by Louise Clark
“Who said he wore glasses? Actually, he has gorgeous blue eyes with thick black lashes,” Faith said before she could stop to think.
Her sister’s eyes opened wide and she sat up straight. “Faith, are you attracted to this guy? Is that what this is all about?”
“No, I am not and it is not,” Faith said crossly. She wrapped her hands around her mug, seeking warmth and comfort. “Honestly, Liz, give it up! My problem with Cody Simpson is that I’m supposed to be delegating work in his specialty to him and he’s supposed to be doing it. Instead, he’s not and I am. And because I am and he isn’t, I’m getting into trouble with Ava Taylor.”
“I should have known Ava the Tyrant Lizard was involved somehow.” Liz put her mug on the table then shook her head. “That woman plays you like a trumpet, Faith. She blows and you honk.”
Faith thought, rather uncomfortably, that her sister might just be right, but she couldn’t let her know it. “I do not!”
“Oh, did I misunderstand? Ava isn’t in some kind of power struggle with this Cody Simpson and she hasn’t put you in the middle of it?”
Faith sighed. “It’s not that simple, Liz.”
“What isn’t simple? Cody Simpson didn’t do his job, forcing you to cover for him. Who is at fault here?”
“I am. It’s my job to get the best out of the employees. I’m supposed to motivate and direct them. I didn’t do that with Cody Simpson.”
“Does Cody Simpson report to you?”
“No.”
“What is his job title then?”
Faith sipped her wine and took a long time answering. She could see where Liz was heading and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go there. Finally she said with a sigh, “He’s Director of Network Systems.”
Elizabeth dove in for the kill. “Sounds pretty impressive. I’ll bet he’s even above you in the company hierarchy.”
Faith sipped again, giving herself time. “The company doesn’t believe in rigid management structures. The NIT philosophy focuses on teamwork. Each member of the team has equal weight and merit.”
“Sounds like something Ava the Tyrant Lizard would say. When push comes to shove, who makes decisions? The mail clerk or the CEO?”
A little desperately Faith said, “The mail clerk is empowered to take responsibility for his own area, within the limits of his job description—”
Liz pounced. “My point exactly! Cody Simpson is not taking responsibility for his own area! He’s refusing to cooperate with the rest of the team so he is the one at fault, not you! I rest my case.”
She sat back looking so smug that Faith had to laugh. “The longer you go to university the harder it is to win an argument with you. You may be right. Cody Simpson could be the one at fault, not me. But the reality is that Cody Simpson is brilliant. He’s important to NIT. Cody Simpson, the individual, would be difficult to replace. Faith Hamilton, on the other hand, is one part of a team. If I go, the team covers for me until someone replaces me. And I can be easily replaced. So Cody Simpson has to be coaxed into doing stuff he doesn’t want to, while I…” She broke off, lifted her glass with careful deliberation, took a sip, savored the flavor. “I am expendable.”
Liz captured her sister’s free hand. “Sweetie, you are unique, way more than Cody Simpson is. If the people in your stupid company had any idea of your abilities—”
“They’d run screaming from the building.” Faith gave her sister’s hand a squeeze. “Thanks for your support, Lizzy, but I don’t want anyone at NIT to know about my special…talent.”
Sighing, Liz said, “You don’t know how lucky you are, Faith. I would love to be able to do just a tiny bit of what you do.”
Faith ran her finger over the rim of the coffee mug. “Liz, I want to be able to succeed in the real world. I don’t like making mistakes—”
“Mistakes are one thing, Faith. What happened today is another!”
Faith held up her hand. “Perhaps getting chewed out by a superior doesn’t matter to you, Liz. You’re normal. You see the world differently than I do.”
Liz’s expression tightened. Regret, anger, and not a little jealousy lurked in her eyes and added an edge to her voice. “I know that.”
Faith softened. “Yes, I know you do. Look, let’s just leave it at that. I’ve got to figure out some way to make Cody Simpson work with me. A way that doesn’t make waves but gets the job done.” The oven timer beeped, alerting them the pasta was done. Faith glanced at her watch and frowned. “Uncle Andrew’s late tonight.”
