by Bess McBride
“Oh yes. It started last year. He was deathly ill, and she and I took care of him. Well, it started long before that when they were youngsters, but he married my fourth great-grandmother, so that ended. They just kind of reconnected last year. I think he comes to see her more than he comes to see me.” Leigh’s laugh suggested that she didn’t mind the romance.
“How cute!”
“I know. It wouldn’t have been too cute last year. Harry was living in absolute squalor with no family to take care of him. He was estranged from my third and second great-grandmothers—his daughter and granddaughter—for much of his adult life because of his behavior. His wife left him because he drank and didn’t take care of the family. Happily, he’s reconciled with Nancy and Rosanna, my great-grandmothers, and he’s doing much better.
“He was living in a hovel, but Jeremiah bought him a little cottage, and Mrs. Jackson and I make sure he stays fed and takes care of himself. I wouldn’t have taken you to his nasty old shack otherwise.”
They passed Katherine’s house and turned left to walk up a quiet residential road. Small houses lined the lane as it climbed up the hill leading away from the lake. Near the top of the road, Emily saw the school on the hill. She sighed, wondering what her ridiculous obsession with Luke was about. People would like her and people would dislike her. Some obviously tolerated the time traveling and some would not. He was the latter. It simply didn’t matter.
Except that it did.
“Here we are,” Leigh said.
Emily was so wrapped up in thoughts of Luke that she almost missed Leigh stopping in front of a small one-story white-painted clapboard cottage. She turned in, and Emily followed. Leigh tapped on the similarly painted wooden door, and an old man opened it.
Like Leigh, he had blue eyes speckled with white. There was no doubt they were related. He was small framed like Leigh, with thinning hair and weathered skin. A black-and-white border collie mix came up behind him and regarded them with a wagging tail.
“Hi, Harry,” Leigh said.
“Hello, Leigh! Come in, come in. Is that something from Sally?” He eyed the satchel.
“Yes, I think it’s some sort of pastry that I don’t get to eat because she’s giving it to you!” Leigh said with a laugh, handing the satchel to her grandfather. She stopped short just inside the door so suddenly that Emily bumped into her.
“Oh!” Leigh exclaimed.
Emily saw Luke sitting at a small oval table near a window that looked over a small garden. A chess set rested on the table, two cups of coffee on either side of the board.
Luke jumped up when he saw them.
“Hello,” Leigh said.
Emily declined to greet Luke with more than a mere nod.
“I didn’t realize you two knew each other well,” Leigh said, looking from Luke to her grandfather.
“Sure we do,” Harry said. “Luke and I play chess together on a pretty regular basis. Who’s this?”
Harry looked beyond Leigh to Emily, whose face was already burning.
“I’m sorry! This is my friend, Emily Alexander. She’s visiting Kaskade for a while and staying with us. She’ll be here for at least a year. Emily, this is my cousin, Harry Johnson.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Emily said, again resisting the natural urge to shake hands.
“Nice to meet you too, Emily. So what brings you to Kaskade?”
Emily felt Luke’s eyes on her. “It’s a lovely area,” she murmured. “I wanted to leave the city.”
“What city is that? Tacoma?”
“No, I’m from Seattle,” Emily said, throwing Leigh a quick glance to see if her response might cause problems.
Leigh nodded approvingly.
“Oh, well, welcome, Emily! This is Luke Damon, one of the teachers up at the school,” Harry said.
“We’ve met,” Emily said, keeping her eyes on Harry. He peered into the satchel and raised his head with a broad smile.
“Coffeecake! Just in time! Would you ladies like some coffee and cake?”
Emily hoped Leigh would decline, but she didn’t
“Yes, please! Is there room at the table for us?”
“Sure!” Harry said. “Luke, can you move our game and set two more chairs at the table for the ladies?”
“Certainly. I must be going though.”
Harry, on the point of entering a doorway that appeared to lead to a small well-lit kitchen, paused.
“You weren’t about to leave when we were playing chess. Stay and have some of Sally Jackson’s cake.”
