Here and Then

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Are you sure it would be wise for us to sleep together?” she finally managed in a thin voice. “After all, we don’t exactly know where our relationship is headed.”

  “Relationship,” Farley repeated with a thoughtful frown, stretching out on the bed. At least he was comfortable. Rue was a mass of warm aches and quivering contradictions. “That’s a peculiar-sounding word. If it means what I think it does, well, I don’t believe all of that has to be worked out tonight. Do you?”

  Rue ran the tip of her tongue nervously over dry lips. “No, but—”

  Farley arched one eyebrow. “But…?” he prompted, not unkindly.

  Rue hugged herself and unconsciously took a step closer. “I’m not sure you’re going to understand this, being a man, but when we made love, I opened myself up to you in a way that I never had before. There was no place for me to hide, if you know what I mean, and intimacy of that kind—”

  He rose, graceful in his bath towel, and came to stand directly in front of her. “Did I hurt you?” he asked.

  Rue shook her head. “No,” she croaked after a long moment of silence. “It’s just that I felt so vulnerable.”

  Gently, Farley took Rue’s hand, raised it to his mouth, brushed the knuckles with his lips. “I’ll make you a bargain,” he said. “If I’m loving you and you get scared, all you have to do is say stop, and I will. No questions, no arguments.”

  Gazing into Farley’s eyes, Rue knew he was telling the truth. Color pooled in her cheeks. “You know as well as I do,” she told him with a rickety smile, “that once you start kissing and touching me, stopping will be the last thing on my mind.”

  He eased her to the side of the bed, pulled the nightgown off over her head and tossed it aside. Then he feasted on her with his eyes, and that alone made Rue feel desirable and womanly.

  Her breasts seemed to swell under Farley’s admiring gaze, the nipples protruding, eager. Her thighs felt softer and warmer, as if preparing to cradle his hard weight, and the most secret reaches of her womanhood began a quiet, heated throbbing.

  When Farley spread splayed fingers through her freshly combed hair and bent her head back for his kiss, Rue gave an involuntary whimper. She was terrified, and the sensation of his mouth against hers was something like hurtling down the face of Mount Rainier on a runaway toboggan.

  Rue felt Farley’s towel fall away as he gripped her bottom, raised her slightly and pressed her against him, never slackening the kiss. Most of her wits had already deserted her, but she knew somehow that Farley was afraid, too, as she had been when she’d suddenly found herself in an alien century. He needed her comfort as he might never need it again, and if Rue hadn’t already been incredibly turned on, that knowledge alone would have done the trick.

  Passion made her bold. Farley broke the kiss with a gasp of surprised pleasure when she closed her hand around his manhood and instinctively began a fiery massage. Finally, Rue knelt and took him into her mouth, and his fingers delved into her hair, frantic, worshiping. A low groan rolled beneath the washboard muscles of his stomach before escaping his throat.

  Farley allowed Rue to attend him for a long time—it was amazing, but somehow he was still in charge of their lovemaking, even while she was subjecting him to exquisite rapture. Finally he stopped her, raised her to the bed and gently laid her there.

  He said something to her in a low, rumbling voice, and then repaid her thoroughly for the sweet torment she’d given him. He did not bring her to the brink again and again, as Rue had done to him, however. Instead, Farley took her all the way, pursuing her relentlessly, until her heels dug deep into the mattress and her cries of satisfaction echoed off the ceiling.

  When at last he took her, Rue didn’t expect to have anything left to give. Her own instant, fevered response came as a shock to her, and so did the deep wells of sensation Farley plumbed with every thrust. He was exposing parts of her emotional life, places in her very soul, that had never seen the light.

  Afterward, as before, he held Rue close, and her soaring heart returned from the heavens and settled itself inside her like a storm-ruffled bird that has finally found a roosting place. A tear brimmed the lower lashes of Rue’s right eye and then zigzagged down her cheek, catching against the callused side of Farley’s thumb.

