Train Through Time Series Boxed Set Books 1-3

by Bess McBride

  ****

  Dani’s mother settled onto the large king-size bed in her room. Dani, as she had done many times over the years, crawled onto the bed to lie next to her.

  “I can’t tell you how bad I feel about laying all this on you right now,” Dani said. “But I had to get back here, and it’s a good thing I did.”

  Her mother looked at her. “I’m glad you managed to get back.” She rubbed her forehead. “I still can’t believe we’re talking about time travel though.”

  “I know! I couldn’t either, but it didn’t really feel like a dream either. I’m not the only one either. There’s this gal, Ellie? She traveled back about six months ago. Now, she’s married with a baby on the way, happy as a clam.”

  “Do you think there are more?” Maggie asked, her brow furrowed.

  “I imagine there are, Mom, but I don’t know. Don’t look so worried. They’re not aliens.” Dani chuckled, but she hated to see the concern on her mother’s face. She sobered quickly.

  “Mom, I’m not real sure what to do. There’s a chance that if I return with Stephen, I may not be able to get back. Maybe we can’t get back at all, and that would be devastating to Stephen’s sister. She’d have enough money to live well, but she would be alone. Their parents died when she was younger.”

  She drew a deep breath.

  “But I don’t think I can say goodbye to you forever either.” Her throat ached at the thought. “I know you have Sarah and Jean, and your life here, but...” Dani couldn’t form words. She didn’t know what to say.

  “But you’re my daughter, and I don’t want to lose you,” her mother finished. A tear slid down her face, and Dani froze.

  What had she been thinking? That she could happily return to 1901 and live out her life with Stephen? Leaving her mother? Forcing her to lose her only child? Possibly forever? No! She couldn’t do it. Not right now.

  Dani wiped the tear from her mother’s face with a trembling hand. She thought about Stephen waiting for her downstairs, and she struggled for air, quietly attempting to drag in a ragged breath. Pain coursed through her body, originating from somewhere near her chest...her heart. She would stay in the present. Stephen would return without her.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m bawling like a baby,” her mother said with a shaky laugh.

  “Because you’re sick and scared, and then I’ve brought all this bizarreness to you at the worst possible time. Don’t worry about anything, Mom. I’m staying here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You’re right, Dani. I am scared. I’m scared of the surgery, and terrified that the treatment won’t work.” She wiped at her eyes with an embarrassed smile. “I know I’m supposed to be used to this, being a nurse and everything, but it doesn’t seem to help at the moment.”

  Dani squeezed her mother’s hand. “I can only imagine, Mom. I wish you didn’t have to go through this.”

  “Thanks, honey. I know.” She rubbed at her eyes. “I think I’m going to see if I can get some sleep now. Why don’t you go downstairs and see what your historical gentleman is doing?”

  Dani managed a crooked smile. She kissed her mother on the cheek.

  “Sleep tight. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Good night, hon,” her mother said. “Shut the door behind you, will you?”

  Dani returned downstairs to find Stephen in the kitchen, jacket off, his sleeves rolled back, washing the dinner dishes by hand. Handsome in a dark vest, he looked like a pin-up poster some woman might hang in her bedroom of a Victorian man.

  He smiled broadly at her arrival, and she wrapped her arms around his waist, ignoring his wet and soapy hands.

  “You did dishes,” she said in wonder. “I can’t believe you did dishes.”

  “Nor can I,” he said with a laugh. “But I persevere.” He kissed the top of her head, and managed to pick up a dishtowel to wipe his hands. Once dried, he wrapped his arms around her and leaned back to look into her face.

  “Is everything well, my love? Your mother?”

  Dani pressed her head against his chest and nodded. Then she shook her head.

  “She’s fine, just tired. She’s scared too.”

  “Yes, she must be. This sort of surgery is not done in my time, as you can imagine. I hope for a successful outcome. Is it very dangerous?”

