Dismay became outright fear. “How did this happen?! We were supposed to arrive weeks ago. Fuck. We have to get word to Marshall and Ruthie in Montana…assuming Ruthie’s still out there right now.” My thoughts whirled. “She must be. I bet that’s why she couldn’t return this time, since she’s already here.” Distraught, I cried, “We’ll never make it there in time! We’re too late. Oh, my God…” I sat clutching Aces High’s dark mane in both hands, terrorized. There was no way we could travel hundreds of miles in a single day, let alone hope to get word to them. We were in the middle of a prairie in Iowa, in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Malcolm halted Aces and stepped close to the saddle. He reached for my right hand, cradling it between both of his as he said, “Tell me what we need to do.”
The wagon rolled along a mile behind; as we gained ground I saw the sun glint off a man’s auburn hair.
Cole Spicer, I thought, and a deep thrill spiked through my gut. Though I’d barely had time to process the fact, I was indeed here in the nineteenth century, in the presence of people I had never imagined meeting. The deep-seated ache in my heart throbbed. Mathias, oh God, I wish you were with me. I miss you so fucking much. You would be amazed at what I’m seeing. Tish, you should be here too. I’m looking at Case’s ancestor.
I refused to consider what was occurring at Shore Leave in the wake of my departure rather than Ruthann’s; I had two goals here in this place and if I wanted my real life back, I sure as hell better keep focused. There was no other option. I could break down like nobody’s business some other day. A second man rode a gorgeous pinto mare on the other side of the wagon and while he didn’t much resemble the man I knew as my stepfather many generations from now, I recognized Blythe Tilson.
Cole drew the wagon to a halt. To describe his expression as staggered was something of an understatement.
Malcolm took charge. “Plans have changed, fellas. There’s no time to lose.”
Cole peered at me with amazement curling his reddish-gold eyebrows. His gaze flickered to Malcolm and then returned to my face. He didn’t have to speak the words aloud for me to understand; I knew how much I resembled Cora – Malcolm’s lost love, the woman with whom I shared a soul.
Blythe heeled his mount and rode closer, addressing Malcolm. “What do you mean?”
“We’re in danger,” Malcolm said succinctly. “The Yancys are on our trail. They’ll catch up with us by tomorrow morning if we don’t take immediate action.”
“Fallon?” Cole asked, shoulders squaring in immediate offense. “He’s back?”
Malcolm shook his head. “No, Dredd and his father are in pursuit. This is Ruthann’s sister, Camille, and she’s traveled a long distance to get to us.” His gaze flickered to Blythe. “This-all is gonna seem a mite strange to you, but I pray you’ll trust me. This man here,” indicating Derrick, “is a descendent of the Yancys. He and Camille have come to warn us. They’re from the twenty-first century.”
Blythe’s lips twitched with either disbelief or amusement, I couldn’t tell which. But he was clearly a man able to take things in stride; he nodded politely at me as he said, “I wondered why them clothes looked so odd.” His voice rumbled like thunder.
I knew Cole was already aware of many truths, including Ruthann’s abilities; he wasted no time on additional questions. “If the Yancys are already on our trail, we can’t lose more time. What’s your plan, Malcolm?”
“We have to get to a town with a telegraph in an all-fired hurry. On horseback we can make it before nightfall. But not with the wagon.”
Cole stowed the reins and jumped from the wagon seat, calling for Patricia. Malcolm reached to help me from Aces; his touch on my waist blazed all across my skin, there was no denying. Flustered, I avoided his gaze, instead hurrying around to the back of the wagon, following Cole.
“Ruthann’s sister is here?” a woman inside asked, her voice low and rough.
“Darlin’, come here.” Cole climbed on the tailgate to assist her and Patricia’s face appeared in the oval opening. I gasped, I couldn’t help it – she looked so much like Tish that my spine prickled. Pale and drawn, shadows deep beneath her electric-blue eyes, exactly the way Tish had looked earlier this very morning, at Shore Leave.
“Oh, dear God. You are Camille, are you not? I would know you anywhere.”
