by Dana Roquet
Out of the Past
Heritage Time Travel Romance Series, Book #1
All Iowa Edition, PG-13
By Dana Roquet
Copyright 2013 Dana Roquet
Revised an Updated 2015
All rights reserved
ISBN-13 978-0988503540
ISBN-10 09880503549
Edited by Todd Barselow
Cover art: Judy Bullard
Contact Information: www.danaroquets.com
[email protected]
This is a work of fiction. The main characters and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Certain individuals, businesses and locations have been fabricated, fictionalized or dramatized by the author for effect. Those characters that are based on living individuals are used with their written permission.
This is a PG-13 version of the original novel with minimal sexual content, some adult situations, language and violence.
Dedication
For my family, past and present,
And for Johnnie Baitsell, Octavius Waltman, Dr. Jacob Krout, Samuel McFall and so many others who now belong to the ages, but who will forever have a place in my heart.
Acknowledgement
I would like to acknowledge the following individuals for their support of my story
Carol, Kiya, Jennifer, Joy and Jessica for reading scenes and letting me bounce ideas off of them.
Bill the barber
Keo-Mah Genealogical Society
Paul and Julie DeMuesy
DreamCatchers Equine Rescue
Gina Miller
Jimmy Thomas, businessman, entrepreneur and romance cover model extraordinaire.
Prologue
The dreams began my first night in my new, very old home on a secluded acreage in Mahaska County, Iowa, just a mile south of the tiny town of Fremont. It was within a very short time of moving in that I had to stop calling them dreams, though, because they were much, much more than dreams. I didn’t know why it was happening, and I didn’t know how it was happening but it was like time traveling or warping into a different dimension.
The time travels were a blast, at first. It was as if I were an Improv actor and each night I had a brand new role to perform. I enjoyed the challenge of traveling into the past and navigating my way through old Fremont and I also cherished the chance to meet so many loved ones whom I had never known but would forever remember.
Yes, my travels had begun as an amazing and interesting phenomenon—a harmless and victimless experiment. They were my own private and wonderful escape, which soon became my secret obsession.
Until finally I realized, much too late, that there was also evil in the past; evil that would have been better left alone…
Chapter 1
Six months earlier…
March 1, 2012
When I pulled my SUV off of the gravel road and into the driveway for my afternoon appointment with the contractor I’d hired (sight unseen), I found him waiting for me on the ancient and battered front porch. He was leaning casually against a porch post in a well-fitting white T-shirt, with his hands in the pockets of his blue jeans, which I noted with my keen appreciation of the male physique, set perfectly at his lean waist. If there were any lingering doubt in my mind as to whom he might be, it was dispelled when I noticed a shiny orange tube of construction blueprints tucked neatly under one arm. My first thought was, Oh yeah, I can handle spending three months working with this man.
David Cameron was absolutely gorgeous, in a rugged outdoorsy kind of way. I guessed that he was probably in his mid-to late thirties; tall, tan, and toned, he had dark-brown hair that he wore layered and just the right length as far as I’m concerned—a clean-cut style but not too short. I couldn’t see his eyes just yet, but his face was lean and his jawline, chiseled. That I was so flagrantly checking him out made me more than a little disappointed in myself because I’m in a relationship, long term, with my boyfriend, Derek. But, hey, what healthy all-American girl wouldn’t admire a fine-lookin’ man like this?
I lifted my sunglasses and took a moment to glance into the rearview mirror, checking my makeup and making sure that I didn’t have lipstick on my teeth before dropping my shades back into place and grabbing up my day planner and an album of old photos.
“Dave?” I asked, closing my car door.
“At your service, Torie. Good to finally meet you in person. What about this warm weather?” he asked in a casual way that immediately put me at ease.
“I know—seventy-one degrees according to the radio. The record-breaking continues.”
“So are you ready for this?” he asked with a flash of a grin as I approached.
Wow, dimples and light crystal-blue eyes!
“You have no idea! I can’t wait to get started and I’m excited to see what you’ve done up to now.”
I started to step up to join him and found that I had to straddle a rather large gap in the porch boards as I did so, so instead of stumbling like a new born calf or worse, falling flat on my face at his feet, I accepted his offer of assistance and slipped my hand into his warm, work-rough palm.
“That’s going to be next on my agenda,” he assured me, pointing to the hazard that I had narrowly avoided, arriving unscathed at his side.
“In fact,” he said, looking around and then walking across the porch and retrieving a small piece of plywood, he returned with it and laid it over the spot.
“I think that’s a good call,” I agreed. “Okay now, Dave, are you ready to be wowed?”
“You bet,” he said. “Wow me.”
“Okay, check this out,” I said as I laid my planner and album on a handy makeshift workbench that he’d improvised, composed of a sheet of plywood set atop two sawhorses.
I flipped open the album and removing my sunglasses, tucked them into the neck of my tee while Dave set aside his tube of drawings on the workbench and looked on with interest at what I had brought.
