Missing in Lavender: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas series Book 6)

by Barbara Bartholomew

  That’s why he’d argued so vehemently about being left out of what Zan considered dangerous work. He was grown up now, a man in his twenties. He didn’t need to be protected like a little kid.

  Though he felt vaguely guilty that, under the influence of drugs, he must have babbled about his work, giving away secrets. The only control he seemed to have was that he mixed in a lot of fantasy, telling his captors as many untruths as facts. He groaned again as he remembered he’d even told them about Lavender and repeatedly said how much Mac meant to him.

  That was the real worry. That he’d sent Zan’s enemies to Lavender and perhaps put McKinley into danger as well.

  He told himself he couldn’t afford to fall into despair. He had to remain strong, try to outwit these people and find a way to escape. The only thing was that his head hurt so damn much.

  Being shot by a buzz gun, even one set to a mild setting, was no joke, Mac decided as she put on the long old-fashioned cotton dress that Sylvie had provided. She’d eaten breakfast and lunch from a tray, but felt compelled to join the family for dinner. Sylvie called it supper, saying that it would be a simple meal as the main meal of the day was served at noon.

  They didn’t want her to hide in her room, Sylvie had said, but to come downstairs and keep them company. She already knew most of them from her Christmas visit and so shouldn’t feel shy.

  Mac felt as though she were recovering from a bout of flu, shaky and disconcerted and not up to dealing with the enigma that was Jerry’s family. But the hours were passing and she couldn’t wait any longer. His life in the hands of his captors must be at greater risk with every moment that passed. She might as well start by finding out what she could from his family.

  Feeling almost as though she were in a costume drama, Mac found her way down the great curving stairway, each step seeming to reverberate as she considered that something was wrong with her original conception that this was one of the Christmas destinations for the elite that were so popular now that most people lived in cities.

  It had seemed so perfect last Christmas when she’d come here as a guest of Jerry and his family, the Victorian style house decorated with live greenery and a family that ate the festive dinner around a long table in an old fashioned dining room lit by scented, handmade candles.

  And downtown the beautiful, still living tree, adorned with classic balls and baubles, though lighted with tiny electric lights as a concession to safety. Someone, probably Jerry, had excused the modern intrusion by saying that they had their own electrical plant in Lavender, though it could be empowered for only a few short hours each evening. Otherwise they relied on candles they made themselves for light.

  It had been a Christmas out of a Dickens story and she’d delighted in it, astonished that such a place could appear so authentic in the world of the twenty first century.

  But it wasn’t Christmas anymore and Jerry’s family still occupied the old fashioned house on Crockett Street.

  Cautiously she proceeded across the large living room with Sylvie until they pushed open the door to the dining room where even more people than she remembered from last Christmas were seated.

  “Hi,” she said so softly that she wasn’t sure she could be heard over the bustling conversation.

  Mrs. Myers, the housekeeper, took in her presence first. “Come sit by me, McKinley,” she called, her plump face glowing with pleasure. She patted the empty chair at her side, but before Mac could get there, blonde, blue-eyed Betsy, shedding all the dignity of being wife and mother, threw herself across the room to grab her in an enthusiastic hug. “Welcome to Lavender,” she said, only stepping aside so that Jerry’s mother Lynne could meet her with a more dignified, but just as warm greeting.

  “We’re glad you’re feeling better, dear,” she said, smiling so that pretty dimples deepened in her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry,” Mac found herself unaccustomedly gushing. “You must be worried about your son.”

  The dimples vanished and her eyes lost some of their brightness, but Jerry’s father spoke from across the table. “We’ve been concerned about both of you,” the tall, dignified man corrected. “And it’s one less worry to see you safe and sound here in Lavender.”

  She blinked back tears, determined to seem poised and in control as Sylvie helped her to seat herself just in time to keep her shaking limbs from giving way and dumping her unceremoniously on the floor.

  Little Ben clanked his spoon against the table. “Hi, Mac,” he said.

