“Yes, you know. Protein. Cheese.”
He nodded. “Ah, cheese. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to have something more to eat? Some soup, perhaps, something hot?”
She shook her head. “No, that will be enough.” She craned her neck to see down the length of the car, aware some of the other diners continued to throw curious glances in their direction...especially the women. “Now, where did Samuel go?”
Without turning around, Robert raised his hand, and Samuel appeared. Ellie’s eyes widened. How did he do that?
“Hey, Samuel. Okay, could I have some of this Edam cheese and some crackers?” She pointed to the menu.
Samuel’s eyes widened, and he threw an inquiring look at Robert.
Ellie put a stop to that. She waved her hand. “Yoohoo, Samuel! Over here. Pay attention to me. This is my order. I’m paying for it—or I will when I find my purse.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Samuel dipped his head and hurried away. She followed his retreating back, perplexed by his actions. Then she brought her eyes back to Robert who watched her with a puzzled frown.
“You could be kinder to him, Miss Standish. He is only doing his job.”
She glanced at Robert in surprise. Her? Was he serious? He wasn’t laughing.
“I am kind to him. In fact, I feel kind of sorry for him that he has to play this weird subservient role in your program here.”
“Program?” He cocked a dark eyebrow in her direction.
“Well, whatever you want to call it. I’m just tired of everyone looking at you when I talk to them. It’s really very odd. Makes me feel like I’m living in the Dark Ages.”
A corner of his mouth lifted slowly. “The Dark Ages?” His smile broadened. “Surely not, Miss Standish. It is the turn of the century. We are much more advanced and civilized than the Dark Ages.”
“Oh yeah, the turn of the century. I forgot,” she murmured with a sigh. Ellie planted her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her palms. She steeled herself to meet his eyes with a steady gaze.
“Okay, Robert, I’ll play along. What year is it?”
Robert’s amused gaze, which had fixed on her elbows on the table, returned to her face with a glint. “1901, Miss Standish. As I said, the turn of the century. And a fine year it is proving to be.”
She sniffed and shook her head with a wry twist of her lips. “Mmmhmmm. Okay. And who is the President?”
His smile widened to an amused grin. He reached for a glass of water delivered by Samuel and took a deliberate sip before answering.
“William McKinley. And since we are playing at questions, I believe it must be my turn, Miss Standish.”
Ellie narrowed her eyes and regarded him for a moment before crossing her arms and leaning back into her chair with a half smile.
“Okay, go ahead.”
“What is your first name?” The sparkle in his green eyes robbed her of breath for a moment. Her heart bumped against her chest.
“Ellie,” she murmured, suddenly shy at the unexpectedly intimate quality of such an ordinary question.
“Ellie,” he repeated. The well-known name sounded suddenly fresh and desirable on his lips. “And does that stand for Eleanor?”
She inhaled deeply to bring oxygen back to her deprived brain, and she hugged herself tightly.
“No, just Ellie. It’s just a name my hippie-dippy parents decided to give me.”
“Hippie-dippy?” He shook his head with a wry smile. “And what part of the country are you from, Ellie? May I call you Ellie?”
“Oh yeah, sure.” She was distracted by a sudden memory of the man who had sat next to her on the train yesterday with a similar question. Was it only yesterday? She remembered the color of his eyes. Green.
“Ellie?” Robert repeated his question with an inquiring arch of an eyebrow. She met his questioning eyes...the same green.
She shook off the odd coincidence. “I’m sorry. What was the question?”
“Where are you from?”
“Oh, Chicago. Well, no, not really. I mean I live in Chicago now. I’ve moved around a lot, though.”
“I see. I have been to Chicago several times. Some of your expressions stupefy me. I do not believe I have heard them in Chicago, either. What do you mean by hippie-dippy parents?”
“Oh, so you’re saying you haven’t heard that expression, either, Robert?” She studied his face through narrowed eyes. His face registered genuine curiosity. Was it possible? “Well, maybe you haven’t. I’ll give you that. But you have heard of hippies, right? The late sixties and early seventies? San Francisco? Woodstock?”
