“How did…when did…” I clung, knotting my arms around his torso, terrified he would disappear from my embrace.
“Your eyes,” he whispered as if in a dream. “I know your eyes, I swear on my life. I knew it the night you showed up at the trailer. I’d never seen you before that night, but I knew you. I’ve hardly slept since you left, or eaten. Your face has haunted me. And all those things you said…” He trailed to silence, thumbs caressing my wet face as if it were constructed of porcelain. With reverence, he bent and kissed my right eye, closing it, then the left. Resting his lips to my forehead and inhaling deeply, he whispered, “You know all these things already, don’t you?”
Tears seeped through my lashes. Reality was asserting itself more aggressively now but I fought it, unwilling to move from his embrace. He might not have been the Case who was my husband in our real lives, but he was still Case. And I couldn’t bear to lose him so soon, especially when this version of him had been lonely so long, without the gift of the lifelong presence of the Rawleys and their devotion to him; without our love for each other to keep the outside world at bay. “I do know. I love you, Case, I love you so much. I’ve missed you so much, sweetheart, you can’t begin to know. Oh God, I don’t know how to make you understand what I have to tell you…”
“Then tell me, please tell me everything. I drove straight through from Montana to get here, I couldn’t bear it anymore. I looked you up online and tracked down your address. I know it’s crazy, it’s something a stalker would do, but I’m not a stalker, I promise you. I just had to find you. I’ve been here maybe fifteen minutes. The doorman wouldn’t say where you’d gone, so I was waiting.” He noticed my bare feet and concern swept over his features. “You’re soaked. Where have you been? Are you all right?”
My thoughts flew, streaking across wide, windswept fields of thought. I had no true idea where to begin; the last thing I expected this evening was for Case to appear in Chicago. Furthermore, I had no intention of remaining in this timeline where neither of us rightly belonged, this alternate horror in which I’d been enmeshed for too long already. Agonized anew, I studied the sincerity in his eyes and felt a razor pass across my soul.
“Let’s go upstairs,” I insisted. “This is my dad’s place and we can clean up. Then we have to leave, we have to get out of Chicago right away. I’ll explain everything once we get going…”
But all decisions were suddenly removed from my hands.
The slow-motion, time-stop reel suddenly reasserted itself, each second jolting-jerking-clunking to the next. Sounds retreated. My limbs grew dense. I watched, transfixed by horror, as Fallon Yancy strode toward us through the rain. Teeth exposed. Grinning. Lips moving-flapping-speaking – “This is fucking poetic. You really are a whore, aren’t you, Patricia?”
My own voice then, raging-screaming-sobbing – “What did you do to them?! Where are they?! I will fucking kill you –”
I tried to launch at Fallon but Case had already moved between us. Swift, fluid, full of purpose. He would never let anyone hurt me.
I should have known, I should have known –
This exact moment had played out in my nightmares dozens of times.
Fallon was ready this time and it happened fast; so fast I would have missed it had I blinked.
But I didn’t blink. I saw.
The gun was small, well-hidden between their bodies. The bullet pierced Case’s stomach and his hands fell away from Fallon. He stared down at the blood blooming on his wet shirt as though merely surprised, lips parting. And then went almost gracefully to his knees.
Begging-sobbing-screaming, I tried with both hands to staunch the flow of his blood.
Fallon leaned close to my ear. “Don’t bother. He’s beyond help. It’s fate, you see.”
“What the fuck?” someone was yelling from behind us, perhaps the cab driver; I had no idea. He bellowed, “Jesus Christ, this man’s been shot! Get help!”
Too late, too late…
Fallon was already gone.
You can’t stop him, Christina had said. No one can.
