Most of the people here had never been anywhere further than fifty miles away and didn’t seem too much care. Lavender was the best place on earth he’d often been told. It was a good philosophy anyway when there was no other choice.
It wasn’t until after he’d spent the free part of his evening with Dad and Eddie, setting aside the hour he’d needed to make a house call just down the street, that he’d gotten to what gave him the greatest pleasure these days, writing Cynthia.
Her last letter had been heartbreaking. She’d spoken of how she’d love to bring her daughter and escape to his town and the past he told her about. If only Lavender were a real place, then she and Betsy could be safe and happy.
Well, he could tell her it was real enough and that her past was where he made his home. But he knew of no way to bring the two of them here.
That night when he went to sleep, he dreamed of Maud Sandford for the first time in weeks.
Her kitchen knife had slipped while she was slicing up vegetables for a stew and she’d cut her hand in that awkward space between thumb and finger. She hadn’t been happy when he’d told her he’d have to stitch the wound or that it would be slow to heal because she would stretch it each time she tried to use her hand.
Still she’d allowed him to clean and medicate the injury, than sat with reasonable patience while he put in the stitches, only grunting a time or two.
When her hand was treated to his satisfaction if not hers, she leveled her steely blue gaze at him. “Bring me up to date on what’s happening with you and my granddaughter,” she demanded.
“What?” he put on his heaviest Texas drawl. “You mean you don’t keep up with us with your crystal ball.”
She leveled him with one malignant glance. “If you are suggesting, Dr. Stephens, that I am a witch, I’d like you to know this isn’t the first time I’ve been called that and worse. And it isn’t true. I read my Bible regularly and I don’t hold with that superstitious nonsense.”
He looked at her with some amusement. Her cropped hair grew gray and wavy and her wrinkled face was weathered from many years spent in the outdoors. “Don’t even have a broom,” he teased.
“Sure I do. I sweep my floors with it,” she retorted. “And you, Evan Stephens are trying to evade my questions. What are your intentions toward my granddaughter?”
He gave a snort of laughter. “I only intend to write her now and then. Considering that howsoever many years lie between us, I don’t think you need to worry about my taking carnal advantage of her.”
“Approximately one hundred twenty three,” she said.
He frowned. “A hundred and twenty three what?”
“Years between you. You’re in 1890 and she’s in 2013.”
He stared at her, his mouth only slightly open. That was so much worse than he’d imagined. “That’s some ditch to jump.”
“I’ve known worse. I could tell you my grandson’s story and that of some others. Only I won’t because we don’t have much time and I’ve got things I need to say.”
He shook his head. “And you say you’re not a witch!”
A look of impatience swept her face. “No such thing. Weird just kind of runs in my family for some reason. Or maybe it’s this land we settled on during pioneer days, but I get strange visitors sometimes and see even stranger things through my windows when I look close. I figure the Good Lord and the world at large, whosoever has a reason for these things that happen and I try to fill my part.”
He stared hopelessly at her. “She wants to come to my town and bring her daughter. She’s scared out of her mind and thinks they’d be safe there.”
She nodded. “Makes sense to me.”
“But Maud.” He leaning pleadingly toward her. “You know better than anybody what that would cost her. You know it can’t happen.”
“Reckon it can, Evan Stephens, but only if you will it so.”
Cynthia was feeling overwhelmed even before Michael tried to kidnap their daughter. They’d only gone to the grocery store in Cheyenne with a list of things Lynne needed for the house and she stood a little too long, contemplating the limited choice of cookies available. Betsy liked those chocolate covered peanut butter drops, but Moss preferred shortbread cookies. Finally she decided on one of each, amused to think how hard it was to make decisions these days when all she could seem to think of was the court date looming three days away. Tomorrow she and Betsy were scheduled for a flight to California and Moss was insisting on going with them to offer his support.
She’d argued he needed to stay with Lynne and Lynne had protested that she didn’t need to be watched constantly as though she were going to explode when the baby wasn’t due for another seven months yet.
Then there was the question of where she and Betsy would live when the custody matter was settled. She didn’t want to be in Santa Barbara, so close to where Michael made his home, but it wasn’t fair to keep depending on Moss and Lynne.
She refused to consider the possibility that Michael might win custody. That was an end of the world scenario she couldn’t face.
“Betsy,” she said. “How would you like . . .” She looked around to realize she was talking to thin air and that an elderly woman shopping nearby was looking at her as though wondering to whom she was speaking.
Glancing quickly up and down the aisle, she didn’t see her daughter anywhere.
She’s eight years old, she told herself even as panic rose within her. Old enough to wander a few aisles away from her mother.
Rushing through the aisles where at this time of day only a few shoppers browsed, her fear rose. No Betsy! She rushed to the front, demanding of the startled cashier if she’d seen her daughter. “She’s eight, but small for her age with blonde hair and blue eyes. She’s wearing jeans and a plaid shirt and cowboy boots.
To her surprise, the clerk nodded. “Sure, Mrs. Burden. Betsy just went out with a tall, fair-haired man, real good looking. He was holding her by the hand.”
