“Arlin Johnson followed the family to California to get her to marry him,” Raymond said quietly. “He was one of my students and he fell for her sometime in junior high and there was never anybody else for him.”
Mayleen grinned. “Arlin was cute even as a boy. If you ask me, Helen was a lucky girl.”
“My father was a wonderful man,” Serena seemed to relax a little. “Unfortunately he died before Bobbi was born so she never knew him.” She patted her granddaughter’s hand.
“We were such a close little community,” Mayleen spoke this time directly to Serena. “Not many of us, but good people, not like you see these days.” She smiled, seeming to drift back in time. “Your granddad was alive then,” she told the sheriff. “A real hunk, if you ask me.”
“Really, Mayleen!” Sibyl protested.
“Well, he was and most of the girls thought so. And you, Hart, your folks didn’t live in Medicine Stick proper, but their ranch was so close we thought of them as part of the town. The Hartleys were among our leading citizens, ran everything, contributed to the school and the church and paving main street. They were big frogs in a small pond all right.”
“Hartley?” Serena turned to Hart.
“She was named for her mother’s family,” Mayleen didn’t wait for Hart to explain.
This was getting awkward. Alistair reminded himself that he wasn’t here just for entertainment or to further family knowledge. He was trying to solve a long-ago murder. “Did Stacia have any real enemies?” he asked the usual question. “Was there anybody who might have wanted to harm her?”
His questions were met with silence. Raymond shook his head.
“You don’t even know that those bones belonged to Stacia,” Mayleen pointed out. “Sure there were little disagreements. Everybody had those, but nobody in Medicine Stick would have hurt her. Those were good people in our town and she was one of us. Nobody would have killed one of our own. Not on purpose. I can’t even imagine such a thing.”
“It’s been a long time, sheriff,” Sibyl added in a common-sense tone. “After so many years it can’t matter to anybody.”
Selena straightened in her chair. So far she’d done little more than listen attentively, but now she said, “It mattered to my grandmother and her family. They went to their graves wondering what had happened to Stacia. Our family deserves some answers.”
Alistair nodded. “We’ll do our best to find some for you,” he promised.
Hart drove back to the ranch at a speed so slow that several speeding pickup trucks roared around her, betting that they wouldn’t meet another vehicle on the lonely back road. Seeing that she was proving to be a traffic hazard, she set the cruise control at a reasonable speed and did her best to pay attention to her driving.
It wasn’t easy. The afternoon had been both stimulating and alarming. Listening to the talk of people she remembered knowing, hearing herself discussed as from a remote viewpoint, had put her in a strange state of mind.
She felt almost as though she were floating between two bodies, Stacia’s and Hart’s, and she wasn’t sure which one she was.
The evening darkened rapidly and the spray of the car lights ahead of her glistened with blowing dust as the wind increased its speed. This afternoon had been too much and she would be glad to be home.
She barely had time to realize what was happening as a bright dot of light appeared in the corner of her eye and, frantically knowing she must not be in a moving car when she deserted her body, she drove the Nissan to a stop at the edge of the road and braked to a halt.
Having taken time to stop by his office before heading home, Alistair grew a little anxious when Hart failed to respond to his calls so that he stepped up his speed as he hurried down the narrow road that led the last few miles to the house.
Frowning when he saw her car on the right just ahead, only half out of the road and lights still shining into the wind-swept darkness, he pulled in behind the Nissan and jumped out to run to the driver’s side of her car.
She was inside, but slumped over the wheel, her dark hair splayed across the side of her face. Her eyes closed, she didn’t look as though she could possibly just have fallen asleep like that. It was more as though she’d just dropped in place, her face contorted in fear.
“Hart! Hart, darling!” he shouted, trying to shake her awake. It was useless, he couldn’t awake her and with the sure instincts of a trained responder he made sure she was breathing, that her pulse was beating, slow but steady.
She was alive and her vitals were strong, but in spite of his continued efforts he could not awaken her. Instead of calling for an ambulance, he decided it would be quicker to take her into the little hospital in Wichita himself.
No signs of trauma, no indication of an accident so he lifted her gently in his arms, placed her in the back seat of the sheriff’s car and with sirens blaring and lights flashing turned back toward the county seat town.
She was given immediate attention in emergency and not just because she was brought in by the county’s chief law enforcement officer. Business was slow tonight in the little hospital with only an infant with an ear infection crying in one of the rooms. The nurse on duty, the wife of an old friend, examined Hart first and then ordered several tests run.
She didn’t wait for the results, but notified Hart’s family doctor, the woman who had treated both her and Tommy since they were children, and soon Dr. Gray arrived, looking calm and composed as usual.
Alistair knew he should call Tommy, but decided to wait until there was some news. Hart’s brother tended to become overwrought where his little sister was concerned and he preferred to postpone that encounter.
It was a small community, however, and apparently someone called the Bensons because a couple of hours later the whole family showed up, including two scared looking little girls. Christy, the younger girl who didn’t seem to know he was supposed to be the enemy, ran to hug him while Mandy stood back watching fearfully.