  Dani shook her head. “The surgery? No, not really, but the disease is. There have been remarkable breakthroughs in curing many forms of cancer, but nothing is ever certain. She will probably have to take medicine following the surgery for a while.” Dani didn’t have the heart to explain chemotherapy to Stephen at the moment.

  His embrace tightened. “I truly hope for the best for her, Dani.”

  “I know you do. You’re such a good man. I love you so much.” The last words came out on a sob.

  “You are crying, my love,” Stephen said softly. He lifted her chin to look at her face. Dani closed her eyes against the tenderness in his soft blue eyes. “You are not returning with me, are you?”

  Dani shook her head, keeping her eyes closed, hoping he wouldn’t drop his arms and walk away from her.

  “I suspected as much. You cannot leave your mother during her illness.”

  Dani squeezed him tighter, tears rolling down her cheeks. She shook her head silently.

  Stephen picked her up in his arms and carried her into the living room. He lowered himself to the sofa and settled Dani onto his lap where he held her, murmuring soothing words, while she quietly cried. Tears spent, Dani looked up at him.

  “Isn’t this a little risqué for you?” She gave him a crooked smile.

  “It is,” he chuckled, burying his face in her hair. “Quite improper, I assure you.”

  She sighed and laid her head back down.

  “When will you leave?” she asked.

  “Tomorrow night. I noted that the train leaves at 8:56 p.m. I will stay for your mother’s surgery and then I will take the train back to Seattle.”

  Dani raised her head again to stare at him. “What if you don’t manage to travel back, Stephen? What if you end up in Seattle in my time? That would be awful! I can’t imagine you lost in that big city...the cars, the highways, the fast pace of everything.”

  “I may be out of my element, as you once were, Dani, but I am not a child. Should that occur, I would come back to be with you here. Or perhaps I might look for my house to see if it still exists, and lay myself at the mercy of the present owner.” He smiled reassuringly. Dani wasn’t reassured.

  “I’m not sure, Stephen. There is a reason Ellie and I traveled to the past, and into the same year, but I don’t know what it is. It can’t just be random. Otherwise, the concept of time travel would be much better known and widely accepted. Most people don’t believe it’s possible. Wouldn’t you have heard if someone from the past could have traveled forward in time and then returned? I mean, millions of people have slept on a train and not traveled through time.” She sighed impatiently. “I’m not explaining this very well, I know, but what if you can’t travel back in time without me. What if you only traveled because you were holding me at the time?”

  “Believe me, I have pondered many of these possibilities, Dani, but I have no recourse. I must try to get back to Susan. I cannot abandon her, not if it is within my power to return. I am the only parent she has known for years.”

  “I know,” Dani said. She buried her face in his neck, luxuriating in the smell of his skin, while she brainstormed. She popped her head up again.

  “What if I go with you, and when we get to Wenatchee, you sleep while I stay awake. I’ll hold your hand, and if you start to disappear or whatever it is we do, I’ll let go. You travel, and I stay in this time.” A surge of pain hit her chest again at her final words, but she took a deep breath and it passed, leaving an ache in its wake.

  “Oh, my love,” Stephen said, tightening his arms around her. “This seems such an intricate matter. I believe your theory is correct. I have taken the tra
in to Chicago many times, and never experienced anything other than fatigue. It seems likely that you are the key—the cause of the time travel, at least for us. I cannot say why Ellie came from the future to our time.

  “Well, what we both found was love.” She kissed him tenderly. “Maybe when two people are meant to be together, no matter what century they live in, they will find each other. I knew I loved you almost from the first time I met you.”

  “And I you, sweeting. You are the love of my life,” Stephen said. He buried his face in her hair and held on tightly, a shudder passing through his body. Dani didn’t know whether it was from joy or pain. She suspected both.

