by Jenny Lykins
Magnolia chuckled at the thought, but Callen had to stifle a shiver of revulsion. Tylar had been the only man to ever touch her, and even then the wedding night was all they’d had before the war had taken him from her. Though a thousand nights with Tylar would never have been enough, that one night had given her Connor. The thought of another man, even the fair-haired, gentle Evan, made her physically ill.
“You know I can never defy Stephen. At least blatantly.” She straightened, pulling her thoughts from her wedding night and drawing the shawl closer in the damp night air. “He’s already taken Connor from me, for fear someone might learn of his existence.” She swallowed back the bitter gall in her throat. “He treats my son as if he were a freak at a fair, hiding him away as he has with that family, refusing to tell me where he is.”
She stood and paced, fighting back her despair. “I would find him, Magnolia, and leave here, but I have nowhere to go. The entire South is over-run with poor whites or rich carpetbaggers. And I haven’t enough money to get us very far. I fear, too, that others will treat my poor baby even more shabbily than Stephen has.”
“Ain’t that baby’s fault he were borned the way he was. Nor yourn, neither,” Magnolia added. “They’s a reason why the good Lord made him the way He did, and good’ll come out of it. If it ain’t in this life, then in the next. And Massa Stephen goin’ to be sorry some day he done treated the boy like he has.”
Callen shook her head in doubt. She could only hope her brother would come to his senses and forget this nonsense of her marrying Evan. With a sigh she helped Magnolia lift her arthritic body from the bench, then they walked in the dark together, arm in arm, back to the house. At the door Callen turned and searched the night once more, peering through the gray and black shadows for a tall, muscular silhouette to step into view.
Had the man merely been one of the soldiers she tried to help? No. Those men came to her for assistance. If he’d been a soldier, he wouldn’t have disappeared.
Her eyes stung, but she blinked away the unbidden tears and swallowed hard. Maybe she’d imagined him after all.
*******
Ty prowled the grounds around the columns like a restless, caged panther. It took enormous self-control not to bellow his rage to the heavens.
Was he going insane?
No. He had a picture of the house. That proved he wasn’t crazy.
Had he imagined the woman?
No, again. Even with his creative imagination, he could never have dreamed up anyone as perfect, as breath-taking as the woman he’d seen. Yet, somehow, she seemed elusively familiar.
And her voice calling his name... He’d heard it again at least a dozen times after the house had disappeared, like a fading echo, the tone changing from joyous to frantic to mournful.
He drew a deep, calming breath of the warm, humid night air, then released it with a frustrated sigh.
The voice haunted him now, almost as if he could still hear her. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the sound came more from a memory than from a ghost.
Impossible.
With a snort of disgust, he ducked under the fence and stomped back to the car, flinging the camera into the back with uncharacteristic roughness, then climbing into the driver’s seat, resisting the urge to bang his head against the wheel. Instead, he stared down at the copy of the architect’s drawings on the passenger seat. His distracted gaze idly wandered across the faded black ink drawings, then he squinted at them through the dim glow of the dome light.
A little chill danced through his blood.
Popping open the glove compartment, he rummaged for the flashlight, then turned the beam onto the drawing in front of him.
“What the—”
He snatched up the papers and propped them against the steering wheel, then pointed the white beam to the sketch of the column base to the right of the front steps.
What did that word say next to it? Why the hell did those people have to write so small? Where the hell was a magnifying glass when you needed one?
Panel. Did it say panel? He squinted harder, jiggled the flashlight when it died, then aimed the flaring light as best he could, but still the faded, tiny copperplate proved unreadable.
He reached behind him and pulled his gear bag to the front, fished through the paraphernalia until he found the telescopic lens, then positioned it over the drawing until the word grew to twice its size.
Panel.
He was a genius.
He studied the drawings through the lens and realized that an adjacent door had been designed to open into the house from within the base of the column.
A secret entry! He’d heard of such things but never had a chance to see one up close and personal.
Without further thought he leapt from the car and worked his way through the dark to the pillar that would have been to the right of the front steps.
The flashlight cut through the dark as he traced every inch of the base with the narrow beam. He could see then the ingenious design of an entry that blended so perfectly, it was hard to detect even when one was looking for it. He gave the stucco-covered brick panel a few tentative shoves, but the only movement came from dirt and bits of crumbling stucco beneath his hands. He looked for anything that might be a trigger mechanism, but if one existed, it was so well-disguised he would never find it. Maybe the door was just stuck. After all, it probably hadn’t been opened since the house had burned. He put his shoulder into it, guessing that the panel would open from the left. The thing continued to stand, rock solid. He tried bullying the right side.
Nothing.
Breathing hard now and covered in sweat, he stood back and glared at the column, then knocked a layer of encrusted dust and dirt from his shoulders.
Maybe they’d sealed the damn thing up long before the home had burned. Just one more dead end to add to the mystery of this house.
With a growl of frustration, he gave the center of the panel one bone-jarring kick before walking away.
And the panel scraped open an inch.
He blinked, raked his hair back from his forehead. Now this was more like it.
