Thrown into a quandary, Jessica knew that she couldn’t force Gideon to see Dr. Whitecastle. And while she happened to think that he was in dire need of a full medical work-up, Gideon was a grown man. If he didn’t want to seek medical treatment, that was his right.
“Okay, I won’t call Dr. Whitecastle,” she relented. “Provided you don’t have another of these so-called spells,” she added as a caveat.
“I am in your debt,” Gideon said in a lowered voice, just before he raised her hand to his lips.
The instant that his mouth lightly pressed against her knuckles, his warm breath grazing her skin, Jessica felt a powerful, pulsating energy course through her hand, traveling the length of her arm. Although she’d grown somewhat accustomed to the weird, tingly sensation that she experienced whenever they touched one another, this was far more potent, causing her to gasp softly in its aftermath.
“If you don’t mind, I, um, think I’ll call it a night,” she croaked, pulling her hand free as she stood upright.
Also rising to his feet, Gideon said, “Sleep well, Jessica.”
“Thanks. And if you need anything during the night, you know where to find me,” Jessica said over her shoulder as she stepped through the doorway. The screen door banged shut behind her. Too late, she realized how her last remark might be misconstrued.
Way to go, Reardon. Why don’t you hand out an engraved invitation while you’re at it?
A few moments later, she hurried through her nighttime routine—brushing her teeth, washing her face, moisturizing from the neck up, and gargling a mouthful of Listerine in record time. Finished with her nightly regimen, she padded down the hall to her bedroom.
As she tugged off her pullover and yoga pants, absently tossing both articles of clothing onto a chair, Jessica wondered how everything had gotten so confused so quickly. Without a doubt, what had transpired on the front porch was definitely out of the norm. Not only had Gideon been disoriented, but the physical pain he’d suffered had been heart-wrenching for her to witness.
And what had been the meaning of all that crazy yammering? Did it mean anything? When he’d first arrived at Highland House, Gideon had repeatedly uttered the cryptic phrase “Two will die on the fast, green water.” Because he’d been running a high fever and had been deliriously ranting in his sleep, she’d paid it no mind. Until two people had died in a drowning accident on the Greenbrier River. At the time, she’d briefly considered the possibility that he had some sort of psychic or clairvoyant ability.
All of which convinced her that Gideon needed to be examined by a doctor, perhaps even a neurologist. Granted, she was no expert, but to have a debilitating headache come on so quickly suggested there was something seriously wrong with him. Moreover, he was still suffering from the delusion that he’d traveled one hundred and fifty years into the future.
“He probably needs to see a shrink, as well,” she said aloud.
Although, to be perfectly fair, if she removed the time traveling and this recent “spell” from the equation, Gideon MacAllister seemed to be a sane, normal man. True, he was a bit old-fashioned in his speech and mannerisms, but that was hardly a reason to send someone to the funny farm.
“Whatever’s wrong with him, I’m sure it’s nothing that a prescription drug can’t cure,” she told herself as she pulled back the covers and got into bed.
Shivering from the autumn chill that permeated the room, Jessica cocooned herself in the quilt and flannel sheets. Eyes closed, she concentrated on the patterns of light that played against her eyelids, the colorful images hypnotically swirling at a dizzying rate.
Completely exhausted, she soon fell into a deep slumber and journeyed to the dream plain, gravitating toward a light that was visible at the end of a dark cavern. Catching sight of Sarah, she effortlessly fused with her, the two of them becoming as one.
Emerging from the cavern, she soon found herself standing in a mist-filled landscape…
* * *
As she wended her way along the path which led to the garden pavilion, Sarah could barely see through the dense mountain fog that eerily hovered over Sweet Springs. A blessing in disguise, she supposed—the heavy mist enabled her to tread undetected. On tenterhooks, she lifted her crinoline several inches, her much-anticipated assignation with Gideon causing her to hasten her step.
