Belle of the Ball
An Oregon Trail Time Travel Romance
Susan Leigh Carlton
Susan Leigh Carlton
Tomball, Texas
Copyright © 2016 by Susan Leigh Carlton.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Susan Leigh Carlton
Tomball, TX 77377
www.susanleighcarlton.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Belle of the Ball/ Susan Leigh Carlton -- 1st ed.
Contents
Description
The Accident
Tragedy
Bart and Brett Williams
Annabel
Bart
The Country Club
Helena
Meet Anna
Here’s an Idea
The Secret
We’re All Set
Discouraged
A Pleasant Evening
Invite Us Out
Anna’s Story
Another Date
He’s Not Here
I’d Like to Help
Bart Returns
Going Home
Learning
The Pain of Love
Advice
Roundup
The Angel
Planning
We Have a Story to Tell
Denver
The Flying W
A Job
Anna’s Plight
Home to Stay
Epilogue
Author’s Notes
Excerpt from Romance in Time
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love.
John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Description
A sweet historical western romance with a heat level of less than one.
June 2015 Anna finished pinning the broken strap on her Victorian gown just before the earthquake began shaking the walls of the Ladies Room at the country club. Led to safety by a mysterious woman, she walks out onto a Helena street a century and a half earlier.
The strikingly handsome Bart Williams shares ownership of a prosperous ranch near Helena, Montana in 1870. Can Anna return to her own time? Can Anna and Bart, from worlds one hundred forty years apart hope to find happiness together?
Chapter One
The Accident
Friday afternoon…
The school bus stopped at the railroad crossing as the law required, but stalled when it began to move again. Stalled on the tracks. The bells began clanging, warning of an approaching train. The bus driver frantically tried to restart the engine, but the starter whirled and whirled but the engine didn’t restart.
“Everyone! Go out the back now,” he yelled. Some of the kids had buds in their ears and didn’t hear him. Or they ignored him. He yelled again. Seven of them, all juniors in the Mayes Crossing High School made it through the emergency door in the rear. The driver was still trying to get the three remaining students out when the train hit, the whistle shrieking, and its wheels locked, showering sparks behind and to the side. It slammed into the bus at a point even with the first row of seats. The crash spun the bus 90 degrees and dragged it along the tracks. The driver was killed on impact along with three students in the first two rows of seats.
It took the train nearly a mile to stop. Witnesses testified the warning bells were sounding. One of the crossing bars was not down for the simple reason the bus was blocking it.
Blood tests on the engineers in the cab of the train, as well as the body of the driver of the bus would show no signs of alcohol or drug impairment. It was one of those accidents that makes no sense and is no one’s fault, but still happens all too often.
Annabel Reeves was in one of the two back row seats when the driver began screaming. The girl closest to the door was unable to open it and was shoved aside by a stocky senior. She followed him out. Annabelle was the third one onto the street.
She fell when her feet hit the pavement and her boyfriend, Jared landed on her, breaking her left wrist. Her face twisted in pain, she stared in horror as the train dragged the bus along the tracks, scattering debris for a quarter of a mile before shedding the metal frame on the side of the tracks.
A witness called 9-1-1. The police arrived six minutes later, and began their investigation, interviewing the students who had survived the crash. The fire department arrived with the police. It was another three minutes before the first EMTs arrived on the scene. They began triage to determine the extent of the injuries of the seven survivors. The ambulance attendants found Annabel sitting on the side of the road, clutching her injured wrist close to her body. Three of the students had scrapes and bruises, and another had a broken arm. The EMT applied an Aircast to Anna’s wrist and led her to an ambulance along with the student with a broken arm.
“I’m her boyfriend,” Jared said, “can I go with her to the hospital?”
“I’m sorry son,” the EMT said, “passengers are not allowed in the vehicle.”
“But I’m…”
“Sorry,” the EMT said, and climbed in between the two students. He pulled the door closed. Siren wailing, red and blue lights flashing, it headed to the hospital emergency room in Helena. The students with no visible injuries were also taken to the ER for observation.
The policemen continued interviewing the witnesses and taking statements as their investigation began in earnest.
In the ambulance, Annabel was strapped to a stretcher and could not find her iPhone to call her mother. “The police will notify them,” the EMT assured her.
“It will scare her to death to get a call from the police,” she said. “Can you just get my phone from my purse and push two on speed dial? Please?”
With a daughter of his own, he appreciated the concern she had about notifying her parents. “Where is your phone?”
