A Window in Time

by Carolyn Lampman

  Tom reached out to touch the golden mane of hair that lay across his arm. He’d never known how erotic a woman’s long hair could be. Just thinking of the way it had caressed his body during the night brought instant reaction to a portion of his anatomy he’d thought too tired to stir.

  As though sensing his mood, Anna open her eyes. “Mmmm, good morning.” She yawned and smiled up at him. “If you keep looking at me that way, you’ll make me blush.”

  “I’d like to do more than look.”

  “So, what’s stopping you?”

  “Aren’t you stiff and sore?”

  “A little, but I’m not complaining.”

  He fingered the locket at her throat. “You really don’t ever take this off, do you?”

  “Not since the day my aunt gave it to me. It’s the only thing I have that belonged to my mother.” She stretched sensuously then ran her hand across the plane of his chest. “Your freckles are sexy.”

  He raised his brows. “Where did you get that word?”

  “From watching TV at Scott’s. Anyway, I like your freckles. They make your chest much more interesting to look at than other men’s.”

  “Is that right? And just how many naked male chests have you seen?”

  “You mean counting yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “One.”

  Tom laughed and leaned down for a long leisurely kiss. “Ah, Anna,” he said regretfully when it ended. “We should have years and years of waking up together this way. It just isn’t fair—”

  “Shh.” Anna put her finger against his lips. “Don’t spoil it, Tom. We still have a few hours left.”

  “That’s true,” he said, getting out of bed.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Not me, us.” Tom held out his hand to her. “We have a wonderful invention called the shower. I’m going to show you a very entertaining way to use it.”

  Tom had almost finished fixing breakfast when the doorbell rang. “Just what we need,” he muttered when he unobtrusively lifted the corner of the curtain. It was his brother Chuck.

  Three strides and he was across the room opening the door. “What the hell are you doing back?”

  “If you didn’t want me here you should have answered the messages I left on Brianna’s answering machine. I got worried.” The two brothers glared at each other for a long moment, then Chuck smiled crookedly. “Can I come in?”

  “Don’t suppose I have much choice,” Tom said grudgingly. as he stepped aside.

  “So, are you going to tell me why you didn’t answer my messages?” Chuck asked sitting down at the table.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I have lots of time.”

  “You won’t believe it anyway.”

  “Try me.”

  “It’s kind of hard to expla—”

  “You were right about the shower, Tom. It was very entertaining,” Anna said, coming into the kitchen. “But I don’t like hair blowers at all.”

  “Good grief, Anna, what happened?” Tom asked, staring at the waist length hair hanging around her in a tousled golden cloud. “You look like you got caught in a tornado.”

  “No, just this stupid hair blower,” she said in disgust. “It’s all wound up in my hair. Can you get the blasted thing loose?”

  “I can try. Hold still.”

  “It made a horrible mess of...Oh my...” For the first time she saw Chuck through the curtain of hair. “I-I didn’t know anyone else was here.”

  “Chuck came to check on me. I don’t suppose he’ll be happy until we tell him the whole story.”

  Chuck nodded. “That’s right, so you might as well start talking.”

  “All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Let’s see, it started about five miles beyond Split Rock. I was starting to look for a place to land when this nightmare cloud showed up...”

  Chuck’s expression ranged from skeptical to frankly disbelieving. “Do you expect me to believe a fifteen-year-old kid invented a time machine?” he asked when Tom finally finished.

  “Nope. In fact, I knew you wouldn’t. There you go, Anna. Do you want me to help you brush the snarls out?”

  She glanced uneasily at Chuck. “No, I can get it.”

  “All right.” He leaned down and kissed her.

  “Tom!” she whispered warningly.

  “Look, Anna, Chuck being here doesn’t change the fact our time is limited. I’m not going to waste a minute of it.”

  She smiled up at him. “All right.”

  “Your breakfast is ready when you are,” Tom called after her as she went back down the hall.

  “You’re in love, aren’t you?” Chuck said in wonder.

