Falling into Your Arms (Love in the Old West Book 3)

by Bess McBride

  “No, sir. If I think about it, I cannot say when or how Miss Chilton entered. I am certain she came through the front door, but I did not actually see her enter. I think I might have been sorting some mail at the time. In fact, I believe my back was turned, because when I heard the commotion, I whirled around and there you were in mortal combat with poor Miss Chilton.”

  “Eric,” Jeremiah chided with a roll of his eyes. “Not that bad.”

  “It was surprising,” Eric said. “The last time I saw you toss someone from the hotel was old Ed Schafter when he came in drunk.”

  Jeremiah swallowed hard. His shame had not lessened, and he turned to look at the stairs.

  “I made a mistake,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me. I have reviewed the situation over and over in my mind, and I have no idea why I thought it proper to handle Miss Chilton in such an overbearing manner. Like you, I didn’t see her enter, and I was taken aback when she began shrieking and pounding on the window.”

  “I think she was shouting ‘let me out.’”

  “Yes, that is what I heard too.” Jeremiah sighed. “I cannot undo what I did. I can only hope to make amends. Faith set me quite straight on that.”

  “Yes, she would have.”

  “I’ll return to the office. Should Miss Chilton awaken and decide to leave the hotel, stop her!”

  “How am I to do that? I would never consider restraining a lady.”

  “When I told you Miss Chilton would be staying, I didn’t explain that she may not be well. She may be suffering from some emotional breakdown.”

  “An emotional breakdown? She seemed fine to me when she took her room key. She said that she had missed reboarding the train and that her luggage had remained on the train.”

  “Did she now? I suppose that is probably true. The question is, which train?”

  “What do you mean by that?” Eric nodded toward the door. “The train.”

  “I can’t explain right now. Maybe later when I feel I have a better understanding of the situation. In the meantime, do not let her leave.”

  “Cousin. Sir. Jeremiah,” Eric began. “I am not going to tackle her, not even to keep my job. The best I can do is let you know.”

  “That is fine.”

  Jeremiah returned to his office to attend to paperwork. He struggled to focus on his accounts, managing to get little done in the next two hours. He rose and relieved Eric for a break.

  “If you are going to the kitchen to get something, would you bring me a cup of coffee when you return, please?” he asked Eric.

  “Yes, sir.” Eric left, and Jeremiah sat down on a stool they kept behind the counter. No sooner had he sat than the door opened and two stunningly beautiful young women entered. Dressed in expensive gowns in shades of pink and lilac, with flower-festooned straw boater hats and matching satin parasols, they looked as though they should have been promenading the lakeside boardwalk of Saratoga Springs, New York, rather than entering a hotel in dusty and rugged Benson, Arizona.

  Jeremiah’s parents had left the East Coast when he was just a child, such that he barely remembered the luxury of Saratoga Springs, but he did remember lovely ladies walking with parasols along the lake.

  “Jeremiah,” Serena called out softly. They approached the counter, and Jeremiah jumped up. “Are you working in the lobby now? Surely the owner of the Benson Arms need not work as a clerk?”

  “I often work at the counter, Serena,” he said.

  Serena’s dark hair gleamed under light of the bronze chandelier.

  “Where is Eric?” Tabitha asked, searching the lobby. As golden haired as her sister was dark, the top of Tabitha’s shining head only reached Serena’s shoulder.

  “He is taking a break.”

  “We have come for lunch,” Serena said. “We are meeting Daddy. Is he here yet?”

  Jeremiah shook his head. “No.” Serena and Tabitha’s father, Samuel Treadwell, owned the largest bank in town. Jeremiah often found occasion to have dealings with him. As Jeremiah spoke, the door opened, and a tall, spare man with silver hair entered.

  At that moment, a movement on the stairs caught Jeremiah’s eye, and he saw the pink flash of Miss Chilton’s blouse as she descended the stairs. She paused on the landing, the tightness of her dungarees a stark contrast to the voluminous skirts of the Misses Treadwell.

