The Cowboy Encounter

by Kristy Tate

  That is love, Becca thought. Love is helping each other with the day to day large and small tasks. It’s not hot kisses beneath the quilts. It’s not sweeping you off your feet and carrying you off behind the barn. It’s holding each other’s burdens.

  She needed to not only find that kind of love—she needed to create it. She had to find someone to build that life with. And she’d never find it while she worked at the asylum.

  “Becca?” Celia’s grandmother stood on the steps of the garage. “How are you, dear?”

  “I’m fine, Mrs. Fleur.” Becca swallowed. “How are you? Crazy busy, right, trying to move everything from your shop into…” She didn’t know where. What had Celia decided to do with the shop?

  Mrs. Fleur chuckled. “Yes, Celia has thrown us all a curve ball.”

  Becca glanced back in the window. Jason now looked like a mountain of frilly fabric with legs. “She looks really happy,” Becca said.

  Mrs. Fleur’s smile widened. “Oh, I’m sure she is.” She cocked her head at Becca. “But what about you, dear? I hear you’re going to Colorado.”

  “I am?”

  “For your father’s funeral?”

  “Oh yes.” Becca cleared her throat. “I need to settle his estate.” A thought struck Becca. “You know, I’m going to be gone for a while, why don’t you use my house to store the shop’s inventory until I get back?”

  “Oh no, that will never work,” Mrs. Fleur said. “Surely you’ll be home in a few days, and we’d just have to move all over again.”

  Becca shook her head. “No…I don’t think so.”

  “But, dear—what are you saying?”

  “I’m thinking of moving to Colorado.” Until at that moment, Becca hadn’t been thinking of moving to Colorado, but as she said it, it felt right. It fit. She’d quit her job. Find a job—or maybe even start her own private practice. Maybe she could open an office on her father’s ranch. Or she could sell the ranch, and use the money to open a family practice in Trouthaven.

  “Goodness!” Mrs. Fleur exclaimed. “This is very sudden and very generous of you. Do you want to come in and discuss it with Celia and Jason?”

  Becca nodded, but her feet faltered. “Is Joel at home?” She wasn’t ready to face Joel. She had behaved badly. She’d probably hurt him, and she needed to tell him how sorry she was—but she wasn’t ready. He deserved more than a pat on the arm apology.

  “No, I don’t think so.” She cocked her head, studying Becca. “Don’t you want to see Joel?”

  “I owe him an apology.A really big one.”

  Mrs. Fleur put her arm around Becca’s waist. “I’m sure that’s not true. My grandson is a lug, and sometimes he deserves to be treated like one. You’re a sweet thing. I’m sure you didn’t intentionally mean to hurt him.”

  Becca still dragged her feet. She wanted to speak to Celia, but Joel could drop by at any moment and he deserved an explanation as well as the apology, and she didn’t have a believable one. How could she say, I’m sorry, Joel, I thought I was in love with you, but then I went back in time and met a man whose kisses turned my knees to mush?

  Mrs. Fleur steered Becca up the steps of the back porch and guided her through the door leading to the mud room.

  Cupcakes sat on the counter, and the kitchen smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg. A TV hanging in the breakfast nook had the evening news on. The volume had been turned to mute and silent images flashed across the screen.

  Becca froze.

  The man in the black hat, as devastatingly handsome today as he’d been in 1870, snarled as he said something into the TV announcer’s extended microphone.

  Becca pointed at the TV with a shaky finger. “Can you see him?”

  Mrs. Fleur turned to the TV. “Oh! You want me to turn up the volume? I like to watch the ballgames on mute.”

  Becca could only nod. Sinking into a chair, she stared at the screen while Mrs. Fleur found the remote. Behind the TV reporter, cars were piled up on top of each other in the street, and a bus with a shattered windshield lay on its side, its wheels spinning in the air.

  Mrs. Fleur clicked on the volume.

  “This man was found in possession of pistols dating as far back as the Civil War,” the announcer said as police officers cuffed Brownlow and dragged him away.

