Trista’s friend, Vera, had apparently trained her daughters not to overstay their welcome. “I really must be running along,” Cecily said. “It’s almost time for Sister and I to take our walk. Two miles, rain or shine,” she said with resignation, frowning grimly as she looked out through the windows. Storm clouds were gathering on the horizon.
“I’ve enjoyed our visit,” Elisabeth replied honestly, following Miss Cecily to the door. She wondered what Cecily would say if told Elisabeth had had a glimpse of Vera, the Buzbee sisters’ mother, as a little girl playing on the school grounds.
A light rain started to fall after Cecily had gone, and Elisabeth stood at the back door for a long moment, her heart hammering as she gazed at the orchard. The beautiful petals of spring were all gone now, replaced by healthy green leaves—another reminder that two weeks of her life had passed without her knowing.
When thunder rolled down from the mountains and lightning splintered the sky, Elisabeth shuddered and closed the door. Then she hurried up the back stairs and along the hallway.
“Trista!” she shouted, pounding with both fists at the panel of wood that separated her from that other world. “Trista, can you hear me?”
There was no sound from the other side, except for the whistle of the wind, and Elisabeth sagged against the wood in frustrated despair. “Oh, God,” she whispered, “don’t let them be dead. Please don’t let them be dead.”
After a long time, she turned away and went back down the stairs to the kitchen. She put on a rain coat and dashed out to the shed for an armload of kindling and aged apple wood, which she carried to the hearth in the main parlor.
There, she built a fire to bring some warmth and cheer to that large, empty room. When the wood was crackling and popping in the grate, she put the screen in place and went to the piano, lifting the keyboard cover and idly striking middle C with her index finger.
“Hear me, Trista,” she pleaded softly, flexing her fingers. “Hear and wish just as hard as you can for me to come back.”
She began to play the energetic tune she’d described to Trista as a boogie-woogie, putting all her passion, all her hopes and fears into the crazy, racing, tinkling notes of the song. When she finally stopped, her fingers exhausted, the sound of another pianist attempting to play the song met her ears.
Elisabeth nearly overturned the piano bench in her eagerness to run upstairs to the door that barred her from the place where she truly belonged. She wrenched hard on the knob, and breathtaking exultation rushed into her when it turned.
Trista’s awkward efforts at the piano tune grew louder and louder as Elisabeth raced through the little girl’s bedroom and down the steps. When she burst into the parlor, Trista’s face lit up.
She ran to Elisabeth and threw her arms around her.
Elisabeth embraced her, silently thanking God that she wasn’t too late, that the fire hadn’t already happened, then knelt to look into Trista’s eyes. “Sweetheart, this is important. How long have I been gone?”
Trista bit her lip, seeming puzzled by the question. “Since last night, when you came in and kissed me goodbye. It’s afternoon now—school let out about an hour ago.”
“Good,” Elisabeth whispered, relieved to learn that days or weeks hadn’t raced by in her absence. “Was your father upset to find that I wasn’t here?”
“He cussed,” Trista replied with a solemn nod. “It reminded me of the day Mama went away to Boston. Papa got angry then, too, because she didn’t say goodbye to us.”
Elisabeth sat down on the piano bench and took Trista onto her lap, recalling her talk with Barbara Fortner in the Riverview Café. Sending Trista over the threshold to her mother might be the only way to save her, but Jonathan would never understand that. “Where is he now?”
Trista sighed. “In town. There was a fight at one of the saloons, and some people needed to be stitched up.”
Elisabeth winced and said, “Ouch!” and Trista laughed.
“Papa’s going to be happy when he sees you’re back,” the child said after an interval. “But he probably won’t admit he’s pleased.”
“Probably not,” Elisabeth agreed, giving Trista’s pigtail a playful tug. She looked down at her slacks and tank top. “I guess I’d better change into something more fitting,” she confided.
Trista nodded and took Elisabeth’s hand. They went upstairs together, and the little girl’s expression was thoughtful. “I wish Papa would let me wear trousers,” she said. “It would be so much better for riding a horse. I hate sitting sideways in the saddle, like a priss.”
