Time Plains Drifter

by Cheryl Pierson

  He grimaced and stood slowly. His fingers went to the small of his back automatically before he bent to massage his leg, then walk a few steps to ease the strain of the muscles. The twinges faded, but Rafe knew he hadn’t imagined either of them.

  If I’m dead, how can I hurt? Was this part of what Beck tried to explain to him earlier, about giving in to the “human” side of himself—those “bodily urges?” Beck seemed horrified Rafe even entertained the thought of wanting to live again—in a normal, human state.

  But he did, God help him. He did. Five minutes with Miss Jenni Dalton was all it took to reaffirm that conviction to the fullest measure.

  There was something about her; something strong, yet, so vulnerable. Her eyes captivated him, her lips seductively beckoned to be kissed—but what if she knew she was kissing a ghost? A dead man?

  His glance strayed to Jenni once more as she stood up. He controlled the urge to go after young Kody Everett and choke the life from his body for his deceit.

  Jenni came toward Rafe, her back held ramrod straight. Without conscious thought, he opened his arms to her, and she kept right on walking, right into his embrace, until he closed the gates of safety across her back and held her to him, protected inside his fortress.

  She didn’t cry, and Rafe knew it was because she was too exhausted. They stood that way for a long moment, breathing the night air. He wanted to give her what she needed—shelter, safety, and...togetherness. She wasn’t alone any more, and he wanted her to know it.

  He felt her take a shuddering breath of bone-deep weariness. Who was waiting for her in her own time, to comfort her like this when she returned?

  “Jen?”

  “Hmm?” Her voice was a contented purr.

  He smiled. “Where you come from, are you, uh—married, or—”

  “Huh-uh. No husband. No kids. Nobody at all.”

  “No—betrothed?” He searched for a word they might still use a hundred and twenty years from now, and by the way she smiled against his shirt, he knew he had sounded old-fashioned to her. “Okay, what’s your word for it?”

  “Boyfriend. Fiancé. Lover—”

  “Lover!”

  She drew back at his indignation, looking him in the face. “It’s...it’s just a word,” she stammered. “It really doesn’t mean—”

  “Don’t say that one,” Rafe shook his head to clear it. “What I mean is—you wouldn’t want to say that around anyone. They’d take you for a—loose woman.”

  She looked up earnestly into his smoldering gaze, liquefying his bones with her piercing green eyes, her lips full and sensual, the tangle of copper hair blowing in the breeze. “Would you think I was ‘loose’ if I asked you to...to just lie down beside me? It’s not that I’m afraid,” she hastened to add. “I just feel—kind of shaken up.”

  “You’re not loose. I know that, Jenni.” Desire made his voice husky. Maybe I wish you were. Just for the rest of tonight. But he didn’t say it.

  “Thank you,” Jenni murmured gratefully. “Thank you for just being here.”

  As they lay down together, Rafe left a foot of space between them. “If we get any closer, your students might—well, it wouldn’t be proper,” he responded to her questioning look.

  She lay down, and turned away from him, and Rafe knew he embarrassed her. He wished he could touch her, reassure her. Rafe glanced at her. By the relaxed way she was lying on the hard ground, he knew she’d fallen asleep almost as soon as she lay down.

  He was realizing being dead meant he didn’t get tired. Or sleepy. It gave him the rest of the night to lie next to the most beautiful woman he’d ever known, fighting another of those characteristics of his human side.

  He was so hard for her he ached. Again. Still. He sighed. It was going to be a long, long night. He may not have been to Hell, but it burned his soul from where he lay.

  ~*~

  Sometime in the short hours between darkness and sunrise, Rafe did sleep. The smell of frying bacon awoke him and he felt his mouth watering before he ever opened his eyes. Wrong again, Beck.

  Because you indulge it, Rafe.

  The words were as clear as if Beck had spoken them aloud, standing beside him. Rafe sat up quickly, looking toward the center of the clearing. It was barely daylight, and Beck already had a fire blazing, a coffee pot suspended on a spit over the cheery flames. In the coal pit beside the fire, sourdough biscuits browned in the Dutch oven, and Beck whistled tunelessly as he reached to turn the bacon. He never glanced Rafe’s way.