  ****

  The following day, Dani and Stephen waited at the hospital while her mother underwent surgery. Her mother’s best friends, Sarah and Jean, both tall and slim middle-aged women, waited as well, eyeing Stephen with varying degrees of interest and curiosity. Dani introduced him but didn’t go into detail about their relationship. They discussed her mother at length—her illness and recovery, which they noted they had under control. Dani knew her extended presence would only get in the way in the smaller house, and she resolved privately to return to Seattle in the near future. Her mother didn’t want her to disappear forever, but she really didn’t need Dani there to care for her on a daily basis either.

  The doctor emerged to tell them that her mother’s surgery had gone well, and that the tumor, smaller than expected, had been removed. He advised them he expected a full recovery with an excellent prognosis following chemotherapy.

  Dani clung to Stephen’s hand. She knew he didn’t understand some of the medical terms, and in fact, invariably stiffened when the word breast was mentioned, but to his credit, he remained silent. The night had been long, and Dani was tired. Her mother, unable to sleep, had come downstairs several times in search of bottled water, and Dani had accompanied her back to her room and stayed with her until she fell asleep again.

  Reassured by the doctor’s prognosis, Dani popped in to see her mother in recovery with a smile on her face. Her mother, groggy, would be sent to her room, and Sarah and Jean had made plans to stay with her.

  Feeling a bit like a fifth wheel as she had often in the past in the presence of the three best friends, she set about restoring the contents of her missing purse. Using her mother’s car, she acquired money from a branch of her bank with a copy of her birth certificate, and stopped by the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a replacement license.

  “Let’s get you some clothes, Stephen. You look handsome, but miserable in the same clothes.” Dani herself had changed into an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt from the spare clothing she kept at her mother’s house, eliciting admiring glances from Stephen.

  She pulled out of the Department of Motor Vehicles and headed to a nearby mall.

  “I know this has been difficult for you, Stephen, especially the references to mom’s...anatomy, but you’ve been so great.” She smiled at him. Like an enthusiastic young boy, he fingered buttons on the car, his seatbelt, the door and window locks, and the radio, startling himself when music came on.

  “It is my pleasure to provide what comfort I can to you, Dani,” he said. “I can see that there have been many, many changes over the past century. Many,” he emphasized as if he hadn’t said it enough. He seemed remarkably resilient, much more so than Dani had felt when encountering his era.

  “Sarah and Jean were quite taken with you,” she said. “But who wouldn’t be?”

  Stephen’s cheeks bronzed. “You flatter me too much, my love. As long as you are taken with me, I am happy.”

  Dani grinned. “Which reminds me, Sarah is going to drop the antibiotics for Susan off at the house after they leave the hospital. My mother called her last night, and Sarah picked them up from the pharmacy. Mom’s friends were nurses too. Those three did everything together.”

  “Yes, they do seem very close to your mother,” Stephen said. “Very protective.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stephen study her face.

  “You’re wondering if I felt left out, aren’t you?”

  “How did you know?” he asked with a chuckle.

  “The same way you knew how I felt. We just seem to know each other, don’t we?” Dani said.

  “That we do.”

  “Yes, actually, many times over the years I felt left out. I don’t think my mom meant to do that, but...” Dani shrugged. “Neither Sarah nor Jean has kids, and they all had the same interests. Card games, crocheting, genealogy. I did get to crochet with them once in a while. But I had my own life too. You know, school, after-school activities, my own friends.”

  She threw him a quick look.

  “I wish we could travel back and forth at will. That way she wouldn’t lose a daughter, and we could stay together.”

  “Perhaps it is not an impossibility.”

  “I don’t know,” she murmured. “Ellie won’t try it. She’s afraid she won’t be able to get back to Robert. And what if she had her child and couldn’t get back to her child. That would be a nightmare.”

  “Yes, it would.” Stephen turned to look out the window at the passing scenery. “I cannot imagine Ellie taking that risk. Nor can I imagine risking that with you.”

  Dani swallowed hard. “I should not have brought it up again. It only hurts us both.”

  Stephen cleared his throat and turned to smile at her.

  “Let us enjoy our time together now.”

