Shadows Through Time

by Madeline Baker

  “No, I never saw him before in my life! And I hope I never see him again.” She crossed her arms over her chest in an age-old gesture of self-protection. “I…thank you for…for what you did,” she said, edging toward the door.

  His gaze moved over her. He had seen women in trousers before, but never in trousers that fit like a second skin and never in such a bright shade of pink. He had never seen a shirt quite like the one she was wearing, either. It was white and it clung to her upper body, outlining her breasts. The words I’m PMSing and I’ve got a gun, so look out buster, you’d better run—whatever the hell that meant—were printed in blood-red letters across the front of the shirt. He didn’t know what PMSing was, but there was no way she was hiding a gun, not in that outfit.

  “You’re not from around here, are you?” he remarked.

  “No. Well, thanks again. I think I’ll be going now.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  She hurried toward the door as if she was afraid he would stop her, muttered, “Thanks again,” as she opened it and bolted out of the room.

  Reese stared after her, then shook his head. Pretty or not, she was a strange one and he was well rid of her.

  * * * * *

  Kelsey stood on the boardwalk outside the hotel, her mind whirling as she tried to make sense of what she saw. The world as she knew it appeared to have vanished. There were no sidewalks, no paved streets, no electric lights, no mailboxes, no automobiles, no houses with neat green lawns and three car garages. Instead, the sidewalk was made of narrow wooden boards, the streets were hard-packed dirt and people apparently rode horses, judging by the number of four-legged creatures she saw tied to hitching posts along the street. The few men she saw were dressed in old-style Western clothing. They all wore hats of one kind or another, though cowboy hats prevailed, and they all wore gunbelts.

  She was dreaming, she thought. That had to be it. There was no other logical explanation. She had been reminiscing about Papa Joe and his fascination for the Old West and she had fallen asleep. And now she was dreaming.

  And she was ready to wake up. She pinched herself and it hurt. It never hurt in dreams. But what else could it be? Good Lord, was she losing her mind? Hallucinating? Lying in a hospital bed, unconscious? In a coma? Maybe she had died. She glanced around again. No, heaven couldn’t possibly look or smell this bad!

  Closing her eyes, she willed herself to wake up. “Just a dream,” she whispered, “it’s just a dream. When I open my eyes, I’ll be back where I belong.” She nodded. “I’ll count to three and open my eyes and I’ll be home. One. Two. Three…”

  She opened her eyes but nothing had changed. Two cowboys trotted past. One of them tipped his hat in her direction. A boy ran down the street, a puppy yipping at his heels.

  Fighting a rising tide of panic, she spent the next two hours trying to find her way back to Nana Mary’s house but to no avail. She went up and down every street twice but nothing was familiar. She saw houses, but none looked familiar. She found what she thought was the narrow street that she had seen when she opened the door, but it led to a dead end.

  It was full dark and Kelsey was on the verge of tears when she made her way back to the hotel, only then realizing that she was starving and that she didn’t have any money with which to pay for a meal or a place to spend the night. She glanced through the window of the hotel, wondering if the desk clerk would let her spend the night on the small sofa in the lobby.

  Blinking back her tears, she went inside and approached the man behind the desk.

  His gaze moved over her in blatant disapproval, but he pasted a smile on his face and said, “May I help you?”

  “I don’t have any place to spend the night.”

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place,” he said, plucking a key from a board on the wall behind the desk. “Room Six is available.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have any money just now,” she said.

  The desk clerk replaced the key with a flourish. “Then I’m afraid Room Six just became unavailable.”

  “Would it be all right if I spent the night on your sofa?”

  “I’m sorry, but no.”

  With a nod, Kelsey left the hotel. Outside, she sat down in one of the wooden rocking chairs. Fighting the urge to cry, she stared into the growing darkness. Where was she? And how was she going to get back home where she belonged?

  She shivered as a chill wind blew down the street. Folding her arms over her breasts, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms, hoping this nightmare would end before she froze to death.