She watched various expressions cross his face, the most prominent being a look of confusion. “Well, certainly I’ve heard of San Francisco. In fact, I’ve been there. The sixties and seventies? The reconstruction era?”
She almost laughed, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Robert, you have an American accent, but are you actually from the United States? Everyone knows about hippies...flower children.” The train took a sudden lurch, and water sloshed from Ellie’s glass. She was surprised the whole glass hadn’t jumped off the table by now, with the uneven movements of the old-fashioned carriages.
He quirked a quizzical eyebrow in her direction.
“Well, unless you are referring to children who carry flowers in a wedding procession, I have no earthly idea what you are talking about. Please instruct me.”
She opened her mouth to retort, but Samuel appeared with a silver tray. He set an elegant porcelain plate before Ellie with slices of Edam cheese and saltine crackers.
“Oh, thank you, thank you, Samuel. I’m starving.”
Samuel nodded, threw a last glance at Robert and moved away.
Ellie sliced several small sections off the small block and laid them on the crackers.
“Are you sure you don’t want some?”
“No, thank you. I am fine.”
She bit into her snack and paused, her teeth seemingly hitting solid rock. With a self-conscious glance in Robert’s direction, she pulled the food from the edge of her mouth and examined the cracker. While it looked like a saltine, she could see now that the small white square was thicker than what she was used to. With another flushed look in Robert’s direction, she bit into the cracker again. It gave way this time, and she ground it in her mouth. With one bite of the hard cracker swallowed, she eyed the rest with misgiving. She reached for her water to help the food make its way to its final destination.
“Wow, those crackers are really hard.” Hungry and unwilling to fight the food, she popped a slice of the salty cheese into her mouth.
“They used to be called hardtack,” Robert said. “Haven’t you ever eaten them before?”
“Hardtack?” She eyed the crackers again with suspicious eyes. “Hardtack? Are you serious? No wonder. I’ve never had hardtack before.” Ellie picked up another cracker and attempted to nibble the edges.
“Don’t they have hardtack in Chicago?”
“Not that I’m aware of. At least not in this century.”
“How interesting.” He lowered his eyes for a moment while he ran his finger around the rim of his water glass.
“Tell me, Ellie. Are you married?”
Ellie almost choked on the dry cracker and grabbed another gulp of water.
“Er, no, I’m not.” She bit her lip. She hesitated to say the words But I’m engaged, and she didn’t know why.
“No Mr. Standish?” Robert asked with a sparkle in his eye.
Ellie blushed. “No Mr. Standish,” she said. “How about you, Robert? Are you married?”
“No, I am currently not so fortunate.”
Ellie chuckled at his odd speech pattern. “Never been married?”
“If I had ever been married, Ellie, I would still be wedded...to the same woman.”
Her heart caught in her throat. He stared at her with a steady gaze, a half-smile playing on his lips. His words seemed so certain, so confident, so...permanent.<
br />
She cleared her throat. “Well, certainly. Of course. I just...well, you know, a lot of people are divorced these days. You never know. I...uh...I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“I did not take offense.” His smile widened to a grin.
“I intend to marry only once, and I have not yet found the woman who could put up with me for the rest of her life.” The twinkle returned to his eyes, but Ellie had no doubt about his firm stance.
“Mr. Chamberlain, Miss Standish.” The conductor towered over the table, his wide stance preventing any need to brace himself against the rocking of the train. “Is this a good time for me to interrupt? The train will be pulling into Wenatchee in a few minutes. I think we need to figure out how we can help Miss Standish at that time.”
Robert glanced up at him and turned to Ellie. “Do you feel better, Ellie? Have you eaten enough?”
Ellie nodded, having eaten only three slices of cheese. “Yes, I’m fine. I’ll be glad to get back to my seat. I could use a nap.” She gave Robert a small smile, hoping he wouldn’t see the lie in her eyes—a lie that took her by surprise.
“Good. That is settled, then. I must return to my carriage to check on the ladies. They will be worried about my extended absence by now. It seems as if Mr...?”
“Bingham, sir.”
