by Amii Lorin
“No,” Faith whispered, lifting her head to look at the back corner of the building. Her bedroom window was located around that corner. Had Pres already left through that window, never to return?
“Pres, no!” The broken sound of Faith’s voice shimmered on the still, cold air. “Pres, wait, don’t go!” she screamed, plowing through the snow. “I love you!”
Faith stumbled into the inn and came to a dead stop. Warmth enfolded her, warmth put out from central heating. In that instant she knew.
She was back in the twenty first century.
* * * *
Where was she? Pres stood by the bed, staring at the empty doorway, no longer aware of his fingers gripping the bulging leather bag.
How long had he been standing there, unable to believe Faith had meant what she had said? Ten minutes? Twenty? After the night they had shared, the love they had sworn for each other, Pres had felt certain she would return within moments of her emotional outburst. He could not believe she meant for him to go and never come back to her.
But where was she? And why was the house so quiet?
Unease stirred inside Pres, and he took a step toward the doorway. Even as he moved, a strong sense that something was wrong invaded his being, filling him with cold dread.
“Faith!” Pres called. Silence drowned out the sound of his heart beating in his ears. “Faith, answer me!”
Pres was across the room and through the doorway in a few long strides. Panic clawed at his gut. She must be here somewhere; she could not have gone back. The fearful thought lent speed to his steps.
He descended the stairs three at a time. At the bottom, the first thing he saw was the side door, standing ajar. Barely breathing, Pres ran outside. A line of footprints in the snow marked Faith’s passage into the stand of trees opposite the inn.
“No. No!” Pres shouted, plunging into the snow. Apprehension constricted his chest and tore a cry of agony from his tight throat.
“Dear God, I cannot lose her now. I love her more than my own life. I beg of You, do not take her from me!”
Epilogue
“Faith, where in god’s name are you?”
Standing in the shadows of the enclosed stairway, Faith froze in the act of hanging the shawl over the last peg on the wall.
Was she losing her grip on sanity? Hearing voices? His voice?
Her heart racing, needing to look yet almost afraid to do so, Faith slowly turned around.
Pres stood in the doorway, the bulging leather bag clutched in one hand, an expression of baffled wonderment on his handsome face.
Breathless, unable to move, certain he was an illusion created by her bereaved, deranged mind, Faith watched him as he glanced around, examining the room in exactly the same manner she herself had a short time ago.
She saw his sharp-eyed gaze take in the electric candles flickering in the windows, the smooth plaster concealing the chinked log walls. She saw his gaze drop to the crèche on the garland draped mantelpiece, and a faint smile touched his lips when he shifted his attention to the tall Christmas tree standing majestically next to the fireplace, decorated with electric lights and glass balls.
“It is just as she described it to me.”
His whisper broke the spell holding Faith immobile. Joy burst like a glorious sunrise inside her!
“Pres!” Launching herself from the shadows, Faith flew across the room and into his arms. “Oh, Pres, oh, darling, I can’t believe it!” she cried, skimming her fingers over his face, his lips. “You’re here. You’re really here!”
Pres kissed her fingertips, then lowered his head to crush her mouth with his. “We are in your time period,” he said, as he raised his head and glanced around. ‘This is your Laughing Fox Inn, the one you told me about?”
“Yes,” she answered, laughing and crying at the same time. “This is incredible! I thought I had lost you, and now here you are.”
“Yes.” A shadow flashed over his face.
“Are you sorry?”
Pres frowned at her. “Sorry... for what?”
“That you’re here.” Dreading his reply, she rushed on. “I know how dedicated you are. .. were, to the cause and to Washington. Are you sorry you won’t be there?”
“No.” The shadows in his eyes were banished by a teasing gleam. “As you pointed out, General Washington won the war without me.” He arched his dark brows. “Did he not?”
Faith smiled with tender understanding. “Yes, darling, I promise you he did. But something is bothering you. I saw it in your expression a moment ago. What was it?”