  Maybe he knew she didn’t need consoling, that she was crying because life was life, because she was so grateful for the steady beat of her heart and the breath in her lungs. In any case, all Farley did was hold her a little tighter.

  “It’s strange,” she said after a very long time, “to think that Elisabeth and Jonathan and Trista are in this house, too, even though we can’t see or hear them.”

  Farley’s hand moved idly against her hair, her temple, her cheek. “I’m still trying to figure out that thing you’ve got downstairs, the box with the pictures inside. There’s no point in vexing my poor brain with how many people are traipsing around without us knowing about it.”

  Rue smiled, spreading her fingers over the coarse patch of hair on Farley’s chest. “It’s nice, though, to think Bethie and the others are so close by, that they’re not actually dead but just in another dimension.”

  He reached over to cover her lips with an index finger. “I’m not even going to ask what you mean by ‘another dimension,’” he said, “because I’m afraid you’ll tell me.”

  She turned over, resting her leg on top of his and curling her foot partway around his ankle. Then she gave one of his nipples a mischievous lick before smiling into his eyes. “There is so much I want to show you, Farley. Like my ranch, for instance.”

  “Your what?”

  “You remember. I told you I had a ranch in Montana.”

  He chuckled. “I thought you were just pulling my leg about that. How did you come to have your own land?”

  “I inherited it from my grandfather. Let’s go there, Farley—tomorrow. As soon as we’ve bought you some new clothes.”

  Farley stiffened, and his tone, though as quiet as before, had an edge to it. “The duds I’ve got will do just fine.”

  Rue sighed. “This is no time to have a fit of male pride, Marshal. Times have changed, and if you go around in those clothes, people will think you’re a refugee from a Wild West show.”

  “I don’t accept what I haven’t earned,” he replied. He’d clamped his jaw with the last word, and even in the thin moonlight Rue could see that his eyes had gone hard as marbles.

  “Good,” Rue said. “I need a foreman at Ribbon Creek anyway; my lawyers have been complaining about the one I’ve got ever since Gramps died.”

  In the next few seconds, it was as though Farley’s masculine pride and desire for a ranch had taken on substance even though they remained invisible. Rue could feel them doing battle right there in the room.

  “What are you going to do if you don’t work for me, Farley?” she pressed quietly. “You’re one of the most intelligent men I’ve ever known, but believe me, you don’t have the kind of job skills you’d need to make a decent living in this day and age.”

  He was quiet for such a long time that Rue feared he’d drifted off to sleep. Finally, however, Farley replied, “Let’s go and have a look at this ranch of yours, then.”

  Rue laid her cheek against his chest, smiled and closed her eyes.

  When she awakened in the morning, Farley was sitting in a chair next to the bed, wearing his regular clothes. Although there were pulled threads shriveling the fabric in places, and the pants looked an inch or two shorter, he was still handsome enough to make Rue’s heart do a happy little spin.

  “I was beginning to think you meant to lay there till the Resurrection,” Farley grumbled, and Rue ascertained in that moment that, despite the fact that he’d gotten up comparatively early, the marshal was not a morning person.

  “Low blood sugar,” Rue diagnosed, tossing back the covers and sitting up. She’d put her nightgown back on during the night, so she didn’t feel as self-conscious as she might have otherwise. �
��Don’t let it bother you. I have the exact same problem. If I don’t eat regularly—and junk food is worse than nothing—I get crabby, too.”

  Farley was already at the door. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but if you’re saying I’m hungry, you’re right. I was planning to make breakfast, and I took some wood from the basket by the parlor fireplace, but I’ll be damned if I could figure out where to kindle the fire in that kitchen stove of yours.”

  Rue grinned and preceded him out of the bedroom and down the stairs. “It’s not the kind of stove you’re used to, Marshal. Remember the cords on the lamp? Most everything in the kitchen works the same way, by electricity.” She’d explained the mysteries of that science as best she could the night before, but in a way it was like trying to illustrate their trip through time. Rue couldn’t very well clarify things she barely understood herself. “Never fear,” she finished. “There’s a set of books at the ranch that covers that type of thing—Gramps had a penchant for knowing how things worked.”

