Linda Lael Miller Bundle (40 page)

“Now just a minute!” Rue’s cousin protested. “You can’t just go traipsing off to town through the dark of night! And what’s this about your sleeping with Farley?”

Rue sagged against the doorjamb, heedless of the biting chill of the November night, and she began to cry. “I’m in love with him,” she whispered brokenly, then sniffled. Her eyes found Elisabeth’s worried face in the dim light of the moon and the glow of lanterns from the parlor. “I’m not like you, Elisabeth. I can’t stay here—I can’t be happy in a place where there’s no UPS, no PBS, no CNN!”

Elisabeth laughed and put an arm around Rue’s shoulders. “Come in and sit by the fire. I’ll brew us a pot of tea and we’ll work out this whole problem.”

When Jonathan returned an hour later, Elisabeth and Rue were no closer to a solution. However, the doctor had brought a surprise along with him, a coldly angry Farley Haynes.

“The justice of the peace came and went,” Farley said when Jonathan had taken Elisabeth’s hand and led her out of the room so that Rue and the marshal were alone. He rested his hands on the sides of her chair, effectively pinning her between his arms.

Rue studied Farley’s craggy, handsome face fondly, trying to make a memory that would last for all time. “I’m sorry, Farley,” she said, touching his beard-stubbled cheek with one hand. “But I’m not the girl for you, and you wouldn’t be happy with me.”

Farley set his hands on either side of her waist, stepped back and hauled Rue unceremoniously to her feet. The necklace slipped to the floor, with a
chink
that seemed to echo throughout eternity, and she bent to grab for it. The marshal’s hand tightened around her upper arm, as though he thought she might try to escape his hold, and then it happened.

There was a wild spinning effect, as if the parlor were a merry-go-round gone berserk. Colors and shapes collided and meshed. Rue, hurled to the floor, wrapped both arms around Farley’s right leg and held on with all her strength to keep from being flung into the void.

“Jumpin’ Juniper,” Farley said when the wild ride subsided.

Rue couldn’t let go of his leg, but she did look around, seeing that while they were still in that same parlor, the furniture was different. There was a TV in the corner with a VCR on top.

“What the hell just happened here?” Farley whispered. Rue had to admire his cool. She was trembling as she shinnied up his thigh and finally stood on her own two feet.

She wanted to laugh, hysterically, joyously. She was home, and Farley was with her. On the other hand, she would probably never see Elisabeth again, and that made her want to weep.

“You’ve just aged almost a hundred years,” Rue said, resting her forehead against Farley’s shoulder and almost automatically slipping her hands around his waist. “I’ve got a lot to show you, Marshal Haynes, but first I’d better give you a little time to absorb the shock.”

Farley went to the television set and touched one of the buttons. The head and shoulders of a late-night talk-show host appeared on the screen in an instantaneous flash of light and color.

The marshal recoiled, though only slightly, his wonderful, weathered face crumpled into a frown. “Where’s the rest of that fellow?” he demanded. Before Rue could reply, he tapped the screen with his knuckles. “I’ll be damned. It’s a picture.”

Rue set the necklace on the mantelpiece. Suddenly, she was filled with pizza lust and the yearning for a long, hot shower. She went to the telephone and punched out a number.

“One large pepperoni with extra cheese, sausage, green peppers and mushrooms,” she said. Then she gave the address and hung up.

Farley had left the television to examine the phone. He picked up the receiver and put it to his ear, as Rue had done, then handed it back. “It’s a telephone,” she said. “A later version of those big wooden boxes with hand cranks and chrome bells.” At his look of puzzlement, Rue added, “I’ll explain later. Right now, I’m perishing for pizza.” She looked down at her Victorian clothes. “I’d better change or the delivery person will spread a vicious rumor that we’re having a costume party.”

The marshal, who would certainly have carried off the prize for the most authentic getup at such a gathering, went over to one of the chairs and sank into it. He looked pale beneath his deep tan, and understandably bewildered.

“Where are Mrs. Fortner and the doctor?” he asked. “What happened here?”

