She stopped at the door and turned to stare at the man. She wanted to ask his name, but his actions stopped her. What in the world was he doing?
Caleb brushed one finger over the door frame before his gaze collided with the woman’s. She didn’t appear to have been harmed when she went through the door. He arched one brow and caught the doorknob, glancing at the room. It still looked basically the same, yet different. The dresser and bed both looked . . . old.
Rebecca told him the medallion could transport people through time, and he hadn’t believed her. But that’s what this felt like. He gave a wry shake of his head. This had to be a dream. Dreams often felt real until a person woke up.
If he went into the hall, would it cause him to wake up? Whether it did or not, he couldn’t stay in Rebecca’s bedroom. It wasn’t proper. Besides he had to find Jacobs and make sure he understood that he could stay with him in the barn for the night. He didn’t like the idea, but he couldn’t send the drunk back to town in a raging storm.
As he prepared to step through the doorway, Caleb kept his eyes on the woman. Resting one hand on each side of the door frame, he walked through the entrance. A tingling sensation pulsed around him. Not the painful prickles of before, but a gentle throb. He would ask Rebecca if what had happened earlier had something to do with the orichalc medallion.
The woman called Becci remained in front of him. Disappointment mixed with excitement and fear. This was a dream, so why hadn’t he awakened from it?
The woman headed for the stairs. “We need to get going, Mr . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know your name,” she said, stopping at the top of the staircase to look back at him.
Caleb shrugged. “My name is Caleb Harrison.”
Becci paused, her fingers tightening around the handrail, and she turned to scowl at him. “Aunt Lilly put you up to this. I know she did. Don’t you even think about trying to trick me into believing you’re from the past.”
Without giving the man a chance to answer, Becci pivoted and ran down the first flight of stairs. At the landing, she stopped and glanced over her shoulder, watching the stranger start down.
“What is your name?”
“Caleb Harrison,” he repeated.
“Listen, mister, I don’t know why Aunt Lilly put you up to this charade. But if you insist on taking the name of one of the characters my namesake, the original Mary Rebecca Berclair, wrote about, I’d rather you didn’t choose the one who murdered her, even if that murder did happen more than a hundred and sixty years ago.”
“M . . . murdered?”
The shock she saw reflected in his expression looked genuine. It was the same kind of look she’d seen at the hospital when friends and family learned of a loved one’s death. Recalling the journals’ claims that the orichalc coin let people travel through time, she felt an eerie shiver climb up her spine. He couldn’t be the real Caleb Harrison, could he? No. Impossible.
Pain gnawed at Caleb’s heart. Rebecca’s dead? He caught the banister and stared down at the woman on the landing below. The image of Jacobs holding the blood-soaked knife flashed through his mind. Did Jacobs kill Rebecca? Did he kill Luke? But if he had, how would this woman know about Rebecca’s death without him knowing about it, too?
“You’re lying. Rebecca’s not dead. She and Luke are waiting for me in the parlor.”
Caleb glanced past Becci to the sitting room’s entrance, and then he let his gaze scan the old portraits that lined the stairwell. There were unfamiliar portraits that he hadn’t seen before, and he felt a fluttering of panic as Becci’s words replayed in his mind. She’d said the original Mary Rebecca Berclair had been murdered more than a hundred and sixty years ago.
Again, the image of Jacobs with the bloody knife flashed through his mind. Had the drunk killed Rebecca and come upstairs to kill him, too? Was he actually dead instead of dreaming? But if he had died, and Jacobs had killed him, why had Jacobs come with him in this dream or nightmare or whatever it was? Although illogical, was Rebecca’s claim that the medallion could transport a person through time true?
Caleb sucked in a deep breath and expelled it slowly. For the first time, he let himself believe in the possibility of time travel because he couldn’t let himself believe that Rebecca and Luke were dead and lost to him. He had to get back to them, but he couldn’t leave Jacobs behind. If the drunk had harmed either Rebecca or Luke, he would make sure he paid the price.
Finding Jacobs came first, and then he’d find his way back to Rebecca and Luke. When a voice inside whispered that he was too late, he refused to listen. Rebecca and Luke were alive and well. He had to believe that.
“My name is Caleb Harrison, Miss Berclair, and I’m not lying about that.”
She looked both irritated and puzzled, but all she said was, “Okay, Mr. Harrison, let’s just get to work and forget this discussion ever happened.”
“Caleb.” He moved around her, heading for the front door. “Please, call me Caleb.”
“If you and Aunt Lilly aren’t in this together, I hope you’re prepared to listen to her questions. Especially if you keep insisting that Caleb Harrison is your name. She’ll want to know all about how you killed Rebecca.”
Caleb slowed. He couldn’t have heard her right. But she’d repeated it again. Rebecca was dead, and he’d supposedly killed her. Caleb faced the front door and pressed his palms flat against the wood. He slowly curled his hand into a fist.
“The last time I saw Rebecca, she wore a cameo that I’d given her to celebrate Luke’s birth. She’s my friend—my only friend. I didn’t—couldn’t—kill her.”
