He most certainly wanted to hold her hand, but did not.
They made it to the main lobby and across to the now open dining room. Bonnie and Duster and Dawn were already there at the same table as lunch the day before.
They all looked up and smiled as Carson held the chair for Sherri and then went around to the other side of the table and sat down.
“Pretty nice suite, isn’t it?” Duster asked, smiling.
Carson noticed Sherri blushed slightly, but was smiling.
“I honestly did not have the time or the inclination to study the room’s decorations or architecture,” Carson said, unfolding his napkin and smiling at Duster. “But from the large claw bathtub I did catch a glimpse of some very nice fixtures.”
Duster’s mouth opened, then closed and waved his hand in front of his face as if brushing away a fly. “Too much information.”
At that all three women laughed and Sherri smiled at Carson, a smile that promised even more looks at her very, very, very nice fixtures.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
August 7, 1902
Idanha Hotel, Boise, Idaho
After breakfast had been served, they talked about what to do next. Duster had tipped the staff to not seat anyone within earshot of them, so as long as they talked softly, they were safe.
Sherri, all through breakfast just kept glancing at Carson and she often caught him looking and smiling at her.
She just couldn’t believe she had fallen for this man so hard. The feeling of that, as she had told him, scared her more than she ever wanted to admit being scared. The fear of something happening and losing him now would just be too much.
“Do you think I should wait until my normal departure time?” Carson asked Duster.
“I can see no reason not to,” Duster said, as he worked at a piece of soft bread to dip into his eggs.
“Neither can I,” Bonnie said as she gently wiped off her mouth.
“So what are you thinking of doing then?” Sherri asked, feeling slightly worried.
“I’m just going to head back to the future and meet you there, I hope.”
He looked at her and she could clearly see the worry in his eyes.
She didn’t really understand the worry. Why wouldn’t she want to meet him in the future.
“I like that idea a lot,” Sherri said.
“But you can’t meet him when you get back,” Bonnie said to Sherri. “Carson won’t have been recruited yet by us.” Bonnie turned Carson. “When did you go through for this trip?”
“June 9th, 2017,” Carson said, still looking at Sherri with the look of worry in his eyes.
Now she understood. The four of them would return just over 2 minutes after they left on September 20th, 2016. But Carson wouldn’t return until June of the following year. She would have to wait for him for over eight months.
She smiled at him. “Looks like I have some time to get the mansion remodeled before you get there, doesn’t it?”
He looked very relieved. Very, and he smiled in such a way that she wanted to just drag him back to her room or kiss him here in the middle of the dining room.
“That still doesn’t solve what we are going to do next,” Duster said. “Are we staying with our original plan or heading back early?”
Bonnie patted Duster’s arm. “We’re staying for a few months, dear, as we planned.”
“Good,” Duster said, nodding. “I want us all in the cave at the same time so Carson can see what happens when we unplug the wire for our trip. This will be a good test of the math on that.”
Sherri wasn’t sure what exactly Duster was talking about, but both Bonnie and Dawn were smiling fondly at him, and he wasn’t noticing at all. And that made Sherri and Carson both laugh.
She had two months to spend with this wonderful man, get to know him in as many ways as possible. And study that wonderful mansion in the process.
This just might be the best two months of her life.
PART THREE
The Death of a Ghost
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
September 19, 1902
Outside of Boise, Idaho
Carson and Sherri watched as Bonnie and Dawn walked down the path from the mansion toward the stable. Duster was there getting the four horses ready. The September evening wasn’t really warm, and Carson knew the night would end up almost cold.
“You know this isn’t the end,” he said, hugging Sherri’s shoulder.
“I know,” she said. “I know this is the beginning for us, a real beginning. But I’m going to miss the hell out of you.”
There wasn’t a thing he could say to that. She had to survive and wait for him for over eight months after she returned. He would return and just have the drive from the mine to Boise, so his wait to be back with her would be just hours long.
He hoped she still wanted him when he finally got there. She had promised him many times that there was no chance in hell she was forgetting him in a short eight months. “Ten months, maybe,” she had said, her dark eyes boring into him, “but not eight.”
They stood there in silence until Duster led the four horses out of the stable. He gave Bonnie the reins to her horse, Dawn her horse, and held the reins to Sherri’s horse.
The three of them mounted up and then turned and started up toward the mansion.
The five of them had just finished a going-away dinner that he had made for them and Sherri had helped him serve it in the main dining room since it was cool enough to eat in there. That had been the first time that room and his fine china and silver had ever been used and it had been wonderful.
Now Sherri and Bonnie and Dawn and Duster would head back to town, and then leave tomorrow morning for Silver City.
He turned Sherri slowly and they walked through the mansion together, headed for the front door, his arm around her shoulders, her arm around his waist.
They fit so well together, he couldn’t believe it. And she had often said the same thing.
