“I did,” he said. “I’ve been wearing them in the evening and to bed.”
“Bring those with you as well when you come back with dinner,” she said. “It gets warm in here until the sun goes down and the evening breeze kicks up. We might as well be 2016 comfortable.”
“I agree completely.”
He managed to get dressed while she watched from the big bed, then he kissed her long and hard before finally pulling away and heading toward the door. He picked up his journal and pen and then with only one look back at the naked woman in the bed, he eased the door open to check if anyone was coming from either direction.
Both halls were empty, so he went out quickly and headed for the staircase. Ten minutes later he had his dinner ordered. It would be delivered at 6 p.m. in his room.
It felt very, very odd to be in the room alone, even though that was how he had spent most of the time since Duster had left. Suddenly Dixie was in his life and he wanted to be with her.
He forced himself to sit at his desk and start the process of figuring out the math behind how they could meet in a timeline.
He knew that in an almost infinite number of timelines he was doing the same thing right now.
There had to be something about the crystal cave that allowed this to happen, something about the physical nature of a timeline being expressed in a crystal that altered the math calculations.
But that didn’t calculate out either.
Almost before he realized it there was a knock on his door and dinner had arrived.
He asked the waiter to just leave it on the tray. He might be eating with a friend and the waiter nodded and just left.
The steak smelled wonderful and the potato looked perfectly cooked. He had also ordered a full pitcher of iced tea with ice in the pitcher and a glass full of ice.
He put his journal and pen on the tray with his food, wrapped up a running shirt and running shorts and stuffed them inside his suit coat pocket and picked the tray up, balancing it carefully as he opened the door.
Again the wide, carpeted hallway was clear and he headed down the hall.
A moment later he was back in Dixie’s room, unseen as far as he knew.
Her dinner had been delivered as well and was on the table in the round corner of her room. Since her room was on the north corner of the building, no sun was beating in as it did in his room. Her windows were open letting in a soft evening breeze that smelled of hot sagebrush.
Since her dinner had been delivered, she had changed into running shorts and a sports bra and had pulled her hair back and tied it away from her face.
He put his tray on the table and then turned and kissed her.
And she kissed him back and pressed into him.
When they finally broke apart, she looked him right in the eye. “You were only gone an hour and I missed you. How is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” he said after kissing her again. “But I felt the same way. So I’m not going to question it. I just want to enjoy every second of it.”
“And that’s a plan I really like,” she said.
He went into the bedroom and took off his suit and vest and shirt and pants and put on his running shorts and tee shirt.
He went back into where she was already sitting at the table. She looked up and smiled as he walked barefoot toward her. “We’ve traveled back to 2016 and haven’t left the room.”
He laughed. “Sure looks that way.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
September 25, 1901
Dixie’s Timeline
FOR OVER AN entire, wonderful month, they continued the same routine they had set up the first day. Dixie flat loved every minute of it, every day of it.
They slept the nights together in her room, and she felt wonderful cuddling against him every night, her naked body against his.
Then at sunrise, Brice went back to his room and met her an hour later for breakfast in the dining room.
They went back to her room after breakfast and worked on timeline math until lunch. They seemed to just think the same with the math and he was the first person who could talk to her at the same level professionally.
And that was wonderful.
Then they had lunch together in the dining room, sometimes working, sometimes just making small talk if anyone sat too close to them.
Then they spent the time together for the rest of the afternoon working and ate dinner together as well in her room.
The days were wonderful and not once did she get tired of having him with her. They talked, worked, laughed, and made love.
They made a lot of love, actually. Neither of them seemed to be capable of keeping their hands off the other one. And Dixie didn’t mind that in the slightest.
He had become a part of her, something she would have said impossible a month before.
And they had made progress on the math as well.
Both of them were convinced that the limited aspects of the physical nature of the crystal cave caused the ability to cross over timelines as had happened with the lodge, and that had happened to them.
Brice had assigned a random limited number of two hundred million to the crystals within a hundred paces of the table to plug into the equations they were coming up with.
It worked, which shocked Dixie.
By simply assigning a set number, all their math suddenly made sense.
They had their equation.
They had the answer. Granted, it was a very complex answer, taking almost two pages of each of their journals just to write out in small symbols.
And they would need to check it on a computer when they got back to 2016.
But they both knew it was right.
They were both almost giddy with excitement. The trip for both of them had been completely successful.
They had also figured out mathematically a way to use crystals not attached to the wall as a form of time travel machine outside of the crystal cave. Those crystals were detached from the wall and stacked when Duster’s great-great-grandfather had broken through into the crystal room. Both Dixie and Brice remembered seeing the stack of crystals, each one representing a timeline, sitting near the door.
But now they had one major issue they flat couldn’t figure out how to handle.
Bonnie and Duster would be returning.