  “According to authorities,” the TV reporter continued, “the weapons are extremely valuable and in mint condition.”

  Becca bolted from her chair and headed for the door. “I have to go!”

  “But you just got here!” Mrs. Fleur exclaimed. “What about the shop?”

  Becca paused. “Please tell Celia my idea. She can use my house until I get back…until I know what I’m doing.”

  “Dear, I think you need to tell her that yourself. She’ll have to hear it from you.”

  “And she will…just not right now. I need to do something.”

  Mrs. Fleur plucked a cupcake off the counter. “Here, take this with you. You look like you need it.”

  Becca shook her head as her stomach cartwheeled. “No.” She stumbled out the door, down the steps, across the yard and into the woods. Bracing herself against a maple tree with one hand, she doubled over and vomited.

  Her gut told her that she had to get to Bellflower, but her head told her that she had to stop at the drugstore first.

  Back at home, Becca took out the pregnancy test out of the bag with shaking hands and opened the box. Her fingers trembled so badly, she nearly dropped the stick in the toilet. Carefully, as if it was fragile and would break, she placed the stick on the counter to read the instruction pamphlet.

  With Early Detection Technology, only Surety captures scant amounts of pregnancy hormones—6 days sooner than your missed period. No other test can do that.

  But wait. It had only been a few days since her last period in the twenty-first century. She shook herself. All the time-travel thoughts and questions were making her nuts. She turned back to the test instructions.

  Over 99% accuracy from the day of the expected period.

  Easy to read results - two lines means pregnant and one line means not pregnant.

  Results in 3 minutes.

  When the first strip tested positive, Becca threw it away and tried again. Her heart raced. She started to cry. Then she started to laugh. “I’m going to have a baby,” she told her reflection in the mirror.

  It was real. All of it was real. Still carrying the second test stick, she ran down the stairs. She stopped short in the kitchen, overwhelmed by so many questions.

  Now what?

  Go back to the Witching Well?

  Try to go back to 1870?

  What if she drank the water and went somewhere else?

  Could the water possibly harm the baby?

  How and why was Brownlow in modern day New York?

  She zeroed in on the last question. All of the other questions she could answer only with a guess, but that last question someone else could answer. Running for her computer, she tripped over the carpet. Righting herself, she apologized to the rug. She booted up and logged on to the Bellflower website.

  She knew it was a long shot. What were the odds? But when she pulled up the admissions entries, sure enough, there was Lancaster Brownlow.

  Becca grabbed her coat and keys. An hour later, she walked into the crisis stabilization unit of Bellflower. After flashing her badge at the front desk and retrieving her lab coat from her locker, Becca hurried down the hall, peeking into the observation rooms as she went. Most of the rooms behind the security windows were empty, but near the end of the long hall she spotted a cluster of her colleagues. A skip in her heart told her who they were observing.

  “Hey, all,” Becca said, buttoning up her lab coat and trying to look casual. She glanced in the window and saw Brownlow pacing the tiny space. Although she couldn’t hear him, she knew his boots were clicking on the linoleum and that he was swearing. Fascinated, and knowing that he couldn’t see her through the glass, she turned her back on
him. She had to remain calm, and act professional. Her colleagues were some of the brightest people she knew, and were trained and highly skilled people watchers. They could spot a liar by a twitching eye or a bead of sweat.

  Lloyd looked up from his tablet and greeted Becca with a smile. They had worked together since their residency program. He adjusted his glasses.

  Ginny Mapleton, the head nurse, gave Becca a puzzled look before glancing down at her tablet. “Dr. Martin, I don’t have you on the schedule.” Using her finger, she scrolled down. “According to this, you’re not on until tomorrow.”

  “I know, I came by to speak to Dr. Hyman.”

  “Why?” Meredith Coleman, one of the more senior physicians, asked. Meredith, in her late forties, had devoted her life to her career and was just as deeply devoted to Dr. Hyman, despite the fact that Hyman had a wife, three children, and a mean temper.