“I don’t know. It should be in my purse. I had it on the bus but don’t seem to have it now.” She glanced at the girl on the other stretcher. “Jamie, do you have your phone? I can’t find mine, and I need to call my Mom.”
Jamie nodded and handed the phone to the EMT. “What’s the number?” he asked, and punched it in on the keypad.
“It’s ringing.”
“Mom,” she began, “there was an accident. I’m mostly okay. Mom, I’m using Jamie’s phone so let me talk. I’m in an ambulance going to the hospital. They think my arm is broken.
“Mom, please, I’ve got to give the phone back so Jamie can try to get her mother again. I love you.” She pushed the END button and gave the phone back to the EMT. “Thanks, Jamie.”
* * *
After the triage nurse checked her over, Anna was taken
to one of the small curtained off areas. A nurse came in, took her blood pressure, temperature and recorded them. Another staff member began filling out the intake form by asking questions.
“I called my mom, and I guess she’s going to be coming. We live in Mayes Crossing, so it will probably take her a few minutes. I didn’t call my dad.”
“A doctor will check you in a few minutes, sweetie,” the nurse said.
The doctor, accompanied by the same nurse, appeared to be of Asian descent. “Are you in pain?” he asked.
“Yes sir. My arm hurts pretty bad.”
“Are you having pain other than your arm?” he asked.
No sir.
“I need to get pictures so I can see the extent of damage. In the meantime, the nurse will give you something for the pain. I’ll be back after I look at the X-rays.”
Chapter two
Tragedy
Martha Reeves rushed into the small curtained off space where her daughter was waiting for the doctor to return. Distraught, she asked, “How are you baby?”
“My arm hurts. It’s broken above the wrist. They just took X-rays and I’m waiting for the doctor to look at them.”
“What happened?”
“The bus stopped at the tracks like it always does, and then started to move across. It just quit in the middle of the tracks. Then the alarm bells started and Mr. Patton screamed for us to go out the rear door. I was the second or third one out, and Jared fell on top of me. That’s how I got hurt.”
“Was there… Did anyone get…? I can’t say the word.” Her mother’s voice choked with emotion. “I called your Dad. He’ll be here pretty soon.”
“Most of the kids had already been dropped off. Mr. Patton was screaming for everyone to get off, and we went out through the back door. I don’t know what happened to him, and the ones in the front. Jamie and I were in one ambulance. The nurse told me the others were brought in after we left.
“We were lucky. We usually sit four or five rows closer to the front. The train hit just in front of where we normally would be. It was like slow motion. It dragged the bus on down the tracks towards the river. We were sitting in the back today, making plans for the prom.”
The doctor came back in and put an X-Ray on the viewer. “Your arm is broken in two places, so I’ve called an orthopedist to look at it. I’m pretty sure he will want to put it in a cast.
“On one to ten, with ten being the worst you can imagine, and one being no pain, what is your level?”
“I’d say two or three, but it’s kind of dull now.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Mrs. Reeves said. “How is the driver?”
“I haven’t seen him, so I don’t know if he was brought here or not; that’s all I can tell you. The orthopedist should be here in the next few minutes.” He pulled his gloves off and threw them in the medical waste container and left the cubicle.
* * *
The next morning…
“You don’t look like you feel well,” her father said from her bedroom doorway. “Did your arm keep you awake?”
“No sir. It still aches, but what bothered me was I kept seeing the train hit the bus. I was lying on the pavement and watching. If we had been sitting in our regular place, we’d all be dead.”
“You had an angel on your shoulder,” he said. “I’ll ask your mother to fix a plate for you.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I’ll get your mother.”
“Dad… What happened to the others?”
“Let’s not talk about that now,” he answered.
“You can’t keep it from me. It will be on TV.”
“I’ll get your mother.”
Her mother had tears in her eyes when she walked in. She clutched her daughter to her chest.
“Mom, tell me. I have to know.”
“Three students and the driver were killed, no one in the front made it out.”
Anna’s body shook as she cried, inconsolable. Her mother held her as she waited for the suffering of her little girl to ease.
An appointment was made with a therapist and after several sessions, the therapist told her, “You are suffering from what we call PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“I thought it was only soldiers coming home from the war who got that,” Anna said.
“No, but that was a belief held for a long time. Anyone who has had a traumatic event in their life can suffer from it. What happened to you was traumatic. You have guilt because you survived and others didn’t. You wonder ‘why not me.’”
“Is it something I’m always going to have?”
