Lost Yesterday

by Jenny Lykins

  "I guess with the wedding tomorrow, and everything that's happened lately, I'm just a little edgy." She looked up at Hunter with a shaky grin. But worry still darkened in his eyes. She tried changing the subject. "Madame Lefarge is almost done with the fitting. Will you talk to the musicians until I get there?"

  "Are you certain you feel up to it?" he asked while studying her face. He'd given her that same look more than once in the last few weeks. At first she'd thought she'd covered her concern over the nightmares and the brief flashes from her time, but Hunter was too sensitive to her moods to be fooled. Too bad he wasn't sensitive to when she was telling the truth.

  "I'm fine. Really. Just a case of pre-wedding jitters."

  He gave her one long, all-encompassing look before he turned slowly, clearly unconvinced, then disappeared down the hall.

  "So, cherie, I must now alter the gown, just a little, since your handsome husband has seen you in it, oui?"

  It was tempting to have the gown changed, sort of like knocking on wood, but Marin refused.

  "No. I don't think so. After all," she smiled at the dressmaker with false confidence, "we're already married. What could go wrong?"

  She shimmied from the yards of ivory silk and lace, then gave distracted answers to the dressmaker's questions while Mamie laced and buttoned her into her day gown.

  When Marin arrived in the parlor she found her husband entertaining not the musicians, but Katie and his mother. Katie immediately scampered across the room and climbed onto Marin's lap as soon as Marin settled into her favorite chair.

  Lucille still looked terribly pale from her surgery but was in remarkable shape considering her ordeal. Hopefully some of her health was due to Marin, who'd made sure sterile bandages had been applied every day to a thoroughly cleansed incision. She'd also forced the stubborn woman to get up and walk every day, even if was just a step of two. That process had become easier when Marin finally wised up and enlisted Katie to ask in her most angelic voice for "Gwandma to get better." Doctor Ritter had been horrified when he'd found that his patient wasn't getting absolute bed rest, then his horror turned to astonishment at the progress she made.

  Marin had a feeling Lucille would have survived no matter how serious her injuries had been, just to hold Hunter to his promise of a proper wedding. She apparently had been conscious when he'd visited her room before going after Cabot. And though she never mentioned the tender scene, she was a changed woman. Not all soft and cuddly. Nothing so different as that. Marin wasn't even sure if she would like her mother-in-law if the woman had done a complete about face. But the bitterness and hate were gone. Lucille helped with the planning of the wedding with a gruff enthusiasm, failing to hide the change in her, no matter how hard she tried.

  "Hunter said you were not feeling well, so I instructed the musicians as to the music. I was sure you would not mind."

  "No, I don't. Thank you." She really didn't mind. That was one less thing for her to think about. Besides, this was really Lucille's wedding. A promised reward for her recovery. Let her have it the way she wanted.

  Puffy and Angel rocketed into the room from the nether regions of the house. No doubt they'd been camping out in the kitchen, begging shamelessly for tidbits of food. They'd discovered early on what a soft touch Emmaletta could be.

  Puffy halted in the middle of the plush carpet and hesitantly sniffed each occupant of the room, just in case any of them happened to possess something edible. When his efforts failed to produce a treat he circled once, then fell heavily onto Hunter's booted feet and instantly fell asleep.

  Angel leapt soundlessly to the arm of the loveseat Lucille occupied, then strolled along the back, holding her tail absolutely perpendicular. This was another change in Lucille Marin could not believe, as she watched the enormous black cat daintily pick her way to Lucille's lap, then curl into a loose ball which left paws and tail hanging limply. A loud purr reverberated from the black lump. When Lucille's hand unconsciously stroked the shiny fur, Marin could only blink and shake her head.

  Marin's gaze fell onto Hunter, who had picked up a newspaper and buried his nose in it. She wasn't surprised. He'd been using every technique available to avoid close contact. Even though he was polite, complimentary, and sometimes even warm, there was an underlying distance between them that broke her heart. Would he ever believe her about Ryan? Would he ever again treat her with the teasing warmth she'd grown to love about him? Would he die before he realized the truth? Would he die thinking she'd betrayed him?

