by Bess McBride
Rory cursed himself. What had he done? He ignored the curious stares of passersby, and took her hands.
“Annie, Annie, please don’t cry, dear. I am so sorry I barked at you. You are right. It is not my place to tell you what to do. I can only defend myself by saying that I was concerned for your welfare.” He pulled a handkerchief from his jacket and dabbed at her cheeks before pressing it into her hands.
“I’m sorry, too,” she hiccupped. “I didn’t mean to start blubbering in the street like this. Even in my time, people stare at folks crying in public.” She dried her eyes and handed him the handkerchief with a sniff.
“Shall we go inside? Perhaps a cup of tea? I did not realize you were visiting with Dani this morning, nor do I think Marie knew. I hope you had a pleasant visit.” He held his arm for her. “Of course, I am properly chastised and realize it is not my place to inquire after your whereabouts, but I cannot help myself. I have set myself up as your rescuer, it would seem. Such a lofty goal.”
“For a few more weeks, anyway,” Annie muttered.
“Or one more day,” Rory returned. They climbed the stairs. “Are you unhappy that I am leaving, Annie?”
Annie stopped and looked at him. “What? Of course not! Well, I mean… No! What a great adventure for you!”
Rory eased out a sigh, and his shoulders slumped. “Oh! I thought you meant…”
“What?” Annie continued to climb the stairs. “No, I didn’t mean anything. You know Marie wants to leave in tomorrow. She’s pretty insistent I go with her, so that’s probably what we’re going to do.”
Rory, reaching for the door, froze. “So soon.”
“Yes, soon,” Annie said. “Could you…?” She nodded toward the door that he held, and he gave himself a shake and pulled it open. They stepped into the lobby.
“It is almost time for luncheon. Would you and Marie care to dine and then motor around the city for a bit?”
“Sure,” Annie said without smiling. “I’ll go get Marie. I’m sure she’s starved. What time is dinner tonight?”
“Eight o’clock. I will pick you up in the carriage at quarter past seven.”
“Okay, I’ll see you in a few minutes. Hopefully, Marie is dressed for the day.”
Following a pleasant lunch, Annie and Marie secured their hats with scarves and climbed into Rory’s car. Marie opted to take the back seat, leaving Annie to sit in the front, which suited Rory admirably. Any time spent near Annie was precious to him. He was unclear what had transpired before lunch or why he had inferred that she mourned his upcoming departure, but no more had been said on the subject, and he assumed he had misinterpreted her words. Although she seemed subdued, her words before lunch suggested she wished to return to her own time. He could not stand in her way.
He drove them to the public market where they strolled among the horse-drawn wagons laden with goods, produce and fish. They drove to Green Lake Park and admired the ducks. At Annie’s request, he took them down to the waterfront to view the tall ships, which she stated were no longer used for much more than tourist attractions in her time. Annie asked about the steamship in port.
“That is the SS Dakota, owned and operated by the Great Northern Railway, the company which runs the Oriental Limited. Normally, passengers would disembark from the Oriental Limited, rest a day or so, and then sail away to the Orient on either the SS Dakota or the SS Minnesota. In my case, I had a few business matters to attend to in Seattle, so I was not able to sail right away. I am booked on the SS Minnesota when it returns from the Orient.”
At the moment, Rory regretted his imminent departure so much, he almost thought of canceling it, contract and commitments notwithstanding. And yet, if Annie were leaving, he knew he would not want to stay in Seattle without her. He hated to think of her imminent departure, but it seemed likely there was nothing he could say to make her stay. Even were he to declare himself, she might choose to leave, unable to bear the thought of spending her life in “the past.” Clearly, things were much more modern and comfortable in the twenty-first century, and he could not ask her to give that up.
He gritted his teeth and stared at the steamship. Of course, there was an strong chance that she did not feel as he did, that the occasional soft light in her eyes when she looked at him was nothing more than gratitude or even friendship.