  She managed a trembling smile. “Hello, Ben.” She kept up her smile long enough to extend it to his little sister Emilee, who was looking angelic in a high chair and bounced in her chair in excitement. “Hi, hi, hi,” she said.

  Her mother wiped her face with a napkin and handed her a piece of toast. “Glad to have you back,” Betsy Carr said.

  It was the closest that a girl who had grown up in a children’s home could have to coming home to family, Mac decided, and would have felt so welcomed if only Jerry was here with her.

  “Eat,” seventeen-year-old Sylvie who seemed to have assigned herself the role of their guest’s protector ordered, handing her a plate containing scrambled eggs, bacon and fat home-made biscuits. She was longing for a cup of coffee, but was served instead some sort of tea. She took a sip and found it pleasant though unfamiliar in taste.

  She began to eat and found to her surprise that she felt half starved and wondered how long she’d been unconscious. Talk swirled around her and she heard Grandpapa Forrest, the patriarch of the clan telling Eddie that there had been enough dilly-dallying about Jerry and they must find him immediately and would do so if he had to go out looking himself.

  “Much good you’d do, Grandpapa,” Eddie told him with what seemed some of her husband’s bluntness. “We don’t want to give them anymore hostages.”

  Mac wondered who they were, these people who were taking prisoners from among the family. Surely Eddie at least knew more than she did about what was going on and she intended to find out.

  “Is this industrial espionage?” she asked abruptly, addressing the question to Eddie.

  The other woman put down her fork as she considered, as if the question was a complicated one. “After a fashion,” she said, glancing meaningfully at the two little ones seated next to her step-sister. “We’ll have a little talk later, Mac,” she promised.

  “She’s certainly entitled to an explanation,” golden-haired Betsy, whose mother had married Eddie’s father, making them sisters of a sort, said stubbornly, “after what she’s been through.”

  “Not that the rest of us understand much,” the housekeeper, seated next to Mac sounded rather grumpy. “I don’t know why you and Zan can’t settle here peacefully in Lavender and not go running around in that other place getting into trouble.”

  Other place? It seemed to Mac that every sentence spoken at this table only added to her confusion.

  Chapter Four

  “Gerald!” a harsh male voice interrupted his sleep, but he didn’t immediately open his eyes. His mind confused by the drugs he’d been given, he fought to think clearly before he once again faced his enemies. What more could they want of him now that he’d dumped the contents of his mind into words as a result of the drugging.

  Someone grabbed him by the right shoulder and shook him hard. “Wake up, Mr. Caldecott. We need to talk.”

  “Might as well,” he drawled lazily. “Haven’t much else to do.” He opened his eyes to see a new face, that of a youngish man with a thin face and intelligent gray eyes. He wore neatly fitting slacks and a casual brown sweater and looked like any of thousands of workers he saw everyday at headquarters in Dallas.

  “Funny man,” the newcomer said disapprovingly. “I’m told you’ve been so amusing that you’ve had everybody around here laughing.”

  Jerry sat up, finding movement painful. These state-of-the art interrogation meds they’d been feeding him were not only hard on the mind. They didn’t do much for the body eith
er. Every joint and muscle ached, much as though he were suffering from a severe case of influenza.

  He waited, fairly sure that this man was different from the others. They’d just been lower level hirelings sent to do the job of pumping info out of him. This man was higher up. Maybe one of those in charge.

  “What do you have to say for yourself?” the man queried, his tone that of a headmaster addressing a reluctant student.

  “Figure I’ve said enough,” Jerry admitted frankly. “My brain’s dry of new information. You’ve got it all.”

  “Mr. Caldecott,” the drily sarcastic voice went on. “We are not fools here. We know you have been trained to obscure and confuse under . . .” He hesitated over the word, “under sedation. You have not told us what we need to know.”

  That seemed odd. He was under the impression that he’d spilled his guts.

  “Hey, I’m just an average American boy who works at a job and runs on the weekend. I’m real into running, you know, like to keep in shape.”

  “Perhaps because of that pretty girlfriend. What’s her name? McKinley Jean Alva. But, of course, you call her Mac.”