  Her mood reflected the gloomy day. She rose to light a lamp against the gray afternoon. She nearly dropped the burning match when Ambrose burst into the room.

  "Mistah Hunter, the sky don't look good. It got that same green look like when the twister hit Tranquille. I thinks we's in for a bad 'un."

  At that moment a shower of hail clattered against the house. Everyone, including Lucille, jumped to look out the window. Hail the size of marbles fell from the sky and ricocheted off the house and grounds.

  "Ambrose, have Nathan come help us close up the shutters, then we'll secure the outbuildings." Hunter opened the window to yank the outer shutters closed as he spoke.

  Marin ran for the stairway.

  "I'll fetch Mamie and we'll get the upstairs. Lucille, keep Katie in here." Mamie lumbered onto the upstairs landing as Marin grabbed a handful of skirts and took the stairs two at a time. "Help me close up, Mamie!"

  The sounds of shutters banging closed warred with the clatter of hail against the house. Marin had never realized there were so many windows in the home until she ran from room to room, closing first the outside shutters and then the ones inside. She ran into the last bedroom, cursing her corset and bemoaning how out of shape she'd gotten. The sight that met her turned her blood to ice water.

  Slumped in the rocker, a young man in buff trousers, white shirt and riding boots sat with his head leaning crookedly against the seat back. The snowy perfection of the shirt was marred by a huge, vivid red stain over his chest.

  Marin's feet rooted to the floor just inside the doorway. Her heart bounced around in her ribcage as she stared at the apparition. He lifted his head to gaze at her with pain-filled eyes. Her feet refused to carry her backward out the door, refused to move at all. A scream formed in her throat but came out as nothing more than a terrified squeak.

  This felt nothing like her first encounter with Hunter. She had been intrigued, warmed and uncharacteristically calm when she'd first seen Hunter's ghost. What she felt now was pure, icy terror. Her eyes stayed riveted to the bloody wound as she tried to force her body backward.

  "I's through with them windows up here. We best be..."

  Mamie's words drifted off when she rounded the doorway behind Marin. Thank God. Surely Mamie would be able to scream. Surely she saw the ghost, too. Any second now she would -

  "Mistah Nate! You devil! You ain't got no business showin' up here, scarin' the daylights out'n Mistah Hunter's wife!" Mamie's mountainous form waddled into the room and headed straight for the apparition. "Now you just get on out of here. Go on! Shoo!" She flapped her massive arms in front of her as if no more than shooing Puffy away from her prized vegetable garden. To Marin's astonishment the young spirit grinned a devilish, dimpled grin, then vanished into a mist.

  Dear Lord! When he'd smiled, he'd looked enough like Hunter to be his brother! His younger brother!

  "Is you all right, chile? They ain't nothin' to be afeared of. Mastah Nate has a way of showin' up when ain't nobody expectin' it." Mamie bustled to the nearest window and closed the shutters as she spoke. "I guess there ain't no time a body be expectin' to see somethin' like that though. But he harmless." Mamie finished closing the shutters then came to stand in front of Marin. Gentle, chocolate brown eyes studied her, then Marin felt herself being guided to the rocking chair. That was enough to put life back into her limbs. She shied away from the recently-occupied seat and sank to the edge of the bed instead. She sat for a moment, trying to jumpstart
her heart and form a coherent thought.

  "Who was that, Mamie? Did Hunter have a younger brother die in the war?" Her hand still covered her chest, and she could feel the thrumming of her heart beneath it.

  Mamie's wheezing chuckle rose from the bottom of her lungs.

  "Lordy, no! Why, chile, that were Mastah Nate! He be Mistah Hunter's pappy! That rascal been showin' up in this room about five years now. Strange, he ain't never showed hisself to white folk afore. First time I see'd him I 'bout laid down and died myself. But ain't nobody got the best of ol' Mamie yet, and I weren't gonna let some mischief-makin' haunt be the first. So now we just plays us a game. He shows up ever now and again and I talks to him like he ain't dead and then - "

  "His father? That was the ghost of Hunter's father?" Marin couldn't believe her ears. "He couldn't be! That man was barely in his twenties! Hunter's father died eight years ago! He had to be at least in his fifties!"