He tested the opening and discovered that only pressure in the very center of the stuccoed brick would move the entire panel backward and to the right. Brilliant! What were the chances of someone accidentally putting pressure in just that one area?
Or, he thought with a grin, kicking the bejesus out of it there?
Applying steady pressure, the panel slowly inched back with the grinding, grating screech of a mechanism long unused. Ty squeezed partially through the narrow opening, whipped the beam of the flashlight around the tiny enclosure, then stepped in, swiping at spider webs clinging to his face and arms. The air inside smelled...old, musty with age, and he would swear he could still detect the faint tang of stale smoke. Was he the first person to enter this tiny chamber since the fire?
He flashed the beam of light to the opposite wall. A primitive wooden handle protruded from the center and he turned to see its mate on the inside of the open panel behind him.
Well, that would certainly make things easier.
A glint of metal flashed from the uneven dirt floor of the chamber as he swung the light around. He bent to pick up something flat and rectangular, not much larger than a credit card. When he turned the beam of light on the object, he had to smile at the irony.
A daguerreotype. What better souvenir for a photographer? The faded, brownish image on the thin sheet of silver-plated copper was of a pretty little girl of perhaps five, wearing a frilly dress, her hair in dark ringlets. A boy, only a bit older, stood beside her. Her brother, no doubt. They both wore serious expressions, but the light of mischief couldn’t be suppressed in either set of playful eyes.
He gently brushed dirt from the photograph, pulled out his wallet, then slid the metal plate in for safekeeping. The image possibly dated back to the late 1830s, judging from the clothing as well as the quality of the imprint. This was truly an early specimen of Louis Dag
uerre’s invention, and Ty couldn’t be happier if he’d found a pot of gold.
Tucking the wallet into the back pocket of his jeans, he grabbed the wooden handle on the opposite door and gave it a tug. A gust of air swept in, stirring up the spider webs. The panel behind him creaked shut, but Ty pointed the flashlight through the new opening and swung the door wide.
“What the devil—”
The beam of light should have shone across a dark expanse of dew-covered grass and the ghostly columns that had been the back of the house, but instead he found himself staring into a room at walls of shelves laden with canning jars, wooden barrels, flour sacks, and a rough wooden stairway leading up to a door.
He took an unconscious step back, closed his eyes, shook his head, then looked again.
The darkened, shadowy depths of the huge cellar still stared back at him.
Just then the blasted flashlight chose to go on the blink, plunging everything into darkness except for a weak, thin line of light beneath the door at the top of the stairs.
“Damn.”
He jiggled the flashlight, flicked the switch on and off, shook the damn thing, then whacked it against his palm.
Nothing.
Well, just great.
He tossed the useless light to the ground, felt for the panel through which he’d entered, and pulled it open a crack. Crickets chirped in the peaceful night, a nearly full moon broke through a bank of inky clouds, and the silhouette of the Explorer stood out against the backdrop of the encroaching woods. He turned back around to stare up at the faint line of light at the top of the cellar stairs.
What the heck was going on here? What he was seeing was impossible. He’d entered one side of a free-standing column, yet the other side opened to a well-stocked cellar.
Impossible, he thought, even as he stepped into the room and felt his way toward the stairs. Blood thundered through his veins and every nerve tingled with fiery anticipation.
He bumped into several barrels along the way and dodged clumps of various herbs and flowers hanging from the ceiling to dry. The smell of the dirt floor and tangy scents of stored food hovered in the air.
This was real! Not some vaporous illusion needing a setting sun to make it visible!
Could it be that he had somehow stepped through a portal in time, and stepped right into the cellar of Windsor Plantation?
He followed the thin bar of light, banging knees and shins and tripping over assorted objects, until he found the bottom step of the stairs.
With a glance back toward the panel and his heart pounding hard enough for ten men, he quietly climbed the stairs to the door, turned the knob, then stepped into what was obviously the kitchen.
Another enigma of Windsor Plantation. Most grand houses of that time had the kitchen in a separate building. Had this been the reason for the home’s fiery demise?
A single oil lamp burned on a work table and the low flames of a dying fire flickered in the hearth. A crockery vase with a handful of fresh flowers sat on the scarred tabletop in the glow of the lamp.
He stood there in the center of the room, his mind as frozen as his limbs. He was in the past! Judas Priest! He was in the past!
Okay. What should he do now? Should he explore? Should he go back the way he came and get the heck out of Dodge? Should he—
“Tylar!”
He jerked around at the sound of his name, then all the blood drained from his brain and headed south. He tried to swallow, but the reflex froze in his throat.
She stood in the doorway, wrapped in some kind of ethereal white dressing gown, the dim light in the room setting her skin aglow, her dark hair a shiny curtain tumbling over her shoulders, down her back, across her breasts. He did swallow then, only because he’d forgotten to breathe and his lungs had started to burn.
“It was you! Oh, Tylar, you’re home! You promised you would come home, and you have!”
“Callen?” he hesitantly wondered aloud, somehow knowing that was her name.
