Linda Lael Miller Bundle (38 page)

At least, she
hoped
solutions would begin to present themselves. Nothing came to her right away.

The sun was setting and crickets were harmonizing in the quack grass outside the barn when she heard sounds below and rolled over to peer through a crack between the floorboards of the loft.

Farley was there. He filled a feedbag and slipped it over the gelding’s head, then began currying the animal. The graceful play of the muscles in the marshal’s back and shoulders did odd things to Rue’s heartbeat, but she couldn’t help watching him work.

The lawman caught her completely off guard when he suddenly whirled, drew his pistol and pointed it at the underside of the loft.

“All right, just come down from there,” he ordered. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”

Some days, Rue reflected dismally, it just didn’t pay to get out of bed.

“Don’t shoot, Marshal,” she said. “It’s only me, Rue Claridge, Pine River’s Most Wanted.”

When Rue peered over the top of the ladder, Farley was just sliding his pistol back into its holster. He’d hung his hat on a peg on the wall, and his attractively rumpled brown hair glimmered even in the fading light. “What the hell are you doing up there?” he demanded, setting his hands on his hips.

Rue sighed and swung her legs over the side of the loft, gripping the pink sports bag in one hand. “Holding, of course. When Mr. Sinclair put the moves on me, I told him to get lost, and he said he’d have you arrest me….”

Farley scratched his head, obviously impatient and puzzled.

Rue tossed her bag to the floor and then climbed resignedly down the ladder to face her fate. “Here.” She held out her hands, wrists together. “Handcuff me.”

The marshal looked sternly down his nose at Rue. “You’ve gone and gotten yourself thrown out of the only boardinghouse that would have you?”

Sudden color pulsed in Rue’s cheeks. “Didn’t you hear a word I’ve said? Sinclair wanted me to—to be intimate with him. I refused, of course, and he said he’d have me arrested for robbing his house.”

Farley’s turquoise eyes narrowed. “Let’s see that satchel,” he said brusquely.

Rue resented the invasion of privacy, but she also knew she had no real choice, so she handed over the bag.

The marshal turned it end over end, trying to find the opening, and Rue finally reached out and pulled back the zipper herself.

Farley stared at the small mechanism as though it were a bug under a microscope. “What the—”

“It’s called a zipper,” Rue said with a sigh. “They won’t be invented for another twenty-five or thirty years, so don’t bother looking for them in your favorite store.”

Now Farley studied Rue with the same thoroughness as he’d examined the zipper on her neon pink bag. “You don’t talk like anybody I’ve ever known before, except for Mrs. Fortner, of course. Where did you come from?” he asked quietly.

Rue folded her arms. She might as well tell the truth, she decided, since nobody was going to believe her anyway. “The future. I came from the far end of the twentieth century.” She snatched the bag from his hands, suddenly anxious to convince him, to have one person on the face of the earth know what was happening to her. “Here,” she said, pulling the paperback spy novel out and thrusting it in Farley’s face. “Look. Did you ever see a book like this before, with a soft cover? And read the copyright date.”

Farley turned the book in his hands, clearly amazed by the bright red cover and the gold-foil lettering spelling out the title and the author’s name.

“Nobody can come from the future,” he insisted stubbornly, but Rue could see that the paperback puzzled him.

“I did,” she said. After setting the bag down, she politely took the book, opened it to the copyright page and held it out again. “There. Read that.”

Farley took in the printed words, then raised baffled eyes to Rue’s face. “It’s a trick,” he said.

“How could it be?” Rue demanded, growing impatient even though she’d known she would never convince him. “Paperback books and zippers don’t exist in 1892, Farley!”

“You could have gotten those things at some fancy science exhibition in St. Louis or Chicago or somewhere.” Clearly, Farley meant to stand his intellectual ground, even though it was eroding under his feet. “All I know is, it’s got to be some kind of hoax.”

Rue rolled her eyes. Then she bent and pulled out one of her precious snack-size candy bars. “How about this?” she challenged, holding out the morsel. “Did I get this at an exhibition, too?”

Farley frowned, examining the wrapper.

“You have to tear off the paper,” Rue prompted. “Then you eat what’s inside.”

Farley looked suspicious, but intrigued, also. He tore away the paper, letting it drift to the floor.

Rue picked the litter up and crumpled it on one hand, while Farley carried the candy bar over to the doorway and studied it in the last light. The look of consternation on his face was amusing, even under the circumstances.

