Beneath a Beating Heart

by Lauri Robinson

  “Some, but you are about as frightful as a Pomeranian.”

  Not overly sure where she’d heard it, or if it was true, she chose to use the belief anyway. “Ask any burglar and they’ll say little dogs are more frightening than big ones. They hide and bite at the Achilles’ heel.”

  “If you say so.” Nate’s attention had gone to a phone that had jangled. He pulled if from his back pocket, and the look on his face said he wanted to answer but didn’t because she was standing there. He silenced the ring and slipped the phone back in his pocket. “I gotta run. Do you want a ride to your car?”

  “I’m not ready to leave.” She wasn’t and wouldn’t be until after speaking to Rance again. If it meant she spent the night out here, she would. Saturday was the day after tomorrow. He hadn’t returned. She’d have felt him, which meant he was still outside in his time.

  “I’m not saying you have to leave.”

  She pulled her eyes off the door. “You’re not?”

  “No. The fire department is going to burn this house down on Saturday. The barns and outbuildings, too. Have you looked through them yet?”

  She shook her head. Her little exploration of the cabin really didn’t count.

  “Then you still have a lot of work to do before my guys arrive on Saturday morning.” He’d walked to the door. Rather than push open the screen door, he pulled a key ring with a single key out of his pocket. “I’ll give you a key to the gate so you can come and go as you please. Stay as late as you want.” Grinning he added, “It’s a mile walk to your car.”

  Skeptical, she asked, “What about protecting your assets?”

  Nate opened the door with one hand while waving the other for her to exit. “That was Lou. I’m more afraid of you scaling that gate. I don’t think our insurance will cover a broken leg.”

  The fact she currently didn’t have any insurance didn’t elude her. The cost of COBRA coverage had been far too extreme. Stepping over the threshold, she grabbed the key he dangled. “I had no intention of breaking a leg, and I still don’t.”

  He followed her to the passenger side of his truck and opened the door. “Most people don’t intend on breaking anything, but it still happens. All sorts of things just happen. And we regret them.”

  She clamped her lips shut and waited for him to walk around and climb in behind the wheel. “Are you referring to sleeping with Sandra?”

  “Lou really was looking for a shoulder to cry on.” He adjusted the air conditioning vents to blow in her direction after starting the truck. “I wasn’t the first or the last, but yes, I regret sleeping with Sandra. She and Lou have been on and off for years. One is no better than the other, and I knew better than to get tangled up in it. What can I say? It just happened. Just happened.”

  Sleeping with someone she shouldn’t have had almost happened in college. And she’d been full of guilt and regret afterward. There had been no love, just hormones and curiosity, and though she’d stopped before it had happened, she’d been emptier than ever afterward. Yet, still knew that hadn’t been what she’d been after. Loveless sex. It still wasn’t. No matter how wonderful people claimed sex was, and she did believe it could be wonderful—with the right person—she knew there was more to it than that. There had to be an undeniable connection, one that formed long before sex ever came into the picture, and stayed long after sex made it stronger. She’d been called a prude, and frigid, but she didn’t care. She knew deep down she was right. It was odd how so many things about her had grown with clarity the past couple of days. Things she’d accepted, but never fully understood before.

  As they rolled beneath the Rocking L sign, her thoughts shifted to Rance. She should be hoping it had been Cindy who had arrived in his time earlier and that the two of them were forming a relationship—a lasting one that would provide him with future generations. However, the idea of things happening between the two of them—things that led to sex—bothered her greatly. In ways it never had before, and far more than the idea of Nate sleeping with Sandra.

  “It’s a family curse.”

  “What is?” Her mind had been elsewhere but had heard his last words.

  “The ability to have a happy marriage.”

  While telling her about Robert, Edith hadn’t said much about his or Lou’s parents. “Your parents weren’t—”

  “Divorced?” He shook his head. “No, but they should have been. They fought constantly. I’m sure the only reason they stayed together was to prove to Leonard it could be done.” His laugh was bitter. “That and the money. My father was a financial broker during a time when there was money to be made. He made plenty and invested it well. Neither one of my parents were willing to disrupt that by having to divide it and pay lawyers.”

  He slowed the truck as they approached the open gate. “Mother liked to dangle that under Leonard and Janice’s noses as much as everything else. She was the one who claimed Beth Livingston never died but ran off with another man. Most likely because Aunt Janice was spouting off about how Rance was Robert Dixon’s real father. They tried to outdo each other on everything. Storytelling was no different.”

  “Do you believe he was?” She swallowed the lump in her throat that had come out of nowhere. “R-Rance. Do you think he was Robert’s father?”

  “I don’t think it matters one way or the other.” He stopped the truck next to her car. “That was a long time ago, and it has no impact on my life whatsoever.” He shrugged. “If Rance wanted people to know if he was or wasn’t Robert’s father, he’d have said so.”

  The sinking feeling of her stomach said her entire plan had been flawed from the get-go. She couldn’t make someone do what they didn’t want to do. Namely Rance. “You’re right.” Holding up the key with one hand, she opened the truck door with the other. “Thanks for the key. I’ll make sure I lock the gate when I leave.”

