Missing in Lavender: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas series Book 6)

by Barbara Bartholomew

  Chapter Five

  Battered physically and his mind fuzzed, Jerry knew he must break out of his imprisonment, but seemed uncharacteristically unable to even think through an escape attempt.

  He supposed he’d had an indulged childhood and when Alexander Alston married his cousin by marriage, his life had definitely gone off the tracks into the rare and unusual. His parents had been slightly shaken when the rather odd Zan, scientific nerd that he was, had recognized in Jerry some of his own interests and encouraged him to step into the world of invention and imagination. It was a place that made his pleasant life on the little ranch in Oklahoma and the high school where he made good enough grades and was learning to play football move to the back burner as he learned about world shaking discoveries and lived on the edge of a somewhat dark, covert world where sometimes as he got older to occasionally wish he didn’t know about.

  More and more it was home, Mom and Dad, and their visits to family in time-locked Lavender that helped him keep his balance. And now he’d been stolen by workers on that dark side. Worse they’d cleaned his mind of all its secrets and put a freeze on his thinking.

  He would think of Mac. Her dark eyes looking at him, the sweep of her hair brushing against his face as he bent over to kiss her. Slight and delicate, she made him feel like a man instead of Zan and Eddie’s young cousin, the kid from an Oklahoma ranch. And she could be in danger just because of her relationship to him.

  Struggling against the inertia that seemed overwhelming, the need to slip once more into unconsciousness, he looked around with glazed eyes, seeing as through a fog.

  He tried to take stock. This wasn’t a jail or some dungeon somewhere. Instead it was an ordinary looking room, a small living room with a flowered sofa and some worn looking chairs. A bright, hand-braided rug, probably a collectable item these days though he had seen ones like it in Lavender’s country homes. The women made them out of cast off garments.

  Wrapped in thick ropes like a goose set for roasting, he slumped on wooden planks in a corner and, as feeling began to return, he realized that his body was hot and sweating.

  With an act of pure will, he fought nausea and strained to stay conscious, as he rolled over slightly so as to look over the rest of the room. Pictures on the walls looked like old photos of unsmiling people, but in the middle a portrait, a painting in rich colors, gazed back at him.

  His eyes narrowed as he tried to tighten the wavering image into something that stayed in place long enough for him to actually see it.

  The woman within the wide frame looked out at him, trying to help, her brown eyes full of compassion.

  She reminded him of someone he knew.

  They left Eddie in the buggy while she and Betsy walked briskly past the little creek and toward the wooded area that lay ahead. “We don’t usually tell outsiders about this,” Betsy said almost apologetically. “It’s too hard on them. But you’re going to be here for a while and then there’s Jerry and the way he feels about you. It is, after all, only fair. We lost one of our own to another time when he fell in love with Violet and went to England with her . . .” She stopped abruptly, grinning at Mac. “More than you really want to know?” she guessed. “Okay, we’ll just start with the basics.”

  Mac felt surprisingly calm. She’d taken to Betsy from the start. The blonde with her curly hair and big blue eyes looked like a woman anybody could trust. Unseen trumpets seemed to blare when she entered a room, announcing her presence so that all eyes turned to look at her. Everybody gathered around because there was bound to be interesting times when Betsy was present.

  The opposite of her quiet step-sister, she seemed to enjoy being the center of attention, even with a big crowd such as Mac had seen her entertain at Lavender’s Christmas celebration.

  This afternoon it was Betsy who seemed nervous. “We’re all worried about Jerry,” she said now as she stopped at a spot just past the creek. “But Zan has given us our instructions. We’re to keep Aunt Lynne and Uncle Moss safe here in Lavender. And that goes for you and Eddie too.”

  Mac had spent too much of her time in the children’s home being told what to do and at work she had little autonomy. “I decide for myself. Besides it looks to me if anybody is in danger it’s Zan.”

  Betsy shrugged. “Of course. We worry about him and Eddie, but they’ve been at this for a long time and they know what they’re doing. Besides there’s lots of people helping keep Zan safe.”

  “Just what does Zan do that so many people are after him?” Mac questioned firmly.

  Shrugging again, Betsy didn’t look at Mac. “Wish I knew. All I can say that he invents things and other people want him to use those things as weapons, but he says no. They’re meant to help people.”

  This didn’t make a whole lot of sense. “I know he makes electronic toys that are popular with youngsters.” She grinned, remembering her apartment mates staying up most of the night while they tried to defeat a tablet game meant for ten-year-olds. “And for older people,” she added.

  “We don’t do things like that here,” Betsy evaded.

  “Oh, right. It’s 1913 and kids play with hoops and marbles,” Mac responded scornfully, annoyed to be treated with condescension.

  Betsy grabbed her hand. “Come on. I’ll show you.” She pulled her and Mac allowed herself to be led as they stepped forward until her ears were assailed by the sound of honking horns as cars and trucks blasted past only a few feet from where they stood on the edge of a modern roadway.

  Mac drew in a deep breath, twisting free as she turned to look back in the direction from which they’d come. Instead of a winding creek and a landscape of trees spotting open meadows, she saw an empty, spreading landscape where what looked like a windowless factory stood. “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Just went up. Brand new. Nobody will tell me anything.”