Michael! She was sure it must be Michael. “Call 911. My daughter’s been abducted,” she screamed over her shoulder as she ran out the door, visually searching the area as she stepped outside. The sidewalks were empty, but a determined little girl was struggling to escape from the passenger side door of a silver-gray sedan.
“Betsy!” She raced to the car, grabbing her child and engaged in a tug-of-war with her ex-husband in an attempt to help Betsy back to freedom.
A siren sounded from somewhere nearby and Michael made one last fierce attempt to grab the now screaming girl even as he raced the motor and started to move the sedan forward. Cynthia refused to let go, knowing that if he got away with this, she might never see Betsy again.
Michael’s eyes flashed as he yelled a string of expletives. Then, as she refused to yield, he reached out to sock her in the face with his left hand. Cynthia reeled backward and though Michael was much bigger and stronger than she, her fear and determination empowered her to keep her child safe. She managed to pull Betsy free even as the car jerked forward. The two of them fell sprawling onto the sidewalk, Betsy landing on top of her mother.
Michael’s car didn’t get a chance to escape. The promise of the siren came to life when a city police car pulled in to block his exit.
By now Cynthia had a nodding acquaintance with half the town and she recognized the young officer who had come to her rescue. She became vaguely conscious that people were emerging from the stores that lined the main street and collecting around her.
Her face ached and she felt battered and banged up all over, but her first concern was for Betsy who was sobbing hysterically.
“Are you all right, baby?” Suddenly Michael was out of the car and at her side, lifting his daughter gently into his arms. The child stared up at him with the same disbelief as her mother felt as he was suddenly all fatherly concern.
Cynthia had seen his act too many times before to remain surprised for long. As she watched, she saw him relax the young officer’s suspicion as
he told him and the rest of the crowd how it was just a little family dispute gone wrong.
“I flew out here to see my baby.” He nodded at Betsy who crawled down from his arms to hide her face against her mother’s chest. Cynthia struggled to a sitting up position and clasped her firmly in her arms, grateful at the near escape. Michael wouldn’t be going anywhere with Betsy, not with all these people watching.
“My wife over-reacted a little and tried to pull Betsy from the car as we were about to drive away. I was terrified that they both were going to be killed if I lost my hold on them.” His smile was a commentary on hysterical women.
Somehow, Cynthia thought, she always lost these arguments. Michael was the world’s best con-artist. Hadn’t he once, long ago, completely deceived her.
“Well,” the officer said, “well, I know how these family things are. Miz Burden, we’d best get you over to the hospital. You look pretty banged up.”
Michael shook his head. “Hit the pavement hard,” he said, reaching down to touch her face.
She backed away from his hand.
“I’ll look after Betsy while you’re being seen to, honey,” he promised.
“Over my dead body,” she snarled the words.
“I’d prefer to go with my mommy,” Betsy said in very grown-up fashion though her voice was shrill with shock.
Chapter Eight
Evan tugged at the reins, bringing Hero to a stop on top of the hill that overlooked his hometown. He’d grown up here, not in the elegant pink and gray house his father had built as a monument to his success, but in a little cottage on the less affluent west side of town.
He’d gone to Lavender schools through all his youth, only leaving when his grandfather insisted on his going east to medical school. He’d been terribly homesick at first, but he’d made good grades, became friends with other students, and met the girl who would later become his wife.
He was ambitious; he loved his work once he graduated from medical school, had opened a practice in big, bustling Dallas—close enough for frequent visits home. He and Jenny had been married in Lavender at the church his family had attended since before he was born.
Then Grandpa had called them home. He’d been brilliant, his grandfather, with a special touch of something beyond genius. He’d said Lavender was in crisis and that crisis could spread tragedy to the larger world.
There was only one answer and if they took that road they and the community would be shut off to themselves. And he wanted his grandson in Lavender before that door was finally closed. He was needed. He would be the only doctor for the people in his hometown.
At first he’d been in total disbelief, certain his beloved grandfather had grown senile and was imagining things. He’d only agreed as a sop to Grandpa’s feeling, but when it really happened, when Lavender and the acres around it became something else, somewhere else, he and his family were trapped within what Grandpa called the ‘miracle.’ Evan wasn’t sure it wasn’t more of a curse.
And now he sat, his mare anxious to get home to her stable, but pausing to consider Cynthia’s request.
He wondered what she looked like, his Cynthia. Was she tall or petite? Was her hair light or dark? And what would she think of his appearance. Nobody had ever called him handsome.
It didn’t matter. From their letters, they knew each other from the inside out. He closed his eyes, realizing that he was beginning to fall in love with this woman he’d never met.
And because he loved her, he could not allow her to walk into the trap that was the town of Lavender.
When he found out what had happened, Moss was so mad that he called the police, the sheriff’s office, and the head of the law firm that represented the family. Each in turn soothed him, told him not to overreact, and suggested that perhaps his sister needed mental health counseling.
Cynthia kept telling him to calm down and not upset Lynne.