I splayed my hand over the first page of the album and looked up into his eyes, slightly embarrassed, knowing that this guy was about to realize that his newest client is a total nutcase. He had no idea of the extent of my obsession with this house or my family’s history; but he was about to find out.
“First of all, I want you to know that I have hounded every poor unsuspecting relative living within a five-hundred-mile radius of here to gather these,” I admitted with a short laugh. “And I do feel more than a little guilty about that and I’m pretty sure that I’ve been disowned by at least a few of them, but look at all this!” I said excitedly, ruffling through the pages.
“I have any and every photograph that I could find of the house as it looked in the late eighteen hundreds, at the turn of the century, and during the early nineteen hundreds when, somehow, my grandfather’s family came into possession of an early Kodak Brownie and they took shots of the barn, yard, porch, front room, and the kitchen when it had been complete with an old cook stove, farm sink, and indoor water pump.”
“Oh wow! That’s perfect. It shows every detail!” Dave burst out excitedly when I flipped to the first photo behind the tab labeled ‘Front Porch’.
I grinned up at him; a little surprised but very pleased by his reaction which was much as mine had been when I’d first seen some of these. It was easy to tell that his excitement was genuine.
“I know. Isn’t it great?” I turned the album so that he could get a better look.
The photograph was one of those from around 1910. Th
e shot was taken from out in the front yard, looking toward the house. Seated along the porch were my grandpa Arlan, when he had been approximately twelve-years-old and sitting between his knees, was his favorite dog that he seemed to always have with him in many of the photos from that time period. Also in the photo were two of Arlan’s older brothers, Robert and Albert; my great-grandparents, Henry Mills and Alice Wyman Mills; and Alice’s mother, Rose Simpson Wyman who was my great-great-grandmother and the original owner of the house that I now own. She passed away at the ripe old age of ninety-seven back in the year 1927. Finishing out the photo was Great-Grandfather Henry’s older brother, Peter Mills, who is a bit of a mystery and was standing almost out of the shot to the far right side of the front porch.
“It’s so amazing to think that this is exactly where they were all sitting, right here, a hundred years ago,” I marveled glancing around the expanse of the old covered porch.
“These are great. They’ll help a lot,” Dave said enthusiastically. He was practically salivating and I realized that he really is as big a history buff as I am. I’d hoped that these would blow him away.
“Great shot of the porch brackets,” he said absently as he touched the photo lightly with an index finger. He then turned to look at the porch supports, which no longer showed any traces of the former adornment as seen in the picture.
“I should be able to duplicate those,” he said softly and stood contemplating the porch post closest to him for a long moment before seeming to shake himself mentally, letting the thoughts go for now.
“Okay,” he said turning to grin down at me and rubbing his hands together in excited anticipation which, I couldn’t help but notice, caused his impressive biceps to bulge. “Are you gonna let me give you the grand tour?” he asked with a voice full of pure unadulterated glee.
I relinquished control of the proceedings immediately and swept my hand in the direction of the front door.
“Please do. Lead on,” I said with a slight bow.
As I enjoyed the obvious excitement on my contractor’s face at the prospect of sharing the renovations with me, I thought to myself, Now this is the proper reaction to my project. This guy understands completely!
My boyfriend Derek doesn’t understand at all how I can be content to live in Fremont, Iowa, population 762 because to him, success means living flashy and living large; you know, keeping up with the Jones’ and all that. My sister Sarah can understand what I am after because she lives a similar slow-paced, low key life out in Colorado but my sister Margo, she is of the same opinion as Derek.
Having two books on the New York Times best-seller list is not a walk in the park, though. It’s hard work! And the last two years of promoting my books and everything that it entails, from interviews for radio and TV spots, to book signing events, to meetings with my agent and with publishing house executives on a regular basis, has been enough to make me want to find a secluded island somewhere, park my butt underneath the nearest palm tree and never look back.
This project of buying my great-great-grandparents’ home along with the rolling five acres of pastureland that the house sits on the edge of, just a mile south of the wonderfully tiny town of Fremont, and working to restore the property to its glory days when it had been built back in 1870, is close enough to that deserted island. To me—it’s paradise.
Quitting my job and never needing to work again is a luxury that I’d never expected to experience in my lifetime, especially not at the ripe old age of thirty-six, but it’s a reality now, and I know exactly what I want to do: brainstorm for my next novel and work on my family history. What better place to do that, than in the little hamlet where it all began for my Mills family, back in 1852?
“All right then,” Dave said, assisting me by picking up the album and I followed him, heading through the front door.
“First of all,” he began. “Electricians are going to be here in the morning. Heating and cooling will be here Monday and expect to finish in one day. Once that’s a done deal, things will move pretty fast—at least the basics. All new plumbing is in, as we discussed last week, and the downstairs bathroom is done and the toilet and sink are now functional. I used the big old pantry off of the kitchen that we decided on. I can’t wait for you to see it.”