“Listen, Farley,” Rue said, sitting on the arm of his chair and slipping one arm reassuringly around his shoulders, “it’s all pretty complicated, though if you’ll remember, I tried to tell you about it before. Anyway, it’s going to take a while for you to absorb the fact that this is really happening, let alone process a whole new universe. We just jumped a hundred years, you and I. Technically, Bethie and Jonathan are long dead. On the other hand, they’re alive and well on the other side of some kind of cosmic chasm we don’t understand.”

“Thanks, Rue. That made everything clear as creek water,” Farley said wryly. He was clearly still unnerved, as anyone would have been, but that lethal intelligence of his was stirring, too. Rue could see it in his eyes, hungry, wanting to comprehend everything. “Am I losing my mind?”

“No more so than I am, or Elisabeth. You just crossed from one dimension to another, somehow. All I know is that it has to do with my necklace.”

“Good God,” Farley sighed, rubbing his chin.

“Now you know how I felt,” Rue said, polishing his badge with the sleeve of her dress. After that, she stood again. “Since you’re company,” she teased, “you can have the first shower.”

“The first what?”

Rue laughed and took his hand. “Come on. I’ll show you.” She led the befuddled lawman up the stairs, along the hallway and into the main bathroom, reserving the one off the master bedroom for herself. There, she gave Farley soap and shampoo and showed him where to find the towels, then adjusted the shower spigots.

Farley’s eyes went wide with puzzled amazement, but he was already starting to strip off his clothes when Rue slipped out of the room. She’d gotten only partway down the hall when a shout of stunned annoyance echoed from behind the door.

Thinking she should have explained that one spigot brought forth hot water and one cold, Rue smiled. She hoped it was ice Farley had just doused himself with, and not fire.

In the master bedroom, where all her things were still in the drawers and the closet, Rue had an urge to kneel and kiss the floor. She didn’t, however. She just laid out jeans, underwear, socks and a bulky, white sweater, then took a shower.

The doorbell was ringing when she reached the upper hallway, and she heard voices roll up the front stairs.

“Here’s the pizza, sir,” said a voice, teenage and masculine. “That’ll be fifteen dollars and seventy-five cents.”

“For one flat box?” Farley boomed. “You’d better take your wares someplace else, boy.”

Grinning, Rue hurried down the stairs. Farley was wrapped in a pink chenille bedspread taken from one of the guest bedrooms, and his freshly washed hair was standing up on top of his head.

“It’s okay,” Rue said quickly. She paid the young man, took the pizza and closed the door. Then looking up at Farley, she started to laugh. With the bedspread draped around him, toga-style, all he needed was a wreath of laurel leaves on his head to make him a very convincing Roman. “Don’t tell me, I know. A funny thing happened to you on the way to the forum.”

Farley was clearly not amused. “I’m in no mood for any of your fancy double-talk, woman,” he said, glowering.

Rue opened the lid on the pizza box. “Mellow out, Marshal. This will fix you up—prepare to experience one of the best things about modern life.” She pried a gooey slice loose and handed it to him. “Go ahead,” she urged. “Eat it.”

He took a cautious bite, tightened his bedspread toga with a nervous gesture of one hand and took another.

“Good, isn’t it?” Rue said, talking with her mouth full.

Farley answered by taking another piece.

Rue had waited too long for this pizza to stand on ceremony. They went into the parlor and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the empty hearth.

“Bet none of the Pine River ladies ever brought you anything like this for dinner,” Rue said smugly.

He lifted a slice to look under it. “Damnedest pancake I’ve ever seen,” he said in all seriousness.

Rue’s attention had shifted to the bedspread. “We’re going to have to get you some clothes, big fella. I think you’re the button-fly-jeans type.”

“I’ve got clothes,” Farley protested. Rue hoped he wasn’t going to pick now, of all times, to get stubborn.

“Chenille bedspreads have been out of style for a long time,” she said. For Farley, the situation was gravely confusing, Rue knew that, but she couldn’t help being happy that the two of them hadn’t been separated. She would face the lingering pain of saying goodbye to Elisabeth later, and begin learning to live with it. She sighed. “Life is very complicated, Farley.”

He glared at her, probably thinking she was a witch or a creature from another planet, that she’d deliberately uprooted him from the world he knew.