Luke hesitated, scanning the faces in the room. Emily kept her head partially averted but eyed him from under her lashes.
“Mrs. Jackson is a wonderful cook,” Luke said. “Very well. Thank you.” He picked up the game and carried it carefully over to a coffee table in front of a brown cloth sofa. Then he gathered up two more dining table chairs set against a wall and positioned them at the table.
Emily could hear the sound of dishes clinking in the kitchen. She joined Leigh in sitting down, and Luke followed suit. The threesome eyed each other awkwardly, unable to speak freely in front of Harry.
“No school today?” Leigh asked.
“It is Saturday,” Luke said.
“I forgot!” Leigh replied. “So it is. Jeremiah had some work to do today, so I just didn’t think about it. I just assumed when you said you had to get up early that you had school.”
Emily studied her fingers, laced in her lap. Of course, Luke’s excuse the night before that he had to get up early had been just that—an excuse to leave.
“No, I had paperwork at school, but no students today,” Luke said.
An awkward silence fell on all three of them as Harry made noise in the kitchen.
“Thank you again for the lovely dinner,” Luke offered. “Mrs. Jackson is a fine cook.”
“She is,” Leigh said. “And Cousin Harry is benefitting from that.” She chuckled.
Emily felt Leigh look at her, and she raised her head and smiled politely. She had just been thinking how long the year was going to seem.
“Leigh!” Harry called from the kitchen. “Can you come carry some things in?”
“Sure!” she said, rising.
“I’ll help,” Emily offered, on the point of rising.
“No, that’s okay. I’ve got it,” Leigh said. She disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Emily with Luke. Emily looked back down at her hands.
“You look very nice today, Emily,” Luke said.
“Thank you,” she said, refusing to look up.
“The clothing suits you,” he said in a lower voice.
Emily looked up. “I suppose you would think so. And thank you again.”
“What do you mean by that? Did you take offense at my compliment?”
“Maybe,” she said honestly. “You seem very...comfortable in this era, so I guess this kind of clothing would seem suitable to you.”
He tilted his head and frowned. “I did not say your dress was suitable, only that it suited you, flattered you. You do understand the difference, do you not?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Because I’m a waitress?”
“Are you? I did not know that.”
“Well, now you do!”
“It is a proper job. There was no insinuation that you did not understand the definition of words because you wait tables in your other life.”
“Are you sure?” Emily had no idea what she was saying or doing. She’d never had a chip on her shoulder because she waited tables. She made good money at it and had job security at a second-generation Greek family restaurant. They had even instituted a retirement plan for their employees that matched employee contributions, and she had taken advantage of it. Not everyone could say that. She wondered if she was sparring with Luke just to do it, to let him know she didn’t care one little bit if he didn’t approve of her, disliked her or whatever his problem was.
“Yes, of course I am certain,” Luke said. “My mother may never have worked as a waitr
ess, but she certainly waited on my family hand and foot all her life. I loved her dearly and had the utmost respect for her.”
Emily, embarrassed by her bickering, was about to apologize, when Harry emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray of silverware, a coffee urn and plain white ceramic coffee cups and plates. Leigh followed him with a lovely looking coffeecake on a white platter.
They set the food and coffee down on the table, and Emily attempted to throw Luke an apologetic look, but he didn’t glance at her.
“This looks great! I really should marry that woman,” Harry said.
Leigh’s jaw dropped, and she leaned forward. “Harry! Really? I didn’t know things were that serious.”
“Maybe I am...maybe I’m not. I’m pretty sure Sally would have something to say about it though.” His laugh was more of a cackle than a guffaw, but it had a certain charm to it. “She may not want to take me on.”
Leigh smiled. “I’m sure she would. Well, how about that? I wondered about you two.”
“Wonder no more,” he said. “She’s my sweetheart, but that doesn’t mean she wants to be my wife.”
“That’s so sweet!” Emily said. She beamed at Harry and Leigh, avoiding Luke.