  She looked at Jeremiah uncertainly, and he shook his head, silently imploring her to return upstairs. Seeming to understand, she turned, but not before Samuel Treadwell spotted her.

  “Hello there!” he called out. “Do not run away because of us.” Samuel kissed his daughters on the cheek. “Hello, my dears.”

  He looked up again and then to Jeremiah. Miss Chilton had paused again on the stairs, her eyes big in her face, as if she was trapped.

  “Mr. Treadwell, Serena, Tabitha, may I present Miss Sarah Chilton? Miss Chilton is staying with us for a few days.”

  “Come, Miss Chilton,” Samuel said, beckoning to her. “You were coming down to the lobby. Do not let us interrupt you.”

  Jeremiah watched with a sense of foreboding as Miss Chilton descended the final steps and stood uncertainly, looking at Jeremiah.

  “I was just going to get a cup of tea. Is that okay?”

  “Yes, of course,” Jeremiah said with relief. He hoped she wasn’t about to spout any of her fanciful notions about the year 2020. “Nancy will see to you.”

  “We are just going that way ourselves, Miss Chilton,” Samuel said. “Do you stay here alone? Would you like to join us for lunch?”

  “Oh, no!” Miss Chilton responded hastily.

  “But have you eaten lunch?” he asked again.

  His daughters watched with interest, but Jeremiah noted that their interest was in studying Miss Chilton from head to foot, as if she was an oddity. He really did not care for it.

  “Miss Chilton wished to take a tray in her room, and I have ordered that for her,” Jeremiah said hastily.

  Miss Chilton threw him a look that didn’t seem relieved so much as irritated. He had only been trying to help her, assuming she didn’t wish to be bombarded by strangers.

  “I think I would like to eat in the dining room,” she said, to Jeremiah’s surprise.

  “Hello.” She thrust her hand out to Samuel. He took her hand and covered it with his own.

  Jeremiah watched in astonishment. He had never thought of Samuel Treadwell as a romantic, but there was a suggestion of caress in the movement, and not at all fatherly.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Miss Chilton said.

  “Very well!” Samuel said. “Shall we, ladies?”

  He tucked Miss Chilton’s hand under his arm as he led the women into the dining room. Jeremiah stared after them, forcing himself not to follow, to remain at the counter, where he ostensibly was supposed to be.

  He would have given anything to peer into the dining room but could not be caught doing such a thing. He eyed the clock on the wall and willed Eric to return as soon as possible so that he, Jeremiah, could find a reason to go to the dining room, perhaps to have his own lunch.

  Eric returned in half an hour—far, far too long for Jeremiah’s liking—and he directed a severe look at him before hurrying into the dining room. There, to his surprise, was Miss Chilton seated at a table next to Samuel, laughing as if she had not a care in the world. Even Serena and Tabitha tittered behind their hands. Jeremiah had never seen the sisters guffaw quite like Miss Chilton was doing at the moment, but they certainly giggled. Five other tables were in use with lunchtime customers.

  Jeremiah normally took his lunch in his office, and in fact, Nancy was just on her way out of the kitchen with a tray for him. He looked at her and shook his head, and after a confused moment, she returned to the kitchen with the tray.

  Jeremiah approached Samuel’s table, and the foursome looked up at him.

  “Jeremiah!” Samuel greeted him. “Have you come for lunch then? I would invite you to join us, but we are almost finish
ed. Miss Chilton has been entertaining us with stories of her train trip across the United States and her precipitous abandonment here in Benson.”

  “Abandonment?” Jeremiah repeated.

  “Yes, what a tale!”

  “Goodness!” he said. “How extraordinary.” Had the woman truly shared her tale with strangers? He really must counsel her to caution.

  “Indeed.” Samuel raised his napkin to his mustache and rose. “Ladies, I am sorry. I really must get back to the office. It was very nice to meet you, Sarah, and I hope we see more of you while you are here in Benson. You really must consider relocating here. I am certain you would be happy here.”

  Miss Chilton merely smiled.

