“I need you inside of me.”
Miguel raised his head and looked at her, his dark eyes like orbs of ebony fire. In one motion, he was astride her, spreading her legs, thrusting his shaft deep to the hilt.
There was nothing gentle or easy or slow about their lovemaking this time, only a fevered need to complete each other. Elizabeth opened herself to him fully, feeling him ram against her womb, savoring the fullness of him, whimpering at his near-withdrawal only to gasp with pleasure at the renewed vigor of his second thrust.
Miguel ground his hips against hers, increasing their tempo to a frenzied thrashing like a ship tossed between swells of a stormy sea. Elizabeth lurched wildly beneath him, her back arching to take more of him. Her nails scraped across the hard muscles of his broad back even as her tongue frantically found his, their movements in unison to the rhythm of their love-making.
Elizabeth shuddered, her body cresting on a wave of undulating sensation before plunging into a trough of momentary calm, then rising again in ever-increasing surges of rapture. Small spasms grew into one long convulsing contraction as she peaked, screaming Miguel’s name in the wake of her climax and then she felt him flooding her with his own release.
They lay exhausted and panting in each other’s arms. Finally, Miguel lifted a damp curl off Elizabeth’s forehead. “With lovemaking like that, I may get used to living in this century.”
She nestled further into the curve of his arm. “Promise?”
He grinned and rolled her over on top of him. “I could be persuaded. Why don’t you try to convince me?”
Elizabeth smiled and leaned down, brushing his chest with her breasts. “This time, we’ll take it slow.”
Hours later, she sat facing him in the bathtub, her legs over his thighs. She squeezed soapy water over his shoulders and then let her fingers slide down the slick wet skin to tease his nipples. She loved the way his eyes turned even darker with desire.
He gave a little growl as her hands slid across his flat belly to find their prize. Elizabeth giggled as she felt his member grow hard again under her hand.
“Insatiable wench,” he said lazily.
“Only with an incredible lover,” she said.
Miguel lifted and settled her on top of him so that his now throbbing shaft probed her entrance. “Remember I once told you I was going to enjoy your giving me a bath?”
“Uh-huh,” she murmured and nipped at his ear.
He lifted her buttocks then and brought her down hard as he filled her completely. “And remember,” he said as he established their rhythm, “that I told you I always return the favor?”
She didn’t have time to answer for his mouth covered hers. With a low moan she clung to him, merging once more, not sure where her body ended and his began. Not that she cared at this particular moment, as she soared to the summit of rhapsody.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN—REAL WORLD
Elizabeth found Miguel in the kitchen the next morning, switching the light on and off with an incredulous look on his face.
“Good morning,” she said, raising on tiptoe to kiss him. “Having fun?”
He shook his head in amazement and then opened the refrigerator door. “It lights up, too. How does that work?”
She laughed. “Twenty-first century magic, you might say. It’s called electricity. Just about everything in the apartment uses it. Would you like some coffee?”
“Where is the fire for that? Is it this?” He pointed to the stove. “I turned a knob earlier and it glowed red.”
“We use that to cook. I use this,” she said as she clicked the switch on the coffee maker. She took two breakfast entrees out of the freezer, unwrapped one and popped it in the microwave. “This will be thawed and ready to eat in three minutes.”
Miguel looked skeptical when she set it in front of him. He sniffed and then poked at it. “It’s hot!” Tentatively, he took a taste of egg. “And good. How does that thing work?” He picked up the second entrée. “I want to try.”
An hour later, he had microwaved several potatoes, warmed up soup and popped corn, fascinated by the speed of it. Elizabeth was beginning to think she would run out of food for him to experiment with.
“Are you ready to venture out into your new world?”
Miguel looked up from extracting a warmed-up piece of apple pie from his new toy. “Just give a minute to savor this.” He took several bites and then stood. “Ready.”
He was still wary of the car. Elizabeth coaxed him into it. “I’ll teach you to drive soon. Most men fall in love with their cars.”
“I prefer Diablo. Him, I can trust,” Miguel answered as they melded into traffic. “Why does everything move so fast in your century?”