“There are therapies and medications that can help. I think it would help to get you into a group program. Another therapy called eye movement desensitization often helps you to combine exposure therapy with a series of guided eye movements that help you process traumatic memories and change how you react to them. We have medications that can help stop the nightmares. I’m going to give you samples of one of them. Take it for a week and if it helps then I’ll give you a scrip for it. It isn’t something you will have to take long-term. I’ll also get you into a group. You can whip this, but it’s going to take some work.”
Anna’s condition improved over time, but her therapy continued for the rest of her junior year and through her entire senior year as well as the first three years at the university. The closest thing she had to a social life was her attendance of church on Sundays.
* * *
Jared graduated from Montana State in Bozeman. His relationship with Anna had settled into one of friendship. They saw each other on holidays and summer break, but no romantic relationship existed.
He had never encountered any problems involving the train wreck, but then he had not lain on the pavement and watched the train hit. His soft landing on Anna had kept him from receiving a scratch. After high school, they had not dated. He met a girl at school he was seeing regularly, but Anna did not have a boyfriend and very few dates, despite her mother’s encouragement to do so.
“How am I ever going to have grandchildren if you don’t marry?” she asked.
“Have another baby?” Anna suggested.
“I don’t have a nest remember?” Cervical cancer had caused her to have a hysterectomy several years before.
“You’ll think of something,” Anna said.
“Or you could find a boyfriend.”
“I haven’t met anyone I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
“You will,” her mother said confidently.
Chapter Three
Bart and Brett Williams
Wind River, Montana March, 1870 was not much more than two trails crossing. Helena was the closest town and the community’s destination for supplies and church.
Twenty-three year old’s Bart and Brett Williams inherited the Flying W Ranch after both parents died of pneumonia during the winter of 1869. They were identical twins. Their mother had been the only one able to tell them apart. Even their father failed to get it right most of the time. He resorted to calling a name, and whichever one answered told him which was which. It worked pretty well until they were nine years old and caught on to what he was doing. Even when the twins were twenty-three, new acquaintances had difficulty telling them apart.
“You want to do what?” Bart asked his brother.
“I want to get married,” Brett said, pushing his hat back on his head, letting a shock of his dark curly hair escape.
“Just how do you propose to do that?” Bart asked. “The only females not already married are toothless old widows at least fifty years old. What do you need a wife for anyway?”
“You know I love you, but you ain’t much comfort on a cold winter night.”
“I reckon not, but that’s a good thing. How do you propose to go about this?”
“I’m going to advertise for one.”
“I doubt any of the widows can read. Some of the fancy girls in the Last Chance Saloon in Helena might can, if you’re incline
d to go that way.”
“Last time we were in Helena, I spoke with Letty Owens about it, and she told me they have five men amongst their church members who met women by advertising in an Eastern newspaper, then paying for a likely woman to come out and marry them.”
“So you’re looking at a pig-in-a-poke then?”
“That’s not a very nice way of putting it. If they don’t turn out to be what I’m looking for, then I pay her way back and all I’m out is her train tickets.”
“What fine Eastern woman would want to come live in a place where half the year’s winter and the other half is cold?”
“It ain’t that bad,” Brett said. “We had some nice days this year.”
“And I remember all three of them,” Bart told him.
“Are you sure you’re my brother?” Brett asked. “You’re so negative.”
“Look in the mirror. You can’t even tell us apart.”
“Well, I’m going to do it anyway. It’ll be nice having a woman around the house besides Mrs. Crump.”
“Who?” Brett asked.
“Mrs. Crump, the widow Miss Letty found to keep house for us.”
“I forgot about her,” Bart said. “When’s she coming anyway?”
“Next time we have to go in, she’s coming back with us. Maybe you could marry her, and we can make it a double wedding.”
“I don’t think I’m much cut out for marrying. I got one boss already, and don’t see any need for another.”
“At least you recognize my natural ability to lead.”
“Oh please, you’re spreading this stuff all over the place and it’s going to get on my boots. Now, we better get after the strays before they find their way into some Indian camp.”
Three months later…
“Hot dang, she’s coming,” Brett said, after opening the letter Silas Farmer had given him when they stopped at the general store and post office.
“When?”
“I have to send her money for the ticket first. The trip will take about a week.”
“When Ma and Pa came out, it took them almost six months to make it, and now it takes a week. Next thing you know, it’ll only take a day or two.”
Belle of the Ball: A Historic Western Time Travel Romance (An Oregon Trail Time Travel Romance Book 2) Page 1
