Primetime of Life Volume 2: Primetime of Life, #8

By L.A. Boruff

Hold on to your socks, friends, Ro is headed for the sixties. Don't miss out on the exciting adventures of Rowena, the time-traveling witch assassin! And you'll be able to keep up with Cheesecake, Artie, and the ever-frustrating Fred.

This book will turn you inside out, rip out your emotions, then put them back upside down. Rowena and crew are in the fight of their lives. And someone's life very well depends on it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Phantom Pen
• Release date: Apr 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201220976

L.A. Boruff

L.A. Boruff lives in East Tennessee with her husband, three children, and an ever growing number of cats. She loves reading, watching TV, and procrastinating by browsing Facebook. L.A.’s passions include vampires, food, and listening to heavy metal music. She once won a Harry Potter trivia contest based on the books, and lost one based on the movies. She has two bands on her bucket list that she still hasn’t seen: AC/DC and Alice Cooper. Feel free to send tickets.

Book preview

Primetime of Life

BOOKS 4-5

L.A. BORUFF

Contents

L.A. Boruff

Volume 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Volume 2

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Other Series by L.A. Boruff

About L.A. Boruff

L.A. Boruff

Primetime of Life

Books 4 & 5

Hidden Time

&

Nick of Time

Copyright © 2022 by L.A. Boruff

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover Design Copyright © 2021 Avery Hope

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2022

Vellum flower icon Created with Vellum

Volume One

HIDDEN TIME

Chapter

One

1960

Capture the Gray Rabbit, they said. It will be easy, they said. You’re Rowena Hembree, best time-traveling witch in the history of witches. Okay, I might have been the one who said that last one.

But the nerves were new. I needed the consolation, even if I was the only one providing it.

This wasn’t any mark. This was the Gray Rabbit. A red tag rogue mark. Red tag because this elusive jewel thief killed a VIF — a very important Ferguson. Although, I hadn’t been told which Ferguson. Not that it mattered. My job was my job no matter what, and I wasn’t always privy to all the why and whens.

They’d only told me that the Gray Rabbit had to go. Period. And since I happened to be hopelessly devoted to one, nary a Ferguson was dying on my watch.

I had found her, a bit surprised that they had been a her, and was currently chasing her through the streets of 1960 because she had dared let herself get spotted stealing the Bertolli diamonds—a mafia family’s heirloom on display in a jewelry store owned, not coincidentally, by the Bertolli family.

I zigged, she zagged, and remarkably, no one stopped or stared. No one cared that we were running—and not politely, like joggers—but through three backyards, across a street, between parked cars, even leaping over hedges.

Well, she leapt. I tried, but of course I caught the toe of my shoe on a branch and ended up sliding face-first through half a front yard. It was cartoon ridiculous and probably about as funny.

But I sprang up like the tuck and roll queen I’d become and resumed the full-speed chase.

And I was gaining on her. She crossed to Broadway and ran across the street beside the Sunshine Diner.

I couldn’t have planned it better. Although, my stomach rumbled and growled because it had been ten whole minutes since I last ate, and I smelled sausage and bacon, pancakes and eggs, biscuits and gravy cooking inside the diner. After a solemn promise to feed the beast-slash-baby in my belly, I ignored the hunger and cornered the Gray Rabbit.

My job was simple. Put an end to her now, before she could kill the VIF.

She ran a few steps further, but found herself boxed in and turned back to face me. I stopped running to look at her. She wore a hoodie with the Where’s the Beef slogan screen printed with the little old lady who’d made those words famous on the front.

I’d been hunting her through time and made a mental note to check the year the slogan became famous. This was 1960. Just wearing that shirt here could cause a ripple in the fabric of time or some such insanity that Artie was sure would make all of time flip on its side and all the clocks in the world spin backward. Or something wild like that.

Apparently, no one had told this rabid rogue the dangers of time travel or how she could impact the rest of the world.

The alley was pretty clean, as far as alleys went, but it was a narrow dead end that backed up to another building—the library…maybe. I wasn’t entirely sure, but it didn’t matter. One of us wasn’t coming out of here. I know, I know, that was a chance I took on every mission, but I had confidence, a great team to back me up, and I was—finally— well trained. This Gray Rabbit was a rogue.

I got this.