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth answered, “you would think with all the modern technology we have to help us with our work, we’d slow down, but we don’t.”
A few minutes later, she parked the car at the mall and took a deep breath, hoping Miguel wouldn’t be overwhelmed. “This is what you might call a marketplace.”
Once inside, he swiveled his head from side to side, trying to take in all the different shops as they walked. More than once, Elizabeth had to steer him out of someone’s way since he wasn’t watching where he was going.
“There are so many people,” he said, when she had nudged him out of the path of a group of teenagers texting while they walked.
Elizabeth stopped a few doors down, in front of a men’s clothing shop. “Let’s get you some clothes.”
Miguel caressed her cheek with a fingertip. “Just like I did for you. This isn’t exactly like the general store at home, is it?”
Elizabeth frowned slightly. “You are home, Miguel.” As a sad expression crossed his face, she realized how much he must miss his son, and her heart went out to him. She squeezed his arm. “I miss Raul, too.”
“I wish…” He stopped, squared his shoulders, and took a deep breath. “Home it is, as long as you’re with me.” He gave her a brief kiss before they stepped inside.
They were greeted by a thin, elegantly suited salesman who straightened his silk tie, cleared his throat and then clasped his pale hands together before he approached. He gave a slightly haughty glance at Miguel’s cotton shirt and jeans, but his expression changed when he noticed the soft leather, hand-tooled boots. “May I be of some assistance, Monsieur?”
Miguel looked down at him and nodded. “Oui. Je voudrais acheter un veston, chemise, pantalon et une cravate.”
Elizabeth almost giggled at the man’s puzzled expression. She would bet he didn’t know much more French than merci and s’il vous plait. Pompous ass. “I think he wants a suit, shirt and tie,” she said.
The man tried to look down his nose at her, but she was too tall. He gave a slight sniff instead and gestured. “Of course. This way.”
Elizabeth sank down into a comfortable easy chair while she waited for Miguel to try on clothes. T-shirts and jeans they could pick up elsewhere. Then she heard a bellow from the dressing rooms.
The little salesman scurried out in fright, followed by a shirtless Miguel. “What do you think you’re doing, walking in on a man like that?”
The man sniveled. “I was bringing you some more choices in shirts, that was all.”
Perhaps it was time to intervene. Elizabeth didn’t like the way several female shoppers had stopped what they were doing to stare unabashedly at Miguel’s bare chest and well-muscled shoulders and arms. One rather young, curvy blonde started to smile at him.
Predators. They were present in every century. And, Elizabeth reminded herself, a lot bolder in this one. She tucked her arm into Miguel’s somewhat possessively and turned him around, which might have been a mistake, for now the ladies had a view of his rippling back as he walked, not to mention his tight buttocks.
“I think I’ll stand guard,” she said.
He grinned at her seductively. “Why don’t you come inside and help me?”
“Dress or undress?” she quipped.
“Your choice,” he murmured as he pulled her against him and slid he curtain back in place.
“Mmmmm,” Elizabeth said.
• ♥ •
“I thought you might find this interesting,” Elizabeth said as she parked the car in the 300 block of Main Street in Fort Worth and they entered the Sid Richardson Collection of Western Art. “It’ll seem more like home.”
A pleased expression appeared on Miguel’s face as he wandered through the collection of paintings by Russell and Remington. He stopped by one titled “Buffalo Bill’s Duel with Yellowhand”. After several moments, he said softly, “This reminds me of the Texas I knew. The hills in the distance, the prairie, sage, and cactus.”
“Even a cowboy and Indian,” Elizabeth said with a smile. “My students always teased me about that.”
Miguel draped his arm around her shoulder. “Who was Buffalo Bill?”
“Long story,” Elizabeth answered, “but he was the epitome of the Old West. Pony Express rider, army scout, buffalo hunter, Indian fighter—“ She paused and looked at the painting. “He scalped Yellowhand in retaliation for the massacre at the Battle of Little Big Horn.”
“Little what?”
