Diamond in the Dust (Second Chances Time Travel Romance Book 3)

by Peggy L Henderson

  Morgan rolled her eyes. The fact that this guy might potentially be good-looking was a big selling point for Ashley to allow him to stay.

  “He seems rather polite, too,” she blurted.

  “Polite?” Ashley’s eyebrows rose.

  Morgan groaned silently. Why’d she even say that? Now she had to explain herself to her friend.

  After helping the guy into her car, she had offered him her plastic water bottle. He’d wordlessly stared at it, then at her, when she’d held it out to him.

  “It’s clean water,” she’d assured him. “I only took one swallow earlier, and I promise, I don’t have cooties.”

  She’d shot him a reassuring smile. His puzzled frown had only deepened, but he’d taken the bottle from her and held it as if he’d never touched anything like it before. His dirt-caked fingers had grazed hers for an instant, and a slight chill had raced up her arm and down her back at the brief contact. His bruised and battered face, not to mention his filthy clothes, must have caused the reaction. Speaking of cooties . . .

  “It’s a twenty-minute ride to where I live. I’m sure my friend, Ashley, won’t mind if you crash on her couch for the night, and maybe take a shower in the morning.”

  The man had lifted the bottle to his lips, then drained it in one long swallow.

  “Much obliged for the water,” he’d said, his voice raspy and weak.

  He’d handed the empty bottle back to her, then sank against the leather seat. Clutching his stomach again, he’d grimaced, and closed his eyes.

  “He said ‘much obliged’?” Ashley’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree, just before someone pulled the plug, and she blurted, “I bet he’s involved with drugs.”

  “Why would you think that?” The thought had crossed Morgan’s mind, as well. Having Ashley say it out loud made her heart speed up. Had she really brought a junkie, or a potential drug dealer, into the same house where her son slept?

  What the heck were you thinking, Morgan?

  “Or maybe he’s running from the law. Why else would he refuse to go to the hospital in his condition? Morgan, you could have been killed.” With each word she uttered, Ashley became more animated, her words louder.

  “I had my wrench, and by the time I got in the driver’s seat, he was already passed out again.”

  “Wrench?” Ashley’s eyebrows shot up, the look of disbelief on her face growing.

  Morgan blew air through her mouth. “Yes, a wrench. I keep it for self-defense.”

  Ashley studied her intently, probably wondering why she’d even considered offering Morgan a place to live.

  “He could have killed you, Morgan,” she said again, a look of genuine concern on her face.

  “He doesn’t seem like the type,” Morgan argued.

  “What type is he then?” Ashley retorted. “He may be passed out cold right now, but what happens tomorrow, when he’s feeling a little better?”

  “I don’t know.” Morgan shrugged. “For some reason, he reminds me of those cowboys in Montana. You know, the genuine ones, who work on a ranch and aren’t afraid to get dirty, not those fake cowboys who wear expensive boots and line dance.”

  Ashley gaped at her. “And you came to this conclusion . . . how?”

  Morgan squirmed in her seat. She waved a hand in the direction of the living room.

  “I guess the cowboy hat I found with him gave it away,” she offered lamely. She couldn’t explain her odd reaction to this guy.

  Maybe it was those hands that could only belong to a guy who worked outdoors a lot. Not soft, but hard and calloused, and solid like the rest of him.

  Morgan swallowed a big gulp of ice tea, and crunched on an ice cube. Her fingers tingled from the brief contact her hand had made with his earlier. What was it about this guy that got her all squirmy inside, and not in an off-putting way? She didn’t know anything about him, yet there was something in the way he’d looked at her through the shadows, a look that pleaded for help and . . .

  Ashley laughed. “So, a cowboy hat and some old boots automatically qualify him as John Wayne?”

  “I’m sorry, Ashley,” Morgan implored. Her friend was right. She’d done a stupid thing, thinking with her heart instead of her head again. “I guess my mother got to me. My nerves were so frazzled after I talked to her on the phone that by the time I saw this guy, I wasn’t thinking clearly.” It was the best excuse she could come up with.

