A cell phone rang, preventing Amber from voicing her opinion to Ashley’s comment and redirecting her attention to her husband. The sound came from Scott’s vest pocket.
“You didn’t turn off your phone? What if it had rung during our vows?” Amber glared at him. Scott flashed a grin and shrugged.
“Forgot to turn it off.”
He pulled it from his pocket and stared at it. A frown formed on his face, then he raised his eyes to look at Amber.
“It’s Moira Lockhart, from Heartsbridge, Texas.”
Chapter 3
“I’m so glad you’re here.”
A woman wearing jeans and a hot pink blouse rushed up the hospital corridor, her high-heeled slippers clacking on the shiny linoleum floor and echoing through the long hall. Her ponytail swung back and forth at the back of her head. By the time she reached Scott and Amber, she breathed hard as if she’d run a marathon. Holding out her hands, she grabbed Amber’s arms.
Ashley hung back while her cousin and Scott interacted with this woman. Her eyes were instantly drawn to the round, silver object dangling from a blue ribbon around the woman’s neck. It was a large pocket watch, and the hands whirred around the clock face. There was something familiar about that watch.
“Moira, we came as fast as we could.” Amber embraced the other woman, then Scott shook her hand. “Scott was able to book us on a last-minute flight from Missoula. Good thing it was a direct flight so there were no delays.”
“I’m so sorry I had to call you about this, and on your wedding day, no less. I didn’t know what else to do. I’ve never had anything like this happen before.” The woman’s eyes went to Ashley. It looked as if she wanted to say more, but she held back.
Amber glanced over her shoulder. She met Ashley’s questioning look. Reaching out her hand, she beckoned her closer.
“Moira Lockhart, this is my cousin, Ashley Gilbert.”
Moira seemed reluctant to shake Ashley’s hand. She eyed her with interest, but not before tossing a displeased look at both Scott and Amber.
“I wasn’t expecting you to bring someone else along. You should know not to talk about this with others.”
Ashley stood straighter and raised her chin. “No worries,” she scoffed. “Amber and Scott haven’t told me anything.” Her eyes traveled between the three people standing around her. “But with all this secrecy, I’m wondering what’s really going on here.” Her gaze rested on Amber, who nodded slowly.
When Scott had ended the call he’d received less than eight hours ago, he and Amber had made a quick decision to leave their own wedding reception.
Ashley had followed Amber to her room, where she’d gone to change out of her wedding dress into jeans and a plain blouse, and tossed a few items into a carry-on bag. Scott had made a phone call to the airport, then pulled Gabe, Jake, Rachel, and Morgan aside and talked to them in hushed tones. Everyone seemed to be in on a great secret. Everyone but Ashley.
“What’s so important that you’re going to abandon your guests and skip out on your big party?”
Amber had stopped in her tracks when Ashley had confronted her. First, her boyfriend had acted like a jerk and embarrassed her in front of a couple hundred wedding guests, and now, her cousin was rushing off to some top-secret meeting. Ashley had stood her ground, waiting for Amber to make eye contact.
“A friend of ours, someone I owe my life to, might be in big trouble.” Amber sounded as if she weighed her words carefully.
Ashley’s eyes narrowed on her cousin. “Your life? I thought you owed Scott your life.”
“It’s complicated, Ashley.”
“You’re supposed to leave for your month-long honeymoon to Alaska in the morning. You’re just going to blow that off, too, for some mysterious person you can’t talk about?”
Ashley’s voice had grown more adamant. Disappointment had consumed her, making her lash out in anger. Amber was the last person she’d thought would keep secrets from her. Her cousin had always been up front with her about everything, even when she’d wanted to take her own life.
“What’s going on here, Amber? Are you and Scott in some kind of trouble?”
Amber had laughed and waved off her question. “No, we’re not in trouble. We need to help a friend, like I told you. You should go mingle with the guests. Morgan is probably looking for you.”
