Linda Lael Miller Bundle

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Can one or the other of us be sent back even if that damn necklace is nowhere around?”

  Rue’s smile faded. She bit her lower lip for a moment. “I don’t know, Farley,” she said quietly. “When I first found the necklace, I had to be wearing or holding it to travel through time, and I had to pass through a certain doorway in the upstairs hall of my aunt’s house. It was the same for Elisabeth. Later, it was as though the two time periods were meshing somehow, and I no longer had to go over the threshold to reach 1892.”

  “But you always had the necklace?”

  She nodded. “Things are obviously changing, though. It seems to me that if people can step backward or forward in time, anything can happen.”

  Farley had another chill, though this was only a shadow of the one that had gripped him during the nightmare. Maybe he wouldn’t be allowed to stay in this crazy, mixed-up century, with this crazy, mixed-up woman. The idea was shattering.

  Rue was as vital to him as the blood flowing through his veins, and there was so much he wanted to see, so much he wanted to know.

  He moved over and tossed back the covers to make room for her. He hadn’t changed his mind about the impropriety of sharing a bed in a public inn, but he needed to sleep with his arms around her.

  She switched off the lamp and crawled in beside him, all warm and soft and fragrant. When she snuggled close, Farley let out an involuntary groan.

  Rue smoothed the hair on his chest with a palm. “Let’s hope we don’t do any time traveling while we’re making love,” she teased. “We could make an embarrassing landing, like in the horse trough in front of the feed and grain, or on one of the pool tables at the Hang-Dog Saloon. I don’t mind telling you, Marshal, the Society would be livid!”

  Farley laughed, rolled onto his side and gathered her close with one arm. There was no use in trying to resist her; she was too delicious, too funny, too sweet.

  “What am I going to do with you?” he asked in mock despair.

  Rue started nibbling at his neck, and murmured, “I have a few suggestions.”

  When Rue awoke the next morning, Farley was already up. He’d showered and dressed in some of his starchy new clothes, and he was sitting at the requisite round table by the windows, reading USA Today. “It seems to me that politicians haven’t changed much,” he commented without lowering the newspaper.

  Rue smiled. She was hypersensitive, but in a pleasant way; the feel of Farley’s hands and mouth still lingered on her lips, her throat, her breasts and stomach. “Some things stay the same no matter how much time passes,” she replied, sitting up and wrapping her arms around her knees.

  He peered at her over the colorful masthead. “I agree,” he said solemnly, folding the paper and setting it aside. Having done that, Farley shoved one hand through his gleaming brown hair. “It’s wrong for us to—to do what we did last night, Rue. That’s something that should be confined to marriage.”

  Rue would have rolled her eyes if she hadn’t known Farley was dead serious. She reached for the telephone and punched the button for room service. “Are you trying to tell me that you were married to every woman you ever slept with?” she inquired reasonably.

  “No, ma’am,” replied the youthful masculine voice at the other end of the line.

  Hot color surged into Rue’s face, and she would have hung up in mortification if she hadn’t wanted coffee so much. “I wasn’t talking to you,” she told the room-service clerk with as much dignity as she could manage. Farley had clearly figured out what had happened, and he was chuckling.

  Rue glared at him, then spoke into the receiver again, giving the room number and asking for a pot of coffee, fresh fruit and toast.

  The moment she hung up, Farley gave a chortle of amusement.

  “Well?” Rue demanded, not to be deterred. “Were you married to everyone you’ve ever made love with?”

  Farley cleared his throat and reddened slightly. “Of course not. But this is different. A nice woman doesn’t—”

  Rue interrupted with an imperious upward thrust of one finger and, “Don’t you dare say it, Farley Haynes!” She stabbed her own chest with that same digit. “I slept with you, and I’m one of the ‘nicest women’ you’ll ever hope to meet!”

  “You only did it because I took advantage of you.”

  “What a crock,” Rue muttered, flinging back the covers and standing. “Did I act like I was being taken advantage of?”

  “You should have just stayed in your own room,” Farley grumbled.