Nikki yanked her daughter from his arms while Tommy demanded loudly, “What have you done to my sister this time?”
“Nobody’s done anything to Hart as far as I can see,” the doctor’s authoritative voice resounded behind them. “And Tommy, for Heaven’s sake, keep your voice down. We do have sick people in this hospital, you know.”
She had been Tommy’s doctor since he was a kid. He stepped back, but Nikki didn’t give an inch. “We want to know what’s wrong with Hart? You can’t blame Tommy for being worried.”
Dr. Gray sank into one of the waiting room chairs. “She’s unconscious and we’re unable to wake her up. I recommend sending her to a larger hospital with more resources.”
“Is Aunt Hart going to die?” They had forgotten the little girls until Mandy asked her quavering question.
Dr. Gray gazed at the child with open compassion. “We have no reason to think so, Mandy. In fact I think it might be good if you and your sister went right in and talked to her. She won’t seem to hear you, but we think she might.” She grinned. “Just don’t expect her to answer back for a while yet.”
She waited until the girls left with a nurse, her face sobering. “I think it would be best if Hart was taken to the hospital in Oklahoma City where she was treated before. They’ll be able to compare her condition now with what happened then.”
This made sense to Alistair. “Arrange it,” he said, “I’ll go with her in the ambulance.”
“Now wait a minute,” Tommy protested.
“He’s her husband, Tommy,” Dr. Gray cut off the argument. “He’s within his legal rights.”
“And I’ve EMT training. In case of an emergency I can help.” He knew it wasn’t routine for a family member to accompany a patient and that he was, in effect, pulling rank by insisting on going with Hart. But he had a strong feeling that he must be with her.
Since she had no mirror to look into, she pulled a strand of hair around so she could see it. As she’d expected, it was a glossy red. She was Sta
cia once again.
It was amazing that she and Hart had managed these transfers since they were no more than babies without being harmed. She supposed that was mostly because the early visits had only happened in flashes of times varying from a few seconds to a couple of minutes. Only as they’d gotten older had the periods lengthened.
Always feeling more comfortable in her own body, today she still wondered why she was here once again. The way she had it figured, Stacia’s body had died while Hart was within it, so when she went back to the past, it was to enter an endless loop. The past was played out and she only stepped again through events that had already happened.
Hart was gone so she was taking nothing from her by using her unoccupied body. She was also using a current time the other woman had earned, including an advanced degree in literature that allowed her opportunities she would never have had with her high school diploma and pure love of reading. And, fair or not, the fortune Hart’s grandmother had left was also in her hands.
But then why did she keep coming back here? Was it because she owed something to Hart? Was it her fault that the other woman had died?
She walked the steps in her body, remembering the familiar way to the store where she’d worked since she was a girl. Mrs. Miller greeted her with a smile and said since Stacia was here, she’d go back to see to dinner.
Mr. Miller was waiting on a farmer who was buying seed from the far side of the store where they did such business. No other customers were waiting, so Stacia went automatically to work, straightening and dusting shelves. There was always enough to keep her busy.
The bell on the door rang and she looked up to smile at the entering customer. With her new knowledge of the future, she saw for a second a double image. Against the young couple who had just come in, she saw a man and woman in their late eighties, Sibyl and Raymond Forrester.
They had seemed disapproving of her in that future where she’d only encountered them a little while ago and she found herself uncomfortably aware of their real opinion of her, though they greeted her with their usual reserved friendliness.
“Good afternoon,” Sibyl said, going over to look at the bolts of material. Raymond lingered to visit, “What’s going on in this big town, Stacia?” he asked.
She raised her eyebrows. “Hey! You know better than me. I’m stuck at home or in the store most of the day.”
“Don’t tell me this store isn’t gossip central,” Raymond teased. “And that you don’t have the hot line to what’s going on.”
She was remembering that in spite of his good looks and outgoing manner, she had never been too fond of Raymond Forrester. Anyway, Sibyl was openly jealous of her handsome husband, and could be cutting to any girl who was more than slightly responsive to his friendly overtures.
She smiled politely and turned away, not having to pretend to be busy, and his wife called to him. “Do you think this material will do for my new dress?”
Stacia felt sorry for her. It must be miserable to be married to someone you didn’t trust. But then maybe Sibyl’s opinion of herself was such that she wouldn’t trust any man’s love for her.
Surely she felt different now after all the years they’d had together.
It was apparently her day for reunions because only minutes after the Forresters left without having made a purchase, Mayleen Smith came running into the store, demanding baking powder. “Mama’s making a cake and she needs it right now,” she told Stacia importantly.
Stacia supplied the requested item, put the charge on the Smith family tab, then watched Mayleen run out again.
Somehow she’d thought there was some logic to these three showing up this afternoon, but she guessed not. She’d certainly not gained any pertinent information from any of them. Just coincidence, she supposed, and not particularly surprising since she saw many of the residents of Medicine Stick on a regular basis while she worked in the store.
