Exhausted, completely overwhelmed, I put the bottle down on the floor beside him—then registered what he'd just said and sat up so fast I almost fell off the chair. "When you get home?"
But Everett, the son of a bitch, was asleep.
"Everett! Wake up!" I grabbed the front of his shirt—eiuww—and shook him. We could go home? I ached to go home! I needed a hug from my Nana. I needed to check on my cats. I wanted to tell Rita about everything that had happened, and I mean everything, and to sleep in a real bed, preferably my own!
I wanted some freaking air conditioning, almost more than life itself.
No good. I let go of him and wiped my hands on my overlong, Little House on the Prairie skirt. This couldn't be happening to me.
Someone knocked, firmly and quietly, at the back door. I glanced at it and hesitated, torn between two worlds. Then I made up my mind and kicked the bed and hissed, "Everett, you scum-sucking pig!"
Nothing. I clenched my fists and growled to myself in frustration. Nothing!
But I just couldn't bring myself to hurt his injured leg again, not now that my initial fury had faded, not now that I had hope. Oh, he still deserved pain...but he was already in it. I couldn't hurt him just to hurt him. He would be conscious tomorrow...wouldn't he?
I eyed him, wary, in the heavy shadows. With my luck I would come back in the morning and he'd have pulled an Amy Winehouse.
The knock came again, a little louder, not to be ignored. I noticed beyond the pulled curtains that while I'd been interrogating Everett, the sun had set. Even back home—in Chicago, in my condo—I'd disliked answering the door after dark. Now I wasn't at home, and everything was wrong, and I couldn't turn on the lights, and this door didn't even have a peephole. I thought I knew who it was, but still... en route, I picked up an oil lamp from the table beside Everett's bed, just in case. It hung from a metal handle, so I could probably sling it against someone's head if I had to.
But when I opened the door to a familiar, solid silhouette against the darkening sky, I felt relieved that I didn't have to hit anyone. Relieved, and majorly weirded out. Here I stood, a 21st-century professional woman, wearing something out of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and opening the door for my cowboy lover in Dodge City, Kansas.
Cue the Twilight Zone theme.
Refusing to be any less real just because of my newfound perspective, Garrison looked at the lamp, then slid his gaze to the shadows behind me. "Works better lit," he drawled.
I could have hugged him for making a joke. I needed a joke. I needed a lot of jokes. After all, I'd been torn from everything I owned, everything I'd ever worked for. The best burglar in the world couldn't have done that, but the upper management at A Closer Look had. No one I loved, from my pets to my grandmother, was even alive now. Did it matter that instead of not being alive anymore, they just weren't alive yet? Gone was still gone.
This had not been a particularly good day—and I still didn't know if I could get home. But maybe I could. Maybe.
I grabbed Garrison's hand and pulled him into the room. "Can you wake him up? Please?"
After only a moment's hesitation, he stepped awkwardly in—cowboys do walk so awkwardly—and crouched beside Everett's bed. Even while I shifted impatiently from one foot to the other, his movements stayed slow, deliberate. He checked Everett's eyes, smelled his breath. Then he took a closer look at the bottle, considered it, and snorted his disgust. "Nope."
I made a guttural noise of frustration. When Garrison stood—slowly, why hadn't I noticed how slowly he moved until now?—he looked from me to Everett and back, curious.
"I think he knows how I can get home," I explained, catching back my impatience, belatedly putting down the lamp—and then wringing my useless, empty hands. "Unless he was delirious, which is a good possibility, even if he weren't sucking opiates, the idiot."
I scowled at the silent, unconscious idiot... then I looked back at my historical companion. "I know about home, now. I want to go home."
Garrison waited for a moment, and when I didn't say more he offered, "Railroad goes to Chicago. Pastor might could find you an escort."
The solution was said so sincerely, and was so completely inadequate to my situation, that I felt something break inside me. Now I did hug him. I stepped up against him, put my arms around him and rested my cheek on his scratchy lapel, telling myself it was just for the moment. It probably wasn't the wisest thing to do. He wasn't part of the world I had to get back to. And the solid feel and outdoorsy smell of him, a wonderful contrast to Everett's sickroom, reminded me of this afternoon.
