Love Beyond Time

Love Beyond Time

Samantha (37) and Kelly (18) are driving down an Arizona backroad in Samantha’s aging 1996 Buick Roadmaster. On full blast, the AC is straining to keep the blistering desert heat at bay, so the two roll down the windows for whatever hot breeze they can get. The floorboard is littered with crumpled fast-food wrappers and gas station sludge generously called coffee. The road trip was completely unplanned, as proven by the haphazard pile of duffels and overnight bags shoved into the back.

Samantha leans out her window, short auburn hair whipping in the wind, dark sunglasses reflecting the brutal midday sun. In the passenger seat, Kelly—dirty blonde hair, blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses—is re-reading Ernest Hemingway for the umpteenth time. She looks up the moment she feels the car slowing and drifting toward the shoulder.

“Mom, what are we doing? Is there something wrong with the car?”

“Nope.” Samantha points ahead to a man sitting casually on the hood of a pristine 1950 Packard Super 8, a military style duffle bag resting by the front tire.

“Mom. Seriously, what are you doing?” Kelly’s voice tightens with sudden alarm, though her gaze immediately fixes on the stranger. “He could be a lunatic.”

Samantha ignores her, coasting the Buick right alongside the vintage cruiser. She leans across the sill and adopts her best golden-age starlet voice. “Hey there, handsome. Going my way, or just enjoying the oceanless beach? We’ve got crappy air conditioning, but at least it blows hot air. It’s your choice: us or heatstroke.”

The man raises his head nonchalantly to look at the two of them. Sitting up, he quips in a low, rich baritone, “Well, honestly, both sound like valid life choices, but you two are considerably better looking than any hallucination my mind could come up with. Room for my bag?”

Samantha’s grin widens, a sudden warmth sparking in her chest that has nothing to do with the Arizona sun. She glances over her shoulder into the clutter. “Oh yeah! Just shove whatever you need out of the way. There’s nothing terribly important back there anyway.”

There’s a bold, playful glint in her eyes as he tosses his duffle in and folds his five-foot-ten frame into the back seat. Now that Kelly can see him up close, she can’t help but stare through her lenses. He can’t be more than thirty-five, with rugged, timeless features and thick, sandy brown hair. What strikes Kelly as utterly bizarre—and intensely distracting—is that he isn’t sweating. In a hundred-plus degree heat wave, dressed in tailored slacks, loafers, and a vintage button-up dress shirt, he looks as cool as if he’d just stepped out of a shaded parlor. When his hand brushes past Kelly’s shoulder to adjust his bag, his skin radiates an improbable, shocking chill that sends a quick shiver straight down her spine.

Kelly stiffens, pulling back, her heart doing a strange little skip. She hisses under her breath, “Mom, this is how people end up missing. Never to be seen again.”

“Don’t mind Kelly. She’s been like this since Mesquite,” Samantha calls back, catching Jim’s gaze in the rearview mirror and lingering there just a second too long. “Now, do you have a name, or should we just call you Papa Jupiter?”

Outwardly missing the horror-movie reference, he smiles mildly. “Call me Jim. I’ve had many different last names over the years, but Jim should suffice for now. And in your sister’s defense, it’s entirely possible I set up an ambush for the next unwary traveler, but you’re the first people I’ve seen since Meadview. Thought I was the only one left on these roads.”

Kelly exhales a breath that catches halfway in her throat. Her cheeks flush hot at the ‘sister’ comment, but her analytical instincts immediately flare. “Wait—how did you know my name? I didn’t say my name.”

Jim blinks, smooth amusement softening his eyes without missing a beat. “Your mother called you Kelly a moment ago.”

Kelly frowns. Did Sam say it? She tries to replay the sentence in her head, but Jim’s direct, searching blue gaze is suddenly locked onto hers, scrambling her thoughts before she can double-check.

“Meadview?” Kelly quickly pivots, trying to regain her footing while ignoring the fluttering in her stomach. “That’s unincorporated and barely a community anymore. You drove this forgotten stretch in that classic?”

“Well, I was headed to Kingman. I’ve been driving the old highways for a long time.”

“We can get you to Kingman,” Samantha says, shifting into drive and merging back onto the asphalt. Her eyes flick to the mirror every few seconds, drinking in the sharp cut of his jaw. “Kelly’s been staring daggers at the side of my head to stop for real food anyway. I’m Samantha, by the way. You can call me Sam if you want. Samantha Collins.”

“She’s not my sister,” Kelly clarifies immediately, crossing her arms defensively. “She’s my mom.”

“I don’t act like a mom, so I get that a lot,” Sam says with a saucy look over her shoulder.

Jim lets his eyes linger on Samantha’s bare shoulder, then moves to Kelly’s flushed profile with a knowing, gentle humor that makes Kelly’s throat dry up. Samantha laughs, thoroughly flattered. “So Jim, any specific reason you’re stranded in the middle of nowhere trying to reach a town right smack on two major thoroughfares? On the run? Work? Running from an ex? Running from family? I’ve got about a million and a half theories, and most of them make you sound dangerous.”

“Mom, please stop. You don’t have to answer any of those, Jim,” Kelly mutters, though she secretly strains to catch every syllable, studying his reflection in the side glass. “She can’t mind her own business, especially right now.”

“I’m trying to map what’s left of U.S. Route 66,” Jim explains, leaning forward slightly between their bucket seats. A faint, clean scent of cedar and faint ozone drifts between them. “Not just the road, but the forgotten footprints. The anomalies.”

Kelly’s eyebrows shoot up. “Anomalies? I don’t think anyone calls it that. And aren’t there maps galore for 66 alone?”

