Now and Forever: Time Travel Romance Superbundle

by Bobby Hutchinson

  He got to his feet and, stiff as a marionette, sat down in his chair, his hazel eyes pinned on her face, assessing her reactions, a nervous stream of words pouring from him like sweat.

  "I ken that it's too soon. I realize ye'll need time to consider this, Paige. I know I haven't properly courted ye, walking out with ye the way I ought to have done. I'll make it up to ye, we'll go out together proper, there's a sleigh ride planned next week, will ye go with me? Ye will go with me, will ye not?"

  First, he'd proposed. Now, he was asking her for a date. The incongruity of the whole thing made her head spin, and a hysterical giggle rose in her throat. She suppressed it, because it was dawning on her that she had to be very cautious and tactful here, or she'd hurt Rob and lose a friendship she very much valued.

  A disturbing thought struck her. Had he heard something about her and Myles? How could he have done? Gossip traveled fast in this town, but between midnight last night and this morning?

  Nevertheless, she felt herself blushing like a guilty schoolgirl. Good God, the mores of the day were really getting to her.

  "Rob. What I don't understand is—" she stammered. "Has anything happened to—this is such a surprise, I don't—" She silently cursed herself for hedging this way. "Rob, what made you decide to ask me now, this morning, to—to marry you? Because it is a complete surprise to me."

  His gaze dropped and she could see his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed, once, twice. "It seems my visits here have compromised yer reputation," he finally choked out. "I was planning on asking ye soon anyway, when I felt the time was right. Then I happened to see Lulu, and something she said made me realize—"

  Lulu Leiberman again. Paige felt like marching over to the boardinghouse and planting a punch right in Lulu's busy mouth.

  "Look, Rob." She tried to map out what to say, and finally just told him the truth—as gently as she knew how. "I can't marry you."

  If she'd thought his proposal was for anything but love, she knew better by the devastated expression on his face and in his soft hazel eyes. She hated hurting him, but there were no other options. She had to set him straight, here and now. "It's marvelous of you to ask me, and I'm terrified that now I'm going to lose you as my best friend, but the truth is—"

  She was running out of breath. She gulped and went on. "The truth is I'm involved with someone else."

  Involved. Damn, no one said involved yet, she was certain of it. But whatever the going expression, it was beyond her at the moment

  "Betrothed?" His shock made the word sound like a cough. "You're already betrothed to someone else?'

  This was getting worse by the minute. She shook her head. "No, not engaged. Not betrothed," she corrected. How to explain to this simple, wonderful man the complexities between her and Myles? "But I am in love with him," she said in a firm tone. Even in these circumstances, her heart soared as she added, "And he loves me."

  Rob's face was as pale now as it had been red before, his freckles standing out like drops of paint. "Who?" he choked out. "Who the hell is he?" His good manners reasserted themselves, and he added hastily, "Forgive me, Paige, that was rude of me." His feelings got the better of him once more, and he burst out again, "But tell me who he is, damn it all."

  "You have the right to know, Rob. It's—it's Myles, Myles Baldwin. But we'd rather no one else knew just yet."

  "Surgeon Baldwin?" Rob was in shock. He couldn't have sounded more astonished or disbelieving if she'd said she was in love with Chief Poundmaker.

  Paige felt a twinge of irritation with him. Why should it be so inconceivable that she and Myles were in love, for heaven's sake?

  "I thought—I mean, the two of you—well, ye fight like cats and dogs. And it's well known that Surgeon Baldwin keeps to himself, he's no one for the ladies. I mean, a lot of the women hereabouts have tried, but—"

  Rob suddenly realized what he was saying and shut his mouth.

  It was a relief to Paige to know that Myles wasn't romancing half the town, but Paige couldn't think of a single thing to say to Rob.

  There was a long, painful silence. At last Rob got to his feet again, and Paige stood up too, feeling helpless to remedy the situation.

  "Rob, can't we please stay friends? I enjoy your visits, I look forward to them. I'd miss you so much if this caused problems between us."