  Serena held out her hand, and Jeremiah took it, bending over it in the way that Serena seemed to like. He had once contemplated asking Serena to marry him, but had put the thought behind him. She lacked something that he desired. He was uncertain what the quality was, but he knew she did not have it. His gaze returned to Miss Chilton. Passion? Perhaps that was it. Serena and Tabitha were fine young women but somewhat tepid.

  Not so Miss Chilton. She seemed a passionate sort, if a bit irrational. Hardly tepid though.

  Chapter Five

  Sarah returned to her room, self-consciously aware that Jeremiah stared after her. When she had awakened earlier, she had not opened her eyes to see the builder-grade white-painted walls of her condo in Virginia, the patchwork pink quilt on her bed or the curtained French doors leading to her bedroom balcony.

  Neither had she awakened in a similarly stark white hospital room with machines beeping behind her.

  No, she had awakened to see the ruby-red coverlet and four-poster bed in the Benson Arms in Benson, Arizona. In 1890. She really could no longer deny that something extraordinary had happened. Somehow, she had fallen through time...and straight into the arms of a grumpy nineteenth-century hotel owner. Handsome, but grumpy. Yes, yes, she had allegedly been trying to break his window, but she really hadn’t been, had she?

  Not unless he still owned the hotel in 2020. Then, yes, she had been trying to break the window...because she’d been locked in an abandoned hotel. Trapped.

  The question now was, how did she get back to 2020? And as a side note, how had this happened and why? Who knew? She would have to ponder that mystery later. For now, she had to brainstorm how to go home.

  Upon reaching her room, she walked over to the window and looked down onto the street. Still busy with horse, wagon, and pedestrian traffic, she admired the town’s industriousness. The Benson her train had pulled into seemed a sleepy little stop on a train route and major interstate highway.

  She looked at the station, contemplating whether she could possibly find her way back via train. What if she got on the next train out, locomotive that it was, and somehow magically shot forward in time?

  Her attention was captured by the movement of two familiar heads on the boardwalk below, straw hats bouncing as the women walked. Faith and Agnes, each carrying an old-fashioned carpetbag, stepped into the hotel. Sarah contemplated meeting them downstairs but then thought better of it. She had no doubt those bags contained more than just a “skirt” for her, and she didn’t want Jeremiah any more involved in her doings than he already was.

  “Sarah,” she murmured aloud. “The man is housing you.”

  Suitably chastised, she pulled out a chair and waited for Faith and Agnes to knock, which they did in no time at all. Sarah jumped up and opened the door.

  “Hello, my dear!” Faith said enthusiastically. “You look very well. You have some color to your cheeks. I think you must have rested?”

  “I did,” Sarah said with a smile. “I can’t believe it, but I managed to nap. Can I help you with that?” She reached for the bags, and the women relinquished them.

  “We’ve brought you some things you’ll need.”

  “Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.”

  Agnes moved to one of the chairs to sit down, and Faith took the other.

  “Would you like some tea or coffee? Can I order some for you?” Sarah knitted her brows together. “Can I do that? Do they have room service here?”

  “You could, dear, of course, but I already did so,” Faith said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “This is quite a nice room,” Agnes said, looking around. “I guess you’re lucky Jeremiah didn’t put you in some sort of attic room.”

  Sarah’s lips twitched. Agnes was a hoot. “I guess I am. I’ve been trying to practice gratitude.”

  “Practice? Why do you have to practice? Don’t you just know how?”

  “It’s an expression. How about ‘I’ve been trying to feel grateful’?”

  “That makes more sense. Why do you have to try though?” Agnes looked around again. “This is a really nice room.”

  “It is,” Sarah said with a smile. “And you’re right—I shouldn’t have to try. I should just be thankful that Jeremiah is housing me for free. I am thankful.”

  “That’s better,” Agnes said with a quirk of one eyebrow.

  Faith had risen to open the bags. She pulled out lengths of material along with something suspiciously resembling a corset, stockings that in no way resembled pantyhose, and a pair of black Mary Jane–style shoes that Sarah doubted would fit. Sarah’s jaw fell open when Faith extricated a smaller version of their straw hats, complete with flowers and ribbons.

