by Bess McBride
“Mr. Damon?” a familiar voice said from behind.
Luke turned to see Miss Noble tapping on the sill of the doorway.
“Yes, Miss Noble?”
“Is all well?”
“Yes, thank you. Everything is fine.”
To Luke’s dismay, she entered the classroom and came to his side to look out the window.
“What an absolute mess!” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed, turning to follow her eyes.
“I had hoped to travel up by wagon to see my sister in Tacoma this weekend, but I suppose I will have to cancel my plans.”
Luke did not feel that he had the mental or emotional capacity to listen to Miss Noble’s foiled plans for the weekend, but he endeavored to pay attention.
“Can you not take the train?”
“I do not care for trains, Mr. Damon. Did you not know that? No, I much prefer the sedate pace of a mule and a wagon. Mr. Davis, the blacksmith, was going there, but I inquired of him on the way to school this morning if that would still be possible, and he said not.”
“How unfortunate,” Luke said. More unfortunate still had been Emily’s experience the previous day buried in the mud...on her way to bring him breakfast.
As if Miss Noble read his mind, she spoke. “The entire school is buzzing with your heroic efforts to save Miss Alexander from the mudslide. You and Mr. Lundrum.”
“Hardly heroic,” he murmured, still staring out the window. Emily’s small figure had disappeared, and he longed to see her walking back up the road to see him, to bury herself in his arms.
“But yes, of course that was a heroic act! I wonder how you happened to see her on the road at that exact moment. I heard this morning that Mr. Lundrum had followed her to the school and so he would have presumably come upon her. But why was she coming to the school?”
Luke looked down at the older woman. Her blue eyes showed no sincere interest in Emily’s welfare.
“She was coming to bring me breakfast because she is kind and thoughtful and caring and honest and loving and—”
Luke stopped himself and pressed his lips together. He returned to staring out the window, wishing she would leave.
“Oh! I see how it is!”
“What do you see, Miss Noble?”
“Why, you are in love with the girl, Mr. Damon!”
Luke looked down at her. Her eyes glittered, and he wondered for a moment if those were tears. He could not imagine why.
“Yes, I am, Miss Noble. I am in love with Miss Emily Alexander.”
“I see,” she said.
“Somehow, I feel that information is of importance to you, Miss Noble. Why would that be? Why have you taken a disliking to Emily?”
Luke felt freer than he had in days to speak. He was, after all, leaving the school and would not need to maintain a collegial relationship with the older woman any longer.
“I am sad to say that I have been jealous of her—of her youth, her beauty, her Bohemian ways. I have been jealous of your attention to her and the look in her eyes when she gazed at you.”
Luke swallowed hard. Miss Noble had to be thirty years older than he, in her late fifties he would guess. Had she harbored an undisclosed tenderness for him? Had Emily been correct in her assumption that Miss Noble was in love with him?
“I know it was foolish,” Miss Noble said. “I am an old woman. I never thought you would see me that way, but I enjoyed my secret romance with you, Mr. Damon.”
Luke resisted the urge to step away from her. Love came to all whether they expected it or not. Was he not proof of that? Love knew no boundaries, no limits, no restrictions. He doubted that Miss Noble was truly in love with him, but she had apparently formed an attachment to him.
He looked at her again, searching his mind for the best thing to say. She stared out the window.
“I did not realize how you felt, Miss Noble. I am so very sorry.”
“Do not be, Mr. Damon. I only tell you now because I realize that my infatuation with you caused me to behave badly, most especially to Emily. I tell you now because I realize that you are truly in love. It is in your eyes, in your voice, in the way you stare down the road that Emily walked when she left the school just now.”
“You saw that?”
“I see everything you do, Mr. Damon. I have watched you for years.”
Luke should have felt flattered, but he felt nothing but sadness. “I am so sorry,” he repeated.
“I think I will seek a position elsewhere,” Miss Noble announced.
Luke turned to her. “Miss Noble, surely not! Can we not still work together in a professional—” Luke stopped. He had forgotten that he himself was leaving.
“No,” she answered. “I think I would like to move nearer to my sister. I think I shall apply for a position in Tacoma. I should have done so long ago, but for...” She did not finish her sentence. “Do you have any recommendations or any names to whom I might apply?”
Luke’s eyes widened. Was this some sort of jest? He pulled his brows together. “Miss Noble, what is this all about? Do you mean to tease me? If so, this is very cruel.”
Her eyes widened, as had his.
“Whatever do you mean, Mr. Damon? I have no intention of teasing you. I sought only to reveal my true feelings, unrequited as they must be.”