  His blood chilled, but quickly he recovered his wit. As Mr. Anonymous had just suggested, he was not without training and experience. “What’s one pretty girl? Like they say, there’s lots of goldfish in the big bowl.”

  The last thing he wanted was for his sweet Mac to become a target for Zan’s enemies.

  When Sylvie summoned her to help out at school that afternoon, saying that they were short a grade school teacher, Mac agreed. Her conversations with family members had given her few clues as to what had happened to Jerry and since it was miles to the nearest main highway and she didn’t know how to drive a buggy or ride a horse, she hadn’t figured out yet how to leave Lavender and get back home to continue her own search.

  She blinked when they walked into the classroom to see a couple of dozen youngsters, the little girls in full, longish dresses with thick stockings on their legs, and the boys in short pants and tall boots such as were worn more than a hundred years ago.

  The calendar at the front of the school room was turned to an August day in 1913 and the flag in a stand on the side featured too few stars. She counted them quickly. Forty five. New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, Alaska and Hawaii and Puerto Rico were missing.

  She felt a certain indignation. This was carrying things a little too far. It was one thing to set up a real little town as a holiday resort, kind of like the movie Holiday Inn with Bing Crosby where an inn in New England only entertained guests on holidays, but another to have a whole community, including youngsters, pretend to live in the past. This couldn’t be good for these youngsters who would grow up to be so out of touch with the real world.

  Sylvie took charge with a firm voice that surprised Mac, who had seen the girl as a gentle soul. But it was obvious that even this well behaved classroom would have gotten quickly out of hand with the older boys at the back taking over if Sylvie had allowed this to happen.

  She watched, somewhat awestruck as the teen girl, stood toe-to-toe with a boy several inches taller than herself, who stood grinning down at her and ready to lead the insurrection.

  “Sit down, Charlie,” she ordered calmly.

  He leaned insolently toward her and Mac saw that the other students watched closely. She stepped closer, well aware that the bully could take both of them down, but prepared to defend the girl with all her might. From her own youthful experience, she considered the possibility that the boy was armed. Most likely he’d carry a knife rather than a gun.

  Charlie grinned. “I think you’re real pretty, Sylvie,” he drawled.

  Sylvie didn’t give an inch. “I said sit down, Charlie. Sit down and get to work on your arithmetic or else.”

  “Else what?” he drawled the challenge.

  “Or else your mama and I will be having a long talk,” Sylvie informed him, eyes narrowed and her forehead ruffled with a deep frown.

  “But Sylvie,” he protested.

  She took a step toward him. “Sit down, Charlie.”

  To Mac’s surprise, he sat and, rather sullenly, took to adding figures to his slate. She had to smother a grin. Apparently having the right connections were what mattered here and Sylvie knew Charlie’s mama.

  She learned that three grades, fourth, fifth and sixth took their lessons in this classroom and volunteered to help with reading. Two young girls, bustling with their own importance, led the way and soon she was listening to the fourth graders read aloud from a tattered book that was passed around. The two girls read well, but most of the others stumbled over the words, and she wondered that they didn’t have books for each students.

  By the time the day was over, Mac felt as though she’d been beaten, every bone in her body aching from fatigue and her head whirling from the continued attention that had been required. But, from that first encounter with Charlie, Sylvie controlled the classroom and Mac was surprised that the boy gave her a grin as he left the room.

  “See you tomorrow,” he called to both of them.

  “Afraid not,” Sylvie answered. “Miss Miller will be back in the morning.”

  She’d seen to it that the youngsters cleaned the room before the day ended, but she swept the floor while Mac followed with a wet mop, not sure she could manage each step and then, closing the door behind them, they excited the building, followed by the thanks of the school superintendent.

  “That was fun,” Sylvie announced cheerfully as she nodded at the students, some of whom must be her own age, who called out to her as the two moved past. “Didn’t the day just fly by?”