Lynne demanded to know why everybody kept treating her as though she were ill. “I’m not sick,” she stated firmly. “I’m pregnant. Personally I think we should call a press conference and tell everybody what a rat Michael Burden is!”
Cynthia felt suddenly sick at her stomach at the thought. She’d freeze up at the presence of reporters and come across all stiff and erratic while Michael would appear mellow as Santa Claus. She couldn’t fight a public relations battle with Michael and win. Besides her life was private, her own, and she couldn’t bear the idea of it becoming public property. “No,” she said so gruffly that even her brother and his wife looked at each other as though she might go over the cliff at any second now.
She excused herself and went back to check on Betsy who had fallen into exhausted sleep after finishing her scrambled eggs and toast. She was curled into a little ball and Cynthia felt suddenly desperate. She had to free her daughter from this nightmare.
She had to talk to Lynne and Moss about this. Lynne wasn’t only her sister-in-law, she was also her best friend. And as for Moss, he’d been her hero for as long as she could remember, and they’d been doomed to spend so many of their years apart.
She hated the thought that she was the one this time who was about to put distance between them. And yet, first of all she had to consider what was best for Betsy. And this situation was tearing her apart.
She stopped in the bathroom to wash the signs of tears from her face and was startled to see how really terrible she looked. The hospital staff had done their best to patch her up, but one eye had a dark circle around it that would probably be a black eye tomorrow and the side of her face where Michael had hit her was red and swollen. Her jeans and long-sleeved shirt covered the rest of her injuries including the stitches she’d had in one leg.
They’d given her medicine for pain, but it didn’t seem to be helping much other than to give her a fuzzy, out-of-control feeling.
Well, so much for the way she looked. She went back into the living room where Moss and Lynne rather guiltily pulled apart from an embrace. She grinned and found that even doing that hurt.
She sank down in a chair across from them. “I’ll be leaving early in the morning for California,” she told them. “And the two of you are to stay right here.”
“But Cynthia,” her brother protested.
She shook her head. “I have a whole team of very expensive attorneys to look after me. And a loyal staff at the house to see to both Betsy and me. You have to let me be grownup, Moss.”
She could see that he was about to continue his protest. “I promise to get word to you the minute I need help, big brother,” she said. “And I just want you both to know how much you’ve meant . . . how much you mean to me. You’re the best family anybody could have and we, Betsy and me, will never forget you . . . never forget what you’ve done.”
Tears welled in Lynne’s big brown eyes. “You’ve got to promise to come right back here.”
Cynthia felt on the edge of tears herself. “I promise,” she said. “We’ll come back as soon as is humanly possible.”
She kissed each of them, said goodnight and then after checking Betsy one more time, went to bed. Their belongings were packed and Moss had already put their luggage in the rental car. She had to get up even earlier than Moss and Lynne realized, so she took another of the pain pills, set her phone alarm to four a.m. and closed her eyes. She must sleep. Tomorrow would be a long day.
Aching all over, she punched the alarm on her phone to silence and rolled over for another five minutes sleep. When she awakened it was bright day light outside and she could hear muffled voices from the other end of the house.
Damit! She’d overslept on today of all days. She got up, brushed her teeth and washed her face as best she could. The face that had looked damaged yesterday was a disaster this morning. Her right eye looked like it belonged to a raccoon and her cheek beneath it puffed out to twice its normal size.
Every step she took, every motion was painful. This day wasn’t starting out well.
Hastily dressing in slacks
and a shirt, she found Moss and Betsy in the kitchen. “Lynne’s not feeling well,” he said. “Morning sickness.”
Well did she remember those days. “Sometimes it helps if you nibble on a saltine or two before you even try to move.”
He nodded, went over to find a box of crackers in the cupboard and exited in the direction of the bedroom he shared with his wife. Betsy, still wearing her pajamas, dug into her bowl of a forbidden sweet cereal that she got to eat only when she was visiting her aunt and uncle. The bowl was almost empty.
Cynthia poured herself a cup of coffee, added a half spoon full of sugar and a bit of cream, than sat down across the table from Betsy.
“You look awful, Mom,” her daughter observed clinically.
“Thanks a lot,” she tried to make a joke of it.
“It wasn’t just because of falling on the sidewalk, was it? I saw Dad hit you. He lied when he said he didn’t.”
She tried to think what she should say. Betsy deserved the truth and she certainly knew what she’d seen with her own eyes, but she didn’t want to make her feel any worse than she already did. “He lost his temper, hon. He’s hardly ever hit me before.”
Not in a long time anyway, she qualified inwardly. Not since I left him and went home to Santa Barbara where I hire a bodyguard on a regular basis.
Not that physical violence had ever occurred on anything like a regular basis. Normally Michael was too controlled to turn to force. He won his battles in other ways.
And Cynthia found it humiliating to have to admit, even to herself, that she’d ever given in to that kind of treatment. And he’d always been so, so sorry afterwards. Somehow it had seemed like her fault, as though if she’d handled things better it wouldn’t have happened.
“If they make me go live with him, will he hit me?” Betsy asked. Having finished her cereal, she lay down her spoon.
Letters From Another Town: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 2) Page 5
