The Woman Who Saved Love

By Julia Harriet

Is it possible for a past-life connection to channel fate toward present-day love? When best-selling author Julia Harriet visits an old mining town in Nevada, she finds herself oddly familiar with both the landscape and locals. Through a series of unlikely and colorful conversations, she soon learns that she shares a name and possibly much more

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joist Publishing
• Release date: May 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9781737724339

Book preview

PROLOGUE

THE THREADS OF TIME,

Cheryl Roberts Oliver

Dedicated to Julia Harriet

We are the seamstresses, weavers

of the threads of time, our spirit fingers

stitching portals into what has been that is no more,

a different place, a different form.

This life, the last, the next,

entwined with every breath we take,

so full, so frail. Death knots the thread;

birth spins a new design

formed with sacred colors

of the earth, each dusk and dawn,

reflections of the darkest nights,

always with a flaw to let the spirit out

honoring the imperfections

that overlay the course of growth. Untangling

the threads, we cast on dreams, a slipknot to begin,

then we work the yarn of each existence,

entwined with those that came

before and those ahead. We’ve all been here.

We will return again, traveling a vast expanse,

tethered to the now, always seeking to enfold

and be enfolded in a warm embrace

that will erase our fears and doubts, using

words to calm and comfort when we’re lost

only to be found again.

We are the dreamers,

rising to new heights, falling to great depths,

risking loss and pain, knowing that’s the price we

pay for trust and faith to be sustained.

We are the seamstresses,

weavers of the threads, casting on,

working every strand with love, forever

roaming, keepers of unending time.

CHAPTER ONE

WHEN LOVE HITS TURBULENCE

"W e’re all gonna die!"

Red wine spilled across the wrinkled hand of a woman with painted lips and no eyebrows. Across the aisle, two of her companions made fearful screeching noises as our plane shuddered and slammed through channels of turbulence on approach to the Reno airport. I coiled as much as I could into a fetal position, my trembling feet boring into the seat in front of me.

Julia, breathe, babe. It will be OK. Planes are built for this.

Expletives of every color and form flowed freely from the pit of doom in my stomach. The old ladies were right—we were fucked.

I was too young to die like this, stuffed in a metal can with wings and a gaggle of purple-haired drunks. I didn’t trust any of it: the physics of flight, the perilous desert, or that I would live to see another day. Looking at my boyfriend James, you’d never know there was the slightest concern. Eating salted nuts like he was on the carousel at the fair, his nonchalant demeanor further incited my deepening despondency.

Are you freaking kidding me? This is fucking terrible. Planes aren’t made to fly through this kind of hell, James.

Both freshly graduated from college, James and I had left the lushness of the Pacific Northwest to visit my parents in a valley north of Reno. As recent implants to the high desert, my folks held the highest accolades for this land of wall-to-wall sunshine surrounded by endless hills of buried gemstones. But I wasn’t so sure. I had heard of this Biggest Little City and imagined it to be a sequined hoax, where sweaty old Elvis had crooned to tweaked-out gamblers. It seemed like the sort of America we should try to snuff out like a Marlboro Red, a smoldering mirage that twinkled like embers atop polyester pants.

Big wet tears flowed down my face as I struggled to breathe amid the constant, jolting chaos. James just stared out the window at rows of trailer parks below, separated by islands of half-dead sagebrush. The airport must be nearby, and I pictured us slamming into the runway as an amorphous fireball, nose over tail, like a little kid missing a step and barreling down a flight of stairs.

Fuck me. Are we almost there? I seriously can’t take much more of this. Flickering memories played like an old movie reel on the lids of my squinched eyes: hugging my mom at the bus stop on my way to kindergarten; my first French kiss in the hallway of my childhood home with my basset hound staring up at us; being handed my college diploma standing before thousands of smiling faces. Suddenly, the plane dropped in altitude. It felt as though my body was yanked out of the seat, but the seatbelt held. A sobering truth snatched at me: I was going to die without ever truly being in love with a man.

We’re gettin’ really close now. Any minute, we’ll be touching down. I can’t wait to see how the pilot lands this thing with such a strong headwind.

I couldn’t comprehend James’s composure. In fact, it pissed me off. Why didn’t he care if we lived or died? He didn’t seem to feel passionately about anything, including me. All I could think was that every person who died in a plane crash felt like this beforehand, soaring through thoughts of regret and guilt while conversely praying for mercy because, up here, you knew God’s reckoning must not be too far away.

Just then, the ballast of the plane licked the ground. For an instant, gravity’s presence felt like an affirmation of survival, until we immediately lifted back off the concrete, the plane’s wings wobbling, my chest collapsing.

OH NO, no, no, no… NO, NO, NO!

James clutched my hand as the engines forcefully geared down, causing the passengers to lunge violently forward. The grinding brakes quickly slowed us down to a sensible speed, and with the plane stabilized, a collective exhalation and inhalation was shared among the crew and passengers alike.

I need a stiff drink, James, because I’m not at all OK after this. I thought we were total goners.

I told you we’d be just fine. Planes are built to handle stress. You have to trust things in life a little more, Julia.

I had no patience for a pep talk. I needed to get the fuck off this plane and make a toast of gratitude for not dying today.

As we arrived at the gate, I was noticeably unhinged, but my untethering wasn’t only due to the turbulent flight into Reno. A chain reaction had been set off in my heart, having been slammed with the revelation that true love was absent from my life. A different fireball of sorts took hold of my stomach. I couldn’t extinguish this feeling of emptiness. Far worse than perishing in a plane crash was dying without ever knowing love.

James and I went straight to the airport cantina past rows of cajoling slot machines. The bartender took one look at me and poured us two double shots of well tequila. We nodded in appreciation and threw them back like Kool-Aid on a hot summer day. The tequila landed cruelly in my soured stomach, but I willed the upset away, thankful for the numbing effect of booze on my shattered nerves.

Visiting the restroom on our way to baggage claim, I splashed water on my face to revive myself before seeing my parents. Sadly, there was no way to make over the specter that I had become while airborne. Emotionally, something had definitely shifted in me during the flight, and if anyone would be the first to notice, it would be my mom.

Honey, what the hell happened to you? Are you guys OK? Swooping me into her arms like an abandoned kitten, I reveled