  Chapter Ten

  A half hour later, Stephen emerged from a dressing room in jeans and a T-shirt, revealing a well-muscled chest and arms. Dani blinked. The jeans, a snug fit, curved over his backside and ran the length of his long legs. Her handsome and proper Victorian gentleman had transformed into a very sensuous and rugged cowboy.

  “Oh, my goodness,” she breathed. “Look at you.”

  Stephen blinked sheepishly. He looked down at the clothing. “Do you not think the trousers are a bit tight? And the shirt? Must it cling so to my torso?”

  “Well, yes, the T-shirts normally cling, and no, I don’t think the jeans are too tight. You’re just used to wearing a coat and looser slacks.” She sighed like a star-struck teenager. “We can get you something more loose if you want.”

  “Is my appearance pleasing to you?” he asked, his eyes flickering away from hers, almost shyly.

  “Yes, Stephen Sadler, your appearance is most definitely pleasing to me.”

  “Then I shall wear the clothing. I enjoy the look in your eye.” He grinned.

  Unable to keep herself from touching him at every opportunity, she hopped off her bench and slid into his arms, the fit perfect. He kissed the tip of her nose.

  “And footwear? I should like some shoes such as yours.”

  Dani looked down at her trainers. “Running shoes? I would have thought you more of a boot kind of guy. No cowboy boots?”

  “In the absence of a horse or a cow, I suspect I should probably dress as you do.” At the moment, a man walked by sporting a set of cowboy boots, and both Stephen and Dani eyed him pensively.

  “Ya know? I think the sneakers will be just fine,” Dani said with a laugh.

  They emerged from the store a half hour later with Stephen dressed like a modern American male, carrying his suit and shoes in a shopping bag. The plastic bag itself seemed to fascinate him, and she delighted in his enthusiasm for her time.

  They returned to the hospital to check on her mother, who slept. Sarah and Jean waited in her mother’s room, silently reading magazines. Their eyes widened at the sight of Stephen in jeans and T-shirt, but they remained silent in the quiet hospital room. Dani grinned and waggled her eyebrows to which they responded with grins and expressions of approval. Her mother had agreed not to tell them about Stephen or the time travel. Stephen nodded politely in their direction and made a hasty retreat to await Dani in the hallway.

  “What would you like to do now, Stephen?” Dani asked, linking her arm in his as they left the hospita
l.

  “As long as I am with you, it does not matter.”

  “Have you ever been to Glacier National Park?”

  “I saw a reference to it on the tea mug you served me last night. What is this park? What shall we see?”

  “Gosh, that’s right, it wasn’t even established in your time.” Dani climbed into the car, and watched him lovingly as he fumbled with his seatbelt. “Well, we can’t see a lot of it today because the road through is closed for the winter, but there are rivers and waterfalls and hiking trails and beautiful flowers in bloom and bear and moose and, of course, glaciers.”

  “Lead on,” Stephen said. “It sounds wonderful, much like our Mount Rainier.”

  “It is a lot like Mount Rainier.”

  Dani kept up a running commentary on the sights as they drove the forty-five minutes to the park. Dani stopped at Apgar Village and picked up a few sandwiches and some coffee for an impromptu picnic lunch. She drove out of the village and along Going-to-the-Sun Road to Avalanche Creek where the road was closed for the winter before it entered the alpine regions. Stephen’s wonder at the beauty of the majestic glacier-covered mountains filled her with joy. They turned back and found a picnic spot at the edge of Lake McDonald, a ten-mile long, one-mile wide lake that mirrored the surrounding glaciated mountains and preened like a girl in a new dress.

  Dani and Stephen got out of the car and took their lunch to the picnic bench.

  “If you look across the lake, you can see a few cabins.” Dani pointed to several cabins and A-frame homes perched on the side of the large rectangular glacial lake. “Those belong to the descendents of people who owned property before the land was incorporated into a national park.”

  “In about ten years, your time, the railroad will build lodges for visitors to stay at. The road we just traveled will be built in about thirty more years. If I can’t come back to your time, Stephen, you’ll have to come here...to bring your family here.”