by Bess McBride
She looked down at the hem of Emily’s skirt.
“Yes, you are about an inch shorter, but I don’t think it’s too long at all. We’ll have to take you shopping so you can have some of your own clothing while you’re here.”
“Shopping? Oh, Leigh! I don’t know how I would repay you.”
Leigh gave Emily a quick hug. “I said the same thing. I’ll bet we all do. You need the help. Don’t worry about it. It’s just a few bucks when all is said and done. Did you know that this blouse cost about four dollars? Can you believe it? Gotta love the prices in 1909!”
“Really?” Emily said, reaching to touch one of Leigh’s puffed sleeves. “But wages are low, aren’t they?”
Leigh nodded. “Yes. Most people think Jeremiah is wealthy, and he is, but not from his medical practice. Half the people here can’t pay, and he doesn’t charge them. His money comes from inheritances from his father and grandfather. So we can afford a four-dollar blouse. Please don’t worry. Luke brought you to the right house, that’s for sure. I’ve got to run down to the office and see what time Jeremiah’s first patient is coming, and then I’ll meet you in the dining room. I’m sure Mrs. Jackson has set out a coffeepot, so go help yourself.”
She hurried from the room, and Emily followed at a slower pace, negotiating the stairs with her long skirts and heeled pumps. She arrived at the dining room just as Mrs. Jackson was leaving.
“Good morning, Miss Alexander. I hope you slept well? I’ve just set some coffee out. Please help yourself. I’ll have breakfast ready in a jiffy.”
“I did sleep well, thank you, Mrs. Jackson.”
The housekeeper bustled away, and Emily entered the dining room. She wasn’t quite sure where to sit, so she helped herself to a cup of coffee and went to the window to look out. The dining room window faced a lovely backyard with a soft green lawn and small deciduous trees flanked by a continuation of the white picket fence she had seen last night. Beautiful yellow roses in riotous bloom climbed over the white pickets.
A voice behind her startled Emily.
“I love those roses, but that’s a lot of thorns,” Leigh said, joining her at the window. “I’m going to have to rethink them when Jeri starts to walk. What do you think?”
Emily turned and followed Leigh to the table. “I’m no expert on either flowers or children,” Emily said, taking the seat Leigh indicated to the right of the head of the table.
Jeremiah entered the room, followed by Mrs. Jackson with a tray of food.
“Me either, as it happens,” Leigh said with a smile. “I’m training on the job as a mother, with help from Mrs. Jackson.”
“Good morning, Emily,” Jeremiah said with a warm smile. “How do you feel? Any odd aftereffects?”
“Not really,” she said with a smile. “I’m tired, but that’s about it.”
“I remember that feeling,” Leigh said.
Mrs. Jackson unloaded her silver tray onto the middle of the table.
“Thank you, Mrs. Jackson,” Leigh said. “I assume you ate already?”
“Yes, thank you, dear. I have some pies ready to go into the oven, so I’ll just hurry back to the kitchen.”
“Pies!” Leigh exclaimed. “I can’t wait!”
Mrs. Jackson smiled and left the room. Leigh lowered her voice and leaned across the table.
“I can’t keep eating like this,” she said to Emily.
Her husband smiled but said nothing as he handed a plate of pancakes to Emily.
“She refers, of course, to her figure, Emily, but my lovely wife has nothing to worry about.”
“I agree,” Emily said. “She has certainly lost all her baby weight, if she had any.”
“I don’t know why, but I didn’t put on a lot of weight,” Leigh said. “It’s particularly odd, since I’ve been eating Mrs. Jackson’s meals.”
“Mrs. Jackson did not have an opportunity to cook as much as she liked before Leigh came, and now she is cooking and baking to her heart’s content. Do help us eat the food, Emily.”
Emily chuckled. The house felt warm, the company congenial, and she imagined she could manage a year in the early twentieth century with Leigh’s guidance and friendship. Carl was far, far away, and he would finally have to let her go.