Harry’s weathered cheeks reddened. “Let’s eat!”
Leigh cut cake and handed it around the table while Harry poured out coffee and refreshed his and Luke’s cups.
Emily ate silently, listening to Leigh and Harry chat about the weather; baby Jeri; his daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter, who was also a baby. Emily could handle strange financial transactions offered by customers, but she couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that they discussed Harry’s descendants who were Leigh’s ancestors. Not that Harry realized, of course.
Luke remained silent as well, eating and drinking his coffee. Emily wondered about his social life. He did not seem to have a girlfriend, or she would have heard about it. The name Martha Lundrum had come up more than once in conversation, and she wondered what Martha looked like. Leigh had said Martha’s brother, Jefferson, was very handsome. Luke hadn’t mentioned hobbies or friends, but there he was on his day off, playing chess with an old man. He mentioned a mother, whom he respected.
Emily would have liked to get to know Luke better, but it seemed likely that he wasn’t going to give her that opportunity. She sighed inwardly and tried to concentrate on her food.
After about an hour of chitchat, Leigh finally announced she needed to get back to the baby. All three visitors helped Harry clean up.
“You leaving too, Luke?” Harry asked. “We didn’t finish our game.”
“Yes, I am afraid I have to go, Harry. We can take this up again tomorrow if you like.”
“I’m off to see Sally tomorrow. How about next Saturday?”
“That sounds good,” Luke said. He walked to the door and held it open for Leigh and Emily.
“Thank you, Luke,” Leigh said.
Emily nodded her thanks but kept silent as she walked past him on the way out. She felt his fingers brush her arm, and she paused and looked over her shoulder at him.
“Yes?” she asked.
Luke searched her face before giving her a quick shake of his head. “Nothing. Excuse me. That was clumsy of me.”
Chapter Eleven
A few days later, at Emily’s insistence that she needed a job, Leigh took Emily to the boardinghouse to meet Martha Lundrum. Emily had been curious about meeting her, and she wasn’t surprised to see that Martha was extraordinarily beautiful with platinum-blonde hair, lustrous blue eyes and fair skin. She was tall and slender to Emily’s short and curvy figure.
Martha invited them into the kitchen for coffee, and Emily scanned the large utilitarian house as they walked down the hall. Devoid of many decorations, the walls were painted a dull white. But that very dullness showed that the house was clean. They passed a dining room featuring a large table that must have held sixteen people comfortably.
Leigh and Emily were shown to chairs at a rectangular pine table in the kitchen, where Martha served coffee. Since it was Monday, Emily hoped that Luke was at school and not at the boardinghouse, where she might encounter him.
She realized that made no sense. How could she ask Leigh to introduce her to Martha in hopes of asking for a job, when she wanted to avoid Luke? It was likely she would end up serving him breakfast and dinner every day.
“It is so nice to meet you at last, Emily,” Martha said, sitting down at the table with her coffee. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too.” Emily swallowed hard. “I hope it wasn’t too bad.”
Martha’s smile widened, and she didn’t equivocate.
“Not at all,” she said. “Luke has been most complimentary. He does have difficulty understanding Kaskade’s eccentricity though. I hoped someone would come on the summer solstice this year. Those of us who know about the time traveling always look forward to that day with excitement...and sometimes sadness if one of our new friends chooses to leave.”
Emily relaxed under Martha’s nurturing warmth. She liked her immediately. “What a lovely, welcoming thing to say.”
“Luke has been kind of warm and cold,” Leigh noted. “I doubt if Emily ever knows where she stands with him.”
Emily turned a surprised face to Leigh. “That’s true! I didn’t know you realized that.”
“It’s all over your face. You get this confused expression every time you’re around him, like you don’t know how he’s going to react any given minute. I don’t know how he’s going to react.”
Martha sighed. “I have never known Luke to behave that way. He’s always been so level headed, kind, thoughtful and gracious. Of all people, I would have expected an educated gentleman like Luke to manage Kaskade’s peculiarity with a more broad-minded view.”