His frown was back. “You told me you were going to lose this beautiful inn.” Pres raised the hand gripping the bag. “I was wondering if, perhaps, these might help you in any way?”
“Your grandmother’s jewels!” Faith exclaimed. “Pres, they’re worth a fortune.”
“They are yours.”
Faith shook her head. “I can’t accept...”
“I insist.”
“Thank you.” Faith gave in gracefully. “They will save the inn for us.”
“If I am still here,” he said, cautioning her.
The joy dimmed inside Faith, “What do you mean, if you’re still here?”
“My love, you were whisked back to your time,” he reminded her. “How can we be sure that I will not be whisked back to mine?”
Faith bit her lip, and then an idea struck her, an odd but wonderful idea. “Pres, I can’t be certain, of course, but I think—I truly believe—that we were meant to be together.”
The light of hope flared in his dark eyes. “I pray you are right,” he murmured fervently. “But... why would you believe that to be so?”
Faith was quiet for a moment, collecting her thoughts. “If you recall,” she said, “I told you that on the night I was ... er, transferred, I pleaded with God to guide me. Pres, I... I now believe He sent me to get you.”
“Yes!” Pres said in a tone of awed belief. “Faith, when you did not return to the bedroom, I also called out to the Lord, begging Him not to take you from me!”
Faith was crying again, in thankfulness for the miracle. “Oh, Pres, I’m certain He sent you here because we belong together.” Faith paused, beginning to frown. “But darling, how did you get here?”
“Oh, my sweet Faith, cut me some slack,” Pres said, grinning at her.
“But how did you?” she persisted, laughing.
“I simply followed your footsteps in the snow.”
* * *
Turquoise Yesterdays
Chapter 1
June 2014—Some distance from Virginia City, Nevada
The drive from Virginia City had not been too bad—that is, until Laura Brand left the black-topped highway and pulled onto a dirt side road. She was bumping and bouncing along in her rented Cherokee when she noticed the Indian, standing behind a makeshift table bearing a handprinted sign that read simply: Jewelry For Sale.
Laura spared a quick, curious glance at the man as she rocked and rolled past his rickety table. Then in the next instant she stood on the brake pedal, skidding to a teeth-jarring stop.
Although Laura was not in the market for jewelry, there was something about the man that had caught her interest and tugged at her heart.
In appearance, he could only be described as shabby, worn, almost flea-bitten. And yet there was an innate dignity about him—the erect posture; the stoic expression indelibly stamped onto his ancient, lined face; the direct, unflinching stare of his black eyes. There was something about him beyond the ordinary ... timeless.
Hooked, and fully aware of it, Laura stepped from the Jeep, fatalistically prepared to part with a sizable portion of her ready cash.
“Hi,” she called, waving and offering him a tentative smile as she approached the table.
“Good afternoon,” he replied in careful, precise English, his voice deep and gravelly “You have appreciation for hand-crafted silver and turquoise jewelry?”
“Appreciation, yes, but.
..” Grimacing, Laura let her voice fade on a sigh.
His wise eyes didn’t appear to move, yet Laura felt his appraising gaze, as if he could see, or even know, everything about her. It was an eerie feeling, but strangely unthreatening,
“You do not adorn yourself,” he finished for her in an understanding, unquestioning statement.
“Not often,” Laura admitted, shrugging her shoulders slightly. “Except for rare special occasions, I usually can’t be bothered.”
“I see.”
Oddly enough, Laura was at once convinced that he did see, a lot more than she could probably comprehend. And yet she still felt in no way threatened or intimidated.
Offering him an apologetic smile, she moved closer to the table to peruse the selection of pieces attractively arranged on a large square of dark blue velvet.
Laura’s knowledge of jewelry making was decidedly limited, but she recognized the quality of workmanship in the finely wrought pieces.