“Go ahead, Farley,” she urged. “Take a bite.”

The marshal glanced at her again, then nibbled cautiously at one end of the chocolate bar. After a moment, he smiled. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered, then consumed the rest of the candy. “Got any more of those?”

“Yes,” Rue answered, thrusting out her chin, “but I’m not going to let you wolf them down. Especially not when you’re about to arrest me for something I didn’t do.”

“I’m not going to arrest you,” Farley replied reasonably, looking at Rue with curious amusement. “We’ve only got one jail cell here in Pine River, as you know, and it’s already occupied. I’ll just have to give you my bed and bunk out here in the barn until you get on that stage next Tuesday.”

Rue didn’t protest, nor did she turn the conversation back to the reality of time travel. Farley was still telling himself he was the victim of some elaborate prank, no doubt, but at least she had the satisfaction of knowing she’d planted the seed of possibility in his mind. Maybe after some rumination, he’d begin to take the idea seriously.

It the meantime, they were clearly going to pretend nothing out of the ordinary was going on.

If someone had to sleep in the barn, Rue reasoned, better Farley than she. She lowered her eyes. “There’s a problem with my leaving on the stage,” she confessed. “Somebody snitched all my money.”

Farley sighed. “With luck like yours, it’s purely a wonder you ever managed to win at poker the other night,” he said, gesturing toward the door. “Come on, Miss Rue. Let’s go in and rustle up some supper. We’ll figure out what to do with you later.”

Rue picked up her bag, straightened her shoulders and preceded him through the doorway of the barn. An inky twilight was working its way down the timbered hills toward them, and there was a bite in the air.

The inside of Farley’s log cabin was cozy and surprisingly neat. Books lined one whole wall, from roof to floor, and a stone fireplace faced the door. An attached lean-to housed a small kitchen area, and Rue suspected the tattered Indian blanket hanging from the ceiling hid Farley’s bed.

She went to stand beside the fireplace, hoping the warmth would dispel the sweet shivers that suddenly overtook her. She had a peculiar sense, all of a sudden, of being a piece on some great celestial board game, and she’d just been moved within easy reach of both victory and defeat.

“Hungry?” Farley asked, clattering metal against metal in the lean-to kitchen.

“Starved,” Rue said, too tired, confused and frustrated for any more deep thought. She’d missed both breakfast and lunch, and the candy bars weren’t taking up the slack.

Farley came out of the lean-to. “The stew’ll be warmed up in a few minutes,” he said. As he went around the cabin lighting kerosene lamps, he seemed uncharacteristically nervous.

Rue, on the other hand, felt totally safe. “So you’re a cook as well as a reader,” she said, wanting to hear him talk because she liked the sound of his voice, liked knowing he was there.

He grinned and shook his head. “No, ma’am,” he replied. “My food is provided as a part of my wages, like this cabin. The ladies of the town take turns cooking for me.”

The thought made Rue violently jealous, and that was when she realized the horrible truth. Somehow, she’d fallen in love with Farley Haynes.

Talk about Mr. Wrong.

“Oh,” she said finally.

Farley shook his head and crouched to add wood to the fire. “Maybe you shouldn’t stand so close,” he said, and his voice was suddenly hoarse. “Ladies have been known to catch their skirts afire doing that.”

Rue moved away to look at Farley’s collection of books, and her voice shook when she spoke. “Have you really read all these?”

“Most of them more than once,” Farley replied. She heard him retreat into the lean-to, then he called to her to join him. “Stew’s warm,” he said.

After drawing a deep breath, raising her chin and pushing back her shoulders, Rue marched into the tiny kitchen.

Farley had set a place for her at the small, round table, and there was a lantern flickering on a shelf nearby. The atmosphere was cozy.

He ladled stew into two bowls, set a loaf of hard bread on a platter and sat down across from her.

Once she’d taken several bites of the stew, which was delicious, Rue was a little less shaky, both inwardly and outwardly. She smiled at Farley. “This is quite a place you’ve got here.”

“Thank you,” Farley replied, “but I’ll be glad when I can take up ranching and let somebody else wear my badge.”

A bittersweet sadness touched Rue’s heart. “Have you got a place picked out?” she asked, breaking off a piece of bread.

Farley nodded. “There’s a half section for sale north of town. I’ve almost got enough for the down payment, and the First Federal Bank is going to give me a mortgage.”

“Mr. Sinclair’s bank,” Rue murmured, feeling less festive.