Ashley had blocked Amber’s way out of her room by putting her hands on her hips. She’d adamantly shaken her head. “You’re not going to blow me off like that. There’s no way I’m going back to the reception. I told you right before Scott got that mysterious phone call that I’m too embarrassed to mingle with anyone after Zeke’s behavior. Where are you and Scott going?”
Amber had frowned, then reluctantly said, “Texas.”
“Texas?”
That’s where Amber had met Scott. Amber had disappeared for several weeks about a year ago, and when she’d resurfaced, she’d introduced Ashley to Scott, the guy who had changed her outlook on life and talked her out of suicide.
“Can I come with you?”
The question had been out before she’d even had a chance to think about what she was asking. The last place she’d wanted to be was at the wedding reception. She was angry at Zeke right now, and couldn’t face him, much less the wedding guests. Maybe it would be a good thing if she disappeared for a while herself to rethink her path in life.
“You want to go with us to Texas to meet our friend?” Amber had echoed.
“Yeah, I could be of some help.” An idea had sparked to life at that moment. “If you fill me in on what’s going on, I can take care of your friend for you, and you and Scott won’t have to miss your honeymoon.”
Amber’s frown and the way she’d pressed her lips together were a clear indication that she didn’t think it was a good idea at all. There was definitely something her cousin was hiding, and it had started when she and Scott had met in Texas.
Amber had stared at Ashley for what seemed like an eternity, then finally nodded. With a heavy sigh, she’d said, “Maybe it’s time Scott and I tell you the truth. It’s been killing me to keep this secret from you.”
Ashley’s mouth had gaped open as a sinking feeling had come over her. The truth? Truth about what? Her heart had sped up, partly because she’d been correct about something weird going on.
“Can you get packed and ready to go in ten minutes? We have to be at the airport.” Amber had reached for her arm and implored her with a hard stare. “I’ll tell you everything, but it’s not something we can talk about on an airplane. You’ll have to wait until we get to Texas.” She’d paused, then continued, “I hate keeping secrets from you, Ashley, but you have to promise to listen with an open mind once we get to Texas.”
Ashley’s forehead had scrunched, but she’d nodded, more confused than ever. “I promise.”
She’d taken less than five minutes to pull off her bridesmaid dress and slip into her street clothes. Everything else she needed was already in her bag, since she hadn’t bothered to unpack after arriving in Montana a few days before the wedding.
Now, Moira Lockhart was still staring at her. The hands of the watch around her neck continued to spin. Ashley’s eyes followed the fast-moving arrows, then her eyes widened. She looked at Amber.
“That watch. That’s the tattoo you have on your back.”
Amber smiled. “Yes, and now I’ll finally tell you what it’s about.”
“What’s going on, Moira?” Scott stepped forward, clearly unable to keep quiet any longer. “What happened with Vin?”
Moira’s eyes darted to Ashley again, then a resigned look came over her. “He’s in bad shape. He came through the room yesterday, barely alive. I called for an ambulance and they brought him here. There was a note stuck to Vin’s pocket. It was from Chris Hawley, explaining that Vin needed emergency care right away.”
Amber gasped. “How bad is he hurt?”
Moira ran a trembling hand over her face. “There was s
o much blood. I didn’t even know if he was alive. The ambulance took him away, and I followed. I couldn’t leave him. He’ll be completely disoriented.” Her eyes filled with tears as she looked from Scott to Amber. “He was in surgery for almost five hours. The last time someone talked to me, I was told he’d be in recovery soon. I can’t even imagine what’s going to happen when he wakes up.”
“How is it possible that he came through after a year?”
Moira shook her head. “I don’t know. There have been others since you two. My guess is that, since Vin never completed the time travel the first time, the watch started up for him again when Chris brought him to Cissie.” She made quick eye contact with Ashley. “Having him here in the hospital is making it really complicated.” She looked at Scott. “I called you because I figured you were the closest to next of kin that he has.”
Scott nodded. “I’m glad you did.”
“Time travel?” Ashley’s eyes widened, listening to the exchange going on in front of her as if the conversation was completely normal. She stared from Moira to Amber. Why did the subject of time travel always seem to come up among her family and friends?
