Beneath a Beating Heart

by Lauri Robinson

  His imaged flashed twice before it formed completely. “Maybe I don’t want you to see me.” He stood beside the table. “Maybe I don’t want to see you.”

  She didn’t take his anger to heart. It was understandable. She was experiencing her own misgivings about the gossip Edith had shared. However, Edith had also said Janice’s tale of Rance being Leonard’s grandfather had held credibility. Cliff and Nan had been his best friends, and quite possibly had invited Cindy to stay with them for the sole purpose of trying to make him get over the death of his wife. No one, not Cliff, Nan, or Cindy, ever breathed a word of who was Robert’s real father. By the time Janice was putting the puzzle pieces together, he and anyone else who might have known, had already died, so there’d been no one around to disclaim her tale. That left plenty of people believing it was true. That he was Leonard’s grandfather. Lou’s great-grandfather. And Nate’s.

  Others may have believed it easy enough, but she didn’t. Having met him and Lou and Nate. They were nothing alike. But considering all, stranger things had happened. Were happening.

  “You said you met Nan’s niece yesterday.” She focused on the topic at hand rather than taking a route that would lead nowhere. Her own musings only caused more confusion.

  “So? That doesn’t mean—” He snapped his lips shut and his nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. “That woman, Cindy Franklin from Cheyenne, is more trouble than she’s worth. I’ll tell you that right now. And if she gets herself pregnant while visiting Nan and Cliff, I have nothing to do with it.”

  “But what if you do?” The thought was as pungent as the words, but she had to say them. “Think about it, Rance. If you have a child with Cindy and the two of you raise him instead of giving him to Nan and Cliff, everything will be different. It’s the domino theory. Everything’s connected, and one small change…” Wow, this was tough. Her insides were literally aching.

  Stubbornly, he shook his head.

  Her next statement would be no easier than the first, but had to come out. “Maybe Cindy, if you give her a chance, could make you forget your wife, make you stop waiting for Beth to return, and—”

  He disappeared.

  “Rance, don’t do that now.” None of this was easier for her to say than for him to listen to, and it wasn’t going to get any better. She had to say it. The rumors about him living his entire life in the cabin were true. He’d said so himself this morning. She couldn’t let that happen.

  There was no hum, but he was nearby. Everything but her ears and eyes said so.

  “Beth isn’t coming back.” Her eyes burnt and she pressed her free hand to the sting in her nose. “Not ever. She died in that train accident, and you can’t waste over half a century believing she didn’t.”

  The anger in his eyes when he reappeared sent a shiver over her.

  “I…” he growled, “can believe anything I damn well please.”

  He disappeared again, and emptiness surrounded her.

  He was gone.

  The room became so blurry she closed her eyes. Moisture dripped from beneath her lashes, scalding her skin. She hadn’t cried in a long time but knew that once tears started to fall, it was impossible to stop them.

  She laid her head on the table and let them flow. All the strange and powerful emotions racking her insides needed an avenue of escape.

  Time eluded her. No matter what century it might be, clocks clicked away second after second. She may have cried for ten minutes or two hours. All she knew was when she lifted her head, her cheeks felt as dry and brittle as cornflakes. Her insides were back to being empty, too. As emptied and hollow as they’d always been.

  Her gaze first caught the mirror, and then the stove. Both looked brand new again.

  Brand-spanking-new.

  Rance stomped his way across the yard, toward the barn where he planned on—Aw hell, he didn’t know what he planned on doing. He wanted to throttle something, rip it apart with his bare hands. Do something to channel all this pain, all this anger, out of his system.

  What else could a man do when his very own wife sat beside him at a table and told him she was never coming back? Told him he should forget all about her and have a baby with someone else. A baby the two of them would have had if she…

  He spun around, back toward the house, but mid-turn, he caught movement out the corner of his eye. A rider coming up the road had him cursing aloud.

  In no mood for company, as soon as Cliff rode close enough to hear, Rance shouted. “What the hell do you want?”

  Cliff brought his horse to a complete stop. Both the man and animal eyed him wearily. Never one to be guided by good judgment, Cliff dismounted.

  “Came out to settle up for the horse.” Cliff rubbed a thoughtful hand over his black mustache. “But—”

  “There’s no settling up to be done. Just return it when you’re done with it. Or keep it, I don’t care.”

  “What’s happened?”

  My wife just told me to forget she ever existed, he wanted to shout, but knew how crazy that sounded. Even to him. “Nothing.” Changing his mind, he waved a hand at Cliff. “Other than your wife brought some silly young girl out here.” Stepping closer, he waggled a finger. “You keep that niece of yours away from my property, you hear?”

  “I hear you.” Cliff removed his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm. “Wasn’t my idea to bring her here, to Cody. She got herself in a nip of trouble down in Cheyenne and her mother is hoping Nan will straighten her out.”

  “It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than Nan.” If anything Beth said was true, and for some only-God-knows-why-reason, he believed, at least parts, of what she’d said, Cliff and Nan were in for loads of trouble with Nan’s niece. “You should send her right back to her folks. Deliver her yourself to make sure she gets there. And stays.”

