Francine shook her head. “I’ve got to take today’s milk to the spring to stay cold, or it’ll spoil.” She reached for a large stone crock on the counter.
“Can’t it wait a few minutes?” Chris raised his brows. She’d clearly been awake, and had done more work already since the sun had come up than a girl in her condition should be doing.
“Sit and have a glass of milk, and eat breakfast with me. I’ll take the milk where it needs to go, if you tell me where, and you can stay off your feet.”
Her eyes grew wide as if she hadn’t understood what he’d said. Was it the wrong thing to say? The language couldn’t be that different in 1880 from 2017.
“I . . . I don’t know.”
Chris raised his brows and chuckled. “Don’t know? You don’t know where the spring is or whether to sit down? I think even in my worst state, I didn’t lay a hand on you, right?”
He frowned. Had he hurt her, and that’s why she was now leery of him? If he had, he wasn’t remembering it.
She stood still, staring at him as if he’d said something incomprehensible. She even looked flustered. Finally, she turned her back to him and reached for a glass from one of the shelves above the counter. After pouring some milk into the glass, then over a biscuit she’d set in a bowl, she came to the table. Chris eased out of his seat and pulled the empty chair out for her.
Francine blinked, then stared up at him with an incredulous look. Chris kept the connection for as long as possible. He’d never met anyone like her. She was quiet and appeared timid at first glance, but she wasn’t. She’d taken control of him over the last few days while he was at his worst and when she’d tied him up and had pointed a gun at him.
To force his eyes off her, he took the plate and glass out of her hands and set them on the table, then pushed her chair in as she sat. Her advanced pregnancy made her move in an awkward way, and he held out his hand to steady her as she eased onto the chair. She clearly didn’t know what to do about accepting his help. And here he’d thought it was the appropriate thing for a guy to do in this century.
He took his seat opposite her, and sipped his coffee. It was hot and bitter, exactly the way he liked it. The grits tasted better than anything he’d eaten in a long time. He hadn’t had a good, home-cooked meal since leaving home to go to school in Texas.
Chris cleared his throat. He glanced across the table at Francine, who was watching him, too.
“Now that you’re better, will you be returning to Heartsbridge?”
Her question was tentative. Chris nodded. “I have to find a woman named Cissie Durham. Do you know her? I think she owns the diner, I mean, the boarding house.”
Francine shook her head. “I don’t know anyone in town.”
She dropped her gaze to her bowl of food, pushing the biscuit around with her spoon. Chris frowned.
“You haven’t lived here long?”
“I came here about a year ago, after Lester and I married.”
Chris leaned forward, staring at her. “You’ve been here a year, and you don’t know anyone in town? How’s that possible?”
“I’ve only met a few of Lester’s friends in passing. Two days ago, while you were sleeping, I went to my husband’s funeral, but I didn’t stay past the burial. Not too many of the townsfolk were there.”
Chris scrunched his forehead. Lester, her husband, was dead. At some point, she’d asked if he’d killed him. It had to be incredibly difficult for her to lose her husband with a baby on the way. Chris’s grip tightened around the fork he held in his hand. Probably as difficult as it was for a man to lose his unborn baby.
“I’m sorry about your husband.”
Francine shook her head. She dropped eye contact again. “I feel sadness that he’s dead, but beyond that, I can’t mourn him.” Her voice had dropped to a near-whisper. She swiped some loose hair from her face.
Chris clenched his jaw. Something seemed off. Her earlier reactions to him had seemed unusually skittish, and she didn’t seem as upset as he would expect a new widow to be. Thoughts of the man who’d started a fight with him for no reason surfaced. Chris narrowed his eyes.
“Did your husband hurt you?”
Her head snapped up at the blunt question. She looked at him, and her answer was a faint nod of her head before she looked away. Her eyes shimmered with a pooling of tears.
