by Bess McBride
“But I needed to be in those seats! Those seats! I’ve traveled back before, and I’ve come back, but each time I was in those seats. They’re the key. He thinks I’m the key, but it’s those seats!”
The young man attempted to speak, but Dani, tears streaming down her face, felt as if she’d lost her mind.
“And now I have to catch the train again going east, and then I have to catch it going west again. I’ll be exhausted, and what if the next time they change the route of the train? What if they never go through Wenatchee again? What if Wenatchee means nothing in the time traveling equation? What if I can’t get back to Stephen?”
She knew she was hysterical. The young blonde woman looked terrified, but no one tried to stop her.
“But you know? You sat in those seats all night, and you slept, and you guys didn’t go anywhere. So, it isn’t the seats! Or did you? Did you guys travel back in time? Did you?”
Chapter Fourteen
“Dani! Wake up! Dani!”
Dani opened her eyes to her mother’s face, her hand shaking Dani’s shoulder gently.
“Mom! I had the worst dream. I couldn’t get back to Stephen. I rode the train over and over and still couldn’t get back. Where am I?” Tears ran down the side of Dani’s face.
“In your bed at home. You had a bad dream. I heard you hollering down the hall.”
“Oh, Mom, am I still here? How do I get back to Stephen? How can I get back?” Dani turned over and sobbed into her pillow.
“Get back where, my love?” Stephen entered the room, wearing a ridiculous-looking apron over his T-shirt and jeans. Dani knew she was still dreaming. Why would he be wearing his T-shirt and jeans?
“I’m still dreaming, aren’t I?”
“You deal with her, Stephen,” her mother said with an exasperated smile. “She’s always been a noisy dreamer. I’ll go get the baby.” She left the room, her skirt swishing about her ankles.
Stephen approached the bed, sat down and pulled Dani into his arms.
“I love you, Stephen. I love you. I’m so sorry I couldn’t get back.”
“Dani, Dani, you are not dreaming. You came back to me. I am here.” And to prove it, he kissed her deeply and passionately. “Now, do you believe me?”
She leaned back and stared at him hard. The same sky blue eyes, the same beautiful golden-sandy colored hair, a bit of a golden beard growing on his face. She ran her hands along his muscled arms and up the T-shirt. He loved to wear this clothing, and still wore it often.
She let her eyes travel around the room, the walls made of pine logs, the ceiling pitched toward the peak of an A-frame. She loved this room. It was their bedroom, the bedroom in the new house.
“Oh, my gosh, what a dream,” she whispered as she buried her face in Stephen’s neck. “It was so vivid!”
“You were about due to have one, dear. Remember? You have them about once or twice a year when you return from picking up your mother. I do not like them, but you always seem to awaken from them and come to your senses fairly quickly.”
“My senses!” Dani playfully punched Stephen. “Well, as mother would say, the time traveling is screwing all my molecules up.”
“Yes, well, you have traveled back more than I thought you would to collect your mother.”
Dani’s mother appeared at the bedroom door. “Here’s your daughter, wide awake and ready to see her mom. I’m just going to go down to the kitchen and see what Stephen left burning down there.”
Dani grinned and took the baby, a tiny blonde with the same color of eyes as her father.
“Are you burning something in the kitchen, dear? Where did you get that ridiculous apron?”
“Your mother brought it as an anniversary gift for me. Do you think it unmans me?”
Dani eyed his handsome face, the strong jaw, the grizzled beard. She thought of the many nights of passion they had shared and the baby in her arms they had conceived.
“No, dear, I know it doesn’t unman you.”
He leaned over and kissed her thoroughly over the top of the baby’s head.
“Come, get out of bed. Come and see the lake this morning.”
He pulled her from bed, and Dani handed him the baby while she slipped into a loose blouse and some baggy trousers. She liked to be comfortable unless she was in public sporting the longer skirts.