  The mattress sank when Mamie eased herself down beside Marin. She took Marin's icy hand in her massive fist and patted reassuringly.

  "The age of a body when it dies ain't got nothin' to do with the age of its spirit. Some people just born old. And some people don't never grow up. Mastah Nate, he young at heart. And he a devil, too. Why, he fought that duel he's all bloodied up over afore he met Miz Lucille. Some polecat accused him of welchin' on a bet. But he didn't die then. He just a rascal what thinks he's bein' ro-man-tick, showin' up like the young pup he were then."

  Marin's thoughts swam with the implications. Hunter's father had died an older man, yet Mamie claimed the young spirit was his.

  "How do you know he's Master Nate?"

  "Why, chile, I was borned at Tranquille. I growed up with that boy. I helped in the sick room the day they brung him in from the duel. He had on them same clothes. The doc said the bullet didn't hit nothin' to kill him, but the fever danged near did."

  Could all of her worrying have been for nothing? Was it possible she and Hunter could live a long, happy life together? Her spirits rose as her worry lifted from her. As if nature itself mirrored her mood, the sun broke through the scudding gray clouds and flooded the shuttered room with elongated bars of warm gold. Her soul felt flooded, too, with a soft glow. Even colors seemed brighter to her now, with this newfound knowledge, as if everything that had come before had been viewed through a dark veil that had suddenly been lifted from her eyes.

  Mamie waddled to the nearest window and threw open the shutters.

  "Well now, ain't that just the way it always is? No sooner get the house closed up than the storm passes over. And it's just too blamed hot to leave closed." She busied herself with reopening the windows in the room, shuffling from one to the other and muttering to herself while she worked.

  "Ain't done nothin' but steam up the place. Least it coulda done was blow in a cool wind. Chile!"

  Marin jumped. Mamie shuffled over to her and slapped a hand on Marin's forehead.

  "You's as white as Mastah Nate's ghost!" She let her hand drop to her side. "Now don't you go worryin' 'bout that blasted, no good haunt. He don't never bother nobody. He just a skunk that shows up in this room to get my dander up. You ain't afeared of him, is ya?"

  Marin dragged her euphoric thoughts from the possibility of growing old with Hunter and focused her attention on Mamie.

  "No. No, he startled me at first. But I'm not afraid now. Not if you're sure he was Hunter's father."

  "Sure as I was borned."

  Marin slid from where she'd perched on the edge of the high bed.

  "Then I'm fine. In fact, I feel great! Let's finish opening up."

  Marin crossed the center hall into her room to the sounds of shutters downstairs clacking open against the house. The front door banged shut, and when she opened her window that overlooked the front lawn she saw Katie skip across the jeweled, velvet grass. Marin's fingers slid along the brocade draperies as she leaned her forehead against the glass and watched.

  Katie's little orchid frock ballooned every time she stooped to pick up a large, glistening piece of hail that had not yet melted. Puffy scampered circles around a haughtily strolling Angel; the court jester ignored by the queen of the castle. Puffy stopped in mid-scamper. His ears perked and his pink, wet tongue lolled from the side of his mouth, giving him a goofy look of expectancy as he trotted toward the house. The reason for the look appeared from beneath the veranda. Hunter knelt and scrubbed the pointed ears of the pony-sized puppy, then had to give equal time to the jealous feline rubbing against his calves. The baritone words "spoiled" and "trouble makers" drifted up to Marin on a steamy breeze. The words were affectionate, with the teasing tone Hunter often used with the ones he loved. She hadn't heard that particular tone directed at her since the night she'd called Ryan's name in her sleep. She ached to hear it now. Ached for the easy comfort they'd shared; his whisper-light kisses on her neck below her ear; the way his eyes would search her out when he walked into a room; the way he would press himself against her back and ask her what she was thinking. She wanted things to be good between them again, but all she got was a husband polite to a fault, solicitous of her well-being, and absolutely devoid of any hint of passion.

