Lightning Only Strikes Twice

by Fletcher, Stanalei

  They finally headed to Paul and Elizabeth’s house, but had only walked a couple of blocks before Luke veered off.

  “I’ll be by later,” he told them all with a wave.

  Annie watched him stride away. “Where’s he going?”

  “I suspect back to his place,” Elizabeth answered. She tucked Annie’s arm in hers. “Not to worry. I made sure he’d be over for Sunday dinner. We’re having fried chicken. His favorite.”

  “I thought you fixed fried chicken because it’s my favorite,” Paul teased.

  “Oh, did I say it was Luke’s favorite?” Elizabeth feigned surprise. “I meant it was your favorite.”

  The banter continued the remainder of the way home. Annie learned that Luke had a standing invitation to Sunday dinner.

  While Elizabeth chattered nonstop about the meal, Annie let her mind wander to the tall property developer and her anxiousness to talk with him. Only a few more hours and maybe she’d finally have some answers.

  Elizabeth enlisted Annie’s help with dinner preparations as soon as they got home. Annie stayed busy right up to the time Luke arrived.

  The moment he walked through the door, Luke wasted no time in asking Paul’s permission to take Annie for a horseback ride after dinner.

  “I think you’ll enjoy looking over our small mining community,” he said. The look in his eyes belied the benign comment. Annie was certain that he was as anxious for some privacy as she was.

  “What a wonderful idea,” Elizabeth exclaimed. She turned to Annie. “You can’t wear your new dress riding. Right after dinner, you run on upstairs and change. Your trousers will be perfect for the ride.”

  Luke’s request for permission seemed antiquated, but Elizabeth seemed so taken with the idea that Annie wondered again if she was playing matchmaker. She wanted to assure Elizabeth that Luke’s interest wasn’t personal, then thought better of it. Too much protesting would add fuel to the matchmaker’s fire.

  With the meal over and dishes done, Elizabeth shooed Annie upstairs to change. She hadn’t seen any women wearing pants, but agreed with Elizabeth—she wasn’t going to ride in a dress.

  She returned to the kitchen and noticed Elizabeth flushed from the heat. Annie worried the other woman was working too hard for her condition. “Are you sure it’s okay if I leave you?”

  Elizabeth handed her a shawl. “I’m fine. I’m going to lie down for a while. But when you get back, I want to hear all about your afternoon with Luke.”

  Annie took the shawl and walked out the door.

  Paul and Luke stood on the porch drinking coffee and talking. Luke straightened when she approached and put his cup on the porch rail.

  At his appraising look, heat rose in her cheeks. The memory of his kiss immediately surfaced. He’d only done it to prevent her screaming, but his expression suggested he recalled the incident too.

  She pushed aside the memory and turned to Paul. There were more important things to consider than a silly rush from a kiss.

  “Elizabeth’s resting,” she said. “But I don’t feel right leaving her. She didn’t look well.”

  “I’ll be in after my chores,” Paul said. “She’ll be fine ’til then. You two have a nice ride. I think you’ll enjoy the afternoon.”

  “We won’t be gone too long,” Luke said. He took Annie’s arm and steered her toward a pair of horses.

  She tried to ignore the pleasure of his touch, but didn’t pull away, either.

  When they were out of earshot, he asked, “I didn’t ask you this morning, but can you ride?”

  As they stopped next to the horses, she looked dubiously at the pinto. “I did some riding as a child. That was a long time ago.” She gathered the reins while Luke boosted her into the saddle. She landed crookedly on the hard leather. He adjusted the stirrups, and she straightened. “I hope it’s like riding a bicycle—you never forget.”

  Luke grinned and her heart tripped.

  “Tell me that tomorrow when you’re saddle sore.” He mounted the beautiful Morgan he’d ridden earlier and tugged on the reins. “Follow me. I want to show you something. Then I think we should talk.”

  “I’m counting on it,” Annie said as she urged her horse to follow Luke.

  They rode side by side along White Rock’s main street. From her count, there were at least four saloons, two on each side of the street. Even on Sunday, they were crowded with miners gathered for a drink and a card game. Above one of the saloons, a couple of working girls leaned on the balcony rail.

  “Hey, Luke,” called a redhead.

  Luke looked up and tipped his hat. “Miss Candy.”

  The woman giggled and blew him a kiss.

  Annie watched the exchange with interest. The woman seemed quite taken with Luke. “I see you have a fan club. How’d you manage that in such a short time?” The words came out more catty than she intended. She clamped down on the niggling jealousy—she had no claim on him.

  Luke glanced over his shoulder with a wicked gleam in is eye. “Do you really want me to answer?”

  Heat flared on cheeks and she shook her head.

  “I thought not.” He spurred his horse to a trot.

  She admired the way he rode, like he’d been born to the saddle. Yet his back looked a little too stiff and she wondered why he seemed tense. She nudged her mount to keep up.

  Moments later, they approached the livery. Beyond the livery, on the hillside, stood the mill Luke showed her last night.

  The sun rested in an orange glow above the tree line. She guessed they had a couple hours left before dusk. She looked around the town as they rode out. “This is exactly as my grandfather described it.”