  “That’s a pretty mild description for what we feel. Unfortunately, in about four hours she’s going back to 1861.” Tom sat down at the table and ran his fingers roughly through his hair. “Christ, Chuck, she died half a century before I was born! Can you imagine how you’d feel if you knew you were never going to see Sandy again?”

  Chuck was silent for a long moment. “If she feels the same way, there must be something you can do.”

  “We’ve thought it through a dozen times, and there is no other way, Chuck. Anything we do will change the past.” Tom closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against his clasped hands. “I’ve never felt so helpless in my life.”

  There seemed nothing more to say.

  Chuck volunteered to drive out to the ranch, and Tom let him. Even if Chuck was only going along to keep an eye on things, it was that much more time Tom and Anna could spend together. They held hands all the way, their fingers interlaced in silent testimony to the heartbreak they knew was coming.

  Tom knew the minute Chuck began to give credence to the story. His older brother took one astonished look around Scott’s family room and his mouth fell open.

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “Wait until he turns it on,” Tom said. “Believe me, Chuck, this is not your average fifteen-year-old playing around.”

  “I guess not.”

  Of course, at that moment he seemed pretty typical as Anna grilled him about his previous night’s activities. “Did you have a good time?”

  “It was ok.” Scott tried to shrug nonchalantly, but his goofy grin gave him away.

  Anna’s eyes widened. “Scott, you stole a kiss, didn’t you?”

  He turned bright red. “I didn’t steal it exactly.”

  “Uh oh,” Tom said in mock seriousness. “Mamas better lock up your daughters.”

  “Aw come on guys. It wasn’t that big a deal.”

  “I’ll bet Sam thought it was,” Anna said, with a twinkle in her eye.

  “Yeah, I guess she did.” Scott ducked his head in embarrassment, then glanced at his watch. “Holy cow. It’s twelve-fifteen. If you want to wear your own clothes, you’d better go change.”

  “Oh...” Anna’s gaze flew to Tom’s. The stricken look in her eyes went straight to his heart.

  “Chuck, you help Scott set up. Come on, Anna, we’ll do this together.”

  The minute the bedroom door closed behind them they were in each other’s arms. They kissed deeply, hungrily, as though they could make up for all the years they wouldn’t have together. When it ended, they clung to each other in an almost painful embrace.

  “We better get you dressed,” he said at last.

  “A-all right. It w-will be nice to have someone pull my corset strings tight,” she said, trying to sound normal. “I’ve had to wear it loose since I left home.”

  “I don’t know how much use I’ll be.” Tom swallowed hard as he watched her shed the trappings of the twenty-first century and don her own. “I won’t have the slightest idea what to do.”

  In spite of his reservations, he was able to tighten the corset enough to suit her. He watched in growing amazement as she put on a corset cover, an oddly stiff petticoat-like garment she called a crinoline, and no less than three petticoats. Incredibly, she was still in her underwea
r.

  “Good grief, how many layers do you wear?”

  “Usually more than this. I stopped wearing my crinolines and most of my petticoats on the trail because of the wind.” She slipped her dress over her head, “That’s why my skirt’s too long, though it’s better than it has been. I wore my small crinoline that day because I knew I’d be meeting Lucas, and I w-wanted to make a g-good impression.” Her lip quivered suddenly. “Oh, Tom, I don’t even want to meet him anymore.”

  He folded his arms around her. “Don’t, Anna. I happen to know you and Lucas will have a long happy life together.”

  “I only want you.”

  “You said yourself our time together shouldn’t have happened, that it was a quirk, a gift of fate. It’s been wonderful, but now you have to forget it ever happened.”

  She pulled back and stared up at him in shock. “Forget it? Are you insane? You’re the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me.”

  “But you haven’t met Lucas yet. He’ll be even more wonderful, and I’ll be an old memory that makes you smile once in a while.” Tom’s heart cried out at his words. He couldn’t help hoping it wasn’t true, but knew he was being incredibly selfish. “Let’s not spend our last few minutes arguing,” he said gruffly.

