Return to Yesterday

by Abbie Williams

  “I don’t know if it does. I left 2014 within twenty-four hours of you, but I arrived here months later. Go figure.”

  “I had to arrive earlier and maybe somehow that factors into it. I don’t know for sure, but think about it. If I’d arrived later than in time than I did, Jacob might already have been born and Celia would have sent him east. He’d be…” I gulped, unable to speak the word.

  “Lost,” Marshall concluded softly. “He’d be gone. My family would never have existed.”

  “Right,” I whispered. “So maybe when we get back home, hardly any time will have passed at all.” Or time might have flown; it could be decades later. There was no way to know.

  “Tish and Case know where we are, or at least as best as they can approximate,” Marshall continued, tightening his hold, sensing the restless fear surfacing under my skin. “I was in a panic but I stopped at their trailer first to tell them what I intended. I didn’t prepare near as well as I should have, I just knew I had to move fast. I tried to bring Arrow, I was riding him when I disappeared…”

  “And he couldn’t cross the time barrier, or whatever the hell it is, because he’s something living that isn’t capable.” We had spent many an hour pondering this conundrum, using our limited theories. “You and I are capable of crossing that barrier, but Tish and Case aren’t.” I closed my eyes, attempting to reconcile Tish, my sister, with the Patricia I knew and loved here in 1882; sometimes I could not separate their faces.

  “That makes sense,” Marshall mused, kissing my shoulder. He had glanced toward Axton, whose back was to us as he slept on the opposite side of the banked fire. Both of us loved Axton Douglas as dearly as we loved our own brothers, Axton who had risked everything to save Patricia and me, with nothing to gain for himself; he’d done so because he loved me and was in love with Patricia, desperately so.

  “How long will Tish and Case wait before telling everyone where we are?” I asked. Our families were loving and kind and unfailingly open-minded, but I struggled to believe they could accept such a farfetched explanation for our disappearance. “What did Tish say before you left?”

  “She’d guessed where you went. State patrol had found your car off the interstate and the driver’s side seatbelt was still fastened but there was no sign of you. I went to their trailer right away to get the letters. I told Tish I’d find you or I’d die trying.” He kissed my forehead, bracketing the back of my head with one hand. “Tish understood I had to go alone, that she wasn’t able to. I said I figured we’d be back within a week, go figure. If not, I asked them to tell Dad and my brothers. And Tish said she would tell your family.”

  I thought of Mom, Camille and Mathias, Aunt Jilly and Uncle Justin and Clint, Grandma and Aunt Ellen. Of my stepdad, Blythe, and my half-brothers, Matthew and Nathaniel, of all my sweet nieces and nephews, and Dodge and Rich; my entire family in Minnesota attempting to accept such a preposterous story – even one delivered by Tish, a lawyer with a decided ability to refrain from sentimentality. How could they begin to understand, let alone accept, the truth?

  Now our journey to Howardsville, a small town deep in Montana Territory, was but a few days from completion; Marshall, Axton, and I had spent the night at the hospitality of a rancher Ax knew peripherally; he’d stayed in the main house with the family, while Marshall and I had been allowed the delectable privacy of their old shanty cabin – or ‘soddy,’ as they called it – a small dirt-block structure about fifty paces away. I leaned to kiss him in the morning light; he made a soft, throaty sound and my heart jolted with love and the desire to sweep away all lingering agony, to fill him with only joy from this moment forth. “Good morning.”

  He released a slow breath through his nostrils, having regained control, and a smile lit his eyes before moving to his lips. “Morning, angel. Do you think everyone will be mad that we missed dinner?” I stretched, deliciously lazy, luxuriating in being tucked within an actual bed after weeks of making do on the unforgiving ground. The ropes beneath us were sagging this morning and I giggled, bouncing my hips. “We might be in trouble for more than one reason.”