They had talked about that a lot over the last two months, often in bed in her suite. Or sometimes in his big bed upstairs.
She belonged in this mansion as much as he did, he had no doubt. This place was home for both of them.
“You have all your sketches and plans?” he asked.
“My notebook is not leaving my person,” she said. “And your plans are in my saddlebag. I want this place to look like this when you get there.”
“Sorry I’m going to miss the fun,” he said.
“You’ve built this place thirty-one times,” she said, laughing softly.
“The fun would be remodeling it with you,” he said, stopping by the front door and kissing her.
“How about we come back together on your next trip and both build this place for the thirty-second time,” she said after they broke the kiss and he opened the large front door.
“I would love that,” he said.
He walked her across the front porch and down the steps to her horse. He kissed her one more time, then helped her up and into her saddle.
“You all set?” Duster asked.
Carson nodded. “I get the body from the graveyard tonight that I dress as myself and leave hanging from the tree in the front where someone driving past will see it. My attorney is set with my estate, everything is as I planned it many times before.”
“Don’t forget to set that damned ghost,” Sherri said, smiling at him.
“Oh trust me, I won’t,” Carson said, smiling back at the woman he had fallen completely in love with.
“See you in Silver City,” Duster said, nodding to Carson and turning his horse away.
Bonnie and Dawn nodded and followed Duster.
“I love you,” Sherri said. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I know that,” Carson said, walking a few steps as she started up the drive. “And you know I love you as well?”
“I do, and I’m going to be holding onto that for eight months.”
She looked ba
ck at the mansion, then down at him. “And in everything I refurbish, I’ll be thinking about how you built it.”
“See you in Silver City,” he said.
And with that he watched her ride out onto Warm Springs Avenue and turn toward Boise.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
August 7, 1902
Idanha Hotel, Boise, Idaho
Sherri had wanted to spend the last night with Carson, and clearly he wanted her to spend the night with him as well. But she knew the plan they had was right in trying to keep the timelines clear. And he had so much work to do to get ready for his vanishing tomorrow.
Her biggest worry was that she would return to the present and not own the Edwards Mansion. Duster had flat told her that really wasn’t mathematically possible, but they had still all decided to be safe than sorry and have Carson do everything exactly as it had been done in so many other timelines.
And in every other timeline, he had gone to a place near Silver City to bury his gold before heading to Europe. So they had decided to meet up back in Silver City in three days and all go to the mine together.
But Dawn and Bonnie had told her and Carson the story of the Monumental Summit Lodge one night over drinks in his basement. It seemed they had left to go back into time to build a huge mountain lodge up in the Thunder Mountain region of Idaho on a summit. They had built the wonderful lodge, lived in it, and then when they had returned, they remembered a timeline where it had not existed, their original timeline, and growing up with the lodge always there.
Bonnie and Duster had hired two more mathematicians to help them figure out what had happened and why they could remember two timelines.
The last thing Sherri needed was to go back and remember buying the mansion, but in her timeline she hadn’t bought it, or hadn’t met Carson. So both she and Carson had insisted on a lot of the safety precautions at least until they got together in the present of 2017.
The ride from the mansion back into Boise along the dirt road at night had been one of the longest and roughest Sherri had ever experienced. And her sour mood had not made it any better. She had finally met the man of her dreams, spent a wonderful two months talking and laughing with, and then she had been forced to leave him because she had met him over a hundred years in his and her past.
And that needed to be fixed in real time before anything could last. She understood it, but it sure as hell didn’t help her mood.
That night she lay awake in the big featherbed of the Idanha Hotel, the same one she and Carson had first made love in two months before, hoping that somehow Carson would knock lightly on her door and come in.
She finally dozed off just before dawn and Bonnie woke her an hour later for breakfast.
She suddenly remembered clearly why she had hated mornings. In two months of waking up beside Carson, not once had she hated that, no matter the time of the day
After breakfast, with still no sign of Carson, they left on horseback for Silver City. She knew that if history followed, someone would find the body he had borrowed from the cemetery hanging in the tree right about the same time they left Boise.
Two rough and painful and hot days later they finally reached the old mining town high in the Idaho Owyhee Mountains. She barely spoke most of the way. She just didn’t feel much like talking.
That night, she was so tired and sore from two days of horseback riding, she just passed out in her bed in the old Silver City Hotel. She didn’t care how dirty or ratty the place looked. The old hotel was clearly past its prime.
The next morning at breakfast in the very small dining room, she still felt as if she was walking in a haze. Dawn and Bonnie and Duster seemed to be enjoying themselves, but she felt just empty.
She was picking at the pancakes she had been given for breakfast when a voice beside her asked, “Is this seat taken, Miss Sherri?”
Her head snapped around and she found herself looking into the wonderful, deep-green eyes of Carson.