  Mac who thought the minutes had moved on leaden feet and that four o’clock would never come, nodded weakly. She watched as boys and girls in period clothing, dashed by and others climbed up on horses or were picked up by farm wagons driven by elder brothers or fathers and headed for homes in the country.

  She was past being amazed and would wait until she’d had a chance to rest and clear her head before trying to work out the puzzle that was Lavender.

  After supper, she followed Eddie from the dining room, cornering her to whisper a request for some private time. The dark-haired woman stumbled over the threshold and protested, “but I promised to help get the twins to bed.”

  “Dammit!” Mac spat out the word with unaccustomed vigor. “Ben and Emilee are not twins. They’re not even the same age and they don’t look much alike.”

  “I didn’t say they were identical twins,” Eddie replied, avoiding her gaze.

  Mac stared at her until, finally, their eyes met. “Come on, Mrs. Alston . . .”

  “Eddie,” the other woman interrupted hastily. “Or Edith, if you prefer.”

  Mac’s continued stare was a challenge and Eddie sighed. “It’s just so hard to explain.”

  “Hey! I spent the day helping teach school in 1913. I saw girls in long skirts, a flag with forty five stars and kids playing with toys that went out of style long before I was born. One girl had a hoop and the boys played marbles.”

  “Nothing wrong with hoops or marbles.” Eddie looked around the long living room as though for backup, but the rest of the family had gone on, probably eager to escape this confrontation, Mac supposed.

  Eddie sighed again, then sank deep into the nearest cushioned chair. With her slender build, she looked almost childlike surrounded by the thick cushions.

  “All right, Mac. I give. What do you want to know and don’t blame me if you don’t believe any of it.”

  “What year is it?”

  “1913. August.”

  Mac bit her lip to keep from shouting. “And what is Lavender?”

  “A little community surrounding a town by that name, mostly supported by agriculture.”

  “And how many stars are on the U.S. flag?”

  “How many do you think there are?”

  Mac raised her eyebrows. “I know that since Puerto Rico became a state in 2021, we have fifty one stars.”


  Eddie nodded. “Not here,” she said. “Not now. “ Her expression betrayed amusement as she asked, “And what do you think Lavender is?”

  Mac considered how best to answer this. “When I was here in December, I thought it was a resort community, designed to give people who could afford such a treat, an old fashioned Christmas. Now,” she admitted honestly, “I don’t know.”

  She saw Eddie’s gaze shift to something behind her and was not surprised when the voice of Eddie’s step-sister sounded. “It’s real, McKinley,” Betsy said gently. “Lavender is locked away in time by a scientist, magic-maker, your choice as to which, and it is 1913 here. We move through time on a different path than the world you know.”

  “My great-grandfather,” Eddie added. “He was the one who did it. You see, Mac, there was an outbreak of deadly flu and Grandpa wanted to stop its spread. The people of Lavender voted to cut themselves off.”

  That afternoon she rode in the buggy with Betsy and Eddie to what they said was the edge of Lavender territory. She stayed quiet while the two women chatted, watching a landscape pass by that was already familiar to her from her Christmas visit. She recognized the comfortable cottage and grazing cows that belonged to the farm where Betsy lived with her husband Caleb, and at a couple of spots, farm youngsters working in their fields waved and called greetings.

  Even as her concern for Jerry stirred in her mind, her sense that she should be doing something about finding him ballooning, she couldn’t help being drawn into the peace of the country setting. Life was once like this, she told herself, feeling jangled nerves going loose and confidence rising.

  Finally Eddie drew the team to slow down from their energetic clip-clop as they approached the little winding stream that she remembered from before. It was just beyond this point that she, along with Jerry and his family, had been escorted from the nearby roadway into what she’d thought was a holiday resort.

  Her mouth went dry and her heart danced in her chest. She felt more excited than fearful as though she were being introduced into new secrets. Born into the age of scientific wonders, Mac wasn’t somehow entirely doubtful that a way had been discovered to cut across time into the past. She wanted to believe that this place was more than a fanciful construct and that she was in a real, here-and-now Lavender.