“Do you have family you can go to for help?” Chris couldn’t hold the question back. A pregnant woman alone in his time was one thing, but Francine lived miles from town, and no telling how far it was to the closest neighbor.
“My family doesn’t want me back,” she said, her voice taking on an icy tone. “My father sold me to Lester Eaton. I won’t go back to them.”
“So where are you going to go?” Chris blurted. “You can’t stay here on your own.”
She sat straighter and drew her shoulders back. “Why can’t I? I’ve survived Lester’s abuse for nearly a year. I think living on my own will be a welcome reprieve.”
Chris laughed for lack of a better response. “You’re going to have a baby soon, Francine. You can’t do that all by yourself. You need help.”
She braced her hands on the table to stand, then glared at him. “I will manage, Mr. Hawley.”
Heaving herself to her feet, she carried her unfinished breakfast to the counter. Chris stared at her back. She was crazy. She couldn’t stay here alone, in her condition. Without a phone, how was she going to call for help? He took another sip of his coffee, then carried his own plate to the counter.
“If you’ll tell me where to get water, I’ll do the dishes,” he said quietly, stepping up next to her.
Her head immediately popped up, looking at him again as if he spoke a foreign language. She held a hand over her belly as if protecting her baby. A wave of regret and sense of loss filled him as Amber crossed his mind again. She would have been about this far along with his baby.
Chris clenched his jaw and squeezed his hand into a tight fist. What a difference between this quiet, gentle girl and Amber. His eyes fell to Francine’s hand on her stomach. She loved her baby and would do anything to keep it from harm.
“I believe you might still not be right in the head, Mr. Hawley.” Her soft words held a hint of amusement.
How right she was, if only she knew what crazy thoughts were going through his mind the more he talked to her. Absolutely insane thoughts, but even if he followed through with them, he needed to talk to Cissie Durham first. She was his key to finding out exactly what had happened, and getting him back to the twenty-first century.
He smiled. “Why do you say that?”
“I’ve never known a man to volunteer to do the dishes before.”
“Well, now you’ve met one. My parents had a rule that whoever did the cooking, didn’t have to do the cleaning afterward. That meant my dad and I usually did the dishes.”
“Where are you from, Mr. Hawley?” She raised her brows.
Chris leaned against the counter. At least she was talking and letting her guard down. He’d already told her he was from the future, but no doubt she chalked it up to the ramblings of a crazy guy.
“Montana. My folks own a ranch. I don’t know where I came from originally. They adopted me.”
He smiled at the intrigued look on her face.
“What happened to your real parents?”
Chris shrugged. “All I know is my birth mother was young and unable to care for a baby, so she put me up for adoption.”
Francine shook her head. Her hand moved over her belly. Clearly, he’d said something she couldn’t wrap her head around. What would she say if he told her that his ex-girlfriend had made completely different choices? Anger consumed him again. It had been as much his baby as Amber’s, but he’d been willing to own responsibility, while she’d been reckless and hadn’t given a second thought to being pregnant.
“It’s not an uncommon thing where I come from,” he murmured.
“You still believe you com
e from the future?” she challenged. “As I said, you’re not as well as I first thought. Your mind still seems to be addled.”
Chris looked at her. Whatever smile had been on his face faded.
“I feel perfectly fine, Francine, and I do come from the future. And that’s why I need to get to town and see Cissie Durham.”
Chapter 8
Frannie shook out the sheet on her bed, then let it drift as it slowly fluttered and settled over the mattress. She walked around the bed, making sure all the edges were even and smoothed down. Her head raised and she glanced out the window toward the pasture. Someone was walking along the fence.
Her heart sped up for a second, conjuring images of Lester. The clothes on the man were familiar, but it wasn’t Lester. Chris Hawley had left the house. After her odd conversation with him in the kitchen, he’d insisted on fetching water for the dishes, and taking the milk jug to the spring house by the creek.