“How exquisite,” she murmured delicately touching a stunning necklace in the style she knew was the traditional squash blossom.
“Yes,” he concurred. “But for you, for the special occasion, I choose this.” From a corner of the table his gnarled brown fingers plucked a small pouch made of the same midnight-blue velvet. He withdrew a wide, hammered-silver cuff bracelet set with a large oval turquoise stone.
Laura had caught her breath, and reached for her purse.
The wise old eyes watching her glittered like jet in the midday sunlight.
“This amulet holds magical powers,” the Indian said, after the exchange of money for the bracelet had been made. “Listen well, daughter,” he continued, thereby preventing Laura from interrupting or protesting, both of which she sorely wanted to do.
“While confined inside the pouch, the powers will remain passive and contained,” he intoned. “To release and surround yourself with the powers, remove the amulet and clasp it about your wrist.”
“Oh, honestly...” Laura began, only to be silenced by a slicing movement of his flattened hand.
“Hear this, pale one.” His voice had grown in strength and depth. “I foresee dark clouds of trouble gathering around you. Wear the amulet. Now. It will protect you, keep you safe, guide you.”
Unequal to the challenge of meeting his black stare, let alone openly defying him, Laura obediently clipped the cuff to her wrist.
Then, ten minutes after driving away from him, she removed it and slipped it back inside the pouch.
“Magical powers.” Laura made an unladylike snorting noise. “Right.”
Muttering to herself the old truism that a fool and her gold were soon parted, Laura switched off the engine with an impatient flick of her hand, then reached for the door release and flung open the door.
The dry, enervating heat of early afternoon rushed into the Jeep, overwhelming the cool interior air.
“Wow!” Laura gasped, peering through the heat haze at the ramshackle buildings lining the rutted road. For an instant she was tempted to slam the door shut and restart the Jeep and the air conditioner. But she had set out to investigate this ghost town she had discovered while reading a historical guide to Nevada and poring over a map last night in her hotel room in Virginia City, and investigate she would.
The deserted place had a forlorn, haunted look, scary and forbidding, not at all romantic or inviting. Asking herself scathingly if she had been expecting a tall, handsome man of the Old West to meet her and welcome her into the past, Laura collected her grit and gumption and thrust a cotton-twill-encased leg out the door.
Nevertheless, despite her bravado, she reached across the seat, slipped the silver and turquoise cuff from its pouch, and clasped it around her wrist. Then, grabbing her backpack from the backseat, she stuffed the velvet pouch into a side pocket, slung the pack over her shoulder, and got out of the Jeep.
It was like stepping into the mouth of hell
Laura’s lips quirked in an amused smile at her silent observation, and she shook her head. She shucked out of her short denim jacket, tied it around her waist, and strode forward in her sturdy, protective hiking boots.
It didn’t take long for Laura to lose interest in the old mining town, which had never really amounted to much. According to the guidebook, all that the handful of miners who had descended on the place ever found was a skimpy vein of gold that had petered out in less than a year, somewhere around 1860. The town consisted mainly of one street, lined by a collection of tumbledown shacks. The largest one bore a crude sign hanging askew from one hinge, informing Laura that it was the Pick and Shovel Saloon.
“Big deal,” Laura muttered, dismissing the sign and the town by turning away and heading for the foothills beyond the motley structures.
Although the going was rough, the terrain rocky and uneven, she happily trudged along, her sharp-eyed gaze scouring the ground in search of her favorite subject, new and unusual plant specimens.
Laura was a botanist. From her earliest memories, she could recall being fascinated by anything and everything that grew.
Encouraged by her parents and her only sibling, an older brother whom she adored and who likewise doted on her, to use her mind and to achieve, Laura had sailed through school. After earning her postgraduate degree in botany at the small college in her hometown in southeastern Pennsylvania, Laura had felt proud and delighted to accept the institution’s offer of a position as associate professor.
