by Lexi Post
With her hand firmly around the base of his erection, she reclined on top of him and brought her lips close to his. “So exactly what are the limits on my ‘anything’?”
Braeden’s arm encircled her, pinning her to his chest. “Anything I want.” His lips found hers and she moaned into his mouth as her own filled with his tongue stroking hers. She caressed his hardness, touching his tip with her thumb.
He broke the kiss, his breathing faster. “You have too many clothes on.”
“No, I don’t. I’m not going to bed. You are.” She smirked.
“Oh yes you are.” He fairly growled at her as he rolled them over, his naked body pinning her to the bed from the waist down. “Now how do we get this damn fish skeleton off you?”
She laughed. “They are called stays and they are tied in the back.”
His growl of frustration just made her laugh more. “They were determined to protect their women back in the 1790s, weren’t they?”
“Yes. Women protected their virtue because it was all they had. And the harder it was to have some randy young buck get them out of their clothes, the better the chances they had to stay pure.” She smiled innocently and lowered her lashes.
“Randy buck? I’m not some deer in heat. I just want to dive into your sweet, beautiful body with my now-aching cock.”
She caught her breath at his words and felt heat rush to her face, even as an ache started again between her legs. He watched her so closely she was sure he could read her mind because a slow grin of triumph spread across his face.
“You like to hear what I want to do with your body, don’t you?”
At his words, a shiver of need raced through her. She did want to—
The grandmother clock in the hall began to chime. She froze.
“Kat, what is it? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
She stared into his warm brown eyes and her vision blurred. “I can’t do this.”
“What?”
“Let me up.”
“Kat, it’s okay.”
She struggled to move her legs. “No, it’s not.”
“Okay, okay. Hold on.” He carefully untangled his legs from her skirts and rolled off her to sit on the edge of the bed. “What is it?”
She leapt up to put space between them, cooling space. She crossed her arms over her stomach and leaned against her armoire, three paces away from him. “You will be gone tomorrow.”
He nodded, his eyes never leaving her face. “Yes. That’s true.”
“And at the next festival,” she swallowed hard, “next year, your brother will return as the Headless Horseman.”
“I hope so because that will mean he has recovered fully from his surgery.”
“Then there would be no reason for you to come here.”
“I see. You’re right.” He pulled his hand through his hair and looked away. In that one movement, he validated her decision.
“I can’t couple with you and then forget about you. It will be hard enough as it is with all we have shared this weekend. I’m sure you will find a woman who pleases you.” Jealousy flared unexpected and had her tightening her grip to stop her stomach’s twitches. “I’m not like that. I’m sorry.”
Braeden stood in his naked glory and stepped toward her.
She shook her head and tried to burrow back into her armoire, but it was a sturdy piece of furniture and it stopped her retreat.
He cupped her cheek and stroked his thumb across it. “I understand and respect your decision.” He gave a large sigh. “I don’t like it, but I will respect it.”
Her heart told her not to turn him away, but her head prevailed. Still, she bit her lower lip to keep from giving in.
He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Sleep well.”
As soon as he stepped back from her, she grabbed her pillow and quilt from the floor and left, closing the door hard behind her. She walked along the hallway to the parlor and glanced at the clock. 10:17. It only took her seventeen minutes to come to her senses, and in less than two hours Braeden would come to his.
She stripped down to her shift and crawled onto the settee, pulling her quilt to her chin, her stomach still in knots and her eyes still moist with unshed tears. Tomorrow she would face a lot of questions from her fellow villagers and another week preparing for the festival. Braeden would face another year. But deep in her heart, an ember of hope refused to go out.
* * * * *
Cold. Braeden rolled onto his back. Something itched his butt. He scratched at it, but the dominant feeling was cold. Blindly, he reached for the quilt he’d crawled under when Kat left him and grasped nothing.