Tears glided over my cheeks; the second she was on the ground, supported by Cole, she flung her arms around me, squeezing as tightly as was able in her weakened state. Her skin burned with fever and there was a faint tremble in her limbs, and I took care to keep my hug gentle. We drew apart but I cupped her elbows, afraid she might tumble over.
“What must we do?” she whispered. “Where is this descendent of the Yancys?”
Derrick approached and Patricia assessed him with the imperious nature of a queen. Of course he noticed how much she looked like Tish; I could see it all over his face. “Ma’am,” he stumbled.
“You do not look like a Yancy.” Her tone was an exact replica of Tish’s, the way my sister sounded when employing her lawyer voice.
I almost expected Derrick to drop to one knee but he straightened his spine instead.
“Your eyes,” she whispered, before he could reply. “There is no ruthlessness in them.”
Reclaiming Patricia’s attention, I said, “I apologize for all of this, I know it’s a shock. But we have no time to waste.” Names and facts spun through my head. “By this time tomorrow, Dredd will shoot Thomas Yancy and then blame Cole for the murder. Cole will go to jail. Someone in Dredd’s group will shoot and kill Blythe.” I paused for a quick, gulping breath, ignoring everything but the need to impart facts, including Blythe’s obvious shock at this news. “Fallon is here in 1882, but he’s in Montana. Tomorrow night he will burn the Rawleys’ home to the ground, killing Miles’s son, Jacob, and destroying that branch of the Rawley family. We have to get word to them.”
Patricia’s skin drained of all color, leaving her so ashen she appeared lifeless. “Ruthie…where is Ruthie? How do you come to be here with this information?”
“She was returned to the future about a week after the fire, but it isn’t the future she remembers. Fallon’s actions created an offshoot in our timeline, an alternate reality. A nightmare I can’t even describe. Ruthie knew we had to warn you and she tried to return here this morning, but she couldn’t. It’s like she was blocked.” I struggled to recall those moments – Derrick had vanished almost at once while Ruthann’s body jerked and flopped, as though caught in a violent current. I had rushed forward, mere steps ahead of Tish – and woke here.
It was your connection to Malcolm. The strength of what binds your two souls drew you here to this place in time. There is no other explanation.
“She is safe? What of Marshall? What of…Axton?” Pain cut a trench across Patricia’s face.
“I left Ruthie behind in 2014. But I think she’s still here too, in this time.” I looked to Derrick for help.
“As far as we know they are all still in Howardsville, Montana,” he supplied. “Ruthann and I intended to arrive here two weeks ago in order to reach them with time to spare. We know that Marshall and Axton will be in Howardsville by tomorrow evening, but obviously they would be unable to return in time to prevent the fire at the Rawley homestead.”
I witnessed the play of thoughts across Malcolm’s mind as he considered our options at lightning speeds; I marveled again, struck to my very core, how much he reminded me of Mathias. Despite physical differences, most notably the shade of his eyes, Malcolm’s every movement, his mannerisms, his mouth and eyebrows and posture were achingly familiar.
Be very, very careful, Camille.
To claim I was not in love with Malcolm Carter would be a lie of immense proportions; I had loved Malcolm since the first winter I held his picture in my hands. I loved him to his very soul, my own crying out with recognition of our connection. But the fact remained that he was a different man; Malcolm was not my husband. I cou
ld not find room for guilt over imagining making love with the man standing before me, making love until our souls were fully sated and all sadness, all pain, vanquished forever.
Stop. There is no way you can let that happen.
“Cole, listen up good,” Malcolm ordered. “Get Patricia and the baby out of here. The Yancys are coming from Chicago, that we know, and expect us to be on a northern route. They are still a day from our current position, so that gives us time to flee.”
“West,” Cole said at once. “We’ll head due west, aim for the nearest settlement. Windham can’t be more than twenty miles.” He gathered Patricia to his side and kissed her tangled hair. “I am so sorry, love, to ask this of you. I know you’re ill.”
“I am well,” she assured. “Hard travel could never be worse than what Camille has just described.”