  “So now it’s my fault?”

  The marshal sighed. “I think it would probably be easier to change General Custer’s mind about strategy than win an argument with you. Damn it, Rue, what I’m trying to say is, I think we should be married.”

  Rue sat down on the edge of the bed again. She loved Farley, and she hadn’t agreed to marry him in 1892 because she’d known she didn’t want to stay in that dark and distant century. This proposal, however, was quite another matter.

  “It might be difficult getting a marriage license,” she said awkwardly after a long time. “Considering that you have no legal identity.”

  While Farley was still puzzling that one out, the food arrived. Rue wrapped herself in one of the big shirts they’d bought the day before to let the room-service waiter in and sign the check.

  Once they were alone again, she sat at the round table, feet propped on the edge of the chair, and alternately sipped coffee and nibbled at a banana.

  “What do you mean, I don’t have a legal identity?” Farley wanted to know. He added two packets of sugar to his coffee and stirred it with a clatter of spoon and china. “Is there a gravestone with my name on it somewhere back there in the long ago?”

  A chill made Rue shiver and reach to refill her coffee cup. “I can show you where Elisabeth and Jonathan are buried,” she said, not looking at him. “But that’s different, because they stayed in the past. You came here.”

  “So if we find my marker, say around Pine River someplace, that’ll mean I’m going back. It would have to.”

  Rue’s head was spinning, but she understood Farley’s meaning only too well. Elisabeth had a grave in the present because she’d returned to the past and lived out her life. Coming across Farley’s burial place would mean he wasn’t going to stay with her, in the here and now, that he was destined to return.

  “You’re right,” she blurted, “we should get married.”

  A slow smile spread across Farley’s rugged face. “What are we going to do about my identity?”

  Rue bit her lip, thinking. “We’ll have to invent one for you. I know a guy who used to work with the Witness Protection Program—those people can come up with an entire history.”

  After giving the inevitable explanations, Rue finished her breakfast and took a shower. Farley brought her things from the room next door, so she was able to dress and apply light makeup right away.

  They were checked out of the motel and on the road to Montana while the morning was still new.

  As they passed out of eastern Washington into Idaho and then Montana, the scenery became steadily more majestic. There were snow-capped mountains, their slopes thick with pine and fir trees, and the sheer expanse of the sky was awe inspiring.

  “They call Montana the ‘Big Sky Country,’” Rue said, touched by Farley’s obvious relief to be back in the kind of unspoiled territory he knew and understood. She’d have to tell him about pollution and the greenhouse effect sooner or later, but this wasn’t the time for it.

  “Are we almost there? At your ranch, I mean?”

  Rue shook her head. “Ribbon Creek is still a few hours away.”

  They stopped for an early lunch at one of those mom-and-pop hamburger places, and Farley said very little during the meal. He was clearly preoccupied.

  “We should have stopped at the cemetery in Pine River” was the first thing he said, much later, when they were rolling down the highway again.

  Just thinking o
f standing in some graveyard reading Farley’s name on a tombstone made Rue’s eyes burn. “I’ll call the church office and ask if you’re listed in the registry for the cemetery,” she said. Even as Rue spoke the words, she knew—she who had never been a procrastinator—that this was a task she would put off as long as possible.

  In the late afternoon, when the sun was about to plunge beneath the western horizon in a grand and glorious splash of crimson and gold, Rue’s spirits began to lift.

  Roughly forty-five minutes later, the Land Rover was speeding down the long, washboard driveway that led to the ranch house.

  Farley had opened the door and gotten out almost before the vehicle came to a stop. Rue knew he was tired of being confined, and he was probably yearning for the sight of something familiar, too.

  Soldier, a black-and-white sheepdog, met them in the dooryard, yipping delightedly at Rue’s heels and giving Farley the occasional suspicious growl. There were lights gleaming in the kitchen of the big but unpretentious house, and Rue had a sweet, familiar sensation of being drawn into an embrace.

  The screen door at the side of the house squeaked, and so did the old voice that called, “Who’s that?”

