Chase the Lightning

by Madeline Baker

  She frowned at him. “A joke? What joke? What are you talking about?”

  “The date. Dammit, the last time I looked, it was 1869.”

  A rolling crash of thunder punctuated the sudden silence in the room.

  Amanda stared at him. “18…69?” Well, that would explain a lot of things, she supposed. His clothes, the money in the sack, the reason he didn’t know what a can of beer looked like… Oh, but that it was impossible. Crazy. And she was crazy for considering it, even for a minute. “Where did you get all that money?”

  His eyes narrowed. “How do you know about the money?”

  “I found it in your saddlebags while I was looking for some ID. Identification.” She blew out a sigh of exasperation. “You know, something to tell me who you are.”

  He glanced at the chair across the room. “Where’s my gun?”

  “I have it. The money? Where did it come from?”

  He shrugged. “A bank.”

  “You robbed a bank?”

  He didn’t answer. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he stood up. He didn’t like being unarmed in a strange place. And while the woman looked harmless enough, and seemed to be alone, he couldn’t forget that he was a wanted man.

  Amanda backed toward the door, her mind reeling. He couldn’t be from the past. It just wasn’t possible. He was just some nut… She took a deep, steadying breath. He looked suddenly ominous standing there, even though he was clad in nothing but the lower half of a pair of long underwear.

  “Just give me my gun and my clothes, and my money, and I’ll be on my way.”

  “You can’t go, not now.” She gestured toward the window. “It’s raining cats and dogs out there. And you’ve still got a bit of a fever.” And it’s probably not safe for you to be running around without a keeper, she added to herself.

  He looked at her speculatively. “You wouldn’t be trying to keep me here until the law arrives, would you?”

  She shook her head, trying not to notice how dark his skin looked in contrast to his long johns, or the breadth of his shoulders, or the way he stood there, tall and lean and dangerous-looking, with his eyes glinting at her and every muscle taut. He was trembling, his face pale beneath the natural bronze of his skin.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” she suggested. “I’ll get your shirt.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer, but turned and left the room. She didn’t want him to leave, not yet, though she shied away from the reason she wanted him to stay.

  She turned up the heat on her way to the laundry room where she’d hung his clothes. She took his shirt from the hanger, thinking she could use a cup of coffee.

  He was in the kitchen when she got there. Sitting at the table, he was staring out the window, his expression troubled. He must move as quiet as a cat, she thought. He had obviously followed her out of the guest room, and she had never heard a sound.

  “Here.”

  She handed him his shirt. It had been washed and ironed, the bullet hole neatly mended.

  “I was going to have some coffee,” she said. “Would you like a cup?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” He shrugged into his shirt and buttoned it halfway up. “Did you tell the law about me?”

  “When would I have had time to do that? The phone’s out, and I couldn’t very well leave you alone to go into town.”

  “Phone?”

  “Never mind.” She moved to the counter, pulled two mugs from the cupboard and poured a cup for him and one for herself. Carrying them to the table, she handed him one of the mugs, then sat down across from him.

  He folded his hands around the cup. “Where am I?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She watched him glance around the kitchen, frowning as his gaze rested briefly on the stove, the refrigerator, the microwave on the counter, the hanging light over the table, the sink.

  He made a broad, sweeping gesture with his hand. “Where the hell am I? What are all these, these…” He broke off, having no words to describe what he saw.

  “Don’t tell me,” she said. “You’ve never seen a stove or a refrigerator before, either.”

  “Of course I’ve seen a stove.” But nothing like this one. Stoves were made of heavy dull black cast iron, they weren’t gleaming white with glass in the doors.

  “Well then?”

  He shook his head. “I must be outta my mind.”

  “That’s what I think, too,” she muttered.

  He slammed the palm of his hand on the table. “I’m not crazy!”

  “All right, all right, calm down.”

  “None of this makes any sense.”

  “You’re telling me.” She took a deep breath. “All right, if you’re from 1869, how did you get here?”