“It appears as if Mr. Bingham is going to assist you in whatever way you need.” Robert gave her an encouraging smile, and turned to the conductor, who stood by silently.
“You will let me know if Miss Standish needs any further assistance, of course. My family and I are more than happy to see to anything she needs should her seat...go missing.”
Ellie rose slowly from the table and smiled with a slight shake of her head.
“You know, Robert, I’m beginning to think I woke up in another dimension...in a time warp. You’re good, I’ll give you that. I’ll find my seat, if Mr. Bingham here points out the way.”
She put out a hand. Robert looked at it for a moment, and then took it in his own warm grasp. She caught her breath.
“Thank you for everything, Robert. Again, it’s been fun.” Ellie reluctantly pulled her hand from his.
Robert tipped an invisible hat in her direction.
“As you say, Ellie, it has been fun. I will see you again.” He turned away and strode down the length of the dining car, leaving Ellie to stare in his wake, temporarily robbed of breath, a delightful tingling in her hand.
“Miss Standish?”
She turned bemused eyes up to the solemn face of the tall conductor.
“Yes, Mr. Bingham?”
“Shall we?” He indicated a doorway at the nearest end of the train.
“Oh, but I have to pay for my meal.” Her face burned. “Except I have to find my purse first.”
“Of course. We can see to that shortly.”
“Oh, okay.” Ellie staggered and grabbed the table as the train lurched to a stop. Mr. Bingham reached out to steady her.
“Thanks.”
He pulled his watch out of his pocket and studied it for a moment. “It seems we have arrived. We should be here for thirty minutes. I think I’d better take you down to the tourist cars to see if you recognize your seat.”
“Oh, great!” Ellie said.
“I wonder if you could wait here for me until I return. Now that we have arrived, I have one or two duties to attend to in the station and then I can return for you. I shouldn’t be more than a few moments at the most.”
Ellie scanned the room, now empty of diners. Stewards moved about, cleaning tables and setting out new dinnerware.
“Can’t I wait outside the car? I could use some fresh air and it looks like they’re pretty busy cleaning up in here.”
He barely glanced at the busy stewards. “I don’t think it would be wise for me to leave you alone outside. It would be better if you were to wait in here.”
She shrugged and sank back into her seat, wondering if he worried she would disappear without paying her bill or providing proof of her train fare. With a tip of his wheel cap, he consulted his watch again and hurried out the door.
Ellie strained to see out the windows, but dust impeded her view. She glanced at the stewards again, who paused occasionally to stare at her. Feeling as if she’d worn out her welcome, she jumped up and pushed open the door with the intention of waiting for the conductor outside, no matter what his wishes.
She stepped out onto the landing and was immediately assaulted by the thick smell of coal. To her surprise, the car appeared to connect to another historical carriage. How many of them were there?
A peek through the glass of the door to the left revealed a dusty field of harvested corn. She turned to the right and opened the door, gingerly descending the sturdy iron stairs down to gravel. The train depot caught her eye first—a small old-fashioned wooden structure with a boardwalk in front. Several people rested on benches or milled about stretching their legs.
She shook her head with a sigh. For the most part, they also wore Victorian era costumes, mostly as she had seen in the dining car, but a few men leaning against the walls of the station sported ragged felt hats, western-style flannel shirts, and thick dungarees that seemed the worse for wear. With a deepening sense of the surreal, she noticed a tall man, obviously Native American, with unkempt long dark hair, wearing a ragged flannel shirt and dark, baggy trousers. He was standing at the edge of the platform with a short, stout woman half hidden by the grubby blanket that covered her frame, a baby’s face peeping out from her arms. The man raised his hand occasionally, bringing it to his mouth in a universal gesture requesting food. Everyone generally ignored the family.
An overwhelming atmosphere of dry dust permeated the air, and Ellie sneezed vigorously. Nothing at the minuscule station seemed remotely modern. The weathered wood and grimy windows of the building gave way to the warped boardwalk that led across a dirt road toward the gravel around the train tracks. She moved away from the train to investigate further. As she did so, she looked to her right and saw Robert on the ground assisting the ladies of his party down the steps of their carriage. He seemed not to see her, and that was fine with Ellie.