  * * * * *

  Reese sat at a back table in the corner saloon, one hand fisted around a glass of beer. He had spent the last hour trying not to think about the woman in the alley, but try as he might, he couldn’t seem to get her out of his mind, couldn’t stop worrying about her. He knew two things for certain—she wasn’t like any woman he had ever met before and she didn’t belong here. He told himself she was none of his concern. He had his own problems to worry about. He didn’t need to take on any more. And that woman was trouble from head to foot, in spite of all the lush feminine curves in between.

  Muttering an oath, he grabbed his hat from the rack and headed for the door. He would just make sure she was all right and then he would forget her.

  Stepping out of the hotel onto the boardwalk, Reese saw the object of his unrest huddled in a rocker on the hotel boardwalk across the way.

  With a shake of his head, he crossed the street. Her eyes were closed and she was shivering.

  “Hey.” He tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

  Her head jerked up, her eyes wide and scared. “Oh,” she murmured, pressing one hand over her heart. “It’s you.”

  “Yea. What the devil are you doing out here at this time of night?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t have any money and…I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  Reese grunted softly. Trouble, he thought again. She was nothing but trouble. Sweeping her into his arms, he pushed the hotel door open and stepped inside.

  “Are you crazy?” she exclaimed. “Put me down this instant!”

  “Hush.”

  “Here now,” the desk clerk said as Reese strode toward the staircase, “what do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m taking this woman to my room.”

  “Now, see here,” the clerk said indignantly. “This is a respectable hotel. We don’t allow that sort of thing…”

  “Don’t be such an old fussbudget, Wexler. She’s my sister.”

  The desk clerk stared at Reese dubiously. “Your sister, huh? Well, you’ll have to pay double for the room.”

  Reaching into his pants’ pocket, Reese pulled out a silver dollar and tossed it to the clerk, then continued toward the staircase.

  “I can’t stay here with you,” Kelsey protested as he carried her up the stairs and down a narrow corridor.

  “Well, you sure as hell can’t stay outside,” he retorted, awkwardly unlocking the door to his room with one hand while clutching her to his chest with the other. Stepping inside, he kicked the door shut with his boot heel, then set her on her feet. “There’s a storm comin’.”

  “But I don’t even know you. I don’t even know where I am.”

  Removing his hat, he hung it on the hook beside the door. “You lost?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I think I am.”

  “Well, you’re in Grant’s Crossing.”

  “I never heard of it.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not surprised. It’s not much of a town.”

  “What…what year is it?”

  “Last time I looked, it was 1871.”

  Feeling suddenly lightheaded, Kelsey sat on the edge of the bed. “No, that’s impossible.”

  “I think you must have taken a bump on the noggin during your scuffle with that hombre,” Reese said.

  That had to be it, Kelsey thought. She had fallen off the ladder at Nana Mary’s and she was lying unconscious on th
e floor having a nightmare. Of course, what other explanation could there be?

  “You’re not real,” she said, which was too bad, because he was easily the most gorgeous hunk of man she had seen in a long time. She glanced around. “None of this is real. I’ll just lie down for a little while and when I wake up, I’ll be home and you’ll be gone.” The thought saddened her. She hadn’t been attracted to a man in months. Just her luck that the one man who sparked her interest was just a figment of her imagination.

  Reese stared at her as she removed her funny looking shoes and socks, then stretched out on his bed. She looked normal enough, he thought, but she was at least one ace short of a full deck.

  To his astonishment, she was asleep the minute she closed her eyes. Moving toward the bed, he picked one of her shoes up off the floor, thinking he had never seen anything quite like it before. Dropping her shoe, he picked up one of her socks and turned it over in his hand. It was fuzzy and white with little pink and red hearts sewn around the top edge. He dropped the sock on the floor, then looked at the woman again. Where the hell had she come from? She was sleeping on her side, her head pillowed on her hand. Her skin was smooth and unblemished, her eyelashes thick and dark against her cheeks.