Emily listened with half an ear to Jeremiah and Leigh discuss his schedule for the day while they ate. The other part of her brain wondered how Carl would handle her disappearance. Her car would probably be found abandoned by the side of the road, her purse, phone and registration in it. They would no doubt call his number since it showed up on her phone multiple times a day, as he had checked on her...or as he put it, “wanted to tell her that he missed her during the day.”
Carl’s “missing” her often resulted in a recap of everything she had done in a day, everyone she had talked to, everywhere she had gone. He rarely asked what books she had read, what television programs she had watched, or what she’d had to eat the night before.
Soon after meeting Carl at the Greek family restaurant where she had waitressed in Seattle, he had asked her to move in with him. She had declined, but he had invited himself over to her apartment so often that she felt he had essentially moved in with her. Having only recently found autonomy after her mother passed away, Emily had done her best to maintain her freedom, but that had slipped away before she knew what happened. Carl’s charismatic personality had charmed her at first, but that charisma had come with a price. In between his protestations of undying love and repeated requests for marriage, Carl had taken over her life before she even realized what had happened.
Her few childhood friends had drifted away when Carl became the only male in their group, and her coworkers stopped inviting her to girls’ night out when Carl insisted on coming along. She hadn’t realized what was happening until everyone was gone.
She didn’t think her mother would have liked Carl very much, but she had passed away only the year before Emily met him. Emily knew without a doubt that her domineering mother and Carl would have butted heads, each one thinking they knew what was best for Emily.
It had only been two days ago when Emily realized that Carl and her mother had much in common—both had sought to control her and had been largely successful. She wasn’t proud.
“What do you think, Emily?” Leigh was saying.
Emily shook her head to clear the unpleasant memories.
“I’m sorry. I was thinking about something else. What were you asking?”
“I was going to take some time from paperwork and show you around town. Mrs. Jackson can watch Jeri for a bit. I’d like you to meet Katherine and see a bit of Kaskade. Do you feel up to it?”
“Sure!” Emily said with growing enthusiasm. “I would be happy to!”
Leigh blinked, and Jeremiah eyed Emily with curiosity.
“I have to say, you sound a lot more resigned to being here than I was,” Leigh said. “You sound kind of happy, actually.”
Emily’s cheeks reddened. “Well, I’m sure I’ll tell you sooner or later, but I was actually running away, or something like that, from my...from a man named Carl. My relationship. Ex-fiancé, actually.”
“What?” Leigh exclaimed. “Running away? What happened?”
“Nothing just then! He didn’t hurt me or anything. I just couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do anything on my own anymore, and I had taken off in the car last night, and I didn’t know where I was going, but far from Seattle...for a while...until I had to go back to work in a few weeks. And here I am! Far away! So I’m not too unhappy. Maybe Kaskade chose me because I needed to get away!”
Jeremiah smiled widely but said nothing.
Leigh chuckled. “It certainly seems like it. I’m so glad you’re here!”
Emily smiled, enjoying a sense of freedom that she had never truly known. She had gone from a controlling mother to a controlling fiancé, and suddenly she was lost in time and had never felt freer. That she had no money, no job, no housing and had to rely on help for all tho
se things didn’t diminish her burgeoning sense of independence. Perhaps it should have, but Emily was momentarily euphoric. Or lightheaded from shortness of breath in her corset.
Chapter Six
Leigh carefully handed off an adorable sleeping infant to Mrs. Jackson as they prepared to leave the house. At the front door, she stopped and retrieved several hats from a hat rack, handing Emily a cute little brown straw hat festooned with black ribbons and yellow silk roses.
“I know, I know, it’s a bit much, but you’ll get used to it. I have some plain sailor hats, but I think that goes well with your dress. The lady down at the millinery store recommended these. Of course, they were the most expensive she had.”
Leigh settled the hat on Emily’s head and thrust a hatpin through the crown, securing it to Emily’s chignon. Leigh then stepped in front of a hall mirror and placed a dainty little cobalt-blue straw hat on her head, decorated with red baby roses and matching ribbon, securing it with a hatpin as well.