Becci didn’t have time for games, but for the second time in less than a minute she felt a surge of concern for this man. She came up behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder. He shrugged away from her touch. For a moment her hand hovered in the air before she dropped it back to her side, telling herself that the man was acting. To believe otherwise would mean she’d have to accept time travel, which only happened in movies and books. But even though her logic told her the man was playing a role, she couldn’t bring herself to challenge him.
“The furniture is out back,” she said. “Of the remaining pieces, the only one you’ll need help with is the wardrobe. Why don’t we move that piece in first?”
“We?” He swiveled to face her. His blue eyes glistened. A hint of moisture shimmered on his dark lashes, but no tears fell.
Again telling herself he was acting, Becci motioned for him to follow her.
She pivoted toward the kitchen. “The wardrobe is too heavy for one person, and Aunt Lilly said your friend ran off. That just leaves me to help. The work has to be done if I plan to keep this house.”
Becci heard her father’s voice when he handed her the key to the front door. “No one but a relative of Saul or Obadiah Berclair has ever owned this place. That’s why I—we—have to try and save it. Besides, the secret of the coin is here somewhere.” Becci half whispered her father’s words.
“Let’s get to work.” She didn’t care if the man had heard her or not. She didn’t care if he followed, did the work of an army, or pretended to be sick. The offer of funding from the Ascomp Company had put the spark back into her dream. Now she had two choices—find funding for the nursery or sell out. Either way finances were going to be tight for a few years to come. If she hoped to get the nursery started, she needed more money than her meager salary provided.
“If we wait, I’m sure this Mr. Latham you’re expecting will gladly help me,” Caleb said as he caught up to her.
Becci whirled around to face him and laughed sarcastically. “Believe me, if he’s anything like Michael Ascott, Mr. Latham will not help. He’ll be too afraid he’ll wrinkle his three-piece suit.”
“Then I’ll do it by myself. You’re a . . . .” He hesitated. His gaze drew a pointed line from the top of her he
ad to the tips of her toes and back up, hesitating slightly as it reached her chest.
She felt her body respond. Butterflies took flight in her stomach when he lifted his eyes to her lips. She had to fight the urge to moisten them.
“You’re a lady. No matter what your profession, a job like this should be done by the man in the family.”
“There is no man in the family, at least not yet. My fiancé isn’t the type to get his hands dirty with manual labor. That’s why we hired you.”
“You’re promised?”
It took her a moment to figure out what he meant. “Engaged, Mr. Harrison.”
“Same difference. They both mean you’re spoken for.”
Caleb didn’t know why the thought of her belonging to another man caused such strange feelings inside him. It couldn’t be because of her chosen profession. After all, he’d been engaged to a prostitute once. The strange feelings just didn’t make sense.
Nothing did.
This all had to be a dream, he told himself. He could look. He could even touch her if he wanted too. She was part of his dream. If he wanted to make love to her, he could. Providing she was willing. He wouldn’t take a woman who didn’t want him, not even in a dream.
“Does your fiancé know you let men see you like this?” Caleb glanced toward the door while he waited for her answer. His heart thundered like the hoofbeats of a stampeding heard of wild mustangs.
His gaze was drawn back to her as she snapped, “Mister, what my fiancé knows or doesn’t know is between him and me, and if you want to continue to work here you will keep your chauvinistic views to yourself.”
Caleb nodded once and glanced back toward the door. He didn’t know what she meant by chauvinistic views, but he wasn’t about to ask her to explain. For now, he would help her rearrange Rebecca’s house and pray that something would wake him.
He passed the woman and headed toward the back of the house. The woman might have Rebecca’s hair and eyes, but she didn’t have her other qualities. The Widow Berclair would never allow a man to see her in such sparse clothing.
Caleb came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the kitchen and scanned all the changes. A table had replaced the potbellied stove, and a window bowed outward where a solid brick wall had once protected against the heat. On the new table, steam swirled over a platter of hot vegetables and a glass container of brown liquid that smelled like coffee.
The woman called Lilly stood in the far corner of the room beside a tall, rectangular box, mostly white. A short, square piece sat beside it. The wood enclosures that lined the lower half of the wall had two deep holes centered under the window where he’d watched Rebecca wash plates in a large dishpan. A long, curved piece of shiny silver, metal protruded out over one of the indentations.
None of this could be real, yet it was. Outside, the flowers he’d helped Rebecca trim back because the last of the blooms had wilted looked fresh and full of color. Further out in the yard several rose bushes bloomed. Last month Rebecca told him the spring flowers on the table were the last of the season.
She’d been wrong. Rebecca’s gardens were in full bloom . . . again.
“What . . . ?” He started to ask what month it was, but a calendar hanging beside the back door gave him his answer.
May?
Impossible!
Caleb traced the month displayed in two-inch letters below a strange picture. He tossed a quick glance back at the window then swiftly returned his gaze to the calendar. It locked on the month again.
He’d already lived through May once this year.
No. He corrected as he took note of the year on the calendar. His heart skidded to a stop and then leaped into a thundering gallop. Never had he dreamed this year would exist in his lifetime. He still wanted to believe he was dreaming, but if what the calendar said was true, he had traveled through time. And how else could he explain all the strange furniture in this room and the missing brick wall? Rebecca said he had a good imagination, but he could never dream up such strange things.
