Just as she’d expected, her blue jeans were still soaking wet. There was no way she was going to wear them. Not if there was any other choice at all.
She couldn’t wear the gown she’d slept in. It was far too thin.
So she pulled out one of the dresses. A dark blue one. It was long and flowing, but not as bulky as the others.
She shed the gown and pulled it on over her head. It was a surprisingly good fit.
But the neckline was far too low for her taste.
She wasn’t going on a date.
With renewed determination, she pulled her t-shirt on over the dress.
There.
She only needed shoes now.
But her canvas sneakers were still soaked.
Barefoot, she opened the bedroom door and peeked out.
There was no one in the darkened hallway, but she heard voices downstairs.
She squared her shoulders. Might as well just get this over with, thank them for their hospitality, and be on her way.
Padding down the hallway in her bare feet, she made her way to the top of the stairs.
A new family had obviously moved into the house.
There was a lovely abstract painting on the wall. As she walked past it, she swore she could still smell the paint.
By the time she got to the bottom of the stairs, the voices had quieted.
Just as she reached the bottom of the stairs and turned, she nearly bumped square into Samuel.
He grabbed her elbow to steady her.
She looked up into his deep blue eyes. He seemed much taller today than he had last night.
And maybe even more handsome. If that was possible.
He’d shaved. And he wore formal clothes. Sort of like a tuxedo. But old fashioned.
Like the dresses.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning.”
“I trust you slept well.” He released her elbow.
“I did actually,” she said. “It’s so quiet here.”
“Hmm.” He seemed to notice her t-shirt then.
“What’s that on your blouse?”
She glanced down, even though she knew perfectly well what he was asking.
“Chip the Buffalo.”
He ran a hand over his chin.
“Buffalo.” He was trying not to laugh at her. She could see it in his eyes.
“Come on,” he said. “You need to eat.”
She followed him down the hallway into a dining room.
There was a generous spread of food on a table along the wall.
It was sort of like a continental breakfast, except that instead of muffins and dry toast, there were biscuits and eggs and bacon.
She looked at Samuel as everything slid into place.
This was a bed and breakfast.
10
Ella was a good eater.
Samuel watched as she devoured a plateful of food.
She was no shy southern belle who pretended not to eat when men were around.
She seemed to have relaxed a bit, though he couldn’t quite say what was different.
When she was finished, she blinked and looked up at him.
“Is this your place?” she asked.
“Of course.” Samuel went to pour himself another cup of coffee. “You want some?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m cutting back on caffeine.”
He just scrunched his eyebrows. It didn’t seem polite to question her. She obviously wasn’t in her right mind.
There were certain things he needed to know, nonetheless.
“Where are you from?”
“Originally around here.” She picked up a piece of bacon and bit into it. “But I managed to get out.”
A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. He understood the sentiment. He often felt like a fish out of water here.
“But you came back,” he said, then reminded himself that it was none of his business. And it was quite impolite to even ask.
“I’m looking for Daniel,” she said, her expression sobering.
“Daniel. Is he your… husband?” Samuel didn’t like the way his heart cringed at the thought that she might be married.
“No,” she said quickly. “He’s my brother. Half. Half-brother.”
Samuel tamped down the automatic relief that she wasn’t looking for a husband.
“He was on the boat with you?” he asked.
“I wasn’t on a boat,” she said. “I drove here.”
He nodded. And considered.
It was possible he’d missed something.
They would have traveled along the river. Perhaps her wagon had run into the water. It had been known to happen.
Samuel leaned forward. “Do you need my help? To look for him?”
Her eyes brightened. “Yes.” She, too, leaned forward. “Would you?”
“Of course,” he said. “Were you traveling from the north or the south?”
She sat back against the chair. Shook her head. “I wasn’t with him. I came here to look for him.” She said the words slowly. As though he were having trouble understanding her.
He nodded slowly.
He was definitely missing something here.
But frankly, that didn’t matter so much.
What mattered was he look for Ella’s brother.
His brother John came down the hallway, making enough noise for two people.
He stuck his head into the dining room.
“I’m heading out,” he said.
Then he saw Ella.
“Oh,” he said with a glance at Samuel. “Now I understand.”
“You don’t understand anything,” Samuel said. “Go on. Get out of here.”
But John didn’t leave. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
Not particularly. John wasn’t a bad man. He just sometimes did things that weren’t so smart.
Ella was looking between the two of them.
Samuel sighed. He had no choice.
“Ella,” he said. “This is my brother John. John, this is Ella.”