  She watched him make his way to Katie, his long, relaxed strides hindered by animals cavorting at his feet. Katie ran to meet him, pulling him down onto the grassy carpet as soon as her hands met his. He sank to the ground, heedless of the damp grass and instant wet patches darkening his gray trousers and waistcoat. He stretched out on his side, propped up on one elbow while Katie and the animals clowned around for him on the lawn.

  His masculine laughter lifted on the breeze and caressed her senses. She wanted so badly to join them on the front lawn. But she knew what would happen. Everything would look the same and sound the same, but beneath his cordial smile there would be an invisible wall as impenetrable as two feet of stone.

  She wondered if he had considered calling off this farce of a wedding tomorrow. Surely, if he didn't trust her about who Ryan was, he must not be anxious to stand before a room full of curious onlookers and pledge his undying love. But she was at a loss as to what to do. Should she make up some story he might believe about Ryan and her past? No, damn it. Ryan had been her husband, and a brief part of her life that had been the sweetest. She wouldn't lie about who he was. Hunter would have to accept her as she was, no matter how far-fetched her story sounded to a nineteenth century man.

  While she watched the two people who meant more to her than anything else in the world, while she thought about the chance of Hunter ever believing her story, she felt like an island. A lonely, deserted island surrounded by a deep, blue ocean without another living thing in sight. Even as she watched, there seemed to be an ever-increasing distance between them.

  "Dr. Rashad, line three. Dr. Rashad, line three."

  Marin went absolutely still at the sound of the disembodied voice. Hot chills lifted the hair on the back of her neck when the translucent images of her hospital room superimposed themselves over her view of Hunter and Katie. She whirled around, her back to the window, and still the hazy images were there, every detail just as they were when she was visited by Ryan.

  She spun again, searching the misty setting for the beloved face of her husband. Her mind called to him in a chant that was half prayer. He had to come to her. He said he would come one more time. She needed to see him, needed the comfort of his presence. Yet she was afraid. Could she say good-bye to him forever? Could she stay here with Hunter when he distrusted her so? She felt as if she were being ripped in two - pulled between two worlds that refused to let her go.

  Ryan! Where are you?

  But Ryan never came. After the longest ten seconds of her life the hazy image of her hospital room faded slowly away, leaving her staring at the empty bed she and Hunter only used for sleeping now.

  As she stared at the flawlessly smooth satin coverlet, her eyes burned. A knot of misery formed in her throat at the playful sound of Hunter's voice beneath her wind
ow.

  "Katiedid, would you like to take a ride with Papa before supper?"

  "Oh, yes, Papa! Let's get Mama, too! And Gwandma!"

  Quiet filled the air for a moment.

  "Mama's busy. But run and see if Grandma wants to go."

  Marin squeezed her burning eyes shut against this latest rejection.

  He was withholding himself from her when she needed him most. Dear God, she'd just seen into the twentieth century! She knew her spirit somehow hovered between two times. She needed him to want her, to pull her into this time and never let go.

  She stiffened her spine and narrowed her eyes. A new resolve banished the last tremblings from her twentieth century encounter. If he planned to ignore her, she wouldn't make it easy for him.

  CHAPTER TWENTYf

  Lucille had decided not to go for a ride with Hunter and Katie, so Hunter had saddled Mystic and ridden a euphoric Katie in front of him. They stopped to visit with several of the neighbors and arrived home from their outing just in time for Mamie to relay Emmaletta's latest threat to go to work for the Hilliards.

  "You peoples is gonna fool around and Emmaletta's gonna leave and then we's all be starvin' to death 'cause I sure ain't plannin' to do no cookin'." Mamie met them at the front door and followed them into the house, yapping the whole way. "Miz Lucille the only one what's at the table. Even Miz Marin ain't nowhere to be found."

  "Here I am, Mamie. I'm sorry I'm late."

  Hunter's foot hesitated on the bottom step at the sight of the woman coming down the stairs.

  The yellow glow from the chandelier haloed her loose, mahogany curls and washed her porcelain skin with gold. The deep green silk of her gown dipped low off her shoulder and even lower at her breasts. Hunter distractedly wondered what would happen if she took a deep breath, then prayed that she would. Marin ignored him as she descended the stairs in a whispering rustle of silk skirts and an elusive trace of gardenia.