Chapter Twenty
Montana Territory - June, 1882
I WOKE SHROUDED BY UNEASE, THE REMNANTS OF A BAD dream lingering for a last second before wakefulness swept them away. Our room was veiled in darkness but I sensed the approaching dawn, hunching my knees toward my belly and closing my eyes, attempting to cling to the images so recently playing out in my head – did they seem more ominous than a normal jumble of bad dreams, or was I imagining that? So many worries crowded my mind by day; I had so few solutions to any of them, it only made sense they would find an outlet at night. But I was someone who trusted her instinct, and mine suggested this sequence of dreams contained deeper significance –
I could not shake the feeling that Tish and Camille had been screaming for my attention from the opposite side of a wide chasm. I knew they were out there in actuality, not just trapped within the confines of a nightmare, both terrified for me and made helpless by the longtime lack of news. Had more than a year passed in their lives, as it had here? Marshall and I had reason to believe time flowed differently here in the past, but did it move more swiftly, or less? And who besides Fallon Yancy could answer such a question? Against my will, Fallon’s face burned across the screen of my mind, slender and lethal, eye sockets like deep holes; he was laughing and I slammed the door on the image, conjuring instead a picture of my older sisters.
Tish, I thought, first separating her face from Patricia’s, trying yet again to reach her through the unimaginable barriers separating us. Camille’s features took form more readily because I had no one here with whom to confuse her. Camille. I’m here. What were you trying to tell me?
Marshall and I had spent an afternoon last week writing a note, selecting an appropriate location we prayed would contain the metal lockbox until its intended twenty-first century discovery, and then digging a deep, narrow hole in which to bury both. A sense of foreboding had crept in as we worked, stealthy as a predator, but I’d refused to acknowledge its presence. Because I was pregnant, Marshall would not allow me to help him with either the initial digging or the replacing of turned earth atop the lockbox and so I sat in silence, watching him work with quiet efficiency; thoughts of gravedigging kept intruding. I’d reminded myself countless times that Marshall was not shoveling dirt onto a coffin.
“It’s the best we can do, for now,” he’d said afterward. Though we didn’t speak a word of it, I knew both of us harbored doubts. But the very act of doing something lent us a sense, however fleeting, of accomplishment.
Now, just over an uneventful week later, I rolled to the opposite side and latched an arm and leg around Marshall’s naked body, seeking the only security I knew; he was still snoring but responded to my touch by clasping a protective hand around my thigh. I nuzzled the warm skin between his shoulder blades, hoping to claim a little more sleep, when he surprised me by murmuring, “I was dreaming about Garth and Case and Mathias, just now.”
Adrenaline erupted in my blood, eradicating any urge to continue resting. I lifted to an elbow, hooking my chin over his shoulder. “I dreamed about my sisters.”
Marshall shifted to his back; his eyes were troubled.
“What did you dream?” I insisted, cupping his stubbled jaw.
“They were singing at The Spoke, which isn’t so strange, I suppose. I mean, I dream pretty often about us all being there together. But this time…I don’t know, it was eerie, Ruthie. Behind them, almost like I could see through the wall to what was happening outside, there was this huge ocean wave. Like something in a disaster movie, a huge gray breaker swelling over Jalesville, higher than the entire town. If I hadn’t woken up just now it would have swept over everything in its path. Swept them all away.”
My spine ached at this description.
Marshall drew me closer to his warmth. “It was a big crowd, like they were playing a weekend show or something. There were a couple other guys on stage with
them but I couldn’t tell who they were…”
“Did you see my sisters in the crowd?”
“I didn’t. Shit, this scares me. I hate to admit it.” He searched my eyes. “What did you dream, angel?”
“I can’t remember exactly. Tish and Camille were screaming for my attention. More than usual, though. They were frantic. Oh God, they’re trying to tell us something, Marsh. Something maybe even worse than us being trapped here.”
Awareness descended, drowning us in momentary silence.
When I could bear it no longer I sat straight, throwing off the covers, furious at the level of our vulnerability, our inability to know what was happening to our families.
“I agree.” Marshall spoke with quiet resignation and I was glad he hadn’t tried to tell me everything was all right. “I’m goddamn sick of having no answers.” His tone softened. “I know you are too, love.”
Angry moisture blurred my vision; the last thing I wanted to do was cry, but these were not tears of sadness. I was hot with fury. I wished something constructed of glass or china was within arm’s reach, if only so I could hurl it against the wall and hear the satisfying sounds of demolition. “I hate feeling so helpless. We have no way of communicating with them. We can’t just sit here at Grant’s and do nothing. We’ll go crazy.”