It must have fallen off the bed. Damn. Opening his eyes reluctantly, he stared up at the night sky, the stars twinkling in the crisp autumn air. “What the fuck?”
He sat up and stared. His ass itched because he lay on grass. Grass? Where the hell was he? Had he been kidnapped while he slept? He rose, surveying the area for any threat, but all he could make out in the darkness were trees and bushes, the crickets loud enough to give a person a headache.
“Shit.” No wonder he was cold. There was frost on the ground and he’d been lying there buck-naked. Seeing his pants nearby, he quickly put them on along with damp socks and his boots. Where the hell was his shirt?
Since it was black, he might never find it, but his bag stood out like a lone rock in a flat meadow. Burrowing into it, he pulled out another t-shirt and his suede jacket. Once clothed, he grabbed his car keys and pushed the small flashlight on the ring. Sweeping it around, he found his cell phone and Rolex. It was only 12:32 a.m. He hadn’t even been asleep two hours.
“What the hell is going on?”
No one answered him, but the crickets kept chirping. The sound of an owl in the distance added to the night, but other than that, he didn’t sense a single human in the area. Not that he’d ever been a Boy Scout or expert camper, but he’d camped out a few times when rock climbing before he gave it up.
He tried the cell phone light because it was brighter, but the phone was dead. He hadn’t been able to charge it all weekend because Kat’s inn had no plugs. Kat’s inn?
He examined the area as best he could with the keychain light. It was little help until it flashed off the metal of a car. His car? He hefted his bag over his shoulder and headed for the vehicle. Relief calmed him as he recognized his Infiniti. Unlocking the door, he threw his possessions inside. The smart thing to do would be to drive home. Wait, did that mean his car was where he left it at the festival?
Digging into his trunk, he found his emergency kit and his big flashlight. It was stupid to do this in the dark. He should wait until morning, but he wouldn’t. He had to discover what happened.
Determinedly, he walked back to where he woke. Sweeping the flashlight across his path, he recognized the dirt road that ran through the festival village, but there wasn’t any village. There wasn’t even any litter. There was no chance Kat’s inn and the pub could possibly be mobile. He examined the dirt and grass carefully. There wasn’t even an indent from where the buildings had been.
“This is so screwed.” Striding to where the booths had been, he found no indentations in the ground there either. He searched for the scorched earth from the bonfire the night he rode Daredevil, but the grass was not burned. Maybe he was in the wrong spot.
He walked back to his car and pulled an old army blanket his father had given him from the trunk. Getting into the passenger seat, he leaned it all the way back, covered himself and waited for dawn. He was not leaving until he had some answers.
* * * * *
Oldtime—Monday
Kat yawned as she uncurled herself from the settee. Good thing she was short or it could have been a difficult night sleeping. Braeden could never have fit—Braeden. Was he still here? She sat up and braided her hair. Her heart pounded at the possibility he might be in her bed.
Oldtime and Newtime only intersected from Thursday midnight until Sunday midnight. It wa
s now Monday. Her fingers fumbled as she knotted the leather tie. What if he was now in Oldtime? What would the village say? What would he say? Her stomach contracted. There was no way back to Newtime until next weekend, but that would be a year later for him.
Finally, she finished her hair and stood. He couldn’t still be in the inn. He was a Newtimer, but any objects not owned by Newtimers always stayed with the village. Even items stolen from Oldtime stayed with the Newtimer thief, as a few villagers had discovered. But Braeden wasn’t an object and he wasn’t owned by anyone. They never had a Newtimer stay in the village past midnight on Sunday.
She walked down the hall to her bedroom with feet of granite. Stopping in front of her door, she tried to control her trembling. She wanted him to be inside, but that was wrong. He didn’t belong in her time.
She reached for the door handle and snatched her hand back to wipe the sweat from her palm. Oh Lord, she had to find out sometime.
Torn between wanting him to still be in her bed and wanting him gone, she squeezed her eyes shut and opened the door.
