“Girlfriend?”
Ashley sighed, realizing that communication between them was at a strong disadvantage. “You know, a female friend…a regular female companion you see frequently?”
“‘Tis none of your concern.” He shifted to his side, his male ego still sorely wounded from her rebuff.
Just as stubborn, Ashley wiggled closer to her side of the bed to keep from touching him. “‘Tis too. If we have to be stuck with each other, what’s wrong with knowing something about each other?”
“Why does it matter?”
“It doesn’t, but since neither one of us can sleep, what can it hurt? We don’t have to discuss anything that would make you uncomfortable.”
When he was still silent, she nudged him with her toe. “What about it?”
“What about what?”
“Do you have a lady friend?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Unless someone has given me one and I’m not aware of it, I don’t have.”
She lay staring into the darkness, wondering if he was telling the truth. There was something in the tone of his voice that made her skeptical. “But you did have.”
When he failed to respond, she poked him with her toe again. “Didn’t you?”
“Do I have a female companion that I see frequently?”
“Yes?”
“No.”
“But did you have?” Men had not changed a wit in the last two hundred years. Women still had to drag answers out of them.
“At one time,” he finally conceded.
“What happened?”
“We aren’t going to discuss anything personal.”
“What’s so personal about wanting to know just a little about the girl you saw on frequent occasions?”
“We had a disagreement.”
Curious now, Ashley rolled onto her back. He was so close she could feel the warmth of his body, and she decided she liked the feeling. After all, he was an attractive man, and she felt protected when she was with him, even though she didn’t have the slightest idea what morning would bring. “What’s she like?” she asked softly.
He was silent for so long Ashley thought he wasn’t going to answer again. When he finally broke the silence, it was as if he was speaking to himself. “She’s lovely. Like you.”
Ashley smiled at the ambiguous compliment. So, his heart belonged to another, she thought, and wondered why the admission would bring about such an ache of longing inside her. Propping up on her elbow, she gazed at him. “How did you meet?”
“We’ve known each other since we were children,” he said quietly.
“And you loved her?”
“We were to be married.”
“What happened?”
“My duties kept me away much of the time. As a doctor, it is necessary for me to be available no matter what the day or hour. Quite often my life isn’t my own. There were too many times in my work that prevented me from escorting her to various social events she thought important to us both, and she soon despaired that I would ever be available to share in her life.”
Ashley flushed, only too aware that she had broken her engagement to Joel for precisely the same reason. It was uncanny the way their lives seemed to parallel.
Aaron’s arm bumped hers as he rolled onto his back and laced his fingers behind his head. He gazed into the darkness, surprised that he could talk so easily about Anna now. “There was always a valid reason why I couldn’t be with her. My work, loyalty to my country…Anna was patient at first, then she…” His voice faded. “She was right to break the engagement,” he conceded
Ashley found his hand in the darkness and squeezed it. “I’m sure the decision was very painful for her.”
“Mayhap. But I should have taken more time with her.”
“Is it too late?”
“I don’t know…this war with England seems to be going on and on and on.” Frustration was evident in his voice now, and he pushed his fingers through his hair. “It never stops. As soon as one problem is corrected, there are two more to take its place. We cannot allow England to own us! We are not indentured to the British. We cannot permit ourselves to assume the burden of supporting another nation. We are to conduct our own lives, and conduct them as we see fit. We will persevere,” he vowed.
Turning onto her side, she rested her hand against his chest. “Don’t worry, you will,” she whispered. “You must continue to fight and you will win, in the end.”
Compelled by the conviction in her voice, he caught her hand, holding it tightly. “How can you make such predictions when you know nothing of the future?”
“But I do know the future,” she returned softly. Their gazes met in the darkness, and though she couldn’t see into his eyes, she knew the confusion she would find there.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
“Would you believe me if I told you?”
“I’m not sure…yet I will try.”
“I’m not really crazy, you know.”
His lips curved with a wry smile. “I admit that at times that is difficult to believe.”
She smiled, aware that she’d done some pretty crazy things since this had all started. As the silence lengthened, Ashley sensed that he was tom by loyalty yet consumed with curiosity. He was a smart man. He knew the things she did and said were peculiar, yet she had caught the look of interest in his eyes each time she had prophesied the future.
“Tell me who you are.” He finally yielded.
“All right.” Taking a deep breath, Ashley closed her eyes, praying that she would somehow find the words to convince him of who she was. “My name is Ashley Wheeler. I live in Boston—only not the Boston you know.” She reached for his hand again, holding it tightly. “Are you with me up to this point?”
“Continue.”
“Yesterday—or maybe the day before—I’ve lost all track of time,” she confessed, “but I was working at my second job in an eighteenth-century museum in Boston when it started to rain. The windows on my car were—”
“Car?” He stopped her.
“Yes, car—motor vehicle…a piece of mechanized equipment?”
“I do not know of this…car.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” she conceded. “But we’ll get back to that later. Anyway, I was going out to roll the windows up on my car when I slipped on the stairs and fell. When I reached the bottom of the stairs…well, that’s when I met you.” Her grip tightened. “Are you ready for this?” His hand returned the pressure lightly. “Continue.”