  For a moment, he considered doing the gentlemanly thing and sleeping in the chair, then grunted softly. What the hell! It was his room and his bed. Blowing out the lamp, he removed his gun belt and hung it over the bedpost, then sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots and socks, removed his hat, kerchief and shirt and slipped under the covers.

  He swore under his breath when the woman rolled over and snuggled up against him, warm and soft and curvy in all the right places.

  Damn. It was going to be one hell of a long night.

  * * * * *

  Kelsey sighed and nestled closer to the source of the warmth at her back. A warmth that snored softly.

  Suddenly wide awake, she rolled over, a gasp escaping her lips when she saw the man lying beside her. Apparently the dream or nightmare or whatever it was, wasn’t over! She stared at him a moment, admiring the width of his shoulders, the thickness of his lashes against his cheeks, his fine straight nose. She was tempted to run the tip of her finger over his full bottom lip, to run her fingers through his thick black hair.

  Before she lost the battle and gave in to temptation, she slipped out of bed and crossed the floor to the window. Drawing back one of the limp, white lace curtains, she gazed down at the scene below, unable to believe what she was seeing. As her rescuer had predicted, it had rained last night as evidenced by the puddles in the muddy road. But now the sky was blue and clear and the sun was shining.

  Across the street, a woman wearing an apron over a long gingham dress was sweeping the boardwalk in front of her shop. A few doors down, two old men sat in the shade playing a game of checkers. A wagon loaded with hay rumbled down the muddy street. A big spotted dog sniffed at a pile of horse manure that was still steaming. Several horses were tied to hitching posts up and down the street. In the distance, a clock chimed the hour.

  She glanced back at the bed as the stranger stirred. She didn’t know a thing about him, not even his name. For all she knew, he could be an outlaw or a murderer, although that seemed out of character. After all, he had saved her from the clutches of that horrid man in the alley and offered her a place to spend the night. But the night was over now and like Dorothy, all she wanted to do was get out of Oz and go home. If only she had a pair of ruby slippers and a good witch to show her the way.

  Tiptoeing across the floor, she was about to open the door when a sleep-roughened masculine voice said, “Going somewhere?”

  Lifting her chin and squaring her shoulders, Kelsey turned to tell him she was leaving but the words died in her throat. He was sitting up in bed now, the covers pooled around his hips. His long black hair was sleep-tousled. The stubble of a beard shadowed his jaw. But it was his broad chest and six-pack abs that drew her gaze. That and the fine line of black hair that arrowed down his chest to disappear beneath the covers. She had seen numerous men without their shirts, both in real life and in movies, but never, ever, anything to compare with this man.

  “You all right?” he asked, one brow arched quizzically.

  “What? Who, me? Oh, yes, fine,” she replied, then felt her cheeks grow hot when her stomach growled.

  “Sounds like you need some grub.” He threw back the covers and slid his legs over the edge of the bed. “Just let me get my shirt and my boots and I’ll take you to breakfast.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I do if you’re gonna eat.”

  She couldn’t argue with that, nor could she stop watching the play of corded muscles in his arms and back as he shrugged into his shirt and pulled on his socks and boots. She watched, speechless, as he slung his gunbelt around his lean waist, buckled it and settled it on his hips. He ran a hand through his hair, then plucked his hat off the bedpost and set it on his head.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  She stared at him. Ready? She couldn’t go out to eat looking like this. She needed to shower and wash her hair and change her clothes. She needed deodorant and a toothbrush. And a toilet!

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “I need to… I need a…” She searched her mind, her cheeks burning as the word she was looking for popped into her head. “A privy.”

  “Under the bed.”

  She blinked at him, then nodded.

  “I’ll wait for you in the hallway.”

  Kelsey waited until he left the room, then peered under the bed. As she had feared, there was a white enamel pot there. To her horror, she saw that he had apparently used it sometime during the night.

  It wasn’t until she was almost finished that she wondered what people in the Old West had used for toilet paper.

