The Necklace V - Strawberries & Wine

Synopsis and Prologue

SYNOPSIS

After Susan and Michelle return in despair from their time-travel journey back to 1999, Michelle resigns herself to a life of loneliness, and Susan accepts the fact that she's lost James forever.

James, a former member of the most famous band of all time, and Susan, the woman who's loved him for over fifty years, were to be married in a double ceremony on Christmas Day, 1999 with Thomas, James's son, and Michelle, Susan's daughter. It was not meant to be, however, when a gold-digging ex-courtesan, determined to have James for her own, exposes Susan as already being married.

It's now August 2016 when Thomas is preparing for a move from London to Los Angeles and discovers the mobile phone Susan left behind. The "mysterious object," as he thought of it seventeen years earlier, is at the bottom of a box in his closet that he'd packed up with Michelle's things shortly after she and her mother vanished.

When Brett, Thomas's friend who works for Apple, examines the phone, telling him it's an iPhone6 and there's no way he could have had it for seventeen years, both men are puzzled.

Will the mystery of the phone be solved, and will it lead Thomas back to Michelle? And, if Michelle and Thomas are reunited, is it possible that Susan and James will once again find themselves in each other's arms? After all, we know from Susan's previous forays into the past that history could not be changed, but what about the future? Will there finally be a "Happily Ever After" for James and Susan?

PROLOGUE - December, 2015 - James Remembers

When the leasing agent called James in September 2015, to let him know that the tenants who had been leasing his house outside of London were not going to be renewing the lease for another year, he resigned himself to the fact that the house would have to either be leased again or sold. He thought selling would be the best option, and when the agent told him he might have an interested buyer, James instructed him to evaluate the house once the tenants vacated and come up with a fair sales price.

Three months later, a week before Christmas, 2015, the agent called to say the tenants had moved out and he was making arrangements to have the house inspected for repairs, painted and cleaned before showing to any prospective buyers. He told James he'd drop off a key to the property in case he wanted to drive out and take a look at it while it was vacant. At first he declined, but then changed his mind and the agent dropped off the key the day before Christmas Eve.

Sherry, James's daughter from his second marriage to Hilary, was coming to spend Christmas Day with him, the divorce settlement and custody agreement stating each would have Sherry for Christmas Day every other year and Christmas Eve on the opposite years. This year it was James's turn to have Sherry on Christmas Day and he was looking forward to it. She had recently turned 12-years-old and was a very precocious and enjoyable child to be with. And, although he despised Hilary, he had to admit that she'd turned out to be a decent mother during the time Sherry spent with her, which was 20% of the time per the custody agreement. His new wife, Darcy, who he'd been married to for almost three years now, was also flying in from Boston where they usually made their home, but James had been in England for the past week meeting with his publicity team regarding a new album.

It was Christmas Eve day when, on impulse, key in hand, James decided to drive out to the house to take a look. He wasn't really sure what prompted him to do it... it was forty-five minutes outside of London, and the weather was windy and rainy. The roads would be slick, but there was something niggling inside him urging him to go if for nothing else, old memory's sake. Once he made the decision, he packed a small case with his toothbrush and change of clothes just in case he got stuck out there due to bad weather.

James originally bought the house when his first wife, Susan, was battling a brain tumor, thinking she would be recovering there, but it never came to pass. They were in their retreat in Colorado with their three grown children, Carrie, the oldest, Thomas, the middle one, and Robert, the youngest, when Susan succumbed to the tumor. She never got to see the house and it stood vacant for almost two years until James decided to leave Colorado and try to resume life and his music back in England.