Bonnie and Duster were married, but not to each other in this timeline at the moment.
Dixie’s Bonnie was married to a Duster still doing dishes back in the cavern.
Brice’s Duster was married to a Bonnie also doing dishes back in the cavern.
They needed to figure out a way to tell their bosses when they returned.
But mostly, she and Brice had started working on how to meet each other in their own timelines in 2016. They had decided that doing that could very well end up being the hardest thing they had to do when they returned.
Neither could even begin to guess what they would be doing after a year of teaching.
They both knew they were the same person in the other timeline, but they just both hoped their counterparts hadn’t met someone else and gotten married.
If that turned out to be the case, they had worked out a few times to return to and meet and live lifetimes in the past.
But more than anything, they decided they both wanted to be a couple in 2016.
The only problem was convincing the other two parts of themselves in 2016 that was a good idea.
And both of them were sure that their counterparts were going to think the other person completely crazy. Just as they both had thought Bonnie and Duster crazy when they told them of the lodge.
It was just after eight in the evening, as they sat talking about how to make their future selves fall in love that a knock came at the door.
In over a full month, that had been the first time that had happened.
Brice grabbed his journal and dinner tray and moved quickly to the bedroom area.
“Who is it?” Dixie asked, movin
g toward the big door to the hallway. She could feel her stomach twisting. Had someone discovered them and were they going to be tossed out of the hotel?
Or something worse?
“It’s Bonnie,” the voice said from the other side of the door.
Dixie laughed and looked back at Brice who only shrugged and smiled.
It seemed it was time to face the boss, at least her boss.
Dixie moved over to the door and unlatched it, then looked out carefully at Bonnie, who smiled.
There was no one in the wide hallway behind Bonnie, so Dixie indicated Bonnie should come in.
Bonnie looked tired and dusty. She had on her riding clothes and clearly had just arrived, since her saddlebag was still in her hand.
Dixie quickly closed the door behind Bonnie and latched it, then hugged her boss.
“Great seeing you as well,” Bonnie said, smiling. “How did it go? Are you all right?”
“I’m wonderful and we made progress on the lodge problem,” Dixie said. “I think we have it solved.”
“Wonderful!” Bonnie said, smiling. Then it clearly sunk in what Dixie had said.
“We?”
Dixie nodded. “I had a little help.”
“In 1901 you had higher level math help?” Bonnie asked, a worried and puzzled look crossing her tired face.
“Did you know,” Dixie said, smiling at her boss and friend, “that in other timelines in 2016, you didn’t hire me. You hired a wonderful man by the name of Brice Lincoln.”
“I know,” Bonnie said, still frowning. “It was basically a coin flip between the two of you. How did you know that?”
Dixie could see the light starting to dawn on Bonnie.
“Nice meeting you, boss,” Brice said, stepping out of the back room behind Bonnie. He was wearing only his running shorts and tee shirt and looked like he was completely from 2016. “I’m the guy that lost the coin flip in your timeline and seemed to have won it in others.”
Bonnie spun around.
Then when she saw him she said simply, “Shit.”
Dixie laughed. “That’s exactly what I said when I realized who he was.”
“I think I’m starting to get a complex,” Brice said, smiling.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
September 26, 1901
Brice’s Timeline
THEY CONVINCED BONNIE to go get a bath and some sleep and they would talk about it at breakfast.
Dixie had said to her, “We worked out the reason mathematically this happened. We’ll explain it all, honest.”
“Is your Duster back yet?” Bonnie had asked Brice.
“Not yet,” Brice said. “You get to be the first one to hear all this.”
Bonnie had nodded and said she would meet them at breakfast.
After Bonnie left, Brice and Dixie sat in the living room area, her tucked against him, talking. He loved that she was sitting beside him like this, her legs curled up, the side of her face against his chest. He didn’t want to lose this, and right now, for the first time, he was afraid he might.
Dixie was clearly thinking the same thing. “I don’t want to lose you,” she said, hugging him.
“We might be able to just talk Bonnie and Duster into staying for a lifetime,” Brice said. “They’ve clearly done that a number of times.”
“So you want to spend a lifetime with me?” Dixie asked.
“As many lifetimes as I can manage,” Brice said, surprised that he felt that strongly. “Either in our timelines or back here the two of us.”
“I agree completely,” she said, again hugging him.
They spent the next hour setting exact times to return to the past and locations in the crystal room to hook to on the wall in order to increase the chances of hitting the same timeline again.
Brice knew their chances were very good to spend time together that way, lifetimes together.
But what he was worried about was Dixie convincing her future Brice to join her while he failed at convincing his future Dixie.
Dixie said she was worried about the same thing, only the other way around.
They finally decided if that happened, they would still return to a point in the past and meet to at least tell the other person what happened. But the thought of that made Brice really sad.
