Return to Yesterday
Page 1
Praise for Abbie Williams
“Williams populates her historical fiction with people nearly broken by their experiences.”
— Foreword Reviews INDIES Finalist (Soul of a Crow)
* Gold Medalist – 2015
— Independent Publishers Awards (Heart of a Dove)
“Perfect for romantic mystery lovers … a sweet, clever quickstep with characters who feel like longtime friends.” — Foreword Reviews (Wild Flower)
“Set just after the U.S. Civil War, this passionate opening volume of a projected series successfully melds historical narrative, women’s issues, and breathless romance with horsewomanship, trailside deer-gutting, and alluring smidgeons of Celtic ESP.”
— Publishers Weekly (Heart of a Dove)
“There is a lot I liked about this book. It didn’t pull punches, it feels period, it was filled with memorable characters and at times lovely descriptions and language. Even though there is a sequel coming, this book feels complete.”
— Dear Author (Heart of a Dove)
“With a sweet romance, good natured camaraderie, and a very real element of danger, this book is hard to put down.”
— San Francisco Book Review (Heart of a Dove)
ALSO BY ABBIE WILLIAMS
THE SHORE LEAVE CAFE SERIES
SUMMER AT THE SHORE LEAVE CAFE
SECOND CHANCES
A NOTION OF LOVE
WINTER AT THE WHITE OAKS LODGE
WILD FLOWER
THE FIRST LAW OF LOVE
UNTIL TOMORROW
THE WAY BACK
RETURN TO YESTERDAY
FORBIDDEN
THE DOVE SERIES
HEART OF A DOVE
SOUL OF A CROW
GRACE OF A HAWK
Copyright © 2018 Abbie Williams
Cover and internal design © 2018 Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.
Cover Design: Michelle Halket
Cover Image: Courtesy & Copyright: iStock: RYROLA
Interior Image: Courtesy & Copyright: Abbie Willliams
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by Central Avenue Publishing, an imprint of Central Avenue Marketing Ltd. www.centralavenuepublishing.com
RETURN TO YESTERDAY
978-1-77168-130-8 (pbk)
978-1-77168-131-5 (epub)
978-1-77168-132-2 (mobi)
Published in Canada
Printed in United States of America
1. FICTION / Romance 2. FICTION / Family Life
TO LIFE, AND ITS SWEET, WILD, COUNTLESS PATHS.
AND TO THE IMMEASURABLE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD FRIENDS, CLOSE FAMILIES, AND TRUE LOVES. …
Chapter One
Dakota Territory - June, 1882
MARSHALL SAT ON ONE OF TWO MISMATCHED CHAIRS IN the little soddy where we would spend this night, a dishtowel wrapped around his neck as I shaved away his thick beard. I worked with deliberate care by the light of a single lantern, using a straight-edge razor; he rested his hands around the curve of my hips, watching me as I worked. Despite the fact that I was naked from the waist up, wearing nothing but one of my old underskirts, a well-worn garment once white and now the color of faded daisies, he could not take his eyes from mine.
“Your face,” he breathed, trying not to move his jaw until I lifted the razor to swish it through a small bowl of warm water. “I dreamed of your face every night. Your eyes and the shape of your mouth, and the way your forehead crinkles when you’re thinking hard.” He added, “Your smile,” as I did smile, stroking my bare belly with his thumbs. “And the sweet little freckles on your nose and the way you blush when I compliment you. I feel like I haven’t stopped dreaming.”
I shook my head at his adoring words, cupping his chin. I had successfully shaved half of his face and admonished in a whisper, “You hold still.”
“I mean it,” he insisted. “Do you know how many nights I lay awake longing for you until I thought I would die? And now you’re here with me. I’m afraid to wake up.”
I leaned closer and licked his nose. He snorted a laugh and for a second it was as though no time had passed since our first date way back in 2013, when I’d done the same thing. I muttered, “Don’t make me flick you.”
He smiled, though tears wet his gray eyes. “Angel, you can do anything you want to me. As long as you’re here. Just stay with me. Be close to me. That’s all I will ask of this life, ever again.”
I leaned to kiss nose this time, then his lips, thinking of Miles, who – had fate taken a sharply different turn – might very well be my husband on this muggy June night in what would one day become South Dakota. The thought of Miles Rawley was a wound in my innermost heart which would never altogether heal. Miles had loved me and he’d been killed before my eyes; before he died I’d told him I loved him, and this remained true. I loved him because he shared a soul with Marshall; Miles had been Marshall in this place. Marshall and I were the ones displaced here in the nineteenth century. My thoughts of Miles tangled into my love for Marshall, one inextricable from the other; I had no doubt Miles’s soul was right here in front of me, fulfilling his promise to find me again. I studied my man’s familiar eyes, the long-lashed, smoldering sensuality of them, and whispered, “You.”
Marshall understood with no additional explanation; he whispered, “I can’t be away from you. I won’t be, until I die and death separates us.”
“I know,” I murmured, tenderly stroking his hair. “I know, love. And even then I’ll find you, I promise.”
“After I die?” he whispered, tightening his grasp on my hips.