She narrowed her eyes at me, zigging left, zagging right, and I sighed. There was nowhere left for her to go. She’d zagged her last zig. Or would that be zigged her last zag? Eh, whatever. I focused when the crazy woman threw a stuffed gray bunny at me.

I side-stepped, then stared for a second when the hood to her sweatshirt fell. I wasn’t much of a swearer, but if I was, this would certainly have been a holy shit kind of moment. Aside from being built like me—same height, same weight, from what I could see, size seven running shoes—she had twinsie flaming red hair waving down her back.

I couldn’t say what my face looked like, but it must’ve been comical since she laughed. "Well, I guess now we know. Apparently, Daddy has a type."

What now? Daddy? For a moment my mind went to my adopted dad, the wonderful, amazing man who raised me and never let me feel like I was less than the most perfect daughter. But then my brain caught up and hello, fuzzy. She didn’t mean my adopted father. Was she saying…? Well, that would explain it. But no, she wasn’t saying anything.

Instead, she laughed, and even that sounded like me. Oh, frick. Someone had some explaining to do. Only, I didn’t know who to ask. Didn’t have time to think about it now, either. Not while she was laughing at me. Still.

No one told you that you have a half-sister ? The laugh turned to a head thrown back full-on cackle. Oh, Rowena.

And she knew my name. Of course, if she knew we were sisters, knew of my existence—which seemed hardly fair since I had no idea there was a her—she would know my name. But my head was in a fog, so every detail that managed to work through the haze shocked me for a second and stopped me from reacting. In retrospect… not great. I had to be on my toes at all times, not shocked by the revelation of a new sister.

The mirror-me sneered. Maybe you should ask that control freak you call a handler.

Artie knew? No. Impossible. She was messing with me.

Or, she whispered. "You could ask your boyfriend."

Craig knew? I managed a very eloquent whispered, What? around my surprise.

She laughed again, something she did frustratingly too much of and tossed her flaming hair over her shoulder. Oh, dear. You are a naïve one, aren’t you?

No. But wasn’t I? I trusted. I didn’t question. I hadn’t questioned.

Have you never asked to see your own file? She rolled her eyes. "Of course, you didn’t. Did you even know they have a file on you?" The derision in her voice didn’t do much to calm me down.

I didn’t need this ridicule. Not right now, when I was so busy wondering why TIME had sent me after my own freaking sister. There were going to be questions asked as soon as I… My sister was my mark. And now it sank in. My gut ached.

I knew, I exclaimed. I was also a big fat liar. Not the biggest liar in the family gene pool, but a liar just the same.

Right. She laughed again. No one in that alley believed me, not even me. Look, if this is about the diamonds—

It’s not. I cut her off. This is about murder.

Yours? She looked a little too buoyant at the idea for my liking. Seriously. I could have survived a thousand years without seeing that kind of smug smile at the mention of my death.

And a couple more without watching it fade when I growled, Not mine.

Since I didn’t know whose, I didn’t elaborate. Though, I was tempted to ask her what kind of shampoo and hair products she used because while I had good hair, hers was spectacular.

She cocked a perfectly arched brow. It was like she was the better, more elegant version of me.

Oh, damn. She was Rowena 2.0.

You think I killed someone? This accusation had thrown her off her kilter.

I shrugged a shoulder, and her eyes turned hard; her mouth pinched. I don’t kill.

Unfortunately, I knew different. The red tag said so. A red tag was serious. She was the first mark I’d ever had to deal with who had one. I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. TIME doesn’t care about jewel thieves. And they’d said she’d killed a Ferguson.

For a second, I wondered how they got their information. Could it be something more sinister at work, but Artie wasn’t the kind of guy who would let dishonesty stand. A little fib, maybe, but something so stark and shocking, he would nip it right in the bud.

She sneered, and maybe her anger at being accused was real. Or maybe she was a liar and an actor. Despite her being my twinner, I couldn’t tell.

I haven’t killed anyone. Oof. Denial was a tricky thing.

Yeah, probably not. I nodded. "I get sent before the crime — a much nicer word for what she was going to do—is committed."

Her sneer turned into a mask of rage. Those bastards at TIME tell you that?

I didn’t answer.

Did they at least tell you who I kill or when?

No, they hadn’t. And I couldn’t tell if she knew the answer or not. I suspected that every expression and the emotions behind them were calculated, fake. And while I couldn’t prove it, I didn’t answer, either.