He was in love with a person in his own time that he hadn’t met yet. The Dixie of his time might not love him. He knew that in an infinite number of universes, she wouldn’t.
And in an infinite number of timelines she would.
Nothing was for sure when it came to relationships. And that scared him more than he wanted to think about.
They finally went to bed and made love passionately, as if it might be their last time.
And then the next morning, he went back to his own suite, changed clothes, and went down to the dining room first as he had done for a month.
A few minutes later Dixie joined him. And right behind her came Bonnie.
Brice had tipped the waiter to not seat anyone close to them so they could talk. So after they were all seated, Dixie asked Bonnie, “How was your trip to San Francisco?”
“It was wonderful and sad,” Bonnie said, a haunted look in her eyes. “I didn’t want to leave. I never do.”
Brice glanced at Dixie who was frowning. “I assume that’s not something you want to talk about just yet.”
“Maybe never,” Bonnie said as the waiter came up to take their order.
After he was out of earshot, Bonnie looked first at Dixie, then at Brice. “So tell me how this happened?”
Together they relayed the events of their first five days and how Dixie had seen Brice working on the math in his journal.
“And you’ve been a couple ever since I assume,” Bonnie said.
“We have,” Brice said, smiling.
“We were very careful,” Dixie said.
Bonnie laughed. “I’m sure you were. But I’m sure all the hotel staff knew what was happening. You will discover that people are people no matter what time. And western people in this time were very forgiving of some things for a certain class of people.”
Dixie blushed and Brice just laughed. He still loved how Dixie blushed at the drop of a hat. Actually, he loved just about everything about her.
“So after breakfast you want to show me the math on all this?” Bonnie asked, “Or wait until we get back?”
“I think showing it to you now, together, would be a good idea,” Dixie said.
“And also showing it to Duster when he gets here,” Brice said. “When we go back, we won’t be together.”
“I agree,” Dixie said. “Since we worked this out together, better to present it together.”
Bonnie nodded. Then after the waiter brought their coffee, she looked at both of them. “Have you thought what you are going to do when you get back?”
Dixie looked at Brice and he nodded and answered her question.
“We have,” he said. “And we are hoping you will hire the loser of the coin flip in both timelines. So we can continue to work together.”
“And if that person won’t come on board?” Bonnie asked.
“Then we will meet here if you don’t mind,” Dixie said, “in the past, and be together as much as we can, as many years, as many lifetimes, as we can be.”
At that Bonnie smiled and patted Brice’s hand. “I think we can make the offer good enough that you’ll come work for us and with Dixie.”
“Thanks,” Brice said. “But I have a hunch it might not take much more than a smile from Dixie.”
Dixie blushed and Bonnie laughed.
Bonnie then looked at Dixie. “He’s a romantic. Who knew?”
And at that Brice could feel himself blushing.
CHAPTER THIRTY
October 4th, 1901
Dixie’s Timeline
“FIGURES THAT DUSTER would push the limits of when he could return,” Bonnie said at breakfast as the three of them sat at their normal table. For Dixie, the last week
or so since Bonnie showed up had been wonderful.
The three of them ate meals together and then after breakfast they worked on the math of the various issues facing them.
Then they had lunch together and worked through the afternoon as well.
For the first time, Dixie was seeing how amazing Bonnie’s math mind really was. And during the week Bonnie had helped them fine-tune a number of theories.
Then Bonnie would leave them and let Dixie and Brice have their dinner together and the evening alone.
Dixie had loved those evenings as well as they talked about everything they could think to tell the other person about their lives to help that person when they went back to 2016.
But after a few days they had decided that the best way to get the other person on board was the Roosevelt Lodge, just as Bonnie and Duster had done.
They asked Bonnie and she agreed.
So by breakfast that morning they had their plan worked out.
“What do you mean push the limits?” Dixie had asked after the waiter left from delivering their coffee.
“It’s going to snow in the mountains around Silver City in three days,” Bonnie said. “Makes getting back in there tough after that.”
“Not that tough,” Duster said as he walked up toward them, smiling.
Dixie was surprised and pushed back slightly from the table.
Brice looked surprised as well.
Duster had on his normal suit and vest and the long oilcloth duster and cowboy hat. He looked freshly bathed and as if he had a night’s sleep.
He leaned over and kissed Bonnie on the cheek and then sat down in the empty chair as the three of them stared at him.
“What? You weren’t expecting me?” Duster said to Brice, who still looked stunned. “I got in late last night, didn’t want to bother you.”
Then he turned to Bonnie. “What made you decide to join the fun and who is this wonderful young woman who has joined us?”
Dixie reached out her hand and shook Duster’s firm hand. “I’m Dixie Smith. Remember, I lost the coin flip and you hired Brice here.”
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