“Yes, I do appreciate the courage it must have taken to say so, but I wonder that you ask me for recommendations for teaching positions in Tacoma.”
“I only this moment made up my mind,” she said. “You are the first person whom I asked. I do mean to ask the other teachers, and my sister might make some inquiries on my behalf. I cannot afford to stop working. I have saved very little over the years.”
“Then you do not jest? You truly do wish to move to Tacoma?”
“Did I not just say so, Mr. Damon? I would like to spend more time with my sister. I have stayed here far too long to no real purpose.”
Luke might have felt guilty about not returning Miss Noble’s unrequited love if he had not been so elated about the strange turn of events.
He glanced out the window again, surveying the whole of Kaskade. Did the small town truly possess such powers that it could not only bring people through time, but change the circumstances of others? A town built of wood and steel?
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement on the road to the right leading to the school. A familiar head of red-brown curls bounced as the lady possessing them climbed the road, her skirts hitched in an unladylike fashion.
Emily returned to him. He knew without a doubt that Emily returned to him.
“Yes, Miss Noble,” he said, turning to rush from the room. “I do have names and recommendations. Indeed, I believe I may already have a position for you. You are as qualified as I! We must talk again today!”
Luke ran down the hall to the outer door. He hurried down the stairs and ran down the road in the direction of the intersection that Emily would soon cross. He stopped short in the road when she appeared on the horizon.
Hoping beyond hope that she had truly come to him, he approached her slowly, meeting her halfway.
Her cheeks were bright red, whether from exertion or strong emotion, he could not say. He soon found out.
“Listen,” she said, panting. “I love you, Luke. I love Kaskade. Kaskade loves me, and it brought me here for you. If you have to leave Kaskade, then ask me to marry you, and I’ll go with you. I will follow you anywhere. That’s what I came to say. Your turn!”
Luke opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He too had fallen in love with the quirky small town once again, even more so given its eccentricities. But he did not love Kaskade more than he did the unconventional little woman standing before him, her arms akimbo, her chest heaving as she gasped for air.
He wanted to tell her that he loved her, that it was almost certain he would not have to leave Kaskade, that he would marry her gladly. Words would not form in his tightened throat.
He ope
ned his arms wide, and Emily buried herself in them. Just as he had dreamed she would. He folded his arms around her and thanked Kaskade for finding his love.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Miss Noble sends a postcard from Tacoma,” Luke told his wife.
Emily looked up from the dough she was rolling out on the kitchen table in their newly built cottage. Martha had taught Emily to cook, and Emily enjoyed baking.
“How is she doing?”
“She seems well and happy in her new position. She no longer pays for rooms since she lives with her sister, and they are planning a grand adventure this summer. That is all.”
Luke sipped on coffee at the table and watched Emily cut out the shape of a piecrust. Sunday mornings were his favorite time of the week. He and Emily had awakened slowly, savoring their time in each other’s arms. He had prepared breakfast in their modern kitchen, and she had washed the dishes.
They had read the weekly newspaper together, commenting upon the local and national topics. Occasionally, she provided insight or advance knowledge of what would come to pass, and Luke wallowed in the delight of knowing how things would progress.
They had been married almost eleven months, and the summer solstice was almost upon them. They were to rally at Jeremiah and Leigh’s house for dinner, where Katherine and John Ludlow and Martha and Jefferson Lundrum would no doubt speculate about the upcoming arrival. Would it be a man or a woman? Where would the person appear? Would a new time traveler even come? Someday, Kaskade might stop its shenanigans as abruptly as it had started them.
He had not been privy to the past eight years of arrivals and departures, but he intended to keep a sharp eye on the goings-on in the future.
“I think I shall offer my services as guide to the next time traveler,” he told Emily. “What do you think about that?”
Emily smiled. “You’ve certainly changed,” she said, “from when I first showed up.”
“I have!” he said with a grin. “Not only do I tolerate Kaskade’s little quirks, but I embrace them. I believe it is Kaskade’s doing that made Miss Noble decide to move to Tacoma and take the job that I had accepted.”
“And I think it was ‘Kaskade’s doing’ that I turned around that day and came back to you, demanded that you marry me and offered to go away with you.”
“Yes, you did, my love,” he said with a warm smile. “I hoped that you would. When I saw you walk away, I hoped that you would come back to me. Of course, I would have come to you and begged you openly to come with me to Tacoma, but I believe that you belong here. And I belong with you.”
Luke watched as Emily wiped her hands on her apron and came around the kitchen table. She stopped behind him and bent to wrap her arms around his neck. He lifted her hands and kissed each one, tasting of flour and sugar.
