“Exactly,” Dixie said, relieved that he was understanding that much.
“So how could it happen that we met here?”
“Bonnie brought me back to this hotel and left me after a few days,” Dixie said. “In the other timeline, Duster brought you back and left you here after a few days. They didn’t see each other until they returned.”
“So the Bonnie from our timeline met a Duster from another timeline?” Brice asked.
“That’s right,” Dixie said. “First time in the thousands of years they have come back here that had happened.”
“Because of the closeness of the timelines you won the flip and I won the flip,” Brice said, nodding, clearly lost in thought.
“Exactly,” Dixie said. “And because your counterpart and I solved so many problems together, it was clear to Bonnie and Duster that we should work together.”
“More than that I assume,” Brice said, staring at her.
She nodded and took a deep breath. “I fell in love with you during those two months, and I am even more in love with the you sitting here now.”
“You mean the counterpart me?” Brice asked.
“No, you,” Dixie said, her voice as firm as she could make it and looking him directly in the eyes. “Except for your year of teaching, you are exactly the man I fell in love with. I fell in love with you at first here in this hotel. I just hadn’t met you, the professor yet. And then I fell in love all over again with you, the professor you, while we worked together the last two months.”
Brice opened his mouth again and then closed it, just staring at her.
She sat there letting that brilliant mind of his grapple with what she had told him.
Finally he said, “Did the counterpart me decide to meet you in his timeline?”
“He did,” she said. “But you know the math of alternate timelines as well as I do. There were three major turning points in getting to right here.”
Brice nodded. “I would either leave teaching or not leave teaching.”
Dixie nodded. “Different timelines split off for each.”
“I would walk away from the job when Bonnie and Duster told me about the lodge,” Brice said.
Again Dixie only nodded. She knew that in a large number of timelines, she was sure Brice had both stayed teaching and walked away.
“And the third turning point is this moment right now,” he said. “How will I react?”
She nodded. “And I’m scared to death. I want to be with you for a very long time, work with you, make love to you, laugh and talk with you and explore the boundaries of math and history together.”
She just sat there after that, her heart racing as she stared into his green eyes.
He didn’t seem to be even reacting. She had no idea what or how he was feeling. In the two months back here and in the two months after Bonnie and Duster had hired him, she had never seen him angry. Focused, yes, snippy with stupidity, yes, but never angry.
She didn’t want to see him angry now. She didn’t know what she would do if he turned his back on her.
Outside the sun was just setting, the sounds of music drifted through the air from a few nearby saloons. A wagon rattled past on the street below. All sounds she had grown to love with Brice facing her across this very table.
A Brice from a different timeline.
But still the same Brice.
They sat there for what seemed like an eternity. She wanted to give him time to think, so she somehow managed to say nothing.
Finally, he shook his head and sighed and sat forward. He looked at her as intensely as he could. Was he going to tell her to go to hell?
Was he going to be angry with her for tricking him to this point?
She wouldn’t blame him for yelling at her.
“In your list of things that you wanted to do with me, you forgot taking baths together,” he said. “Toss that in and you just might sway me to stay with you and do all those other wonderful things you mentioned as well.”
She stared at him for a moment, blinking.
He wasn’t upset.
Finally he smiled and she flat wasn’t sure what to do next. She damned near fainted off the chair because she had been holding her breath.
She stood and moved over to him and sat on his lap and kissed him harder than she had ever kissed anyone before.
And he kissed her back.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
August 16th, 1901
Brice’s Timeline
THE NEXT MORNING to get to breakfast, Brice and Dixie had done what they had done for almost two months in another timeline. They had waited for the coast to be clear and then left her room together to go to breakfast. But instead of him going back to his room for a few minutes to stagger their arrival, this time they walked down the stone staircase together.
Dixie looked ravishing in her blue summer dress and tall boots. She carried her large matching hat and had her red hair loose and pulled together with a decorative comb. He wore jeans, a vest and suit coat, and carried his cowboy hat.
He couldn’t believe she hadn’t been angry with him. In fact, after he told her, she had kissed him long and hard and then asked a ton of questions about her counterpart and how she handled being alone here in the past in the west.
Then they had made love in the big feather bed and drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms.
For Brice, it had been wonderful. Two months of constant worry that he could get to that very moment with the Dixie of his own timeline, and he finally had.
The woman he loved was once again at his side and knew everything.
The dining room was like returning to an old home. The high ceilings and tall windows let in the morning light and a cool morning breeze. Each table was covered in a white cloth and each table had a flower in the center.
Dixie was shocked at how stunning the large dining room was and how wonderful the large stone and brick fireplace against one wall was.
“Where did I sit before we met?” she whispered as they entered.