  Mac considered. “Most business sites of that size are placed under the energy shields.”

  “So Eddie tells me. Looks like an ugly block of nothing to me.”

  Mac turned to stare at Betsy. “But where’s Lavender?” she asked.

  “Back in 1913. Come on. I don’t like it out here anymore.”

  Even Mac felt a certain relief as they walked back, still hand in hand, until the roar of the motorway died into the silence of birdsong and the creek with Eddie waiting nearby was in sight.

  She listened wordlessly as Betsy told her how she’d lived in that other world in her earlier years and occasionally went back for a visit to her aunt and uncle’s house in Oklahoma.

  “I always loved the ranch, but even it is changing. That’s the trouble. Over there things change so fast you can’t keep up. Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe when I’m over there.”

  “But nothing stays the same. Change is always going on.”

  “Not so fast in Lavender. Lavender is the way things are meant to be.”

  Mac didn’t argue though it seemed to her that here was the abnormal place, a little town locked away from everywhere else, life kept carefully preserved in a goldfish bowl.

  Jerry closed his eyes for a moment, hoping that when he opened them again, he would be able to see more clearly.

  The face in the portrait, a woman’s face, tanned skin, brown eyes and hair, perhaps someone in her late twenties or early thirties. He didn’t know her and yet she looked familiar. Working hard, he squirmed within his bonds, inching closer.

  The photos, smaller ones, surrounded the larger one and he saw that they were of apparent family members, a sturdy-looking man posed with the same woman in the other portrait and two little girls seemed to be the children of the couple. The family resemblance between the children and their parents was striking.

  Then he focused his eyes on the woman in the picture with the man. Mother and Dad, he thought, then frowned. This woman looked a whole lot like the Crockett Street housekeeper Esther Myers. Not quite the same, the cheeks were more rounded and the hair in the sepia photograph looked light
, not dark. But the features were much the same. This could almost be Mrs. Myer’s sister or mother, pictured in a time long ago.

  And then he realized who the woman in the portrait had to be. It was Esther Myers back when she’d been young, the Mrs. Myers of perhaps forty or fifty years ago.

  His vision improving, he checked out the clothing. The style was dated, further back then what he was used to seeing in Lavender. The woman standing at her husband’s side wore the wide hoop skirt of a previous era.

  Lavender! His heart stepped up its beat. He couldn’t guess how it had come about, but he was being held prisoner in a little country house somewhere in the Lavender community.

  Straining within the ropes, he began to struggle in earnest to free himself.

  It was the shock, she supposed, but they were halfway back to town before Mac came to her senses. She grabbed at Betsy’s arm. “Tell Eddie to turn around. I’ve got to get out of here and go find Jerry.”

  “Can’t be done,” Betsy said, inching away from her on the buggy seat. “Zan and Eddie say you’ll be safe only if you stay here. I’ve had my orders.”

  Eddie glanced back from her attention on the narrow dirt road that now wound through the farm land that lay around Lavender. “We’ve got to stay out of the way, Mac, and let the pros do their job.”

  Mac set her mouth in a firm line. She hadn’t always been a good girl back at the children’s home. In fact they sometimes called her stubborn and made her go have a long talk with the counselor. That and the withdrawal of privileges had been designed to make her behave, but it had only taught her to be sneaky.

  Betsy didn’t want to hear that she’d determined to go help Jerry rather than stay here safely guarded. So she wouldn’t tell her, but as soon as she could manage, she would slip away and go back to the border to begin to find her way to her goal.

  She mustn’t seem to give in too easily. “But my roommates will be worried and I’ll be fired at work.”

  “All that’s been taken care of. Your friends have been told you’re away visiting relatives and Zan arranged time off at work by saying you were dealing with a family emergency.”

  Well, even Stacy and Belle might accept that story since they believed in the myth of fabricated only relative Aunt Ima in Iowa whom she’d made up just so she’d have at least one family member. And at the company which Alexander Alston owned any excuse he arranged was bound to be accepted.

  Nobody would miss her. Nobody would worry. Somehow that didn’t make her feel any better about her life that she could be so easily displaced.

  When they got home, Mrs. Myers welcomed them at the door by scolding Betsy and Eddie with the right of a woman who had helped raise both. “It’s much too hot to be taking afternoon rides,” she told them. “This poor child looks to be all in.”

  She gave Mac a motherly look and led the way back to the kitchen where she provided great glasses of water flavored by crushed strawberries from the garden. Mac sipped the delicious drink and thought that this was what it would be like to have a real family. Well, for now she was borrowing Jerry’s relatives and for his sake, they were doing their best to make her feel like one of their own.

  Strangely after Betsy had departed to see to her kids and Eddie had gone to the little house she and her husband owned on the other side of town, she found herself confiding to the retired housekeeper who was as much a member of the family as blood kin, “I’m so worried about Jerry.”

  Mrs. Myers patted her hand. “We all are, child,” she said.

  “I need to be back there looking for him.”