“Do you have a horse?” Elisabeth asked as they reached the second floor, but continued on to the attic, where Barbara’s clothes were stored.
“Yes,” Trista answered, somewhat forlornly. “Her name is Estella, she’s about a thousand years old, and she’s a ninny.”
Elisabeth laughed. “What a way to talk about the poor thing!” The attic door creaked a little as they went in, and the bright afternoon sunlight was flecked with a galaxy of tiny dust particles. “Most little girls love their horses, if they’re lucky enough to have one.”
Trista dusted off a short stool and sat down, smoothing the skirts of her flowered poplin pinafore as she did so. “Estella just wants to wander around the pasture and chew grass, and she won’t come when I call because she doesn’t like to be ridden. Do you have your own horse, Elisabeth?”
Opening the heavy doors of the cedar-lined armoire, Elisabeth ran her hand over colorful, still-crisp skirts of lawn and cambric and poplin and satin and even velvet. “I don’t,” she said distractedly, “but my Cousin Rue does. When her grandfather died, she inherited a ranch in Montana, and I understand there are lots of horses there.” She took a frothy pink lawn gown from the wardrobe and held it against her, waltzing a little because it was so shamelessly frilly.
“Wasn’t he your grandfather, too, if you and Rue are cousins?”
Elisabeth bent to kiss the child’s forehead, while still enjoying the feel of the lovely dress under her hands. “Our fathers were brothers,” she explained. “The ranch belonged to Rue’s mother’s family.”
“Could we visit there sometime?” The hopeful note in Trista’s voice tugged at Elisabeth’s heart, and unexpected tears burned in her eyes.
She shook her head, turning her back so Trista wouldn’t see that she was crying. “It’s very faraway,” she said after a long time had passed.
“Montana isn’t so far,” Jonathan’s daughter argued politely. “We could be there in three days if we took the train.”
But we wouldn’t see Rue, Elisabeth thought sadly. She hasn’t even been born yet. She stepped behind a dusty folding screen and slipped off her tank top and slacks, then pulled the pink dress on over her head. “I don’t think your papa would want you to go traveling without him,” she said, having finally found words, however inadequate, to answer Trista.
When Elisabeth came out from behind the screen, Trista drew in her breath. “Thunderation, Elisabeth—you look beautiful!”
Elisabeth laughed, put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes. “Thanks a heap, kid, but did you just swear?”
Trista giggled and scurried around behind Elisabeth to begin fastening the buttons and hooks that would hold the dress closed in back. “Thunderation isn’t a swear word,” she said indulgently. “But I don’t suppose it’s very ladylike, either.”
The light was fading, receding across the dirty floor toward the windows like an ebbing tide, so the two went down the attic steps together, Elisabeth carrying her slacks and tank top over one arm. She felt a sense of excitement and anticipation, knowing she would see Jonathan again soon.
In her room, Elisabeth brushed her hair and pinned it up, while Trista sat on the edge of the bed, watching with her head tilted to one side and her small feet swinging back and forth.
Downstairs, Elisabeth checked the pot roast Ellen had left to cook in the oven. She found an apron to protect her gown, then set to work
washing china from the cabinet in the dining room. In a drawer of the highboy, she found white tapers and silver candle sticks, and she set these on the formal table.
“We never eat in here,” Trista said.
Outside, twilight was falling, and with it came a light spring rain. “We’re going to tonight,” Elisabeth replied.
“Why? It isn’t Christmas or Easter, and it’s not anybody’s birthday.”
Elisabeth smiled. “I want to celebrate being home,” she said, and only when the words were out of her mouth did she realize how presumptuous they sounded. Jonathan had made love to her, but it wasn’t as though he’d expressed a desire for a lifelong commitment or anything like that. This wasn’t her home, it was Barbara’s, as was the china she was setting out and the dress she was wearing.
As were the child and the man she loved so fiercely.
“Don’t be sad,” Trista said, coming to stand close to Elisabeth in a show of support.
Elisabeth gave her a distracted squeeze, and said brightly, “I think we’d better get some fires going, since it’s so dreary out.”