  “I don’t know…” He rubbed a hand over his jaw, remembering the day he’d been shot, the strange buzzing sound in his head, the thick gray mist that had enveloped him, the way the world had seemed to blur before his eyes.

  “You can’t have come from very far,” she said, thinking aloud. “Your horse has been here before several times. He’s quite a jumper, isn’t he?”

  “My horse?”

  She nodded. “He showed up in my corral one day. I thought he must have strayed from one of the ranches in the area. He was gone the next day, and then he was back again.”

  Trey stared at her. “My horse,” he murmured. “You brushed him, didn’t you?”

  “Someone had to,” she retorted. “You certainly don’t.”

  “My horse.” Treat him well. Walker on the Wind’s voice echoed in the back of his mind. And he will always carry you away from danger. Relámpago had sure as hell carried him away from danger this time, Trey mused. Damn, if what the woman said was true, Relámpago had carried him over a hundred years into the future.

  He shook his head. “No, it can’t be.”

  “I don’t believe it, either,” Amanda said. “But here you are.”

  Trey sipped his coffee; then, putting the mug aside, he stood up and moved toward the refrigerator.

  Amanda watched him run his hands over the outside, slide his fingers over the handle, and give a tug. His eyes widened as cool air moved over him. He stared at the bottles and jars and containers on the shelves inside, then put his hand on the top shelf. It was cold to the touch.

  “That’s a refrigerator,” Amanda said. “It keeps food cold so it stays fresh longer.” Rising, she opened the freezer door. “This keeps food frozen until you want to use it. Have you ever had ice cream?”

  He shook his head. “What is it?”

  “You’ll see. You look like a chocolate kind of guy to me,” she decided. Taking a carton from the fridge, she scooped a generous amount into a bowl, then handed it to him, along with a spoon. “Go on, try it.”

  He looked at it a moment. Took a small bite, and then a bigger one. It was so cold it felt like it burned his tongue. But the taste was delicious. He swallowed too fast, and the cold burned a trail down his gullet. He coughed, washed the sting away with a swallow of coffee, and smiled.

  “It's good, isn't it?” she said

  “Yeah.” He stood there, eating, while she showed him how the appliances worked. Natural gas, electricity—she might as well have been speaking some foreign language. When she turned on one of the burners on the stove, he jerked backward, then moved closer, fascinated by the fact that she could produce a small blue flame at the turn of a knob.

  He finished the ice cream, licked the spoon, and then handed her the empty dish. She rinsed it off and opened a shiny door under the kitchen counter. He saw a rack, with other dishes in it. A cupboard? She put the plate and spoon in the rack and closed the door with a soft thunk.

  Trey glanced at the sink. “You don’t wash your dishes?”

  “Of course I do. This is a dishwasher. It washes them for me.”

  He shook his head. “More elec-tricity?”

  She smiled. “Yes.”

  She pulled a chicken leg from out of the col
d storage cupboard she called a "fridge" and placed it on a napkin. He watched as she opened a small door on the counter. A light came on inside the squarish box and she placed the chicken inside, closed the door and punched some numbers on the front panel. The light came on again and he peered inside, watching the chicken leg go round and round on a glass plate.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. “Why’d you put it in there?”

  “That’s a microwave oven. It heats things up in a few minutes.”

  In a few moments there was a sharp “ding” and she popped the door open and handed him the chicken. It was warm, but not too hot. He munched on it while she showed him how the garbage disposal and the electric can opener worked, how to switch the lights on and off. She turned on the faucet, let him feel the hot water. Next, she dropped a slice of bread in another gadget called a toaster. The bread came out warm and crusty. He ate that, too.

  She grinned, thinking how amazing it must all seem to him. Truth be told, it was amazing to her, as well, now that she thought about it. Even though she took such modern conveniences for granted, it was nonetheless miraculous that she had heat and light and power all at the flip of a switch. And her computer…of all the wonders of modern technology, it was the one that amazed her the most. To think she could send words and pictures across the world with the touch of a mouse, well, it was just mind-boggling. She decided to save a journey into cyberspace for another time.