  Ashley shot her a look of fake outrage. “What? Your mother getting to you? I can’t imagine why.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ve met her, remember? The day you brought me to your house, I mean, palace, and she asked me if I was the new maid.”

  Morgan groaned and shifted on her seat. Ashley barely made ends meet. She’d inherited her little house from her grandmother, who’d raised her, and then signed the house over to her on her eighteenth birthday five years ago.

  Ashley had scraped to afford her college classes, and when her grandmother had become ill and had to be moved to a nursing facility six months ago, Ashley had given up school and moved from L.A. to this little desert community to be closer to her. To pay the bills, Ashley often worked double shifts at the local café. Morgan had been more than happy to accept her offer to move in and help her friend by paying rent.

  “I’m so sorry about that, Ashley.” Morgan had wanted to sink into the marble floor in her mother’s mansion the day she’d brought Ashley home, and her mother had treated her like a second-class citizen.

  Ashley laughed. “It’s okay. I don’t see how you and she are related. Maybe you were adopted.”

  “My dad wasn’t like that . . .” Morgan’s voice trailed off. “He didn’t let the money get to him. He never thought he was any better than the next person because of it.”

  “Well, I’m glad you take after him, and not your mother.” She reached out her hand, and patted Morgan’s from across the table, the serious look back on her face.

  “Morgan, this might be one stray you shouldn’t have picked up.”

  Morgan shot her a conspiratorial grin. “Who knows? There could be potential under all that dust.”

  * * * * *

  Gabe groaned and lifted his upper body from the sofa. He clutched at his stomach and raised himself to a sitting position. His insides and the rest of him felt as if he’d been trampled by an entire herd of horses. Something wet and cold fell away from his face, and he turned his head. He blinked to clear his blurred vision. His right eye was still swollen enough that he couldn’t open it fully. The soft glow of sunlight filtered in through, what appeared to be, shutters covering a large window, illuminating the otherwise dim space of a room.

  He glanced around at his unfamiliar surroundings. He was in a parlor of sorts. A short table stood a few feet away from the sofa on which he sat. An oddly-shaped lamp hung from the plastered ceiling, and Gabe squinted his good eye. It was a rather plain-looking, milky-colored dome attached to a wooden support, along with what looked like blades that reminded him of a windmill that was hung on its side. He’d never seen an oil or kerosene lamp like it. Perhaps it wasn’t even a lamp, but some ornate decoration.

  His eyes shot quickly to the ground when he leaned forward to stand. Someone had removed his boots, and his feet touched soft carpet. The only place where he’d ever set foot with a carpeted parlor had been Miss Mae’s Hotel, which was anything but a hotel. Cora had worked there for a number of years, until she’d decided it was time to move on again. She’d never liked to stay in one place too long. She’d always say she got too bored with her regular customers after a time.

  Gabe cursed under his breath, and touched his neck. The hanging rope had bitten into his flesh, and the burn mark it had left when he swung freely, after sending the horse forward stung now. He balled his hands into fists.

  Dammit, he should be dead. What the hell had happened? He’d barely been aware of his surroundings in the dark earlier. How much time had passed since he’d thought he’d woken up in purgatory? The air had been ho
t and dusty, and he’d hurt all over. He had no idea how long he’d lain there in the blackness, when bright lights had come from out of nowhere; two unnatural beams of bright lights, and the low rumble of thunder. First there’d been eternal darkness and pain, then . . . a woman appeared. Hell didn’t have scantily-clad beautiful women offering water to the damned, did it?

  She’d been there all through the dark hours, when he’d hovered between awareness and unconsciousness. Soft words, most of which he didn’t understand, along with the tender touches of her feminine hands, had soothed his aching body. He hadn’t fought to regain his senses, afraid she’d disappear from his imagination if he did. No woman had ever bestowed such tender care on him, not even Cora.

  Gabe startled at the sudden low humming sound that filled the room. A cold breeze blew across his face, coming from what he guessed was a vent in the wall across the room. A slight flutter and rustling of paper diverted his attention to the short-legged table in front of him. Several catalogs, of sorts, lay on top of the smooth glass. He leaned forward.