About the only thing other than plant life that had interested Laura to any lasting degree was the fabled Old West. She had grown up devouring books, movies, and TV series reruns dealing with the subject.
But although for most of her life she had felt the siren song calling her westward, this vacation trip was her first journey beyond the Mississippi.
Fairly quivering from the excitement of perhaps discovering some plant life that was new to her, Laura wandered farther and farther afield, away from the ugly town.
The brazen sun had begun its descent into the horizon when she noticed a small white blossom halfway up the side of the next hill. Perspiration slicked the back of her neck beneath the sable swath of hair she had tied with a scarf, and ran down between her breasts. Beads of moisture trickled down her forehead and into her eyes, causing them to sting and tear.
Blinking, Laura refocused her eyes, and could have sworn the white blossom waved to her, which was ridiculous, since not a breath of air stirred the dry heat.
Dismissing the fanciful thought, she wiped the sweat from her brow, then set forth determinedly to get a closer look at the flower.
Her breath growing harsh from exertion, she skittered down one humpback and began scrambling up the next hill. She was brought up short within yards of her quarry by a wide mass of bracken. Tiring, she started around the brush, then, shrugging, plunged into it. She had taken three long-legged strides when her left foot came down and she felt herself falling, her arms flailing as darkness engulfed her.
A startled yelp escaped her throat as she landed on her rump with a bone-jolting thud on the rock-hard ground.
Stunned, disoriented, she stared around her at what appeared to be a cavern ... a very dark cavern. Gathering her rattled wits, she sighed with relief at the narrow beam of sunlight slanting through the opening above.
How long would that reassuring light be there? She wondered, beginning to shiver. The sun was on its downward trek. Soon night would come. She would be alone in the cavern. Or would she? Suddenly Laura remembered a TV documentary she had watched months before, filmed in worked-out, abandoned mines. The mine shafts had been alive with bats and rodents and ... snakes!
Jerking to her feet, she rushed forward to stand directly in the path of the comforting blaze of hot sunlight. Telling herself to remain calm, she drew several deep breaths and raised her hands to wipe the now-cold sweat from her face. Sunlight glanced off the turquoise stone in her bracelet. Then, to her utter amazement, the light appeared to radiate and swirl in flashing blue rays from
the stone. The shimmering energy crackled and sparked above her and descended to encircle her quaking form in a brilliant cocoon.
Stunned, Laura did what any self-respecting scientist would do under the circumstances. She threw back her head, opened her mouth wide, and screamed.
Chapter 2
Hours had elapsed since she had tumbled into the cavern, hours in which Laura had been visited by any number of fears, but fortunately not by crawly creatures, especially the kind with poison sacs behind their pointed teeth.
Every one of those long hours had been fraught with speculative thoughts that had ended up scaring her senseless. She was thankful for whatever impulse had impelled her to tie her denim jacket around her waist rather than toss it onto the seat of the Jeep, for the cavern had grown cold with the sun’s descent.
It was dark now, and the only thing that saved Laura from utter darkness was the small flashlight she had stuffed into her backpack as an afterthought before leaving the hotel that morning. Recognizing the wisdom of conserving the batteries, she had overridden a panic-induced desire to leave the light on, forcing herself to switch it on and off at intervals instead.
She had stopped screaming when she heard her voice growing hoarse. Besides, even through her fear, Laura reasoned that her chances of actually being heard by anyone were slim to none; the town a few hills back was a ghost town, the surrounding area deserted. What was the point in crying out for help when there was nobody there to hear her? And yet, despite knowing it was hopeless, she had called out every time she switched on the flashlight.
Turning the flashlight on now, she raised her voice once more.
“Hello!”
She stilled, startled by the unexpected sound of a human voice, a male voice, calling in response. She stared up into the opening above her, which was only marginally less dark than the cavern’s interior.
“Hello?” the voice came again, deep-timbred, suspicious-sounding, harsh with impatience.