  “It’s personal,” Becca said. But after a look at Meredith’s face and knowing that Meredith wouldn’t find that answer satisfactory, she added, “My father died. I’m going to need some time off.”

  Meredith’s scowl deepened, Ginny looked concerned, and Lloyd adjusted his glasses. No one offered an ounce of sympathy.

  Becca puffed out a sigh, reading their expressions. She knew that their only worry was their own crazy, overbooked schedules, and how her leaving would impact their calendars. She turned back to Brownlow.

  “Who’s this?” she asked, careful to keep her voice neutral sounding.

  Lloyd filled her in. “Lancaster Brownlow. Says he’s from Tennessee. Born 1847.”

  “Claims his father is the governor,” Ginny put in.

  Lloyd shook his head. “But there’s no record of him. You’d be surprised how few Lancaster Brownlows there are.”

  “But the weird thing is,” Ginny said, “I asked someone in the IT department to google his name, and the governor of Tennessee in 1870 was Hector Brownlow and he had a son named Lancaster.”

  Becca blinked and tried to look surprised. “So, no ID? No social? Did you take his prints?”

  “No, no, and yes,” Ginny said. “And nothing.”

  “He’s escaped from somewhere,” Meredith said.

  “But there’s no reports?” Becca asked.

  They all shook their heads and turned their gazes toward Brownlow and studied him as if he was an unusual animal at the zoo.

  “Can I talk to him?” Becca asked.

  “What for?” Meredith asked, lowering her already hovering eyebrows.

  “I love history—especially the Civil War period. Maybe he can teach me something.”

  They all looked at her as if now she was the unusual animal in the zoo.

  Meredith pointed her pencil at the glass. “He knows nothing more about the Civil War than I do.”

  “He knew the name of the governor of Tennessee in 1870,” Becca said. “That’s more than I know.”

  Meredith’s face said that that was more than she knew, too, but she wasn’t about to admit it.

  “He’s dangerous,” Lloyd said. “He tried to shoot a bus driver. Pointed his gun and shot right through the windshield. It’s amazing no one died.”

  Becca imagined how terrifying a giant, noisy bus must have seemed to Brownlow. She wondered how he managed to find his way to New York City, and what he thought of it. He had to be scared. Cornered people, just like animals, were the most dangerous. She blinked at Lloyd. “We face dangerous people every day.”

  “And we don’t even have to be in Bellflower,” Ginny said.

  #

  Brownlow’s widened eyes and flaring nostrils told Becca that he recognized her.

  Knowing that their conversation would be recorded, Becca knew she couldn’t deviate very far from the usual script. The tiny room made of cinderblock walls, contained nothing more than table made with a steel frame and a laminate top, and two plastic chairs. Flickering florescent lights hung from the ceiling. A microphone, along with a panic button, was hidden beneath the table.

  “Take a seat,” she said, steeling her voice with friendly authority. She glanced at the tablet with his scant information and read his name before settling into an uncomfortable chair.

  Remaining on his feet, Brownlow pointed his finger in her face. “You! I knew I’d find you. And now I’m gonna find that cussed son of a gun, Warwick.”

  “Warwick?” she said his name as if she’d never said it before, as if the name didn’t make her heart beat faster, and her palms sweat. “Tell me about this Warwick.”

  He resumed his pacing. “He’s a dead man!”

  “He’s dead?” Becca bit her lip to keep it from trembling.

  “He will be, as soon as I find him,” he said without breaking stride.

  Becca let out a ragged breath and glanced at the tablet to gain composure. “But isn’t everyone in,” she paused and glanced at her tablet again as if seeking information, “1870, is it? Dead?”

  He whirled on his heel and faced her. “I’m here, and you’re here. That’s got to tell you something.”

  “Interesting. And what do you think that tells us?”

  Puzzlement briefly clouded his expression. “I’m here and you’re here,” he repeated, sounding a little less sure.

  “But you don’t look like you’re over a hundred and fifty years old.”

  “Well, that’s because I’m not!”