We were both exhausted from days of strenuous travel, riding under the grim cloak of constant worry that Fallon Yancy would find us as we slept; only compounding this daily stress was the fact that I’d divulged the truth about Fallon’s role in Marshall’s mother’s death and his subsequent agonized fury had been titanic, held since only tentatively in check. Further, the pain of our separation, what we’d endured apart from each other, remained at the forefront of both our thoughts. I couldn’t bear to think of a time when Marshall would die, even if that time was far in the future, many years from this moment. I stroked the unshaven side of his jaw and whispered, “Let me finish up and then I believe we have a dinner date at the main house.”
Marshall gathered my hand and kissed my knuckles. As he settled back against the chair he spoke with his usual wry humor. “I hope you like gray hair, angel. I’ve gotten used to it now but I must look different to you.”
His hair had grown out past his shoulders, a wavy and snarled mess I’d only just combed through, and remained predominantly the rich, glossy brown of polished walnut; the few silver threads lent him a maturity at which I marveled – all traces of boyishness having vanished since we’d last been together, back in Jalesville in 2014.
“Marsh,” I scolded. “Even if you had no hair, or if it was completely gray, you could never look anything but wonderful to me.” I felt a crooked, teasing smile pull at my mouth. “As wonderful as a double vanilla latte and a stack of peanut butter cups, seriously.”
He released a soft breath, with a hint of his grin. “That good, huh? Oh God, angel, I felt so old last winter. Way down deep in my bones, I felt old. But now that you’re here I feel restored.”
I ran my fingers through his hair. �
�Besides, the silver is sexy.”
He lowered his dark eyebrows, regarding me with the skeptical look I remembered well.
“I mean it,” I insisted. “It’s sexy and distinguished. And with this Civil War-style beard shaved away, you look more like yourself already.”
“I still can’t get over that we’re here, in 1882. You know how many people alive today actually fought in the Civil War?”
“I know,” I whispered, dunking the shaving brush in the soap and applying it to the right half of his beard, creating a thin layer of foam. I wiped the razor on the towel and began scraping away the thick stubble, starting at the top and pulling downward with small, delicate motions. “I wish I had a can of shave gel, honey, it would be so much easier on your face. But I want you to leave the rest of your hair longer, like it is.” I looked up from my focus on the lower half of his face. “You know how much I love your hair.”
His eyes caught fire. “I do.”
I’ll hurry, I replied with no words, anticipation spiking through my veins.
Marshall shifted the heat of his concentration lower on my body, gliding both hands upward, brushing his thumbs over my nipples, cradling the fullness of my breasts against his broad palms. I wrapped the towel around his jaws, patting away any last stray hairs, feeling the warmth of him beneath the damp cloth. His gaze was steady in its regard, leaving no doubt in my mind what he wanted us to do in short order; dinner in the main house would have to wait. I lifted the towel away and my heart thrashed at the sight of his clean-shaven face. My knees began to tremble as he slipped the underskirt from my otherwise naked body with a slow, caressing motion; it became a soft puddle of linen at my ankles.
“Come here,” he murmured, drawing me forward by the waist, pressing a kiss between my breasts before opening his lips over a nipple. I threw aside the damp towel and dug my fingers in his hair, intending to clutch him to me this way forever. His questing tongue sent heated pleasure straight down the backs of my legs and outward to my fingertips. Teasing my breast with the soft heat of the words, he whispered, “You taste so good…”
“Don’t stop,” I begged, head hanging back. “Oh, Marshall…don’t stop. I can feel that all the way between my legs…”
“I won’t stop,” he promised, as he had long ago, in our old lives. “Not ever, angel.”
He rose and gathered me close; my breasts came up against the hair on his chest, and the lean, hard muscles beneath. I shifted my shoulders, delighting in the textures of his naked body. Marshall moved with purpose, parting my lips with his kiss, carrying me straight to the bed – a feather tick spread over a frame of woven ropes scarcely large enough for an adult – where he deposited me onto my back.
“More,” I whispered, rising to my elbows as he knelt between my legs.
He grinned, his freshly-shaved face so familiar, so handsome and sexy and full of wanting as he eased my thighs farther apart and pressed his chest hair at their juncture, rubbing with a slow, sensual motion. My body pulsed in response.
“You feel so good,” he breathed, licking the inner curve of my knees, one after the other. “The softness of your skin, the wet, sweet silk between your legs. Oh God, my angel-woman. You are so much more than I deserve…”
“Don’t say that,” I whispered, each breath becoming a moaning gasp.
“I mean to bring you joy.” He shifted to bracket my hips, kissing a path ever higher.
“Yes.” My voice was hoarse, neck arched against the rumpled quilt as he traced the flesh between my legs with both his tongue and his long and knowing fingers. “You bring me so much joy, Marsh…oh God…”
He spoke with impassioned reverence, his husky voice at my ear. “You are so beautiful it hurts, angel. I couldn’t write a song to do justice to you. You can’t know how much it means to touch you, when I thought I would never be given this privilege again.”
My hands were all over him, seeking and grasping. “You’re so hard, let me taste you…”
He rolled us to the side, ropes creaking, and I latched to his chest, kissing his collarbones, his sternum, licking a hot trail down his lean belly. He had already come a little; I could taste it as I swept my tongue in voluptuous circles. His fingers dug into my loose curls as I drew him deeply down my throat.