  She showed him the stereo, sat him down on the sofa and turned on the TV. He watched in wide-eyed fascination as she picked up the remote and flipped through the channels—news, commercials, the latest Brad Pitt movie, a re-run of M*A*S*H, an old episode of The Lone Ranger.

  He pointed at the screen and laughed. “I’ve never seen a cowboy that clean in my whole life,” he remarked. “Or heard an Indian talk like that. What tribe is he supposed to be from?”

  “Well, the Lone Ranger isn’t exactly a cowboy,” she said. “Anyway, it’s all just make believe.”

  “How does it work, this tele-vision?”

  She tried to explain it to him; no easy task, since she wasn’t really sure how it worked, either. In the end, she admitted she just didn’t know. “How can you not know? How do you make the pictures move and talk?”

  “I just turn it on. I’m not an electronics wizard. I have no idea how or why it works. It just does.”

  She felt a familiar thrill when she heard the theme music for Star Wars, stopped switching channels as the opening scene of The Empire Strikes Back unfolded on the screen.

  Trey leaned forward, completely caught up in the magic of the story he was seeing. She couldn’t blame him. It was one of her favorites, one she had watched numerous times.

  “This is all just…just make-believe?” he asked incredulously.

  “Yes. Amazing, isn’t it?”

  “That man, he’s not really dead, then?”

  “No. They’re just actors, you know, like on stage?”

  He nodded, his gaze riveted on the screen. He stayed that way until the movie was over, then leaned back on the sofa, looking slightly stunned.

  Amanda smiled. She had been stunned at the end of the movie, too, though probably not for the same reason he was.

  She tapped her fingers on the arm of the sofa. What now? Impossible as it seemed, she actually believed he had somehow come here from the past. Thank goodness the phone lines had been down. She hated to think what would have happened to him if she had called the police. No doubt he would either be in jail for a crime he’d committed over a hundred years ago, or in a rubber room wearing a straitjacket.

  “How on earth did you get here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. One minute Relámpago and I were ridin’ hard, and the next I was here.”

  “Relámpago?”

  “My horse.”

  “So that’s his name. I’ve been calling him Lightning, you know, because of that scar on his rump. What does Relámpago mean?”

  Trey stared at her, his eyes narrowed. “Lightning.”

  She stared back at him as an icy shiver ran down her spine. “Imagine that,” she said.

  He nodded.

  Amanda shook her head. There was no reason to feel eerie just because she had called the horse Lightning, not when it had that zigzag scar on its flank.

  It was nothing more than a coincidence.

  “So,” she said brightly, “you expect me to believe you and your horse were just zapped here?”

  “Zapped?”

  “You know, just showed up here from out of the blue.”

  He shrugged, grimacing as the movement pulled on the wound in his back.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. Leaning forward, she placed her hand on his brow. “You still have a bit of a fever. I think maybe you should go lie down for awhile. You look like you could use a nap.”

  He nodded. He needed some time alone, he thought, time to mull over everything he had seen and heard.

  “I’ll be in later to check on your wound.”

  “I reckon you saved my life. I’m obliged.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  His eyes were dark, dark brown, intense as they gazed into hers. She felt a pleasurable shiver steal down her spine, a curling heat in the pit of her stomach as sexual awareness sprang to life between them. He was tall and dark and sexy as hell with his tousled hair falling over his broad shoulders and the beginnings of a beard shadowing his jaw. He looked rough and dangerous and far too appealing for her peace of mind.

  Finding it suddenly difficult to breathe, she inhaled deeply, let her breath out in a long, shuddering sigh.

  A slow smile spread over his face. He was all too aware of his effect on her, she thought irritably, but she couldn’t deny it. She tried to tell herself it was nothing. Just a simple case of lust. After all, he was a ruggedly handsome man, and she was a healthy female. It didn’t mean a thing. Besides, she was engaged to Rob. She tried to summon Rob’s image, but all she could see were Trey’s eyes, suddenly heavy-lidded as he watched her.

