Well, not everything. She could only hope that he would still love her once she told him the truth.
“I’m fine. Tired. And I feel…strange.”
“Traveling in time can do that to a person,” Caitlin said wryly.
“It was just…I met them, Cate. I met people who were just faded images in old, old pictures.”
“What were they like?”
“They were….” Danica trailed off there, knowing she couldn’t possibly begin to describe her encounters with the members of the Wilcox clan. Lovely, laughing Emma, and solemn little Jacob, and murderous Samuel. And Jeremiah. Danica wondered if she’d ever be able to sort that one out. “Different than I expected.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. I’d probably be shocked if I met some of my McAllister ancestors in the flesh.” Caitlin seemed to hesitate then, as if she was deciding the best way to phrase her next question. “What about him? Do you think he’s going to be okay?”
“Isn’t your sight giving you any clues about that?” Wishful thinking, probably, but she just had to ask.
“No. I think the important thing was making sure you saved him. After that…I think it’s up to you.”
Danica wanted to argue with that statement, but she couldn’t. The next morning, she’d find out if she was up to the task.
* * *
Out of deference to Robert’s sensibilities, she made sure to put on her peasant skirt and a long-sleeved T-shirt when she got dressed the next morning. Since she’d showered the night before, she only brushed her hair and pulled it into a long, loose side braid. Hopefully, the ensemble wouldn’t shock him too much.
He’d still been sleeping when she peeked into the guest bedroom, so she decided to go to the kitchen and put together some breakfast. Nothing fancy, but toast and scrambled eggs hadn’t changed all that much over the years. Maybe the offering of food would soften the blow she was about to deliver.
Just as she was poking around in the kitchen, trying to see if there was a tray somewhere she could use to take his food to him, she heard him say, “Eliza.”
Startled, she whirled around. He stood in the entrance to the kitchen, staring at the stainless-steel appliances with an expression of mingled wonder and consternation. Trying to gather her wits, she responded, “Robert, you shouldn’t be out of bed.”
“I feel much improved this morning.” He wore the jeans and a long-sleeved flannel shirt Eleanor had left for him, although his feet were bare, as if he hadn’t quite figured out what to do with the tennis shoes. Then he frowned and said, “What is this place?”
“It’s — it’s my family’s cabin.” Damn, she really didn’t want to have this conversation while standing up in the kitchen. “Why don’t you go sit down at the dining room table, and I’ll bring you your breakfast. Do you drink coffee?”
“That’s what awakened me, I think.” He glanced around the kitchen again, eyes narrowed, but to Danica’s relief he only said, “Do you have any cream?”
“Just milk.”
“That’s fine.” To her relief, he did head over to the dining room table and sit down.
All right. She poured two mugs full of coffee, then found a little pitcher in one of the cupboards and poured some milk into it. No point in shocking him with a plastic milk container right off the bat. At least the stoneware here at the cabin was that old-fashioned kind with the milky paint spatters on top of dark, dark green. Danica hoped it wouldn’t be too shocking, either.
She brought everything out to the table and sat down across from him. He was looking at her, seeming to take in her long-sleeved T-shirt and casual hair. Then he asked, “Where are we? You said your family’s cabin, but I just looked out the window. The landscape out there certainly doesn’t look like St. Louis. In fact, even though I know it’s impossible, I’d say we were still at the Wilcox clan’s cabin. The trees look similar, the porch…although I don’t know what that thing is sitting off to one side of the house.”
That “thing” was probably her Land Rover, brought there last night by Eleanor and her son Travis. They must have come while she was sleeping, because she didn’t remember hearing them drop it off. She swallowed, then poured some milk into her coffee and began swirling it nervously. “What if I told you it wasn’t impossible, that you still were at the Wilcox cabin?”
He went very still then, ignoring the plate of scrambled eggs in front of him. “What do you mean, Eliza?”
That was the first thing she needed to clear up. “Actually, Robert, my — my name isn’t Eliza Prewitt.” She pulled in a breath. Just say it. “My name is Danica Wilcox.”
Those blue eyes seemed to be fastened on her face, boring into her. “You’re a Wilcox?”
“Yes. But — but not one of the Wilcoxes as you knew them. I’m Nathan Wilcox’s great-to-the-fifth-power granddaughter.”
Dead silence. Then, too calmly, Robert reached for the milk and poured a good measure into his coffee cup, followed by a half-spoonful of sugar. He stirred the coffee, kept stirring it.
It was just too awful. Feeling compelled to speak, Danica said quickly, “I tried to tell you. That is, I was going to tell you that time we met in the aspen grove. But then Edmund came along, and everything went crazy after that, and I just didn’t have any time.”
Still Robert said nothing. He raised the coffee cup to his lips and drained it in one quick swallow, then pushed back his chair and stood. Feeling helpless, Danica rose as well, even as he crossed the front room and let himself out the door onto the porch.
Damn, that didn’t go so well. She hurried after him, saw him standing on the bottom step, as if he’d intended to go farther but then stopped when he realized he didn’t have any shoes on. Frost glittered on the dry grass, and their breath puffed out into the cold morning air, although the day probably would turn out to be fairly mild.