“Go as fast as you’re able,” Malcolm said. “Waste no time.” He paused, briefly considering. “Blythe, if you would accompany them and help keep watch. Meanwhile we’ll backtrack to Muscatine and telegraph Howardsville. We can make it by nightfall, it ain’t more than thirty miles, give or take.” His eyes met mine.
“I’m up for it,” I announced at once, understanding what he was about to ask. “I’ll be fine.”
“Good, since I wasn’t planning to let you from my sight,” Malcolm said, just serious enough I couldn’t discern if there was a hint of humor in his words, or not. My heart throbbed fiercely. He looked next to Derrick. “Yancy, what of you? Can you handle a firearm?”
Derrick shifted uncomfortably, tugging his gaze from Patricia. “I’ve never shot a gun in my life.”
“Well, there ain’t time for lessons anyway.” Malcolm’s observant eyes flickered over the wagon, then back to Derrick. “You’ll stay and help keep watch.”
Derrick struggled to submerge his unease. “I’d rather we stuck together if it’s all the same to you, Camille.”
I knew he feared losing what he considered his only connection to the future and I couldn’t blame him, but the decision was out of my hands.
“There ain’t enough horses.” There was zero room for argument in Malcolm’s tone. “We’ll catch up once we’ve sent a message. Give us until tomorrow night, Cole. We’ll look for you in Windham.”
And so, less than ten minutes after our first meeting, I was hugging Patricia good-bye. “Be safe,” I begged in a whisper, closing my eyes against the softness of her hair. “Please, be safe.”
“You have already saved us, dear Camille.” She drew back and studied my eyes. “I could never thank you enough. I pray you are able to warn Ruthann. I shall pray every moment until we meet again.”
Derrick masked his fear with admirable effort, cupping my upper arm as he ordered, “Watch out for yourself. Jesus Christ, Tish will kill me if you get hurt.”
“You’ll be safe with me, I swear on my life.” Malcolm held Aces by the horse’s lead line, eyes steady on mine as he spoke. Fate enclosed my heart in a merciless grip – how many times had I stood facing this man, this horse, with the sun beating down on my head and the prairie grasses rippling to the horizon on all sides? The exact number was lost to me – only Malcolm and Cora would ever know for certain – but it didn’t matter.
One last time, I thought, aching from the inside out. Give me this one last time.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Iowa Plains - June, 1882
ACES HIGH CANTERED OVER THE PRAIRIE WITH US ON HIS back, the miles disappearing beneath his long, graceful legs. Malcolm slowed him to a walk roughly every twenty minutes and the animal’s ribcage expanded and contracted as his powerful lungs drew huge breaths, preparing for another bout of running. I buried both hands in the coarse hair of the horse’s thick brown mane while Malcolm held the reins, his arms encircling my waist from behind, his thighs aligned with mine. I tried at first to pretend his proximity didn’t affect me but it was absolutely no use. An agony of need and desire battered me with full force. And love. I loved this man so much it hurt.
My hair was tucked beneath Malcolm’s bandana, which he’d been kind enough to lend me, a tattered rectangle of indigo cloth which I tied over my loose hair so it wouldn’t blow in his face, knotting it at the nape of my neck. At first he’d offered his cowboy hat but it was too big, slipping down to cover my eyes. My clothing was what I’d left Shore Leave wearing – a pair of faded jeans, wool socks, and snow boots with rounded toes never intended for fitting in stirrups; a ragged gray t-shirt under an old green sweater. Clothes meant for chilly, slushy, late-winter Minnesota, not a prairie in Iowa under a hot June sun. Even with the wind created by Aces High’s fast pace, sweat trickled in slippery paths beneath my double layer of shirts.
Malcolm’s forearms rippled with lean muscle, exposed by the rolled-up sleeves of his threadbare shirt, a garment that might once have been white. His fingers were long, with blunt square nails, his hands calloused and hard and more capable-looking than any man’s I’d ever seen. I’d noticed almost immediately the braided leather band on his right wrist, with Cora’s name carved upon its surface; one winter night long ago I’d used a magnifying glass to read the word on the surface of a photograph. And again the unreality of this situation beat at my senses; after all this time, I was in the same physical space as Malcolm Carter.