  “Wilbur, it’s me,” Rue answered happily, opening the gate and hurrying along the little flagstone walk that wound around to the big screen porch off the kitchen. “Rue.”

  Wilbur, who had worked for Rue’s grandfather ever since both were young men, gave a cackle of delight. Now that he was elderly, he had the honorary title of caretaker, but he wasn’t expected to do any real work. “I’ll be ding danged,” he said, limping Walter Brennan-style along the walk to stand facing Rue in the glow of the porch light. His rheumy blue eyes found Farley and climbed suspiciously to a face hidden by the shadow of the marshal’s hat brim.

  “Who might this be?” Wilbur wanted to know and, to his credit, he didn’t sound in the least bit intimidated by Farley’s size or the aura of strength that seemed to radiate from the core of his being.

  “Farley Haynes,” the marshal answered, taking off the hat respectfully and offering one hand.

  Wilbur studied Farley’s face for a long moment, then the still-extended hand. Finally, he put his own palm out for a shake. “Since it ain’t none of my business,” the old man said, “I won’t ask who you are or what your errand is. If Miss Rue here says you’re welcome at Ribbon Creek, then you are.”

  “Thank you,” Farley said with that old-fashioned note of courtliness Rue found nearly irresistible. Then he turned and went back to the Land Rover for their things, having learned to open and close the tailgate when they left the motel that morning.

  “He gonna be foreman now that Steenbock done quit?” Wilbur inquired in a confidential whisper that probably carried clear to the chicken coop.

  Rue looked back at Farley, wishing they could have arrived before sunset. When he got a good look at the ranch, the marshal would think he’d been carried off by angels. “Mr. Haynes is going to be my husband,” she said with quiet, incredulous joy. “That means he’ll be part owner of the place.”

  The inside of the house smelled stale and musty, but it was still the same beautiful, homey place Rue remembered. On the ground floor were two parlors—they’d been her grandmother’s pride—along with a study, a big, formal dining room, two bathrooms and an enormous kitchen boasting both a wood stove and the modern electric one. Upstairs, above the wide curving staircase, there were five bedrooms, one of which was huge, each with its own bath.

  “This looks more like a palace than a ranch house,” Farley said a little grimly when they’d made the tour and returned to the kitchen.

  Rue took two steaks from the freezer in the big utility room and set them in the microwave to thaw. “This is a working ranch, complete with cattle and horses and the whole bit,” she said. “Tomorrow, I’ll show you what I mean.”

  Farley shoved a hand through already-rumpled hair. “What about you? What are you going to do way out here?”

  “What I do best,” Rue said, taking two big potatoes from a bin and carrying them to the sink. “Write for magazines and newspapers. Of course, I’ll have to travel sometimes, but you’ll be so busy straightening this place out that you won’t even notice I’m gone.”

  When she looked back over one shoulder and saw Farley’s face, Rue regretted speaking flippantly. It was plain that the idea of a traveling wife was not sitting well with the marshal.

  She busied herself arranging the thick steaks under the broiler. After that, she stabbed the potatoes with a fork so they wouldn’t explode and set them in the microwave.

  “Farley, you must have already guessed that I have plenty of money,” she said reasonably, bringing plates to the table. “I’m not going to be rushing out of here on assignment before the ink’s dry on our marriage license. But I have a career, and eventually I’ll want to return to it.”

  Farley pushed back his chair, found the silverware by a lucky guess and put a place setting by each of the plates. He was a Victorian male in the truest sense of the word, but he didn’t seem to be above tasks usually regarded as women’s work. Rue had high hopes for him.

  “Farley?” She stood behind one of her grandmother’s pressed-oak chairs, waiting for his response. Quietly demanding it.

  His wonderful turquoise eyes linked with hers, looking weary and baffled. “What if we have a baby?” he asked hoarsely. “A little one needs a mother.”

  Rue smiled because he’d spoken gently and because the picture filled her with such joy. “I quite agree, Mr. Haynes,” she said, yearning to throw her arms around Farley’s neck and kiss him soundly. “When we have a child, we’ll take care of him or her together,” she assured him.

