Baldwin, Barbara - Indigo Bay.txt

by Indigo Bay (lit)

  “I guess it was fortuitous that Aunt Theo left me Sea Crest,

  because coming to the inn no doubt saved my sanity.”

  “You’re far from ready for an asylum.” He scooted up

  against the headboard as he spoke, his gaze intent on her face

  as he listened to her story.

  “You didn’t know me before.”

  “That’s all in the past, Michaela. It doesn’t matter now

  that you’re here with me.”

  “But that’s the problem. I have to go, don’t you see? It’s

  my life.”

  In a deceptively soft voice, he countered her statement by

  saying, “What about our life, Michaela? What about me?”

  “What do you expect me to do?” She placed her hands

  over her face and sobbed into them, trembling already from

  his loss. She had no answers, unless she could convince him to

  come with her.

  She looked up as he swung his legs over the side of the

  bed. “You could come with me,” she pleaded, desperate.

  “Logan, there’s going to be a terrible war here. Thousands of

  lives—”

  At her mention of the future, he sprang from the bed and

  came to her. Gently, he placed his fingers against her lips, his

  other hand circling her arm. “I don’t want you to predict the

  future. If you’re not here to share it with me, it won’t matter.”

  “Come with me,” she begged.

  He caressed her cheek, his eyes full of sorrow. “I don’t

  belong in your world, Michaela Marie. You saw what happened

  to me when I went there with you. I can’t share your life and

  all its wonders.”

  “There must be a way.”

  This time he roughly pulled her into his embrace. His hot

  lips found hers before she could protest, his tongue delving

  deep to wash away her pleas.

  “Does that feel like a specter’s caress?” he whispered

  raggedly when he pulled away from the kiss. His hands slid

  over her back to her buttocks, pulling her hard against his

  arousal. “Is this a phantom’s passion? In your world, that’s all

  I am—a ghost.”

  “It’s just not fair.”

  Logan tugged her hand to take her back to bed. “Not much

  in life is fair. But we have time yet, and we’ll find a way.”

  Mica’s heart broke as she resisted.

  “No, you don’t understand. My father gave me a month to

  get my life straightened out. One month. Then I had to go back

  to work.” Tears obscured her vision, but she had already

  memorized his face for when she would no longer be in his

  arms.

  “My month is up—tomorrow.”

  Twelve

  Despondent, Mica pulled her knees close to her chest and,

  with a sigh, rested her chin upon them. She had curled up in

  the window seat of Katie’s living room to stare unseeing out

  the window. Rain whipped through the trees and pounded the

  already saturated earth. The dismal weather perfectly reflected

  her mood.

  “They say another tropical storm is brewing, but indications

  are it won’t touch land,” Katie commented from the sofa.

  “Mmmm.”

  “Mica, listen to me.” Her friend’s voice held the

  exasperated tone she’d used in their youth when Mica would

  rather study than party. She knew what Katie would say even

  before she spoke. “You’ve got to pull yourself together. If it

  didn’t work out with Logan, it didn’t work out. You’ve moped

  around for over a week, and it’s just not going to change

  anything.”

  Another tumultuous sigh escaped as Mica tried to pull

  herself from the emotional stupor that engulfed her on a daily

  basis. She cried readily—had even broken down in court

  yesterday, and the judge had been put out. She couldn’t eat.

  She didn’t sleep.

  Her father was ready to send her to a psychiatrist, but her

  mother had convinced him it would be bad for the family name.

  Even her best friend was apparently at her wit’s end.

  “Oh, Katie, you don’t understand. I just left—sneaked off

  in the middle of the night—without a word. I couldn’t help

  him, and I couldn’t face him.”

  Mica recalled Logan’s face in slumber, the worry lines from

  days past smoothing out. How she loved him! Even as she had

  tiptoed down the hall, her heart kept calling her back to his

  side.

  She had never quite figured out what Aunt Theo had meant

  when she asked Mica to help him. She had tried to help,

  convincing Logan the crushed indigo would sell. Now, she

  feared she had messed things up royally by falling in love with

  him.

  As if reading her mind, Katie asked, “If you’re that much

  in love with the guy, why couldn’t you work things out? Does

  it really matter if your father doesn’t approve of him?”

  When Mica had shown up on Katie’s doorstep in tears,

  she had only said that she had left him because of her father

  and responsibilities. After all, how could she explain falling in

  love with a man who had lived more than a century before?

  Katie hadn’t asked any questions. She just fed Mica hot tea as

  if that would fix all her problems.

  Mica chewed nervously on a fingernail. Even after a week

  back in Charleston, she still feared crossing the time line had

  jumbled things beyond her understanding. By venturing into

  the past, she felt she had irrevocably changed hers or Logan’s

  destiny.

  “Mica, you’re doing it again.”

  “What?”

  “Twisting that key and ribbon you’ve been wearing around

  your neck.”

  She glanced down, not aware of the habit she had acquired

  since returning to Charleston. She had convinced herself that

  she’d brought the key from Sea Crest to keep the nosy Barkers

  or the crazy professor from finding out about the passage.