As she dusted, she thought of those others mentioned by the old residents. Hart’s relatives, the Hartleys. She knew them to speak to, of course, the old woman and her son and daughters, but they held themselves aloof. The kids had been sent away to fancy private schools, not educated along with the town youngsters. She saw little resemblance to Hart in any of them.
Funny that the family had dwindled down to only Hart. You could hardly count Tommy, he didn’t trace his ancestry through the Hartleys.
And then there was Alistair’s grandfather. Like the Hartleys, he lived out on a ranch, though his place hardly compared with their vast spread. He was older than the crowd with which she’d grown up, but somewhat legendary for his bad temper, his drinking and woman chasing. He was the town’s bad boy, romantic and exciting in that way that appealed to some women.
She pushed all such thoughts aside as she got home, changed into a house dress, washed her hands with strong soap, then went into the kitchen to help her mother make supper. Before long Helen joined them and Stacia looked around, thinking this was a gift, a few moments with members of her family who were long gone. How Helen would laugh if she told her she’d met her granddaughter today.
And what would Mom make of Bobbi, so mischievous and irreverent. Mom would think her a most improper young lady, but she would love her too. Mom was incapable of failing to love her own great-granddaughter.
Well, she would just have to love Bobbi in their place. When she got back, if she got back. This visit was stretching on to such lengths that she was beginning to worry.
She was even more concerned that night when she lay awake in the bed across the room from her sister. She wondered what had happened when she left Hart’s body in the car beside the road. If something bad occurred to that form, then she would no longer have an ongoing role in life. She would be trapped in the loop of the past that only led to her own murder.
Chapter Eighteen
Hart woke up and turned over to find Helen quietly dressing on the other side of the room. “Sorry,” her sister apologized with a grin. “I was trying not to wake you since you seemed to have such a rotten night.”
Hart sat up. “I did?”
“Well, you talked a lot in your sleep, yelling something about your heart and how you were going to die so you must have had terrible nightmares. Once you even got out of bed and tried to leave the house. I had a terrible time convincing you that you were only having a dream and talking you back into bed.”
“I don’t remember anything.”
“Dreams are like that and you’ve always had wild nightmares. Remember the time Dad found you down in front of Millers’ Store sleep walking.”
Oh yes. That was one of the times when Hart had come visiting. She wondered now if Hart had tried and failed to come back to this time. Or perhaps she’d struggled to get back to Alistair and the present time where she now lived.
“Sorry to have been such a bother.” Stacia got up, feeling the unfamiliar warmth of the long flannel nightgown around her legs. “Did I wake up anybody else?”
Helen shook her head and she was glad there were no more explanations to make. She put on her own dress, knowing she was late for breakfast which always annoyed Dad, and felt sick at her stomach that she was still here in the past when she needed to be back with Alistair, solving her own murder.
Alistair. She sank back on the bed, not caring if she was late for breakfast because more memories were coming back, flooding her mind.
She’d already remembered meeting him at the school play where Mandy and Christy were performing. And it really was a first meeting. He and Hart might have been long acquainted, but it was the first time she, Stacia in Hart’s body, had seen him.
She’d been both mesmerized and doomed on seeing him. She’d never believed in love at first sight, but it had happened to her. He’d grinned, his overly-serious face turned to her as though even if he’d seen her dozens of times over the years, he was seeing her for the first time.
He might not have realized it, but something inside him recognized that a different p
erson was looking out of familiar eyes.
How had Hart not fallen in love with Alistair Redhawk?
Feelings sizzled and crackled within her and she had a hard time not running to him and shouting, ‘I’ve been waiting for you all my life!’
Instead she stood, pretending to be poised and at ease as others moved around her leaving the school auditorium and her nieces ran to her side, demanding praise for their performances in the little play. She managed to hug them and say the right things even as she was aware that he, a man she was supposed to know but had never met, made his way toward them, shaking hands with her brother and greeting Nikki, his gaze on her face the whole time.
“Good to see you again, Hart,” he said.
“And you,” she responded, feeling weak in her knees.
They had lingered behind the others though Tommy kept frowning back at them. The conversation had not been particularly meaningful; she couldn’t even remember what they’d said, but by the time he left her at Tommy’s pickup they’d made a date for the previous night.
It had begun there and the weeks ahead had sped fast at the same time as lasting forever. They talked, kissed, fell deeper in love with each meeting and she was mentally begging Hart to stay back in the ‘40s for a little while longer.
She gave little thought to what the other woman was feeling, caught as she was by passion, and worried only slightly about her family who might begin to notice something odd about the woman who seemed to be their daughter.
She told herself she couldn’t force Hart to stay back there. This had to be a cooperative decision, a mutual choice. Hart didn’t want to come here anymore than she wished to return to her own life.
Now she thought how narcissistic had been those first days of falling in love. She might as well have been caught in a little bubble with Alistair. Nothing mattered but him and when they ran away to get married, ignoring Tommy’s protests and not bothering to as much as notify Alistair’s family, it had been wonderful!
Wrong Face in the Mirror: A Time Travel Romance (Medicine Stick Series) Page 12