“You’re right.” Liz stood up to get the salad, while Faith went to pull the lasagna from the oven. “I wonder what’s up?”
“Well, at least we know he hasn’t been in an accident on the interstate,” Faith said lightly. “He’s due to get married this year and he’ll be survived by three children. Whatever is keeping him is just a minor problem.”
“Like Cody Simpson!” Liz said, pouncing on Faith’s last comment.
Faith made an unladylike sound. “Will you give it up, Liz? I get the picture.”
“Well, you don’t or you wouldn’t be stressing about this guy.”
Faith opened the oven door. While she was pulling out the pan she heard Elizabeth say, “Hey, Andrew! What’s up, man?”
“Speak of the devil,” Faith said, turning. “We were just talking about you, Uncle Andrew. What kept you?”
Chapter 5
Andrew dropped the leather satchel he was carrying onto the floor. Then he sauntered over to the table, pulled out one of the oak saddleback chairs and sank into it like a man familiar with his surroundings and comfortable in them. “Is that wine you’re drinking, lass?” he said. When Liz nodded, he added, “Why then, I’ll have a glass, if you would be so kind.”
“I’m on it,” Liz said. With a little sigh, Andrew leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. He didn’t notice when Liz set the full wineglass in front of him.
As Faith brought the lasagna and serving implements over to the table she observed her relative and decided he looked tired.
He also looked dirty. Come to think of it, he smelled a little ripe.
Andrew was a fastidious man. That was why he came to her house once a week to use her shower, the fine soap, and the special shampoo, not to mention the electric razor she’d bought for him. He regularly dropped his suits to be dry cleaned, much to the fascination of Faith’s cleaners, but she drew the line at doing his laundry.
In return he brought her organically grown fruits and vegetables packed with flavor Faith had never found in modern factory farmed produce. When the harvest came in Faith and Liz would eagerly await his arrival and Andrew would laugh as he watched them wolf down his offering.
At the sound of the pan settling on the table Andrew opened his eyes and sat up, visibly shaking off his fatigue. He noticed the wineglass and picked it up. A man from a more formal age, he thanked Liz with practiced ease before he drank. He expected certain rituals to be observed, no matter what the time or place. “Ahh,” he said after taking a sip. “So civilized. Thank you, lass.”
“You’re late tonight,” Faith said. She nodded toward her sister. “We were just talking about it.”
“One of the cows was in calf, early I might add. It put a crimp in my style, as you lovely lasses say.” He drank deeply and sighed again. “Birthing a calf makes a man’s bones ache, it does.”
“Think of how the cow feels,” Liz muttered.
Andrew flashed her a wicked grin, his gray eyes sparkling with mischief. He wagged his finger at Elizabeth. “Mind you don’t mock your old uncle, now, when you’ve no notion of what he must endure in his own time.”
Liz wiped a nonexistent tear from beneath her eye. “Ah, poor Uncle Andrew.”
Andrew wagged his finger again, pretending to be stern. The sleeve of his white linen shirt, which had been rolled up to the elbow, loosened. As it slid down to his wrist the flounce that took the place of a cuff fluttered around his hand. He lifted the wineglass, but befo
re he sipped, he said, “Mind your manners, girl. Without me you wouldn’t be here.”
For a moment, as he observed them over the rim of the glass, Faith had a sudden uncomfortable memory of Cody Simpson watching her over his much more pedestrian coffee mug that day she went up to his office. The two men were of an age—she knew Andrew was just past his twenty-eighth birthday and she guessed Cody was somewhere between that and thirty. Physically they were completely different, however. Cody was tall and lean, while Andrew was medium height and stocky. There was something in that look, though, something that linked the two men in a way she couldn’t quite pinpoint. A sense of confidence, perhaps? Of knowing yourself and feeling comfortable in your own skin?
Unsettled, she stood up to get herself a refill on the wine. She brought the bottle over to the table, then sliced the lasagna and dished squares onto plates. “So how is the cow?” she asked as she passed around the plates.
“A proud mother. Both cow and calf are doing well,” Andrew said in a satisfied way. “Did you replenish the liquid soap, Faith, the way I asked you to last week?”