  Victoria’s Secret

  Hell. Victoria wasn’t hiding many of her secrets, by the looks of it. The fully-colored likeness of a woman with a seductive smile on her face, dressed in nothing but a very transparent, lacy chemise, that didn’t so much as cover her bare bottom, stared back at him.

  The memory of another woman, dressed in nothing but a cotton shirt, came to mind. Laney Monroe. She’d sure surprised everyone on her and Tyler’s wedding night with her unabashed display of skin and legs, and her unconventional ways had raised eyebrows on more than a few occasions. Gabe’s forehead wrinkled, and he cursed under his breath. Dread consumed him at the suspicion that had nagged at him since he’d first glimpsed the woman who’d saved him from the darkness. Anger heated his insides. He clenched his sore jaw.

  “Tell me, Laney. Does Tyler know? Have you told him that you’re from another . . . time?”

  Gabe had gambled with the impossible idea that Tyler’s wife had come from the future after overhearing her speak to Reverend Johnson about it.

  “He’s not exactly what he seems, is he?”

  He’d guessed correctly that the reverend could send Laney back to where she’d come from, and in doing so, his plan to ruin his brother would be complete. The woman Tyler loved more than anything would be gone forever. Tyler wasn’t supposed to find out what had happened to her when Gabe had her sent back to the future. It had been the best ending to his plan of giving his brother a taste of what it felt like to be miserable every day for the rest of his life.

  “What the hell did you do to me, Tyler?” he rasped.

  “I’m gonna see to it that you don’t hang, Gabe. Whether you want me to or not.”

  Tyler’s words from the night before his hanging rushed back to Gabe now with new meaning. Had Tyler turned the tables on him somehow? Gabe had watched as Laney told Reverend Johnson to send her back to her time. The old man had given her something to drink, telling her, “By morning, you will be back in your own time . . . when you wake up, you will be back where you came from.”

  Gabe cursed again. Tyler had offered him his canteen when he came to him at Ian’s place. It became more apparent with each passing second that Tyler hadn’t come because he’d simply wanted to talk to him one last time. Without even thinking, Gabe had eagerly swallowed what he’d thought was only water.

  “Without you, I can’t get my wife back.”

  Had Tyler and the reverend somehow schemed to send him to the future? Had the concoction the reverend gave to Tyler’s wife to send her back to her time worked on him, too? Gabe’s eyes darted around the room, his head filled with foreign images. Unfamiliar furnishings, catalogs with photographs that looked more real than anything he’d ever seen; lights coming from out of nowhere in the darkness, and the hazy visions of a beautiful woman coming to his aid.

  His legs went weak all of a sudden, and Gabe slumped back onto the sofa. He glimpsed the thing that had slid down his face and now lay on the floral-patterned cushion. Tentatively, he reached for it. The pouch felt slick and soft, and was oddly cold in his hand. Holding it up, the words Organic Green Peas were lettered in bold black type over a picture that looked too real to be painted, just like the image on the catalog. He’d seen photographs before, but none of them had been in color.

  There was no longer any doubt about where he was. Tyler and the reverend had sent him to the future!

  Chapter Four

  “Time for your nap, little man.”

  Morgan kissed Logan’s forehead, and smiled at her son. Hopefully he wouldn’t make too much of a fuss and fall asleep for his afternoon nap. She glanced longingly at her own bed in the corner of the room. She’d slept little the night before, keeping watch over the guy sleeping on the sofa. She’d kept a bag of frozen peas over his swollen eye for most of the night, washed his dirty face and hands, and dabbed antibiotic ointment on his cuts. Every now and then, he’d stirred and moaned in his sleep, but he hadn’t fully woken up.

  “There’s a can of mace in my nightstand drawer,” Ashley had said this morning just before she’d left for work. “Keep it with you, just in case.” She’d shot Morgan a meaningful glare. “I still think you should call the cops.”

  “I’ll be fine, Ashley,” Morgan had insisted, but she’d taken her friend’s advice, and kept the small spray can in the pocket of the shorts she wore. She’d managed to keep Logan occupied outside in the yard for most of the morning until it got too hot, and he’d played with his toys in their room while she checked on the guy and changed his ice pack.

