Chapter Twenty-Five

The sign read:

This site is dedicated to the founder of Bay Ridge and the founder of Manoban Banking: Lisa Manoban.

Built in 1901, Manoban Bank stood strong against the storm of the Great Depression. It is in the memory of the people of Bay Ridge that this site be declared Historic.

Lisa. My Lisa.

She founded Bay Ridge and she founded a bank. A big bank, from the looks of it.

I swayed on my feet and almost fell on my butt, if not for a tree beside me.

I had to get back to the library and I had to see her.

I rushed inside and didn't even say anything to Tarryn as she greeted me. I grabbed the book and showed it to her, so she knew what I was doing, and then plopped down on the couch and started reading.

I blinked and whooshed. Instantly I was standing in front of a big beautiful home. It looked a lot like this old house in Bay Ridge that had become some sort of attraction years ago. But it couldn't be the same. Most of the old houses looked alike in Bay Ridge.

I was standing there watching the house, just waiting for someone to come out of it or to see some movement. I wasn't going to knock on the door. Again, I was wearing clothes not of this era, and I wouldn't know what to say anyway.

"Hi, is Lisa home? I'm her …" What was I to her anyway? Her girlfriend? Her lover? Her secret?

I heard yelling coming from behind the house and I decided that walking along the tree line to check it out would be the best way to do so.

I skimmed the trees and walked slowly. It was, thankfully, cooler outside, which meant one of two things: years had passed or only a few months. The summer heat was gone and I recognized the autumn weather immediately. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw a someone walking outside of the home.

"Argus! Come here you mangy mutt!"

It was Lisa. She looked different; older perhaps.

She put her hands in her pockets and sighed deeply.

I held my breath, wishing that she would just look my way and see me standing here staring at her like a stalker.

Come on, Lisa. See me.

At that moment she looked my way, and I froze. Maybe her seeing me wasn't the best idea. I did still love her, despite trying to stay away.

My feelings for her I couldn't deny. Thinking I could just hide from her until I went back wasn't a great idea though, since I was here and I was supposed to be recording pivotal moments in her life. I sincerely doubted calling for a dog was life changing though.

Her eyes scanned the trees and at once they stopped, on me.

"Who's there?" she called out.

Shit.

She walked down the steps of her house and began walking toward me at a fast pace. I backed up and hit a tree with my back. This wasn't a great idea. What if she didn't remember me? Maybe many years had passed and she was married now with a litter of kids.

She stopped at the tree line and her eyes grew wide.

"Jennie," she whispered. "You're here."

She ran to me then and took me in her arms. I fell into her despite my warnings of falling further in love with her. She landed a kiss on my mouth that made all thoughts disappear.

I could taste the desperation in her lips as her kisses became deeper. She didn't hold back as she lifted me up against the tree. I wrapped my legs around her torso, pulling her closer to me.

We were electric. I couldn't deny the way she made my skin feel like fire when she touched me. She began kissing my neck and throat and down to my chest.

Then she looked at me and that sexy look of her disappeared as she said, "Where have you been?"

The sadness in her eyes gutted me.

"Lisa," I said as I kissed her. "I'm so sorry that I wasn't here earlier. I wish…I wish it could be controlled," I choked out.

Before I knew it, I was crying and kissing her again.

My salty tears ran down my face and into our embrace. She pulled back and with that same look asked, "Why are you sad?"

"Because I've missed you. And I hate that I caused you pain, Lisa."

She let me down, gently. And put a distance between us which made me feel empty and bare.

"I only wondered where you were for the past year, Jennie."

I swallowed hard. A year?

"I looked for you, everywhere I went. I waited for you. Dammit, I'm still waiting for you and you're bloody right in front of me." She raked her hands through her hair. "I can't do this."

Her words flew at me like knives, piercing my heart over and over again.

"I can't come when I want to, Lisa. It doesn't work like that. That's what makes our relationship so complicated." I wished I had the words to heal her hurt, but I didn't.

"Relationship? This isn't anything like that Jennie. You have to be present to be with me properly. Please explain to me how it works."

"I'm here to observe you, Lisa, you know that. You're becoming someone so important, and I am only to come to you when you're actually making history. Your history. I have absolutely no control over where the book will take me."

She shook her head in confusion.

"So you can only come to me when I'm preforming something important?" She was catching on quickly but growing more irritated.

"Yes. The book only allows me to travel here at certain points in your life. Otherwise I would have been here sooner. I never wanted to leave you in the first place," I said, truthfully.

She turned away from me, rigidly.

"Then why did you leave me, Jennie? Why didn't you stay? You didn't have to take on the role as observer. You could have stayed with me forever."

I reached for her and took her hand in mine, surprised she let me.

"You know that I needed to leave that day. You had to go meet your father and I had a life to get back to."

I hated that she was so agitated, and I hated that so much time had passed.

She turned toward me and nodded.

"Yes, I had responsibilities. Jennie, you could have come with me, and you know that you could have walked away from your life. You even told me it wasn't what you wanted to be doing. A whole year has passed me by, and I'm not the person I was then. I've become someone with great purpose in this town," she said. "I hate to put it so frank, but I had to live my life."

I nodded. I wished that she would have told me that before she kissed me like she did. Before she threw me against the tree and made my blood heat with passion.

"I live here in this home, and I looked for you daily. But you never arrived." She searched my face and ran her fingers across my cheeks. "I yearn for you at night when I'm alone. Jennie, why is it that you haunt me so? Why can't I turn away from you and leave you standing here alone? It's what you deserve."

I took a deep, painful breath in. "Is that what you want to do, Lisa? You want to leave me here alone?"

If that was her wish, then I would walk away. I would wait until I could go back home and I'd never come back, if it meant sparing her the pain I saw in her eyes.