  She turned the steaks and wrapped the microwaved potatoes in foil. Soon, Rue and Farley were sitting at the table, like any married couple at the end of a long day, sharing a late supper. Farley ate hungrily of the potatoes and steak, but he politely ignored the canned asparagus Rue had heated on the stove. To him, the vegetable probably looked as though it had been boiled to death.

  When they’d finished, they cleaned up the kitchen together.

  “Sleepy?” she asked.

  Farley’s wind-weathered cheeks blushed a dull red. He was going to get stubborn about the marriage thing again, she could tell.

  “Look,” Rue said with a sigh, “you can have your own room until after the wedding. After that, there will be no more of this Victorian-virgin stuff, understand?”

  Farley stared at her for a moment, then smiled. “Absolutely,” he agreed, his voice throaty and low.

  Rue led the way upstairs. On the second floor, she paused in front of an electrical panel and switched off the downstairs lights. “This will be our room eventually,” she said, opening the door to the large master suite with its fireplace and marble hot tub, “so you might as well get used to sleeping here. I’ll be just down the hall.”

  Farley’s throat worked visibly as he swallowed and nodded his agreement. Rue wanted him to sleep alone in the big bed, to imagine her sharing that wonderful room with him.

  She stood on tiptoe to kiss the cleft in his stubbly chin. “Good night,” she said.

  “Good night,” he replied. The words were rough, grating against each other like rusty hinges.

  Rue went down the hall to her own room, whistling softly.

  It was comforting to be back where she had sometimes slept as a child. When she was small, she’d spent a lot of time at the ranch, but later, her mother and grandfather had had some sort of falling out. That was why she’d ended up at Aunt Verity’s when her parents had finally been divorced.

  She unpacked, took a quick bath and climbed into bed. For a long time, Rue lay in the darkness, letting her eyes adjust, remembering. Once, a long time ago, she’d dreamed of living out her whole life on this ranch, marrying, raising her children here. Now it seemed that fantasy was about to come true.

  Not that Farley wasn’t going to have a hard time adjusting to the idea o
f having a working wife. He was fiercely proud, and he might never regard the ranch as a true home.

  “Stop borrowing trouble,” Rue scolded herself in a sleepy whisper. “Farley’s always wanted a ranch. You know that.”

  She tossed restlessly from one side to the other. Then she lay flat on her back and spread her hands over her stomach. Let there be a baby, she thought. Oh, please, let there be a baby.

  Imagining a child with turquoise eyes and unruly brown hair like Farley’s made her smile, but her pleasure faded as she remembered his terrible dream the night before. He’d been flung back to his own time without her.

  Rue squeezed her eyes closed, trying to shut out the frightening possibilities that had stalked her into this quiet place. It was hopeless; she knew Farley could disappear at any time, maybe without any help from the necklace. And if that was going to happen, there was a grave somewhere, maybe unmarked, maybe lost, and he would have to lie there eventually, like a vampire hiding from the light.

  A tear trickled over Rue’s cheekbone to wet the linen pillowcase. Okay, she reasoned, love was a risk. Life was a risk, not just for her and Farley, but for everyone. The only thing to do was ante up her heart and play the hand she’d been dealt with as much panache as possible.

  CHAPTER 11

  Rue was out of bed with the first crow of Wilbur’s pet rooster, but when she reached the kitchen, wearing boots, jeans and a chambray work shirt left behind on her last visit, Farley was already there. He’d built a fire in the wood cookstove and had used Gramps’s old enamel pot to brew coffee. He was reading intently from his how-things-work book.

  She decided to demonstrate the automatic coffeemaker another time; Farley would have enough to think about, between grasping the ways ranching had changed since the 1890s and dealing with the cowboys. He would not be given their respect and allegiance simply because he was the foreman; he would have to earn them.

  Rue kissed the marshal’s cleanly shaved cheek and glanced again at the book he was devouring with such serious concentration. He was studying the inner workings of the combustion engine, and she could almost hear his brain cataloging and sorting the new information.