Had Stephen Sadler or Robert Chamberlain ever suffered so much angst for love of their time-traveling women? He regarded Annie, standing next to Marie on the docks and admiring the ships in the bay. How he longed to enfold her into his arms and never let her go, to sail the high seas with her at his side as he photographed the world, or even to sip a cup of tea with her on his porch while she spoke to him of the future.
As if she could read his thoughts, Annie looked over her shoulder and smiled at him, a wide smile that he knew he could not live without.
Rory returned them to the hotel an hour later to bathe and rest before dinner. As soon as he dropped them off, he drove up the hill to the house Stephen and Dani Sadler shared with his sister on their rare visits to Seattle.
On being admitted, he was directed to the sitting room, where Steven and Dani rose to greet him.
“Rory! I can’t say I’m surprised to see you here today,” Dani said. “Tea?”
“No, thank you,” Rory said. He sat down on the sofa. “How are the children?”
“Fine, thank you,” Dani said. “They’ve gone to the park with their nanny.”
“And your sister, Susan, and her family?” He directed the question to Stephen.
“They are well. They remained behind in Montana at the cabin for the summer.”
“Life seems so simple there. I envy you the cabin,” Rory said with a sigh.
Dani gave him a sympathetic glance. “What’s troubling you, Rory? Is it still the time traveling?”
He nodded and stared hard at Dani, enough to make Stephen restless.
“You may leave off ogling my wife, Rory. She is as you and I are, with all four limbs.”
Dani looked at her husband and chuckled.
Rory blinked and gave his head a quick shake. “Forgive me for staring, Dani, but in light of your recent revelation, I cannot help but see you in a different light. I continue to be mystified, but you, Stephen, seem quite comfortable with this concept of time travel. I am just newly indoctrinated into this world.”
“I understand, Rory,” Stephen said kindly. “I do not forget how confused I was when I first met Dani.” He favored his wife with an affectionate smile.
“I asked Annie to come here this morning, you know,” Dani said.
“Yes, I do know. I went to the hotel, quite unannounced, which was my fault, and when I found her missing, I ran the streets like a madman looking for her.” Rory noted Dani’s look of interest. “That is to say, Miss St. John has a proclivity for accidents, and I worried that something had befallen her. Since I met her only a few short days ago, she has fallen…on me, she has been perilously close to being run over by a horse and wagon in the street, and she has fallen into Lake Washington…to date.”
Dani laughed! “Oh my, you have your hands full, don’t you?”
“Do I?” Rory said in a bemused tone.
“I would not normally presume to interfere in a fellow’s private concerns, Rory, but you do realize that Miss St. John committed to her sister, Miss Marie, to return to the future with her tomorrow, don’t you?” Stephen asked.
Rory lowered his head. “I did not know she had firmly decided to go, but I am not surprised. Marie is very eager to have her sister return home with her, and I do not blame her.” He raised his head to look at Stephen and Dani. “I cannot stop her, and I do not have that right. As it is, I must leave for the Orient in a few weeks, and I could not stay to take care of Annie should she choose to remain here.”
“I told her she could stay with me here or at the cabin in Montana, wherever we are,” Dani said.
Rory gave her a grateful look. “What did she say?”
/>
Dani shook her head. “She was polite, and I believe she wants to stay, but she said she has to go back with her sister.” Dani covered Rory’s clasped hands with one of her own. “Have you asked her to stay, Rory? Have you told her how you feel?”
“Is it so apparent?” Rory said. “I have spent my entire adult life in pursuit of my own pleasures without affinity for any one woman, save my mother,” he said with a ragged voice. “And now, I am chained to a woman from the future by love. Yet I do not think the outcome will be as happy as that which you and Stephen have enjoyed. Her sister has a lifelong hold on her that I cannot compete with, and even were Annie to stay, I must leave.” He narrowed his eyes. “But perhaps I could follow her to the future when I return from the Orient!” He looked up at Stephen. “You traveled to the future! So, it can be done.”