  “What do you mean?” Luke slowed his horse until she drew level with him.

  “My grandfather’s stories were so vivid that I could picture the town in my mind. This is so much like the place where his father was born.”

  “This is the place his father was born.” Luke turned slightly in his saddle, a puzzled look on his face. “I thought your grandfather was born long after the town burned. How would he know what White Rock looked like?”

  “Grandpa was born after the town burned, but I’m sure he heard stories from his father.”

  “I guess there could have been photographs of White Rock before it burned.”

  “If he saw them, they wouldn’t have been in color,” she said. “See that livery? It was red back when his father was born. Grandpa told me stories about how the blacksmith wanted it left unpainted, but his wife thought it would draw more business painted red. They had to special order the paint from Boise.”

  Luke blew out a breath and straightened in his saddle. “I didn’t know that.” He reined the horse to a stop. “I hope you can see that I couldn’t have built this town.”

  “You could have made a guess.”

  “But I didn’t.” He shook his head. “Come with me.” He guided his horse off the road.

  “Where are we going?” Annie asked.

  “Back to the beginning.”

  Chapter Seven

  Annie pondered Luke’s mysterious remark as they headed for the forest above the mill. The horses climbed until the hill leveled into a clearing. They trotted toward the edge of the forest.

  He caught her mount’s bridle and brought both horses to a stop. After he dismounted, he tied the horses to a bush while she climbed out of the saddle.

  “Over this way,” he said, nodding toward the trees. He led her into the grove.

  “This is where I woke up yesterday,” she said.

  “It’s also where we both lost consciousness in our own time.”

  Their boots crunched softly over the ground, cushioned with years of pine needles and fallen leaves. Luke stopped when he reached a young pine tree in the middle of the aspen grove. The straight but slender pine reached for the sunlight blocked by the other trees. The lower half had been stripped of branches.

  What captured Annie’s attention were the initials carved in the b
ark.

  “Look.” He pointed to the carvings.

  “There’s only three pair of initials,” she exclaimed. “Where’s the fourth?”

  “I’m guessing he hasn’t been born yet.”

  She stepped next to the tree. The carvings were low enough to trace with her fingers. The first initials were the letters P.C. “Paul Crawford,” she whispered. “He was my great-great-grandfather.”

  “Is your great-great-grandfather,” Luke corrected.

  She looked over at him. “I still can’t believe this is real.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets, his mouth set in a grim line. “Examine the evidence, Annie. I’m a builder. Even I can’t grow a tree overnight.”

  “You could have planted it,” she said.

  “Why would I go to this much trouble to make you believe in something that can’t be proven?” He walked over and slapped his palm against the trunk. “It’s real and solid. Like everything else in this place.”

  As he spoke, Annie’s head spun. The forest seemed to tilt then quickly righted. “How?” she whispered. “And why? I try to get my mind around what has happened and I feel dizzy.”

  “I don’t know.” Luke’s voice softened. “I have a theory, like I told you yesterday. But it’s only a theory.”

  “You truly believe we’ve traveled to 1891.”

  “I do.”

  “Now you’re saying we’re stranded here?”

  Luke nodded, his face serious.

  “Then I am staying with my ancestors.” As unbelievable as it seemed, there was an odd sense of peace amidst the cruel trick time had played. “Paul Crawford carved these initials.”

  She faced the tree and traced each letter. “E.S. is for Elizabeth Samson, Paul’s wife. Samson was her maiden name. They must have carved these when they were courting. Look. These aren’t as old.” She pointed at the last set of letters. “L.C. is for Laura Crawford, Paul and Elizabeth’s firstborn...” She stopped and looked at Luke. “There’s no child at the house.”

  Luke stepped closer to her. “No.”

  “What happened?” Annie asked.

  “You don’t know?”

  “All my grandfather told me was that I was named for his aunt,” she said. “My first name is Laura. Anne is my middle name. Grandpa always called me Annie.”

  “According to Doc Smyth, Laura caught pneumonia last winter and died just before her second birthday.”

  Tears welled in Annie’s eyes. “Oh, poor Elizabeth. She must have already been pregnant when she lost her daughter.”

  Luke drew closer. Heat radiated from him as though he’d captured the sunlight’s rays.

  It wrapped around her, offering comfort without actually touching her. “When my grandfather told me I was named after his aunt, I always assumed she died when she was much older.”

  “Life here isn’t easy,” he said.

  The hard truth had a familiar ring. “I’m beginning to understand that now.”

  “There’s something more we need to discuss.”

  She turned to him. “What?”

  “The doctor would like you to stay with the Crawfords and help Elizabeth until the baby comes.”

  “I’d love to help,” Annie said. “But I can’t stay here for a month, I have work waiting for me—” She broke off.

  “How do you propose getting back to it?” Luke asked.

  “I…” She shook her head. “This isn’t happening. It can’t be real.”

  Luke pointed at the pine. “Look, Annie. Whose initials are missing?”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Richard Crawford.” Her voice cracked. “My grandfather’s father.”

  “I think Elizabeth is going to give birth to your great-grandfather very soon.”