  There was a touching dignity to the way he donned his heavy coat and tugged the muskrat cap down over his ears. He met her anxious gaze with a sad, crooked smile that touched her heart.

  "Aye, we'll stay friends, Paige, never fear. I just need some time to get used to all this.”

  He gave her a half salute with his gloved hand and went out the back door, closing it quietly behind him.

  When he was gone, Paige poured another cup of coffee with hands that shook and collapsed in her chair, unsure whether she wanted to laugh or cry. In the space of twenty-four hours, she'd declared her love for one man and been proposed to by another.

  She'd never had anything like that happen back in what she'd begun to call her "other life."

  She'd once heard someone remark back in her other life that things must have been much simpler before technology took the world by storm.

  They'd overlooked the simple truth that people were people, and emotions stayed the same regardless of the calendar.

  Her medical practice began to flourish.

  To Paige it seemed a miracle when women needing medical attention began appearing at her front door.

  It seemed that Helen Gillespie and Clara Fletcher had spread the word among the women of Battleford that there was a woman doctor who'd saved their lives, but it was really Abigail Donald who did the most for Paige's reputation and her business.

  Abigail was lavish in her praise of Paige's expertise as a woman's doctor and a surgeon, and through her work as a midwife, she began to send women with gynecological problems to Paige, who established regular office hours, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, ten to four.

  Women began to appear in her waiting room on the appointed days. Paige scheduled her minor operations for whenever Abigail could come in and assist her. Anything complex was dealt with at the hospital at the fort, with Myles scrubbing in with her.

  Having office hours three days a week was a perfect situation for Paige. She had ample time to shop and tend to her chores.

  Abigail came to help when Paige needed her, and the easygoing agreement between them worked well.

  Most of the conditions Paige encountered would have been simple enough to deal with in the twentieth century; many of the patients she began to see had simply had too many pregnancies, too close together.

  Birth control was obviously the answer, but in this day and age, it was almost nonexistent. Just like Helen Gillespie, Paige found that most of the women had only the vaguest concept of their own anatomy. A portion of her work was educational, and frustrating as well. Many of the women rejected any talk of pregnancy prevention, insisting that interfering with what they labeled "nature's way" was a sin.

  For the others, the ones who came to her wanting and needing birth control, Paige did the best she could. She consulted with Myles, ordered a supply of sponges, and taught women how to tie a string around them and insert them, using a vinegar solution as a spermicide.

  Paige had just completed that ritual one cold December morning. "Goodbye, Mrs. Todd. Come see me again in two weeks."

  "But that's right on Christmas, Doctor."

  Paige glanced at her calendar, surprised to see that the woman was right. "It is, too. Make it three then, Mrs. Todd, but no longer."

  Paige opened the door of her examining room to usher Mrs. Todd out and found Clara Fletcher just entering the parlor, a white wrapped bundle in her arms.

  "Clara!" Paige was delighted. "Hey, hello there, Clara Fletcher, what a wonderful surprise. How great to see you." Paige hurried over and wrapped both Clara and baby Ellie in a huge hug. "Hi, young Ellie Randolph, how you doing, anyway?"

  Paige had s
een the baby only once since Ellie's birth, and then only for a few moments. The Fletchers had come to town for supplies a few weeks before and dropped in for a moment, but because of a threatening storm, they had to get back home quickly.

  "Come here to me, love, while Mommy gets the frost off her glasses." Paige eagerly took the baby in her arms and undid some of her wrappings, smiling down at her tiny namesake as she appeared from the blanket cocoon Clara had devised to keep her warm.

  "Abigail's not here this morning. She's going to be furious when she finds out she missed seeing you—" Paige halted the excited flow of words. "Clara, what is it?" She'd glanced up and seen stark terror on Clara's round face. "Come in here and sit down," she ordered, leading the way into her examining room. She motioned Clara to a chair and laid the baby on the table, swiftly undoing the rest of the blankets.

  "Now, what's the problem?"