Thoughts of what we'd done this afternoon sent shy tingles sparkling through me, and had me thinking of this man as more than a protector.
Garrison raised a belated hand lightly to my back, returning my gesture soberly. Had that been the same Boss as this one? No wonder I couldn't figure out people of this day and age.
Not that he'd figured me out any better.
"The railroad doesn't go where I need," I half-explained with a sigh, unwilling to prove my insanity by telling him where that might be. "But thank you very much for the suggestion." And I felt him nod.
I also smelled something new, something warm and rich that drew my mind back from the distraction of my futuristic reality to the momentarily safe simplicity of his. When I looked up, to better identify the scent, I caught him looking down at me. "You've been drinking," I guessed, surprised.
Well wasn't this a day of sin for him?
He stiffened, expression hardening, and his hand dropped away. "One drink."
I laughed at his defensiveness and stood back from him. Oh man, if he could have seen me that time Rita came over and made daiquiris!
Probably just as well he couldn't.
"It's okay, Boss. I don't blame you. Just...let's get out of here, okay? Please?" And with his hand again on my back, as if to guide me, we left Everett sleeping off his laudanum and emerged into the fresh air of Second Avenue, Dodge City, in the summer twilight.
It was sooo strange to look around me this time, because finally I could put everything into its true context. Remembering Elizabeth's world, my world of traffic jams and airports and streaming video, definitely explained the surrealism I'd found in dirt roads, mule teams, and infinitely dark night skies. The false-fronted buildings and saloons and cowboys, and the sounds of partying—laughter, piano music—floating across Front Street from the wrong side of the tracks were history! Living, breathing history.
So was the quiet of this side street on the decent side of town now that the stores had closed. So was the solid, silent trail boss at my side. This afternoon I'd hit a piece of history.
That was probably not a good thing. Despite the quiet, I still couldn't quite relax. This complication didn't help.
Already today he'd misjudged me as a slut—first a professional prostitute, then an amateur tramp so desperate to hook myself a husband that I'd gambled my innocence on his sense of duty and won. In this day and age, how could I possibly convince him that losing my virginity, much less possible pregnancy, wasn't grounds for marriage?
Considering the horror stories I'd heard from pregnant friends dumped by long-term lovers or pressured to have abortions—some of the very stories that, along with fear of STDs, had kept me away from casual sex while I waited for love—the Boss's old-fashioned principles seemed kind of sweet, really. If simplistic. But they wouldn't get me home.
Then, just as I was trying to formulate excuses that my sweet, 19th-century prude would accept, Garrison pulled a 180 and announced, "Set you up at a boardinghouse."
And nostalgia stumbled to a halt. I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly, but my shoulders stiffened at the betrayal even as I asked, "At a what?"
He frowned, probably not too fond of that particular tone, but he repeated himself for me. "Placed you at a boardin' house."
The hell with traffic jams and retirement communities—as I drew a shaky breath, I couldn't even speak over a much more recent me
mory. Belle and Dixie had talked about boardinghouses. And Alice. Fresh ones like that work the dance halls, maybe one of the boardinghouses....
Had I misjudged his sense of duty that badly? Or had my refusal of his offer, after my sexual ruin, insulted him this much! Anger and hurt and shock jammed up in my throat, and I couldn't make a sound. Garrison looked increasingly impatient and superior, like maybe he was thinking, turn me down, will you?
And in the face of that one, final betrayal, I couldn't even manage a squeak, much less an argument—so in frustration, I simply stomped on his foot.
Hard.
I wouldn't have thought Mr. Slow-and-Steady could move that fast, but in one quick leap he'd achieved an arm's length from me, circling and reaching out defensively to make sure he stayed that way if I came at him again. He was limping. And glaring. "What in tarnation—"
He was glaring? "You son-of-a —" Now that my throat unclogged I barely caught myself in time, and made up for the edited swear word by smacking at his defensive hand. "How dare you? How dare you!"
He continued his slow, hobbled circle on the dirt street, still at arm's length—and had the gall to look confused. "How dare...?"
