Yesterday's Kiss

by Fall, Carly

  “Margaret?”

  Her name rolled off his tongue, sending a shiver down her spine.

  “Yes?”

  “May I escort you to where you’re staying?”

  She looked up and down the now-quiet Brewery Gulch, then up at her hotel sitting on the side of the mountain. If he did walk her home, she could invite him in and question him further about her past life, as well as his. A deep feeling of trust resonated within her, as well as a strong feeling of longing to be close to him.

  She tried to put her hand on his forearm again, but it went right through. One of two things was happening here: she was truly going crazy, or Joseph was telling the truth.

  If she invited him back to her room, he couldn’t hurt her, could he? She swiped her hand through his forearm again. He couldn’t physically hurt her if they couldn’t meet skin-to-skin, right? But maybe the psychological damage he could do was more pronounced. If he was a figment of her imagination, wasn’t she the one doing the psychological damage to herself?

  Maggie sighed. All she knew was that she was very interested in Joseph and his life, whether he was a fabrication or not. And if he was, he wouldn’t be able to hurt her, right?

  Joseph also seemed to be leading her through this magnificent land of the past, and then back again to the present. Even if she didn’t like who she had been and what she witnessed in the past, she found the experience fascinating. She wanted to know him, his history, and learn about their lives together.

  “Margaret?”

  And there was the fact that he called her by her given name. No one called her Margaret. It had been a family name, but was only given to her as a formality. She had always been called Maggie.

  What the hell? If he were ghost, or a figment of her imagination, he couldn’t physically hurt her. But she also knew from past experience with Jerry that words sometimes hurt a lot more than she imagined a fist would.

  She sighed. “Yes, Joseph, please take me back to the hotel.”

  Chapter 7

  He followed her up the steps to her room. Like before, she noticed the stairs creaking under her weight, but not with Joseph. It was as if he was made of air.

  A door at the landing opened, and Maggie’s breath caught in her throat. A couple staying at the hotel emerged from their room and smiled at her. Maggie stepped aside so they could go down the stairs, but Joseph was still halfway down the stairwell.

  They descended and walked right through him. She couldn’t help but stare as he made his way up the last few steps.

  “Like I said, I’m dead,” Joseph said, grinning.

  Even though she had witnessed the same feat a few times, it still surprised her.

  “Which way to your room, Margaret?”

  Unable to speak, she pointed to the left and led the way.

  Unlocking the door, she took another deep breath and walked into her suite. Joseph slowly walked in, looking around as if he was trying to absorb every detail. She tried to see it through his eyes. Back when he was alive, there hadn’t been any televisions, Internet, dishwashers, or electricity. How different life had been back then. Things had been so much harsher.

  That was one thing about the past Maggie found so interesting. She often wondered how she would have fared in those times if she could go back and experience them first-hand. She supposed that people in one hundred years would read the history of this century and think the same thing.

  After a moment, he turned to her and looked her up and down. “My Margaret,” he whispered and smiled. “You look very tired, my love. Please, go dress in your nightclothes and get into bed. You are among the living and need your rest or you’ll fall ill.”

  “And what will you do?” she asked, thinking of his ability to ghost through walls, feeling a bit insecure about the whole situation.

  “I shall remain right here until you are in bed, and then I shall come in and we can talk further, if you wish.”

  She nodded and headed for the bedroom, but then turned around. “And you? Do you sleep?”

  He smiled sadly. “No, my love. I have no need for sleep, although I do miss a good night’s rest. I have simply walked the earth for a century waiting for you to return.”

  Maggie weighed his words and tried to put herself in his position. It must have been a lonely existence; one hundred years was a long time.

  She went into the bathroom to change, taking care to lock the door. She quickly put on her mint-green nightshirt, washed her face, and piled her hair on top of her head. She wondered if Joseph visited the past and the present as he had done with her, or was he stuck in the present and there was another force at work allowing them to travel back and forth? Or was this all some sort of crazy dream and she was going to wake up in her condo in Phoenix at any given time?

  She went back out to the living room. It was strange to see a man in her living area. She’d lived alone for a year, and there hadn’t been anyone since Jerry.

  Joseph eyed her, then slowly turned around.

  Maggie looked down at herself. The knee-length cotton gown wasn’t obscene by any means, with its slight dip in the collar. “What’s wrong?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest and feeling vulnerable. She half-expected Joseph to say something terrible about her body as Jerry would have done.

  “Ah, Margaret,” Joseph said. “To see you in your nightclothes ready to retire again is like gazing upon a blooming flower for the first time. You are beauty beyond measure.”

  Really? Her neck and cheeks warmed. She had zero makeup on, and her ratty hair was piled on top of her head. However, as much as she tried to fight it, his words made her heart and confidence soar. Standing there in her too-big nightshirt and scrubbed-cleaned face, she realized she had never felt more sexy or beautiful as she did at that moment. It was liberating and disconcerting, as the person—or ghost, in this case—may or may not actually exist.

  “Please, Margaret. Although we were once married and shared our marriage bed, I feel as though I barely know you. Go to your bedroom and cover yourself. When you have done so, let me know, and I will come watch over you while you sleep.”

