As she pulled on her sweater, she pondered the realization that her life had come full circle.
She was where she didn’t belong because she’d wished her life away. After all this time, she finally understood what her grandfather had tried to teach her. Now that she did, she had no way of returning and making things right again.
More than ever, she wanted to find Luke and share her revelation with him. He was the only person who would understand.
She buttoned her old sweater over the same clothes she’d worn when she arrived. If she was going to traipse around outside, she didn’t want to muddy her dress.
“I won’t be gone long,” she told Paul. “Mavis will be by later to feed the baby again.”
He held his son while eating the meal she’d prepared. “Take your time.” He took another bite of stew. “But be careful.”
Annie smiled. “I will.” She closed the door, shutting out the images of her heritage and turned her eyes toward the mountains.
It was time to seek out her future. A future that held Luke Maxwell and his promise of a shared life. She was certain he was alive. Soon, they’d marry. Help Paul raise baby Richard. Have their own children.
Tonight she was determined to find him or at least learn where he went. Her first stop was the doctor’s house.
She knocked.
Inside, footsteps thundered across the floor. “Luke Maxwell, it’s about time—” The door flung open.
“Hello, Dr. Smyth,” Annie said.
“Miss Crawford.” Dr. Smyth opened the door wider. “My apologies. I thought…Luke’s the only who knocks.” He cleared his throat. “What can I do for you?”
“Luke is why I’m here. I was hoping you’d seen him the day the mine collapsed.” She fingered a button on her sweater to hide her trembling.
“Come on in, now,” he said. “You best get out of the damp air.”
“I can’t,” she replied. “I don’t have a lot of time before I need to get back to the baby. Please, tell me. Did you see him that day?”
The doctor regarded her as he stroked a thumb and finger along his mustache. “You don’t believe he’s buried in the mine, do you?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t.”
“I wish I could be as certain. I never saw him at the mine, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t join the rescue. Everyone believes he got trapped with those other poor fellas.”
Hearing the doctor’s doubts was difficult, but she wasn’t ready to give up. “But you did see him earlier, didn’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am. I did. He passed by my office that afternoon.”
“Did you talk to him?” Annie pressed. “Did he say anything?”
“He was in a big hurry. All he told me was that he thought he’d be back soon.”
“Oh.” Her chest tightened. Nothing the doctor said proved Luke was still alive. If he was, why hadn’t he returned? Did she want to believe so badly, that she couldn’t accept he was gone? Is that why she couldn’t shake the feeling he was alive?
“Wish I could offer better news, Miss Annie.”
“That’s okay. Thank you for the information anyway.”
She gave the doctor a half-hearted smile and walked down the steps. She headed along the muddy street, intending to knock on every door in town. Someone must have seen him.
Twenty nos later, she gave up. No one had seen Luke after he’d left the schoolhouse. Only one person had known he’d been to see Annie that day. Everyone else thought he was buried in the mine.
Annie and the doctor were the last people to see him.
The clouds had finally broken. Between the slate thunderheads, a rosy sunset glowed. It offered the promise of a brighter tomorrow, but with all she’d lost, only heaviness filled her.
She picked her way through the muddy street and headed toward the forest beyond the mill.
The grove was their special place and she couldn’t help but feel drawn to it.
As she walked, the damp forest ground was squishy in places from the soaking rain, while other spots covered by the thick canopy of aspen, remained dryer.
The path had become so familiar she could’ve walked it blindfolded. Night hadn’t descended just yet and there was still plenty of light to find her way to the young pine tree.
She crossed to the stump she’d sat on the first time Luke had brought her here. Fire curled in her belly as she looked longingly at the spot where they’d first made love.
She didn’t know how, but in her heart, she knew he was alive. He would return. He had to. She’d be patient. She had nothing but time. Soon they’d be together, building a life—a family right here in White Rock.
Time passed slowly as she sat there. As the last daylight streamed low along the branches, she looked up at the pine. Their initials were carved there. Just opposite of Paul’s and Elizabeth’s. Symbolic of a love that never died.
She stood and crossed to the tree. Hope fluttered inside her chest as she traced Luke’s initials, then hers. Someday, she and Luke would carve their children’s initials in the bark. Just as Paul had.
Annie wandered around the other side of the tree. To her surprise, there was a new set of initials carved just below the others.
“R.C.” Richard Crawford.
She wondered when Paul had taken the time to come to the grove. When she touched the raw bark, it was sticky with sap.
He’d been here today.
Annie traced the letters. Paul must have thought that carving his new son’s initials was a way to bring his family together. His daughter, Elizabeth, and now Richard, all joined to their father in a gesture that would endure for generations.
Paul’s had obviously passed on his strength of character through his bloodline. She finally understood why her grandfather took in a seven-year-old child and raised her as his own, without once thinking about the hardship.
A breeze ruffled through the grove, bringing the rain cooled air. She pushed her hands in her pockets to keep warm. Her fingers touched the cold metal of the medallion she’d found under the clothesline.
She curled her palm around it, remembering the day her grandfather had given her the medallion on a pendant. Her eighteenth birthday. He’d told her how she’d grown into a lovely young woman.