After last night’s unexpected, and rather daring, waltz, Gideon had asked her to meet him at the hotel pavilion. Needless to say, she’d spent a sleepless night speculating on the reason for the early morning rendezvous. Moreover, she knew that by agreeing to meet Gideon, she courted potential disaster. She was, after all, betrothed to another man. Be that as it may, she intended to spend whatever time she could with Gideon. Once she exchanged wedding vows with Oren Tolliver, her life would never again be her own. These few moments with the man who’d stolen her heart would have to last her a lifetime.
Arriving at the designated meeting place, Sarah glanced about, disappointed not to see Gideon.
“Looking for someone?”
Immediately recognizing that thin, reedy voice, she spun on her heel, horrified to find Oren Tolliver standing directly behind her.
“Mr. Tolliver, whatever are you doing here?” she demanded.
One side of his mouth twisted in a nasty sneer. “I thought that you and MacAllister might need a chaperone. Who better for such a task than your intended spouse?”
Flummoxed, Sarah frantically tried to collect her thoughts. “I… I have utterly no idea what… what you’re talking about,” she sputtered.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you here to meet your lover?”
“He is not my lover!”
“Alas, only a dance partner,” Oren sniggered.
“How do you know about that?” Too late, Sarah realized that she’d just unintentionally incriminated herself.
“I have my ways.”
“As do I,” she matter-of-factly informed him, her mind made up as to what action to take. While the situation was regrettably awkward, it did provide an opportunity to do something that, heretofore, she’d only fantasized about. “Circumstances being what they are, Mister Tolliver, I wish to break off our engagement.”
A look of surprise momentarily flashed in Oren’s eyes. “I advise against that. Being a woman, you are easily prone to foolish sentiments and unwise decisions.”
“Believe what you will, but I am steadfast in my resolve.”
“Do you think for one moment that I will allow MacAllister to pocket the dowry money which rightfully belongs to me? I have plans for that money, and I won’t be cuckolded by some—”
“I will not marry you, Mr. Tolliver,” Sarah said in a firm tone of voice. Believing the matter settled, she nodded her head and said, “Good day to you, sir.”
Anxious to depart his company, Sarah turned toward the mist-shrouded path. She’d taken no more than a few steps when Oren grabbed her by the elbow, forcefully jerking her around to face him.
“Have you forgotten that your stepmother and I share a familial kinship? If you defy her wishes in this matter, she’ll see to it that you don’t receive a cent of your father’s money.”
“She has no right,” Sarah retorted, refusing to be browbeaten. “My father bequeathed that money so I would be provided for.”
“And he entrusted its dispensation to your stepmother who—”
“Who has designs for me to marry a man whom I don’t love, much less respect,” she exclaimed, uncaring if she caused offense.
At hearing that, Oren’s normally pale face mottled with rage. “MacAllister has you completely under his spell, doesn’t he?”
“I assure you, Mr. Tolliver, that I am under no man’s spell,” she affirmed. “I am my own woman, and as such, I do and think as I please.”
“Which apparently includes running around like a two-bit whore.”
Shocked by the loathsome insult, Sarah could barely curb the impulse to slap Oren’s face. “I will not permit you to s
peak to me in so despicable a manner.”
“A harlot deserves no better.”
“How dare you!” Outraged, Sarah acted on her earlier impulse, slapping Oren Tolliver on the cheek. At seeing the red imprint of her hand on his face, she felt thoroughly vindicated.
Her triumph, however, was short-lived. Oren struck her so quickly that she had no time to muster a defense. Physically stunned by the blow, Sarah closed her eyes, struggling against a surge of queasy pain, afraid that she might very well faint.
When, only seconds later, she heard an agonized grunt, her eyelids instantly flew open. Mystified by the scene unraveling before her, she watched as Oren, his nose sitting askew on his face, wobbled to and fro. Wheezing, he took several backward steps as blood streamed down his shirt front.
What in heaven’s name had just happened?
She soon had her answer. Gideon MacAllister emerged from the fog like a crusading knight of old. Given that both of his hands were curled into fists, Sarah quickly surmised that he’d hit Oren in the face.
Grabbing Oren by his coat lapels, Gideon hauled him upright. “I’m more than willing to kill you right here with my bare hands, but honor demands that I give you a fair chance to defend yourself.”