“What was her last name? I’ve wondered for so long.” I touched the band on his wrist as I asked, rubbing a thumb over the single word carved upon the smooth leather. I felt an undeniable connection with this woman, not only because she had loved Malcolm as much as I loved him, but because she was also part of me. In this century, Cora had been me.
“Lawson. Cora Elizabeth Lawson.” He spoke her name with a quiet reverence that tore at my heart.
“Who was she? How did you meet? When did you meet?” I was dying with curiosity.
“I was a boy of thirteen, green as sawgrass. It’s a long tale, but we have a long ride.”
“Tell me everything,” I demanded, smiling as I sensed him grin.
“Only if you promise the same.” He tightened his elbows around my waist, just slightly.
“I promise.”
He was a talker. But I already knew that, basking in the warm flow of his words.
And I listened, peppering him with questions, as he told me of his first sight of eleven-year-old Cora Lawson in the late summer of 1868, on a cattle drive toward Montana Territory. He backtracked, at my request, relating memories of his boyhood in Tennessee with descriptions so vivid I felt I’d been there with him. He spoke of running wild in the holler, trying to keep up with his older brothers, of mealtimes at dusk and his father’s fiddle singing through the early hours of the night. The Davises – my own family – lived on the opposite end of the holler. I learned of Sawyer Davis and his twin brothers, Ethan and Jeremiah, dear friends of the Carter boys. Then the advent of The War Between the States, when darkness blotted out the bright happiness of youth and robbed Malcolm of two of his three brothers.
His parents, Bainbridge and Clairee, survived until 1864 only to die within an hour of one another.
“Daddy loved Mama so.” Malcolm’s drawl grew more pronounced the more he spoke of his long-lost Tennessee home. “He couldn’t bear to go on without her. She was the very light of his life.”
The back of my head rested on his left shoulder as Aces walked for a brief spell, and I turned my nose toward his chest, eyes closed as I breathed his scent, lulled by exhaustion and the beat of hooves, by Malcolm’s stories and the security of his arms.
I felt his chest rise as he inhaled; his words rumbled against my spine as he continued the story. “Boyd and Sawyer came for me a few months later, after I’d given up all hope. I figured I was an orphan through and through, but by the grace of God they returned to me.”
“When did you meet Lorie?” I asked when he next paused for a breath.
“My first sight of her was just outside of St. Louis, the summer of ’sixty-eight. I was but twelve years old and I figured she was an ange
l straight from heaven. My brother and Sawyer, and our old friend, Angus Warfield, rescued her that very night.”
“Rescued her?”
“She worked as a prostitute, was forced into it when she was no more than fifteen. She’d been raised but miles from our hometown back in Tennessee and Angus recognized her. He took her away from the place where she worked, where she lived no better than a prisoner.”
I thought of the way Grandma and Aunt Ellen had always claimed there was a ‘saloon girl’ in our family tree; Ruthie, Tish, and I always assumed they were just trying to spice up our ancestors.
Hours passed while Aces cantered southeast; I’d never realized nor appreciated a horse’s true stamina. Though Malcolm asked several times if I was all right, we kept an overall breakneck pace, not stopping for food or water until late afternoon. He lifted me to the ground a few feet from a small creek and I sank to the ground with my first step, my legs stiff as plywood planks. Despite the gravity of the situation and the weight of urgent stress like a yoke across my shoulders, laughter bubbled from my belly as I ended up cross-legged on the warm earth.
“I’m so sweaty and dirty,” I moaned, laughing harder still, grinding my fingertips against my grimy forehead. “I smell awful.”
Malcolm’s grin – Mathias’s grin – lit up his entire face. “You don’t smell anything but wonderful, believe me. And I would know, as your hair’s been tickling my face for the past twenty-five miles.”
I hooked my chin on my left shoulder, looking up at him as he stood nearby, hands latched on his lean hips. He’d let his hat fall down his back; his hair was wild with disarray, plastered to his temples with sweat as he grinned. He was so handsome, and so very familiar, and a hot, vibrating pulse ricocheted like an electric charge through my center. I mustered a teasing tone to cover my nerves. “Well, you could have said something.”
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