But, considering the day I'd had, I was past hearing warning bells. "Yes, how dare you!" When I stepped forward to hit at him again, he dodged, which just frustrated me further. I didn't like having to turn in a circle to keep up with him. That was probably the point. "I'm not that kind of a woman, you... you yokel! Maybe I didn't know if I was or not at first, and maybe I even thought I was for a while there, but that's because—" Because I'm from the future where we aren't such stuffed shirts? Good one, Lillabit. "—because idiots like that Army Major and Everett-the-scum-pig and high-and-mighty you made me think there was something wrong with me. But I know who I am now and you were all wrong!
"I thought you understood that, that you of all people understood that, but fat chance finding a man who understands anything around here. And you know what? I don't care anymore! Believe what you want to believe, but I'll tell you something, Mr. Jacob-Hypocrite-of-the-West Garrison, I am not going to any boardinghouse, and I am not going to any dance hall, and I am never going anywhere near those cribs ever again, because I'm better than that and I've got other places to go, and if you don't like it you can just...just lump it!"
Halfway through my speech, he finally stopped circling me—which was just as well, since I was dizzy enough from hardly breathing. No, he just stood still, staring at me, and when I finally finished, he closed his eyes and looked tired.
I considered hitting him while he wasn't looking. Instead, I stood there and trembled. Despite everything, I'd trusted him. I'd thought he understood, at least a little. I really had.
He dragged a hand down his face, sucked on his cheeks a moment, then stared pointedly across the street and tightly drawled, "Set you up at Mrs. Charles Rath's boardinghouse. Same place Chalkey Beeson took his bride afore bringin' her out to his ranch, when first she come from th'East."
Finally he hit me with his gaze, and I was glad he'd spent some of it on the wall across the way, because it was still burning strong.
He waited.
Oh.
I guess there were different kinds of boardinghouses.
He still waited, radiating annoyance. Obviously my stupidity about things that he found simplistic was rapidly losing its charm, assuming it had ever had any. Especially once I started attacking him for it.
Well.
Huh.
Didn't I feel silly?
I felt even worse when someone cleared his throat behind me. "Miss? You in need of some assistance here?"
A hesitant glance over my shoulder revealed three unfamiliar, raggedy young cowboys, looking downright mean—and eyeing the Boss. Garrison, for his part, neither moved nor said anything. Probably a wise tactical decision on his part.
"No," I said quickly. "I overreacted to something he said, but it was all a misunderstanding. I'm perfectly fine now, thank you so much." And I went to Garrison's side, took his arm, patted it. See what friends we are? No reason to kill him on my account.
They nodded, suspicious. But the lure of the party across the street was apparently too much for them. They were teenagers, after all. The leader said, "As long as you're all right then, miss," and touched his hat. Then they backed partway away, turned, and loped off toward the fun.
Some terror, those Dodge City cowboys.
Oh God.
I took a deep shaky breath, then another, and tried to tell myself it didn't matter, but only pretended to believe myself. Finally I said, in a small voice, "I'm sorry."
For an uncomfortable moment, I thought he was going to let me stand there forever. But with a long, long sigh—Jacob the Martyr—he turned and guided me down Front Street, away from the noise and sidewalks, back toward the eastern side of town.
I could tell he was trying not to limp and didn't dare look at him. "Did I hurt you?"
"Not hardly," he said, his voice tight.
It doesn't matter, Elizabeth. This isn't your world. You only have to survive here long enough to get back to your world. Diet Coke. Antibiotics. Air-conditioning.
A particularly explosive ruckus across the tracks startled me, and I felt glad for Garrison walking between me and the street.
No random gunfire... at least not in your neighborhood.
Wow, he was quiet...and I couldn't blame him. I'd just accused him, him, of pimping me out! "I am so sorry," I tried again.
"So you said."
I was probably pushing this, but... "You didn't accept it."
We'd passed the Long Branch, the Alamo, the Alahambra, and the hardware store with the big wooden gun hanging outside. He turned me north onto a wide dirt path—er, road—away from Front Street. I saw that Beatty and Kelley's restaurant, across the way, was still open, just as advertised. Ahead lay residences, randomly spaced across the nighttime prairie that stretched forever beyond them.