The scent of him greeted her and her heart soared. Opening one eye, she looked at the bed. He was gone. Nothing but sunlight filled the room.
The ache in her heart caused her eyes to water and she rubbed them with the back of her hand. What was she doing, mooning over a man she’d only known a full day? But was it Braeden she missed or his similarity to Brom? She would give anything to have Brom back, to have everything the way it had been. She breathed in the bayberry aroma that was specifically Braeden, a man of whom she knew almost nothing. She had too much to do to worry about a man she’d never see again.
Striding forward, she noticed the lantern on the table had burned out. What a waste of good oil. She had a lot to do today, and the morning’s town meeting was bound to be long with one particular subject on everyone’s mind—Braeden.
After picking up the pieces of the pitcher she’d broken the night before, she moved to her armoire, chose a clean dress and changed. What had happened to Braeden? Where did he find himself when he woke this morning? How did their village appear in Newtime? Maybe he slept soundly on a modern bed in a fancy new inn.
“Hmph.” Her inn was just fine with her, as was her large bed. Bending to pull off the sheets, she stilled. Braeden’s warm, wooded scent was so strong it filled her lungs. Evergreens. She breathed deeply, her mind filling with images of the two of them deep in the forest.
“By the saints! What am I thinking?” She dropped the quilt as if it were a rattlesnake and stepped away from the bed. “I can do that later. Max will be here soon. He’ll be hungry.”
She spun on her heel and headed for the kitchen. The grandmother clock on the wall chimed it was half past seven, and as Kat entered the kitchen from the reception area, Max entered through the back door. He glanced at the stove before greeting her.
She shook her head. “Don’t worry, I’m making breakfast now. Grab some wood while I get started.”
“Right!” He ran back outside with a big smile, which helped her focus on what was important. Though Max worked for her during the week, he gave every penny to Dame Vandend, his grandmama. They didn’t have much, and Kat provided him with breakfast to help them without it looking like charity.
After preparing a meal of eggs, cheese and ham, she pushed the last piece of bread at Max. “Here. Take this with you. I need you to dig out the potatoes before we go to the meeting.”
“Do you want them in the basket or a box?”
“Use one of the boxes from the root cellar.”
“You wouldn’t believe the machine they have to keep food cold in Newtime.” Max’s eyes lit with excitement.
“I’d love to hear about it, but it will have to wait until after the meeting. Why don’t you explain it to me when we get back?”
Max tipped his chair getting out of it, his long, lanky limbs still not completely grown into. “You bet!”
“Huh?” she asked, but he was already out the door. Just as well. Max liked to adopt Newtime phrases and some took a while to understand. It was good for the village that Max kept them updated on what life was like in Newtime. She just didn’t want any of their inventions in Oldtime. Life was good as it was without all the machines and information that made Newtime move so fast. In fact, Oldtime would have been perfect if Brom hadn’t disappeared.
Disturbed by his constant presence in her mind lately, she shook her thoughts away. She needed to strip the beds to let them air with the windows open.
She used the water Max had brought in to wash the dishes. She was almost finished when the back door opened. Without looking, she spoke over her shoulder. “If you’ve finished digging out the potatoes already, you missed at least half.”
“I’m not here about potatoes.”
She spun at the sound of Jurgen’s voice. “What do you want now, Jurgen? I don’t have time for idle gossip.”
The man stood between her and the large sturdy table in her kitchen, effectively blocking a polite retreat. “I came to warn you. The village is abuzz about the man who looks like Brom. Where is he?”
Though her stomach tensed, she refused to let him see her nervousness at the thought of facing everyone, so she rolled her eyes. “He’s not here, if that’s what you wanted to know. He’s a Newtimer, which means he’s in Newtime. Now move, I have to go upstairs.”
Jurgen’s muscular arm shot out and blocked her in. “Katrina, this is serious. I’m concerned about you.”