“I’m so happy, Luke,” Emily whispered against his ear.
“As am I, honey,” Luke said.
She kissed his cheek and straightened to return to her piecrust.
“I think the next traveler will be a woman.”
“Why do you say that? I believe it has been random, has it not? Those who have known the longest indicate that the gender is unpredictable.”
“Well, Jefferson needs a girl of his own, don’t you think?”
Luke pursed his lips. “Jefferson is just fine. I am not at all concerned about him. Not in the least.”
Emily chuckled. “You can’t still be jealous of him after all this time.”
“I am,” Luke said softly. “Every time you go to help Martha, I am jealous.”
“Every time?”
“Most of the time,” Luke amended.
“But I hardly even see Jefferson.”
“All right then, occasionally.”
“I mean, I rarely see him at all,” Emily said with a wink.
“Once in a great while,” Luke said. “I cannot go below that. I can never forget that I could not have rescued you from the mudslide alone and that I could not stay with you. He will always be important to you.”
“Which is why I hope the next arrival is a woman. What type do you think Jefferson likes? Blonde? Brunette? A redhead?”
Luke rose and walked around the table to hug Emily from behind.
“I do not care. I know that you are my type.”
Emily stopped what she was doing and leaned against him, lifting her face to his.
“What type is that?”
“The woman who traveled through time to rescue me.”
“To find your love,” Emily whispered before she turned and buried herself in his arms.
Books by Bess McBride
Time Travel Romance
Finding Your Heart
(Book One of the Town Lost in Time series)
The Earl Finds a Bride
(Book One of the Fairy Tales Across Time series)
The Viscount Finds Love
(Book Two of the Fairy Tales Across Time series)
The Baron Finds Happiness
(Book Three of the Fairy Tales Across Time series)
A Ship Through Time
The Highlander’s Stronghold
(Book One of the Searching for a Highlander series)
The Highlander’s Keep
(Book Two of the Searching for a Highlander series)
The Highlander’s Home
(Book Three of the Searching for a Highlander series)
My Laird’s Castle
(Book One of the My Laird’s Castle series)
My Laird’s Love
(Book Two of the My Laird’s Castle series)
My Laird’s Heart
(Book Three of the My Laird’s Castle series)
Caving in to You
(Book One of the Love in the Old West series)
A Home in Your Heart
(Book Two of the Love in the Old West series)
Forever Beside You in Time
Moonlight Wishes in Time
(Book One of the Moonlight Wishes in Time series)
Under an English Moon
(Book Two of the Moonlight Wishes in Time series)
Following You Through Time
(Book Three of the Moonlight Wishes in Time series)
A Train Through Time
(Book One of the Train Through Time series)
Together Forever Across Time
(Book Two of the Train Through Time series)
A Smile in Time
(Book Three of the Train Through Time series)
Finding You in Time
(Book Four of the Train Through Time series)
A Fall in Time
(Book Five of the Train Through Time series)
A Summer in Time
(Book Six of the Train Through Time series)
Train Through Time Series Boxed Set
(Books 1–3)
Across the Winds of Time
A Wedding Across the Winds of Time
(Novella)
Love of My Heart
Historical Romance
Anna and the Conductor
The Earl’s Beloved Match
(Novella)
The Dishonest Duke
Short cozy mystery stories by Minnie Crockwell
Will Travel for Trouble series
Trouble at Happy Trails (Book 1)
Trouble at Sunny Lake (Book 2)
Trouble at Glacier (Book 3)
Trouble at Hungry Horse (Book 4)
Trouble at Snake and Clearwater (Book 5)
Trouble in Florence (Book 6)
Trouble in Tombstone Town (Book 7)
Trouble in Cochise Stronghold (Book 8)
Trouble in Orange Beach (Book 9)
Trouble at Pelican Penthouse (Book 10)
Trouble at Island Castle (Book 11)
Trouble at Yellowstone (Book 12)
Trouble at Devils Tower (Book 13)
Trouble in El Paso (Book 14)
Will Travel for Trouble Series (Books 1–3)
Will Travel for Trouble Series
(Books 4–6)
Will Travel for Trouble Series (Books 7–9)
Will Travel for Trouble Series (Books 10–12)
About the Author
Bess McBride is the best-selling author of over twenty time travel romances as well as contemporary, historical, romantic suspense and light paranormal romances. She loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her at [email protected]. She also writes short cozy mysteries as Minnie Crockwell. You can visit her website at www.bessmcbride.com.