  Annie closed her eyes and put her hands over her face. In one short month, an ancestor she’d never met would be born. She’d see her great-grandfather as an infant. How could any of this be possible?

  Luke touched her arm. “Are you all right?”

  She shook her head. “I feel dizzy again,” she said. “Every time I think about what you’ve said, about me—us, going back in time…” She dropped her hands as her whole body began to shake. “I’m overcome with this strange vertigo.”

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Come over here and sit down.”

  Warmth curled inside her as he guided her to an old stump. She didn’t know what was happening to her and she hated feeling so frail.

  He lowered her to the stump. “I’ve experienced the same dizziness you’ve described,” he said crouching beside her.

  “Does it go away?”

  “It hasn’t for me. It’s been constant since I arrived.” He chuckled. “That’s why I regularly visit the doctor’s office.”

  “Has he been able to help? Can he make it go away?”

  Luke stared out through the trees. “No. I’ve never actually told him about the vertigo. He thinks I’m addicted to his coffee and, oddly enough, it seems to help. I know Doc suspects something, though. I can tell by the some of the comments he’s made. So far, he’s kept his questions to himself.” He frowned. “Now that you’re here, I’m afraid he’ll become more suspicious.”

  “But you told him I came to White Rock to locate my relatives.”

  “He found you right here in the grove,” Luke said. “Just like Paul found me.”

  Annie looked at the tree. “Over there?”

  Luke nodded. “That’s why I brought you here. To see if you remembered anything else.”

  “I don’t know if I can think straight, let alone recall what happened.” She shook her head. “Don’t you remember?”

  “No. It took me days to grasp what I experienced,” he said. “Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I’m disoriented. I have to remind myself I’m not in my own house. Or my own time.”

  “What are we going to do?” She couldn’t stay here. They couldn’t stay here. They didn’t belong in this time.

  He took her hands carefully in his. His long fingers curled to touch the inside of her palms.

  She felt a slight tremor in him, but as he held her, his trembling stopped.

  Her trembling stopped. A sense of calm settled over her.

  She lifted her gaze. “This is a punishment for us,” she said. “Isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She smiled at her thought. “You. Me. This.” She freed a hand and gestured toward the mill. “We’re here because we’re supposed to learn what life was really like in this time.”

  He sat back on his heels. “You think so?”

  “Maybe this is to prove to you that the town was worth remembering and shouldn’t be bulldozed into oblivion,” she said.

  He looked surprised at her assessment.

  “I’m right, aren’t I? Hasn’t life been simpler here?”

  “Oh, it’s simple all right.” He stood and brushed off his pants. “The first couple of weeks were survival at its very basic. Sheer hell!”

  She gazed at the stubble on his chin. His face tanned from hours in the sun. She wondered if he knew how well his innate ruggedness blended with the primitive environment.

  “You said Paul found you. Didn’t he take you in, like he’s done for me?”

  “Not at first,” Luke explained. “He thought I had lost my mind. I spent the first three days in the jail because they thought I was a drunk. When I finally accepted what had happened, however crazy it seemed, I decided to keep a low profile until I could confirm my suspicions.”

  “How’d you do that?” Annie asked.

  “I hitched a ride to Boise—”

  “You’ve been to Boise?” She stood. “I want to go!”

  “It takes almost three days, over treacherous mountain passes, to get to the city. It’s not what you think, Annie. It is not the Boise we know.”

  “How did going there confirm your suspicions?”

  “The city was celebrating the first anniversary of statehood,�
�� Luke said. “Remember your history? Idaho received statehood in 1890.”

  The dizziness started again. Not as intense, but still strong enough to force her to sit.

  History had only been a so-so subject in school. It always seemed too impersonal. She had liked the way her grandfather told it. “Why didn’t you stay in Boise?” she asked. “Surely it would have been easier to make a living there.”

  “I was tempted,” Luke admitted. “Boise is more modernized than White Rock. It wouldn’t have been as hard to blend in. Except, I was drawn to White Rock. I realized if I had truly traveled back in time, that maybe I could still find a way home. If I stood a chance of returning, the logical place to live was where the incident occurred.”

  He crossed to the pine tree and stared up at it as though it held the answers to their dilemma. “Before I left Boise, I set up an account with the little money I earned working in the livery. I invested in a few stocks. Over the last couple of months, it’s turned a small profit. It will provide some income if history stays on track and White Rock’s mining goes bust.”

  “We could prevent that from happening.”

  He spun around. “No. We can’t.” Crossing to her, he crouched down, an intense gleam in his eyes. “I don’t think we can change anything that happened here. This community is fated to live out its history. Exactly like it did the first time.”

  She cocked her head. “How can you be so sure?”

  “The mineral vein played out. I can’t change that fact.” His expression turned somber. “While we’re on the subject, there’s something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I may have made a mistake by going to Boise like I did. I can’t change what I did then, but going forward, we can’t act on anything we know about the future. What you know about this town’s past, your family’s past, you have to keep secret. Can you do that?”

  Annie thought she understood what he was asking. “You mean if I say something, besides being sent to the crazy house, it might destroy…what? The timeline?” She tugged on the cotton-polyester material of her slacks. “Haven’t we already done that?”