  “No problem. If I don’t see you before then, I’ll see you Saturday morning.”

  She nodded and climbed out. Saturday. She couldn’t change the world. At least not Rance’s world. He didn’t want it to change, so why was she trying?

  As she climbed into her car, Nate rolled down his window.

  “If you see old Rance, tell him I said hi.” He winked and drove away.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rance had regretted walking out of the house, away from Beth, the minute the door had slammed shut behind him, but being his foolish, stubborn self, he hadn’t turned around. Instead, he’d spent hours in the barn, not doing much besides wearing out the bottom of his boots. Now, standing in the empty kitchen, he was more than frustrated.

  She was gone. He didn’t blame her. She’d been mad at the way he’d yelled at her, but damn it, he didn’t know what the hell he was doing. The first time around, Beth hadn’t needed to be courted. He hadn’t needed to make her fall in love with him. She’d insisted that had happened as soon as she’d seen him. He’d expected it to be that way again. But it hadn’t. She didn’t remember him, so she couldn’t love him. She didn’t even remember herself. It made sense. He supposed. A person who had been reborn would have to relearn all about themselves.

  He hoped he was right. He sure as hell didn’t want her to be right. The idea of partnering up with Cindy made his skin crawl. Listening to how her beau had died had made him feel a bit sorry for her, considering he could relate, but not enough to marry her. Heart-broken or not, that woman was trouble, and he didn’t need any more troubles.

  He scratched his head and glanced at the handful of yellow flowers he’d plucked from the ground beside the corral. It was hard telling when Beth would be back, so he walked to the cupboard to find a glass.

  Picking them had seemed like a good idea, at the time. Now, it seemed foolish. She wouldn’t be able to see them. Going to town to find her wouldn’t work either. He wouldn’t know where to start looking, and roaming the streets with a hand mirror would have people thinking he truly had gone crazy.

  Maybe he had.

  After f
illing the glass with water, he stuck the flowers in it and turned around to carry them to the table. The mirror sat there. So did the box of pictures he’d sent with her last night. The ones he’d wanted her to see. To remember their wedding day.

  It hadn’t worked. Instead she’d insisted she wasn’t his Beth.

  As he set the flowers on the table, other things appeared. Strange things. They appeared sheer at first, like a curtain with the sun shining through it, but the harder he stared at them, the more clear they became. A cloth bag with an odd metal strip on top that held the sides together, beside it sat a pad of paper and the pen she said didn’t need to be refilled. There was also a narrow, black rectangular-shaped box looking thing. Another larger cloth bag sat on a chair. That was the one she’d pulled the book out of that had pictures and prices of items like those in his house.

  He reached down to flip the edge open of the bag, but like when he touched Beth, his hand went right through the material. He tried the pen and paper and small box but wasn’t able to touch any of it. The picture box he could touch, and open, and pick up the photos.

  Having those photos memorized, he closed the lid. The pad of paper, held together with a spiraling piece of wire along one side, was the pad she’d used yesterday to write down things. She’d held it up for him to examine, along with that newfangled pen she just threw away when it became empty and bought a new one. He’d told her that seemed like a waste. Still felt that way, but his heart started to race as he continued to stare at the items.

  If they were here, it meant Beth was too.

  The house was empty. His instincts said as much. However, just to be sure, he darted in and out of each room, upstairs and down. Each vacant area increased the alarm building inside him. She had to be outside. What if she’d gotten hurt? Tripped, or fell, or got herself locked inside of one of the outbuildings? She’d said things were different in her time. Hinges could have rusted off, boards rotted away.

  He hurried back to the kitchen, pausing only long enough to grab the mirror off the table. He’d be able to see her, but she wouldn’t know he was there, not without the mirror. How to help her was something he’d have to figure out once he found her.

  He was almost to the door when Beth appeared. Faint at first, as she walked through the screen, then she became as clear and real as the rest of the room. His relief was so great his arms came up to engulf her in a hug. He didn’t move though. The look on her face had frozen his feet to the floor.

  As her eyes settled on the mirror, her voice sounded as sad as she looked. “You’re back.”

  His heart took a hit as solid and painful as any punch he’d ever received, and he gave himself a moment to reflect upon that. Arguing hadn’t worked. Anger hadn’t worked. He was going to have to court her. Coax her gently into seeing things his way. The way they were supposed to be. That wasn’t all that new to him. He trained horses into doing what he wanted. A woman couldn’t be that much different.

  Confidence put a smile on his face and he held the mirror out for her to grasp. His entire being felt the moment her hand touched the handle. “I was worried about you,” he said softly.

  She frowned. “Worried about me? Why?”

  “The house was empty.”

  A tiny smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I’d left my car at the end of the driveway this morning and went to get it.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t know what to do, Rance. I want to help you, but I don’t know if I can, I don’t know—”

  “I want to help you, too,” he interrupted. The desire to pull her close, to comfort her, to chase the sadness from her eyes and heart frustrated him because he couldn’t hold her. Couldn’t hug her.

  Her sigh echoed inside his head. His heart.

  “Does that mean you’ve reconsidered marrying Cindy?”