  She crossed the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, knowing ahead of time what she’d find. Nothing edible, except for three green olives floating in a jar. The other stuff had been there when she arrived at the house days—weeks?—before.

  Rue opened the freezer and took out a box of toaster waffles. “I’m afraid this will have to hold us until we can get to Steak Heaven out on Highway 18.”

  Farley watched in consternation as Rue opened the carton, pulled apart the inner wrapper and popped two waffles into the toaster. While they were warming, she scouted out syrup and put two cups of water into the microwave for instant coffee.

  “How does this contraption work?” Farley asked, turning to the stove that had so confounded him earlier.

  Rue checked the oven on a hunch and found kindling sticks neatly stacked on the middle rack. She struggled not to laugh as she removed them, thanking heaven all the while that Farley had not gone so far as to light a blaze.

  “These knobs on the top control everything,” she said when she could trust herself to speak. With one arm, she held the applewood while pointing out the dials with her free hand.

  Farley listened earnestly to her explanation, then nodded with a grin. It was plain that he was a quick study; no doubt he would take in information as fast as it could be presented.

  They breakfasted on the waffles and coffee, and then Rue hurriedly showered and dressed. She wasn’t afraid of her Aunt Verity’s house, even after all that had happened to her and to Elisabeth here; she could never have feared that benevolent place. Still, Rue felt an urgency to be gone, a particular fear she didn’t like facing.

  Perhaps away from here, the necklace would have no power. If it did, however, Farley could disappear at any moment.

  Getting the marshal to leave his gun belt behind required some of the fastest talking Rue had ever done, but in the end, she succeeded by promising him access to the big collection of firearms that had belonged to her grandfather.

  It was almost noon when she and Farley locked the house and set out. Rue had brought her laptop computer, clothes and personal things, but she’d deliberately left the necklace behind; in its own way, the thing was as dangerous as the marshal’s Colt .45.

  Farley was fascinated by the Land Rover. He walked around it three or four times before getting in.

  Thinking her guest might be interested in seeing how Pine River had developed over the decades since he’d been its marshal, Rue drove him down Main Street, showed him the movie house and the library and the local police station. She avoided the churchyard without looking too closely at her reasons.

  Farley was, of course, amazed by the changes, and would have insisted on getting out and exploring, Rue was sure, if he hadn’t been so fascinated by their mode of transportation.

  He spent the entire ride to Steak Heaven opening and closing the glove compartment, turning the dials on the radio, switching on the heat, then the air-conditioning, then the heat again.

  “Soon as we get to Ribbon Creek,” Rue promised from her position behind the wheel, “I’ll teach you to drive.”

  Farley beamed at the prospect.

  When they reached the restaurant, Farley turned his attention from the dashboard and stared in amazement at the crowded parking lot. “Jumpin’ Juniper,” he said. “Does everybody in this place have one of these newfangled buggies?”

  Rue smiled. “Almost,” she answered, “but they come in all shapes, sizes and colors, as you can see.”

  Farley paused to inspect a pricey red sports car as they passed, giving a low whistle of appreciation. It only went to prove, Rue thought in amusement, that some things transcend time. Maybe men had always been fascinated by methods of transportation.

  The noise and bustle of the inside of the restaurant made Farley visibly nervous. His face took on a grim expression, and Rue saw him touch his outer thigh once or twice while they waited to be seated. Probably he was unconsciously seeking reassurance that wasn’t there—his gun.

  “Smoking or nonsmoking?” a waitress asked pleasantly.

  Farley’s turquoise eyes widened as he took in the girl’s short skirt, and Rue realized he’d never seen a female show so much leg in public.

  “Non,” Rue answered, linking her arm with Farley’s and propelling him between the crowded tables as the girl led the way.