Dad told me you were a savage, but this is hurtful. The rage disappeared, then a tear slid down her cheek and everything I thought I knew about her was wrong. Or I thought so at that moment, anyway.

The guilt nauseated me. My stomach turned and rolled because I wasn’t in a position to judge her. The guilt also said I cared a lot more than I wanted to. I mean dang it, she was my sister.

I couldn’t deny she was my sister. Same eyes. Same hair. Same smile. It was like looking in a slightly distorted mirror.

I was stalling, and I darn well knew it. I didn’t want to kill her. If you had to guess, right now, who do you think you kill? I didn’t even know her name. And I wasn’t planning to ask. "Who do you want to kill?" I was probably on her list, but that was something I would deal with in therapy at another time.

I didn’t kill anyone. I could never. Her answer was quick and sharp, but a crock of crap. Or I wouldn’t have been assigned. TIME didn’t care about theft. Grand or otherwise.

Not yet. But you will, or I wouldn’t be here. It was a TIME fact. And while I didn’t necessarily trust TIME as a whole, I trusted Craig and Artie. They’d been the ones to send me on this mission.

She smiled. Search your archives. Your databases. My name is Fiona Mitchell.

I made a decision. A snap decision. Translation: no logical thought went into it. This was driven by emotion, by something reverent and familial. But most of all, it was driven by stupidity, by an irrational bit of loyalty.

And I was running out of if-I-knew-then-what-I-know-now-opportunities. There were only so many failed missions I would be allowed before they did something drastic. Insisted on more training or—gulp—worse.

But standing in this alley with a sister I never knew I had while I was hormonal and tired probably wasn’t the best time to make a decision as big as this one. Despite my employer, I was running short on time.

I looked at Fiona. She stared back. Mirror, mirror.

After sucking in a shattering breath and being totally unsure if I was making the right decision, I spoke. In a few years —no clue how many— if you feel like you want to kill someone, don’t do it. Remember that your sister let you go today, and in return, she’s asking you not to pull that trigger, or stab that knife, or whatever it is you do. The robberies weren’t my jurisdiction. Someone else could deal with them.

I don’t use guns. Heck. She wrinkled her nose and looked positively dainty. The comparisons probably weren’t fair — to me – but I once caught a glimpse of my reflection when I did the same wrinkly nose thing, and I looked like I had a stubborn booger I was trying to work free. Just another prime example that she was Rowena 2.0, and I was the lesser version of myself. How’d she get all the dainty, sweet looks?

Instead of answering, she smiled. It might have been a smirk. Then she walked closer.

Promise me, I said in a hard, severe voice. A smile wasn’t enough. I needed her word. Even rogues had a sense of honor. I hoped so, anyway.

I promise. Was her voice a little too high pitched? A little too smug?

Pinky swear. I needed assurances since I was violating about ten TIME protocols.

She locked her little finger with mine. I swear by the power of the pinky.

I nodded, relieved that I’d made the decision. The weight of the world lifted off of my shoulders. Then the world went dark.

Rowena! Ro! Wee! Nah! Owwwch. The last thing I needed on top of my splitting headache was Artie slapping my cheeks while he used his 1960s Artie voice — a 20-year-old Artie with the voice of a man who hadn’t quite reached puberty — to rouse me. But this was my day.

Before I even opened my eyes, the details came flooding back, and I sat up straight. My head hurt so much I felt around and found the lump at the base of my skull, wincing at the pain of my own touch. "I’m going to kill her."

Of course, if I had done that when I was supposed to, this wouldn’t have happened. This and about eighty other things I was going to have to survive.

Damn, it. When was I going to learn?

Chapter

Two

PRESENT DAY

I turned to the side and pushed my belly out, imagining what I would look like with forty pounds of baby weight. Even if it was just around my middle, this wasn’t going to be pretty. I was mostly thin, had a couple of curves, a few pounds I could’ve shed with a little bit of extra working out, but it was that hip spread that had me worried. They were already wide. Sturdy. Built for babies to pass through, Mom had always said. Ugh.

When the mirror wasn’t my friend and didn’t immediately reassure me that I was the fairest witch of them all, I made the heart-stopping mistake of looking down at the vanity table, at the five little test sticks lying perpendicular to the edge, wands that dispelled any remaining chance of my retaining even the tiniest sliver of plausible deniability. I’d taken them all last night. Just to be safe. Just to be sure.