“It looks the same,” he said then, not glancing at her, his attention apparently fixed on the pine forests that surrounded the cabin. “Perhaps not quite as green.”
“This part of it is more or less the same. The town — the town has changed a lot.”
“I expect it would, in more than a hundred years.” This time he did turn toward her. In the morning light, she could see the dark stubble on his jaw, his rumpled hair. In fact, he appeared so much like the way she’d imagined him looking in the morning that she had to suck in a breath and remind herself not to get distracted. “Why?”
She’d known there would be no way to avoid that question. “When I first met you, you were a ghost.” His eyes widened at that revelation, and she hurried on, “You were here, haunting this place, because Samuel Wilcox shot you here. And I knew — I knew I had to do something about it. For whatever reason, your spirit reached out to me.”
Something about his mouth softened then, as if he was remembering how they’d reached out to one another back in 1884, had believed themselves in love. No, it wasn’t believing, but knowing. Her soul had found its echo in his. But did he feel that way as well? “And so you traveled in time to save me? Is that your talent?”
“It didn’t exactly start out that way, but….” Quickly, she explained how her gift had originally worked, and how Lawrence had taught her to expand it, to make it so much more. “And so, yes, I went to the Flagstaff of your time, to try to prevent your murder. Only I didn’t do such a good job of that.”
One eyebrow went up. “I’m here, aren’t I?’
True enough. But only because Caitlin’s sight had sent help, and Jeremiah had reached beyond his own pain to lend her the strength she needed to bring Robert back across all those years. “But more despite me than because of me. If Jeremiah Wilcox hadn’t given me the extra power to bring both you and me back here, you would have died.”
“He did that?” The words sounded oddly flat, almost as if they weren’t really a question at all.
“Yes. He knew I loved you.”
“Did you tell him…who you were?”
“At the end, I did
. But I think he would have helped me even if we weren’t the same blood.”
Robert’s mouth twitched. “Are you trying to make me think well of the man?”
“You should,” she replied. “He was a good person. I can’t say the same for Samuel.”
“No, I would think not. I suppose it’s a relief to you that your ancestor was Nathan, not Samuel.”
Was he teasing her? No, he couldn’t be. Not about the man who’d tried to kill him — had killed him, in a past that had somehow been erased. “A bit of a relief,” she replied, taking care to keep her tone light. “But can we go inside now? It’s cold, and our breakfast will be, too, if we don’t eat it soon.”
Robert came back up the steps but stopped next to her. Danica hardly dared to breathe; he felt somehow more intimidating like this, in his jeans and untucked flannel shirt and morning stubble. He looked like a man she could be with for real, a man she could take to meet her friends and her family, not someone who’d just walked off the set of a western.
But then he was bending to kiss her, mouth warm against hers, tasting of coffee. She reached out to pull him close and felt the strength of his body, the heat of his flesh. God, she wanted him. It was probably too soon for that, however.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go in.”
20
Eleanor did stop by around eleven, and although she looked less than thrilled to see Robert up and about, she didn’t lecture him too much. “Just try to stay around the cabin for now,” she said. “No nature hikes.”
Robert nodded obediently, and, after she left, confided to Danica, “She reminds me of an aunt back in Boston.” The half-smile he’d been wearing disappeared, though, as he seemed to realize he’d never see that aunt again, or any of his family.
His expression felt like a wound through the heart. Would she be enough? Could he learn to start over in a place where everything was strange and alien, and even the woman he thought he loved wasn’t who she’d professed to be?
Maybe she should apologize, say something about how sorry she was that she’d had to take him away from his clan. But even as she opened her mouth to speak, he shrugged, as if attempting to shake off the realization that he was now separated from everything he knew by an insurmountable gulf. Instead, he told her, “I think it’s time for a history lesson.”
* * *
First, though, Danica showed Robert how to use the shower in the guest bath. Luckily, one of Cody’s friends had left his “guy” shampoo in the shower there, and Danica found a spare bar of soap under the sink. The whole time she was trying very hard not to think about what Robert would look like climbing into that shower. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure how well she succeeded.
If Robert noticed anything strange about her behavior, he didn’t show it. He paid close attention to everything she said, then said he’d meet her back out in the living room.
For someone unfamiliar with modern showers, he did okay. Fifteen minutes later, he was back out, changed into some more of the clothes Eleanor had left for him, and actually smiling. Danica lifted an eyebrow at him, and he said, “That was…remarkable. Hot water, as much as you need? I think I like this future of yours.”
You ain’t seen nothing yet, Danica thought then, but she could feel herself relax slightly. Maybe this would all turn out to be okay.
Time to get down to business, though. She told him everything she could, then fired up the satellite TV to see if there was anything worthwhile on the History Channel. It seemed to be Nazi week once again — no big surprise there — and she switched off the television quickly before Robert could discover the joys of twenty-four-hour cable news. He’d find out about it eventually, she supposed, but Danica wanted to postpone that evil day for as long as possible.