“I’ll do it,” Trista announced. “So you don’t ruin your pretty dress.” With that, she fetched wood from the shed out back and laid fires in the grates in the parlor and the dining room. Rain was pattering at the windows and blazes were burning cheerily on the hearths when Elisabeth saw Jonathan drive his buggy through the wide doorway of the barn.
It was all she could do not to run outside, ignoring the weather entirely, and fling herself into his arms. But she forced herself to remain in the kitchen, where she and Trista had been sipping tea and playing Go Fish while they waited for Jonathan.
When he came in, some twenty minutes later, he was wet to the skin. The look in his gray eyes was grim, and Elisabeth felt a wrench deep inside when she saw him.
“You,” he said, tossing his medical bag onto the shelf beside the door and peeling off his coat. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and his dark hair streamed with rain water. His shirt was so wet, it had turned transparent.
Elisabeth refused to be intimidated by his callous welcome. “Yes, Dr. Fortner,” she said, “I’m back.”
He glared at her once, then stormed up the stairs. When he came down again, he was wearing plain black trousers and an off white shirt, open at the throat to reveal a wealth of dark chest hair. But then, Elisabeth knew all about that wonderful chest…
“Go stand by the fire,” she told him as she lifted the roasting pan from the oven. Inside was a succulent blend of choice beef, a thin but aromatic gravy and perfectly cooked potatoes and carrots. “You’ll catch your death.”
Trista was in the dining room, lighting the candles.
“Where were you?” Jonathan demanded in a furious undertone. “I searched every inch of this house and the barn and the woodshed….”
Elisabeth shrugged. “I’ve explained it all before, Jonathan, and you never seem to believe me. And, frankly, I’d rather not risk having you throw me down on a bed and inject some primitive sedative into my veins because you think I’m hysterical.”
He rolled his wonderful gray eyes in exasperation. “Where did you go?”
“Believe it or not, most of the time I was right here in this house.” She wanted to tell him about seeing Barbara, but the moment wasn’t right, and she couldn’t risk having Trista overhear what she said. “For now, Jonathan, I’m afraid you’re going to have to be satisfied with that answer.”
He glared at her, but there was a softening in his manner, and Elisabeth knew he was glad she’d come back—a fact that made her exultant.
The three of them ate dinner in the dining room, then Trista volunteered to clear the table and wash the dishes. While she was doing that, Elisabeth sat at the piano, playing a medley of the Beatles ballads.
Jonathan stood beside the fireplace, one arm braced against the mantelpiece, listening with a frown. “I’ve never heard that before,” he said.
Elisabeth smiled but made no comment.
He came to stand behind her, lightly resting his hands on her shoulders, which the dress left partially bare. “Lizzie,” he said gruffly, “please tell me who you are. Tell me how you managed to vanish that way.”
She stopped playing and turned slightly to look up at him. Her eyes were bright with tears because the name Lizzie had brought the full gravity of the situation down on her again, though she’d managed to put it out of her mind for a little while.
“There’s something I want to show you,” she said. “Something I brought back from—from where I live. We’ll talk about it after Trista goes to bed.”
He bent reluctantly and gave her a brief, soft kiss. He’d barely straightened up again when his daughter appeared, her round little cheeks flushed with pride.
“I did the dishes,” she announced.
Jonathan smiled and patted her small shoulder. “You’re a marvel,” he said.
“Can we go to the Founder’s Day picnic tomorrow, Papa?” she asked hopefully. “Since Elisabeth would be there to take me home, it wouldn’t matter if you had to leave early to set a broken bone or deliver a baby.”
Jonathan’s gaze shifted uncertainly to Elisabeth, and she felt a pang, knowing he was probably concerned about the questions her presence would raise. “Would you like to go?” he asked.
Elisabeth thrived on this man’s company, and his daughter’s. She wanted to be wherever they were, be it heaven or hell. “Yes,” she said in an oddly choked voice.
Pleasure lighted Jonathan’s weary eyes for just a moment, but then the spell was broken. He announced that he had things to do in the barn and went out.
