A Good Day for Crazy: A Time Travel Mystery

by L. L. Muir

  With the way her heart was racing, there would be no sleeping for a while. Might as well get it over with. After all, she was trapped on an airplane for at least five more hours with temptation at her fingertips. There really was no sense fighting it.

  She turned the pages back, by chunks.

  Douglas.

  Cunningham.

  An ad for Christies Auction House.

  Clutterbuck, Mrs. Francis.

  An ad for Rocola, quality shirts, collars, and pyjamas, spelled with a y.

  Burleigh.

  Beaumont, Beauford. And between them, nothing.

  Ash stared at the tiny blank space between the lines of text, where his name should be. But it wasn’t. There was no Lord Beaufort. She’d just made it up, like she made up everything else on her pages. If she’d done any research before she’d begun, she could have chosen a better name. But she’d never intended to write Regency romance.

  It had been pure accident. A happy accident, Alexander would point out.

  But Alexander wasn’t real.

  She gently lifted the fragile covers together. Just before the book snapped shut, her gum wrapper fell from her shirt and disappeared between the pages. It went deep, so she had to flip through a second time before she found it in the B section—but it was a different part of the book, nearer the front.

  GUIDE TO PRECEDENCE it said at the top of the page.

  Ashmore, Earl of… Talbot, P.

  She flipped ahead. Buckhurst, Lord… De La Warr, E. Too far. She went back two pages and held her breath.

  Beaufort, Lord… Bainbridge, A.

  A for Alexander. It was a lifeline she didn’t dare reach for. Her Alexander wasn’t real, couldn’t be real. After all, she’d never lost the underwear…

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Ashlynn forced herself to blink a few times, but the name was still there, staring back at her. She looked around the cabin to see if the other passengers had noticed a shift in reality, noticed a shift in her reality. Or were they all just where they were supposed to be, rocketing across the sky, high above the ocean, trusting the flight to end as they expected?

  She looked at Cindy. Her head rocked with the movement of the plane. She was asleep.

  Beaufort, Lord… Bainbridge, A.

  Bainbridge? Bainbridge. Where have I heard that name before?

  The guy at Maverik! The stalker. She couldn’t remember his first name, but his last had definitely been Bainbridge. Of course, he hadn’t been English.

  It didn’t matter. Alexander Bainbridge, Lord Beaufort, was real. Maybe it was her Alexander, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe her subconscious had heard the name at some point and stored it away for a rainy day. But either way, a man with his name and his title had been real. Once upon a time…

  Holy crap! What was she supposed to do with that?

  He wasn’t real—he had been real. Had been. He couldn’t still be alive, could he?

  She wanted to demand they turn the plane around. After all, she was pretty sick to her stomach with all the chaos going on in her system. Her heart was clearly getting its hopes up while her gut was certain the guy had lived so long ago that his headstone would be difficult to read, even if she found it.

  And her head?

  Her head had left the plane without a parachute.

  ~ ~ ~

  It took just over eleven hours to fly from London, over Greenland, to LAX. It took another two hours to backtrack to Sun Valley. And every hour was torture for Ashlynn because the temptation to google Alexander was stronger than ever.

  She’d searched the internet for him in the beginning, on a day when she’d felt a little braver than usual, but all she’d had to work with was Lord Beaufort, and Alexander Beaufort. She’d found Dukes named Beaufort, but none named Alexander. And the only Alexander Beaufort had been Alexander Beaufort Meeks, a nineteenth century American poet and famous chess player, and definitely not an English lord.

  But now she could search for Alexander Bainbridge and learn when he’d lived. And when he’d died.

  That was the problem. She really didn’t want to know when he’d died, and she was sure that any website or article that noted his date of birth would have his date of death listed with it. She seriously worried what that might do to her.

  So she sat on her hands, forced herself to watch movie after movie, and never bothered to charge her phone.

  The devil whispered in her ear that she never really knew the man. He was a passing acquaintance, someone she’d known for only an hour or two, so she really shouldn’t feel too bad that he’d died. But the argument didn’t work. She still didn’t dare look.

  What scared her most was finding a page for him on Wikipedia, and seeing some mention of a carousel, or if he’d spent much time there…

  Waiting.

  Then she remembered the other Bainbridge, from Boston, the guy who said he was chasing a story. Had it been a family story? Maybe one about a crazy ancestor who talked about dancing with a gypsy or a witch, who disappeared soon thereafter?

  Highly unlikely. It didn’t sound like the kind of tale that gets passed down through the generations. But it was probably the idea that had germinated into her current witch series.

  Then there was Lance. She’d promised him she’d let it go. But that was the night she’d expected to find Alexander again. She would have agreed to anything just to get home.

  The failure of that night was still a painfully clear memory. And as she got closer to home, and closer to that computer, she worried she might be getting closer to yet another heartbreak.

  ~ ~ ~

  Cindy’s sister dropped Ashlynn off at home. Cindy got out of the car and hugged her, then pulled out the big books and set them on top of Ash’s suitcase. “I bought them for you anyway.”

  Ash was inexplicably relieved not to have to part with the one bit of proof—albeit a stretch—that Alexander had been real.