  Rafe scowled. He rose and made his way toward Beck, picking the choicest of the words he wanted to say to the angel.

  Beck suddenly held up a hand, and Rafe realized Beck already knew what was on his mind—literally. He didn’t even need to open his mouth.

  “I know, I know,” Beck muttered as Rafe drew close. “I was just doing my job.”

  “Doing your job?” Rafe’s voice rose in incredulous anger over the hiss of the bacon. He glanced quickly around at the sleeping forms to be sure no one was awake before he continued. He turned back to Beck. “First, you bring me back from—from God knows where—and tell me to ‘ignore my bodily urges’ while I try to live as a human. I’m a damn ghost in a man’s body! I don’t know why I’m here or even what I really am anymore! Been dead for sixteen fuckin’ years. Now, here I am again, back for more. I don’t know what or who wants to use me, Beck, but I plan to find out. I want some straight answers for once.”

  Beck raised calm blue eyes to Rafe’s angry stare. He stood up. “All you ever had to do was ask me, Rafe. I’ll tell you...everything I can.”

  Rafe cast another glance around them at the still-sleeping figures on the ground, his gaze lingering on Jenni. His lips curved upward in a mockery of a smile. “Everything, huh, Beck?” He took a step closer. “What the hell happened here, anyway? Not just with me, but who are these people?” His expression clouded. “Are they dead, too?”

  Beck winced at the harsh note in Rafe’s tone.

  “No. They’re—very much alive...just a bit—displaced.”

  Rafe clamped his teeth together. “No more riddles! I want to know—”

  “All right, all right!” Beck turned and hunkered down beside the fire, removing the pan of bacon from the flames. Rafe squatted beside him.

  “What’s all this talk about?” Rafe prodded. “Seems like that damn comet set this whole thing off.”

  Beck nodded, reluctantly. “That’s why they’re here.” He removed the bacon strips from the pan and placed them on a blue enamel camp plate. Then he cut more strips from the side of pork. “The comet rearranged the bands of time. Each time it passes by earth, it’s close enough to cause—problems.” He cleared his throat. “Sometimes, people go forward—into the future—and sometimes, they go backward. Miss Dalton and her students just happened to be caught in the right place at the right time, or the wrong time, depending on how they might look at it.”

  The fresh round of bacon sizzled and popped, and Beck seemed to find fascination in the cast iron skillet. Rafe realized it was because Beck already knew what his next question would be before he asked it. He asked it anyway. “Can they get back to their own time?”

  “Maybe,” Beck said gruffly. “If they’re still around in a hundred and twenty years.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The boys wolfed down the biscuits and bacon as if they hadn’t eaten in months. Beck smiled approvingly and poured himself another cup of coffee. No one seemed to question the magical acquisition of camp kits and horses for everyone.

  The girls ate hungrily, but not with as much gusto as the boys, Rafe noticed. His eyes rested on Jenni, and he felt the pull between them once more. He wanted to draw her aside and try to comfort her, to erase the worry in her jewel-green eyes. She’d be safe, as long as she was with him. As if she’d read his thoughts, she lifted her head and met his gaze. Her expression was peculiar, he thought, as if she wanted to say something to him, but she glanced away quickly.

 
He silently cursed the automatic tightening in his crotch that seemed to occur every time he looked at her. He’d never wanted any woman like he wanted her. It puzzled him, but it also made him angry with himself. He had a job to do—whatever it might be—then his time would be over. He’d go back to being dead again—or whatever happened to angels who weren’t needed at the moment. And Jenni—Miss Dalton—would be stuck here in a century she didn’t belong to, with the responsibility of these teenage students.

  What would she do, here, alone?

  Absently, Rafe took a biscuit from the pan and bit into it, then helped himself to a piece of bacon. The bacon was good; not as crisp as he usually liked it, but he figured Beck had been in a hurry to get enough done for everyone.

  Beck glanced up just then, as if Rafe had called his name aloud. As he caught sight of Rafe with the remaining bit of bacon in his hand, his look turned to one of reproach.

  You’re giving in to it again, Rafe.

  Rafe scowled. You’re damn straight.

