Letters From Another Town: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 2)

by Barbara Bartholomew

  She couldn’t help grinning to herself as she walked back. Not even a zip code. Good luck with that! No doubt the rural carrier would leave it there with a note saying he needed more in the way of an address.

  Or maybe—and this seemed a whole lot more likely—someone had dropped off the two letters in person and might pick up the one she’d so impulsively written in return. The thought was kind of sweet in a way, unless he was some sort of stalker.

  She almost went back to recapture her letter, but before she could, Moss, Lynne and Betsy returned and she went out to help bring in the big bags of groceries. It was beginning to snow by the time that task was accomplished and they had to hurry to get the farm animals fed and cared for before the storm hit with full force.

  The letters she’d received and the one she sent stayed firmly at the back of her mind while they made supper in the snow-battered ranch house and played monopoly until time for Betsy to go to bed.

  Only when she was in her own bed did Cynthia’s conscious mind return to thoughts of Dr. Evan Stephens and the great sadness that seemed to spill from his writing. And Maud, he kept talking about her ancestor almost as though she were a contemporary, as though they lived in the same time frame.

  Sneaking quietly from her bed, she tiptoed through the sleeping house to the bookcase in the front room. Neither Moss or his wife spoke often of the woman who had once lived in this house, but when they did it was with a touch of awe in their voices. She knew that Lynne’s mother, a professor at an eastern university, had written a book about regional writers that had included a section on Maud Bailey Sandford.

  She found the academic looking text among a row of worn old books and took it back to bed with her. She’d find out what she could about the woman Dr. Stephens kept referring to as her grandmother and his friend.

  Eddie came home with a shiner and a torn dress to a scolding from Mrs. Myers who fluffed her apron excitedly as she did when she was upset. “It’s time she began acting like a young lady, Doctor Stephens,” the kindly housekeeper protested. “She’s been out playing ball with those boys again. I declare, you should just let me go. I’m a failure, that’s what I am. I can’t do anything with the child.”

  “Nothing wrong with the child,” her grandfather protested. “Just full of spirit, that’s all.”

  Evan wasn’t so sure. Eddie had only the elderly Mrs. Myers, who was about as soft-hearted as a feather bed as a role model. He worried that being brought up by her dad and granddad wasn’t the best preparation for womanhood. “We wouldn’t know what to do without you, Mrs. Myers,” he protested automatically.

  If he only had a woman friend near her mother’s age of whom he could ask advice. Mrs. Myers was one side of the coin and Maud, real as she was to him, was another. He needed someone a little more in the middle to help him know what to do with Eddie.

  Just this morning her teacher had stopped by his office in the east wing of the house for a little talk. “I know you’re a busy man, Dr. Stephens,” she’d said, “but it isn’t natural for a sweet little girl like Eddie to get into so much trouble.” Then she’d told him how his ‘sweet’ daughter had broken out a classroom window while playing ball with ‘those rough boys.’ “None of the girls want to play with her. I’m sure she feels very left out.”

  Evan doubted that. Eddie was quite blunt about her disdain for the sissy girls in her class. “They are so dull,” she was fond of protesting. “Dolls and clothes with frills. That’s all they ever think about.”

  He looked at the sweet face of the young teacher. He supposed most people would think Miss Taylor an appropriate woman to give him advice, but somehow he doubted it. She was one of those Eddie and her father would call dull. And she flapped her eyelashes too much.

  Evan Stephens was no fool. He knew well enough that the town’s available young women considered their doctor acceptable marriage material. He didn’t want any one of them confusing his intentions.

  Besides he didn’t really have time for friendships. He’d even had to give up his poker night with a group of men he’d known since childhood. Too many interruptions from sick folks.

  Plus there was the fact that most people in town considered him a little set apart from them. He was, after all, Dr. Tyler Stephens’ grandson. And Tyler Stephens, though so much revered in town that there was a statue to him in the town square, was also remembered as more than a little strange. The weirdness had skipped a generation, gossips said, passing right over Evan’s dad who was a good old boy who ran a successful dry goods store, but they weren’t too sure about Evan.

  Even as a boy, he’d been a little aloof, not exactly one of the gang and these last few years that isolation around him seemed to have deepened.

  He wanted better for Eddie, but didn’t know how to get it.

  The letter came that afternoon. His nurse came into the office with it, telling him she’d never seen a stamp like this one. After a single shock to the heart, he wasn’t surprised to see a colorful flag with more than the expected number of stars and stripes.

  After all Maud hadn’t said her granddaughter lived in 1890. Maud herself, as he knew her, lived nowhere in that vicinity of time.

  The Johnson twins had to be treated for measles and their mother reassured that the illness wasn’t likely to kill either of them before he had time to open his letter.

  He read:

  Dr. Stephens:

  Thank you for your letters. I don’t know who you are or what kind of game you’re playing and I haven’t any grandmother named Maud. All my grandparents died before I was old enough to know them, but as I just mentioned neither of my grandmothers was named Maud. Maud Bailey Sandford was a several generations back grandmother who left this ranch where I’m currently visiting to my brother.