  The thought of someone watching her sleep creeped her out more than a little bit, but this wasn’t just anyone. This was Joseph. This was her husband in a former life. Maybe. Unless she was losing her mind, which was entirely possible. He was too handsome, too kind, too polite. In essence, he seemed perfect for her, everything she had always imagined in a man, everything she had never found.

  As she walked into the bedroom and crawled into bed, she wondered if her mind was conjuring up everything that was unflawed in a man to contradict what she had left behind in Phoenix—a selfish, arrogant, narcissistic jerk.

  Pulling the sheet up over her chest, she sighed. “I’m decent, Joseph,” she called, almost expecting no one to enter.

  Joseph filled the doorway, pulled a chair over, and sat down next to the bed. He pushed his hair off his forehead and put his foot over his knee, crossing his arms over his chest, giving her a warm smile.

  “I see you still like your bed neat and tidy, just like I do,” he said. “All corners tucked in tight.”

  Maggie gasped, shocked, and unable to speak. Yes, that was just the way she liked her bed.

  Joseph didn’t seem to notice her reaction. “I will watch over you tonight, my lovely Margaret,” he said softly. “Close your eyes and go to sleep.”

  “You don’t need to watch over me,” she said, yawning, and finally finding her voice.

  “Hmmm . . . I used to watch you sleep, Margaret. Perhaps I never told you.”

  Even if he had, she wouldn’t remember. “Maybe,” she murmured, curling on her side, facing Joseph.

  Yes, she was tired, but the enigma in front of her held so many questions. If he was a figment of her imagination, she thought the answers to her questions would already be lodged in her brain, but they weren’t. Maggie wanted to know more about the man . . . or ghost . . . in front of her.

  She
went over what she knew as the facts. She was able to see him when others couldn’t. Somehow, it felt as though she was able to travel between the past and the present, and he seemed to be the catalyst.

  On a more personal level, she felt such a deep, intense connection with him, as if she had been in love with him in another time. She felt so comfortable in his presence, and found his claim of marriage in another lifetime difficult to ignore. However, as deep as she dug within herself, she couldn’t remember the details of what made up this man. She figured if she was crazy and he was a figment of her imagination—a reaction to what she had left behind in Phoenix—maybe the details wouldn’t be very vivid.

  “Tell me about yourself, Joseph Ransom,” she said, his name rolling off her tongue easily. She sat up quickly, shocked that she said his last name and he didn’t correct her.

  “Is that your last name?” she asked.

  “Yes, it is, Margaret. It used to be yours as well.”

  She swallowed heavily. She shouldn’t have known his last name.

  “You don’t remember anything about me?” he asked, a flash of disappointment crossing his face.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t,” she said, her voice soft with guilt. “I just have these . . . these vague feelings about you.”

  “And what are they, if I may ask?”

  Maggie tried to put what she felt into words. “I just feel . . . I feel comfortable around you. I feel as if I should know you, like I should know everything about you. It’s like when I’m trying to remember someone’s name. It’s right on the tip of my tongue, but for the life of me, I can’t remember it. That’s how it feels. It’s like it’s right here,” she said, tapping her forehead, “but I just can’t dislodge it.”

  He sighed. “No worries, my love. It’s to be expected. Who knows how many lifetimes you’ve had since we parted.”

  The thought jolted her. Were there more lifetimes? If so, what were they? How did she live? How did she die?

  “You look pale, Margaret.”

  She stared into his light blue eyes. “If this is real, and you are who you say you are, how did I die?”

  “You died in childbirth,” he said, his eyes clouding over.

  Sadness ripped through her gut, and she pulled her knees up closer to her chest. “What happened to the baby?” she whispered.

  “He died as well. According to the doctor, he was early, but he was still breeched.”

  Sadness overwhelmed her as tears fell from her eyes. It was as if she had just lost her child a few minutes ago, not a century ago.

  She studied Joseph. He didn’t meet her gaze and stared at the floor. After a moment, he swiped at his cheeks and let out a deep breath.

  Obviously, the lost baby and her subsequent death had affected him deeply. If he was a ghost and the loss had happened over one hundred years ago, the wound was still raw, or at least just lightly scabbed over.

  “What else do you wish to know?” he asked, meeting her gaze.

  An overwhelming need to know his past overcame her. “Please, Joseph, tell me who you are. Tell me all about you.”

  Chapter 8

  Joseph William Ransom was born in 1885 to a farmer on the East Coast. After a harsh winter, where his mother had died from an illness, his father decided his eldest son would have a better life. At the age of seventeen, Joseph was put on a train out west.

  It took him just over a month to arrive in Bisbee in 1902. His father had spared what he could in terms of money, but Joseph arrived with very little in his pockets.

  He quickly found work as a grunt in the mine and sheltered in a miners’ house, which consisted of nothing more than a bed and a shared outhouse.

  The town of Bisbee was the largest city between San Francisco and St. Louis, and boasted a population of over twenty thousand.