  “So, you admit that you haven’t been alive since 1848…”

  “No! Dad burn it! One minute I was in 1870 and the next I was…well, you saw me at that fancy place with all those people in their frilly get-ups, and those women in their scandalous attire showing off their legs as if they were soiled doves.”

  “You saw me?” She tried to sound surprised.

  He wheeled toward her and gripped the back of the chair on the opposite side of the table. “You know I did! Jest like you know I saw you in Denver.”

  “Denver. Interesting.” She cleared her throat. “So how did you get from Denver to New York?”

  “Why I followed that dirt bag Warwick. Chased him pert-near across the country.”

  “And how did you do that? Time-travel?”

  He looked at her as if she was a lunatic—and she was. Or at least, she felt like one. She only hoped she didn’t sound like one to her listening colleagues. She knew they were studying her just as closely as they watched Brownlow.

  “No!” He scoffed before his face crumpled in confusion. “At least, I don’t think so.”

  “So, how did you get from Colorado to Connecticut?”

  He glared at her. “Who said anything about Connecticut?”

  Becca immediately caught her mistake and scrambled to cover it, but before she could think of anything, Brownlow spoke up.

  “I did end up in Connecticut. Came up out of this pond…” his voice trailed away.

  “And this Warwick person—what happened to him?”

  “Well, I don’t rightly know.” He swung his legs over the chair and settled down, facing her. “But I’m thinking you can tell me.”

  “I wish I could,” Becca said.

  #

  After purchasing airline tickets to Denver, arranging for Celia to stay at her house, and throwing her clothes in a suitcase—Becca was on the plane for Denver the next morning.

  As the plane flew over the endless prairie and the Rockies came into sight, Becca was struck by déjà vu. Her mind told her that she’d never been here before, but her heart remembered a different story.

  Many times she thought about returning to the well and drinking the water, but love for the new life growing inside her wouldn’t let her. She didn’t understand what mysterious properties the well water held, but she couldn’t subject her baby to anything that might hurt it.

  And time-travel hurt. She knew this because her heart ached.

  Lancaster Brownlow had come to New England, but not Warwick. Why? Because as he had said, if he could ever time-travel, he would go back to the days he shared with Mary Kate.
Could it be done? Was it possible to change past events? And if so, what, if anything, would she change?

  Would she have gone through her residency? Would she have worked so hard to get a position at Bellflower? Would she have spent so much time pining for Joel?

  Becca looked out the window and imagined Warwick and Mary Kate at the ranch. Because she loved him, she wanted him to be happy.

  Placing her hand on her belly, she promised her baby that they would also be happy. Just like Mary Kate and Warwick had created a ranch in the Everwood Valley, she and her baby would carve out a new life together. They would live on her father’s ranch, and Becca would practice family medicine—just part-time until the baby started school. Maybe it would be hard to be a single parent, but she knew she could do it, because her mom had done it.

  The airport’s distinctive white fabric roof came into view and Becca caught her breath, knowing that her new life was about to begin.

  CHAPTER 12

  Becca pulled her rental car to the side of the road when she crested the hill. She climbed out of the car on wobbly legs, tired from a day of airports and driving. Leaning back on the car’s hood, she fought for breath. Below lay a farm nestled in a valley. A large red barn sat beside a stately white farmhouse. A split rail fence seemed to go on forever, circling a pasture filled with Arabian horses. The dying sun sat on the mountain top, threatening to disappear. The déjà vu sensation returned, only this time she knew that she had been here before—maybe even at this exact same spot. This is where she and Mable had stopped not too long ago—or more than one hundred forty years ago—depending on how you kept time.

  My ranch, Warwick had said.

  But it wasn’t his ranch any longer—it was, or it had been—her father’s. And now it belonged to her. Tears welled in Becca’s eyes, and she didn’t try to stop them. She cried for her dad, for Warwick, and for the life she’d left in Connecticut.

  She got back behind the wheel, and pointed the car down the drive. The old white gate had been replaced by a wrought iron electronic one.