  Cliff nodded. “I’ll admit that I have the same misgivings, but I can’t argue with Nan.”

  “Why the hell not?” He was still spitting-mad over arguing with Beth.

  “Because it does me about as much good as arguing with you.” Cliff folded his arms and leaned a shoulder against his horse. “So, how much do I owe you for Horse?”

  His spine, the very top where it met his neck, was burning and tight. He rubbed at the spot. “You don’t.” He turned to look at the house. He’d never argued with Beth, either. There’d never been a reason to. Although, she looked awfully cute all flushed and huffy, trying to get her point across. A time or two he’d pretended to be mad, just to watch her ire grow. He’d never really been mad at her, but there had been couple of times he’d been afraid she’d get hurt. Those had been the only times they’d ever really argued—when she’d had something set in her mind that he’d thought she might get hurt doing.

  Turning back to Cliff, he shook his head. “Just return Horse when you’re done with her.”

  “Good enough.” Cliff nodded. “And I’ll tell Nan your place is off limits to Cindy.”

  “More than my place should be off limits,” he warned.

  “I agree, but a man has to keep his wife happy.”

  Nodding, his gaze returned to the house. “You’re right about that.”

  An eerie sensation had him turning back toward Cliff, whose brows were raised.

  “I-uh-I left a pot of coffee on the stove.” He waved toward the house. “I best go check on it.”

  Cliff nodded. “Nan said you were living in the house again.”

  “Yeah, well…” He rubbed the back of his neck again. That’s when he realized he’d forgotten to put on his hat. Cliff was sure to notice that. Being a lawman, nothing got past him, and the glint in his eyes said he was thinking hard. “I gotta go check on that coffee.” Cliff could also smell a lie a mile away and was sniffing like a hound dog. “Thanks for riding out, and, um, I’ll catch up with you in a couple of days.”

  Without waiting for Cliff to say more, or because he knew his friend was about to, he took off for the house, forci
ng his feet to walk when they wanted to run like a Comanche on the war path. That would only give Cliff more to investigate. Which, as a lawman, he was sure to do.

  At the porch steps he paused to turn around. Cliff stood beside his horse. Rance, tapping a toe inside his boot, held his own stance until his friend stuck a foot in a stirrup and swung into the saddle. He waved and cursed the time it took Cliff to rein his horse around and mosey under the Rocking L sign. Only when he was sure the man wasn’t going to turn around did he spin about and shoot into the house.

  The mirror was still on the table, but Beth was nowhere to be seen. She was here, though, the quickening beneath his beating heart told him so. He grabbed the mirror and hurried into the center parlor. The room was empty, but he smiled as his gaze briefly paused on the front porch. It was completely screened in—Beth’s idea. She’d said it was their house and they could put the front door wherever they wanted to. Therefore, they’d build the house so the front faced the rolling hills of the western pasture, so they could sit out there in the evenings, watching the sun set together. They had, too, more than once.

  Turning, he made his way down the short hall to the back parlor where Beth had sat at her treadle sewing machine making curtains, pillows, and all sorts of other things after they’d completed the house. He checked the washroom too, before going back to front parlor. Beside the door that led to the porch was the staircase to the second floor. Four bedrooms, the perfect number, Beth had said. The door to the first one was opened, not the one they’d shared. A smaller one that held little more than a rocking chair and bookcase. The room he’d visited last night.

  She was sitting in a chair with a book on her lap.

  Of a mind not to be noticed, not yet, he angled himself so he could see her, but the mirror was behind the wall beside him. Sunlight shone through the parted curtains, basking upon her, and though she looked whole, perfect, there was also a thin transparency to her.

  He shook his head, unable to completely define all that he knew to be true and what sat before his eyes. He couldn’t make out the title of the book on her lap but wondered if it was the one he’d searched out last night. That story might be closer to the truth than he’d wanted to believe. Beth would want him to know his ways were harmful, to him and others, and would want him to change. As determined now as she’d ever been, she wouldn’t stop until she found a way to convince him, either.

  Gently, yet as brilliant as the sun peeking over the hills in the morning, a tentative smile rose upon her lips.

  “You’re back,” she whispered.

  He checked to make sure the mirror was still behind the wall beside the doorway.

  “I can’t see you, but I can feel you.”

  He felt her too, in ways he couldn’t describe.

  “Come in,” she said just as softly as before. “Please.” Removing her feet from the squat footstool, she kept her gaze on the door. “Please. We need to talk.”

  He might stand over six-feet tall and weigh a hundred and seventy pounds, but his brawn and muscles were of little use when it came to her. She had the ability to bring him to his knees from the moment they’d met. Remembering that might make all this easier.

  He entered the room, watching the way she closely followed the mirror in his hand. She reached out and grasped the edge. “Sit down on the stool.”

  It was like sitting on a milking stool, but he did so, knees bent and poking in the air, and arm stretched out because he’d never let go of the mirror.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “for what I had to tell you earlier. But it’s the truth. I can’t lie to you.”

  The unshed tears in her eyes stabbed at his chest. Beth had never lied to him. Not once. She wouldn’t now, either. It would take more than a century to change that.