  “I’ll take all the blame, it was worth it to make love to you in a real bed. It’s so goddamn hard to be quiet for Axton’s sake,” Marshall said, venting even as he rolled me under his warm nude body, nuzzling my neck, running his palms along my ribcage, on either side. “I don’t mind him traveling with us, I actually really enjoy his company, but still…”

  “I know,” I murmured, clutching the lean muscles of his ass with both hands, making a cradle of my hips. “I don’t want to offend him…oh God, Marsh…”

  “You’re so wet,” he breathed, eyelids lowering in pleasure, grasping the thick horizontal wooden pole that made up the headboard, forearms braced on either side of my head. “Aw, Jesus, love, this is such a beautiful way to start the day…”

  “You feel so good…stay still for just a second…”

  He obeyed at once, holding himself deep, as I shuddered and came in a rush, overwhelmed by the solid length, hard as a fence post, filling my body. He grinned in satisfaction, licking my chin, biting my neck as he murmured, “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

  I writhed beneath him, begging with inarticulate sounds as he took up a steady rhythm, his lips brushing mine. “That’s it, angel, come again. Come all over me, sweetheart, I love it.”

  “Yes,” I moaned, reveling in the beauty, the strength, of the connection we shared. I had never known myself capable of such feelings, those Marshall inspired within me; not just the intensity of the physical, but beyond. No one had ever truly seen me the way Marshall did, and in seeing, understood me. There was nothing to hide, no secrets between us, nothing held back.

  I was open to him, in every sense of the word – he was the love of my lifetimes and the thought of being severed from him was one of primal despair. And so I refused to think of it, instead exulting in the here and now where we were alive together, and in the singular intimacy of the knowledge of him that I alone owned – the salty taste of his sweating skin, the sleek interior of his mouth; the way his tongue circled mine with each new kiss. The way he buried his nose in my curls and sometimes quietly sang lines of our favorite songs; the sound of his release, a low, shuddering groan which inspired hot, jetting aftershocks in my body. The scent of him that lingered on my skin long after we’d made love.

  Later, sweating, our bodies interwoven, he muttered, “Damnation, woman.”

  I giggled, despite my increasing guilt; I knew we needed to get our asses moving and make an appearance at the main house by lunchtime. The concept of sleeping in was a foreign one to most people in the nineteenth century; their days followed the sun’s path in a wholly different way. The ‘night shift’ in this century was reserved for the women I’d known at Rilla Jaymes’s saloon in Howardsville, prostitutes who serviced the railroad workers and miners, or any paying customer who came a-calling; most everyone else, even those who spent the night enjoying whiskey and women in the saloons, were required to rise with the dawn to accomplish a full day’s work. The idea of dozing until the noon hour or spending the morning in bed – let alone in blissful lovemaking – spoke of unimaginable indulgence here.

  “I’m surprised Ax hasn’t come to roust us,” I murmured, rolling to sit up, scraping snarled hair from my face, wishing we could spend the entire day right here.

  “He’s too polite,” Marshall countered, heaving to a sitting position with a muted growl, cupping my breasts and lightly jiggling them, making me giggle. I swiped at his teasing hands, ready to emerge from bed when I was caught by surprise at the sudden and marked change of expression on his face. He fell still, spreading his long fingers and slowly lifting my breasts as if determining which might weigh more, the way you would in a grocery store with two melons. His gaze became fixed and intent, mouth somber and brows knitted.

  I cried, “What is it?”

  “Oh, Ruthie,” he murmured, in a much-subdued tone. “Oh, sweetheart.�
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  “What?” I yelped, truly terrified now.

  His serious eyes flashed to mine, and yet – I was not mistaking it – there was within them a growing hint of exhilaration. He rested his touch on my knees, thumbs making slow circles. “When was your last period?”

  If he’d produced a ten-pound hammer and clocked my temple, I could not have been more stunned. My thoughts scattered like thrown sand, streaking through the thousand things I’d been too distracted to realize, even the glaringly obvious – like the fact that my period was overdue.

  I started trembling and clutched his shoulders, my nose at his collarbones. I gathered my wits and whispered, “Well over a month ago.”

  “Oh my God, angel, oh holy shit.” But his voice was distinctly excited and gaining steam. “I thought I was imagining that your breasts seemed fuller than normal and then it struck me. I can’t believe I didn’t realize sooner. What did we expect? We never miss a night!” He paused for breath before whispering, with pure reverence, “A baby. You’re carrying our baby.”

  “Our baby,” I repeated, sudden fear clogging my throat – the nineteenth century had never before seemed as dangerous, dirty, or full of hazard. How could I bring a baby into this place?