John nodded politely. “My pleasure.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ella said, but turned her attention back to Samuel.
“Are you going to be staying with us for awhile?” he asked.
“Yes,” Samuel said, keeping his gaze on Ella’s lovely green eyes. How had she gotten such long thick eyelashes? “There was an accident and she was separated from her traveling party.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” John said.
John must have sensed that he was about to get caught in something that had no relationship to the army.
“Well,” he said. “I don’t want to be late for my meeting.”
“See you later, John,” Samuel said, not bothering to try to hide his relief that John hadn’t persisted on knowing more about Ella.
He felt a certain possessiveness about her that he’d have to sort out later.
11
“They towed my car?”
Ella stood on the front veranda of the house. She’d come out ahead of Samuel who’d gone upstairs to change clothes.
He came out and stood next to her. He wore riding clothes and held a riding whip in one hand.
He adjusted his hat and looked at her sideways.
He looked even more handsome than he had before. Riding clothes looked good on him. But then she’d always had a thing for a man on a horse. Could be part of why she moved west.
“And Daniel’s, too?”
A panic welled inside of her. She didn’t have her cell phone. So she didn’t have any phone numbers. She couldn’t think of a single person’s number she had memorized.
Everything was stored in her phone.
And even if she did have her phone, she didn’t have any service.
She pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose.
Ella was not known for theatrics. Or crying.
She was much too level-headed for that.
She
hadn’t even tried to get out of her one speeding ticket. She’d just paid it.
But right now was different.
Right now she saw no way out of her current predicament.
She was stuck here.
But she pulled herself together.
There was a way out of everything.
She looked over at Samuel. Into those deep, knowing blue eyes.
“What am I supposed to do?” she asked.
“I told my family what happened. Not everything. Just that you’d been in an accident and needed some time to recuperate. They won’t bother you. You can stay here until I get back.” His voice was confident.
“But don’t you need me to go with you?” The thought of staying here with more strangers was a little disconcerting. She was getting used to Samuel. And he seemed willing to help her. Others might not be so accommodating.
“I’ll find him,” Samuel said, tapping his whip against one of riding boots. “If he’s out there, I’ll bring him back.”
She nodded. “Do you have a phone? I need to find our cars.”
He was looking at her with that look again. The one that suggested she might not be speaking in coherent sentences.
Maybe something had happened to her. And she just didn’t know it. It happened that way sometimes, didn’t it?
Maybe she had aphasia.
Oh God. This was not good. This was awful.
“I’ll be back,” he said, turning to go down the stairs.
“Wait,” she said. He stopped. Turned and looked at her. Waited.
“This might sound crazy, but can you understand what I’m saying?”
He smiled a little.
“Most of it,” he said.
She let out a sigh of relief. At least she wasn’t completely incomprehensible.
12
After several hours of riding down the river road, then back, Samuel was ready to call it a day.
He’s talked to several neighbors. No one had heard anything about a steamboat explosion, at least not lately.
And Samuel saw no signs of wagon wreckage anywhere along the river.
It was perplexing really, how Ella had ended up on his doorstep.
Soaked to the bone on a clear night.
Now that he thought about it, she hadn’t smelled anything like river water.
And river water had a distinctive scent.
He and his brother John had spent enough time tossing each other into the river to know that.
So it wasn’t likely that she’d gotten soaked in the river.
And if not in the river, there really was no other explanation.
Though he’d seen a few things in his life that didn’t add up, he didn’t want to think about them.
There had to be a logical explanation.
And yet… it wasn’t just that she’d been soaked.
Her dress was strange. She wore pants, which wasn’t a big deal in itself. So did his sister.
But it was the style that stood out.
And then there were some of her words. Things that sounded like a foreign language.
A foreign language.
He blew out a breath.
That was it, of course. She’d been on a boat and—despite the fact that she didn’t smell like it—she was from somewhere else. Spain maybe.
She had dark hair. Dark green eyes.
She could be from Spain.
He would have said France, but he knew French, and she definitely had not been speaking French.
He saw the house up ahead.
It wasn’t just curiosity that had him wanting to see her.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her.
He wanted to know everything about her.
By the time he got back to the house, brushed down his horse and fed him, it was getting dark.
It looked like it was going to rain.
He was fortunate to be getting back before he got soaked himself.
As he made his way, on foot, toward the house, his gaze was drawn to the upstairs guest room.
She was there. Watching him.
Though he could only see her outline against the soft glow of candlelight behind her, he knew it was her.
A chill ran down his spine.