Brice pointed to a table across the room. “And I sat where Bonnie and Duster are. We did a lot of nodding to each other for a few days at breakfast and lunch.”
She laughed. “I’ll bet. I’m a lady, you know.”
“I’m not ever forgetting,” Brice said.
“So,” Duster asked, standing as Brice held the chair for Dixie and then went and sat down. “You on board now completely?”
“I am,” Dixie said. “Brice told me all about my counterpart and how she handled being alone here and how we met. I hope she is having as much luck with the Brice of her timeline.”
“An infinite number of her did, and infinite numbers of her didn’t,” Duster said.
“I feel bad for my counterparts that did not,” Dixie said.
“As you know from the math,” Bonnie said, smiling. “Timeline splits often come back together. I have a hunch that Duster and Brice and I can be very persuasive.”
“Very,” Dixie said, and laughed.
Brice loved that laugh, and those large brown eyes and everything about Dixie.
“Did you have any doubts when Brice told you?” Bonnie asked.
Brice had been worried about that question as well, but hadn’t asked.
“Honestly,” Dixie said, “I’m thinking the three major turning points to get me to this point are not really turning points. And I might be able to prove that mathematically given time, some computers, and help from Brice.”
Brice just stared at her, as did Bonnie and Duster. The waitress interrupted them at that moment and took their breakfast orders. Brice almost said he would have his “regular” of ham and eggs and the wonderful butter bread and then realized he actually had never been to this restaurant in this timeline before.
As the waitress walked away, Duster asked Dixie, “Care to explain?”
“Looking back at the three turning points of hiring me, the lodge conversation, and Brice telling me about how we met
,” Dixie said, “I had no doubts at any of the points that would have been large enough to make me change my decision. I can’t imagine making any other decision.”
“So it would have to be a very different you who would make negative decisions along the way,” Bonnie said.
Dixie nodded. “Very, very different than the Dixie that Brice met here in that other timeline and that you two hired.”
“Well ain’t that interesting?” Duster sat back shaking his head.
“The turning points would have then come earlier in your life,” Bonnie said, clearly thinking and almost talking to herself. “Decisions on careers, studying math, accidently getting pregnant and so on.”
“Yes,” Dixie said. “Those turning point events all through my life caused me to be a person you almost hired or did hire. From there I don’t think, knowing you three, that anything but this outcome was possible.”
Brice had been stunned and had just sat listening because he had been just as worried about all the Brice counterparts in other timelines not wanting Dixie. So what Dixie was saying, that might not have ever been a timeline turning point.
Then he realized what Dixie had said about the math proving it and he jumped to the work he and Dixie had done in the other timeline and then eased it forward.
“We can show the equations on that, actually,” Brice said. “It is a branch off the calculations that Dixie and I did on proving why you could remember the lodge being and not being in the same timeline.”
“We figured that out mathematically?” Dixie asked.
Duster laughed and Bonnie just smiled.
“We did,” Brice said. “And you were about to get to it in your review but I wanted you to know it was your math you were studying, so the lodge and coming here was the only way.”
“So you two want to stay here and figure out this new problem for a month or so,” Duster asked.
Brice looked at Dixie and she smiled. “I would love that.”
“So would I,” Brice said.
Bonnie nodded. “Looks like we’re going shopping after breakfast. Can’t have a lady staying at a fancy hotel wearing the same clothes every day, now can we?”
“And what will you two do?” Dixie asked. “Will you stay as well?”
Duster looked at Bonnie. “You want to stay or you want to do some traveling?”
“This hotel is wonderful,” Bonnie said. “And Boise is very pretty this time of the year and into the early fall. I think I’ll stay this time around.”
“As will I,” Duster said, breaking into a huge smile. “There’s a great poker game in the basement of this hotel.”
“The big tub in our room doesn’t add into that equation?” Bonnie asked.
“Not unless you are in it,” Duster said, smiling at Bonnie.
“Hush,” Bonnie said, smiling. “The children are listening.”
Brice was pretty sure his face was slightly red remembering what he and Dixie had done in that big tub in her room last night. And Dixie was flat out blushing.
“Promise me one thing?” Bonnie asked.
Duster nodded.
“We all meet for lunch every day and talk math,” she said. “I’d like to be a part of where this math is going instead of just tracking it from behind.”
“As would I,” Duster said, smiling. “I’ll make sure we have a corner table every lunch and no one is sat near us.”
“We can sure talk about it more than just lunch,” Brice said.
“We just might,” Bonnie said, smiling.
“That we might,” Duster said. “Damn, this is going to be fun.”