  “We didn’t have opulent surroundings such as this,” Joseph said, waving his hand around the room. “As a miner, I had a bed, a path to an outhouse, and a place to build a fire, if I was lucky. Thankfully, the climate in this area is fairly mild.”

  Joseph spent his days hundreds of feet within the mine in the dark, pulling cars full of dirt and debris and shoveling mud. He knew he wanted to work his way up and paid attention to everything around him. When he saw safety measures that could possibly be improved on, he mentioned it to his supervisors. At first, they laughed and cast his ideas aside, but after a while, they listened to him.

  “They took my ideas and presented them to their managers, not giving me credit. I quickly realized that I would need to make waves if I were to get ahead.”

  At the end of his shift, he emerged from the earth only to have his eyes burn from the intense sunlight. He fell into a habit of going back to his small room and cleaning up the best he could, and then heading out for an ale in Brewery Gulch. Afterward, he liked to spend his time reading by the candlelight in his small quarters.

  “That’s what you and I talked about that first night,” Joseph said. “Imagine my surprise when a prostitute spoke to me of books over tea.”

  Despite her past employment, Maggie couldn’t help but smile. If there was such a thing as a previous life, there were obviously some traits a person possessed that transcended time. For her, it was love of books.

  As time went on, Joseph brought his thoughts and ideas about safety to the upper levels of management. His superiors threatened him when they were made aware of his transgressions, but it was too late. Joseph was quickly plucked from the masses and brought in among the folds of upper-tier management. He still toiled in the depths of the mines, but now his job was to make sure the miners worked in as safe environment as possible.

  “It was a huge responsibility,” Joseph said. “One I took very seriously.”

  He had been working on improving safety measures in the mine for just over a year when he saw Maggie for the first time.

  “There had been rumors that some new ladies were arriving in town. When I stepped out of the bar and saw you, I knew you were different, that you didn’t belong in that profession.”

  “How did you know?” she asked, her eyelids heavy.

  “It was just a feeling. Just a feeling that resonated here,” he said, touching his stomach.

  Maggie watched him as he spoke, his gaze on her earnest and sincere. She felt lost in his story, fascinated by the rough world he lived in despite her place in it.

  “And what happened then?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I was determined to court you, but I couldn’t allow another man’s hands on you. I spent almost every cent I had buying out your time every night.”

  Every night he would show up when her shift started, and every night he would hand the Madame as much cash as he could give. Because he had moved up the ranks in the mining company, he was able to buy her time for the whole night. “There were other times where I believe the Madame understood I was simply smitten with you and she let me stay out of the kindness of her heart, which was a rare thing. I’d never met a kind Madame.”

  Their story became legendary in Bisbee. The women in town—especially the whores—wanted their knight in shining armor to come and sweep them away. The women had begged and pleaded with him with promises of anything he wanted if they would simply take them instead of Margaret. The men hated him for what he was doing. If the women couldn’t have Joseph, then they wanted a replacement, and none of the men in town wanted to follow in his footsteps. According to the men, a whore was a whore—not wife-worthy or acceptable for bearing children.

  “The men gave me a hard time, but I wouldn’t be deterred. The women couldn’t faze me. You were the one for me.”

  “What did we do all those nights?” she asked.

  He smiled. “We had tea and talked. After a few weeks, I stole my first kiss from you. Your lips were like satin pillows, but they also packed the punch of a freight train. Our first kiss was magic . . . pure magic.”

  Maggie’s heart beat faster as she thought about kissing Joseph, and an ache spre
ad in her lower belly. It would have been amazing, of that she was certain, as she gazed at his full lips. Her heart filled with longing of what was in the past.

  “You need to sleep, Margaret,” he said. “We can discuss more of this tomorrow.”

  Sleep pulled at her. The moonlight streamed through the windows, catching the handsome grooves of his face. She didn’t want to sleep. Her eyelids began to close, and she remembered she would be heading home the day after tomorrow. She debated mentioning this to Joseph, but decided against it.

  Tomorrow she planned on seeing more of Bisbee, and she wondered if Joseph would accompany her. She figured if he was a hallucination, then probably yes. If he was real . . . well, who knew?

  Chapter 9

  Maggie woke in the middle of the night with a raging headache. She moaned and rolled over, recognizing it as what she called a “weather headache.”

  It was more accurate than the World Clock. The day before the weather began to change, she usually woke up with one of these headaches. The pain started at the base of her skull and traveled up over her head and settled onto the front of her face. It was excruciating.

  “Can I get you something, Margaret?”

  She moaned but didn’t bother to open her eyes. Although she’d never experienced voices in the middle of one of the headaches, it didn’t surprise her. While it its throes, time seemed to either speed up or slow down. She could never get to full consciousness, and frankly, she never wanted to. During this time, Maggie’s dreams were far more vivid, and she often woke wondering if a dream had been reality and visa-versa. The fact that she was hearing voices during this time of agony just made her wonder if she were having a vivid dream.

  “No,” she whispered, burying her head under the pillows. God, the pain . . .”

  “Are you having a ‘weather headache’?”

  Finally, someone in her dreams who understood what she was going through. Jerry rarely had sympathy for the headaches, but who did this voice belong to?