She raised her brow at that. “That’s very nice of you, but I can take care of myself just fine.”
His stance relaxed and the normal, friendly Jurgen revealed himself. “I know you can, but you shouldn’t have to. You should have a husband to care for you and for you to care for him, not an old inn.”
Kat lowered her gaze. She refused to allow Jurgen to see how much his words stung. That dream was exactly what she and Brom had planned to fulfill before he vanished. She shook her head and wiped her hands on her apron to avoid Jurgen’s gaze. “I’m perfectly happy running my grandmama’s inn.” She lifted her head. “Which means I need to get my chores done if I am to make the meeting in time.”
“Of course.” He moved his arm away and bent it behind his back. “I just wanted to let you know people are going to have a lot of questions. I want to help you if I can. You can always depend on me.”
She smiled sadly. Jurgen was considered a great catch and had been one of the four men who followed Brom no matter what he led them into. Maybe if Brom had never existed, Jurgen and she could have found love, but that was not to be. If only he would accept that. She put her hand on his biceps. “I know I can. I appreciate that.”
He opened his mouth to say more, but closed it and nodded once before walking to the door. He stopped and looked back at her. “I’ll see you at the meeting.”
“You will.” He was concerned for her. What were they all saying? Braeden had been the Headless Horseman, stayed in her inn, and walked the festival with her. What was wrong with that? “Everything.”
With slumping shoulders, she dragged herself up to the third floor and began opening windows while her mind worked furiously to figure out what to say.
* * * * *
Newtime—November
Braeden paced Stephen’s room. It agitated the hell out of him to see his older brother so weak. Stephen was always thin, but he appeared downright scrawny and his dark hair had grown past his ears. That wasn’t the Stephen he knew. He wanted to do something to help, but he was useless.
“Please, Braeden, sit down. You’re making me dizzy.”
He stopped and stalked to the armchair near the bed. “Isn’t there something I can do? Pay a babysitter to take the children off Marilyn’s hands for a while so you two can spend time together? How about a maid? That would help, wouldn’t it?”
Stephen chuckled. “Listen, little brother, the only thing that is going to make me better now is time. You can’t buy that. Now get off the ‘poor Stephen
’ shit and tell me why you really came here.”
“What? I can’t come see how my brother is recuperating?”
Stephen shook his head. “Come on. I know you better than that. You only leave your penthouse for Christmas and family birthdays and since it isn’t either, it must be something else and it must be pretty important.”
“You don’t believe I’m here to see how you’re doing?”
“No.”
“Shit.” Braeden stood again. His brother knew him too well. He would have sent flowers, emailed, texted and phoned, but coming to see Stephen was all for selfish reasons. Reasons he couldn’t even articulate. He stopped and stared at his brother. “You know I do care about you.”
Stephen took a sip of juice his wife had left on the nightstand. “Uh-huh, yeah. I know that. I have it in a trillion emails from you. When are you going to stop hiding behind your computers and join the living to prove it?”
Braden resumed his pacing. “I do less damage behind computers. No one gets hurt.”
“Dammit, Braeden. You can’t still be hiding from the world because of Reed. You didn’t know that woman was the one he’d fallen for. If she felt half as much as he did, she would have never climbed into your bed.”
He closed his eyes as the hurt spread from his chest to every extremity of his body. His best friend was permanently brain injured because of him. He didn’t want anyone else to be hurt by his presence. “I’m not here to talk about that.”
“All right. Then what are you here to talk about?”
“I want to know about Sleepy Hollow.”
“Well, I’ll be a—”
Braeden spun around and held up his hand. “Please. Spare me the shock. Can you just tell me what you know about the festival, the town and the people?”
Stephen studied his face and it was all Braeden could do not to look away. “Sure. What do you want to know?”
“How long have you been the Headless Horseman?”
“That’s easy. Except for this year, it’s been fourteen years. I was twenty when I took over for Uncle Richard.”