“No, not on your own,” Dani said with a shake of her head. “Once she goes, you can’t follow her alone, Rory. The only people who can activate the travel seem to be the women who have traveled from the future. At least, that’s what we’ve discovered so far. The only way Stephen could go with me was if I hung onto him. One time, we must have let go when we fell asleep, and I traveled to the future while he ended up on the train in Chicago in 1902. It’s not a perfect system. I’d offer to take you, but Stephen and I agreed that I wouldn’t travel anymore, especially because of my kids. I can’t get stuck in the future with no way to get back to my husband and my kids. So I can’t help you.”
“No, no, of course not,” Rory said. “I would never ask it of you. However, I am disheartened to find that I cannot travel forward on my own.”
“There are other avenues, Rory,” Stephen said. “I imagine you are not thinking clearly at the moment. You might try telling her how you feel about her. It cannot be easy for her to make a decision to go or stay if she feels there is no future for her here.”
“Here in the past,” Rory muttered. “A future for her in the past.” He looked at Dani. “Do you have any regrets?”
Dani looked at Stephen, and Rory saw that she didn’t. “Not a one,” she said. “But Stephen let me know pretty early on that he loved me. As I mentioned last night, my mother was ill when I landed in 1901, and I needed to return to be with her. Stephen was going to let me go, but he decided to come with me. We weren’t sure if it would work. You might remember. You were on the train that day.”
“I do remember,” Rory said. He had seen them on the train and then they seemed to disappear, but he had seen them again within a week and thought nothing of it. “That is the unfortunate day that Stephen felt I was taking advantage of you because I thought you were alone. I am still humbled by his anger.”
“It is forgotten,” Stephen said.
Dani chuckled. “You were such a flirt, Rory.”
“Alas, Annie thinks so as well. I have changed, though.” Rory smiled softly. “You were speaking of your decision to stay in our time.”
“Oh, yes, where was I? Oh, my mother was sick, and I returned to my time, with Stephen, to see her. I made the decision to stay with her until she was well, and then to come back to marry Stephen. But my mother had plenty of support, and she encouraged me to return with Stephen right away. Fortunately, I’ve been able to see her over the years because I really would have struggled at the idea of never seeing her again. So, no regrets.”
Rory rose. “I should return to my house. As you know, my brother finagled a way to invite the Misses St. John to my mother’s house for dinner. Thank you for our frank discussion. I have much to think about.”
“Good luck, Rory. Please keep us informed. I’ll be so sad not to see Annie again, but if she wants to go, I guess there’s nothing we can do to stop her. Right, Rory?” Dani gave Rory a pointed look, and he shrugged.
“I imagine not.”
Rory returned to his house, defeated. Before entering his office, he directed Joseph to go to the train station and purchase two train tickets to Chicago on the following day for the Misses St. John. He pulled the picture of the sisters from his desk drawer and stared at it for a while before propping it against a lamp on his desktop.
He knew himself to be deeply in love with Annie, but he could find no solution to her imminent departure. Even if she felt a tiny sliver of the love he bore her, she seemed destined to return to the future with her sister—there to live out her life, marry and have children. He couldn’t abide the thought.
****
“So, what’s this about you going to Dani’s house?” Marie said when they returned to the room. “Did you arrange that last night when you saw her?”
Annie knew better than to hope Marie had forgotten. “Well, yes, Dani wanted to talk to me about staying if I wanted to.”
“Oh, gosh, not that again!” Marie grumbled as she washed. “You didn’t change your mind, did you?”
“No,” Annie said. “Last night, before you and I talked, Dani asked me to come by this morning. I told you I’d go back with you and that’s what I’m doing.”
Marie looked up. “Every time one of these 1900s sorts talks to you, you seem to waver. I wish they would stop trying to convince you that you’d be happy here. I really can’t believe that you would.”
Annie gave her sister a sharp look. “Dani is not a ‘1900s sort.’ She’s been through the same thing, frankly, and she just wanted to talk to me about it. Besides, she knows how I feel about Rory.”