  “I will pay you back—”

  “No, you won’t. Consider it a thank you for letting me tag along on your vacation.”

  “I’m just grateful you agreed, or I’d never have gone.”

  “Doesn’t matter. They’re yours. You’ll need them anyway.”

  Ash’s stomach dropped, and she wondered what she might have let slip during one of their many conversations about that story. “Why will I need them?”

  “In case you decide to start writing romances. You should at least finish the one you started, to see how you like it.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  Wolfgang had pulled down the sheers and was now barking at her like she was a trespasser he’d never seen before. And though her entourage of characters-in-waiting hadn’t accompanied her to England, they were there, waiting for her on the front step, as if they hadn’t wanted to be left alone with a hungry wolf.

  Cindy pointed to the window that might or might not shatter from the ferocity of the barking alone. “So much for a warm welcome home, huh? You think he’ll let you in?”

  Ash pretended to worry. “I don’t know. If I don’t send you those pictures in the next couple of days, call the sheriff.”

  ~ ~ ~

  After spending a few hours back in her own home, Ashlynn was convinced that Wolfgang was less upset that she’d been gone for two weeks and more upset that she’d returned. He was downright grumpy each time she spoke to him, and eventually started walking away every time she opened her mouth.

  When he suddenly started crying and barking for joy, she looked out the window and saw Lance’s boys walking up the drive. She opened the door before they had to knock.

  “You’re home,” said the oldest. The youngest one looked as disappointed as Wolfgang.

  “Yes. If you’ll come in, I’ll get your money.”

  “Aw, you don’t have to pay us,” said the older boy, just because he was a good kid. She was sure he even meant it, but she wasn’t about to take advantage of his generosity.

  “You’ve obviously made the beast happy
while I was gone. And if you don’t take the money, I can’t ask you to do it next time.”

  The older one grinned. “I guess we’d better accept it, then.” He took a long time petting the dog good-bye. “You call us anytime, okay?” The dog rolled over to offer up his belly for some attention and the poor kid had to drag his brother out the door.

  “You are welcome to visit him anytime,” she hollered after them. “In fact, if your dad wants a good guard dog, you’re welcome to take him home with you.”

  The little one stood his ground and forced his brother to stop, then turned back with his eyes wide with hope.

  She felt bad for teasing him, even though she’d only been half-joking. “Of course, he’ll probably eat your other pets, but at least you’ll have him, right?”

  The way the kid started chewing on his lip made Ash think he was weighing the pros and cons. But she closed the door before he had a chance to answer.

  Wolfgang rolled onto his feet and swaggered into the next room without meeting her eye. Grouchy again.

  “Oh, no! Nice try. But I’m not going to forget what I saw!”

  He snorted, which was the equivalent of flipping her off.

  “Belly rubs? Are you kidding me? A big mean wolf like you! Belly rubs?”

  He snorted again, at the back door. It was a warning to let him out or else. She hurried to do his bidding, but decided she wouldn’t let him back in again unless he asked nicely.

  The house was chilly. The season had changed completely over while she’d been away, and she almost felt bad for not setting the thermostat higher than sixty before she’d gone.

  Almost.

  She left her jacket on while she waited for her room to warm. As she paced through the house, she returned over and over again to her desk. Stored inside it was that file. That story. That memory.

  She had to get over her obsession. One way or another, she had to put it behind her or no man would ever seem good enough in her eyes. No man could ever measure up to the god she’d turned Alexander into.

  Ashlynn Garrity was tired of being alone with only a big moody dog for company—someone else’s big moody dog at that. She wanted someone to talk to who could talk back. She wanted someone to touch, someone to hold her, someone to kiss the back of her hand while he looked into her eyes. And if she found someone fun and loving, she could teach him to do that kind of thing, couldn’t she?

  Sure she could.

  But first, she had to get rid of Alexander—the man, the phantom, the delusion. Whatever he was.

  She turned on the power, pulled out the desk chair, and sat before she could change her mind. After a short maze of passwords she’d set before leaving town, she was finally able to access her documents. There was a list of recent opens, but it wasn’t on that list. After seven months’ worth of writing, it had been buried.

  Scanning her projects, she looked for the file named Batshit. When she still couldn’t find it, she scanned slower. After the third time through, with no luck, her heart stopped, then jumpstarted. It didn’t know what to do.

  She told it to shut up and give her a minute. There was no way it had just disappeared.

  A little voice in her head whispered the possibility that it might never has existed in the first place, but that was just…crazy.

  She entered the word in the search bar, but still, nothing came up. Freaking out was always an option, but nothing good would come from it. What she needed was ritual.

  Thankfully, her Jeep started even though it had been sitting dormant for two weeks. She drove to Maverik, got her cups of ice, and since Jenny was working, she grabbed a couple of cinnamon rolls for the sake of good Karma.

  Jenny chuckled. “Two, huh? Must have missed them.”

  “One for the dog.”

  “Oh, right. I’m sure there’s a lot of kissing up to do, after being gone so long.”

  Ash snorted. “He’s not the type to apologize. Besides, he’s got no lips.”