As he tried to accept the notions running through his mind, he watched Becci walk over to one of the wall protrusions. She opened a drawer and took out another long tube. The red and yellow shaft made it look less dangerous than the other one.
“Your flowers look nice,” he muttered, eyeing the tube cautiously.
Maybe this wasn’t a new type of gun, but he would watch her closely while she held it.
Her gaze slid to the window, and she sighed. “Yes, they are.” She tipped her head in Lilly’s direction. “Aunt Lilly works hard to keep them looking pretty, but it’s too much for one person.”
As she spoke, she shook this new cylinder a couple of times then moved her thumb over a small rippled piece on the side. A wide, white river shot from the end.
Caleb jerked back, but not fast enough. The streak caught him on the thigh then settled into a pale gold puddle on the floor. It moved when she moved, yet it destroyed nothing.
He swiped his hand over the area of his thigh that had been nipped. No pain, and no visible damage, even though the gun-like object put out a flame-like glow.
With another push of the button, the woman doused the beam and glanced out the window at the shed. “Darn, the shed’s locked. You take the light, and I’ll get the keys for the double-doors. It will be easier to get everything out that way.”
Caleb expelled the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and felt the tension drain away. She extended the tube, but he didn’t take it.
“Look, if you don’t want to do the work, why don’t you just leave?” She shoved past him and out the door without once pulling out her other weapon. The silver tube still protruded from her front pocket, and she held the red and yellow one at her side in a tight-fisted, angry grip.
“Miss Berclair?”
“What?” she yelled as she whirled around to face him.
Caleb stepped off the porch and held out his hand for the tube, realizing that she’d called it a light. It occurred to him that it was some type of torch. “I’m supposed to take that thing, and you’re supposed to get the key.”
He arched one brow and gave Becci a smile that sent her heart racing.
She caught his hand and slapped the light against his palm. “I don’t have time for games, Mr. Harrison.”
“I’m not playing games, Miss Berclair. I wish I were. This morning when I woke up, I left Raleigh, but I never expected to go so far.”
“And just how far did you travel, Mr. Harrison? All of five miles?”
“And more than a hundred and sixty years,” he whispered to himself.
Five
CALEB KEPT HIS strides steady. He didn’t have to see Miss Berclair standing behind him to know her eyes still bore into him. He locked his gaze on the large oak tree in the center of the backyard. Was this the same tree that just last week he’d circled his hands around and touched his thumbs together?
He pressed his palm to the rough bark and drew in a calming breath. He couldn’t even wrap his arms around the trunk now. Nothing remained the same—not the house nor the yard—and the most horrifying difference was this stranger who claimed to be Rebecca.
Rebecca would never let the morning glory vines choke the marigolds or the rosebushes remain untrimmed. And when had the trees grown so large? The maples, magnolias and oaks towered over the house. Their limbs now swept the roof as the wind filtered through the branches.
No lean-to sheltered a woodpile. In its place stood a gleaming, whitewashed building with glass-paned windows. Next to the building, where Rebecca’s wagon usually sat, was a large, metal contraption on strange looking wheels. The barn and chicken coop didn’t exist anymore, either.
Caleb tossed his hat and the light stick to the ground. He couldn’t let the fear or the dull throb that beat a trail throu
gh his head control him. He would manage. He had to. Once he learned what happened, and how it happened, everything would return to normal.
Maybe he’d fallen down the stairs and hit his head. He raked his hand over his head. Although he had a headache from the ordeal, he felt no bumps that would indicate a head injury.
Of course, he wouldn’t necessarily feel the injury in a dream. Would he? Everything seemed so real. Even the gentle breeze that feathered across his cheeks and cooled his skin felt real. It brought the scents of the roses, the musty stench of wet dirt, and the freshness created by a spring rain.
Even the water that dripped from the leaves and splashed into the small puddles under the tree looked real.
Spring flowers, the fragrance of the pines, the rain—all had a familiar essence, yet somehow everything felt different. He pounded his fist against the rough tree trunk.
“What’s happening?” he whispered frantically.
He twisted around, leaned against the tree and slid to the ground. The rough bark scraped his spine.
He heard the soft meow of a kitten and glanced toward the sound. He caught the small ball of fur and brought it to his chest before it pounced on his hat.
The tabby struggled a moment then clawed its way to Caleb’s shoulder and settled into a tiny fur-ball against his neck, purring. He ran his hand over the cat’s vibrating body. If he could curl up into a small contented ball like the kitten and ignore everything, maybe his life would return to normal. But he couldn’t do that. He had responsibilities.
Whatever was going on, he couldn’t abandon Rebecca and Luke. They depended on him.
Becci massaged the tight muscles at her nape as she watched Caleb sit slumped against the tree. Damn it, her back ached, her head throbbed, and her stomach churned. She didn’t have time to waste seething over—or soothing—Caleb Harrison.
He definitely spelled trouble. She didn’t need any more problems. He might look vulnerable and in need of a little TLC, but she knew better.
Keeper of the Key Page 5