Marshall sat up, the sheet draping his hips, and engulfed me in his embrace. Compounding our stress was the continued lack of word from Malcolm, Cole, and Patricia. Even allowing for a generous margin of time they should have reached Landon by now, and therefore been able to send a letter. Something had happened to prevent this, it was growing harder to deny. Tomorrow was the first day of July and we’d parted ways in Iowa weeks ago; the only confirmation of their progress we’d received had been a letter tucked in a package mailed to Birdie and Grant by Grant’s mother, Fannie Rawley; they had spent one night in the company of the Rawley family.
Somewhere in the depths of my mind, where dark what-ifs and restless memories and aching guilt hunkered, I considered how this selfsame woman, Fannie, might have been my mother-in-law; had fate taken a different direction and I’d become Miles’s wife. I bit down on my lower lip. I did my best not to think about Miles in that context; Miles, who had spent his last night of life holding me close in the very bed I now shared with Marshall.
“I know we can’t just stay here at Grant’s indefinitely, but for now it’s the safest place.” Marshall roughed up his hair, then passed a hand over his unshaven face. “I’ll telegraph the Rawleys once we get to Howardsville later today, tomorrow at the latest. Ax said we’d be there by evening if we set out pretty quick here. I best get my ass in gear…” So saying, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat forward, knuckling sleep from his eyes.
The reminder of his trip to Howardsville sent a shard of fear through my heart. To an increasingly obsessive degree I hated letting him out of my sight.
“Let me come,” I begged, knowing it was a futile request. Howardsville was a hard day’s ride by horseback, a journey made considerably longer in the ponderous wagon; and I’d be forced to ride as a passenger in the flatbed, I knew. A pregnant woman couldn’t very well be saddling up and withstanding a horse’s cantering gait across dozens of miles. But I pleaded my case nonetheless. “Please, Marsh, please don’t make me stay here without you.”
We hadn’t been apart for more than a few minutes since being reunited here in 1882 and I knew it pained him to consider it, even when the separation was brief and necessary; at my insistence, Marshall had agreed to relinquish the marshal position he’d assumed last fall. A new candidate had been found and was due in Howardsville in the next day; word had arrived in the form of a telegram, along with a request that Marshall be there to greet him and offer a tour of town and the law offices. A separate and official document had arrived for Marshall, releasing him from the position, much to my overwhelming relief. In the month since we’d found each other there had been no hint or sign of the Yancys’ presence in town, and I attempted to derive a measure of relief from this fact.
“Aw, angel, don’t do this to me. You know I hate to leave you here but you can’t make a long trip like that on Blade, not anymore. Not in your condition.” He remained sitting on the edge of the bed, palms braced against the mattress, regarding me over his left shoulder. His back was lean and muscular, darkly tanned and so very familiar; I knew by heart the pattern of moles along his skin, and could have traced the paths between them with my eyes closed.
“I’ll ride in the wagon,” I insisted, already losing ground, frustrated by my lack of choice. We’d already hashed out this line of conversation a few days ago, when it became clear that Marshall would be required to travel to Howardsville. Part of the discussion included the fact that if we were, indeed, fated to remain in this century we both had to accept certain duties and conform to certain expectations; for example, as the rational part of me understood, we could not hope to get by forever without interacting with the greater world. And this meant perhaps an occasional parting.
“Angel.” The single word was infused with an entire host of tones, running the full gamut between endearment and exasperation.
I wrapped both arms around my bent knees and glared at him.
Marshall knew there was no point arguing and took the lofty ground; rather than lock horns with his pregnant wife he calmly stood, bending his arms, fists near his ears as he engaged in a quivering, all-over stretch, with an elongated, growling groan.
“You know what that does to me,” I complained, instantly wet and aroused, which only further infuriated me this early morning. He was so gorgeous, pretending innocence as our gazes held; all innocence dissolved as he grinned, wide and wicked.
“Then my evil plan worked.”