She patted his hand. “I forget the time difference. 1876. It hadn’t happened yet in your world, but a general named Custer made a big mistake and didn’t follow orders. It cost the U.S. Cavalry it biggest Plains defeat at the hands of the Indian chiefs, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.”
Miguel lifted an eyebrow. “Sitting Bull I have heard of. Chief Jim Ned spoke of him once. From the Dakota land, wasn’t he?”
Elizabeth nodded. “That’s where the action in this painting took place. After everything was settled, Buffalo Bill became an actor and traveled with a Wild West show. Quite a stretch from his younger days, but in a way, he helped keep the Old West alive. He actually employed Indians and used buffalo.”
They moved on quietly until they came to a painting called “The Puncher”. Miguel laughed. “He looks like the vaqueros I hire.” The rider wore a sombrero and bandana and Spanish bolero. A rifle was tucked into the side scabbard. Miguel sighed. “I guess there aren’t too many working cowboys anymore.”
“Some,” Elizabeth answered, “especially on the big ranches in South Texas. We could drive down and enjoy the beach someday.” She looked back at the painting. “Remington was a friend of Teddy Roosevelt’s—a president from your future—anyway, he once said the wild riders of the range were the final players in the American frontier.” She took a wistful breath. “Sometimes I wish that frontier had never disappeared.”
Miguel hugged her and she put an arm around his waist. “You miss the 1800s as much as I do, don’t you?”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “Yes, but I don’t know what to do about it. We’ll just need to keep trying to figure out how time-travel happens.”
He smiled and kissed the top of her head. “We may have ended up in the wrong century, but we still have our memories. We have each other. That’s all that matters. Let’s go home.”
• ♥ •
Elizabeth tried to keep the grin off her face. She’d known Miguel would impress Brooke, but her friend was sitting beside them on the sofa now, just staring at him.
Well, he was a hunk. Her hunk. But she trusted Brooke more than any other person she knew. This was not flirtation; it was awe.
“And you have no idea of how you got here?” she asked for the fourth time.
Miguel shook his head. “I thought I saw a vision of a woman with braided hair in white leather, sitting in a tree. Crazy, I know, but I was so disappointed when Marie Laveau told me that—“
“Wait! The voodoo queen? You talked with her?” Brooke’s blue eyes widened. “Did she put a spell on you? Is that maybe what worked?”
“No. She removed a curse from the dream catcher I was holding, but that’s a long story. Actually, I didn’t even believe in time travel. If I hadn’t met Lancelot, I’d probably still be there.”
Brooke sat as still as a statue and Elizabeth knew what was coming. Mention anything medieval and Brooke went into tailspins, but Lancelot was her hero. Well, Elizabeth couldn’t fault her on that anymore, she’d married her own bad boy, and he had turned out really good. Really good.
“Lancelot?” Brooke asked in a breathless voice, “as in Gwenevere and King Arthur? You met him?”
Miguel shot an amused look to Elizabeth and then looked back at Brooke. “That I did. Gwenevere was with him.”
Brooke’s mouth gaped, and for a moment Elizabeth was afraid her friend was actually going to drool, but Brooke made a concentrated effort and spoke.
“What did he look like? Was he enough to take your breath away?”
Miguel grinned. “Not mine, although Gwenevere seemed equally smitten with him as he was with her.”
“What did he look like?”
“Stop teasing, Miguel.” Elizabeth smiled at her friend. Brooke might appear even-tempered most of the time, but when she wanted information, she was as tenacious as one of those huge medieval wolfhounds she was so fond of. And her temper could equally rival Elizabeth’s own, for Brooke was Celtic, too.
“Ah. Well. Tall. Muscular. I guess a lady would find him attractive.”
“Specifics,” Brooke said clearly. “Hair? Eyes?”
“Dark hair. Penetrating eyes.”
“What color were they?” Brooke asked.
He shrugged. “I’m sorry, I didn’t pay that much attention to him—kind of smoky-colored, I think. I could describe Gwenevere in more detail…”
Elizabeth threw a pillow at him and he ducked, laughing.