She’d relented and told him the well was behind the house, and a little further back the creek meandered through a grove of cottonwoods. The shady spot kept the milk cool, as well as some of the meat Lester had brought home on occasion.
Frannie stepped closer to the window, her eyes on the strange man. While he’d been getting better over the last few days, today he appeared to be completely out of the woods and recovered from his ordeal with the medicine cravings.
She smiled. He was like a changed man this morning. While she’d never believed he’d have the same sort of character as her husband, Chris had been volatile in his behavior over the last five days since she’d found him in the barn, and she’d remained vigilant, in case he turned to violence.
The real Chris Hawley had emerged today, and there was nothing to dislike about him. He was kind and courteous, although he did talk in strange words and phrases on occasion. When he’d reached for her wrist, visions of Lester had entered her mind, and her gut reaction had been to flee. It had quickly become apparent he’d had no mean intentions.
Frannie swept her hand over her belly. Chris Hawley was the sort of man any woman could easily get used to having around. She shook her head. Perhaps he was too good to be true. As she’d told him, what man offered to do dishes? His concern for her, telling her to sit and take it easy was in sharp contrast to how Lester had treated her. Her father had never offered to take over women’s chores, even on those rare occasions when Mama was feeling poorly.
There were so many questions she’d wanted to ask him, now that his mind was clear, but she’d hesitated, not wanting to pry. It was bothersome that he still held to the belief that he came from a time in the future. Frannie shook her head and laughed. The thought was incomprehensible. Her eyes fell on the freshly laundered shirt and trousers that belonged to him. She’d kept them in her bedroom since he hadn’t asked for them, yet. She still needed to mend the tear in the shirt, then she’d give them back.
She hesitated, then reached for the trousers. They were made of denim, and had looked odd the day she’d washed them. She’d never seen trousers in this style before. The buttons looked different than any buttons she’d ever seen, and she hadn’t been able to figure out the purpose of the strange loops that were sewn in even spacing around the waist. Missing were the suspender buttons in front, as well as the cinch in the back that allowed for adjustment of the waist.
She’d found a leather billfold in one of the back pockets, but she hadn’t looked at it any closer than setting it on the dresser in the guest room. It wasn’t her place to pry.
At some point, she still needed to wash his socks and a few other articles he’d dropped on the ground, but she’d forgotten to take them from the room with his shirt and trousers. The shock of seeing him standing in the nude still brought heat to her face every time her thoughts drifted in that direction.
Frannie folded the pants and set them, with the shirt, back on the trunk at the foot of the bed. She glanced out the window again. Chris stood by the pasture fence, pushing against one of the posts that had needed to be secured for months. Lester hadn’t bothered with the chore, and one of the fence rails had come loose as a result, and now hung at an angle. It was only a matter of time before that section of fence collapsed completely, and then the horses might run off.
She left the bedroom and headed out the door. The midmorning sun was already warm. If she wanted to get any chores done in the garden, now would be a good time to do them. There were plenty of weeds that needed to be pulled, and perhaps she could harvest some of the greens for supper. She’d have to go to the spring and check on how much meat was there. Perhaps she could fix a venison ham tonight.
Chris Hawley still stood inspecting the fence, but he glanced up at the same time Frannie stepped out onto the porch. He headed in her direction, sending a quick rush through her limbs.
What is the matter with you, Frannie? Every time that man looks your way, you turn soft as butter.
He walked with a slight limp, something he hadn’t done earlier. Lester had limped, too. A heifer had stepped on him at her father’s place last year, and while the injury hadn’t seemed severe, he’d complained about it constantly.
Chris stepped onto the porch. His easy smile made him look even more handsome than he already was. His five-day’s growth of facial hair added to his good looks rather than making him look unkempt. Since he’d been nearly clean-shaven the day she’d found him in the barn, it was safe to assume he didn’t usually grow a beard.
“It’s a nice day,” he said, his eyes roaming over her with a familiarity that made her cheeks flush.
