A Witch in Time

by Catherine Kean

  He heard muffled footsteps. As he raised his head, Luna appeared, dressed in garments similar to what she’d worn yesterday. As Hecate bounded past her into the kitchen, Luna smiled at him. “’Morning.”

  “Good morning,” he said, determined she wouldn’t see any trace of tears in his eyes.

  “I’m glad you’re awake. I know it’s a very early start, but I have to get to the bakery. It’s probably best if you come with me.”

  If she thought it best, he would go. “All right.”

  “How did you sleep?”

  “Very well. You?”

  “Fine.” She wrinkled her nose. “Except when Hecate was snoring.”

  Colin laughed in surprise. “Your cat snores?”

  “Apparently, so.” Luna switched on the lights in the kitchen and opened a cupboard. “Do you like to start the day with coffee? Or, since you’re British, do you prefer tea?”

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever had coffee.”

  “We do serve it at the café, but I can’t wake up unless I have some first thing.” Luna ran water into an oddly-shaped glass vessel. He made a mental note to ask her later about the hot water and her household servants. “I just bought an organic blend,” she continued. “I’ll make it and you can see how you like it.”

  He managed a grin. “I will try most things once.”

  “Good to know.” After pouring the water into some kind of machine on her counter, she pushed a button and turned back to him. “We should check your head wound and change the bandage.”

  “It feels fine—”

  “Don’t be stubborn.”

  His brows rose. “It’s my wound.”

  “Yeah, but we don’t want it to become infected.”

  He’d seen corrupted wounds. He’d known men who’d had limbs sawn off because of infection. “Do what you will, then.”

  “Do what I will?” Luna whistled. “You might finally be starting to trust me.”

  “I might—” He paused and inhaled deeply. “What is that marvelous smell?”

  “Coffee.”

  He had to taste this coffee. He headed for the gurgling machine.

  Luna caught his arm, stopping him. “It hasn’t finished brewing. Once I’ve finished tending your wound, it should be done.”

  His attention shifted from her slender hand gripping his arm. Slowly, his gaze slid along her arm, up over her shoulder, to her face. He swallowed hard, for he couldn’t explain the feelings stirred up by her touch. Was she using her magic on him?

  Averting her gaze, she gestured to a chair at the kitchen table. “Why don’t you sit there? I’ll get the supplies.”

  He sat, the chair squeaking as it took his weight. Luna returned to the kitchen, went to a different cupboard and came back with gauze, a tube of ointment, and several other items. She put them on the table beside him. “I’ll try not to hurt you.”

  Her voice had wobbled a bit. Was she worried about her skill in treating him, or was she unsettled about being so close to him? Trying to ease the situation, he said: “At least you are not using things like those at the medic station.”

  “Only because I don’t own any.”

  He cast her a narrowed glance. “If that was meant to reassure me—”

  Chuckling, she moved closer. Her leg pressed against his thigh as her fingers began pulling away his bandage. “I’ll make this quick.”

  He’d heard what she’d said, but his mind wasn’t on the conversation. He could hardly think at all, with the heat of her body touching his, her flowery scent teasing him, and hunger for her kindling in his veins.

  He laced his hands together, resisting the urge to slide his arm around her and pull her into his lap. He was a married man; a husband and soon to be a father. He shouldn’t desire anyone but his wife.

  “Your wound’s got a lot of bruising around it, but I expect that’s part of the healing process.” Luna poured liquid from a bottle and gently swabbed his injury then opened a tube of ointment. Her fingertips glided over his forehead.

  A hot shiver raced through him.

  She immediately stilled. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No,” he ground out. He wouldn’t describe what he was feeling as pain.

  “Colin—”

  “Are you almost finished?” He hadn’t meant to be brusque, but her ministrations really were a form of torture. “I think I need coffee.”

  “I know I do.” Paper crinkled as she opened clean bandages and applied them. “There, all done.” She gathered up the supplies and stepped away, breaking contact. “We’ll put our coffee in tumblers with lids. That way we can drink it on the way to the café.”