Elisabeth exchanged the pink gown for her slacks and tank top and began heating water on the stove for Trista’s bath. Once the little girl had scrubbed from head to foot, dried herself and put on a warm flannel nightgown, she and Elisabeth sat near the stove, and Elisabeth gently combed the tangles from Trista’s hair.
“I wish you were my mama,” Trista confessed later, when Elisabeth was tucking her into bed, after reading her a chapter of Huckleberry Finn.
Touched, Elisabeth kissed the little girl’s cheek. “I wish that, too,” she admitted. “But I’m not, and it’s no good pretending. However, we can be the very best of friends.”
Trista beamed. “I’d like that,” she said.
Elisabeth blew out Trista’s lamp, then sat on the edge of the bed until the child’s breathing was even with sleep. Her eyes adjusted now to the darkness, Elisabeth made her way to the inner door that led down to the kitchen.
Jonathan was seated at the table, drinking coffee. His expression and his bearing conveyed a weariness that made Elisabeth want to put her arms around him.
“What were you going to show me?”
Elisabeth put one hand into the pocket of her slacks and brought out the prescription bottle. “Nothing much,” she said, setting it on the table in front of him. “Just your ordinary, everyday, garden-variety wonder drug.”
He picked up the little vial and squinted at the print on the label. “Penicillin.” His eyes widened, and Elisabeth thought he was probably reading the date. As she sat down next to him, he looked at her in skeptical curiosity.
“In proper doses,” she said, “this stuff can cure some heavy hitters, like pneumonia. They call it an antibiotic.”
Jonathan tried to remove the child-proof cap and failed, until Elisabeth showed him the trick. He poured the white tablets into his palm and sniffed them, then picked one up and touched it to his tongue.
Elisabeth watched with delight as he made a face and dropped all the pills back into the bottle. “Well? Are you convinced?”
Still scowling, the country doctor tapped the side of the bottle with his finger nail. “What is this made of?”
“Plastic,” Elisabeth answered. “Another miracle. Take it from me, Jonathan, the twentieth century is full of them. I just wish I could show you everything.”
He studied her for a moment, then shoved the bottle toward
her. It was obvious that, while he didn’t know what to think, he’d chosen not to believe Elisabeth. “The twentieth century,” he scoffed.
“Almost the twenty-first,” Elisabeth insisted implacably. No matter what this guy said or did, she wasn’t going to let him rile her again. There was simply too much at stake. She let her eyes rest on the penicillin. “When you use that, do it judiciously. The drug causes violent reactions, even death, in some people.”
Jonathan shook his head scornfully, but Elisabeth noticed that his gaze kept straying back to the little vial. It was obvious that he was itching to pick it up and examine it again.
She sighed, allowing herself a touch of exasperation. “All right, so you can dismiss the pills as some kind of trick. But what about the bottle? You admitted it yourself—you’ve never seen anything like it. And do you know why, Jonathan? Because it doesn’t exist in your world. It hasn’t been invented yet.”
Clearly, he could resist no longer. He reached out and snatched up the penicillin as if he thought Elisabeth would try to beat him to it, dropping the bottle into the pocket of his shirt.
“Where did you go?” he demanded in an impatient whisper.
Elisabeth smiled. “Why on earth would I want to tell you that?” she asked. “You’ll just think I’m having a fit and pump my veins full of dope.”
“Full of what?”
“Never mind.” She reached across the table and patted his hand in a deliberately patronizing fashion. “From here on out, just think of me as a…guardian angel. Actually, that should be no more difficult to absorb than the truth. I have the power to help you and Trista, even save your lives, if you’ll only let me.”
Jonathan surprised her with a slow smile. “A guardian angel? More likely, you’re a witch. And I’ve got to admit, I’m under your spell.”
Elisabeth glanced nervously toward the rear stairway, half expecting to find Trista there, listening. “Jonathan, while I was—er—where I was, I talked with Barbara.”
The smile faded, as Elisabeth had known it would. “Where? Damn it, if that woman has come back here, meaning to upset my daughter—”
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