  * * * * *

  Reese paced the hallway. She was a strange one, all right, with her funny clothes and odd footwear. Where had she gotten such fripperies? Not from around here, that was for damn sure.

  He turned as the door to his room opened and she stepped into the hallway.

  With a nod, he moved toward the stairs, glancing back to make sure she followed.

  Downstairs, Reese led the way into the dining room. He chose a table in the far corner, away from the windows. Ever aware of the price on his head, he sat with his back to the wall. The woman sat across from him, her hands folded primly in her lap. Eyes wide, she stared around the room like she’d never seen a hotel before.

  “You got a name?” he asked.

  “Kelsey. Kelsey St. James.”

  “Strange name for a female, Kelsey.”

  She shrugged. “My dad was hoping for a boy. Are you going to tell me yours?”

  “Reese. T. K. Reese.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Reese,” she murmured.

  He doubted that. “Just Reese,” he said. “So, how’d you happen to wind up here in Grant’s Crossing?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “I don’t believe it myself.”

  “You’re not married or anything, are you?” One thing he didn’t need was an angry husband beating on his door.

  A look he couldn’t quite fathom flashed in her eyes and was gone. “No, I’m not married. Are you?”

  “No, ma’am, and I don’t intend to be.”

  The waitress came to take their order, her eyes widening when she saw Kelsey’s attire. Reese couldn’t blame her. He found himself staring, too.

  Reese ordered steak, eggs and black coffee.

  Kelsey started to ask for a blueberry bagel and a latte but swallowed the words and asked for bacon, eggs and coffee instead, since she was pretty sure bagels were as much a rarity in this place as hot running water and mint-flavored toothpaste.

  The food, when it came, was plentiful and good. She hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before and she ate quickly, then sat back in her chair and sipped her coffee,
which was definitely not Starbucks.

  Reese gestured at her empty plate. “You want some more?”

  “No, thank you. Well, do you think they have any muffins?”

  “Only one way to find out.” Reese motioned the waitress to their table. “Hey, Caro, you got any muffins?”

  “For you, Reese, I’ll find one.”

  “That’s a good girl. Bring us a couple, will ya? And some more coffee? So,” he said when the waitress was gone, “what are your plans?”

  Kelsey shook her head. “I don’t have any. I guess I’ll have to find a job.” She breathed a sigh, thinking she was probably overqualified for any job she could find in a hick town like this.

  The waitress, Caro, brought a plate with two muffins and set it on the table, along with some butter and a pot of honey. She refilled their coffee cups. Then, with a smile at Reese, she walked away, her hips swaying provocatively.

  Kelsey spread a little honey on one of the muffins. It was surprisingly good and she ate it quickly, then licked the honey from her fingertips.

  “Go on,” Reese said, gesturing at the plate, “you might as well eat the other one, too.”

  “I…I think I’ll take it with me for later,” she said, thinking it would likely be the only thing she’d have to eat the rest of the day.

  “You about finished then?”

  “Yes. Thank you for breakfast. I’ll pay you back when I can.”

  He waved her thanks away. “No need.”

  Kelsey followed him out of the dining room and onto the boardwalk, squinting against the sunlight. “Thank you again,” she said, “for the room and everything.”

  He nodded. “Take care of yourself.”

  She forced a smile. She was used to taking care of herself back home. She only hoped she could do so here.

  “Well, goodbye,” Kelsey said, and, squaring her shoulders, she turned and walked down the boardwalk. Before she did anything else, she was going to have a try at finding the door to Nana Mary’s house one more time.

  * * * * *

  Reese watched her go. Kelsey. It still struck him as a strange name to hang on a female. And she was all female. Being a red-blooded male, he couldn’t help admiring the sway of her hips or noticing the way her trousers outlined her long legs and shapely behind. He had felt that shapely behind pressed against his backside last night. It had provoked a number of interesting fantasies, all of them involving the two of them getting to know each other better. Much better. Her scent had teased him all night long, her nearness had been both torment and temptation.