  “Oh wow!” Sarah stared at the array of garments that Faith laid on the bed. “I really thought you just meant a skirt.”

  “I got carried away,” Faith acknowledged, “but you will need all these things. Most of them are Agnes’s, as you and she are closer in size than you and I.”

  Sarah looked at Agnes and grinned. “Thank you for the loan of the clothing, Agnes,” she enunciated clearly.

  “You are welcome, Sarah,” Agnes enunciated back, her usual stern expression easing into a smiling grimace. “We also brought a nightgown.”

  Sarah chuckled and moved over to the bed. Agnes rose and followed to observe.

  “So what do we have here?” Sarah asked, lifting material to see if she could make sense of it. “Is this what I think it is?” She pointed to what was clearly a corset, a cotton thing with laces running down the front.

  “A corset? Don’t you know what a corset is?”

  “I do,” Sarah said. “I just don’t wear them. No one really does in my time, not under their clothing anyway.”

  “Your time? Oh dear. Are you still talking that way?” Faith asked. Her expression was sympathetic and concerned.

  “Under their clothing?” Agnes repeated. “What is the alternative? To wear them over their clothing?”

  “No, no.” Sarah wished she hadn’t said anything. She wasn’t up to explaining the twenty-first century to the ladies, because she didn’t think her brain was working well at the moment. She had only really just come to understand that she was sort of lost in time. She needed time to understand that concept. She smiled at her own pun.

  “Yes,” Sarah said with a nod. “I am still talking that way, Faith. I’m having trouble understanding it as well, ladies, so bear with me.”

  “Of course, dear,” Faith replied, the rare frown easing into a sweet smile. “I don’t really believe in such a thing, but it seems clear that you do. I don’t want to shock your mind right now, so we’ll just leave it at that. You think you come from 2020, and we don’t.”

  “I’m not sure,” Agnes said.

  Faith turned to her. “Agnes! You’re not serious?”

  “She’s very strange,” Agnes said, looking at Sarah.

  Rather than take offense, Sara nodded. “Yes, I must seem strange, I know.”

  “Well, I do not see the need to be rude about it,” Faith said, picking up a chocolate-brown skirt and holding it up to Sarah’s waist to check the length. “It’s a bit long, but you are very small. Still, this is all we could spare. Agnes and I live very frugally on the savings our father left us years ago, so we don’
t have any excess. Our weekly teas are our one indulgence.”

  Sarah winced. Unmarried, without children and the sole recipient of her parents’ life insurance policies, she had plenty of money in her savings account. She wished now she had stuffed some on her body so that she could share it. On second thought though, she imagined that money from 2020 would be a problem in 1890.

  “I will take good care of your clothing and return it to you when I leave.”

  “Leave?” Agnes repeated. “Where are you going? I thought you were stranded here in our time.”

  Sarah gave Agnes a grateful look for acknowledging her theory. “I am stranded—that’s true. But there has to be a way back. I don’t know what it is, but there has to be. Truthfully, no one has ever traveled back in time...at least that I’m aware of. People talk about it, but so far, no one really has.”

  “Oh!” Agnes exclaimed. “I thought you had a found a way in the upcoming years.”

  Sarah shook her head. Faith laid the skirt on the bed and turned to listen, her face drooping into that look of concern again. Sarah hated to make the kind woman worry, but she didn’t know how to ignore the subject with one sister and discuss the subject with the other sister...at the same time.

  “Well, why do you think you did?” Agnes asked.

  “I have no idea,” Sarah said. “None. If I hadn’t left the train and come into the old abandoned hotel, I doubt I would have traveled through time, but I did, and I’m here.”

  “It’s abandoned?” Faith asked in a fretful voice.

  Sarah looked at Faith in surprise. Was she starting to believe Sarah’s story? Sarah nodded. “It is. It’s for sale, but very run down, dusty with cobwebs.”

  Faith looked around the room. “What a shame! Is it possible that Jeremiah’s family sold the hotel? Sells it?”

  “Does he have family?” Sarah asked curiously.