One minute she stood in the doorway glowing like a dusky angel, and the next she was in his arms, soft and warm and raining kisses across his face, his neck, his mouth. His arms automatically encircled her, pulled her close, his hands tangled in her mass of hair. He found himself returning her kisses, matching her frenzy as if they were lovers after a long awaited, long anticipated reunion.
Why did it feel so right?
She melted against him, sighed into his mouth, and Ty thought that if she didn’t stop, his mind - among other things - would literally explode.
As though reading his thoughts she stepped back, but held him at arms length, running her hands over him as if looking for injuries, cupping his face in her palms and smoothing her fingers along his stubbled cheeks and jaw. Tears glistened in her dark eyes, making her all the more radiant.
Forcing home the reality that she thought he was someone else.
Before he could even open his mouth to explain, a sob broke from her throat and she cuddled her head against his chest, snaking her arms around his waist.
“You’ve come home! Oh, thank God, you’ve finally come home!”
Well, that sure didn’t make things easier. Neither did the delicate scent of her, or the warmth of every one of her curves pressing into him, or the feel of her—
“Callen.” With more willpower than he’d known he possessed, he set her away. She smiled through misty black-brown eyes swimming in tears, then reached up and touched his cheek, as if reassuring herself that he was real.
Oh, yeah. No way was this going to be easy.
“Callen, we need to talk.”
“Yes, darling, we do.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the door. “But let us talk in my room. Stephen mustn’t know you’ve come home yet. He…he has changed since the war.” She stopped and turned. “Are you hungry? Is that why you came to the kitchen first?” Her gaze traveled down his body, a hungry gaze that heated him to the core as her eyes finally met his again.
He rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat, ignoring the insistent need to adjust his jeans.
“No. No, I’m not hungry, but I don’t think we should go to your roo—”
She yanked on his arm and all but ran through the house, running on tiptoe, dodging the dining room table, a hall tree, a grandfather clock. Together they sped silently up a sweeping grand staircase that shouldn’t exist, past portraits of people long dead, down a massive hall lined with closed doors, gilt-framed pier glasses, and an occasional table against the wall. At the end of the hall Callen opened one of the doors and together they slipped into the room.
An oil lamp burned on the nightstand, leaving the corners in deep shadow but sending a warm, golden glow across a beautifully carved rice bed partially draped in mosquito netting. A daybed sat at the foot, a matching armoire against the opposite wall. A fresh breeze ruffled through two floor to ceiling jib windows, stirring the wispy summer drapes held back with brass holders.
His mind denied it all. How could he possibly be in this room? It didn’t exist. It had burned to the ground—
“Now.” Her voice, so close, so real, only added to his denials. “Where were we? Oh, yes. We need to talk.”
Ty found that a man of well over six feet two and a hundred and eighty pounds can be easily propelled by nothing more than a feminine finger to the chest. She propelled him now, backward, until the bed met the back of his legs and he sat.
“The question is,” she whispered, her breath warm and sweet against his face, “do we want to talk now, or later?”
He continued back, staring with shock into the depths of her dark eyes, until he realized his head had stopped only because it burrowed into the mattress. Whatever happened to a woman playing hard to get? The epitome of the Southern lady? She’d followed him down, hovering over him, then curling under his shoulder as though she belonged there, and now her hands wandered across and down the tee shirt stretched across his chest.
“Waitaminute! Waitaminute!” H
e came off the bed as if it were on fire. “Time out.” He plowed both hands through his hair, paced a few feet, then made the mistake of turning around and looking at her.
Crestfallen wasn’t the word. Devastated didn’t do her justice. She sat, her knees drawn to her chest, curled into herself, in that too-feminine-for-her-own-good dressing gown. A dull gold halo from the lamp outlined the dark curls spilling over her shoulders, and tears glistened in her eyes again, but very obviously no longer tears of joy.
“Do you not want me?” she asked in a tiny voice that stabbed at his heart.
Want her? He scrubbed at his face and shifted his weight to redistribute...
“Whether or not I want you has nothing to do with it. This isn’t right.”
“It is not right for a husband to want his wife?”
That tiny voice, in words so softly spoken, froze every molecule in his body.
Husband?
Wife?
Just as the words echoed through his brain, his gaze fell upon an antique photograph in a silver filigreed frame near the oil lamp. In it an ethereal Callen held a beribboned bouquet and stood next to a man who could have been Ty’s twin. Old-fashioned clothes, oiled hair, sideburns that would have done Elvis proud, but his twin, nonetheless. And very obviously Callen’s groom to her bride.
Oh, hell.
“Callen.” How could this be? How in the world, or out of the world, could this be? He sank down next to her on the edge of a bed that shouldn’t exist, then bounced back up when the very real heat from her thigh against his shot straight through his bloodstream like an arrow toward a bull’s-eye. “Callen,” he started again, trying his best to ignore the heat, his voice husky, “I’m not...I don’t know exactly how to say this but...I’m...I’m not who you think I am.”
There. He’d said it. No going back now.
She cocked her head and blinked. The minuscule shake of her head sent a dark curl sliding from her shoulder.
He envied the hell out of that curl.
“What do you mean? You are my husband. How can you not be...”