“Are we ready?” she asked with a bright smile.
“Only if it’s not windy,” Emily said, trying to keep her head erect so the hat didn’t fall off.
“It’s not going anywhere.” Leigh laughed upon opening the door. “If it does, your hair is going with it, and that’s gonna hurt.” She stepped out onto the porch, and Emily followed her.
“Nope, no wind,” Leigh said. “We’re going to walk. It’s only about ten minutes.”
“Okay, sounds good,” Emily said. She followed Leigh down a walkway and through the gate of the white picket fence. A loud rumbling sound caught her ears, and she turned to the right toward the sound.
“What’s that?”
“The train is coming from the south. It will stop at the timber mill and take on lumber before heading off to Parkland and Tacoma.”
“Oh, I see it now!” Emily said. She saw a steam locomotive chugging along an elevated embankment above the lake, smoke billowing from the engine. What startled her was that she could see as far down the lake as she did. She had remembered catching glimpses of the lake through the thick evergreens surrounding it. She pivoted in a circle, scanning Kaskade as the town rolled down an incline to the edge of the lake. Largely devoid of trees of any significant size, it looked like a modern suburban housing area where the old trees had been felled to facilitate building.
Leigh pivoted with her.
“Can you believe this was all here once?” she asked. “Is all here? And then it’s gone.”
“No, that’s pretty amazing. But it’s the lack of trees that surprises me the most. Do you remember how many evergreens surround the lake in our time?” Emily corrected herself. Leigh was where she wanted to be. “In the twenty-first century. I only saw Kaskade at sunset the one time, but the area was thick with trees.”
“They probably cut them down for building material and because this is a timber town.”
“Is that what that high-pitched sound is? A sawmill?”
“Yes, I think so. I’ve never been in the mill, but the sound stops on Sundays, so I assume it’s the timber mill. You get used to the sound. It doesn’t wake the baby up, so that’s all I’m worried about!” She chuckled.
Emily focused on the outside of Leigh’s house, a beautiful Victorian two-story home done in shades of gray with white trim. The porch surrounding the front of the house invited one to sit on its wicker furniture.
“What a beautiful house, even from the outside,” Emily said.
“Jeremiah inherited it from his father, who had it built. He was a doctor too. Are you ready?”
“Yes, sorry. I’m gawking.”
“I know. I did the same thing.”
Leigh turned and led the way down the unpaved road paralleling the lake. Emily recalled that someone had called it Lakefront Lane. They soon reached a small two-story cottage painted in country blue. Leigh opened the gate of a white picket fence and walked up a brick path toward the house. The door opened, and two children spilled out the door, followed by a tall, slender woman with a thick head of ash-brown hair. Even from the walkway, Emily could see that she was a beauty. She wore a rose-colored blouse and maroon skirt.
The children, both blond, must have resembled their father. They grabbed up a ball and starting playing, and the woman waited for them on the porch, staring at Emily.
Emily tried to manage the stairs with grace given the woman’s searching gaze, but she had to resort to grabbing up her skirts and watching her footing. She arrived at the top step to see Leigh hugging the woman, who Emily assumed was Katherine.
“Hello!” Katherine turned to Emily, then cast an inquiring glance in Leigh’s direction.
Leigh nodded. “Look who showed up at our door last night! Accompanied by the head schoolteacher, Luke Damon.”
“Welcome!” Katherine exclaimed. “We talked about the summer solstice yesterday morning, wondering if we would see someone this year. And here you are!”
“Here I am,” Emily said faintly.
“Come sit down,” Katherine said. “You must be so confused. Would you like some lemonade or tea?”
“No, thank you,” Emily said.
“We just had breakfast, and I’ve had my quota of coffee,” Leigh said. “I can’t drink anymore caffeine, or the baby won’t sleep for a week.”
Emily and Leigh sat on a wicker love seat, and Katherine took a cushioned chair. She scanned the yard for her children before turning her attention back to her guests.
“I don’t think Luke knows about the time traveling, does he?” she asked Leigh.