  She put her arms around his neck and pulled his head down. “I’ll never forget you, Tom Shaffer,” she whispered against his lips, “my first and only love.”

  His protest died stillborn as her kiss wiped everything from his mind. The world ceased to exist for them until Scott finally came to see what was keeping Anna.

  “Hurry up. It’s almost time,” he called from the kitchen doorway.

  “We’ll be right there,” Anna called. “I’m not so unselfish as you,” she said, putting something in Tom’s hand and closing his fingers around it. “I love you, Tom. I want you to remember me.”

  She turned and hurried from the room, leaving Tom alone to stare at the locket she’d given him. With a groan, he closed his hand and leaned against the door. The rest of his life stretched ahead of him in empty loneliness.

  By the time he entered the family room, the blue mist was already beginning to form. Unlike the others, who had grown accustomed to it, Chuck stared at it in disbelief.

  “You haven’t seen anything yet,” Tom said.

  At that moment, the spinning mist solidified, and a picture formed. The difference between this and the previous windows was immediately obvious. The picture was much sharper. Brianna Daniels appeared to be sleeping and was so close she looked as though she was in the room with them.”

  The moment Brianna became visible, Anna began to glow with a weird blue light, and Tom took an involuntary step toward her. “Anna!”

  Chuck grabbed his arm. “No!”

  Anna’s and Tom’s gazes locked across the room. Their pain was clearly visible to anyone who cared to look as she began to waver. Suddenly, the blue light disappeared, and Anna returned to normal.

  “What the hell?” Scott said, staring at the time portal. A man had thrown himself across Brianna’s body and was hanging on to her for all he was worth.

  “I can’t make the transfer,” Scott yelled. “The mass isn’t even. Who is that guy?”

  Tom shook his head. “I don’t know, but it’s not Lucas Daniels. He isn’t a redhead.”

  “Lucas doesn’t have red hair,” Anna said in surprise. “It’s coal black. Seth told me.”

  “But that’s impossible. In his journal he talked about it all the time. He seemed to think it was import— Oh, my God,” Tom said as the full impact of his words hit him. “Of course, it was important. It was the only way to let me know...Scott, if the mass is equal on both sides of the window, will the transfer take place?”

  “I don’t know. It should, but I can’t be sure.”

  “Tom, no, you can’t do this.” Chuck held his brother’s arm in a frantic grip.

  “I already have, Chuck. That’s why I always felt like Lucas Daniels was writing directly to me. He was, or rather I was. We’ve made this switch before. Don’t you see? I was the balloon pilot during the Civil War, and I wrote the journals, so I’d know what to do when the time came. Anna and I are meant to be together, but in her time, not mine. “

  “You’re crazy,” Chuck said desperately. “Time travel is impossible. If you go into that thing you could die. For God sake, Tom, use your head!”

  “I am, Chuck. I’ve spent my whole life preparing for this; I just didn’t realize it. I’m going with or without your approval. I’d rather you backed me, but it won’t stop me if you don’t.”

  Chuck looked at Anna and back at his brother. “Damn it anyway. You always did have a way of getting me to do what you want,” Chuck said, giving Tom a big bear hug. “I’ll miss you, baby brother, God, how I’ll miss you.” He stepped back and tried to ignore the strange burning behind his eyes that felt suspiciously like tears.

  “They’ll need my Social Security card and birth certificate. You have all the numbers to my bank accounts.” Tom pulled out his wallet and handed it to him. “Chuck I—”

  Chuck clapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah, I know. I love you too. Now get going before it’s too late.”

  Tom was across the room in two swift strides. “Our stolen moment is forever, Anna,” he said folding her into his arms. As the blue haze formed around them, their shapes began to blur together into an indistinct mass.

  Suddenly there was a brilliant flash of light and a loud, sizzling pop. When the smoke cleared, Tom and Anna were gone.