Farley was chewing, and he waited until he’d swallowed to answer. “That’s right.”

An autumn wind tested the glass in the windows, and Rue was doubly glad Farley had taken her in. “If there was any justice in this world, you’d go right over there and arrest that old lecher right this minute for sexual harassment.”

A modest flush tinted Farley’s weathered cheekbones. “He hasn’t broken the law, Rue. And that means he can’t be arrested.”

“Why?” Rue demanded, only vaguely registering the fact that Farley had called her by her first name. “Because he’s a man? Because he’s a banker? I was innocent of any crime, and that didn’t keep you from slapping
me
behind bars.”

“I’ve never slapped a woman in my life,” Farley snapped, looking outraged.

Rue sat back in her chair, her eyes brimming with tears she was too proud to shed. “It’s hopeless,” she said. “Absolutely hopeless. You and I speak different languages, Farley Haynes.”

“I would have sworn we were both talking English,” he responded, reaching calmly for his glass of water.

“I give up!” Rue cried, flinging out her hands.

Farley reached for her bowl and carried it to the stove. “What you need,” he said, “is some more stew.”

Rue watched him with a hunger she would have been too embarrassed even to write about in the privacy of her journal, and she swallowed hard. “Stew,” she said. “Right.”

T
he stew was remarkably good, hot and savory and fresh, and Rue consumed the second helping without quibbling. She was fiercely hungry, and the food eased her low-grade headache and the shaky feeling that invariably overtook her when she failed to eat regular meals.

After supper, Farley heated water on the stove, and Rue insisted on washing the dishes. It was fun, sort of like playing house in an antique store.

The lean-to was a small place, though, and when Farley poured himself a cup of coffee and then lingered at the table, flipping thoughtfully through a stack of papers, Rue was more painfully conscious of his presence than ever. She tried not to think about him, but it was an impossibility. He seemed to fill the little room to its corners with his size, his uncompromising masculinity and the sheer strength of his personality.

In Rue’s opinion, the effect on her nerves, her muscles and her most-secret parts was all out of proportion to the circumstances, strange as they were. She felt like a human volcano; lava was burning and bubbling in the farthest reaches of her body and her spirit. Simple things like drying the chipped crockery bowls they’d eaten from and setting them on the shelves took on the significance of epic poetry.

She was wrestling with the enormous enamel coffeepot, trying to pour herself a cupful, when she felt Farley looming behind her. He displaced her grip on the pot’s handle and filled her cup.

He was only standing at her back, it was nothing more dramatic than that, yet Rue felt a devastating charge radiate from his body to hers. In the next moment, the invisible field, woven of lantern light, cosmic mystery, half-forgotten dreams and stardust enfolded her, and she sagged backward against Farley’s steely stomach and chest.

Farley made no sound. He simply took the cup from Rue’s hand, set it on the stove and closed his strong arms lightly around her waist. For all that she had never been in such trouble, even on her most memorable assignments as a journalist, Rue felt as though she’d stumbled upon some magical sanctuary where nothing and no one could ever hurt her.

In the meantime, the seismic tumult was building inside Rue, gaining force moment by moment. She knew the inevitable eruption would be more than physical; it would be an upheaval of the soul, as well. And she wanted it despite the danger.

Presently—whether a minute or an hour passed, Rue could not have said—Farley raised his hands slowly, gently, to weigh her breasts. When his thumbs moved over her nipples, making them harden and strain against the fabric of her dress, Rue groaned and tilted her head back against his shoulder.

He touched his lips to her temple, warming the delicate flesh there, and then he bent his head slightly to nibble the side of her neck. Rue would have throttled any other man for taking such liberties, but her need for Farley had sneaked up on her, and it was already so pervasive that she couldn’t tell where the craving stopped and her own being began.

When he lifted her into his arms, Rue’s logical left brain finally struggled to the surface and gurgled out a protest, but it was too late. The fanciful right side of her brain was hearing rapturous symphonies, and the notes drowned out all other sounds.

Farley carried her out of the kitchen—Rue was vaguely aware of the fire as they passed the hearth—then he took her behind the Indian blanket that served as a curtain. There was a look of grim resignation on his face as he laid her on the neatly made bed and stood gazing down at her for a long moment. It was as if he thought she’d cast a spell over him and he was trying to work out some way to break it.

She couldn’t tell him that she was under an enchantment, too, that she had never done anything like this before. All she could do was lie there, all but the most primitive essence of her identity seared away by the heat of her desire, needing him. Waiting.