  Anyhow, I don’t know where you’re coming from, but I sense that you are in pain and in need of help. I trained to be a counselor in college, but have never practiced or became certified in that profession, but if I can be of help to you, I am willing to try. First of all I will tell you that I understand that it is easier to pretend that you are someone else rather than coming right out and admitting that you have problems. So I am willing to deal with you as a medical doctor who is writing to me from 1890, but it seems to me that we would make better progress if you came out from behind this fantasy identity. But the choice is yours.

  Our situations are perhaps not as similar as you believe. I am not a widow, but have recently ended a very bad marriage and am raising my daughter on my own. I can only imagine how great your loss has been and would like to do or say what I can to help you and your little girl through these difficult times.

  Sometimes things seem a little dark to me too. It’s hard to go on, but for the sake of our daughters we must do our best not only to keep plugging on, but to bring joy into their lives.

  Yours in sympathy,

  Cynthia Burden

  Evan whistled softly to himself. Maud’s so called granddaughter seemed to have more spice than the professed sympathy in her makeup. She also sounded angry. Maybe she needed this as much as he did. Anyway, this was the first communication to come in since . . .since whatever Grandpa had done to shut them in.

  He had no choice but to write at least one more letter to Mrs. Cynthia Burden.

  Chapter Three

  It was past time to get back home. While there was no particular reason for Cynthia to hurry back personally since her staff would see to the upkeep of home and property and as a volunteer at various community endeavors she wasn’t exactly indispensable, the same couldn’t be said for Betsy.

  School started after the holiday break and, though Betsy kept busy doing assigned daily lessons online as well as reports on her activities during her absence, it wasn’t the same as being in attendance.

  For Cynthia, it was something of a downer to feel so inessential, but still they’d stayed long enough with Moss and Lynne at the ranch. They seemed to enjoy their guests, but as recently as they’d been mar
ried, she supposed they also liked their time alone.

  She still hadn’t gotten a return letter from Evan and was feeling guiltily that she’d perhaps been a little abrupt with him, and if she returned to Santa Barbara, he’d not be able to contact her.

  Though maybe Maud would tell him. She grinned at her own image in the mirror. By now she’d read enough to know that Maud Sandford had been born in Missouri in 1889, moved here as a young girl and lived the rest of her life on this very Oklahoma ranch. She’d died decades ago, but since she’d written several novels and was somewhat well known, anybody could have dug up enough information about her to write those letters.

  No, Dr. Evan Stephens, or whoever he really was, wouldn’t pull her chain anymore. It was time to go home and resume her real life for Betsy’s sake if not her own.

  So that night over a supper of cornbread, fried ham and potatoes at a neighbor’s house, she told her family and friends that she’d made flight arrangements for returning to California on the following day.

  Everybody protested politely that they hadn’t stayed nearly long enough and tears came to Betsy’s big blue eyes. “But I want to stay here forever,” she objected, grabbing hold of Moss’s arm.

  “Sorry honey, but it’s time to get you back to school.”

  “I don’t like that school. I want to go to a little school like they have here.”

  To her dismay, Moss began too spill out information on the availability of local properties for sale or lease. All the way home in Moss and Lynne’s pickup, Betsy pleaded the case for moving immediately to Oklahoma. By the time Cynthia put the eight-year-old to bed she was pouting big time.

  The usually good natured Betsy stayed irritable through the drive to the airport, but gave up the battle once they were in the air on the way back to California and when they got to the estate on the coast that had been Cynthia’s home for most of her life, she greeted the staff members, who were almost like family, gladly and told stories of ranch life in Oklahoma.

  She didn’t settle into slumber easily, but when finally Cynthia closed the Betsy-Tacy book they’d been reading together and looked down on her sleeping child, she was glad they’d come home. She’d named her child for the character created by that other Maud, Maud Hart Lovelace, whose tales of turn of the century life back in the early 1900s had been favorites of her own childhood. Now she was reading the beloved books to her own daughter.

  Maud! With a jar she landed emotionally back in Oklahoma where her writer great-great, how-so-ever many greats, grandmother had lived. Moss and Lynne had acted funny when she’d mentioned that name, as though there was more to the story than they wanted to talk about.

  With a sigh, she got to her feet and went downstairs to her office. A stack of mail lay neatly stacked on her desk where her housekeeper had left it. Quickly she sorted through, coming to an abrupt halt when she saw a familiar looking envelope.

  She picked up the small, wrinkled-looking missive. It was addressed to her at the ranch in Oklahoma, but a clear hand had written across the front indicating that the letter be forwarded to her here. She didn’t recognize the handwriting as either that of her brother or his wife.

  She opened the letter and sinking into a chair began to read:

  My dear Mrs. Burden:

  Thank you for your kind reply to my letter. I can’t help feeling that you found my correspondence an intrusion on your privacy and want to assure you that I will not trouble you again.

  My apologies.

  Sincerely,

  Dr. Evan Stephens

  Cynthia stared at the terse message in disbelief. The nerve of the man!

  She tossed the letter aside and went upstairs to bed.