  "She had some kind of convulsion," Clara stammered out. "A bad one, her eyes rolled back and if Theo hadn't put his finger in her mouth and grabbed her tongue, I think she might have choked. Oh, Paige, it seemed to go on forever. It was early this morning, about five. We got ready and brought her straight here."

  Clara was obviously distraught and close to tears.

  Ellie was awake, but very quiet. She seemed sleepy and lethargic. She had huge blue eyes in a triangular face, a lovely little rosebud of a mouth, and an incongruous scrap of peach colored fuzz on the very top of her tiny skull. She was sluggish at responding to the stimuli Paige used to test her.

  Paige questioned Clara closely while performing as intensive an examination of the baby as possible.

  "She was a little cranky last night, didn't want to nurse the way she usually does," Clara explained. "But she didn't have a fever or anything. We thought maybe she was starting to teethe, or maybe coming down with a little cold." The tears that had threatened now began trickling down Clara's round cheeks. "It was awful; her whole little body jerked for what seemed hours. What—what do you think is wrong with her, Paige?"

  Paige had unfastened Ellie's diaper in order to examine her, and now she bent over the baby, re-pinning the safety pins, tying up ribbons, wrestling the tiny limbs into sleeves, unwilling to turn just yet and face Clara in case the awful frustration she was feeling showed on her face.

  Damn it all, she just didn't know. She needed blood tests, brain scans, an EEG, all the aid of the sophisticated modern equipment she didn't have in order to properly diagnose baby Ellie Randolph Fletcher. Without them, the best Paige could do was guess, and even her guesses were anything but reassuring.

  A convulsion was a symptom rather than a disease.

  Birth injury? There had certainly been complications enough to make that a possibility. Congenital defect of the brain? There was no way to tell, except to wait and see how Ellie developed.

  Anoxia, intercranial hemorrhage, infection of the central nervous system—some progressive degenerative disease? Subdural hematoma? Paige examined the small skull minutely for signs of swelling, but there were none.

  The list of possibilities seemed endless, and none of them were good. And even if she could correctly diagnose the baby, what could she do about the problem? Abdominal surgery in this day and age was all but unheard of, never mind brain surgery. Paige felt sick.

  But she made certain she had a reassuring smile on her face when she finally turned and put the baby gently back in Clara's arms.

  "She's a bit listless just now, but that's natural after a severe convulsion such as you describe," Paige said. "Other than that, she seems fine. Her eyes are focusing quite well, and her temp's normal. I can't hazard even a guess as to what caused the convulsion, all we can do is pray there won't be another one. But don't worry yourself into a state about this—about seven in every hundred babies have convulsions, Clara, and few of them suffer permanent damage."

  It was a small white lie, because Paige had absolutely nothing else to offer, no medication, no further testing. She couldn't even keep the baby here for observation. The Fletchers had to go back to their farm and their livestock, and anyway, testing would be fruitless without treatment to back it up.

  "I want to know if and when it happens again."

  There were no other patients that morning, and when Theo came in from tending the horses Paige took the Fletchers into her warm kitchen and gave them sandwiches and bowls of the ongoing pot of soup she kept simmering on the back of the range.

  Paige managed to remain cheerful and upbeat until the Fletchers, reassured by her attitude, climbed in their sleigh and waved to her later that afternoon.

  As the sound of the harness and the squeak of the sleigh runners faded into the distance, Paige could at last stop smiling, close the door, and then rest her head against the wood and swear in a steady stream, every foul word she'd ever heard.

  What good was all her book learning, her years of experience, if she couldn't use it to help one tiny little girl?

  All her knowledge seemed bitter mockery at times like this.

  She was slumped at the kitchen table, her uneaten dinner from hours before still not cleared away, when Myles slipped in the back door late that night.

  She was still in her jeans—she'd changed into them to do the outdoor chores, bringing in wood and water, cleaning Minnie's stall and putting down fresh straw for her in the stable, trying to work off the sense of gloom that hung over her like a storm cloud.

  She'd given up hoping Myles would be able to come tonight, damning as always the lack of a telephone, which meant that she never knew if or when he'd arrive.

  "Myles. God, Myles, I'm glad to see you."