Dear God! He means to challenge Mister Tolliver to a duel.
With her heart in her throat, Sarah immediately placed a restraining hand on Gideon’s upper arm, able to feel the tense bulge of muscle beneath his frock coat. “Please, Gideon, let it be. Should anything dire happen to you, it will be my fault.” Throwing caution to the wind, she impulsively added, “I cannot bear the thought of losing you.”
Their eyes met for a brief moment before Gideon returned his attention to her estranged fiancé. “Apologize to the lady, Tolliver.”
Oren swiped a hand at the copious blood pouring from his nose, smearing it across his face. “My apologies,” he muttered. Then, glaring at Gideon, he hissed through clenched teeth, “Satisfied?”
“A real man would never satisfy honor in so meager a fashion. However, given the type of man that you are, I suppose the apology, such as it was, will have to suffice. But I give you fair warning, Tolliver.” His gaze resolute, Gideon paused a moment before he continued, “If you so much as pass Miss Pemberton on the same street, I’ll kill you. No matter how long it takes me to hunt you down.”
Gideon’s threat sent a chill down Sarah’s spine. She had never seen a man so dangerously earnest, leaving no doubt in her mind that he would absolutely deliver on his promise.
Evidently, Oren thought so as well, for he wasted no time in scurrying away down the garden path.
Concern writ large on his face, Gideon stepped toward her. “Are you hurt? Shall I summon the doctor?”
Sarah shook her head, the residual pain from Oren’s blow having diminished to a tolerable ache.
As if to verify her condition for himself, Gideon skimmed his fingers across her cheekbone. “A man like Tolliver will never be content until he has completely destroyed you,” he said, putting into words what Sarah had all along secretly feared.
“What am I to do?” she asked, her voice quavering with uncertainty.
“I’m leaving Sweet Springs, and you, my beautiful green-eyed love, are coming with me. That is, if you’re willing to accompany me,” Gideon amended as he took hold of her hand and placed it over his heart.
“I am more than willing,” she assured him. “But… I come to you empty-handed. My stepmother controls my inheritance and—”
“Shh.” Gideon pressed the tip of one finger against her lips to silence her. “No price can be placed on true love. But if money concerns you, I have a sufficient yearly income to provide for all our needs and wants.”
Overcome with emotion, Sarah trembled with a longing so profound, so soul-stirring, the world and its trappings suddenly lost all meaning for her. “Gideon MacAllister, you are, without a doubt, the most noble-hearted man that I have ever met.”
In the next instant, she found herself in Gideon’s arms, their two bodies cloaked in the gray mist which still hovered over the pavilion. As he bent his head to kiss her, Sarah experienced euphoria unlike anything she’d ever known, a love so keenly felt that she knew she would take the memory of it to her grave.
Chapter 12
Suddenly aroused from a deep sleep, Jessica woke with a start.
Rubbing her eyes, she stared at the bedside clock in total disbelief. It was a little after nine o’clock in the morning. For a woman who made a habit of being up and about no later than seven, that amounted to a dereliction of duty. Silently berating herself for having overslept, she threw back the quilt and eased herself off the mattress, careful not to disturb Buster, who was snoozing at the foot of the bed.
Having forgotten to set the alarm, she’d been unable to wake up—her dreams had unfolded like a good book that she couldn’t put down.
In a rush to make up for lost time, Jessica yanked her T-shirt over her head, tossing it into the laundry basket situated on the floor of her clothes closet. She then stepped over to the secondhand, Colonial-style dresser and opened the top drawer, removing a clean bra. Since yard work was on the morning “to do” list, she’d hold off taking a shower until later in the day.
As she twisted and snapped her bra into place, Jessica couldn’t help but wonder why the man of her dreams was so completely different from the real life Gideon MacAllister. Unlike the blue-eyed gallant who haunted her nighttime reveries—a chivalrous cavalier of yesteryear who was always quick with a smile—a discernible air of melancholy hovered about her new tenant.
Perhaps she was having these dreams because deep down inside she wanted to believe that Gideon MacAllister really had traveled through time, a notion that scared the hell out of her.