All those years passed with just the two of them. She was certain Grandpa knew of her love for him. Until now, she hadn’t appreciated his sacrifice. If she had, she would never have sold this land.
Whatever fate had in store for her, the least she could do was repay the debt she owed her grandfather by helping Paul raise his son. She would care for the child and love him as her grandfather had loved her.
Resolve, mixed with a strange sense of contentment, filled her chest. Holding tightly to the golden medallion, she closed her eyes and leaned against the tree.
“I’ll make you proud, Grandpa,” she promised.
With her next breath, she whispered, “Wherever you are, Luke Maxwell, I will wait for you.”
Behind her, a twig snapped. She turned and there stood Luke.
“Annie.” He reached out. In his hand, was the other medallion.
Chapter Thirteen
“Hey! She’s coming around.”
An unfamiliar voice wound into Annie’s consciousness, barely audible above the pounding noise of a giant bird beating the air. She tried to open her eyes but vertigo gripped her. It was easier to keep her eyes closed than fight it. She couldn’t stop a moan when the ground swayed under her. Hoping to ease the discomfort, she rolled her head to one side. The vertigo only worsened and triggered instant nausea.
“Careful how you move her,” another voice cautioned.
She knew that voice. Her eyes flew open.
Annie squinted as Luke’s face came into focus. She opened her mouth to speak, but words wouldn’t form. She licked her dry lips and tried again, this time producing a raspy whisper. “Luke.”
“Yes, Annie,” he said. “It’s me.” To someone she couldn’t see h
e said, “Hold up.”
On his command, the swaying stopped. His fingers gently brushed the hair off her forehead.
She tried to sit up, but the movement was too much for her roiling stomach. Without warning, the contents of her stomach spewed all over Luke’s jeans.
“Oh,” she choked. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Luke said. He cupped the side of her face. “You’re going to be okay.” A handkerchief appeared. Luke took it and wiped her mouth.
As Annie lay back, her hand gripped the lip of something hard and smooth. Plastic.
A stretcher?
Near her feet, stood two men wearing dark windbreakers with a medical emblem on the left jacket breast. They gripped the handles of a stretcher.
“What happened?” she asked Luke.
“Don’t you remember?”
Her thoughts jumbled. Images flitted through her mind like angry mosquitoes. She shook her head cautiously as to not trigger more vertigo. “I don’t rememb…wait! The baby!”
“There’s a baby? What baby?” Another man came into view, panic in his expression.
He looked vaguely familiar, but Annie couldn’t place him. “I never saw a baby in there with you.” He glanced at Luke. “Should I go back?”
“There’s no baby, Harry,” Luke said to the man, then he looked at Annie. “She’s not feeling well,” he told the other men. “Come on. Let’s get her to the chopper.”
“Chopper?”
Luke traced a finger along her cheek. “You’ve had an accident. We’re taking you to the hospital.”
“You too, Mr. Maxwell,” Harry said. “You’re both lucky to be alive.”
Annie frowned. An accident?
Luke nodded to the men holding her. The stretcher jostled and then settled as they tried to keep her steady.
She looked up at the canopy of trees passing by that eventually gave way to a leaden sky. The whumping sound of a helicopter grew louder.
A helicopter.
Not in 1891!
The realization hit her full force. She was back! Somehow, Luke had found a way to return them to the present. She tried to sit up again—ask Luke how he did it.
“Just lie still, miss,” one of the rescuers said.
Disorientation and dizziness forced her compliance. She watched helplessly as a medical technician hooked an IV bag above her head. She barely felt the prick of the needle at the same time the stretcher was secured inside the fuselage.
Someone tucked a blanket securely around her as undecipherable voices battled through the racket of the helicopter’s engines.
Just as the aircraft lifted off, she thought she saw Luke’s face. His tender smile calmed her turmoil. Then an intense need to sleep swept over her and her world went black.
****
Elizabeth wore a long white dress and sat in the old rocking chair with her newborn son. She smiled at Annie, murmuring so softly Annie couldn’t understand. Annie leaned closer and strained to hear, then suddenly, Elizabeth and the baby were gone.
Muffled sounds penetrated the dream.
Annie opened her eyes. A shaft of light from an open door illuminated her room. Soft squeaks of rubber-soled shoes on tiled floors joined the hum of air-conditioning and other familiar noises. Eventually, the unmistakable scent of antiseptic confirmed she was in a modern hospital room.
She shivered and pulled the sheets over her shoulders. Down the hall, a television blared. Hurried footsteps raced past her room and moments later, the raucous noise diminished. Other sounds surged toward her. A voice called from another room. Hushed tones of people she couldn’t see floated through her doorway.
Without a clock, she couldn’t tell the hour, but from the dim light filtering through cracks in the window curtains, she guessed it was early morning. The hospital was coming to life.
A nurse poked her head around the door.
“Good, you’re awake.” The stout woman pushed the door wider, allowing more light from the hallway to stream into Annie’s room. “How’d you sleep?”
Annie thought of her dream, wishing she could close her eyes and bring Elizabeth back. That was the reality she wanted. The reality she’d learned to love. The reality she couldn’t have.