  Scott sat staring at the misshapen lump of melted plastic, burnt wiring and broken glass that had once been his father’s computer. “Boy, it’s a good thing Tom saved the ranch records to another drive!”

  CHAPTER 42

  (Present day)

  Brianna opened her eyes and tried to focus through the fuzz in front of her. She blinked. Her vision cleared, but not her confusion. The plastic tube in her arm, the white sheet covering her, and the antiseptic smell seemed to indicate she was in a twenty first century hospital. A small sound called her attention and she carefully turned her head.

  A woman with graying hair sat next to the bed reading a book with the title Meadowlark splashed across the cover. She seemed totally engrossed in the novel.

  “Mom?” Brianna croaked, her voice sounding like a rusty hinge.

  Startled, the woman looked up. “Oh, honey you’re awake!” She reached over and pushed the button for the nurse.

  “Where am I?”

  “In the hospital. You had an accident and hit your head.”

  “I think I remember,” Brianna said, furrowing her brow in concentration. “There was a snake on the trail. My horse reared, and...” she faltered as a dozen confusing images suddenly crowded her mind. A balloon, Oz, wagon trains, and...Lucas. “How long was I gone?”

  “Gone?

  “Right, since my balloon ride? How long have I been gone?”

  Mrs. Daniels looked confused. “Your balloon ride was last week, but—”

  “Last week? Are you sure?”

  “Positive. You called and woke us up to tell us just before you left because you were so excited.” Honey, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Daniels touched Brianna’s forehead worriedly. “The nurse should be here any minute.”

  “I...I’m just tired.” Brianna squeezed her eyes shut. Was it all a dream then, and Lucas only a figment of her imagination? No, it couldn’t be. Lucas was real...as real as her mother. Wasn’t he?

  Brianna opened her eyes to find her mother watching her with a worried expression on her face. “It’s all right, Mom,” she said forcing a smile. “I’m just a little confused.”

  “The doctor said you might be at first. That was a pretty hard bump on the head. Oh, good here’s the nurse.”

  Mrs. Daniels smiled at the woman in relief. “I called you as soon a she woke up.”

  By the time the nurse had peered into her eyes, checked her vital signs, and raised her bed, Brianna’s mind had clea
red a little, but she still couldn’t make sense of what had happened.

  “Who called you, Mom?”

  “It was either Tom Shaffer or his brother. I was so upset I forget which.” She was quiet for a moment. “I know it’s none of my business, Brianna, but is this thing between you and Tom serious?”

  Brianna looked at her in surprise. “Tom Shaffer?”

  “Who else? He hasn’t left this room for more than a few minutes since they brought you in. The only reason he isn’t here now is because your father dragged him out to get something to eat.”

  “We’re just friends, Mom. So, tell me about your trip out.”

  “That’s a nice way of saying to mind my own business isn’t it? All right if that’s the way you want it. The trip out was just like it always is. You know what your father’s like...”

  Brianna let her mother talk. The sound was calming and kept the black grief at bay. It was so much easier to lay there listening than to think about Lucas and wonder if she’d made him up. Her mind drifted along until she suddenly was riveted by something her mother was saying.

  “Oh, that reminds me, you got a package from a distant relative of your father’s. She sent you an old picture and a ring. I forget now which grandparents the picture is of but—”

  “Lucas and Anna Daniels?” Brianna asked, her voice taut with emotion.

  “Why yes, I believe it is.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Like a typical Daniels. Tall, and thin, probably red haired though it’s kind of hard to tell in an old picture like that. The amazing thing is how much you look like his wife. You could be twins.”

  But Brianna no longer cared about the picture. None of it was true. She closed her eyes against the pain. Lucas...her Lucas...was nothing more than a delusion caused by her concussion.

  “Honey?” Mrs. Daniels was hesitant, and Brianna opened her eyes in surprise. Her mother was rarely hesitant about anything. “You know your father and I will love you no matter what, don’t you?”

  Uh oh, what had she done now? Her mother only said that when they were disappointed in her. “Of course, Mom, and I love you too.”