  Logan babbled and giggled, and pointed at his animal book. Morgan turned the pages, pointing at and naming all the farm animals in the pictures.

  “What’s this one?” she asked, pointing to the horse.

  “Hoss-ee, hoss-ee,” Logan said. He mimicked a horse’s nickering, which sounded more like a laugh. He poked his finger at the picture enthusiastically.

  “That’s right, a horse,” Morgan said with a smile. “Maybe someday we’ll go and see some real horses. Would you like that?”

  Logan continued to point and make the nickering sound a horse might make. Morgan gazed at her son. She couldn’t imagine loving anyone the way she loved her little boy. He returned her smile, babbled happily in his baby talk, and reached his little hand up to her. He grabbed a handful of her hair, and tugged.

  Morgan leaned closer to him. “Don’t pull Mommy’s hair, sweetie. That’s ow-ee.” She jutted her lip out in a mock pout, and gently lifted his hand away from her hair. Since Logan’s birth, she’d let it grow longer than it had ever been, and it now reached well past her shoulders.

  “How about you get some sleep now, and maybe Mommy can close her eyes for a little bit, too?”

  She leaned down, and kissed Logan’s cheek, then tucked his cuddle blanket into his waiting arms. She stood and straightened her back, then turned to leave. A startled gasp escaped her mouth, and she instinctively reached for the can of pepper spray in her pocket. Filling the doorframe of her room was the guy she thought was still passed out on the living room couch.

  “You’re awake,” she stammered, and took a protective step in front of Logan’s crib. Her eyes assessed the guy from head to toe. No longer hunched over as he had been when she’d maneuvered him into her car, and then into the house last night, he was definitely bigger than she’d first assumed. He wore his battered old boots, the ones she’d painstakingly pulled from his feet the night before. Apprehension and adrenaline made her knees go weak. He stood there, just staring at her, the swollen eye giving him an almost dangerous appearance.

  Morgan swallowed. His good eye, the color of dark chocolate, slowly, methodically, traveled over her, lingering on her bare legs, then her arms and shoulders, before settling on her face. Her hand gripped the can of mace tighter, ready to defend herself if needed. Plenty of guys had checked her out before, but there was something different in this one’s gaze. Rather than leering, he perused he
r, as if he was trying to make sense of something.

  He ran a hand along his jaw, and audibly cleared his throat. “Beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said slowly. His deep voice, not quite as weak and raspy as it had been the last time she heard him talk, held a distinct drawl. Definitely not southern, but the sort of drawl she remembered from those Montana wranglers on the guest ranch where she’d vacationed with Ashley.

  “Didn’t mean to put a scare in you,” he said, his gaze lingering at her hand that held the pepper spray. He even backed up a step as if he realized that he must look threatening to her.

  “I just didn’t expect you to be awake,” Morgan answered, keeping her voice even. Her heart rate slowed to a more normal speed. His polite words struck her again, just as they had last night. She moved toward him, intent on getting him out of her bedroom and away from Logan.

  “I was just settling my son in for his nap. Let’s go back to the living room, or the kitchen.”

  He backed up into the hall, his gaze fixed on her. Morgan flashed him a quick smile to disguise her nerves, and moved past him, closing the door behind her. If Logan made a fuss, she’d hear him on the baby monitor in the kitchen.

  “I bet you’re hungry, or at least thirsty,” she called over her shoulder. She breathed a sigh of relief when he followed her into the kitchen. She turned to face him fully.

  “Have a seat. You still look a little pale.”

  “You, ah, fixin’ on putting on some decent clothes, or is this the normal way women dress in this time?”

  Morgan’s eyes shot up, and she forced her mouth to remain closed. His look was completely serious.

  “Excuse me?” She didn’t even have a quick retort to what he’d said.

  “Is it normal for women in your time to dress like strumpets?” he continued. “Not even the ladies at Miss Mae’s Gentleman’s Club walk around baring their limbs the way you’re doing.”

  Morgan shook her head. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. Strumpet? And she’d thought this guy was polite?