  She shook her head. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”

  The book he’d searched out last night was on top of the bookshelf, where he’d left it last night. “Are you my ghost of Christmases yet to come?”

  “What?”

  He nodded toward the bookcase, wondering if she’d be able to see it if he picked it up. She hadn’t seen the coffee cup this morning, leaving him no solid understanding of what she could or couldn’t see. The mirror was the only thing he knew worked for sure. “A Christmas Carol.”

  Her gaze settled on the bookcase. “Ebenezer Scrooge. You have no idea how many versions of that story are out there. I have no idea. Walt Disney even has a version or two.”

  He had no idea who Walt Disney was, or how many books anyone had written like that one.

  Sighing, she turned her gaze back to him. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “I’m as confused by all this as you are. But I know I’m not a ghost. I’m not dead. I’m a real living person, and even though I’m not living in your time, I feel…” She closed her eyes and licked her lips. “It’s hard to explain, but when I’m with you, in the same room as you, I feel things I’ve never felt before. Real things. Things I couldn’t imagine.” Her lids fluttered open. “I also have a sense of purpose, of…I don’t know how to describe it, but deep inside I don’t want this place burned down this weekend, or next weekend, or next month, or next year. I don’t want your things sold. I don’t want…”

  Her gaze had landed on the mirror, and her fingers were trembling as she ran them over the silver.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “The mirror, it’s new again.”

  “It doesn’t look any different to me.” Realizing that wouldn’t ease the disquiet he sensed, he twisted the mirror slightly. “It’s not very old. It was a wedding gift.”

  “From you?”

  He nodded.

  “When?”

  He purposefully chose to not focus on the fact she didn’t remember their wedding date. “January.”

  “Of this year.” There was sadness in her quiet tone. “Six months. You were just starting your lives together.”

  He nodded again but had to speak. “Whether it was six months or sixty years, I couldn’t have loved—” He stopped before saying you, and swallowed. “Her more.”

  “I believe that. And I believe she loved you just as much.”

  “I believe that, too.”

  “Then you have to believe, she’d have never wanted you to mourn her for the rest of your life.” She wiped away a single tear sliding down the side of her cheek. “Beth would never have wanted that.”

  He’d heard that so many times, in so many ways, by so many people, he’d thought he’d grown deaf to it, but this time, it resounded in his ears and in his heart. There was no anger flaring inside him, either, just a dull, steady ache.

  “That’s not what you would have wanted for her, either. Is it?”

  He shook his head.

  “That’s just easier to accept, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. Beth’s happiness had been foremost in his mind since seeing her sitting on the corral at her father’s house.

  “I think that’s why this happened. Why our paths crossed, even though we are a century apart. Something happened that wasn’t supposed to have happened, and now the universe is trying to fix it.”

  Beth wasn’t supposed to have died, that’s what wasn’t supposed to have happened. She wasn’t supposed to have been on that train. He bit his lips together to keep his thoughts to himself.

  “I know it sounds crazy, but all of this is crazy. And I know there are much larger, much more disastrous events that have taken place the last one hundred years, but I guess the fallout of all those things, were meant to be.”

  “She wasn’t supposed to be on that train.” The words were out before he could stop them and that goaded him. Admitting that was the same as admitting she was dead, something he’d refused to do.

  “What?”

  The air in his lungs burned as he let it out. “She wasn’t supposed to come home until the next day but had sent a message that she was coming home a day early. Webster delivered
it to me the same time he delivered the stove.”

  “Beth never saw the new stove downstairs, did she?”

  “No.”

  She wiped at another tear sitting on her cheek, and he profoundly sensed this wasn’t all about him, or Beth, at least not the Beth he’d known.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said.

  “Yes, it does. It matters a great deal to me.” When she shook her head, he forced himself not to call her Beth. “Tell me, Elizabeth; tell me what happened in your life to bring you here?”

  “I don’t think it’s connected.”

  “I still want to know.” He’d give his very life to be able to touch her right now, to make the intimate connection he felt in his heart real.

  She laid a hand on her chest and closed her eyes. When her lids fluttered open, she shook her head, not in disagreement, but as if she couldn’t believe something. “It is amazing,” she whispered. “The things I feel when I’m talking to you.”

  “I know. I wish I could touch you, show you, exactly what I’m feeling.” Because that was impossible, he locked his gaze with hers. “I can’t, but I want you to look into my eyes so you’ll know just how much you mean to me. Ghost or not, Elizabeth or Beth, I want to help you. I’m here to help you.”

  Lost in an upheaval of finding a way to make her understand, he almost missed the slip of tongue he’d made and watched closely to see if she grew dizzy. There was no sign of it, at least not in her eyes, and he refused to even blink, not wanting to lose the connection holding them together.

  It was several moments before she broke the connection by blinking, and then smiled. “I’m the one who’s here to help you.”

  “What’s wrong with helping each other?” he asked, with a hint of teasing. Beth had always responded to that.

  It worked; at least it had her shaking her head as if exasperated. “All right.” She frowned slightly. “I guess it could be connected, in a small sort of way.”

  “What?”

  “When I was five, my parents died in a car accident. I don’t remember it, I don’t remember them, only what people have told me.”