I was pregnant, and pretty soon I wasn’t going to be able to deny it. Forty and pregnant. My own reality show nightmare. Not quite a Ripley’s situation, but enough of an anomaly to draw stares, probably. Although, being a witch made me look younger. Maybe nobody would notice or care. This was 2021, after all.

Except, when I went into the past, it wouldn't be 2021.

At least there weren’t a lot of clichés related to being a witch, because it was hard for witches to be cliché. There just weren’t enough of us for that to have been a thing.

We were more the tragic villains of fairy tales sorts.

I didn’t want to believe I was the only one in the history of common and uncommon witchery to get herself into this kind of predicament. Or heck, maybe I was.

I didn’t even know who to go to for the answer to a question like that one.

Actually, I did know. I could ask an analyst. The analyst. But since he was the baby’s father, and I sure as holy heckfire—cursing was for the childless—wasn’t about to ask him. No ma’am. Or sir. I didn’t want to point out that I was forty and in the family way to the guy whose joystick wasn’t firing blanks but who could still leave me high and dry with his bat in my cave.

The euphemisms weren’t really working for me, but I wasn’t especially comfortable with a P word.

Fred appeared, ever the faithful friend, on my left shoulder. You are aglow with the beauty of motherhood.

Yeah. That and the almost constant urge to pee.

He pulled two bottles from his interdimensional pocket. How about a drink? He cracked the first beer and held it out. When I reached out to take it, he jerked it away. You’re pregnant, Ro! You can’t drink. You can’t even think about it. Alcohol kills brain cells. He shook his head, suddenly the superior one in our relationship. I’m going to have to watch you every minute.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like spending time with Fred. Who wouldn’t? He was my socially ineloquent, fart-a-minute, sarcastic, beer-swilling, opinionated bundle of aromas who also, mysteriously, had a superiority complex. I liked him so much. But sometimes, he overwhelmed me.

He was hovering in mid-air, one wing folded behind his head, ankles crossed, drinking his beer as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Are you excited for baby Craiwena?

I’m nauseated. Does that count?

Fred sat up straight, wings fluttering, eyes wide. Ro, if you’re going to hurl, I need a warning. We should have some kind of signal. Ring a bell maybe. I cocked an eyebrow, but he continued. I’m allergic to the smell of vomit. He looked, eyes wide, at the bathroom door. And the sound.

I’ll hang a sock on the door, I said dryly. I didn’t bother trying to hide my eye roll. I also didn’t remind him of the several malodorous and loud habits I’d tolerated over these last few years. It wouldn’t do any good. Fred was Fred.

Thank you, Peaches.

Peaches? That was new, and I wasn’t a fan. I wrinkled my nose and curled my lip. It was my smell-the-fart look which I’d deployed with more frequency than was normal but was always apt when used.

Fred shrugged. I was thinking that we need pet names for each other.

Think again. But I smiled because with a baby coming, Fred was bound to need reassurances. Too bad for him, pet names were out of the question.

Oh, come on, raspberry tart. I narrowed my eyes, and he stared as serious as he ever was. You can call me blueberry muffin, he offered.

His expression was so serious, I felt almost irreverent as I considered him. This was important to him, and I didn’t want to hurt him. Are we suddenly bakery food?

He grinned his toothy, tiny dragon grin. It was endearing and sweet, and my hormones were all over the map. I just thought with your wild and sometimes obsessive love for food, it was the way to go.

Oh, he knew me. I teared up. Then it cleared up. Are the pet names a witch-familiar thing? I was the new witch on the block, and without him, I would be alone. More tears came. Dang it.

It’s not required…shortcake. Short? He was one to talk.

I shook my head. But there was a baby coming. Fred needed some reassurance. I would roll with a pet name. We can work on it.

When he wagged his eyebrows, I wanted to take it back, but he’d moved on. Have you and Cheesecake talked it out yet? Made a plan?

And now Fred and I were just a couple of girlfriends hashing over my unplanned pregnancy.

No. I was confiding in a pint-sized or less fire-belching dragon. I had no pride left.

Fred buffed his wing-tips—the actual tips of his wings since he was a dragon and seldom wore shoes—on his chest. And where is the proud papa right now?

I wasn’t about to admit to Fred that Craig, my oh, so tasty Cheesecake, was having a tiny freak-out. Hence, the five pregnancy tests. The proof.