He had on a fake moustache and dirty brown beard, and he wore a gray cowboy hat that looked like it had seen far better years. His jacket was dusty and soiled and his pants and boots clearly worn and old. But the smile and laugh that reached his eyes were what she loved.
“It is not taken,” she said, smiling at him and indicating that he should join them.
Across the table Bonnie and Duster were both smiling. Dawn looked like she might break out into applause, but since there were others in the small dining room close by, she didn’t.
As Carson sat down, he took off his hat and coat, putting both on the floor at his feet.
“Did you have a good ride?” he asked, smiling after he gave his order to one of the hotel wait staff who had been called over by Duster.
She smiled back. “I’ll let you know as soon as I can actually walk normally again.”
Carson laughed and she just tried to memorize every sound of it. She had loved it for months. Now she wasn’t going to hear it for over eight months.
“Not used to being on horses?” he asked, clearly amused.
“Not since I had a pony at ten,” she said. “Trust me, not the same thing.”
Again he laughed.
And again she felt whole having him beside her, again. How was it possible that she had avoided any long-term relationships with any man for years, and now she didn’t feel complete unless he was with her?
Amazing what a few months in the past could do for a girl.
After breakfast that was far too short for Sherri’s tastes, Dawn and Bonnie and Duster and Sherri headed at a leisurely pace up the hill toward the old mine. The day had a bite to the air and there were very few people left in the valley, since the first snowfall was threatening.
With rests, it took them over an hour to climb the seven hundred feet up the side of the mountain. In 2016, a lot of the trees had grown back, but now the hills were mostly just covered with scrub brush and the trail was often almost overgrown.
The dress she was forced to wear with all the strange undergarments didn’t make the climb any easier. Sherri was going to be very happy to get back to the old mine and be able to change into some decent modern jeans, bra and underwear, and a t-shirt.
Carson had tipped his hat to them, thanked them for the wonderful company, and left the dining room ahead of them. He had said he would take another trail around the long way and meet them at the mine. Even though there were few people living in Silver City in 1902, no point in raising any kind of question.
Sherri understood that, but the walk would have been far more pleasant with Carson along.
As they approached, single file toward the old mining shack on the mine tailings, Carson appeared from inside the old shack and smiled, pulling off his fake beard and moustache and taking off his coat.
“You look much better without the facial hair,” Sherri said, smiling at him.
“Stuff itched like crazy,” he said, shaking his head. “Great to be rid of it.”
Duster and Bonnie and everyone checked the surrounding area for anyone too close. No one. So Duster turned the head of what looked like a skeleton key and the rock slid silently back beside the boarded up mine shaft.
Sherri was again impressed how hidden the opening really was, and how protected.
They all crowded inside and the door slid closed behind them, again making the mine outside look abandoned and boarded over.
For a moment they were in the dark, then the lights came up.
Duster and Bonnie started down the old mine tunnel side-by-side. The roof of the tunnel was a couple feet over Sherri’s head and large timbers that looked old supported the rock.
Carson reached over and took Sherri’s hand as they walked along behind Duster and Bonnie and Dawn.
“This place never stops amazing me,” Carson said.
She squeezed his hand and agreed as Bonnie and Duster walked through what seemed to be a wall ahead of them as the mine tunnel turned to the right. They just kept walking straight ahead.
Carson laughed and stepped into the wall and through it, pulling Sherri along before she had time to object or even think about it.
Once they were back in the big supply cavern, Dawn and Bonnie and Duster started undressing. Carson did the same, moving over to a pile of boxes on the right. It seemed they were going to have no shame, so Sherri sure wouldn’t either.
“A little help with these clasps?” she said.
“Gladly,” Carson said and Bonnie just smiled at Sherri as Carson undid the clasps on the back of her dress.
Sherri moved over beside Bonnie and Duster and dug out the clothes she had been wearing what seemed like a lifetime ago, undressing and dressing quickly, all the while watching Carson out of the corner of her eye.
She had never once tired in the two months of seeing him naked and now she was enjoying it one more time, making sure the memory would last her for eight long months.
After they were dressed, Duster turned and led them down another short tunnel and through another steel door and into a room that once again took Sherri’s breath away.
Bonnie had said that it was almost impossible for any human mind to grasp the beauty of the crystals and the size of the cavern and Sherri felt that was right. She flat couldn’t.
After a moment she turned to Carson. “One more time to make sure I have this glued to my mind, even though I have it written down in five or so places. What day do you arrive back?” she asked.
“June 9th, 2017, at about 2:30 in the afternoon,” he said. “I should be at the mansion by 7 p.m. if I don’t run into too much traffic along the way.”
She took his hand, then reached up and kissed him.
Finally she pushed away. “That’s going to have to last me for eight plus months.”
“Then we had better do it once more to make sure it holds,” he said, pulling her against his hard chest and kissing her again.
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