“Annie, look, just because she fell in love with someone from the past and chose to stay here doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for you. I’ll bet if Mom and Dad were alive, you wouldn’t even consider this. It would break their heart if you disappeared.”
“Marie! I can’t believe you said that! That’s not fair! They’re not alive, so the point is moot. And I told you I’m returning, so can we please drop the subject?”
“All right, all right!” Marie held her hands up in surrender. “Don’t bite! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Let’s get ready to go meet Rory’s mother. That young Eddie will be there. Such a cute kid. The men in that family clearly have their father’s flirtatious ways, don’t they?”
“Yes,” Annie sighed. “They do.” It felt like days since she had seen Rory’s particularly brilliant smile, the one he turned on to charm. But she hadn’t even known him for days.
“Well, I’m done. I’m going to lie down for a while. I swear I have jet lag or something. I’ve been sleepy every since I got here. Are you going to nap or…?”
“No,” Annie replied. “I think I’ll go down to the lobby and see if they have something to read. I’ll be back.” She went downstairs and scoured the lobby for a newspaper but could find nothing to read. No magazines rested on the occasional tables. If she’d had some money, she would have gone down the street to the bookstore to buy something to read, maybe even one of Rory’s pictorial essays, but that wasn’t possible.
She had turned to return upstairs when the front door opened, and Mr. O’Rourke and his female companion stepped in. Annie tried to scurry away, but he waylaid her.
“Miss St. John!” he called. Annie stopped and turned. “How have you been since your accident? I did not have an opportunity to speak to you at length last night.”
“I’m fine, Mr. O’Rourke,” she said. She studied the young woman at his side, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-one, if that. Small and petite with dark hair, she smiled warmly.
“May I introduce my friend, Mrs. Letitia Cambridge?” he asked. “Letitia, this is Miss Annie St. John, a friend of my son’s.”
“How do you do, Miss St. John?” she said sweetly.
What was this girl doing with Rory’s father? The answer soon became clear.
“Letitia is the daughter of a colleague of mine, Miss St. John. She was recently widowed. Her husband worked in Alaska, and I have been assisting her with arrangements for financing and housing for herself and her two children.” He looked down at Letitia with genuine fondness. “Letitia is like the daughter I never had. I ha
ve known her since she was a child.”
“Uncle Harold!” Letitia murmured with a blush. “Really! I cannot tell you how grateful I am for his assistance, Miss St. John. I had to move from my home quite unexpectedly as my husband’s cousin inherited the house, and Uncle Harold has been so kind to me.”
Annie did her best to keep her eyebrows from shooting up. Oh, goodness! This wasn’t a romantic relationship at all!
“I’m so sorry to hear of your loss, Mrs. Cambrige.”
“Thank you,” Letitia said. She blinked rapidly and looked away for a moment.
“Why don’t you go round up some tea in the dining room, dear? I’ll be right along. Would you care to join us, Miss St. John?”
“Oh, no, I can’t,” Annie said automatically. “My sister is waiting for me.”
“A pity,” Mr. O’Rourke said. “I’ll be right along, Letitia.”
Letitia took the hint and moved away, and Annie turned to leave.
“Wait, Miss St. John, if I could speak with you for a moment?”
Annie turned back to face Mr. O’Rourke.
“I can tell from your expression that you suspected Letitia had another place in my life, but I can assure you, she does not. I know my son is angry with me. He had been for a long time, and perhaps rightly so. The difficulties his mother and I have undergone over the years have not been easy. I have not been a good husband, but despite all, I do still love my wife, and I wanted to ensure that you understood Letitia is not my ‘paramour’ but a young woman in need.”
Annie swallowed hard. What was she supposed to say? Did he want her to pass the message to Rory?
“I understand,” she said.
“You seem to have caught my son’s attention, Miss St. John. I hardly dared hope any one woman would.”
Annie shifted uncomfortable. “Well, I don’t know—”
“I do. He appears to be entirely smitten by you. I watch him more carefully than he knows. Although I have my failings, I love my son. I want only the best for him. I do wish you and Rory the utmost happiness.”