“Okay, so maybe that was kind of an obvious statement,” Rue conceded. “I can’t explain what happened to you, for the simple reason that I don’t have the first idea myself. The fact is, you’re in the 1990s instead of the 1890s, and you can probably go back if you want to just by holding the necklace in one hand.” She started to rise to get the pendant from the mantel, but Farley stopped her by grasping her arm.

“Will you go with me?” he asked hoarsely.

Rue hesitated, then shook her head. “I belong here,” she said. If she hadn’t realized that before, she reflected, traveling back to 1892 had certainly cleared the matter up for her. She had a suspicion Farley belonged, too, because of his insatiable mind and progressive attitudes, but he would have to discover that for himself. It was not something she could decide for him.

Farley swallowed hard, the last slice of pizza forgotten in his hand, and Rue knew he was making a costly decision.

“I ought to go back where I came from,” he finally said. “There are things I left undone and people I need to say goodbye to. But, damn it, scared as I am, I want to see this place.” Farley gestured toward the TV set. “I want to see what other machines there are and how they work.” He reached out from where he sat and touched the dangling cord of a lamp. “And these lanterns. Does the kerosene come in through this wire?”

Rue kissed his forehead. “You’ve got quite an adventure ahead of you, cowboy.”

Farley finished the pizza, thoughtfully examining Rue’s jeans and sweater. “I guess women must dress like that here, then?” he inquired, and it was obvious that he didn’t wholly approve of the look.

She nodded. “Chinese women have worn pants for centuries,” she said. “Here in the United States, the style didn’t really catch on until the Second World War.”

“There was a war involving the whole world?” Farley’s eyes were wide and haunted with the horrible images of such an event.

“There were two,” Rue said. “And all of us are praying like crazy that there’ll never be a third.”

Awkwardly, Farley got to his feet, still carefully clutching the bedspread that preserved his modesty, and started toward the back of the house. “The privy still in the same place?”

Again, Rue laughed. “The outhouse was filled in sometime in the thirties, Farley.” She wriggled her fingers to summon him to the downstairs bathroom, showed him how to flush. “There’s another one upstairs. I guess you missed it when you took your shower.”

He whistled. “That’s one fine invention.”

“Wait until you see what we can do with computers,” she countered, leaving the room and closing the door. She hung up Farley’s sheepskin coat, his badge still gleaming on the lapel, and gingerly set his gun belt on top of the highboy in the smaller parlor. Then she dropped his socks, trousers and shirt into the washer. He’d need something to wear while they shopped for contemporary clothes the next day.

By this time, Farley was standing behind her, wearing just a bath towel around his middle now. Obviously, he was feeling a little more comfortable in the circumstances.

“What is that thing doing?” he asked, frowning at the washer.

Rue explained, and Farley grinned at the wonderment of such a thing, flashing his white teeth. He lifted the washer’s lid to look inside. The agitator promptly stopped.

Rue closed the lid again and patted the top of the washer’s companion appliance. “This is the drier. I’ll put your shirt and pants in here after the washer stops, and they’ll be ready to wear in less than half an hour.”

Farley looked mesmerized. “Will you teach me how to work these things?” he asked.

“Count on it,” Rue agreed. She was a firm believer in training a man right in the first place. That way, maybe he wouldn’t be dropping socks and wet towels on the bathroom floor and leaving dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.

Upstairs, she gave him a new toothbrush from the supply in the linen closet, along with a tube of paste. He was standing at the sink in the main bathroom, happily foaming at the mouth when Rue retired to the master bath.

When she came out, Farley was sitting on the edge of the bed, still clad in the towel. Which was almost worse than nothing, because it sent Rue’s fertile imagination spinning.

He discovered the switch on the bedside lamp and flipped it on and off three or four times before he was apparently satisfied that the same thing would happen ad infinitum, until either the mechanism wore out or he did.

When Farley turned his eyes to Rue and ran them over her short, cotton nightgown, she knew he’d gone a long way toward adjusting to his situation. He smiled broadly and said, “Hope you don’t mind sharing your bed. I’m scared of the dark, and, besides, this was supposed to be our wedding night.”