He took off her funny, old-fashioned shoes and tossed them aside, then began unbuttoning her dress. Only when she lay completely naked on his bed, totally vulnerable, did he speak.

“God help me,” he said in a raw whisper, “I’ve wanted to see you like this since that day I found you wandering in Doc Fortner’s house. I’ve wanted to touch you….”

Rue took his hand in hers, emboldened by the turquoise fire in his eyes and the frantic fever in her own spirit, and pressed his palm and fingers to her breast. “Touch me,” she said softly, and the words were both a plea and an affirmation.

Farley complied for a long, torturously delicious interval, then while Rue waited in sweet agony, he withdrew. She watched, dazed, as he removed his clothes.

His body had the stealth and prowess of a stalking panther as he stretched out beside her on the rough, woolen blanket that served as a bedspread. Then he kissed her, first caressing her lips with his, then commanding her mouth to open for the entrance of his tongue.

The conquest was a triumphant one, far more potent than any ordinary kiss. Rue’s body arched beside Farley on the bed, and he reached beneath her to cup her bottom in one hand and press her close against his thighs and the solid demand of his manhood.

She was afraid when she felt him, terrified of his size and power, and yet this knowledge did nothing to stem the furious tide of her passion.

Farley kissed Rue, again and again, all the while caressing and shaping her with his hands, until she was in a virtual delirium of need. Perspiration shimmered on every inch of her flesh, and tendrils of her hair clung wetly to her neck and temples.

At last, Farley positioned himself between her legs, then put his hands under her shoulder blades and raised her breasts for conquering. When he captured one eager nipple with his mouth, Rue cried out in despairing surrender, begging him to take her.

For all her travels, for all her reading and her sophistication, when Farley entered her, Rue was startled. There was pain, and it lingered, but it was also promptly overshadowed by a consuming, joyous rage made up of heavenly light and dragon’s fire.

Rue pressed her hands to Farley’s back, and the play of his muscles under her palms was as much a part of their lovemaking as the ferocious rhythm of joining and parting that was even then transforming them both.

For all the breathless promise of the past half hour or so, when Rue finally achieved satisfaction, she was all but swept away by the force of it. She strained beneath Farley in wild, glorious and totally involuntary spasms, her teeth clenched against the shouts of triumph rattling in the back of her throat. She was just settling back to the bed, breathless and disoriented, when Farley clasped her bottom hard in his hands, pressed her tightly against him and made a series of deep, abrupt thrusts. To Rue’s surprise, she reached another climax when Farley had his; her release was a soft, languid implosion, like a blessing on the tempest that had preceded it.

When he’d finally spent the last of his energy, Farley collapsed beside Rue, his breathing hard and raspy. She pressed her face into the taut, moist flesh on his shoulder, at once hiding from her lover and seeking him out.

“I knew it would be like that,” Farley muttered after they’d lain entwined for a long time, listening to the beating of each other’s hearts, the crackle of the fire and the night sounds of the lively timber town beyond the cabin walls.

Rue’s eyes filled with tears, but she wasn’t mourning the time before, when she and Farley had been innocent of each other. No matter what happened, whether she lived the rest of her life with this man or without him, in this century or another, she’d given herself truly and totally to Farley Haynes, and she would never forget the splendor of it.

“I thought it was a lie,” she finally confessed. “What people said about making love, I mean. I never knew—until now.”

Farley sighed and raised his head to look through her eyes, as though they were clear as windowpanes, and straight into her soul. He kissed her forehead and then rested his scratchy chin where his lips had just touched. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “I offered you safe haven here, and then I took advantage.”

Rue had just been transported to a whole other plane of womanhood, and the journey had had just as great an impact on her senses and emotions as being tossed from one time period to another. She was incapable, for the moment, of working out whether Farley’s apology was appropriate or not. “It’s not as though you threw me down on the bed and forced me,” she pointed out, loving the feel of his back, supple skin over firm muscles. “I wanted you.”

Farley drew back to search her eyes again, and the gesture made her feel more naked than she had earlier when he’d methodically relieved her of her clothes. “You are the most forward-thinking female I have ever encountered,” he said somberly, but then a grin broke over his face. “I think I like that about you.”

Rue swallowed, and her ability to think in rational terms was beginning to dissipate like fog in bright sunshine. Farley was joined to her, and he was getting hard again, and she didn’t want him to leave her. “Stay inside me, Farley. Please.”