“The day I fell was April 15, 2013.” His grasp suddenly went lax.
“Don’t be afraid,” she urged. “I know it’s impossible to understand, and I can’t even begin to explain what’s happened, but I’m not a spy and I’m not crazy. I’ve thought for the longest time that I was having a dream and I just couldn’t wake up, but if that’s true, the dream just goes on and on, and now I’m not so sure.”
“Two thousand and thirteen,” he repeated, stunned. “Centuries into the future?”
“It is incredible,” she agreed. “Oh, Aaron, there’s so much I could tell you about the future! The marvels in medicine and transportation—we have automobiles with air bags and jet airplanes that fly faster than the speed of sound—”
“Sound travels?” he echoed incredulously.
“Yes! Yes, it really does! And we’ve even put a man on the moon! Right at this minute the American flag is proudly waving on the surface of the moon where Buzz Aldrin put it!”
“The American flag is flying on the moon?” he repeated, even more distressed. “Who is Buzz Aldrin?”
“He’s an astronaut—oh dear, you don’t know what an astronaut is either—but the flag has fifty stars on it now, not thirteen!”
Aaron was trying to comprehend what she was saying, but it was impossible. She spoke unsurpassed nonsense, yet he was sorely tempted to believe her.
“The British?” he interjected.
&nbs
p; “Oh, don’t worry about the British,” she soothed. “Let’s see—what is the date today?”
“The seventeenth.”
“The British will come by sea tomorrow night,” she promised. “And they will put up a good fight, but you’ll whip them but good. When you said no more taxes, you guys meant it!” She grinned, hugging his neck. “I’m so proud of you!”
He grinned, lamely hugging her back but not having the slightest idea of what she was talking about.
“Listen.” Her face sobered. “You did a wonderful job, but I’m afraid America is right back in the same shape we were two centuries ago.”
“The British are overtaxing you?”
“No, it’s our own government this time. Isn’t that ironic?”
Lying back on the pillow, she sighed, relieved to finally have cleared the air. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt that he believed what she had told him. At least now he knew that she wasn’t a spy, and she could sleep tonight without the fear of impending doom in the morning. Her muscles relaxed, sheer exhaustion overtaking her now. Tomorrow she would wake up and be in her own bed, and she would laugh about all that had happened.
Her hand reached to assure herself that Aaron was still beside her, and she suddenly felt very sad. Tomorrow he would surely be gone.
Aaron settled back beneath the covers, trying to absorb the wonders of which she had spoken. Automobiles, air-eo-planes, and an American flag with fifty stars. He shook his head in amazement. Was it possible she was telling the truth? No, ’tis folly! Such a world did not and could not exist, he reasoned. And the British arriving by sea on the morrow—they wouldn’t dare! Though they threatened, they would not be so bold! No, Ashley Wheeler was lovely, but she knew not of what she spoke.
A moment later Ashley felt his arm creep around her waist again.
Irritably slapping it aside again, she mumbled something about having a headache and rolled over, dropping off to sleep instantly.
Chapter Eight
The sun was just barely up when Ashley stirred the next morning. She’d hoped that the next time she opened her eyes she’d awaken back in her own bed. Doomsday had arrived right on time, she thought. Aaron was sure to do away with her today.
She opened her eyes slowly and wasn’t surprised to find Aaron standing at the window, staring down at the street reflectively.
“What time is it?” she murmured.
“Time for lazy women to be up and about.”
Lifting her head, Ashley tried to focus her eyes on the hands of her watch. “Six o’clock?” Gad, the man kept dreadful hours. Groaning, she let her head drop back to the pillow. “I’m sleeping in this morning.”
Aaron turned from the window and whacked her across the bottom as he walked to the washstand. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘sleeping in,’ but if it means what I assume it to mean, I can assure you that you aren’t.”
“Uh-huh,” she countered.
His gaze ran lazily over the shapely outline of her backside beneath the blanket. “This ‘uh-huh’ word. It means yes?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Time to get up, Mistress Wheeler.”
“Huh-uh.”
“Huh-uh’ means no?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Uh-huh,’ yes?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Huh-uh, no.”
“Uh-huh.”
Ashley grabbed for the cover as he quickly yanked it off her and tossed it on the floor. “Please”—she groaned— “just ten more minutes!”
“Up, woman, we have business to attend to.”
Bolting up, she glared at him. “I’m exhausted. I didn’t sleep five minutes last night,” she accused.
His eyes centered on her disheveled hair. “Then who was snoring?”
“Snoring!” She drew back, offended. “I wasn’t…”
He smoothed the horrific rooster’s tail that had formed at the crown of her head before he returned to the wash bowl. “Then mayhap we had a mouse in bed with us —a very worrisome creature who wheezed and blew and—” He ducked as a pillow came sailing toward him.
Pouring fresh water into the bowl, he watched as Ashley settled back on the pillow, closing her eyes again.