  At that, the older woman took on a thoughtful expression. “Don’t know about that. Sometimes the best detective work is done here.” She lightly tapped her own head. “In the stories I read, Miss Marple figures it out by watching and thinking. I’ve got a lot of confidence in young Zan. He’s smart as they come. But sometimes Miss Marple figures out things that even the police can’t.”

  Bewildered, Mac stared at her.

  “Miss Marple,” she repeated. “You know, Agatha Christie’s old lady detective who thinks everybody reminds her of someone in her hometown. I figure if she can do it, I can. I’m trying to help find Jerry.”

  Of couse Mac recognized the name of the English mystery writer from far back in the previous century, but though she read lots, detective stories were not among her favorites and she didn’t recognize the character.

  How sweet that Mrs. Myers wanted to help find Jerry, but somehow she didn’t feel very hopeful that the elderly woman could find a solution.

  But then obviously the rest of them felt the same about her efforts.

  Chapter Six

  The family that lived in the big house on Crockett Street took such good care of her that Esther Myers sometimes thought she would go out of her mind. Today was her birthday and in spite of the fact that so much was going on with Jerry missing and the extra guests in the house, she could almost taste the scent of her favorite butter cream cake being baked in the kitchen below by her granddaughter Dottie.

  She refused to tell them her age, but they could guess close enough, especially the grandfather of the family, Forrest Stephens, who had been around long enough to remember when she’d first come to Lavender. After years of raising their children and her own and long service as housekeeper to the family, they felt it was time for her to rest, relax and spend her afternoons in the old rocking chair up in her room on the second floor of the Victorian house built for a Stephens bride.

  Trouble was she didn’t like resting and the rocking chair paced along at a boring clip. She wasn’t ready to be put out to pasture, not for a long time yet.

  She’d been glad up ‘til now that she lived in little time-locked Lavender where nothing much changed except that new babies came into the world now and then. Even the youngsters, who deserved a season of sowing wild oats, were circumspect in Lavender, except for the occasional rebel who tried and usually succeeded in breaking out of the community and into the larger world, where she suspected, terrible things happened and they were soon miserably homesick.

  Now she rocked hard in her chair, listening to the sound of young Sylvie practicing on her piano downstairs and to the big front door opening and closing as patients came to see Dr. Evan and Mrs. Cynthia, the two doctors in the family. There were those who said the lady wasn’t a real doctor since she hadn’t gone to medical school like her husband, but Mrs. Myers figured one was about as good as the other, and both were better than anybody else in town.

  For the last couple of years she’d worked hard at convincing herself that she’d no choice but to make the most of her retirement, but somehow the coming of Jerry’s little girl friend had convinced her otherwise. She wanted to help the girl who often looked so forlorn and surely she wanted to help Jerry.

  This business of sitting on her bottom doing very little wasn’t working out. She felt left out, set aside after years of looking after others. And today, on her birthday, she faced the fact that she was no good to anyone and might as well give up and at least act as though she enjoyed the rocking chair.

  When seventeen-year-old Sylvie came up to peer in, she pretended to be asleep, not feeling in the mood for birthday greetings, not even from one of the children she helped raise.

  But Sylvie would have none of it. “Come on, old lady, you can’t be that tired. It’s your birthday. Time to celebrate.”

  Though Sylvie was in many ways different from her tomboy sister Eddie, sometimes she still reminded her of her grownup sister. Neither had been born with an ounce of tact.

  “I’m old,” she snapped. “Let me rest.”

  “You can rest when you’re dead, but for now you’ve got things to do and places to go.”

  “I wish.” But already Esther Myers was feeling less sorry for herself. The three Stephens girls she’d helped raise were as close to her as her own granddaughters. Bright and irreverent, she’d tried to put a damper on their misbehaviors even as she had a hard time keeping
from laughing at their antics. “They won’t let me be housekeeper anymore, Sylvie, and you’re getting so grown up, you don’t need me anymore.”

  The slim, dark-haired girl gave her a quick hug. “We’ll always need you, Mama Myers. You know that.”

  Mrs. Myers sniffed. “No telling what kind of trouble you’d get into without me looking after you. But it’s time, I find something to do. Something important.” Then she flashed her teeth-revealing smile. She didn’t mention McKinley and Jerry, but she made a resolve to help them. “And I will, Sylvie. I sure will.”

  When evening came and Cynthia called down stairs for her to come to supper, which would include the ‘surprise’ birthday party the Stephens family hosted in her honor every year, she dressed in the light blue cotton dress that she’d made for summer wear, combed her mostly still brown hair and put a touch of pink rouge on her cheeks, then went slowly downstairs.

  She only pretended surprise these days for the benefit of the little ones, Betsy’s twins, Emilee and Ben, and granddaughter Dottie’s baby. But this time the surprise was on her.

  Nobody but the people who still lived in the house, Forrest, the two doctors and Sylvie were seated and they were at the kitchen table, not the big one in the dining room where the family gathered with guests for special occasions.

  It was just like any ordinary supper with Sylvie bringing out the food that Dottie had prepared before going home to her own family. In shocked silence, Esther ate cornbread and fried potatoes along with thin slices of fried ham and sliced juicy red tomatoes from the garden. Dessert was homemade custard and no cake was anywhere in sight.