"The yokel accepts," said Garrison, finally.
Ouch. "I didn't mean that," I told him, and knew it sounded weak. "Or... or whatever else I called you, either. I was just trying to come up with names that weren't swear words."
He sighed, tired. He'd had a full day, too, even without jail or learning he was from another reality.
We didn't speak again until we'd reached Mrs. Rath's boardinghouse, at which point I felt even guiltier. Though large, it was a about as plain as a house can get—a square, white, two-story clapboard, surrounded by an unpainted picket fence on a bigger, scruffy dirt lot. But light shone, welcoming, from its rectangular windows. It felt homey. Lived in. Safe.
A horse stood patiently at a wooden post that stuck out of the ground near the fence, waiting, wearing Garrison's saddle.
The Boss led me to the screen door and knocked, then released my arm and stood in a thick silence that I didn't dare breach until a blonde woman, easily as pretty as her bustled, blue silk dress, appeared at the door. To my surprise, she looked to be my age.The Boss swept off his hat.
"Mr. Garrison!" she greeted, her large eyes brightening at the sight of me in particular. "Thank you for returning so promptly. And this must be...."
"Elizabeth Rhinehart," I introduced myself—finally!—and noticed too late that he'd opened his mouth to do it. To cover, I offered my hand, which she took and squeezed lightly.
"Caroline Rath," she returned—aha! So her first name wasn't Mrs. Charles. "Please, do come in, both of you! Thank you, Mr. Phelps," she called to another boarder who headed upstairs, then turned back to us. "Have you had supper, Miss Rhinehart?"
After the excitement of the day, could I even eat supper? I decided if I weren't hungry now, I'd probably be hungry later, and I shook my head.
"The regular boarders take the formal meal at six o'clock sharp," she explained, as we followed her to a small living room, "Breakfast at seven, and dinner at noon. But I would be happy to fix you some soup before I retire. Why don't the pair of you sit in the parlo
r until it's ready?"
Garrison nodded nervously, and I let him lead me further into the "parlor," a lovely, if cramped, little sitting room. The ceiling seemed low to me, its stripe of the second-story's floorboards unusual. An enormous pelt of thick fur covered the floor—a buffalo hide, I realized—and the walls had plain plaster, but they were prettied up by numerous portraits and paintings, several even propped at a tilt between the doorjambs and the ceiling. Shiny chocolate brocade covered the skirted sofa, and a dark wood box piano, also skirted, huddled beside it with lamps and knick-knacks crowded across its top. A glass lamp hung from the ceiling, warm with its glow. What a study in contrasts!
But at least I for once understood why my surroundings felt so strange to me. Among other things, there was no television and no coffee table.
I hesitated to even sit—shouldn't there be velvet cords roping the furniture off from the public?—but belatedly realized that the Boss wasn't just waiting to make sure I settled in. He meant to sit too, and wouldn't until I did.
And he had a hurt foot. Oh God. I sank, chagrined, onto the sofa and smoothed my old-fashioned skirt over its petticoat cushioning. He sat beside me—with several respectable inches between us, of course—and laid his hat on the end table.
We could hear Mrs. Rath bustling in the kitchen nearby... almost as if she were making extra noise to remind us how nearby she was. Something about that, and about the privacy of the sitting room itself—weren't there other boarders?—and about Garrison's stiff silence beside me, finally clicked.
Good heavens, the woman was chaperoning us!
"What did you tell her?" I demanded quietly, twisting in my seat to face him. When I did, my knee bumped his. He shifted so that we had respectable distance again, and it seemed so absurd. We'd had sex this afternoon—hot, exciting, physical sex—but heaven forbid our knees touch tonight.
With Mrs. Rath heating soup in the other room, and a big goodbye looming ahead, I would probably do better not to think about the sex.
"Told her we're engaged," Garrison admitted finally, sullen.
Oh my. "I thought you never lied."
OverTime 1 - Searching (Time Travel) Page 24