  Mentally committing himself not to argue, he said, “I’ve thought about all you’ve said.”

  “And?”

  “And Cindy’s gone through a tough time lately,” he said, purposefully not answering her question.

  “So that was her who arrived earlier? You’ve spoken with her?”

  “Yes, that was her.” He took note of how sad she still sounded. “Come, sit down at the table.”

  A half-smile appeared again. “So you can make yourself some coffee?”

  “No, so you can tell me what this stuff is.”

  She glanced at the table. “What stuff?” Her eyes grew wide. “My purse? My notebook? You can see them?”

  “Yes, I can see them but can’t touch them.”

  “But you can see them. Could see them even when I wasn’t in the house?”

  He grinned at the excitement in her voice. “Yes, I can, I could. What are they?”

  They moved to the table and sat with the mirror lying between them.

  “This is a purse.” She pointed to the cloth bag. “Women keep all their essentials in it. Money. Credit cards, which I have none, but do have a debit card. Relatively the same thing, I just have to have money in the bank rather than a set amount some company will loan me for an exuberant interest rate. I don’t believe in that. Credit has caused a lot of problems for a lot of people in my time.”

  Credit had caused problems for people in his time, too, but he didn’t say that. Nor did he say she felt the same way about credit as him. Always had.

  She’d let go of the mirror to pull on a tab that separated the metal strip.

  “What’s that?”

  “I just told you. It’s a purse.”

  “How you’d open it? How’d you separate the metal strip?”

  “Oh, that’s a zipper. They were invented early in your century but didn’t become popular until after World War I, mainly on rubber boots and jackets.”

  Interested in the mechanics of how it worked, he said, “Do it again.”

  When she grasped the bag with both hands to hold it closer to him while opening and closing the metal strip, his attention was drawn away. His heart started pounding as his eyes settled on the ring on her finger. Why hadn’t he noticed it before?

  He lifted his gaze, and as their eyes met, for the breadth of a heartbeat, he knew she was remembering the exact thing as him. The day he’d put that ring on her finger, and she’d put the identical one on him.

  She twisted away. “Now days they use zippers for everything.” Her voice was shaky. “Clothes, furniture, bags, tents. Some are metal, some plastic or nylon.”

  Setting the purse aside, she picked up the small black rectangle and touched the screen, making miniature, colorful pictures appear. “And this is my cell phone I told you about. A phone that doesn’t need a cord. I don’t have coverage here, so I can’t show you how it works.”

  She set the phone down but didn’t look his way. “That’s not unusual. Cell One doesn’t have the best service. I know. I managed their customer service division until a few weeks ago when another larger company bought them out. None of us knew about it until that morning. Those men who’d entered the Cell One building that day, and stood along the corridors, watching to make sure everyone only carried personal possessions out the front doors, had no idea how many lives they were affecting. Nor did they care.”

  He knew she was avoiding him and let her.

  “Everything’s connected,” she said. “Like dominoes. When one falls, it knocks over the one beside it, and the one after that, and the one after that. There were people there who needed those jobs. They had kids to feed and mortgages to pay. That hadn’t mattered to the powers that be. For them it came down to the all mighty dollar—the ones in their pockets.”

  If he hadn’t already been convinced this was Beth, he would be now. She was always concerned about others. He’d told her once that she cared too much. She’d disagreed, said that she was honest, and liked other people to be treated honestly, too. And that the only person she’d ever really, truly care about would be him. He’d be the only one she ever loved, too. He’d agreed with that, even while kno
wing she cared about and loved others—family and friends, just like he did. He also knew the love they shared would surpass all others.

  She glanced around the room, still avoiding looking his way. “I didn’t have a mortgage and had—have a savings account. They also gave me a severance package. Most of that is still in the bank, too. I went to work at the antique shop the day I got laid off.”

  “You like antiques?” he asked, knowing she wasn’t ready to tell him about the ring.

  “Yes. I’ve always been interested in history. Majored in it in college. But I also like Vivi Anne. She’s eccentric, and I think a little bit psychic. She doesn’t tout around a crystal ball or set up a booth at fairs, she just has an uncanny wisdom that had intrigued me from the moment I met her. She opened the store last spring, when she moved to Billings from out east somewhere, she’s never said exactly where.”

  “What does she look like?” Rance wasn’t sure why he wanted to know that, but he did.

  Beth looked at him then, and there was a twinkle in her blue eyes. “You would be surprised by her. She’s tall with long gray hair, but she always has it piled on top of her head with a large claw clip.” She smiled. “What would surprise you is how she dresses.”

  How she dressed surprised him, but he liked it. “Oh? Why?”

  “She always wears dresses that go clear to the floor, we call them maxi dresses, and they are colorful. So bright they can hurt your eyes. Psychedelic. That means they are covered with all sorts of colors. Greens, yellows, reds, blues, purples. She wears lots of jewelry, crystals and such, and her nails, both fingernails and toenails are always painted either purple or pink.”

  If he had one wish, it would be that her eyes were always lit as brightly as they were right now. They used to be. Especially when she’d talk about him and their life together. “She sounds colorful,” he said, knowing she was waiting for a response.