And no matter how hard he’d tried not to think about it, it was there.
A memory.
Burned into his brain.
A beautiful woman with bright red lips. And a short slip of a dress.
A woman named Vaughn.
13
Ella silently made her way down the hallway.
She’d seen Samuel ride up and had watched him walking toward the house.
After a day of tiptoeing around people who didn’t seem to understand what she was doing there, she needed to see Samuel.
To find out if he’d learned anything about Daniel.
At least that was her excuse.
In truth, she’d missed him.
The young girl, Beatrice, had just watched her warily, but had stayed out of her way.
She’d only seen the mother once. The rest of the day, she’d spent in her room.
What kind of life was that?
There was no phone. No television. No computer.
If someone was looking for a retreat, to get away from technology, this was the place to go.
Personally, Ella had been just about to climb the walls.
She met Samuel on the landing of the stairway.
“Hi,” she said.
She was still wearing the skirt she’d worn all day and her t-shirt.
She’d gotten some quizzical looks, but no one had said anything.
But then, she hadn’t exactly gone out of her way to be friendly herself. She figured that if people were here on a vacation or a retreat or whatever, then they would want to be left alone.
“Good evening,” he said. “Did you have a restful day?”
She made a face. “I guess you could call it that.”
“Did something happen?” He put one hand on the rail and bent his head to better see her in the dim light.
The only light came through the window on the landing.
But a storm was rumbling in the distance, so even that light wasn’t likely to last long.
“Was my family polite to you?”
“I barely saw them,” she said, looking away.
“It’s my fault. I asked them to give you space,” he said. “Space for you to recuperate.”
She nodded. “They did.” Then she looked up at him again. “Did you find any news of my half-brother?”
“Unfortunately, none,” he said. “There was no news of a steamboat explosion and no sign of a wagon accident.”
His words swirled around her, leaving her feeling lightheaded.
Something wasn’t right.
Her world seemed to be spinning around her.
She reached out to steady herself.
Samuel grabbed her arm.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
She looked into his eyes.
The room continued to spin.
But she kept her gaze locked on his and the spinning slowed down.
“Yes,” she said. “No.” She took a deep breath, putting both hands on his arms. “I don’t know.”
“Come with me,” he said. “We need to talk.”
14
Ella sat on the couch in the parlor and delicately sniffed the amber liquid in her glass.
Samuel stood in front of the fireplace and smiled to himself.
He’d never known a lady to drink whiskey, but she’d looked like she could use it.
He watched her for a minute, then emptied his glass.
Setting it aside, he went to sit next to her.
“Ella,” he said. “Something doesn’t add up.”
“I know,” she breathed.
She took a tentative sip of the whiskey and made a face.
“Can I get some water?” she asked.
“Of course.” Samuel left he
r there in the parlor and went to the dining room to get her a glass of water.
He should have offered her water to begin with. He found a glass and filled it with water from a pitcher.
He didn’t want to push her too hard. And he didn’t want to frighten her.
But he couldn’t ignore the fact that she obviously didn’t belong here.
She was like Vaughn.
The only problem was, Ella didn’t know it.
Vaughn had known she hadn’t belonged there in his garçonnière.
In fact…
Vaughn had asked him what year it was.
Then she had vanished.
Leaving behind…
Samuel stood frozen, holding the water pitcher in one hand and the glass in the other.
Vaughn had been dressed like no one he’d seen before or since.
A short narrow dress with shimmering fringe. A band around her head of short hair.
Vaughn had been from another time. The future.
She had to be from the future. Shortly after he’d seen Vaughn, he’d checked every book in his father’s library. There was no indication of anyone dressing like that anywhere in the past.
The realization hit Samuel in the gut so hard he struggled to take a breath.
And it wasn’t the realization that Vaughn had been from the future. He’d had those thoughts before.
It was the possibility that Ella was from the future.
And she didn’t know it.
He took the water, walking carefully so as not to splash any of it out, back to the parlor where Ella sat.
She sat on the couch, staring out at the looming storm, holding something in the palm of her hand.
When she saw him, she made a fist, hiding whatever it was she held.
She took the water from him with her other hand and with a quick word of thanks, she drank deeply.
Samuel tapped his fingertips against his elbow and forced himself to be patient.
She handed him the empty glass.
“More?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “But thank you.”
Samuel held her empty glass a moment, then set it aside.
“What do you have there?” he asked, nodding toward her closed fist.
“Oh,” she said. “Nothing. Just something I found on the ground when I was looking for my brother.”
When the Moon Falls Page 3