  Jenny didn’t get the joke until Ash was already out the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Ashlynn pulled into the garage and heard Wolfgang barking in the backyard. He was balling her out, not warning someone off, so she opened one of the little boxes and flipped one of the cinnamon rolls over the fence. “Enjoy your supper.”

  She returned to the garage, closed the door, and went inside to finish her ice ritual. She’d picked up some snackage, so she took a minute to stash it all away in the odor-concealing canisters to keep Wolfgang out. Since her computer had gone to sleep, she pushed the power button again, turned the thermostat down to normal, and took off her coat.

  The beast barked at the kitchen door, then waited for her to obey. She waited for him to realize she wasn’t going to take his crap, and she clicked around on the internet for another ten minutes before he finally whined. It was definitely a macho wolf-dog, one syllable whine, but it was all he’d give her.

  She opened the door. He walked inside, stopped, then looked her in the eye. It wasn’t an apology, but it was a truce.

  Inside the bedroom, even though it was still light outside, Wolfgang dropped clumsily to the floor. It sounded like someone had dropped a sack of baseball bats. When he exhaled dramatically, she looked up from the monitor to give him the attention he was looking for.

  He blinked innocently with his head resting on his big furry paws, then finally closed his eyes, satisfied.

  Now that his drama is over, it’s time to end my own.

  Once again, she opened her documents and scanned for Batshit. Her attention caught on something and she suddenly remembered—she’d changed the file name before she’d closed it all those months ago.

  She moved her curser over the words Dancing in the Garden. Her fingers slipped and she accidentally clicked right instead of left. The options came up, one of which was delete.

  Delete? Was she crazy? Or was that exactly what she’d needed all along?

  She stared at the little white arrow. It didn’t move.

  She imagined what it might do to her to let it all go. To let him go. The possibilities were terrifying, as if she’d be pushing a piece of herself off a cliff, or cutting the rope that kept her from falling off completely.

  “Goodbye, Alexander. Thanks for the dance. But I’ve… I’ve got to find another garden to dance in now.”

  She clicked left. A box asked if she was sure.

  She was sure.

  ~ ~ ~

  Ashlynn waited for the tears to come and half-expected the closet door to slide open and invite her inside. But surprisingly, neither happened. In fact, she felt strangely at peace with her decision, and just to make sure the break was complete, she went into her computer’s trash bin and emptied it.

  No tears. No mourning. Just a numb, sore feeling in the general area of her heart.

  All around her, she felt her would-be characters recoil, now that they knew the violence of which she was capable.

  She enjoyed a blessedly dreamless nap, then decided to drive the three thick books over to Cindy’s house. Proof of Alexander’s existence was something she no longer needed, and the books were far too expensive to have accepted in the first place.

  “I’ve thought about it a lot and I’ve decided I definitely don’t want to write romance. But thank you anyway.”

  Cindy looked at her funny. “You okay?”

  Ash nodded. “I’m good. But I deleted that Regency story, so I won’t be tempted to waste any more time on it.”

  “Too bad,” her friend said. “That whole underwear idea was great.”

  ~ ~ ~

  As soon as she got home, Ash built a small bonfire in the backyard pit with a stack of wood and two dozen paperbacks, all Regency romances. When it was good and hot, she added two shirts, a pair of gray sweats, and a single pair of green underwear to the pile of logs.

  The only tears that came to her eyes were from wayward drafts of smoke.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Life changed dras
tically after she deleted that file.

  Ashlynn stopped worrying about her sanity. She and Cindy stopped hiding in the shadows at the Sawtooth Bar, and a few times a year, she even dated. Sheriff King took a day off and drove her down to the point of the mountain so she could face Clint LaMont, to give her new-found confidence the ultimate test.

  Lance never asked what she planned to say to her kidnapper but didn’t want her going alone.

  Once inside the prison compound, they gave her a choice—they could chain LaMont to a table and she could meet with him in a room, or she could speak with him through glass. She wasn’t an idiot. She chose the glass.

  When the inner door opened, she suddenly wanted to scream and run away. The man who had taken her hostage over a decade before would appear any second. But she grabbed the edges of her cheap plastic chair and held on tight.

  He was just another human being, she reminded herself. He held no power over her now.

  LaMont limped into the room wearing an orange jumpsuit. He appeared much shorter than she remembered, especially compared to the towering guard escorting him. In spite of his scraggly beard and pony tail, he looked like a child as he waited for permission to move.

  The guard waved him away, toward the window. His careful, tiny steps were due to the short chain between his ankles, and he didn’t look up until he stopped beside the chair. When he realized who waited for him, he took a quick step back, which made him lose his balance. The guard did nothing to prevent him from falling to the floor.

  Emotions warred in Ashlynn’s chest. Pity won and she looked away while the man struggled back to his feet. After he’d had time to get seated, she faced the window again.

  He picked up the phone and held it to his ear while he waited for her to do the same. Then they stared at each other without speaking.

  She cleared her throat. “Hello.”

  He looked dazed, like someone had just hit him over the head with an iron frying pan. “H…hello.”