Brooke was not to be sidelined. “Tell me about her, then.”
“Just a moment.” Miguel pulled Elizabeth to him and wrapped his arms around her, effectively pinioning hers to her side. “I don’t want to get hit in the head when I do.”
Elizabeth responded by giving him a sharp nip on the side of his neck.
“Very pretty,” he said and leaned away from Elizabeth’s teeth. “Well, actually, she looked a lot like Elizabeth, only older. What amazed me was how she and Lancelot looked at each other, I could practically feel the sizzle in that humid, wet air.”
“Ooooh,” Brooke sighed softly.
“Kind of like what happens with us, huh, Red?” Miguel grinned down at her.
She snuggled into the crook of his arm. “You got yourself out of that pretty easily, smooth talker that you are. You still haven’t told us how Lancelot helped you time travel.” She was as curious as Brooke was, for if she could grasp some small hint, maybe they could go back.
“He just said sometimes you have to have blind faith and just believe. It wasn’t until they’d left that I put the pieces of the puzzle together. Then it was easy. If they had come from the past, why couldn’t I go to the future?”
“And can we go back?” Brooke asked, a faraway look in her eyes.
That’s the question Elizabeth would have given any twenty-first century possession she owned to have answered.
• ♥ •
“I wanted to show you something,” Elizabeth said several weeks later as she pulled into a small graveled lot of an old cemetery on the corner of Mayfield and Cooper Street. “I think it will help make the transition easier.”
Actually, she was proud of the way Miguel had adjusted. The hustle of the malls and the abundance of food and restaurants amazed him. Anything electric fascinated him. He’d made countless baked potatoes in the microwave. He found the Internet incredible, but he didn’t trust the car. He was a horseman, he said, and it was too bad this world moved too fast for them.
She knew he missed Raul terribly. He didn’t talk about it much, but she’d see him looking at other fathers and sons when they went out. It was the one thing she couldn't fix with an explanation. It was also one of the reasons she had brought him to this place.
“Johnson Station Cemetery,” she said and pointed to the sign as they got out. “Just no
rth of here, your town once stood.”
They entered through the wire fence gate. Even though the traffic flow was heavy on Cooper Street, it was strangely quiet beneath the large oak trees which provided shade for the old markers. Many of them were tilted and a few were broken, but as they walked through the oldest part, Miguel read the names silently.
“Elizabeth Robinson. Died November 15, 1863.” He looked up. “I knew her.”
“That’s the oldest marker here. Remember I told you about her?” Elizabeth hesitated. “I don’t think any of your family would be here, but we could look.”
Miguel shook his head. “We had a family plot at the hacienda. You remember where Elena was buried. All the family members would be there.”
“Did you want to try to find it?” she asked. Over the past century-and-a-half, the land he had once owned was now covered with suburban sprawl and they had not been able to find any direct descendants. She had hoped this trip might bring some closure.
He gazed into space for a long time, holding her hand. Then he gently squeezed her fingers and wiped an eye. “I don’t think I want to know what or when things happened. I miss the Texas I knew, but I have you, and I don’t want to jeopardize that.” His hand traced the Robinson marker. “It’s good-bye to one century and hello to another. There’s no point in looking back any longer.”
• ♥ •
“Here.” Elizabeth turned the heavy history book around and pointed to a page. “April, 1861. Fort Sumter. The beginning of the Civil War.”
It had been several days since they’d visited the cemetery and Miguel had decided maybe he did need to fill in some gaps. They’d come to the public library to do that.
“Actually,” Elizabeth said, “it began before then. South Carolina seceded first and successfully repulsed a supply ship to Fort Sumter earlier that year. It was only when a second ship was sent and the commander, Robert Anderson, refused to surrender, that shots were fired.” She thumbed through the pages. “Look here. The battle of Shiloh: 24,000 casualties. Antietam: 19,000 wounded, 5,000 killed. Then Sherman’s march to the sea, which destroyed just about everything that was still left in the South. And in the end, a president was assassinated.”
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