Amber grabbed Ashley’s arm and pulled her aside. To Scott, she said, “Why don’t you go with Moira and see if you can find out what’s going on with Vin? I’m going to fill Ashley in on everything. She deserves some answers. We’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.”
Scott leaned over and kissed Amber on the cheek, then smiled. “I’ll say hello for you.”
“I’ll make a few phone calls about some identification that’ll pass temporarily for Vin. It shouldn’t be too difficult.” Moira tossed another skeptical look at Ashley, then followed Scott up the hall. Ashley faced her cousin, glaring at her with her hands on her hips.
“Time travel?” she whispered.
Amber nodded.
“Morgan and Gabe tried to pull that one over on me, too, remember?”
“And I didn’t believe it, either, until it happened to me and Scott.”
Ashley laughed. “You can’t be serious.” She paused when a nurse in blue scrubs rushed past them. “You expect me to go along with this?”
“You’re going to have to believe me, Ashley. Last year, Scott and I time- traveled to 1880. That’s why I was missing for a few weeks. Our ordeal in the past brought us together when we had to fight for our lives to get back to the present. That’s when I realized I didn’t want to end my life.”
Ashley held her breath while Amber talked. This was sounding as crazy as Gabe McFarlain’s claim several years ago that he’d come from the past.
An icy chill ran down her back. Gabe had always acted strange. He’d started out not knowing the most basic things, like using a remote to turn on the TV, or how a faucet worked. He hadn’t even known how to drive a car. She’d joked with him and Morgan over the years about being a time traveler, but they all just laughed about it.
Then there was Rachel, her cousin Jake’s wife. Her values were straight out of the nineteenth century, too. After the mysterious phone call, Scott had included Jake and Rachel when he’d pulled Gabe and Morgan aside to talk to them. Time travel. Was it possible?
“Are you in on this with Gabe and Morgan? What about Jake and Rachel?” Ashley blinked rapidly. She’d certainly been kept in the dark by her cousins and best friends all this time. What other things did they exclude her from? Every insecurity issue about being unlikable that she’d dealt with for so long sprang to life at that moment.
Amber pressed her lips together. “It’s all true. Their circumstances are different than what happened to Scott and me. I’m not sure our experiences are related.”
Ashley laughed. “You mean, there are different ways to time travel? Like taking a different mode of transportation?” She ran her hand through her hair. “Looks like I’m the only one out of the loop. Again.”
Amber touched her arm. “You’re not out of the loop, Ashley. It’s not something we can simply talk about. Your reaction right now proves it. How do we explain time travel to someone who hasn’t experienced it? We’d get labeled crazy by most everyone. I used to think it was crazy, too, when we joked about it, remember?”
She raised her brows, staring at Ashley, refusing to let her look away. “You have to see our side in this.” Finally, she looked at the ground. “I’ve wanted to tell you, and I was going to, but I had to find the right way to say it, and the right moment. Now that this happened with Vin, the cat’s out of the bag.”
Ashley stood in front of her cousin, her face coming in and out of focus. The notion of time travel was still too much to wrap her brain around. A million questions flooded her, but not a single one seemed like the right one to ask first.
“Who is this person, Vin, and what’s going on with him? And what about this Moira lady and her watch?”
Amber smiled. She inhaled, as if getting ready to tell a lengthy story.
“Vin Kincaid is someone Scott and I met in the past.”
“Kincaid? He’s related to Scott?” Ashley’s eyes popped open again. This day couldn’t get any weirder.
“We don’t know if he’s related. We did a search for Vin Kincaid on the internet, but nothing ever came up. We have to assume that Scott and he are related somehow. He was part of an outlaw gang that kidnapped me, but he helped us get away from them, and later, he saved my life when one of them tried to kill me. We owe him so much. That’s why we came right away when Moira called.”
“Kill you? Amber, I can’t believe you’ve never talked to me about any of this.”