  Chapter Five

  On the way to the café, Colin scratched his head. “Where are the horses pulling this wagon?”

  “There’s a motor under the hood,” Luna supplied.

  “Are they miniature horses?” He searched under the dashboard.

  “No, it’s….” She sighed. “More than a hundred years ago, an inventor made the first car…er…horseless carriage.”

  “How does it work?”

  She parked behind Cove Cat Café and shut off the engine. “Honestly, I have no idea.” But she had a plan to get him a bit more up to speed about modern conveniences, which would keep him occupied as well.

  Inside the café, she brought Colin into the cat room and set him up in a comfortable seat with her laptop and a latte. She opened a website that listed every major invention in the past century then showed him how to scroll through the page.

  “I’ll bring you a cinnamon bun as soon as they’re done,” she told him. Then she headed to the kitchen to start baking, checking on him every few minutes.

  He seemed fascinated by what he read. Trying to imagine how out of sorts he must feel, Luna’s gut twisted. Not only had he lost everything and everyone he’d known, but now he was in a world completely foreign to him.

  When several types of her pastries came out of the oven, she put one of each on a plate and headed to give the confections to Colin. She stopped at the window that separated the café from the cat room.

  Colin was down on the floor, playing with the grey tabby and the Siamese mix. One of the tuxedo kittens was on his shoulder, nibbling on Colin’s ear. Another kitten crawled up his chest to settle in the crook of his arm. He cradled the little ball of fluff so tenderly, smiling down at it, saying something Luna couldn’t hear.

  Her stomach fluttered. Getting too attached to Colin was a terrible idea, though. She had to think of him as yet another stray for which she would find a more permanent solution. After grabbing a few napkins, she pushed through the glass door. “Hungry?”

  “Quite.” Gently moving the kitties off of him, he stood and joined her on a sofa.

  “We don’t normally allow food in this part of the café, but I happen to be close with the owner.” She set the food down on the coffee table, then handed him a wet wipe from the box.

  He just stared at the wipe, so she took it from him and cleaned his hands with it.

  Colin bit into the raspberry cheesecake bar and moaned. “The food in this world is like heaven.”

  “Didn’t they have good desserts in England?” Luna tore off a piece of a cinnamon bun for herself.

  “Not like these. We used to have preserved fruits, wafers, and jelly when times were good.” His features clouded for a moment. “There wasn’t always money for sugar.”

  “That’s a great reason to stay in the twenty-first century,” she joked.

  Colin stiffened. “I’ve been reading about the many wondrous innovations you have here. One thing I can’t do here, though, is meet my son or daughter, or be a husband to Evelyn.”

  Before Luna could apologize for her insensitivity, the door to the cat room opened.

  Her brother stopped in his tracks and looked from Colin to her. “Good morning.” Closing the distance to the couch, he offered Colin his hand. “Hey, I’m Leo.”
/>
  Colin shook with him. “Colin Wilshire.”

  Leo slowly nodded. “Nice to meet you. I thought I knew every Wilshire in town. I guess you guys are crawling out of the woodwork, hmm?” He trailed his gaze over Colin. “Dude, are you wearing my clothes?”

  Colin stood up and puffed out his chest.

  Before Colin could say anything, Luna inserted herself between the men. Centering a hand on her brother’s chest, she eased him back. “I can explain. Colin’s clothes were in bad shape.”

  Leo shrugged. “And?”

  “And I borrowed some that you’d left at my house.”

  He pulled Luna aside. “You two were looking pretty cozy when I came in. And now he’s glaring at me as if he’s a jealous lover or something. I thought you and Chuck were…you know.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at Colin. Sure enough, jealousy was exactly what she saw in his blazing eyes. Or maybe it was just protectiveness. Either way, she was flattered. There was that fluttery feeling again. “Chuck and I are just friends,” she told Leo. “Colin had nowhere to go. He doesn’t know anyone here.”