What she saw next took her breath away...perhaps even her sanity. She turned around to see twenty or so old-fashioned carriages just like hers, stretching away toward the front of the train. Gone were the modern gleaming silver cars like she’d boarded in Chicago. Every single car seemed to have come straight out of a vintage railroad photograph.
Ellie’s knees started shaking as she stood in the middle of the tracks staring helplessly at the train. She broke out into a cold sweat; her mouth tasted of a nasty mixture of pungent coal, dry dust and bitter bile. A wave of nausea overtook her, and she turned toward the station to beg someone to save her from the nightmare. No sounds came from her frozen throat. The station blurred and grew suddenly dark.
Chapter Five
“Ellie. Ellie.” A familiar masculine voice penetrated her consciousness. She rubbed her face against the warm hand touching her cheek.
“Miss Standish, wake up.” Not Miss Standish again, she thought with confused dismay. Heavy eyelids refused to open, and she stopped fighting them for a moment as she listened to the hazy murmur of the voices in her dream.
“Robert, come away. Give the girl some air. Is there a physician on this infernal train?”
“No, Grandmother. I have already made inquiries.”
“Do you think she is malnourished, Robert? She seemed so strange, so confused...almost delirious.”
“No, Melinda, I do not think she is malnourished. She certainly looks well fed.”
Ellie forced her eyes open to find Robert’s concerned green eyes close to her face as he bent over her.
“Is that a fat joke?” Her parched throat thickened her voice.
Robert startled and blinked. “Ellie...Miss Standish, are you all right?” He withdrew his hand and straightened slowly. “A fat joke? Good gravy! Certainly not!”
Melinda hove
red behind him, her smooth white brow knitted above troubled blue eyes. Ellie tried to sit up.
“Stay there, Miss Standish, until we are sure you are feeling better,” Robert said.
“I’m fine, Robert. I need to sit up. I feel queasy.”
“Very well, madam. Here.” Robert helped her into a sitting position. She recognized her original bench seat, which was fortunately long enough for her to recline on. Amy and several of the other young women peered around the corner with anxious faces. Mrs. Chamberlain sat on the bench opposite and stared at her with a frown.
“Here, Robert, a glass of water.”
“Excellent, Melinda. Thank you.” He handed the glass to Ellie, who took a drink. She wrinkled her nose at the metallic taste but obediently drank a few sips. Anything to rid her mouth and throat of the dust.
The dust...
She looked up at Robert. “How did I get back on board?” A sudden lurch of the carriage jerked her toward reality, and she realized the train had been rumbling along the tracks since she’d been conscious. She bolted upright and gasped. “The train is moving, isn’t it?”
“Robert picked you up off the ground like a limp rag doll and brought you back onto the train,” Mrs. Chamberlain said. “You’ve been unconscious...or asleep, for some time.” The older woman folded pale hands on the black silk of her lap and surveyed Ellie with sharp blue eyes.
“We pulled out of Wenatchee almost a half hour ago, Ellie.” The quiet sympathy in Robert’s voice threatened to break down her reserves. “I’m sorry we were not able to locate your seat. We thought it best to bring you back on board.”
Ellie stared at him with wide eyes. His well-groomed clothes... So vintage. So new! She looked past him to Mrs. Chamberlain. Impossible to think she could ever have worn a polyester leisure suit. And Melinda? A short, frisky platinum blonde color and cut to her gorgeous hair?
Never!
“Ellie?”
Robert’s insistent voice brought her back to a nightmare come true. The train...her seat. Where did they go? She returned her stricken gaze to his face. The kindly inquisitive tilt of his head as he looked at her broke the floodgates.
“I-I’m lost. I don’t know where I am,” she wailed before she burst into tears. She pulled her knees to her chest and buried her face in her hands. She hadn’t known terror like this since she was a child waking up from a nightmare. Her mother would come to her then, sit on the bed beside her and tell her it was only a bad dream...that it would go away. And it always did...then.
10 Timeless Heroes; A Time Travel Romance Boxed Set Page 189