He glanced over his shoulder and pointed toward the pasture. “Your fence is about to fall down. If you’ve got some tools, I’ll try and fix it before that colt decides to test it some more.”
Frannie blinked. “You don’t have to do that,” she stammered, at a complete loss for words at his offer. The fence needed fixing, but if he’d offered to do it, did that mean he was in no hurry to leave?
Chris looked at her, his eyes dropping to her belly. “It’s the least I can do for all you’ve done for me. Besides, if I don’t do it, who will? Horses have the uncanny ability to find weak spots in fences. You’re going to be chasing yours all across the countryside soon. If that colt leans on it just once, that fence is going to fall down like dominoes. He’s a nice-looking horse. Would be a shame if he got out and into trouble.”
Frannie tilted her head, glancing up at him.
“Are you familiar with horses, Mr. Hawley?”
He grinned, then dropped his gaze to the ground and ran his hand through his hair before resting his eyes on her again.
“A little. And please, call me Chris. Mr. Hawley sounds a bit stuffy, don’t you think?”
Frannie’s forehead scrunched. “Stuffy?”
The smile on his face faded. He shook his head. “Is it improper that I call you Francine, or should I call you Mrs. Eaton? I forget sometimes what year this is. We’ve stopped being quite so formal where I come from.”
He was referring to his belief that he came from the future again. Truth be told, her name sounded good coming from him. She raised her chin.
“I don’t like being called Mrs. Eaton, and no one’s called me Francine in a long time. My husband and my father called me Frannie, so you may call me that, if you’d like.”
His eyebrows shot up in an amused grin. Frannie blinked, but didn’t look away. She could stare into his warm and dark eyes all day, but that would be highly inappropriate.
“I’ll call you whatever you want, but to be honest, I like Francine.”
Frannie swallowed, and mentally shook her head. If she wasn’t careful, she might swoon right in front of him. She’d never been this addle-brained in front of a man before.
“Where does your husband keep his tools, and I’ll get to work on that fence.”
Chris had obviously seen her discomfort, and changed the subject. She cleared her throat. Where had Lester kept his tools? She’d never seen him do much work around the pla
ce, so she would only be guessing.
“I think he may have some in the shed around back of the house.” She hesitated, then added, “Does that mean you plan to stay for supper, Chris?”
He looked at her, his eyes roaming over her face as if taking notice of every feature. Frannie forced her hand to remain still and not swipe at some imaginary dirt on her cheek.
“If you’ll let me stay another day, I’ll fix the fence and a few other things I noticed that need repair around here.”
She nodded without thinking. Having Chris around, even when he’d been ill, had been a comfort to her. Perhaps because he’d been so quick to come to her aid the day he pulled her away from getting trampled by the colt. It was silly to think he’d stay longer. He was still a stranger, after all, and he had somewhere to go.
Somewhere in a future time.
Frannie held back a laugh. She might just start thinking his story about coming from another time was true.
She averted her eyes. It was time to get some work done. She’d been standing around, being idle and letting her mind wander where it had no business going. Stepping around him, she made her way down the porch to her garden. She stopped, and glanced up to look at him. He hadn’t moved, but watched her with an intensity in his eyes that once again left her weak in the knees.
“I’ll have some food ready for the noon meal, and supper this evening.”
Frannie didn’t wait for a reply, but walked as quickly as possible to her vegetable garden. If she worked, she could take her mind off the man who left her with such odd feelings for which she had no words. She caressed her swollen belly. Perhaps it was her pregnancy that was turning her mind to mush. Once Chris left for town tomorrow, she could get her head on straight again.
She went to work weeding the rows of carrots and turnips, and picked bugs from the tomato vines and corn stalks. Tossing them to the chickens, she reached for her hoe to loosen some of the soil around the pea vines. Swiping at the perspiration on her forehead, she glanced up when a pounding noise drifted from the pasture.
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