  She flew into his arms before he could shuck off his heavy buffalo coat, ignoring the dusting of snow that clung to the fur.

  "I see you dressed especially for me." His gloved hand patted her rump, snugly encased in denim. He hugged her tight and kissed her hard, then held her away while he took off his coat, hat, and mitts. He sat down on a chair and unlaced his buckskin moccasins, pulling her down on his lap for a more thorough kiss when he was done.

  That kiss went on until he stood up and lifted her into his arms. Within moments, they were in her bedroom, and he'd tossed her jeans haphazardly to the floor along with his wool breeches.

  He didn't bother removing the rest of her clothing, or his own. Paige made it clear she neither wanted or needed preliminary caresses. They tumbled in a frenzy onto the bed, and their mutual hunger sent them spiraling out of control the moment Myles entered her.

  Afterward, folded in one another's arms, comforted by his presence, Paige told him about Ellie. "It makes me half crazy when there's nothing I can do," she whispered. "It's unlikely Clara and Theo will ever have another child, because Clara's near menopause. And now if they should lose Ellie..." She shuddered, and he drew her tighter against him.

  "None of us are gods, my darling. And one convulsion isn't a death sentence. Just as you told Clara, some babies have them, for reasons unknown. They often grow out of them."

  "Do you ever get a feeling about patients, Myles? Just a sense in your gut that something's not right, even though you can't detect any problem?"

  She felt him nod. "I know it well. It's a sixth sense some doctors develop."

  "Well, I've got that bad feeling about baby Ellie." She sighed, a frustrated sigh. "Damn it all, Myles, if I were a drinking woman, I'd have gotten wasted tonight."

  He stroked her hair in silence for a while, and then he said in his slow drawl, “After Beth died, I took to drinking."

  "Beth ... Your wife?' Paige took his hand in hers and threaded her fingers between his, curious about his past.

  "Elizabeth, but she was called Beth. You know, Paige, when she started to hemorrhage, I felt I should have been able to save her." He made a sound that could have been either a laugh or a sob. "Still feel that way some days, and it's been over nine years now."

  "Can you tell me what it was like when you were young, Myles? Tell me about your family?"

  H
e drew in a deep breath and let it out again. "My daddy, General James Frances Baldwin, was a career officer in the Confederate army. He was a stern man, the general. Had strict ideas about how things ought to be, what his sons should amount to." His voice softened. "Mama, now, she was a belle. I was always told she was one of the prettiest girls in the county when daddy and she were married. We had a good life, plenty of everything. We lived on a cotton plantation outside of Charleston. The land had been in our family for generations."

  Paige remembered watching Gone With The Wind and an incredible thought struck her, sending chills up her spine.

  "Your family didn't have slaves, did they, Myles?"

  "Of course." He sounded astonished that she would even ask. "Everyone we knew had slaves, it was part of our culture. Why, my brothers and I were raised by Mandy, our black nurse. It was a way of life in the South. A few of them stayed on after the war, till after Beth died."

  "How many brothers and sisters did you have?'

  “Two brothers, no living sisters. Ma had six babies in all, we three boys and also two girls and a boy that didn't live past babyhood. I was the middle one. We were the apples of our mama's eye, and Pa wasn't home a lot, so we ran pretty wild when we were growing up."

  Paige could tell from his voice he was smiling.

  "All the old ladies thereabouts called us rakes and warned their granddaughters not to speak to those wild Baldwin boys, which seemed to bring the girls flocking."

  Paige smiled at pictures his soft drawl conjured.

  "I remember one summer especially, before the war came. Chance was two years older than me, he was home from college, he was studying law. I was heading back for medical school in Charleston in the fall. Beau, two years my junior, was still in prep school. It was hot, seemed it never rained that whole summer. Pa was away. We were full of the dickens. We gambled, fought some, stole Pa's best bourbon, went fishin', tore around on fast horses, romanced the neighbor girls." He laughed, a deep rumble in his chest. "Poor Mama was at her wit's end all that summer." He paused, and Paige waited.