Amber nodded. “I know. It feels good to get it off my chest now.”
Ashley glanced up the hall with the white walls, white floors, and overhead lights that made everything look artificial. Except for the nurse that had passed them, it was eerily quiet. Everything seemed surreal around her, like maybe they were standing in some time-warp tunnel this very moment.
“And now, this Vin Kincaid time traveled here?”
“And he’s badly injured. Whatever it takes, Scott and I feel obligated to help him, like he helped us.”
Ashley squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. Hadn’t she wanted to get out of her old rut? Maybe this was just the kind of excitement she’d been looking for. It wasn’t too difficult to imagine someone from another country feeling lost and alone. What about someone from a completely different century?
“If you fill me in some more on this whole time travel thing, I’d be more than happy to help.” Ashley shook her head and laughed. “After interacting with Gabe when Morgan and I met him, I do have some experience with this sort of thing.”
Chapter 4
The noise grew steadily louder. It was unlike anything he’d ever heard before. The closest sound in comparison was a whistle, a bird, or even a loud cricket, but even those didn’t have quite the same tone. The only certain thing was the noise came in a rhythmic, predictable pattern, and with each short, single tone, the high-pitched racket grew more annoying.
Vin forced his heavy eyelids open. He shifted his upper body slightly, then grimaced as pain seared through him. His limbs were unnaturally heavy, as if chains had been strapped to him and were holding him down. From somewhere, voices mixed with the rhythmic noise, but they could be coming from anywhere.
His mind swam in a hazy fog, much worse than the drinking binge he’d gone on over a year ago when he’d left the Diamond K. An intense sensation of anger consumed him at the thought of his Uncle Jack, but why? He’d put that part of his life behind him for good.
“He’s sustained quite extensive internal injuries. Any longer, and he would have bled to death internally. We were able to save his kidney, but had to remove his spleen.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’ll be perfectly fine without a spleen, but he could be more susceptible to infections, especially right now, so we’ll have to monitor him closely for a while.”
The unfamiliar voices were definitely not in his head. They came from so
mewhere close by. Vin stiffened. Judging by the bright light, it was high noon. His last recollection was of sipping coffee in the dark, listening to crickets and then his horse snorting, right before . . .
Bled to death?
It was the only part of the conversation that made any sense. Someone had tried to kill him. Had they succeeded? Clearly not, or he wouldn’t be lying here thinking about it. Was the man who had repeatedly stabbed him still around, and had he acted alone? His arm was as heavy as lead when he moved it to the general vicinity of his belly, where pain had shot through him earlier. How long ago? There was no pain now.
Vin had expected Jack to send someone to kill him, and he should have been more vigilant. He hadn’t expected his attacker to stab him, however. He’d been prepared for an ambush in daylight and for there to be shooting, not a stabbing.
Vin lifted his head, or tried to, but it was a futile effort. The way the world was spinning and because there was no pain, someone must have poured an entire barrel of whiskey down his gullet. He had no control over any of his muscles. He blinked and squinted at the bright light overhead, which was the only indication that he must by lying on his back. Slowly, his eyes regained some focus. Everything around him was white. The sky was white, with strange lights shining down on him from several different directions, blinding him.
“What the hell’s going on?”
It was unclear whether the words left his mouth or if he simply thought them. He shifted his body, which brought an icy-hot jab to his gut. Vin hissed and cursed again.
“Vin?”
The woman’s voice was vaguely familiar, but she could have been one of many women he’d met over the years.
“He’s waking up,” a deeper voice said, also familiar.
“I’m gonna get even with you for this, Jack,” Vin rasped.
“Not right now, Vin. Just stay quiet.”
The male voice seemed closer. Vin blinked to focus his eyes. A man with dark hair hovered over him. Vin tensed. He’d seen him before, under different circumstances. When he’d banded together with those no-good cowpunchers to steal some whiskey in Heartsbridge a year ago, this was the man he’d helped to escape.
Timeless Hero (Timeless Hearts Book 12) Page 3