“What time are Ellie, Robert and the kids supposed to be here?” she asked Stephen who bounced the baby.
“Soon, I think. They overnighted in Kalispell and will arrive by rented automobile this morning.”
“We’re going to be a full house,” Dani said with a smile, reaching for the baby. “I love it!” They descended the stairs and stepped out onto the verandah facing Lake McDonald. Susan, her husband, William, and their toddler son, Luke, played at the edge of the lake.
“Mom!” A young boy came running out of the kitchen with a pancake in his hand. Crystal green eyes pleaded. “Can I go down to the lake and play before breakfast? Grandma gave me a pancake.”
“Of course, honey. Make sure you stay where Aunt Susan can see you.” She watched the almost five-year old hop down the stairs, his hair the same red as hers.
“You make wonderful children, my dear,” Stephen said as he wrapped his arms around his wife and baby.
“Well, you had a hand in it, lover.” She chuckled and turned to see Stephen blush. Even now, he wasn’t completely used to her uninhibited speech.
She listened to the quiet on the lake. “This is the first year we haven’t had construction workers hammering and sawing since you bought the place. I still remember the night I got back and Mrs. Oakley told me you and Susan had gone to Montana. It was all Ellie could do to hold me back from jumping the train again to find you.” She nuzzled his neck and returned to watch her son skipping stones in the water. “I’m so glad Susan will be able to stay all summer. She looks so much better when she’s here.”
“When do you take your mother back, Dani?” Stephen asked. “You know I worry every time you go that I will not see you again, and you have the dreams soon after your return.”
“Didn’t I tell you? She’s staying for a while this time. No definite plans to return, she says. Sarah and Jean are moving to Florida, and she’s not sure she wants to stay if the girls move away. Mom says her health is good, and she likes it in 1906, says she feels very comfortable with this era, especially now that we have a car. She says she wants to join me in being part of the suffragette movement.”
“Good!” Stephen said.
“Good that Mother is staying or good we’re going to be activists for women’s rights?” She peeped up at him with a laugh.
“Good for both.” He leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Everything is perfect.”
Dani looked up at him with affection. “It is, isn’t it?” She leaned her head on his shoulder and watched a duck land on the lake and glide along, breaking the mirrored image of the mountains. “I can’t imagine what my life would be like without you, Stephen.”
“You do not have to, my love, for we will be together forever...in this life or in any other.”
****
Edward waited patiently at the table in the dining car, having shooed the waiter away twice. He understood they wanted to move the service through quickly so they could seat the next group of passengers, but he wanted to give the young lady a little more time. Ladies were notorious for arriving fashionably late, he knew.
He suspected though that she wasn’t coming, and he wondered if he’d dreamt the whole meeting up. Before his nap, he remembered being in the observation car and meeting the young woman, Dani, short for...? Danielle? The name seemed familiar.
Ah! He remembered now. His great uncle, Stephen, had been married to a Danielle. He remembered her now, best friends with his grandmother, Ellie. They had seemed like two peas in a pod, those two, always buying the latest gadgets as soon as they became available. When his grandparents, Ellie and Robert Chamberlain, had taken Edwina and him t
o Glacier National Park for the summer, they had stayed at his great uncle Stephen’s large cabin fronting Lake McDonald. His other grandparents, Susan and William, and their family had joined them. It had been such a merry time with cookouts on the beach, pancake breakfasts made by Uncle Stephen, hiking and riding bicycles and marshmallow roasts.
Great Aunt Danielle and Grandma Ellie had both looked at him and commented what a handsome old gentleman he would become one day, just like his Grandpa Robert. Aunt Danielle told him to memorize the family because one day he would want to keep the family history. She had said, after all, someone needed to keep it. She had always had a soft spot for his sister, Edwina, but Edwina’s memory wasn’t as good as it used to be. She didn’t remember much of the family history.