I rolled to my knees, unable to resist reaching for him, and he issued another low groan, this one of pure appreciation. He closed the distance between us in less than a heartbeat, scooping my heavy, tangled hair upward from my nape in one lithe hand, tilting my head to close his teeth over my earlobe. A shiver electrocuted the entire left side of my bare body.
He nipped a second time, his hands everywhere at once, lips brushing my skin as he whispered, “I didn’t kiss you good morning yet, angel.” And without another word he pressed my shoulder blades gently to the mattress and knelt alongside the bed, as if about to pray, spreading my thighs in one effortless motion before lowering his head.
No matter how much we rebelled against it, occasional leave-taking could not be avoided. I clung to the knowledge that Marshall, accompanied by Axton, rode a strong, capable horse accustomed to swift travel over many miles and that both men were not only cautious and careful, they were armed to the teeth, each with two pistols, a hunting knife, and a shotgun. Birdie prepared bundles of food suited for travel, they had full canteens; warm coats and wool blankets were tied in neat bundles behind their saddles; they were as well prepared as possible. I squelched the urge to beg Marshall not to ride away; a serrated chunk of ice had been growing in my gut with each second that ticked past.
“C’mere, sweetheart, it’s all right,” he murmured, gruff with emotion, gathering me in the shelter of his arms as we stood alongside Blade. The sun had just cleared the horizon and cast us in the rose-petal flush of a summer morning. The day promised fair skies, which heartened me; at least they wouldn’t be riding in a downpour. Ax was still inside the house, chatting with Birdie and Grant, allowing us a moment of privacy for farewell.
Marshall, Marshall, Marshall. God, how I love you. I can’t live without you. I can’t even think about it.
I buried my face in the scent of his neck, gripping the material of his shirt with both hands. “Hurry back to me.”
“I will, angel. We’ll be careful.” He drew apart just enough for our eyes to meet, imparting his strength and love upon me. “We’ll be home by the day after next. Don’t stay too long on your feet and don’t lift anything heavy,” he went on, cupping my belly, making small warm circles
with his hand horizontal to the earth. “Take good care of our boy.”
I forced my trembling lips to smile. “I will, I promise.”
“Give me your sweet mouth,” was his final order.
We were summarily joined by Axton, Grant, Birdie, and Celia, who held Jacob on her ample hip. The baby was bright-eyed in the morning’s rosy light, his irises the deep, rich gray of his mother’s. Marshall bent down to the baby and planted a kiss on Jacob’s downy cheek. The baby was his great-something grandfather and while Celia and Jacob would likely never be aware of the fact, I had not forgotten for a moment.
“Take care of the womenfolk, little guy,” Marshall murmured. He rose and tipped his hat at Celia, who beamed her wide, attractive smile, angling her impressive breasts in his direction in a gesture too deeply ingrained to ever overcome; she had worked for many years as a prostitute before leaving the profession altogether. I loved Celia dearly and considered her one of the noblest people I’d ever known. How amazing to be allowed the gift of looking upon the actual flesh-and-blood faces of Marshall’s ancestors. My thoughts skittered, taking an unexpected detour eastward, toward Minnesota. The Davises were alive in Landon at this very moment.
Imagine seeing them in real life.
I shivered; the notion seemed to possess weight, a premonition rather than simple speculation.
Axton hugged me next and I squeezed hard in return, this man I loved as much as a brother. “Keep safe,” I said in his ear. “Please, keep each other safe.”
“We will, I swear, Ruthie.” Ax drew away and my gut knotted at the haunted look in his green eyes, the daily strain of missing Patricia compounded by the increasing intensity of his fear for her safety.
I wanted to whisper that she was all right, that everything would be fine, but I refused to patronize. Instead I insisted, “Hurry back.”
There was a final flurry of hugs and admonitions to be safe – Marshall swept me close for one last kiss – and then he and Axton mounted Blade and Ranger, respectively. I shaded my eyes against the expanding glow of the bright June sun, my heart beating too fast. Marshall’s face grew stern with love, his eyes steady on mine as he angled Blade toward Howardsville, many miles east of the ranch.
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