“I track the odder things,” Jim says, his voice dropping into a captivating, almost hypnotic rhythm. “Like the stretch in New Mexico quietly closed off in the ’80s due to radiation fallout, or the Murder Castle in Chicago built by H. H. Holmes. It’s not strictly tied to 66, but history bleeds across state lines, so to me it’s fair game.” He leans back against the worn upholstery and visibly relaxes. “If you like pancakes, there’s a diner just up the road a bit. Used to be called Deb’s—best pancakes in Arizona. And for the record, you two could definitely pass for sisters.”

A faded billboard soon rises from the desert scrub. As they draw closer, the cracked paint reads Mary’s House of Pancakes.

Kelly twists around in her seat, pinning him with a sharp, skeptical look. “I thought you said it was called Deb’s?”

“Back in ’48, it was Deb’s,” Jim replies without opening his eyes, speaking with the casual certainty of someone recalling breakfast yesterday.

Kelly glances at Samantha, but Sam just smirks, completely captivated by his eccentric confidence, and keeps her foot on the gas.

Fifteen minutes later, they pull up to a weathered roadside diner that looks like it ought to have been condemned decades ago. Yet the front door is propped open, and faint music drifts out into the sweltering air.

“Jim, you coming?” Samantha asks, switching off the sputtering engine.

“Go ahead and grab a booth,” Jim says with an easy smile. “I’ll be right in—just need to stretch.”

Once the women head inside, Jim steps out of the Roadmaster, pops the hood, fiddles briefly with a few components, and snaps it shut before strolling in after them.

He finds them seated in a far corner booth. Kelly is already fascinated by the vintage tabletop jukebox, while Sam studies the yellowed photographs lining the wood-paneled walls. Behind the counter, a waitress wearing a name tag that reads Mary lounges on her elbows, chewing gum and scrolling through her phone.

“I want to listen to Patsy Cline, but the jukebox won’t play,” Sam says with a playful pout, leaning forward across the table toward him. “Kelly fed three coins into it, and nothing.”

“Let me see,” Jim steps up and gives the top of the metal casing a firm whack. A tiny, faint static spark snaps against the metal, and instantly, the internal mechanism whirs smoothly into place. Patsy Cline begins crooning about falling to pieces with impossible, scratch-free clarity.

Kelly, who had just been feeding coins into the slot for her mom, stares up at Jim in shock. “Holy shit, Jim.”

Mary brings over three mugs of black coffee and eyes the glowing jukebox in disbelief. “That thing hasn’t worked since my mom ran this place. You’re hired.”

A round of laughter breaks out around the table. Sam leans on her elbows, her chin in her hands, giving Jim an open, smoldering look. “See? I told you, Kelly. He’s got the magic touch.”

Jim meets Sam’s gaze with a slow, charged smile that makes her breath catch, then cuts his eyes to Kelly, noticing the rapid flutter of the pulse in her throat. “Just a matter of knowing where to apply pressure.”

Kelly swallows hard, suddenly acutely aware of his knees mere inches from hers under the narrow table. She quickly grabs the laminated menu to steady herself, only to freeze at the faded yellow print: a full stack of pancakes is three dollars flat, and bacon and eggs comes in at two-fifty.

“Are they kidding with these prices, Jim?” Sam asks, glancing around. “How are they still in business? Or at the very least, how is this place not packed wall-to-wall?”

“Sam, those prices haven’t changed since I started coming here. Good things ought to stay untouched by time.”

Kelly narrows her eyes at the humming jukebox, then turns back to Jim, her voice dropping into a determined, investigative pitch. “That really shouldn’t have worked. Percussive maintenance only bridges loose connections, and if it’s been dead that long, the issue is likely—”

Samantha reaches across the vinyl tabletop and presses a gentle finger to Kelly’s lips, brushing her cheek softly. “Shh. Don’t ruin the magic, sweetie.” She grins at Jim, her eyes dark and teasing. “You’re officially our good luck charm. I might just keep you around.”

Jim looks at the yellowed wood paneling, murmuring softly under his breath, “I still remember the smell of the pine when they framed this roof in ’48.”

Silence falls over the table. Both women freeze.

“What do you mean you remember when it was built?” Kelly asks, her voice dropping to a breathless, unsteady pitch as genuine unease tangles with her fascination. “You said ’48. If that’s true, there’s no way you could remember it unless you read an archive or... or you’re a vampire or something. You’re not, are you?”

Samantha’s hand pauses halfway to her coffee cup. Her eyes fix on Jim, narrowing sharply, the playful grin lingering but cut through with intense, calculating fascination.

Mary sets the coffee pot down on the table with a firm thunk, cutting the silence. “Built in ’48. My grandma opened it as Deb’s. Granddaddy poured the slab.” She sizes Jim up with renewed interest, suspicion mingling with faint respect. “You got family from around here, mister?”

Jim shifts, offering an easy deflection. “Something like that.”

Mary walks back to the counter, leaving the three of them wrapped in the slow, haunting drawl of the jukebox ballad.

Samantha leans back against the red vinyl, crossing her arms and cocking an eyebrow, leaning into the danger with an eager, provocative smile. “Alright, mystery man. We’re all ears.”

Jim holds Samantha’s gaze for a quiet, electric beat, then lets his eyes slide slowly toward Kelly, whose heart thumps hard against her ribs. A slight, knowing smirk tugs at his lips.

“If I were a vampire, Sam,” Jim murmurs, his voice smooth and dangerously intimate, “do you honestly think I’d be lounging on the hood of a car in the middle of May in Arizona just waiting for two beautiful women to pick me up?”