We walked into the large airy front foyer and I looked up at the currently deconstructed Victorian staircase that was in the process of being restored and would eventually lead up to the second story. It was already beginning to show the promise of what would soon be an impressive, eye-popping first impression of the home.
“Work in progress,” Dave said indicating the stairs with a dismissive wave. “I’ll have it finished in a few days,” he assured me as we continued on and took a right, passing under a lovely archway.
“Wow!” I exclaimed as I entered my grandma’s large living room, called front room back in the day. Dave had already been doing some prep work in here and he couldn’t hold back the smile when I gaped at him, open-mouthed. I reached out to reverently touch the wall where he had removed layers upon layers of paint and at least several different wallpaper reincarnations.
“Oh my god, Dave, that’s the original wallpaper! How can it be in such good shape?” I squealed.
I accepted the album from his outstretched hand and found the tab marked ‘Front Room’ and held the album up against the wall. The flowers, which were varying shades of flat gray in the photograph, were in vivid detail before my eyes—large powder and royal-blue peonies blossoms, delicate butter-yellow roses, silver cattails, and so many different shades of green leaves and stems, from bright, to Olive, to Forest, all with subtle silvery highlights and lowlights that added life; just a riot of color, depth and motion.
“I would have never guessed,” I breathed, completely awestruck. “Do you think that it all looks as good as this small area?”
When I turned to look at him, I found that Dave was standing with his arms folded over his chest, watching my reaction with a broad grin on his face.
“I wouldn’t count on it, Torie, especially around the windows and the fireplace there,” he said pointing at the soot-blackened hearth. “I expect to find some damage in those areas but at least we have the pattern and colors so that we can order it custom. I’m hoping to find little remnants like this elsewhere in the house to help with the authenticity of the finished look. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”
“It would sure make our lives easier,” I agreed, nodding.
I held the photo album out in front of me and moved around the room until I was lined up exactly with the windows and fireplace visible in the tintype photograph. This was an older photo, taken around 1883. My grandfather had told me once that early photographers would travel around entire regions, making their living by charging for tintypes and leaving behind these little gems that were glimpses back in time and would ultimately become family heirlooms.
The time frame fit with the subjects of the photo. My great-great-grandma Rose and her husband Judson were seated in matching bent cane rocking chairs. Rose was posed as though she had just looked up from reading a book that was open upon her lap; Grandpa Judson was clutching the arms of his rocking chair and staring the camera down, very stoic and proud.
There was a beautiful flowered oil lamp with a glass shade and dangling fonts sitting on the table between them. The table also held a framed tintype of my great-grandmother Alice Wyman Mills at about nineteen years of age and her sisters, two-year-old Emily Wyman and infant Ivy Wyman McFall, circa 1869. The fourth Wyman daughter, Mahala, would not be born until 1870. Between Alice, the oldest, and the other girls at the bottom of the pecking order, were three Wyman brothers, not pictured.
I turned my attention to the room’s ceiling which in the photo was papered also, with a completely different pattern of flowers than that of the walls. I wondered aloud if the original pattern could still be up there, hidden under layers and layers of tawny and peeling white paint.
“I’ll be finding out
in the next week or so,” Dave answered. “You’ll want it reproduced as well?”
“Hmmm,” I pondered. “That might be just a bit too busy for my taste but if it isn’t too crazy, yes I think so. I guess we can discuss that when we see it.”
“Sure,” Dave agreed with a nod.
I scuffed the toe of my tennis shoe along the hardwood floor that in the photo was covered with a large area rug that featured Iowa wildlife scenes but which is now just barren and gnarled old wood. Dave bent down beside me, smoothing his hand along the defect that my shoe had discovered.
“That’ll be fine,” he assured me. “The original makings of a great hardwood floor are in there, it just needs a good sanding and fresh stain to bring it back to life.”
“I’ll take your word on that,” I said a little unbelievingly, turning my attention back to the album and the tintype.
A framed photograph of people unknown to me hung on the far wall back behind Rose and Judson. I’d gone so far as to have this photograph professionally restored and analyzed, but the family portrait hanging on the wall in the background is, at best, just a fuzzy image of my long-gone relatives, lost to time.
“Okay. Moving on,” Dave announced, walking backward as he motioned me to follow and ushered me back across the entry and through another arched doorway on the far side of the front foyer.
“Dining room,” he announced unnecessarily.
“Check,” I said, flipping to the corresponding tab in my album. I paused to look at the ceiling where a gas lamp had once hung over a long fancy dining room table. There was not a trace of where the lamp had once been.
“Gigantic kitchen...” Dave’s echoing voice continued as he entered that large room. I held the photo album out before me flipping from photo to photo making comparisons. Swinging door from dining room to kitchen—gone. Kitchen—barren; no wooden cupboards—no pie safe—no work table—no water pump.