  Their eyes clashed, and finally Beck looked away as Joel approached him for another biscuit. That didn’t stop his thoughts from hitting Rafe’s consciousness.

  You’re going to wish you’d been stronger, Rafael. You’re going to turn all human again, and—

  “Here son, have another one for your friend over there.” Beck nodded toward Kip as he gave Joel two biscuits. He didn’t glance at Rafe again, though Rafe’s eyes were boring into him relentlessly now.

  Turn all human again? Rafe finished the last bite of bacon and started toward Beck, who quickly walked away with the pan of leftover biscuits and bacon, asking if anyone wanted more.

  What does that mean, Beck? “Turn all human again.”

  Beck kept walking, offering the biscuits to everyone until there were only two left. Rafe closed the distance between them. When Beck turned around to head back to the fire, Rafe stood blocking his way.

  “We need to talk.” Rafe’s voice was low and purposeful.

  Beck nodded. “All right.” He seemed reluctant.

  “You said all I had to do was ask. I’m asking.”

  “C’mon. Let me set these biscuits down, and—”

  “Mr. Jansen?”

  Both men turned at the sound of Jenni Dalton’s voice.

  “You haven’t eaten yet, have you?” She stood up and came toward Rafe and Beck. “You fixed us such a wonderful breakfast, but I haven’t seen you eat anything. Why don’t you have those last two biscuits?”

  Beck looked uncomfortable, and Rafe watched to see what he would do.

  “Uhhh—well, ma’am, I’m really not hungry just yet,” he answered lamely.

  She glanced around the clearing in the early morning light, a delicate shiver going through her body, worry in her eyes. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, where did you get the horses from? We certainly can’t pay you for them, and—”

  “Now, never you mind about that, Miss,” Beck answered, obviously relieved to have left the subject of breakfast. “These are just some horses I—uh—” he gulped, then finished quickly, “rounded up.”

  Jenni masked the quick surge of doubt in her expression at his pronouncement. Her gaze went past him, over his shoulder, to where the horses stood picketed at the edge of the clearing. When she spoke, her voice was wistful, and Rafe thought she was seeing past the horses, even, into another time. “I always wanted a horse, but—” she stopped, not finishing her sentence, and gave a shy smile. “I guess we need to get these dishes cleaned up and try to find the nearest town.” She peered up at them through soft green eyes, and Rafe’s pulse sped up. “Do you know where we are exactly, Mr. Jansen?”

  It galled Rafe that she would ask Beck, instead of him. It was just as well, he thought bitterly. Hell, he didn’t know where they were, either, even if she had asked him. He would have made a fool of himself, had he tried to formulate an answer.

  “I mean, are we anywhere near Oklahoma City at all? When that comet passed over, it really shook us up. Nothing is familiar, not even—” she stopped, looking down at her own clothing. “I guess you both must think I’m crazy.”

  Rafe listened to the melodic lilt in her voice more than the words she spoke.

  It was Beck who cut in quickly, reassuring her.“Now, now, Miss Dalton. We know better’n that. From what I’ve heard, that comet’s a pesky varmint.” He patted her arm awkwardly, and glanced at Rafe who looked about to growl with jealousy. “We’ll head on out here as soon as we’re all ready.”

  Jenni nodded. “I—I’ll tell the others. We’ll hurry. We don’t want you having to wait on us. I’m sure you’ve got other things to do.”

  Rafe’s gaze followed her as she walked to where the girls sat on the fallen log and bent to them.

  “Don’t do it, Rafe.” Beck’s voice was low, but held a definite warning.

  “Do what?” Rafe wheeled to face Beck. He’d be damned if he’d just lie down. Beck had no right to tell him not to do anything. And he still hadn’t gotten the answers he’d asked for earlier.

  “Don’t get involved,” Beck said evenly, as if he wasn’t aware of Rafe’s simmering anger. “Look, Rafe. I know this is all kind of new. But there are plans for us, for what we’ve gotta do. You’re here for a reason, and Jennifer Dalton—well, she’s not part of it. At least, not in a romantic way.”

  “Says who?” Rafe’s dark eyes flashed fire. “Beck, I can’t explain this—this whatever it is. There’s something between us. I feel it—and so does she. On the surface, we both know it’s crazy, but there’s something there. Now, if that doesn’t fit in with your ‘plans,’ that’s too damn bad.”