  “Okay, cool.” He held up his hands in surrender. “None of my business. But if he’s a Wilshire, he must have family in town.”

  Her brother would think she was crazy if she tried to explain that Colin might be a time traveler. “He’s…estranged from them.”

  Leo nodded his understanding. To Colin, he said, “It’s all good, bro. Keep the threads.”

  “Thanks,” Luna said. “I’ve got to take Colin…on an errand. All the baking is done. I just need to finish frosting the rest of the cinnamon buns. Jordan should be here any minute. Would you mind if I left for a while?”

  With another glance at Colin, Leo shrugged. “Not a problem. Just be careful, okay?”

  “I promise.” After Leo left the room, she returned to Colin. “Give me ten minutes, and then we can head over to the museum, okay?”

  “That’s fine.” Picking up another pastry, he said, “It will take me that long to finish eating these.”

  Colin studied the rectangular yellow bar with a dusting of white powder. He should probably stop eating, but he was ravenous this morning, and Luna was an excellent baker.

  Careful not to get white powder all over her laptop, he bit into the bar. Tangy lemon and a sugary sweetness filled his mouth.

  “Mmm.” As the sound rumbled in his throat, he closed his eyes, savoring the perfect blend of flavors. His thoughts slipped back to the grand feasts his parents had held when he was a boy. How vividly he could still see the gleaming silver, the sparkling crystal, and the sumptuous cakes, some decorated with violets, roses, and curls of lemon rind. His mother, who’d died just after his tenth birthday, had still been alive then to fuss over the table decorations and tell him to go run a comb through his messy hair.

  A wry smile tugged at his mouth. How curious that of the few things he remembered about his mother, he recalled her ordering him about, trying to make him presentable for their guests. So much pretense. That desire to live richly, to be included in the right social circles, had gotten his father into debt that he’d foolishly chosen to ignore.

  Colin washed down the mouthful of lemon bar with a sip of latte. He could either let the fact that he’d been brought to another time destroy him, or he could use his wits to try and get back to 1645. His father might have allowed his circumstances to ruin him, used them as an excuse to neglect his responsibilities, but Colin wasn’t going to do the same. His inventions—and the ones he was reading about now—showed the ingenuity of the human mind. He wasn’t going to stop trying to get back to Evelyn until he’d exhausted ideas, although part of him would sorely regret having to say goodbye to Luna.

  He finished the lemon bar and washed his hands with another wet wipe. He had to say, he approved of the wipes: a pleasant convenience that meant he could clean his hands—or any part of him, really—anytime and anywhere.

  Colin focused on what was on the laptop screen. As he began reading about the steam engine, anticipation tingled within him. He’d experienced the same thrilling feeling when he’d worked on his own designs, especially his two-wheeled contraption. He’d written of his excitement, of his hopes for building a sample of what he’d drawn, in several letters to Matthew.

  Did Luna feel such excitement when she invented a new recipe? He glanced through the window that divided the cat room from the café but couldn’t see her. He could easily imagine her, though, busy in the kitchen, her hair covered by a mesh cap that looked both ridiculous and charming. The first time he’d seen her wearing it, he’d wanted to walk over to her and pull it off, but there was obviously a reason why she wore one. Maybe it was to discourage potential suitors from courting her while she concentrated on her baking. That made perfect sense, for she wouldn’t want to be distracted and thus cause her confections to burn.

  Colin scrolled a little further, scratching his chin as he read. The fellow in the picture accompanying the information on steam engines looked a bit like Leo. While at first Colin had resented her obvious affection for Leo, he’d been relieved to find out the man was her brother. It was good Luna had family close by, to know she had someone in her life she could depend on.

  Colin’s thoughts drifted back to the storm-ravaged sea, to the last time she’d seen Evelyn. He prayed she and the babe were all right. What about the young Bell girl and the other passengers?