Bracing himself by pressing his hands on the mattress on either side of her, Farley began to move slowly. “I’ll find out the truth about you,” he said, his words growing short and breathy as he increased his pace, “if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

Pressing her shoulders deep into the feather pillows and tilting her head back in magnificent surrender, Rue gasped out, “I’d love to tell you—I’d love to show you the place I came from….” And from that moment on, Rue was beyond speaking.

Farley dipped his head to lave one of her distended nipples with his tongue. His attentions were merciless and thorough, and soon Rue was pitching under him like a wild mare trying to shake off a rider.

Once that session had ended, Rue cuddled against Farley’s side—his rib cage had about as much flexibility as the staves of a wooden barrel—and promptly drifted off to sleep. When she awakened, the Indian blanket that separated the bed from the rest of the cabin was framed in silvery moonlight and Farley’s side of the mattress was empty.

Rue scrambled off the bed, found one of Farley’s shirts hanging from a peg in the wall and shoved her arms through the sleeves. The clock on the plain, board mantel over the fireplace read 3:17 and despite the fact that she had no claim on the marshal’s time, a sense of alarm crowded her throat.

Obviously, Farley had gone out for some reason—maybe there had been shouts or a frantic knock at the door or even shots fired, and she’d been too drunk on lovemaking to hear. In fact, she hadn’t even noticed when Farley left.

Rue’s imagination tripped into overdrive. She’d seen enough Clint Eastwood movies to know what awful things could happen to a lone lawman. The difference was that now she wouldn’t be able to toss away her popcorn box, fish her car keys out of her purse and go home to an apartment filled with modern conveniences. This was the real thing, and she just happened to be hopelessly in love with the peace officer in question.

On some level, Rue had known from the moment she met Farley that something significant was going to happen between them. But she hadn’t expected the event to be on a par with the destruction of the dinosaurs or the formation of the Grand Canyon.

Rue groped her way into the lean-to kitchen, blinded by her emotions rather than a lack of light, and looked at herself in Farley’s shaving mirror. Except that her hair was tangled and she was wearing a man’s shirt, she seemed unchanged. Inside, however, Rue was wholly different; she’d been converted, not into someone else, but into a better, richer and more genuine version of herself.

Trembling, Rue poured a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove and sank into one of the two chairs at the table. Since it had been sitting on the heat for hours, the brew was black as coal oil and only slightly more palatable. Rue figured there was probably enough caffeine in the stuff to keep her awake well into the next century—be it the twentieth or the twenty-first—but she took a second sip anyway.

Through the closed windows and thin walls of Farley’s house, Rue could hear the sounds of laughter and bad piano music and an ongoing argument between a man and a woman. She was overwhelmingly relieved when the door opened and the marshal himself walked in.

He set his rifle in the corner, hung his hat and long canvas duster on their pegs and then began unfastening his gun belt. All the time, he watched Rue in the dim, icy glow of the moonlight.

Rue didn’t want to express her relief at seeing him; she didn’t have the right. “I hope I didn’t keep you from your work,” she said with as much dignity as a person wearing only a man’s shirt and a glow of satisfaction can be expected to summon up.

Farley didn’t answer. He simply came to the table, took Rue’s hand and brought her to her feet. He took her back to the bedside, and she crawled under the covers, her heart turning to vapor and then gathering in her throat like a summer storm taking shape on the horizon.

She watched as Farley took off his clothes for the second time that night, more shaken than before by his magnificence and quiet grace.

He stretched out beside her under the blankets and with a few deft motions of one hand, relieved her of the long shirt she wore. Having done that, Farley curved one arm around Rue and arranged her close against his side, her head resting on his shoulder.

Farley did not make love to Rue; instead, he simply held her, sheltering her in his solidity and strength. For Rue, the experience was, in its own way, just as momentous as full surrender had been earlier. The simple intimacy met fundamental needs that had not only been unsatisfied before, but unrecognized.

Rue slept soundly that night and awakened with the first light of dawn, when Farley gently displaced her to get out of bed.

“What do I do now?” Rue asked softly. Sadly. “I can’t stay here. The whole town will know if I do.”

“The whole town already knows,” Farley answered, pulling on a pair of dark trousers and disappearing around the edge of the blanket curtain. “There aren’t many secrets in a place like Pine River.”

Rue slipped under the covers with a groan of mortification, but she could still hear the clatter and clink of stove lids, the working of a pump handle, the opening and closing of a door.