Faith laughed. “What if I forgot? Would you go home and use the basin in your room to wash instead of my shower?”
Andrew placed picked up his cutlery as he sent her a disappointed look. “Now you know I enjoy the use of your wonderful bathroom, girl. It’s a luxury to me, truly it is. The cranberry soap is just…a little bit more of a luxury.”
Faith shook her head, but she was smiling. “Andrew, the next thing you’ll tell me is that you come visit me for the pleasure of my company, not to use the bathroom.”
“We’ve been friends for years,” he said, a little defensively. He sliced his pasta and popped the piece into his mouth. “Delicious!”
“I was thirteen when you traveled here for the first time,” Faith said. “I can still remember thinking you were wearing funny clothes.”
“And I thought you had long hair like a girl’s,” Liz added.
Andrew looked down at the white linen shirt and the brown breeches below it, and said, “What’s wrong with how I dress? My clothes proclaim me for the substantial landowner that I am.”
“You’re a farmer,” Liz said.
“There’s nothing wrong with what you are wearing.” Faith smiled at him mischievously. “Unless you’re traveling through time and you’ve come two hundred and forty years into the future. Then you look a little odd.”
Andrew rubbed his cheek, which was dark with evening stubble. In addition to his shower, Andrew usually shaved when he visited. “You’ve a point there, lass. Still, I don’t leave your house, so no one is the wiser.” He nodded, satisfied he’d dealt with that issue. He turned to Liz, now prepared to answer hers. “In 1772 it is not your occupation that makes the difference, but the size of your property. And mine,” he added with considerable smugness, “is extensive.”
Faith regarded her ancestor seriously as cut into her own lasagna. “Which is why no one is surprised that you wash frequently with soap delicately scented with the tart fragrance of cranberry. We hope. Andrew, isn’t this regular trip to the future dangerous? Don’t you ever worry that people will start to wonder what you do on Friday evenings when you disappear from your house?”
Andrew impaled her with a sharp, assessing gaze that made her think, once again, of Cody Simpson. “Are you trying to tell me something I am not supposed to know, Faith?”
You must never reveal the past. Faith could hear her mother’s warning ringing in her ears as clearly as it had the day Chloe Hamilton had watched her best friend and distant ancestor return to her own time and a certain death from an infection that could be easily cured in the twenty-first century. The weight of knowledge, the despair of a loved one lost, were there in Chloe’s voice and they echoed in Faith’s mind now. She shook her head. “I don’t hint, Andrew. We’ve been friends too long for you to think that I would.”
He grinned at her, unrepentant. “A fellow can try, can he not?”
Faith raised her brown at that and conversation dwindled as they focused on the meal. When his plate was clear, Andrew stretched with the satisfaction of a well-fed cat. “I must make my ablutions and be off, Faith. Otherwise, you may find me nodding over my plate.”
“Because of the cow, no doubt,” Liz said dryly.
“Ah. Well now, not quite.”
She leaned forward and made a waving motion with her hand. “Come on, give. What’s up?”
Andrew looked from one sister to the other. Then he too leaned forward and whispered in a conspiratorial way, “I was trysting with Mary Elizabeth Strand last night. A fine, bonny lass she is and I believe she is quite taken with me, though her father disapproves.”
“Who is her father?” Faith asked, carefully casual.
“George Strand. He is an agent of the King, collects the taxes in Boston town.” Andrew sniffed, making his opinion of George Strand’s occupation clear. “Bought himself a section of old man Abnernathy’s farm adjacent to mine and moved his wife and daughters there a month ago.”
“Were the Strands the neighbors you mentioned last week?” Faith asked, hoping she only showed polite interest.
“Aye, they are.” He added in a disapproving tone, “I think Strand’s got himself a mistress in Boston town and wants his family safely tucked away while he plays.” He cocked an inquiring eye at Liz, then Faith. “I’ve no proof of that, mind.” Both women kept their expressions bland. Andrew sighed. “Well, it’s not as if I’m gossiping, now, is it? Neither of you ladies can tell the neighbors what I’ve said.”