Edward snapped out of his reverie as the waiter asked him for the fourth time if he wished to order. He checked his watch. Eight o’clock had come and gone. It seemed likely the young woman wasn’t coming. He ordered breakfast.
He supposed she wasn’t going to stop by to see the house he had inherited from Grandma Ellie and Grandpa Robert either. Too bad! He thought she might have enjoyed it.
Breakfast was served quickly, and Edward dug in with an appetite. He picked up a few hash browns with his fork, and his hand stilled. What had been the name on those notes he’d found in the brick steps of his house and in the book in Edwina’s house? It had seemed significant at the time. Danielle? Had they been addressed to his Great Aunt Danielle? What was her maiden name? He couldn’t remember.
Probably no relation to the young lady he had met earlier. If she had ever really been there, that is. Maybe she had just been a dream. He seemed to have the strangest dreams when he rode the train.
A Smile in Time
Bess McBride
Dedication
For all the readers who enjoyed A Train Through Time and Together Forever Across Time,
the story continues!
For fans of time travel romance, thank you for traveling with me.
And for my family, as always.
Dear Reader,
Thank you for purchasing A Smile in Time. A Smile in Time is Book Three in The Train Through Time series. A Train Through Time was originally written as a stand-alone book, but fellow writers suggested I develop a series, which has worked out quite nicely.
This is Rory’s story, the flirtatious former college classmate of Stephen Sadler (Together Forever Across Time). Rory has one of those brilliant smiles that women find so charming, the kind that makes your heart go pitter-patter, and you’ll do anything to make him smile…at you. Hence, the title A Smile in Time.
Thank you for your support over the years, friends and readers. Because of your favorable comments, I continue to strive to write the best stories I can. More romances are on the way! Look for Book Two of The Moonlight Wishes in Time series in the summer of 2013.
You know I always enjoy hearing from you, so please feel free to contact me at [email protected], through my web site at www.BessMcBride.com, or my blog Will Travel for Romance.
Thanks for reading!
Bess
Prologue
“Wenatchee, twenty minutes,” the conductor announced in muted tones as he walked down the aisle.
Annie yawned and checked the time on her cell phone with bleary eyes. The hour was still early, barely five-fifteen.
She glanced at her sister, slumped into a corner of the adjoining seat, her blonde head buried in a small traveling pillow. Marie looked completely out of it, and no wonder. They’d been on the train for about thirty-eight consecutive hours since leaving Chicago. As much as she loved trains, Annie swore at the moment that she’d never take a cross-country train trip again—at least not sitting in coach. Next time—if there was a next time—she’d find a way to pay for a sleeper of some kind. Thank goodness she and Marie had plane tickets back to Chicago at the end of their Alaskan cruise.
“Hey, Marie, wake up.” She poked her sister’s arm. “Let’s go see if they’ve got any coffee or anything.”
Marie batted Annie’s hand away and pressed her face deeper into her pillow.
“Are we there yet?” she said in a muffled, slightly whiny voice.
“Almost,” Annie said with another yawn. One of the books she’d downloaded onto her phone before the trip caught her interest the previous night, and she had skipped sleep in favor of yet one more chapter. “Do you want to go get coffee or do you just want to sleep?”
“I’m coming,” Marie mumbled, her eyelids still firmly shut. “I have to the bathroom anyway. What time is it?”
“Twenty minutes to Wenatchee. I heard it die-rect from the conductor himself.”
Marie straightened with effort and dragged an ineffectual hand over her tousled hair. She eyed her sister with exasperation.
“And exactly what time is it when it’s twenty minutes to Wenatch…Winatch…wherever?”
“Five-fifteen,” Annie said. She looked at her phone again. “No, make that five-twenty! Gotta stay on schedule. Timing is everything on a train! It’s the difference between catching the train or being left behind at the station, don’tcha know?”
“Gosh, you’re irritating this early in the morning,” Marie said with a yawn. “Let’s go.”