  “Tarnation,” Farley muttered, looking around and seeing that not only other waitresses but customers were dressed in the same way. “If the Presbyterians saw this, they’d be spitting railroad spikes.”

  Rue chuckled. “Some of these people probably are Presbyterians, Farley. This is an accepted way for women to dress.”

  They reached their booth, and Farley slid into the seat across from Rue, still looking overwhelmed. His eyes narrowed. “It’s bad enough to see a woman in pants,” he whispered pointedly. “I hope you don’t plan on parading around in one of these getups you call a dress, with your knees sticking out. I’m the only one who should see you like that.”

  Rue rested her plastic-coated menu against her forehead for a moment, hiding her face while she battled amusement and her natural tendency to protest his arbitrary words. Finally, she met his gaze over the steaming cups of coffee between them, and said, “Even if we were married, which we’re not, I wouldn’t let you tell me what to wear, Farley. That would be like allowing you to tell me how to vote.”

  He stared at her. “You can vote?”

  She sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward. “I can see this is going to be quite a project, acclimatizing you to the twentieth century.”

  The waitress returned, and Rue ordered a club sandwich and a diet cola, since it was lunchtime. Farley, having read his own menu, asked for sausage and eggs. Plainly, the toaster waffles hadn’t seemed like breakfast to him.

  When the food came, he loaded it down with pepper, except for the toast, and consumed every bite, leaving nothing on his plate but a few streaks of egg yoke.

  Rue paid the check with a credit card, and when the cashier handed it back, Farley intercepted and studied the card intently.

  “This is money?” he asked, handing the card to Rue as they crossed the parking lot a few minutes later.

  “The plastic variety,” Rue affirmed with a nod. She stopped and looked up into Farley’s wonderful eyes, feeling so much love for him that it was painful. “I know everything seems pretty bewildering,” she said gently, “but you’re a very intelligent man and you’ll figure things out.”

  He looked the Land Rover over speculatively as they approached. “I’d like to drive now,” he announced.

  “No way,” Rue answered, pulling her keys from the pocket of her jeans. “Cars move a whole lot faster than horses, Farley, and when they collide, people get killed.”

  Although the marshal looked disappointed, he didn’t argue.

  Where before his attention had been taken up by the gizmos on the dashboard, now Farley was intent on the other cars, the buildings, the power lines
alongside the highway. As they drove toward Seattle, he asked a million questions about the pavement, the road signs, the cars and trucks in the other lanes.

  When Seattle itself came into view, with its busy harbor and the picturesque Space Needle, Farley was apparently struck dumb by the sight. He stared intently, as though his eyes couldn’t take in enough to suit him, and he kept turning in different directions.

  Rue drove through the city, knowing Farley couldn’t have absorbed explanations just then, and kept going until they reached a large mall.

  She parked and they entered the concourse. Rue still didn’t speak because Farley was so busy absorbing the sights and sounds that he probably wouldn’t have heard her anyway.

  He studied a colorful display in front of a bookstore with an attitude that seemed like reverence to Rue. She was touched by the depth of his wonder, knowing it must be something like what she felt when he made love to her.

  Suddenly she wanted to give him the world, show him everything there was to see.

  “I remember that you like reading,” she said, her voice a little shaky. She proceeded into the store, located the instructional section and found a comprehensive volume on how things work. Then from another shelf, she took a novel set in the twenty-fifth century. It was the only way she could think of to prepare Farley for the fact that human beings could fly now, that a few brave souls had even visited the moon.

  Farley watched as she paid. “You can buy books with plastic money?” he asked as they left.

  “You can buy almost anything with plastic money,” Rue replied, handing him the bag.

  They went on to the men’s department of one of the big chain stores, and Farley was soon outfitted with jeans, shirts, underwear and socks. He refused to part with his boots, and Rue didn’t press the issue.

  Soon they were on the freeway again, headed east. Farley alternated between staring out the window and thumbing through the books Rue had bought for him. When he opened one and started to read, she protested.