  “A boy.” Marshall’s voice rang with certainty and tears streaked sideways over my face, wetting his chest. “Rawleys make boys.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard,” I managed to whisper.

  “I miss Dad and my brothers more right now than I’ve missed them since I’ve been here, and that’s saying a lot.” Marshall was all choked up. “I want to tell them so bad. I want them to know.”

  I rose to my knees and cupped his jaws, almost tumbling from the sagging bed. Marshall gripped my waist. We were each tearful, sweaty from the exertion of the previous hour; and then, despite everything, I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “They would be so happy,” I agreed, as he kissed away my tears. “I’m not sad, honey, I’m just in stun…”

  “We should have known, we haven’t been using a bit of protection. Talk about irresponsible.” He bent down to stomach level and kissed my navel. “I know it’s not an excuse to say we’ve been distracted, but still. I can’t think fast enough, sweetheart. What about prenatal vitamins? Oh God, you better not ride Blade anymore. Can we keep traveling? What about the bumps on the trail? And calcium, are you getting enough calcium? Oh, Jesus…”

  He was on the verge of panicking and there was a knock on the door; seconds later Axton called, “Marsh, Ruthie! You two awake?”

  “We’ll be right out, Ax!” I turned back to Marshall, threading my arms around his neck. “Honey. Hey. We have to take this one day at a time. There’s no other way. I can still travel. I’m just fine. People have babies here all the time.”

  And die grisly deaths in childbirth, I thought immediately, not about to give voice to the inadvertent realization. But the notion clung, all the same. I thought of the long-ago night Marshall and I had discussed the probability of past lives, and my hypothetical example had been along the lines of, What if I died early and you lived to the end of your natural life? Marshall had been so upset over this example he’d made me knock on wood, just in case.

  Marshall nodded, resting his forehead to mine. Back home, in Jalesville what seemed like a thousand years ago, we’d hoped to have our first baby by the Christmas of 2014. We speculated constantly about what had taken place there in the future, in our real lives – the lives we intended to reclaim, if return was possible. We assumed it was not currently possible to return, at least not until we’d determined why we were here in 1882 instead of our original timeline. Had Derrick Yancy been successful in proving ownership of Clark’s land? Had his claims been justifiable?

  As of this moment, June 1882, Thomas Yancy was still alive, not shot in the back and killed by Cole Spicer, as Derrick had once alleged; perhaps Marshall and I were meant to prevent that death. We already knew our presence ensured the survival of Miles Rawley’s son, Jacob, a child he’d fathered with a prostitute named Celia Baker. The baby had not been sent east, as Celia originally intended, and had instead claimed his rightful place as a member of the Rawley family here in the nineteenth century. We believed the boy was meant to carry on the line of descendants which would one day lead to Marshall’s family in 2014. If I hadn’t arrived in 1881, prior to the boy’s birth, Marshall may very well never have existed at all.

  It was enough to make my blood freeze; Marshall and I tried our best to take things one catastrophe at a time.

  “Can we tell Ax?” Marshall asked, with giddy delight.

  I nodded and he planted an exuberant kiss on my lips. We dressed in a hurry and found Axton waiting in the sunshine, leaning against the side of the soddy when we emerged from it, ducking to fit under the doorway. Axton grinned at the sight of us and I threw myself into his arms, squeezing hard; I wished I could give him what he wanted more than all else in life, which was Patricia’s undying love. The most wrenching part of it was that Patricia did love Ax, which he and I both knew – but the father of her child was one Cole Spicer.

  I prayed that Cole, Patricia, and their son, in the company of Malcolm Carter, had reached northern Minnesota by now. When we parted ways, roughly two weeks ago, they were bound for the place where, one day, my own family would found and build the Shore Leave Cafe; just now, in 1882, the Davises were only newly established in Landon. The cafe itself, constructed on the banks of Flickertail Lake, would not exist until the 1930s. The simple remembrance of the familiar lake, and my family’s home there, inspired homesickness on a level I could only compare to dozens of tiny blades jammed between my ribs.

  Axton laughed at my enthusiastic hug, rocking me side to side. “Well good morning to you too, Ruthie.”