  Perhaps he could use the laptop to find out. It seemed to hold the kind of information one would normally glean from books. It might even be able to tell him how to travel through time.

  A renewed excitement welled within him. When he found a good opportunity, he’d ask Luna how to do a search of the laptop’s knowledge. For now, he’d indulge his inventor’s soul, keep scrolling, and commit to memory as much as he could.

  Luna completed her kitchen work, then went to get Colin from the cat room. He was hunched over her laptop, totally engrossed in his reading while holding two cats, and absently dangling a toy for a third.

  Was he always this adorable? No, she absolutely refused to acknowledge how sweet she found him. Steeling herself, she took her car keys out of her purse. “The museum should be open by now. Are you ready to go?”

  He smiled up at her. “Quite. Thank you for letting me read this…whatever it is.”

  “It’s called a webpage.”

  Setting the kittens aside, he got up and handed her the empty plate that had held at least three thousand calories worth of confections. “And thank you for the sweets.”

  As they left, she dropped the plate in the sink. Morning sun lit up the streets as the town came to life. Turning onto Sherwood Boulevard, Luna stopped short to avoid hitting a young woman on a bike who’d ridden right through the red light.

  The woman waved apologetically before continuing through the intersection.

  Colin gasped. “What was that?”

  Following his gaze to the biker, Luna said, “A bicycle. I guess they didn’t have those in your time, hmm?”

  He gripped the dashboard. “No, but I was working on that very idea.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I used to tinker with new ideas; inventions, I suppose. I’d planned to continue my work in Barbados, even make a living at it.”

  Sirens interrupted their conversation. When Luna noticed flashing lights in her rearview mirror, she pulled to the side of the road. A police car rushed past her toward the beach.

  “What a terrible noise,” Colin remarked.

  That was the sheriff or a deputy. “I hope everything’s all right.”

  Minutes later, when they reached the boardwalk, she realized that something was going on. Two patrol cars were parked near the entrance to the Shipwreck Museum. She recognized the taller man as Sheriff Higgins. “Uh, oh.”

  “What is it?” Colin asked.

  She parked her car and waited as the other officer roped off the walkway that led to the museu
m. “Something must have happened at the museum.” Luna’s intuition turned on like a supernatural light switch. Colin could be in danger here. Or was she just picking up on centuries-old energy from the raised ship? After all, people had perished on the Guinevere.

  Shielding his eyes, Collin leaned closer to the window. “The sails are different, but that’s the Guinevere I sailed on. I’m sure of it. I have to see it.”

  Before she could stop him, Colin jumped out of the car and raced toward the boat.

  Luna went after him. As she ran, she said the words in her head to place a protection spell around Colin, just in case.

  Oh, great Goddess, I summon thee to protect Colin from any and all dangers. So mote it be.

  A deputy held up his hand, warning Colin to stop. “This a crime scene, sir. You can’t go any farther.”

  Fists clenched at his sides, Colin persisted. “I must board my ship.”

  “Your ship?”

  Luna got there and hooked Colin’s arm, easing him back. “Let’s find out what’s going on, okay? We’ll see the Guinevere, just not right now.”

  Colin struggled for patience.

  Now that he was so close to the ship, to reconnecting with his past life, he wanted to get back on the boat right away.

  The familiar surroundings might spark memories he’d forgotten. They might even inspire ideas to help him to return to his own century. The need became a raw ache in his chest.

  “Colin,” Luna murmured.

  “I don’t want to wait.”

  “I understand—”

  “You can’t possibly understand.” He hadn’t meant to snap at her, but the words were filled with frustration and disappointment.

  “Hey,” she said, touching his face.

  The caress only deepened his pain. He wrenched away.

  Anguish registered in Luna’s gaze. It hurt him to know he’d hurt her.

  Colin dragged in several breaths, trying to rein in his turmoil. He must be careful. The official who’d barred his way moments ago was still watching him.

  “We will go on board at a better time,” Luna soothed.