She gave the nurse a weak smile to hide her despair. “I guess I slept okay.”
“Very good,” the nurse said. “I’d hate to report a poor night’s sleep. Kind of makes the doctors cranky to get a bad report, don’t you think?”
Annie ignored the rhetorical question in lieu of a more relevant one. “Where am I?”
“Goodness, don’t you remember?” Annie shook her head as the nurse picked up Annie’s wrist and took her pulse. “You’re at St. Luke’s.”
“How long have I been here?”
The nurse studied her watch a moment before laying Annie’s hand down on the bed. “You were admitted late yesterday afternoon—pretty much out for the count from what I understand. The doctor wanted to keep you overnight for observation.”
“I don’t feel sick.” Annie fidgeted. “Can I go home?” The familiar image of her own living room flashed in her mind. Then she thought of Paul and Elizabeth’s cozy kitchen and a pang of yearning shot through her. She’d never see that kitchen again. It was gone, like everything else in White Rock.
“That’s not for me to say.” The nurse retrieved a folded paper and pen out of her pocket and scribbled some notes. “I’m Casey, by the way. The doctor’s making his rounds later this morning. He’ll be able to tell you when you can be released.” She pressed a button on the automatic controls and raised the head of Annie’s bed. “Do you think you can go to the bathroom on your own or do you need help?”
“I can go myself.” The last thing Annie wanted was help in the bathroom. She would make her legs work or crawl if she had to. Pulling back the sheet, she swung her legs to the side of the bed and slid until her feet touched the floor.
Carefully, she stood, grateful her legs held steady. The first step was a little shaky, but she kept her balance.
“Good.” Casey wheeled the IV tree around the corner of the bed. “Here, take this with you.”
Annie glanced at the tubing taped to her forearm. “How long will I need to have this on?”
“It’s there as a precaution. I can’t remove it until the doctor writes his orders.” Casey offered a reassuring smile. “But as well as you’re doing, it shouldn’t be too long.”
Annie frowned at the restriction. “I guess I don’t have a choice.”
Casey grinned. “No, missy. You don’t.”
With a glance at the nurse, Annie grasped the pole and pushed it into the restroom.
The clean smell and bright walls were a welcome change from the dark outhouse behind the Crawfords’ house. The shower looked especially inviting, but she would need assistance to take one here. She’d wait. As soon as she got home, she could take a long hot bath.
When she came out of the bathroom, the nurse was gone. Her bed had been straightened and lowered to make it easier to get in. Annie pulled her gaping hospital gown closed, sat on the bed, and took inventory of the room.
Cold tile floors, fluorescent lights, and electric beds. A flush toilet and clean porcelain sink. Even a television hung from wall brackets in the corner opposite the bed. She was definitely back in her own time.
In fact, the constant dizziness that had plagued her in White Rock seemed to have disappeared too. She’d grown used to the lightheadedness and hadn’t realized how much it had affected her until now.
The vertigo wasn’t the only thing that had faded. She tried to recall images of White Rock, but like waking from a bad dream, the past had been whisked away in the sanitary brightness of her room.
Except what she’d experienced hadn’t been a dream, had it?
Annie stood and walked to the mirror above the sink. The startling, tanned face that stared back at her was a person she didn’t recognize. She felt as though she was in someone else’s body. Phy
sically, she looked like she used to, but her vision of herself had changed.
She gathered her lank hair and lifted it off her neck. Turning from side to side, she wondered what else had changed. Maybe with a little makeup, she’d feel more like herself.
She turned and pushed her IV tree toward the closet, hoping to locate her clothes. When she opened the door, she spotted her purse next to a plastic bag. Inside the bag, she found her blouse and pants rolled up in a ball. They were soiled and still damp from the rain. She didn’t really want to put them back on. But unless someone brought her something else to wear she had no choice.
Unfortunately, the only other person who had a key to her home, and could bring her clothes, was her grandfather.
He was dead.
A razor-sharp pain of loss sliced through her. She stumbled to the bed. Her life was different because of the time travel. Now that she was home, nothing had really changed at all.
She was still alone.
No. That wasn’t true.
She had Luke. He’d asked to marry her.
Anticipation filled her. She had so much to tell him. He didn’t know about the baby and Elizabeth. She wanted him to explain how he’d returned them to their own time.
She stood and closed the door to her room. She tugged on her panties and slacks. Putting on her bra and blouse was another matter. Until she was rid of the IV, she couldn’t remove the hospital gown or finish dressing.
At least she could put on her shoes.
Not finding her shoes in the clothes bag, she looked in the closet and next to the bed. Then she remembered and smiled. There was no logic to it, but somehow her shoeless state must be a side-effect of time travel.
A soft knock drew her attention. “Come in,” she called.
“I’ve brought you some breakfast, Miss Crawford,” Casey said as she carried a tray into the room.
“Oh, thank you.” She hadn’t expected a meal.
“I’ll just put it here.” Casey set it on the bed stand. “We didn’t show any diet restrictions for you, so the cafeteria sent up scrambled eggs and toast. There’s some oatmeal here, too.”
Lightning Only Strikes Twice Page 18