Gradually she became aware of the mouth-watering aroma of meat and potatoes wafting on the air. Cracking one eye open, she saw a large tray laden with eggs, meat, bread, potatoes, and large, red ripe strawberries set on a table beside the bed.
She sat up, reached for one of the strawberries, and popped it into her mouth.
“You have five minutes to dress and be ready to leave,” Aaron warned.
“Where am I going?” she asked. “To the gallows?”
“Mayhap.”
“Mayhap, mayhap,” she mimicked, wondering why, if she had to dream, it couldn’t have been in 2075 instead of 1775. She dropped back onto the pillow and pulled the blanket over her head.
As Aaron washed and shaved, she dozed, wondering what he really planned to do with her this morning. The appointed hour of doom had arrived, and he didn’t look like a man who was about to commit murder. If for one moment she thought he would actually harm her, she would be terrified, but she wasn’t. Though Aaron’s commitment to protecting his country was apparent, she didn’t think that he would take any pleasure in harming a woman. And besides, she had seen the glint of interest in his eye when he’d looked at her, and she had to admit that she was beginning to like it.
“Are you going to get up?” he asked again.
Rolling to her side, she stretched lazily, deciding to aggravate him a little. “Huh-uh.”
As he leaned closer to the looking glass, Aaron pretended to ignore her attempts to incite him. He’d never met a woman like Ashley Wheeler; he didn’t know why he had to now.
Wiggling her toes, Ashley sank deeper into the straw ticking, relishing the feel of having the whole bed to herself. If he would just go off and do whatever American patriots did, she could sleep all day.
“Are you comfortable?” His eyes studied her reflection in the mirror as he dipped the razor back into the water.
“Very, very, very, very.”
“Mayhap you wish me to rejoin you,” he offered.
“Mmm, mayhap I don’t,” she warned, recalling how, because of his distracting presence, she’d spent another virtually sleepless night.
“Ah, but I must if you are not out of that bed in two minutes.”
Yawning, Ashley wiggled to the edge of the bed to select something from the tray. As she brought the berry lazily to her mouth, her hand suddenly froze as she saw him unlacing his shirt.
“What are you doing?”
“If you are intent on staying in bed, then I shall join you.”
Hurriedly scooting back to the center of the bed, she watched him warily. “You wouldn’t.”
He smiled. “Ah, but you do misunderstand me, Mistress Wheeler. Actually, I find the thought of spending the day in bed with a woman quite appealing.” His eyes grew darker. “Extremely appealing.”
“Any woman, Dr. Kenneman, or just me?” she mocked, wondering why she would be crazy enough to play such a dangerous game with him. There was a hungry, predatory look in his eye, one that hadn’t been there earlier.
“Ah, you wish to play games, Mistress Wheeler?” He pulled his shirt over his head and Ashley was stunned by the sight of his muscular chest.
“Or do you merely intend to test me?” he countered in a deceptively negligent tone. “If it is the latter, then ’twould be wise that you reconsider.”
His took a step toward her. Ashley quickly scrambled out of bed. After tightening the laces of her dress, she crammed her feet into the buckled slippers and was standing by the door, ready to leave, in exactly one minute and twenty-five seconds flat.
Pulling his shirt back on, Aaron commented, “I thought you might see it my way, Mistress Wheeler.”
“You are the worst male chauvinist pig I’ve ever met, Dr. Kenneman!”
His brows lifted.
“I am to assume I have been insulted?”
“You can safely assume that you have.”
He nodded graciously. “And never by one so lovely.”
Ashley snatched up her bag and followed him down the stairway a few minutes later, wondering how she could find him so attractive when he was so aggravating.
Ashley clung to Aaron’s waist with every breathtaking turn of the road, fearing that he was going to kill them both. He seemed to know only one way to ride a horse: fast.
“The name Willie Shoemaker doesn’t ring a bell with you, does it?” she called.
“Who?”
“Never mind!”
When the horse left the shabby inn district and headed for the open road, her fingers relaxed her hold on his waist. At least he hadn’t chosen public humiliation and death as the choice of punishment, she thought with relief.
Some twenty minutes later, the horse turned up a cool shady lane where trees grew thick along the road. Straight ahead, Ashley could see the roof of a house nestled in a small clearing.
“Where are we?”
“This is where I live.”
“Your house?” She was relieved at first, then, on second thought, her pulse double-timed. Her fingers dug into his waist. Had he brought her out here to do away with her discreetly? Out here where there wasn’t a sign of another person, where her screams for mercy would never be heard?
“Will you stop gouging me?” Aaron squirmed, trying to break her painful hold on his waist.
Ashley murmured her apology, unaware that she had been squeezing him like a lemon. “Why are we here? I want to go back to the Black Goat,” she demanded.
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do!”
After riding up to the house, Aaron reined in the horse and climbed out of the saddle. He lifted Ashley down, turning her in the direction of a small shed at the side of the house.
“Will you walk!” he demanded when her feet faded to respond.
“No.” Her heart was beating like a jackhammer. “Please let me go,” she whimpered.
Forever Ashley Page 12