needed to turn to him as a sunflower needed the sun.
    Without thinking, she reached out with her hand and found it captured in his large, hard one. He pulled slowly, gently, until she rested her head against his heart, listening to the solid, heavy beat. Her own heart had gone into overdrive. Without any conscious thought of what she was doing, she lifted her head just as his descended. His hand moved through the mass of short curls and held her head still, mouth hovering just above hers.
    Then Jack’s mouth covered hers, moving gently until she opened her lips, and he began a slow, heady invasion.
    Excitement. Comfort. Promise. Danger. They were all present in his long, slow kiss. Federica heard small, breathy