Emily had no response. She didn’t have the benefit of knowing Luke pre–time travel.
“I would love for you to meet my brother, Jefferson, Emily. He is an attorney in town, and like me, he enjoys our visitors. He is at his office in town today though.”
“I would like that too,” Emily said.
“Oh yes, you definitely want to meet Jefferson. He’s very handsome!” Leigh chuckled.
“Leigh!” Emily protested.
Martha laughed. “All the girls love Jefferson, Emily. I do not know when that man is going to marry!”
“I’m not in the market for a husband, ladies,” Emily said firmly. “Leigh knows that. What I am in the market for, though, is a job. Which is why Leigh brought me here today. I’m looking for work, Martha, and someone suggested you might need an extra hand?” Emily hadn’t hunted for a job in years, and she felt awkward. “I’m a waitress back in the real world,” she added.
Martha’s smile wavered, and Emily heard her words again.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. This is the real world. I know that. I’m not sure why I said that.”
Martha nodded.
Leigh gave Emily a sympathetic smile. “It does feel like a bit of a dream, doesn’t it, Emily?” Leigh said. “Like a fantasy story. Which it kind of is.”
“I understand,” Martha said. “My budget is very limited. Is it that you wish to make a living wage, or do you feel the need to be employed?”
“She’s going to live with us while she’s here, aren’t you, Emily?” Leigh asked.
“I hate to be a burden, but I really do like your house very much!” Emily said with a grin. She turned to Martha. “I guess I just need to stay busy and make some pin money, as my grandmother used to say. To buy a few things and start to pay for my own clothes.”
Martha nodded. “As it happens, I could use an extra set of hands. You said you waitress. How is your cooking?”
“Mediocre,” Emily said with a wince. “Do you need a cook? I can try, but my food generally tastes very bland.”
“I could teach you,” Martha said. “And you could certainly help by preparing vegetables, carrying the
food into the dining room and helping me clear up and wash the dishes. I know that must sound so menial to you, but it is all I have.”
“That sounds great!” Emily said. “I could start tomorrow if you like.”
“Good! How about seven a.m.? I don’t make lunch for most of the house, but I do start dinner at about five p.m. I have a few lodgers who are elderly, and I make lunch for them, but I do not need help with that. I know it sounds like a long day, but they can be long. You can say no, of course. I would not blame you.”
“No, that sounds fine. I’ll be here tomorrow at seven a.m. with rings on my fingers and bells on my toes.”
“Hello!” a male voice called out from down the hall.
“We are in the kitchen, Jefferson!” Martha said. She turned to Emily with a wide, sparkling smile full of pride. “And here is my baby brother!”
A tall man who was the spitting image of Martha came into the kitchen. He stopped short when he saw Emily, and removed his derby hat. Elegantly dressed in a gray suit with a stiff white collar and blue tie that matched his eyes, he certainly was as handsome as everyone had indicated. Well-groomed platinum-blond hair parted in the middle ended just below his ears.
“Hello!” he said again, advancing into the room.
Martha rose to get another cup. “Jefferson, this is Emily Alexander. Emily, my brother, Jefferson Lundrum. Are you staying long, Jefferson?”
“No, I just stopped by to change my shirt. I have been to the barber, and, well...you understand.”
He turned to Emily and Leigh. “It is so nice to meet you, Emily. Lovely to see you, Leigh, as always.”
Emily noted a softening in his voice when he spoke to Leigh. She smiled at him brightly.
“Hello, Jefferson!” Leigh said. “So you got a haircut, huh?”
Jefferson accepted the cup of coffee his sister poured, and he pulled out a chair next to Leigh and across from Emily.
“I did. My hair was an absolute mop!”
Leigh laughed, and Emily smiled. She couldn’t imagine that shining head as anything but impeccable. Even his sideburns were perfectly trimmed just below the ear.
“How are you finding our little town, Emily?” Jefferson asked. “I know it must have been a shock to find yourself in Kaskade.”