He stood, picking up his bag. “Time to bathe and be gone. I thank you for the dinner, Faith, lass.”
Faith and Liz cleared the kitchen and talked about weekend plans until they were sure the shower was running and they could hear Andrew singing lustily under the spray. Then Liz turned to Faith. Her eyes were dancing with excitement. “We were right! Mary Elizabeth Strand is the woman he marries, isn’t she?”
“Yup.”
“Oh wow,” Liz said. “And if history is right, while he’s busy trysting with Mary Elizabeth…”
“Her tax collector daddy is arranging for his daughter to marry someone who works for the King…”
“And not an independent colonist like Andrew. So daddy sets his thugs on Andrew…”
“But Andrew escapes his pursuers, proposes to Mary Elizabeth…”
“And they elope to New York City where they are married.”
“They have three kids and also bring up his sister’s children—including our great, great, great, grandmother—when she and her husband die from an unnamed disease.” Faith concluded as she finished the loading the dishwasher.
Liz handed her the box of dishwasher powder. “This is it, then,” she said, flashing a grin.
Faith nodded. “It’s all begun.” She switched on the dishwasher.
A half-an-hour later, Andrew wandered into the living room where Faith and Liz had settled. He was wearing a freshly ironed linen shirt, tied at the neck with a black band and ornamented by a fine lace fall. Over the shirt he had donned a white silk waistcoat. His breeches were black, the buttons at the knees gleaming silver. He crossed to Faith. “Thank you, my dear, for the use of your delightful bathing chamber.”
“I thought you were tired,” Liz said, as she watched him kissing her sister on the cheek.
He straightened. “The elegant surroundings have revived me.”
Faith watched him as he sauntered to the center of the room. His square jaw was clean-shaven, his dark hair still damp from the shower, and he smelled tantalizingly of cranberry. There was no way poor Mary Elizabeth would ever be able to resist him, even if she wanted to.
“I have left my breeches and two fine shirts in your bathroom, Faith. Would you mind having your cleaners see to them?”
“No problem.”
“My thanks.” He stepped back and shrugged into the coat he had on his arm. It was dark green velvet picked out with silver braid. “How do
I look, ladies?” he asked, as he flicked the ruffles that finished his shirtsleeves free of the deep cuffs of the coat.
He looked what he was—not just a hard working farmer, but a prosperous eighteenth century gentleman fashionably dressed for an evening out. The clothes should have looked ridiculous, but they didn’t. They suited him, giving him a devilish air that was extremely appealing.
Liz shot him a glance that was close to a leer as she watched him pick up his bag. “I think you’ve got a hot date with Mary Elizabeth again tonight.”
Andrew shot her one of his roguish smiles. “Or something.” He executed an ornate bow that involved much bending and hand waving. “Your servant, ladies,” he said.
“Bye Uncle Andrew,” Liz said, blowing him a kiss.
Andrew grinned.
Faith said, “See you next week, Andrew.”
He nodded, turned, took two steps…
And disappeared.
Faith sighed. “That man is heading for trouble.”
Liz laughed. “He is so great. He makes me wish I was born in the eighteenth century, just to meet a guy like him.”
Faith sighed again. “Don’t get me wrong, Liz. Andrew is a very dear friend, but he’s why I can never be normal.”
“Why would you want to be normal, Faith? You have a special ability. You’re a Beacon. Enjoy it! In fact, think of me. I’m the only one in the family who doesn’t have the ability and I wish I did.”
“Dad doesn’t have it.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Faith’s ability to guide people through time was a family talent she’d inherited from her mother. Her father, Daniel Hamilton, had never been comfortable with his wife’s talent and when Faith reached her teenage years and proved that she too was a Beacon, the fragile bonds that kept the marriage together broke. Daniel walked away from his eccentric family, keeping in close touch with his normal daughter, Elizabeth, but limiting contact with his odd ex-wife and equally strange older daughter, Faith. The pain of that abandonment still haunted Faith and was at the center of her need to fit in.
Liz leaned back in her chair and scrutinized her sister. “Okay. You’d prefer not to be a Beacon. So what are you going to do about it?”