"I can leave, Lisa. I know what you will become and what you will do, and I can tell you now that I'm so proud of you. I'm proud that I knew you. I think it would be best if I stopped coming to you."

She looked down and slowly back up at me again.

"No."

"No?" I asked curiously.

"No, I don't want you to walk away," she replied, as she swept me up into her arms. "I want you to stay, for now. There is something I want you to see."

She carried me through the woods, not to her home, but somewhere farther away. Finally, she put my feet down when we approached a cliff overlooking the ocean below. To the right, in the distance was a building that looked familiar.

"I brought you here to show you what I am doing with my life," she said as she stared out toward the waves.

She sighed, preparing herself.

"While you were gone, I have done much thinking about my life. I finally freed myself from my father's clutches, but in doing so, I fear that I caused him so much pain. Pain I never intended to cause."

She didn't meet my eyes, no matter how hard I tried to get her to. Instead she kept her face outward and away from me.

She deserved to be angry with me. I was just thrown for a loop by her forwardness upon seeing me and now she pushed me away. I was beyond confused. Did she want me here or not?

She said she did, but I didn't feel welcome. She was almost cold and calculated in her actions now, not the same Lisa from a year ago, that was for sure.

"My father suffered a heart attack shortly after I told him my plans for the future, the plans that I was going to become someone who made a difference, but without him. It seems fate gave me what I asked for, because he is gone."

"Oh, Lisa. I'm so sorry." I felt instantly awful for her. "I too suffered the loss of my parents and my Gram. I never wished that for you."

She finally turned toward me and met my gaze.

"You never talk much about your life, Jennie. I never knew you lost so many. I suppose there is much we both do not know about one another besides lust and infatuation. Because that's all we had between the two of us, you know?"

Her words instantly gutted me, but I tried hard not to show my pain. My face remained stone even though inside I was breaking to pieces.

She never truly loved me. She was just merely infatuated with me. I was only a girl she thought she loved. The one time fling. The girl who took her virginity and made her see pleasure for one night. I was not the love of her life.

I was the fool then.

That was okay. I would play the fool if it meant that Lisa would live the life she was meant to, if I didn't disrupt her life like Tessa disrupted her lover's. I would never wipe Lisa out of existence no matter how much I wanted to beg her to tell me she loved me.

I loved her too much to ruin her life. I wouldn't be selfish. I was selfish before when I left my life behind and moved to California. I left Gram when I should have stayed to take care of her. Maybe her life would have been longer if I stayed. I could have gotten my degree at home. It was my own personal need to be free that left her alone.

I wouldn't do that to Lisa.

"So then, why are we here?" I choked out.

"I wanted to show you that," she said pointing to the building. "It is the future home of Manoban Bank and Loan. I have secured my future, Jennie."

Her bank. That is why the building looked so familiar.

"I have seen that building before, Lisa," I told her, wide eyed. "I just saw it today, and that is why I decided to open the book. I knew I had to see you, to tell you how much you made a difference. Lisa, the building is still standing."

She shook her head in disbelief. "You saw it?"

She looked almost like a kid on Christmas. She was suddenly so happy that it threw me. She had gone from angry to delightful in the matter of seconds.

"I read that the bank and loan opens in a few years, and it survives a tumultuous time."

I had hoped that that would bring another smile to her face, but it didn't. She just nodded like I gave her the weather forecast. Her happy mood declined.

"Well, then. I suppose I will reach my goal. I am going to do what I set out to do then. Good."

I was so happy for her. She was going to get all that she desired and do it all without her father's help.

"I want you to know that you didn't kill your father, Lisa. He did not die because of you."

Her eyes met mine and she looked almost empty inside. I suppose that was what was wrong with her; she was devoid of emotion.

"Doesn't matter now anyway. You cannot bring back the dead. My mother lives with me. She's very happy to help me in my ventures. And I have a dog, but I cannot find him, presently."

I remembered her calling out for the dog.

"Argus?"

She nodded.

"My house is not as I wish it to be yet. It's not the estate I plan to build, but once the bank and loan opens, it will be. I will send for all of my staff back home to join me here."

Her house was beautiful, an estate was what came to mind when I looked at it. It was as large as her home was in England. I wanted to tell her that she would become the founder of the town and it was the very town I lived in currently, but I didn't dare make this about me.

"Your home is simply perfect, Lisa."

She shook her head and looked away again.

I was losing her. I felt it in my bones. She wasn't the same warm, happy Lisa. That Lisa was gone now and in her place was a woman who had focused on making a name for herself and becoming someone worthy of her father's love, even if her father was gone.

"So you do not have to come and study me anymore. I am no longer your subject."

I froze. "Study you?"

"Yes, this coming here and haunting me. You can stop now. I do not need you," she said with venom. It was as harsh as someone who was shooing away a stray animal, trying to get it to leave and stay gone forever.

"Lisa, don't say that. We can still be friends, can't we? I mean, you just held me in your arms and kissed me. Surely—"

"Surely, what, Jennie? You think I have feelings for you?"

"Lisa, please don't. You already explained that I was just an infatuation to you. I don't need to hear anything else."

My head began to spin, but I fought the urge to leave like this. The tugging felt faster and more rapid.

"I only kissed you because I was confused. That's what you do to me, Jennie. You confuse me into thinking that you care about me. Then you leave me. I am going to live my life without you, Jennie. And you're never to come back here, understand?"

My heart broke into a million pieces; I could feel it in my chest as it exploded. The pull from my time was darkening Lisa's face, and I knew I only had seconds left. I wanted to stay and work this out, but I couldn't.

"I won't bother you again, Lisa. Goodbye."