Sleepless Night：A Highlander Time Travel(5)

I couldn't help but flush. Hell, yes, I'd like that, but what she was saying was slightly crazy. Put the ring on my finger, go back in time and have sex with a stranger. Hmm. I was desperate, but was I that desperate?

"He's your eternal mate," she continued. "As I said, the ruby won't show you when you meet him in the future. Instead, you can be with him once again, in the past."

"Eternal mate?" I was having a difficult time following.

The woman walked over to a straight-backed wood chair and carefully lowered herself, sighed, took a moment. "Ah, that's better. Your eternal mate is the man you are destined to be with forever."

"So it's not just some random stranger?"

She shook her head. "Oh, no. He's the man destined for you. He's not a stranger to you at all."

I gave her a doubtful look. "It's hard to believe all this past lives and eternal mate talk," I grumbled. "I admit I had too much wine at lunch, but this is more like too much tequila talking."

I was ready to dash home and pull my highest powered vibrator out of the drawer. Somehow, though, I knew it would get me off, but it wouldn't dull this ache.

"This ring—" I looked at the older woman, watched her closely as I asked, "—it belonged to... him?"

She nodded.

"Then why is it here, in your store? Why doesn't this... eternal mate have it?"

Her bony shoulders went up in a shrug. "I don't know what happened in the past, why it is here, other than perhaps this is how you were destined to find him again." She smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt. "To sense the ring, go back in time to be with your eternal mate, so you will know him when you meet him in the future."

I frowned. Seemed a little far fetched. Everything about this situation was a little unusual, make that ridiculous. If she wasn't telling the truth, then what was going on? It wasn't like I could go to the ER and say there was something wrong with me and the symptoms were extreme arousal and horniness.

"What if it wasn't my birthday? Could I see a previous life then, too?"

The shopkeeper shook her head. "Only on your birthday. I can see it in your eyes. Your doubt. The chances of it being your birthday and walking by the store on the same day."

Was she a mind reader as well?

"So it's like a birthday gift, this one night?" This one night of sex. Was the guy going to be naked with a bow wrapped around his cock?

"It was meant to be," she added with a confident nod of her head.

I was meant to go back in time and have sex? Why couldn't I be normal and have sex with a perfectly nice man from the present? "Why couldn't this have happened years ago?" Frustration boiled to the surface and the woman could hear it in my words. "I would have liked to have met this... eternal mate... a little sooner." I'd forgotten I still held my shopping bags and put them down on the floor. Crossing my arms over my chest, I felt a jolt of longing as I bumped my nipples before quickly dropping them back to my sides.

The woman smiled softly. "It wasn't the right time. Now it is. You may go back and meet him."

Now was the right time? I wouldn't have minded finding out about all this on say, my twenty-fifth birthday. Was this why I hadn't met Mr. Right before now? He was out there, somewhere? I could just walk out and know that he was out there. I didn't need to go back in time. God, was I even considering this?

I eyed the smiling woman with plenty of skepticism. She sat there quietly, patiently waiting for me to decide. Decide to believe her, the feelings the ring brought about, the existence of an eternal mate, and go back in time. Or walk away.

Perhaps she was just an elderly woman who had succumbed to dementia and was nonsensical. Her words certainly didn't make sense. Of course, finding Mr. Right and falling in love never made sense. Ali, Tracy and Hannah hadn't found their Mr. Right. Others had, and their love stories were absolutely ridiculous, like my friend Sarah. She met her now husband when they were both hooked to IV's and throwing up in the ER after they'd eaten at the same restaurant and gotten food poisoning. That was not the premise for a romance novel.

What did I have to lose? I had no plans besides a nap and this was way more interesting. In fact, it was the craziest thing that had happened in a while. The woman was too frail to harm me. Worst case scenario, I humored an old woman and went home. Best case, my eternal mate brought me to orgasm. If I had one night, hopefully more than once. Tough decision. At this point I'd do anything, including going back in time, to finish what the ruby had started.

I was insane. I was insane. I was insane! "All right. I'm game. What do I have to do?"

The woman's smile reached her eyes. Softened them. "Put the ring on. That's all. You will be transported back in time for one night from a past life with your eternal mate. When the sun rises and your birthday is over, you will return."