R
ue hesitated in the doorway, fighting a disconcerting urge to fling herself at Farley in unqualified surrender. She’d always found other men highly resistible, no matter how famous or accomplished they might be, but this self-educated nineteenth-century marshal could send her pulse careening out of control with a look, a simple touch or a few audacious words.

“Are you sure it would be wise for us to sleep together?” she finally managed in a thin voice. “After all, we don’t exactly know where our relationship is headed.”

“Relationship,” Farley repeated with a thoughtful frown, stretching out on the bed. At least
he
was comfortable. Rue was a mass of warm aches and quivering contradictions. “That’s a peculiar-sounding word. If it means what I think it does, well, I don’t believe all of that has to be worked out tonight. Do you?”

Rue ran the tip of her tongue nervously over dry lips. “No, but—”

Farley arched one eyebrow. “But…?” he prompted, not unkindly.

Rue hugged herself and unconsciously took a step closer. “I’m not sure you’re going to understand this, being a man, but when we made love, I opened myself up to you in a way that I never had before. There was no place for me to hide, if you know what I mean, and intimacy of that kind—”

He rose, graceful in his bath towel, and came to stand directly in front of her. “Did I hurt you?” he asked.

Rue shook her head. “No,” she croaked after a long moment of silence. “It’s just that I felt so vulnerable.”

Gently, Farley took Rue’s hand, raised it to his mouth, brushed the knuckles with his lips. “I’ll make you a bargain,” he said. “If I’m loving you and you get scared, all you have to do is say stop, and I will. No questions, no arguments.”

Gazing into Farley’s eyes, Rue knew he was telling the truth. Color pooled in her cheeks. “You know as well as I do,” she told him with a rickety smile, “that once you start kissing and touching me, stopping will be the last thing on my mind.”

He eased her to the side of the bed, pulled the nightgown off over her head and tossed it aside. Then he feasted on her with his eyes, and that alone made Rue feel desirable and womanly.

Her breasts seemed to swell under Farley’s admiring gaze, the nipples protruding, eager. Her thighs felt softer and warmer, as if preparing to cradle his hard weight, and the most secret reaches of her womanhood began a quiet, heated throbbing.

When Farley spread splayed fingers through her freshly combed hair and bent her head back for his kiss, Rue gave an involuntary whimper. She was terrified, and the sensation of his mouth against hers was something like hurtling down the face of Mount Rainier on a runaway toboggan.

Rue felt Farley’s towel fall away as he gripped her bottom, raised her slightly and pressed her against him, never slackening the kiss. Most of her wits had already deserted her, but she knew somehow that Farley was afraid, too, as she had been when she’d suddenly found herself in an alien century. He needed her comfort as he might never need it again, and if Rue hadn’t already been incredibly turned on, that knowledge alone would have done the trick.

Passion made her bold. Farley broke the kiss with a gasp of surprised pleasure when she closed her hand around his manhood and instinctively began a fiery massage. Finally, Rue knelt and took him into her mouth, and his fingers delved into her hair, frantic, worshiping. A low groan rolled beneath the washboard muscles of his stomach before escaping his throat.

Farley allowed Rue to attend him for a long time—it was amazing, but somehow he was still in charge of their lovemaking, even while she was subjecting him to exquisite rapture. Finally he stopped her, raised her to the bed and gently laid her there.

He said something to her in a low, rumbling voice, and then repaid her thoroughly for the sweet torment she’d given him. He did not bring her to the brink again and again, as Rue had done to him, however. Instead, Farley took her all the way, pursuing her relentlessly, until her heels dug deep into the mattress and her cries of satisfaction echoed off the ceiling.

When at last he took her, Rue didn’t expect to have anything left to give. Her own instant, fevered response came as a shock to her, and so did the deep wells of sensation Farley plumbed with every thrust. He was exposing parts of her emotional life, places in her very soul, that had never seen the light.

Afterward, as before, he held Rue close, and her soaring heart returned from the heavens and settled itself inside her like a storm-ruffled bird that has finally found a roosting place. A tear brimmed the lower lashes of Rue’s right eye and then zigzagged down her cheek, catching against the callused side of Farley’s thumb.