Over the course of the last six months, she’d worked hard to become self-reliant and emotionally stable, and she had a very real fear of losing her newfound independence. During the seven years that she’d been married to Richard Bragg, her soon-to-be ex-husband had thoroughly stripped away her autonomy by doling out a weekly household allowance, keeping close tabs on her comings and goings, and fashioning her into his ideal Stepford wife. Although she couldn’t put the entire blame on Richard. She had, after all, acquiesced to him, having entered into the relationship at a time in her life—shortly after the unexpected deaths of both her parents—when she’d been particularly defenseless.
While she was no longer a vulnerable woman, Jessica was, admittedly, a lonely woman. Sometimes the loneliness was so stark, so palpable, she could almost feel her heart shuddering from the oppressive weight of it. With good cause, she worried that her extreme loneliness might compel her to make another colossal error in judgment.
As she snatched a pair of cargo pants out of the armoire, Jessica glanced at the two framed photographs prominently displayed on the dresser. One was of her parents, Benjamin and Glenda Reardon, on their wedding day; the other was of the three of them taken just before her parents had died in a fatal car crash.
Does the grief ever end? Jessica wondered as she opened the dresser’s middle drawer, grabbing a tank top and a denim shirt.
About to don the tank top, Jessica instead stood motionless, surprised to suddenly hear a loud thunk emanating from the front yard. Curious, she stepped over to the bedroom window to see what—
Oh my god!
In that instant, a burst of unadulterated lust hit her head-on. From where she stood, Jessica had a bird’s-eye view of Gideon, chopping away at the large maple limb that had fallen a week ago during the storm from Hell. Enthralled, she watched him raise the ax above his head, every muscle in his back straining against his new Hanes T-shirt. As he swung downward, his biceps bunched into corded knots. Raising and lowering the ax, his body kept up a perfect rhythm. Thinking Gideon a beautiful Adonis of a man, she couldn’t peel her eyes from him.
Not until several seconds of the peep show had passed did it suddenly dawn on her that Gideon had only recently left his sick bed.
The sexual haze instantly vanished, and Jessica rapped on the window pane to get Gideon’s attention. As he stopped chopping and glanced up at her, she belatedly realized that she was clad in only a pair of cargo pants and a lacy white brassiere. Snatching the two ends of the muslin curtains that hung at the window, Jessica pulled them across her torso.
“Stop chopping that wood!” she shouted, her head framed by the V of the two curtain panels. “Otherwise you’re gonna have a relapse.”
Gideon cupped a hand to his ear, indicating that he couldn’t hear her.
“Never mind,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’ll be right down.”
As Jessica turned away from the window, her Smartphone began to ring. Snatching her cell phone out of the charger, Jessica saw that the incoming call was from her editor at The Dispatch, Hoyt Jamison.
“Hey, Hoyt. How’s it going?”
“Can’t complain,” her editor replied. “I’m calling ’cause I’ve got your new assignment. And, boy, it’s a real humdinger.”
Stepping over to the nightstand, Jessica opened the drawer and retrieved a pen and small pad of paper. “Okay, I’m ready. Give me the low-down.”
“I want you to do a piece on the recent Draygan sightings.”
Jessica immediately lifted the tip of the pen from the sheet of paper. “Forgive my ignorance, but who or what is Draygan?”
On the other end of the line, Hoyt chuckled, clearly amused. “That’s right. You’re not from around here. Draygan is kind of like Greenbrier County’s Loch Ness Monster or Saskatchewan’s Bigfoot.”
Jessica snorted, barely able to contain herself. “So which is it: sea serpent or big hairy critter?” Even though April Fool’s Day was months away, she wondered if Hoyt and the Dispatch gang weren’t punking her.
“According to eyewitness accounts, Draygan is more like a fire-breathing dragon.”
Oh, yeah. Big-time prank.
Deciding to give Hoyt a chance to come clean, Jessica said, “Didn’t dragons go out of fashion with unicorns and griffins?”
Our Time Is Now Page 9