Annie grinned, slipped her feet into her running shoes and rose from the seat. She bent over to tie her laces while Marie untangled her legs from her blanket, stuck her feet in her flat shoes, and climbed out of the seat. They made their way to the back of the car and crossed the bobbing connection to enter the observation car. Annie, never a fan of the idea of traversing two train cars moving at high speeds, leapt across as if she could see the ground below—which she couldn’t. The connector was well protected and enclosed, and she wasn’t going to fall out of the train. But knowing something and feeling it were two completely different things.
On entering the observation lounge, Annie noted through the large picture windows that the sky was only just beginning to lighten to the hazy purple of pre-dawn. A few early morning observers lounged on seats facing the large windows—some sipping coffee and conversing, others reading newspapers.
Annie and Marie climbed down the steps in the observation car to the first level and used the restroom before entering the small snack bar where the attendant sold them two cups of coffee.
“Let’s go back upstairs and grab a seat in the observation lounge before it gets too crowded,” Annie said. “We can watch the sun come up.”
“I’m never letting you talk me into taking a train again,” Marie muttered as they retraced their steps to the second level. “I’m honestly too pooped to get on a cruise ship now. Probably won’t do anything but sleep for the next seven days just to make up for not getting any sleep on the train.”
“Yeah, I don’t think this was one of my best ideas,” Annie said as she slid into a seat facing the windows next to an elderly gentleman. Marie took the seat on Annie’s other side. “It probably would have been better to fly. Or at least find the extra money for a sleeper.”
“I’m flying from now on,” Marie said. She blew on her coffee. “I’m glad we did it, but man, this was long.”
Annie nodded and sipped her hot drink. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted the elderly gentleman to her left lowered his newspaper and looked at her. She met his bright green eyes and smiled politely.
“Long trip, eh? Where did you come from?” he asked in a smooth, melodious voice.
“Chicago,” Annie said. “My sister, Marie, and I are headed to Seattle for an Alaskan cruise.”
“That’s a wonderful trip. I went on that cruise with my sister and daughter some years ago. You’ll enjoy yourself.”
“You’ve been on it?” Marie asked as she leaned forward to look at the man. “Oh, good! Could you tell us about it? My name is Marie St. John, by the way, and this is my sister, Annie.” She reached out to shake his hand. Annie followed suit, noting the fragility of his light grip.
“Edward Chamberlain,�
� he said. “Pleased to meet you. My daughter is traveling with me, but she’s still asleep in her compartment. I am supposed to wake her up in a few minutes. This is the first time I’ve ever had a sleeping compartment. It’s pretty relaxing I have to say. I’ve always ridden coach, but my daughter insisted on the sleeper. Something about my age.” He quirked an eyebrow in their direction.
Annie smiled. His thinning white hair and pale, blue-veined skin did suggest advanced age, but he seemed quite alert.
“I wish we could have afforded a sleeping compartment,” she murmured. “We’ve been living in our coach seats for the past thirty-six hours, and we’re exhausted. Marie and I were just saying we should have flown to Seattle, but I’ve always loved trains, and I wanted to travel by train.”
“I understand the feeling,” Edward said. “I love them myself and travel by train as much as possible. It’s getting a little harder these days.” He smiled wryly. “So my daughter accompanied me this time.” He checked his watch and looked past her to Marie. “I would love to tell you about the cruise, but as I mentioned, she asked me to wake her up. Could we meet at breakfast at about seven o’clock? We could discuss it then. My daughter could probably help add some information that I might forget.”
Marie met Annie’s eyes for confirmation and nodded. “That sounds great! We’ll you in the dining car at seven o’clock then.”
“Good. See you then,” Edward replied with a smile as he rose and shuffled off toward the end of the car.
Annie watched him with concern, poised to jump up if need be and help him through the connector to his compartment.
“I guess he’s going to be all right,” she said, watching him pass through the connecting door. “I’m tempted to go help him, but he seems to be doing okay.”