And with that Brice couldn’t agree more.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
October 7th, 1901
Dixie’s Timeline
DIXIE ARRIVED BY herself in the crystal cavern, stepped back from the wooden table and looked around at the incredible beauty of the massive room. This was the first time she had been alone in the room and it felt intimidating.
She now understood the math of this place, but actually standing here, looking at billions of alternate timelines, just awed her.
She turned toward the big steel door leading back into the supply cavern. It was locked, so she had beat the first Brice here for their arranged meeting.
She was mathematically certain he would be coming, but she and her Brice might be wrong with the math.
It was always possible. And that twisted at her stomach.
She and the Brice she had met while alone in Boise had agreed to meet just four hours after they left if they could. They were to tell the other one if they had had success in meeting the counterparts. But as it turned out, that had not been a mathematical issue.
As Duster had said, knowing the math of a situation in hindsight was a completely different thing than going through the situation first. Boy had he been right about that.
It was about eleven in the evening outside the mine, and more than likely snowing slightly. But she had no intention of going out there.
She just would wait here for the timeline Brice she had met first and tell him she was fine, that the Brice of her timeline was now with her. And that she loved him.
She had no doubt from the math she and her Brice had done over the last month in Boise that this first Brice had the same result with his Dixie.
The two timelines were just far, far too similar, more than likely only divided by a decision for a person to turn one way on the way to work or turn another, or something even far smaller that would have consequences down the road.
Either of them saying no to any of the major turning points was not likely, considering who they were in each timeline. And the math that she and her Brice had done in the 1901 Boise with Bonnie and Duster had backed that up.
Now her Brice stood with Bonnie and Duster in the crystal room in 2016, waiting the two minutes and fifteen seconds for her to return from this last meeting before they headed back to the modern Boise.
She had lived over a month since that breakfast in the Monumental Lodge telling Brice about this place. But in reality, her timeline reality, that had only been six hours before.
She moved over and opened the steel door that led into the storage cavern. Lights came up as she did, but again the place seemed empty. She went to a timer that Duster had hidden in one wall and checked the exact time and date.
She had arrived at 15 minutes before eleven in the evening on the correct date. One hour and fifteen minutes from now and she would unplug the machine and go back and know the original Brice wasn’t coming.
But she knew he would.
She knew Brice.
She turned around and went back into the cavern, closing the steel door and locking it again. As she finished that and turned toward the wooden table and wooden box on top of it, Brice appeared, his hand on the wooden box.
He turned and saw her and smiled. “Waiting long?”
“Just a few minutes,” she said, her heart racing.
“Duster and Bonnie have that timer pretty fine-tuned,” Brice said, walking over to her across the dirt floor, but not hugging her or kissing her.
Now, for the first time, she understood how Bonnie and Duster felt when they met their counterparts. It just seemed wrong.
Her Brice, the man she now loved, was waiting for her to return.
“You and your Dixie do the math to prove there was no question this would happen?” she asked.
“Wonderful month in 1901 Boise in the Avalanche Creek suite,” he said, nodding. “I love that place and that room.
“Same here,” she said, smiling. “With Bonnie and Duster staying around the entire time and helping.”
“That was wonderful,” Brice said, nodding. “Are they all waiting for you in 2016 for you to return?”
“They are,” Dixie said. “Yours?”
“They are,” Brice said. “My counterpart will be worried.”
“So will mine,” Dixie said. “But they will only be waiting for just over two minut
es. We have as long as we want.”
Brice nodded. “We could take that extra time, but wouldn’t you rather spend that time with your Brice?”
Dixie laughed. “I would.”
Brice smiled. “So we kept our date and we’re both fine. Let’s go start our futures. This is just saying goodbye to a past.”
“A great past that led to our futures,” Dixie said, smiling at him. “You know, it’s really hard to be sad knowing you are standing here waiting for me in 2016.”
He nodded to that, and they turned back toward the wooden table with the machine.
“Who is going to pull the wire to send us into our futures?” Brice asked as they got close to the table.
“We both are,” she said. “At the same time. That only seems appropriate, don’t you think?”
“Perfect,” he said.
They both got into position with a glove on one hand and the other hand on the wooden top of the machine.
“Dixie,” Brice said, turning to look at her. “I love you in all timelines.”
“Brice,” she said, staring into his wonderful green eyes. “I love you in all timelines as well.”
He smiled and she smiled back.
Then they both pulled the wires off the machine, sending them both back to their own timelines.
And their own futures with each other.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith published far more than a hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds of short stories across many genres.
At the moment he produces novels in four major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the Old West, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, and a superhero series starring Poker Boy.
His monthly magazine, Smith’s Monthly, which consists of only his own fiction, premiered in October 2013 and offers readers more than 70,000 words per issue, including a new and original novel every month.
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