“C’mere,” he groaned, taking me beneath him with one fluid motion. His desire was so very magnificent – intense, almost predatory, wide shoulders gleaming with sweat, hair hanging down his neck – I moaned, biting his chin, urging with my hips. Resting his forehead to mine, pulse visibly pounding at his throat, he whispered, “Before I lose…all control.”
I murmured, with a gasp of fulfillment, “I like when you come in my mouth.”
Marshall uttered a low laugh, his engorged length buried deep, shuddering at the pleasure of our joined bodies. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he grinned. “But nothing beats this spot, angel.”
Chapter Two
Dakota Territory - June, 1882
DAWN FOUND US CURLED TOGETHER ON THE ROPE BED; we’d missed last night’s dinner and were well on the way to missing this morning’s breakfast, but I didn’t care. Marshall was snoring, one arm tucked under his head, the other slung over my waist, just like it had always been back in our cozy apartment in Jalesville. I lay still, reveling in the moment, the gift of waking up beside him; if I squinted, hazing my vision, I could almost believe we were home. I could picture the little town in the Montana foothills with vivid clarity – I knew Jalesville still existed, just as Marshall and I remembered it – and that the Rawleys, Tish and Case, and my family in Landon were all there in the future, awaiting our return.
I found Marshall. I sent this thought to my sisters and Aunt Jilly, for at least the hundredth time; if anyone was capable of hearing me through the long, echoing corridors of time it was them. We found each other and even if we never make it back to you, I am so happy. Please know this. I miss you all so much, but I have Marshall. I have him and I could not ask for more.
I turned, with care, to watch him as he slept, rising to an elbow, tenderness and passion beating at my heart. I studied the face that meant more to me than any other, through all of time; I understood this fully now. Dark shadows of strain remained beneath his eyes but I would do everything in my power to erase those. His sensual mouth was relaxed with sleep, charcoal-black lashes fanned upon his angular cheekbones and the crease of worry at the bridge of his nose now invisible; his breathing was deep and even. I saw the pulse at the base of his throat where I’d first tasted his skin; the long nose that dominated his handsome face. His dark hair was spread over the pillow, streaked with silver. I couldn’t have imagined being more attracted to him, and yet here I found myself.
I trailed my fingertips along the skin between my legs, dewy from last night’s wealth of lovemaking. And then, as suddenly as an unexpected gunshot, Marshall awoke with a muffled cry, jerking to one elbow, eyes wild and frightened.
“I’m here,” I said at once, wrapping him in my arms and burrowing close; this was not the first time he’d woken in a panic and I knew what was wrong. He pressed his face to my hair, breathing raggedly, fingers spread wide on my back, as if attempting to contain gushing blood. I latched a leg over his hips and tightened my hold. “I’m here, sweetheart, right here.”
“I dreamed I woke up and you were gone.” His voice was hoarse. His heart would not slow its pace and concern scalded me.
“Honey,” I murmured, and did not release him until his heartbeat had steadied and sunlight stretched across the floor of the little cabin, warming the space with the first light of day. Our naked bodies meshed as seamlessly as rain-soaked leaves; there was no way to tell where I ended and he began.
“I will never let you go again, angel, not ever. I swear this to you.”
“I know,” I whispered, shifting position so I could see his eyes; they remained tortured and I longed to banish that expression, forever. Though nearly two weeks had passed since we’d found each other here i
n 1882, I still battled the aching memories our time apart. We’d talked without end since the evening when Cole and Patricia’s son was born on the prairie following our escape from the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the convent where we’d been stashed by Dredd Yancy – and though I’d told Marshall in no uncertain terms I forgave him for the fight we’d had that winter night in February of 2014, and that none of this was his fault, he still blamed himself, unequivocally.
“I thought you’d been in a car accident,” he had told me on the second night of our journey west, as we lay tangled together in our blankets near the fire. “I was sick with fear, Ruthie. I can only speak about it because I have my arms around you. I stayed at Dad’s house after you left, tossing and turning in my old bed, picturing you driving to Minnesota. I tried calling you just before dawn. I was already in misery but it wasn’t until midday that I started getting sick with fear. At first I thought you weren’t answering because you were so angry. I went back to our apartment and realized you hadn’t packed anything, and I felt like such shit. I figured you were in Landon telling them what an asshole I was…” His throat closed off; he cleared it before continuing. “By then I felt like such a fucking jerk I avoided calling you for about an hour, because I was terrified. I was so sure you’d tell me that was it, you planned to stay in Minnesota and you’d mail me your ring…”
“I’m so sorry, love,” I whispered, my chin on his chest as he laid waste to the terrible memories.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, angel. By that afternoon I’d changed tactics and called your phone at least fifty times. And then I finally pulled myself together enough to call Shore Leave…”
“And of course I wasn’t there,” I finished, cringing at the thought of my family’s pain; to this day they didn’t know if I was alive or dead. “They must be so scared, Marsh. If time moves along there at the same pace as here with us, we’ve been gone so long…”