Maybe he knew she didn’t need consoling, that she was crying because life was life, because she was so grateful for the steady beat of her heart and the breath in her lungs. In any case, all Farley did was hold her a little tighter.

“It’s strange,” she said after a very long time, “to think that Elisabeth and Jonathan and Trista are in this house, too, even though we can’t see or hear them.”

Farley’s hand moved idly against her hair, her temple, her cheek. “I’m still trying to figure out that thing you’ve got downstairs, the box with the pictures inside. There’s no point in vexing my poor brain with how many people are traipsing around without us knowing about it.”

Rue smiled, spreading her fingers over the coarse patch of hair on Farley’s chest. “It’s nice, though, to think Bethie and the others are so close by, that they’re not actually dead but just in another dimension.”

He reached over to cover her lips with an index finger. “I’m not even going to ask what you mean by ‘another dimension,’” he said, “because I’m afraid you’ll tell me.”

She turned over, resting her leg on top of his and curling her foot partway around his ankle. Then she gave one of his nipples a mischievous lick before smiling into his eyes. “There is so much I want to show you, Farley. Like my ranch, for instance.”

“Your what?”

“You remember. I told you I had a ranch in Montana.”

He chuckled. “I thought you were just pulling my leg about that. How did you come to have your own land?”

“I inherited it from my grandfather. Let’s go there, Farley—tomorrow. As soon as we’ve bought you some new clothes.”

Farley stiffened, and his tone, though as quiet as before, had an edge to it. “The duds I’ve got will do just fine.”

Rue sighed. “This is no time to have a fit of male pride, Marshal. Times have changed, and if you go around in those clothes, people will think you’re a refugee from a Wild West show.”

“I don’t accept what I haven’t earned,” he replied. He’d clamped his jaw with the last word, and even in the thin moonlight Rue could see that his eyes had gone hard as marbles.

“Good,” Rue said. “I need a foreman at Ribbon Creek anyway; my lawyers have been complaining about the one I’ve got ever since Gramps died.”

In the next few seconds, it was as though Farley’s masculine pride and desire for a ranch had taken on substance even though they remained invisible. Rue could feel them doing battle right there in the room.

“What are you going to do if you don’t work for me, Farley?” she pressed quietly. “You’re one of the most intelligent men I’ve ever known, but believe me, you don’t have the kind of job skills you’d need to make a decent living in this day and age.”

He was quiet for such a long time that Rue feared he’d drifted off to sleep. Finally, however, Farley replied, “Let’s go and have a look at this ranch of yours, then.”

Rue laid her cheek against his chest, smiled and closed her eyes.

When she awakened in the morning, Farley was sitting in a chair next to the bed, wearing his regular clothes. Although there were pulled threads shriveling the fabric in places, and the pants looked an inch or two shorter, he was still handsome enough to make Rue’s heart do a happy little spin.

“I was beginning to think you meant to lay there till the Resurrection,” Farley grumbled, and Rue ascertained in that moment that, despite the fact that he’d gotten up comparatively early, the marshal was not a morning person.

“Low blood sugar,” Rue diagnosed, tossing back the covers and sitting up. She’d put her nightgown back on during the night, so she didn’t feel as self-conscious as she might have otherwise. “Don’t let it bother you. I have the exact same problem. If I don’t eat regularly—and junk food is worse than nothing—I get crabby, too.”

Farley was already at the door. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but if you’re saying I’m hungry, you’re right. I was planning to make breakfast, and I took some wood from the basket by the parlor fireplace, but I’ll be damned if I could figure out where to kindle the fire in that kitchen stove of yours.”

Rue grinned and preceded him out of the bedroom and down the stairs. “It’s not the kind of stove you’re used to, Marshal. Remember the cords on the lamp? Most everything in the kitchen works the same way, by electricity.” She’d explained the mysteries of that science as best she could the night before, but in a way it was like trying to illustrate their trip through time. Rue couldn’t very well clarify things she barely understood herself. “Never fear,” she finished. “There’s a set of books at the ranch that covers that type of thing—Gramps had a penchant for knowing how things worked.”

She crossed the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, knowing ahead of time what she’d find. Nothing edible, except for three green olives floating in a jar. The other stuff had been there when she arrived at the house days—weeks?—before.