  Beck winced as if Rafe had physically punched him. “Stop, Rafe. You don’t know what you’re saying! When you talk like that, it’s because you don’t understand what you’ll be giving up.”

  Rafe leaned close to Beck, teeth clenched. “I don’t care, Beck. I don’t know anything, anyway! So how am I supposed to realize what I’ll be ‘giving up’?”

  Beck raised his eyes heavenward in silent supplication, then closed them momentarily. “Rafe—” he began, then broke off as he noticed the others coming toward them. “I’ll explain it to you tonight.” He held up his hands as Rafe started to protest. “I promise.” He glanced nervously toward the approaching group, and Rafe knew he would just have to wait. Again.

  ~*~

  “I guess now wouldn’t be a good time to mention that I’ve never ridden a horse before,” Jenni said softly.

  She stood close beside Rafe, watching as Beck went about his business, patiently showing the boys how to put a foot in the stirrup and throw a leg over.

  “You’ll ride with me,” Rafe heard himself answer, as if that had been the plan all along.

  “Miss Dalton?”

  Jenni turned to face Anna, who stood a few feet away. The girl’s face was flushed. “I—I’d like to ride with Kody—if that’s okay.”

  Jenni smiled reassuringly at Anna. “Sure. You go ahead, Anna.” Anna gathered her skirts up to walk through the dew-damp grass and reached for Kody’s outstretched hand. He pulled her up easily behind him, her arms going around his waist.

  Suddenly, Kip stretched out his arm, his head turning slowly until his vacant stare focused on Elizabeth. She gasped and put her hands to her mouth, her blue eyes alight with this unbelievable possibility. She took a faltering step toward him, his gaze seeming to compel her as words continued to fail him.

  Gently, she placed her hand in his, wary of his ability to pull her up behind him, but he did so as if he’d done it every day of his life.

  Threading her arms about Kip’s waist, Elizabeth laid her head against his shoulder blade.

  Jenni cast a quick look at Rafe. “Will they be all right, do you think? I mean, Kip is so—so not himself—”

  Rafe grinned. “They’ll be fine. May be just what he needs to bring him back to his old ‘self.’ We’ll ride close for a while, just in case.” He took the saddle horn in his hands and swung up e
ffortlessly, then thrust a hand down to Jenni.

  The horse looked huge. In all the years she’d imagined she wanted one of these beasts, she’d never realized how truly—big—they were. But Rafe was waiting, his hand unmoving, solid. She reached for it. As they touched, their fingers locked. Lightning jolted through her for a long moment, holding her spellbound, unable to move. Then, the sinewed strength of taut muscle pulled her up. She closed her eyes and prayed that she would not make a spectacle of herself. She landed on the back of the horse behind Rafe, the saddle scooping her down close to his hard body, her breasts pressed against his back.

  As if he didn’t notice, he turned the horse and let him fall into a gentle canter as they headed west toward Oklahoma City in the cool April morning.

  ~*~

  Rafe slowed the horse and fell back away from the others. He wanted some answers to the questions burning in his mind all through the interminable sleepless night before. He had lain beside Jenni Dalton willing himself to maintain the space between their bodies. She tantalized him, lying a scant eight inches from him, her hair tumbling from the loose bun.

  He’d watched her sleep, and stopped himself time and again from reaching for her. Not for the sake of desire, but because he wanted to comfort her, to erase the worried lines on her face even as she slept. Maybe, if he could just pull her close to him and hold her, she would relax. She was so young—not much older than her charges. Rafe figured her to be in her early twenties. The more he observed her, the more he wondered what kind of life she’d left behind—and if he could make her forget it.

  “Rafe?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at her, and smiled at her quizzical expression.

  “I’ve said your name twice,” she told him, a hint of teasing in her tone. “We’re falling behind the others.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed wryly, thinking of Becket Jansen’s purposeful blue eyes. “I can pretty much assure you we won’t get lost.”

  “So, how long have you been a marshal?”

  “Ten years. Started when I was nineteen.”

  “Do you like it? I mean, ten years–it’s a pretty rough life sometimes, isn’t it?”