Not that I hadn’t needed them as well. He’ll be here later.

For these? He picked up one of the tests, looked at it, then did a practiced bibbidi-bobbidi-boo move that would have made any fairy godmother in ten states make her own wish for that kind of elegance. What kind of baby daddy needs you to bring over five pregnancy tests?

You heard that?

Fred shrugged. He had a tone.

He was shocked, though very supportive. After the initial freakout, he’d been worried it might not be true. He didn’t want to get his hopes up until he knew, a hundred percent, for sure.

It’s understandable.

I could go talk to him for you, so you don’t have to see his dorky, besotted face.

I sighed, but things like sighs didn’t deter Fred. He continued, I can tell him for sure there’s a little Cheesecake-Pumpkin floating around in there, not that we really need him for it. He sniffed. We can do this on our own.

No. The last thing I needed was Fred being…well, Fred. Over the last few months, he’d developed quite the aversion to Craig, and while it was sometimes comical, most of the time, it wasn’t. If you so much as glance at Craig, I’ll put you in a cage locked so tight it will take every witch and wizard in the country to unlock it.

I didn’t have that kind of pull or magic, but I needed to make a point he would understand. Craig was off limits. Period.

Fine. He rolled his big eyes and snorted so a tiny burst of fire and smoke escaped his right nostril. I stepped back. Sorry, Fred said suddenly.

Why do you hate Craig all of a sudden? I didn’t know how to make him understand, but maybe it was my fault. Maybe I should’ve been more cautious in how I introduced my relationship with Craig.

Fred shook his head and crossed his wings. It isn’t all of a sudden. He flipped an imaginary coif of hair over one shoulder. And I have no idea to that of which you are speaking.

Mm-hmm. I walked to the closet to survey the possibilities. He’s coming to dinner, and we’ll talk then. Hopefully. So, make yourself scarce. I shot a look over my shoulder. This has to be managed carefully. I’d created and rejected half a dozen plans and scenarios already. There were too many aspects, too many details that had to be considered—my work, his, Artie, the future of the world that relied on me…performing a specific task within the skillset for which I was the only one qualified at this time. Reasonable decisions had to be made. Not my strongest suit.

After casting a critical eye at the hanging clothes on the bar in front of me, I reached for a suede pencil skirt I’d only worn once before but drew my hand back when Fred hissed in a breath. What?

Listen, cupcake, hips widening in preparation for childbirth is a beautiful thing. It’s a sign of fertility and love, countries have fallen for the lusciousness of a woman with child. The power. He shook his head and rolled a long R while he faked the throes of passion with lowered eyelids and puckered lips. When he stopped, his expression sobered. Until you put it in a pencil skirt. No one wants to see that. He exaggerated the spread by widening his wings in front of him.

Swear to Heck, I’m going to buy a fly swatter. It was one of my common Fred-threats. But it worked. He pretended to zip his lips.

I nodded. Thank you.

I reached for my lucky blue sweater from the shelf next to the line of skirts. It was low-cut and soft, plus it made me feel pretty. He whistled another inhale, and I drew my hand back. What now?

It’s just… He pointed to my chest. The ta-tas.

What about them? I looked down and considered them.

He stared, too. They’re a bit out of control. He used his wings again to over-exaggerate size, and my nostrils flared. If one of us was about to blow fire out a nose, my money was on me.

I batted at him, but he smartly disappeared. I smoothed the sweater over my belly. He was right. They were a lot bigger. Already somewhere between Pamela Anderson and Dolly Parton, and I still had months and months to go.

He reappeared and settled on the edge of the footboard of my bed. Don’t get too excited, my little spaghetti noodle. Breastfeeding is going to turn those fun bags into sandbags—heavy and saggy. Your nips are going to end up hanging out with your kneecaps.

Oh, lawd. He was taking all the magic out of childbirth, and he was staring at the aforementioned still northern peaks of my breasts.

Stop, never mind a fly swatter, I’m literally going to roll up a newspaper and swat you into a splatter. My empty threats were becoming a little less empty and a bit more well-thought. How do you know all this anyway? Wasn’t like he had a pair of his own or hands to squeeze them with.

I’ve always been a big fan of the fun bags. An observer. He stared into the distance. A connoisseur, if you will.

There was nothing I cared to reply, so I went back to picking out clothes. In defiance, I tried on the pencil skirt, then