But that interlude led to her having to explain about television, and satellites, and cell phones and computers. His brow furrowed as he seemed to process everything she told him, but he didn’t interrupt, and the questions he did ask showed that he was able to grasp the basics of modern-day technology, even if he couldn’t begin to understand how it all really worked.
“So,” he said, “even though these cellular phones of yours can communicate with one another without wires, they still don’t work here at the cabin?”
“Not really,” she replied. “It’s hard, because of the mountains. Sort of a line-of-sight thing. My phone can’t talk to the tower that sends the transmissions because all these hills are in the way.”
His brows pulled together as he thought it over. “But the one that uses a satellite — it works because the signal goes up and not across, correct?”
Damn. He was grasping these things far more easily than she’d expected him to. But then, smart was smart, whether now or back in 1884. Danica allowed herself a flicker of hope. He seemed to be doing okay. No, he would be okay. He just had to be.
She didn’t want to think about the alternative.
And there was so much more, too — the right to vote, and the Civil Rights Movement. Two world wars, and 9/11, and the Internet. By the time the day had worn into evening, Robert finally shook his head and told her, “I think that’s where we’d better stop for now. It’s — a good deal to absorb.”
“Well, considering I just condensed about a century and a half into a couple of hours, I can see why you’d think that way.” They’d been sitting on the couch in the family room area, but she rose then and said, “We should probably eat something. I can’t really do anything from scratch, but there’s a frozen pizza — ”
“A what?”
“Pizza. Sort of a big, round, crusty bread with sauce and cheese and toppings. This one is pepperoni. It’s a kind of Italian sausage. And there’s wine,” she added.
His eyes lit up. “Wine. That’s something I can understand.”
She smiled, relieved that she’d bought those couple of bottles when she loaded up on supplies at the store. “Well, you open it while I get that pizza started.”
* * *
It definitely wasn’t gourmet, but Robert didn’t seem to mind. Actually, he’d been snacking on and off all day — bread and butter, crackers and cheese. It was probably his body needing the nutrients to complete the healing process, but Danica knew she’d have to go into town soon to get more supplies. Would Robert be ready to go with her, or would he need a few more days of decompression time? So far he seemed to be handling things remarkably well, but he’d only been exposed to the modern wonders of the cabin’s kitchen appliances and satellite TV. What would he think of being surrounded by cars, of going into a huge supermarket with aisles and aisles of products he’d never even heard of?
Well, first things first. They’d eat dinner, and then….
And then what? she asked herself. It’s a little too soon to be jumping into bed.
She wasn’t so sure about that.
They drank the wine and ate the pizza in the living room while a fire crackled in the hearth. It was getting cold enough at night that the cabin could use the supplemental heating, and besides, she hoped the fire would make the atmosphere feel not quite so alien, would be something familiar for Robert. Belatedly she realized that maybe it wasn’t the best idea for him to be drinking so soon after Eleanor had healed him, but there wasn’t much she could do about that now.
“Danica,” Robert said in musing tones.
“What?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t asking a question. I was just thinking of your name. I’ve never heard it before. It’s beautiful.”
For some reason, she flushed, then bent to pick up her wine from the coffee table so he couldn’t see her reaction. “Well, styles in names change, I suppose. But ‘Robert’ is still popular.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
A certain warmth in his tone made her glance over at him. He was sitting a proper distance away, with no chance of their legs touching or anything like that, but Danica fancied she could still feel the heat of his body. The tension between
them was almost palpable, and she wasn’t sure what to do about it.
Actually, she knew exactly what she wanted to do. The question was, would Robert go along, or be hung up on a system of values that no longer had any real meaning in the modern world? Or at least they didn’t for her. Her “virtue” — if you wanted to call it that — was long gone.
“Robert,” she said, then hesitated, trying to decide on the best way to phrase what she was thinking. “A lot has changed since you — since your time. It’s — it’s all right for a man and a woman to be together, even if they aren’t married.”
That remark made him shift toward her, brows pulling together. He set down his wine glass and asked, “Danica, what are you saying?”
Oh, God, this was awful. It had been so much easier to just go out with a guy, mess around on the sofa at his apartment or whatever, and then have things progress naturally to the bedroom. “I’m saying that I want to be together. If you’re not ready, I understand, but — ”
In that instant, he was reaching for her glass and plucking it from her hand, then pulling her toward him, his lips pressed hard against her mouth, his tongue exploring hers, both of them tasting of wine. Heat seemed to explode up from her belly, bringing with it the welcome ache she’d worried she might never feel again.
“Yes, Robert. Please,” she whispered.
That seemed to be enough for him. He scooped her up in his arms and took her away from the living room, back toward the master bedroom, even though he’d never been there before. Once there, he grasped her T-shirt and pulled it up over her head. His hands reached up to cup her breasts, his skin so warm, even through the lace of her bra, his fingers so strong, so sure. She gasped, but she wouldn’t let that distract her as she determinedly worked away at the buttons of his shirt.
No trace of a scar where Samuel Wilcox’s bullet had pierced his skin. Only smooth, muscled flesh, and a faint dusting of dark hair. She laid her lips against his chest and kissed him, listened to the intake of his breath as she trailed kisses down his front, pausing to undo the buttons on his jeans.
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