Leigh grimaced. “He does now, and he knows about you. He didn’t really take the information as well as I would have thought or hoped. You know, for an intellectual.”
“So he knows about me,” Katherine said with a tsk. “You know I help out at the school occasionally. I guess I’ll have to put up with his stares or questions.”
“He may not ask you anything,” Leigh said. “Like I said, he was pretty surprised—ugly surprised, to be honest.”
Emily felt compelled to come to Luke’s defense. “Well, he wasn’t all that bad,” she murmured.
Leigh frowned. “He’s not a modern guy, Emily. He should have behaved with more class. He was rude to you.”
Katherine shook her head. “I can’t imagine Luke being rude. He’s such an easygoing guy.”
“Is he?” Leigh and Emily asked in unison. They looked at each other in surprise and started giggling. Katherine joined in the laughter before responding.
“Yes, normally he is.”
Emily sobered up first. “I just think he was shocked. He might come around, and even if he doesn’t, I doubt he’ll run through the town outing us as time travelers.”
Katherine laughed again. “No, I can’t see Luke doing that. He’s very discreet, even about his kids.”
“Kids?” Emily gasped. “I thought he wasn’t married!”
“His students, Emily!” Leigh clarified. She tilted her head and looked at Emily. “Wait! You like him, don’t you?”
Emily’s cheeks heated.
“Well, of course I like him. He was very nice to me...until he found out about me.”
“About us,” Leigh added. “It wasn’t just the idea that one time traveler had shown up. I’m pretty sure he was shocked about the whole idea. Aren’t we all?”
Katherine nodded. The shrieks of the children caught her attention, and they all turned to see that play continued with a game of tag and the kids were safe.
Leigh spoke. “You know, Emily, we mentioned it last night, but we have a working theory that people are brought back in time to be with specific people. I don’t mean to frighten you, and if you’ve got some other idea, I’d be glad to hear it. When Katherine woke up in Kaskade, she found herself at the church where John works. When I woke up, I was huddled outside of Jeremiah’s house. And you—”
“Woke up at the base of the school,” Emily said, her cheeks burning even more. “I see what you’re saying, but I don’t th
ink your theory is going to pan out this time. Luke is not for me, and I’m definitely not for him. I’m just a few minutes out of a bad relationship that I may have to fight my way out of again when I go back in a year, and I’m not interested in men right now...at all. Besides, that’s just the three of us. Didn’t you say nine people had traveled back in time? Did they all show up at someone’s door? A single person in need of a spouse?”
Leigh and Katherine looked at each other.
“Well, there was Tanya, and she showed up at Jeremiah’s house,” Katherine said with a wince in Leigh’s direction.
Leigh sighed and directed her next comment to Emily.
“If Kaskade is just a romantic old soul trying to matchmake, then Tanya was a swing and a miss. She might have been destined for Jeremiah, but she didn’t want to stay. She wanted to return to the future, and she left the following summer solstice. Left, disappeared, however it’s done. Katherine and I don’t actually know how that works. It’s hard for me to think about, but Jeremiah wanted to marry her. Still, he married me, and I don’t think he regrets it.”
Emily disliked the shadow that had fallen across Leigh’s face.
Apparently so did Katherine, because she piped up. “No, of course he doesn’t regret it, Leigh. He loves you. That is so obvious!”
“Oh yes. That was very clear to me last night,” Emily offered in all sincerity.
Leigh’s cheeks bloomed, and she smiled as if embarrassed. “Thank you,” she said.
Emily wanted to know if there were any other instances of people showing up at the house or workplace of their “intended” mate, but for the most part, she preferred to ignore the subject. She didn’t ask for any further examples.
Thankfully, Leigh dropped the subject of Luke as she and Katherine moved on to a discussion of clothing.
“So how are you dealing with the corset?” Katherine was asking Emily, when something in the yard caught her eye.
“Well, speaking of Luke,” Katherine said.
Emily followed Katherine’s eyes to the gate, where Luke entered the yard. She stifled a gasp and stiffened.