Rue opened the freezer and took out a box of toaster waffles. “I’m afraid this will have to hold us until we can get to Steak Heaven out on Highway 18.”

Farley watched in consternation as Rue opened the carton, pulled apart the inner wrapper and popped two waffles into the toaster. While they were warming, she scouted out syrup and put two cups of water into the microwave for instant coffee.

“How does this contraption work?” Farley asked, turning to the stove that had so confounded him earlier.

Rue checked the oven on a hunch and found kindling sticks neatly stacked on the middle rack. She struggled not to laugh as she removed them, thanking heaven all the while that Farley had not gone so far as to light a blaze.

“These knobs on the top control everything,” she said when she could trust herself to speak. With one arm, she held the applewood while pointing out the dials with her free hand.

Farley listened earnestly to her explanation, then nodded with a grin. It was plain that he was a quick study; no doubt he would take in information as fast as it could be presented.

They breakfasted on the waffles and coffee, and then Rue hurriedly showered and dressed. She wasn’t afraid of her Aunt Verity’s house, even after all that had happened to her and to Elisabeth here; she could never have feared that benevolent place. Still, Rue felt an urgency to be gone, a particular fear she didn’t like facing.

Perhaps away from here, the necklace would have no power. If it did, however, Farley could disappear at any moment.

Getting the marshal to leave his gun belt behind required some of the fastest talking Rue had ever done, but in the end, she succeeded by promising him access to the big collection of firearms that had belonged to her grandfather.

It was almost noon when she and Farley locked the house and set out. Rue had brought her laptop computer, clothes and personal things, but she’d deliberately left the necklace behind; in its own way, the thing was as dangerous as the marshal’s Colt .45.

Farley was fascinated by the Land Rover. He walked around it three or four times before getting in.

Thinking her guest might be interested in seeing how Pine River had developed over the decades since he’d been its marshal, Rue drove him down Main Street, showed him the movie house and the library and the local police station. She avoided the churchyard without looking too closely at her reasons.

Farley was, of course, amazed by the changes, and would have insisted on getting out and exploring, Rue was sure, if he hadn’t been so fascinated by their mode of transportation.

He spent the entire ride to Steak Heaven opening and closing the glove compartment, turning the dials on the radio, switching on the heat, then the air-conditioning, then the heat again.

“Soon as we get to Ribbon Creek,” Rue promised from her position behind the wheel, “I’ll teach you to drive.”

Farley beamed at the prospect.

When they reached the restaurant, Farley turned his attention from the dashboard and stared in amazement at the crowded parking lot. “Jumpin’ Juniper,” he said. “Does everybody in this place have one of these newfangled buggies?”

Rue smiled. “Almost,” she answered, “but they come in all shapes, sizes and colors, as you can see.”

Farley paused to inspect a pricey red sports car as they passed, giving a low whistle of appreciation. It only went to prove, Rue thought in amusement, that some things transcend time. Maybe men had always been fascinated by methods of transportation.

The noise and bustle of the inside of the restaurant made Farley visibly nervous. His face took on a grim expression, and Rue saw him touch his outer thigh once or twice while they waited to be seated. Probably he was unconsciously seeking reassurance that wasn’t there—his gun.

“Smoking or nonsmoking?” a waitress asked pleasantly.

Farley’s turquoise eyes widened as he took in the girl’s short skirt, and Rue realized he’d never seen a female show so much leg in public.

“Non,” Rue answered, linking her arm with Farley’s and propelling him between the crowded tables as the girl led the way.

“Tarnation,” Farley muttered, looking around and seeing that not only other waitresses but customers were dressed in the same way. “If the Presbyterians saw this, they’d be spitting railroad spikes.”

Rue chuckled. “Some of these people probably
are
Presbyterians, Farley. This is an accepted way for women to dress.”

They reached their booth, and Farley slid into the seat across from Rue, still looking overwhelmed. His eyes narrowed. “It’s bad enough to see a woman in pants,” he whispered pointedly. “I hope you don’t plan on parading around in one of these getups you call a dress, with your knees sticking out. I’m the only one who should see you like that.”