  The day had been a particularly long one for Evan Stephens as everyone in the community of Lavender seemed to be suffering from colds, mild influenza and a variety of other mid-winter ills. Even Eddie had the sniffles.

  When he finally got to bed, he fell into uncharacteristically deep sleep and it was only several hours later that he began to drift into familiar dreams.

  He was at the ranch in Oklahoma that he’d visited so frequently, though never in real time. His time with Maud Bailey Sandford had been a part of his life ever since he came back to Lavender, almost as a gift for the sacrifice he’d made. Maud was undoubtedly his closest friend even though they’d never met in the flesh.

  This time they rode across winter pastures on two of her favorite horses. Though he’d grown up spending a good deal of time on horseback, these days he mostly traveled in his doctor’s buggy with his black bag at his side. He felt a sense of freedom and release as he and the elderly woman galloped across the wide-open countryside that was so different from the trees and hills of his home county in Texas.

  Even though she’d been born later in time than he had, she was much older, in her seventies, while he, caught in the time trap that was Lavender, Texas was still in his thirties. This was a fact he’d long ago accepted and no longer bothered his brain trying to puzzle out.

  His visits to Maud were apparently very real to her, but only vivid dreams to him.

  “Been a dry year,” she commented as they slowed to a conversational pace.

  “You have enough feed to get through the winter?”

  “Depends on how bad a winter. Too much snow where we have to feed a lot and we’ll run short. I got a few dollars socked away in case I have to buy a few bales of hay.”

  He nodded. Having grown up in a rural community, he knew that keeping your livestock fed came second only to keeping enough on the table for your family.

  “How are things in Lavender?”

  “Fair. The usual problems.”

  She nodded her understanding. “It’s kind of like living here on the ranch. Some folks wonder how I don’t die of loneliness while I can’t comprehend how they stand living all close up together.”

  He smiled. “You have a talent for contentment, Maud.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “My visitors come often enough. They just aren’t the usual type of folk.”

  “Visitors like me?”

  “Somewhat like you. Speaking of that, you ever hear from my Cynthia?”

  He’d known this was coming. “As a matter-of-fact I did get a reply.”

  “And you answered back?” she asked eagerly.

  He laughed softly. “I wrote a brief note of apology and said I’d never bother her again.”

  “Awwwww,” she squawked in disappointment.

  “You can’t blame the lady for getting a little snippy when she’s contacted by a total stranger. The truth is, Maud, I would never have written that letter if I’d thought it would actually get through.”

  She frowned. “The barrier’s gradually thinning over time, but chances are it won’t go down in your lifetime. And you can’t just up and leave, those folks have got to have a doctor.”

  “I don’t really feel I have a choice,” he agreed. “Grandpa convinced me of that.”

  “Cynthia would be good for you. She’s bright and good looking. You’d like hearing from her and you wouldn’t be so cut off from everything that’s happening elsewhere.”

  He sighed. “I thought you’d never actually met this descendant of yours, Maud. Anyway what does it matter what she looks like if we’re just writing to each other.”

  She ignored the last part of his statement to focus on the first part. “I haven’t, but I got to know her brother fairly well and he showed me her picture once. The two of ‘em, Evan, they’ve had a rough deal from life and due to no fault of their own. He’s all right now, but I don’t know what’s going to happen to Cynthia and her little Betsy. I wanted this for them as much as for you.”

  He pointed an accusing finger at her. “Maud Sandford, you were thinking I’d call this granddaughter of yours to join me in Lavender. Admit it!”

  “Well,” she hedged. “Would that be so bad?”

  He chose his most serious tone to reply. “Maud, I wouldn’t do that to any woman. It wou
ld not only be unfair, it would be downright cruel to ask her to share my fate.” He managed a playful grin. “Anyway, from what I’ve heard from Cynthia Burden, I think she’s the last person in the world to take a leap out into the middle of nowhere.”

  Cynthia felt strangely bereft by the sudden conclusion to her correspondence with Evan Stephens. He’d been really abrupt with her, but after all he couldn’t blame her for being honest with him. She hadn’t asked him to write to her.

  Betsy was back in school, coming home each evening to chatter about the kids she liked and the ones she didn’t. She had too much homework, Cynthia felt, after all she was only eight. But that was the way things were now and she heard a lot of talk from the other parents about giving their children the best possible start on life in a competitive world.

  At least her daughter didn’t live at school the way she had when she was only a few years older than Betsy was now. Maybe it was because of her own experience that she fantasized about childhood the way it was lived by the characters in her favorite author’s books. Betsy Ray, her sisters, and friends like Tacy and Tib, living in long ago Minnesota had enjoyed high school and Sunday night suppers, ice skating together and family sing-alongs.

  Those books were what she thought of as normal and she had to remind herself that even though the author had based her books on her own growing up years, they still were fiction. This was the real world she lived in and a very privileged one at that. A huge house, plenty of money, the best of schools for her daughter. Ninety percent of the world would envy her lifestyle. What was wrong with her that she always felt so discontented? Somehow she wanted more.

  Impulsively she went over to where her tablet rested on the end of a sofa. She entered two words, ‘Lavender, Texas.’