  She felt warm all over, knew her cheeks were flushed. “Well,” she said briskly. “I think I’ll go and…”

  “Running away?” he drawled.

  She stood abruptly, angry that he saw through her so easily. “Of course not. But, I’m…I’m hungry.” They hadn’t had anything to eat except some ice cream while watching the movie. She picked up their dirty dishes. “I think I’ll go make a sandwich. Do you want one before you go to bed…” She bit down on her lower lip, chiding herself for her choice of words. “Before you take a nap?”

  He nodded, his expression telling her she hadn’t fooled him for a minute.

  She didn’t care. She practically ran out of the room.

  In the kitchen, she stood with her hands braced on the counter. She had to get him out of here. Now!

  She gasped as a pair of well-muscled arms slid around her waist and drew her up against a masculine body that was, without doubt, well aroused.

  “What are you doing?” she exclaimed.

  “What we both want.” He turned her slowly to face him, his hands lingering at her waist.

  And then he kissed her.

  It never occurred to her to push him away.

  She closed her eyes, leaning into him as awareness spiraled through her.

  His body was hard and unyielding, cushioning the softness of her own. He tasted like the chocolate ice cream. Chocolate ice cream and smoldering desire. It was a potent combination. Heat exploded through every nerve and cell of her body and she sagged against him, her heart pounding wildly.

  He drew back, his gaze burning into hers. And then he kissed her again.

  She had been kissed before, many times, but never like this, never with such intensity, such soul-shattering passion. Heat flowed through her, touching places long cold, leaving her feeling weak and slightly dazed.

  When he drew back this time, his breathing was as erratic as her own.

  She looked up into his eyes,
her pulse racing, her whole body on fire, and knew, in that single moment of time, what was missing in her relationship with Rob.

  Chapter Eight

  Trey paced the floor in the bedroom, his bare feet sinking into the thick rug. He had never been in a home where the floors were completely covered by anything like this. Expensive hotel lobbies, yes. Houses, no. But he had never walked through a hotel lobby barefoot. He liked the feel of the carpet beneath his feet.

  The woman, Amanda, had fled the kitchen when he let her go. He had scared the hell out of her, he thought. Hell, he was feeling a mite shaky himself. Women had never been a problem for him. Young, old, married, single, respectable or otherwise, he’d pretty much had his pick, but there was something about this one. Pain and fever notwithstanding, he had wanted her from the moment he had first set eyes on her. And he wanted her now.

  He stopped at the window and stared out at the rain, the ache of wanting her momentarily stronger than the ache of his wound. He had kissed women before, a lot of women, but none of them had ever affected him like this. He had kissed them and forgotten them. Made love to them and forgotten them. But Amanda… He closed his eyes, the taste of her still fresh on his lips, his arms anxious to hold her again.

  He stared out the window. He didn’t belong here. As soon as the rain let up, he would saddle Relámpago and find his way back home… He grunted softly. He had no home, but he didn’t belong here, that was for damn sure.

  She avoided him the rest of the day, coming to his room only twice—once to bring his dinner, and again to check on his wound and collect his dirty dishes.

  He sat on the bed after she left, the long night stretching ahead of him. He wasn’t used to so much inactivity. He could hear her moving around upstairs, the sound of water running. Did she have a bathtub upstairs, too? His mouth went suddenly dry at the thought of her sitting amid frothy bubbles, her luxurious red hair pinned up, her skin flushed from the hot water, covered with lather…

  Damn!

  Lightning flashed across the sky, followed by the footsteps of the thunder people. The fury of the storm seemed to intensify his restlessness and he prowled through the house, too edgy to sit still. He switched on a light, switched it off, then on again, marveling that such a thing was possible. Marveling that he was here, more than a hundred years in the future. How the hell was he going to get back where he belonged?