  “Guess what?” I demanded, drawing back and regarding his familiar face, so dear and handsome, the deep tan of his skin a striking contrast to the clear, dark green of his eyes. He was kind and true, earnest and sincere, a wonderful man I would handpick for any of my sisters. His ruddy brows lifted at my happy tone.

  Marshall roughed up Axton’s curly hair. “Ruthie and I have some good news this morning.”

  We trusted Axton implicitly; he was one of a very few who knew the truth about Marshall and I being displaced in time. What we hadn’t yet discussed with him was our desire to leave this place, ideally forever, and return home. I dreaded the conversation; the thought of leaving behind the people I’d come to know and love in 1882 filled me with increasing distress. I was dying to get to Montana Territory to see Birdie and Grant Rawley, Celia Baker and baby Jacob. My hands ached to hold Miles’s son, to hug him and observe with my own eyes that he was healthy and thriving. Knowing this would take some of the sting out of saying good-bye.

  “What’s that?” Axton prompted.

  Marshall winked, allowing me the floor, so to speak.

  “We’re having a baby!”

  Axton’s lips dropped open. “Aw, that’s wonderful!” He hugged Marshall next, and then said, with typical nineteenth-century practicality, “Well, we best find you two a preacher all that much sooner.”

  Chapter Three

  Montana Territory - June, 1882

  WE ARRIVED AT THE RAWLEYS’ HOMESTEAD LATE THE next afternoon, the place where one day, many decades from now, Marshall’s parents, Clark and Faye, would build a new house and raise five boys. It was a distinctly incredible and unsettling experience to be here in another century – existing within the same geographical space, the same foothills in the foreground and hazy blue mountain peaks in the distance, but the house Marshall and I knew so well, the steel-pole barn and the corral and the stone fire pit around which we’d sat and roasted marshmallows and sang late into so many nights, all absent.

  It seemed that at any second Clark, or Sean or Quinn or Wy, or the horses we had known and loved in a different century, like Banjo and Arrow, would come loping around the corner of the barn. Perhaps most astonishing of all was to observe the essence of Mar
shall’s family upon the faces of those here in 1882. Both of us struggled not to refer to Grant as ‘Garth,’ or Birdie as ‘Becky.’ I’d already called Axton ‘Case’ on more than one instance during our journey northwest.

  “Oh, Ruthie, I’ve missed you every day you were away. We prayed for your safe return every night, without fail. This past winter proved longer than any I’ve ever known,” Birdie said, all of us gathered about the outdoor hearth for a homecoming celebration that night, the men drinking whiskey and the kids crawling all over our laps. I had scarcely released my hold on Miles’s nine-month-old son.

  Celia, his mother and my dear friend, sat on my other side, smiling as she watched me feather Jacob’s dark hair and study his eyes, long-lashed and deep gray in color, just like Celia’s – and Marshall’s; I’d finally discovered the ancestor who’d gifted Marshall with his beautiful eyes. When we’d arrived, Celia enveloped me in her warm embrace, both of us crying; she’d whispered in my ear, “Thank you for stopping me from sending him away, dear Ruth. I don’t know what I would do without my boy.”

  “I’m so glad to be back,” I told Birdie, leaning to rest my cheek on her upper arm.

  “And your Marshall has finally found you.” Celia nodded in his direction, her voice warm with satisfaction. “His resemblance to Miles is right uncanny, straight down to the way he moves. I’ll tell you, sweet Ruth, that there man was fit to be tied when he couldn’t go after you last year. Winter had set in, you see. He was near feral. A Rawley through and through.”

  Marsh sat between Grant and Axton on the opposite side of the fire, the three of them chatting with ease; the bond forged between Grant and Marshall last year, when Marsh spent the winter here, was undeniably strong, and Marshall clearly reminded Grant of his younger brother, Miles, who had died in this very house a year ago. In addition to Ax, Grant and Birdie rounded out the small group of those who knew the truth. I wasn’t sure if they fully believed the story – and who could blame them – but they accepted it, and us, for which I was grateful beyond measure. They were careful not to ask too many questions; among our many fears, Marshall and I were afraid we’d already caused too much damage to the timeline, which, in books, film, and television – our only basis for comparison – always seemed irreparably fragile, like damp tissue paper.