  However, in the dark of night as she sobbed into her pillow,

  she clutched the key to her heart, hoping it would bring her

  closer to Logan.

  “While that necklace might be considered quaint, in an

  antique sort of way, it hardly matches your outfit.”

  Today Mica had come to Katie’s straight from court. Her

  tailored brown suit and ruffled blouse were the latest fashion.

  She wiggled her stocking-clad feet, more comfortable now than

  in her heels, but she’d rather be barefoot in the sand at Indigo

  Bay.

  God, there she went again. Everything in her present world

  still reminded her of 1850. She twirled the key around her finger.

  Katie stood beside the window seat. “Let me see that.”

  Mica relinquished her grasp on the key, but refused to

  remove the ribbon from around her neck.

  “You know,” Katie continued, “if you had the key gold

  plated and put it on a gold chain, it wouldn’t look quite

  so...scruffy.”

  “I don’t think so,” Mica said, retrieving the key. “Besides,

  it has sentimental value, not monetary.”

  Katie shrugged. “Well, it couldn’t hurt, sentimental or not.

  After all, gold never loses its valu
e.”

  “Gold?” Mica swung around, her heels thumping against

  the base of the window seat. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

  She was a corporate lawyer versed in international trade and

  had a portfolio worth thousands. Yet she hadn’t even thought

  of the one method of exchange used internationally—and

  throughout the past.

  She jumped off her perch and headed for the door. “Where’s

  Matthew?”

  “Well, it’s an hour prior to dinner on Monday. That means

  he’s in the study reading the New York Times.”

  Mica didn’t wait for her friend to accompany her to the

  study. They didn’t stand on formality at each other’s homes.

  Racing from the room, she pounded on the study door then

  burst in before Matthew had acknowledged her knock.

  “Matthew, you’ve got to help.”

  Katie’s husband looked up from the paper he perused, then

  leisurely set it aside. He didn’t seem the least concerned that

  Mica stood shouting at him across the width of his desk. When

  Katie rushed into the room behind her, he did tilt his head

  sideways to give her a wink.

  A month ago, Mica would have made some facetious

  remark about their behavior, because they were still very much

  in love. Her views on that subject, however, had changed

  radically over the course of just a few weeks.

  She paced back and forth, clasping her hands first in front

  of her, then behind her back. She tried to put into words the

  outrageous plan she had concocted to help Logan. Thrilled to

  finally have a course of action, she didn’t want Matthew and

  Katie to think she had slipped off the deep end. Spinning around,

  she took a breath to calm herself.

  “I want you to liquidate my stocks and bonds—all of them.”

  That was easy enough.

  Apparently Matthew didn’t think so. He glanced from one

  woman to the other, a frown crinkling his forehead. Katie just

  shrugged her shoulders.

  “You want your entire portfolio turned into cash?”

  “Not cash. Gold.”

  Matthew came around the corner of his desk, hands in the

  air in a placating gesture. “Now wait a minute.” To Katie he

  said, “I thought you said she was getting better?”

  Mica had to laugh. “Surely you two have better things to

  do than discuss my mental health.”

  She began pacing again, energy flowing and revitalizing

  her. She wanted to do this. She needed to help Logan so

  desperately it scared her. The feeling of being on a crusade

  gave her a rush of adrenaline like she used to feel when she

  first became an attorney. Before the disillusionment and

  frustration and disappointment.

  She had acquired a fair-sized portfolio. Converting it to

  gold would ensure Logan had the money he needed to see him

  through any hard times. Then it wouldn’t matter if this year’s

  crop sold well at market or not.

  “Why on Earth would you want gold?” Matthew

  questioned, bringing her back to their discussion.

  “I just need it, that’s all. Since when did you become so

  inquisitive?” Mica countered.

  “Since you asked for over one hundred thousand dollars’

  worth of stocks be converted to gold, that’s when.” Matthew

  threw up his hands in exasperation.

  “Can it be done?”

  “Of course it can be done. Any restrictions on buying gold

  were lifted in 1972. That’s not the point.”

  “Then what is the point?”

  “You’ll gain no interest by converting everything, and you’ll

  run the risk of government questioning.”

  “Why would the government have any say in what I do

  with my money?”

  “If you try taking that much cash into Castle & Noble

  Investment House to get gold, believe me, the government will

  want to know why.”

  “That’s ridiculous. It’s not like I’m laundering money.”

  Mica’s short temper began to stir.

  “But the government doesn’t know that. When that much

  gold is purchased, they won’t look at your impeccable

  credentials as an attorney. The law requires paperwork on any

  cash transactions to gold over ten thousand dollars.”

  “How long would I have to wait after I complete the

  papers?”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t have to wait at all. The Investment

  House would give you the gold on the spot, but you’d have

  official-looking people at your door within twenty-four hours.”

  “I don’t care. Just do it,” Mica stated, crossing her arms

  over her chest in a gesture of finality.

  “Mica, look. Katie says you’ve been under a lot of stress

  lately. Perhaps you should think about this.”

  “I am not stressed out,” Mica shouted at him, then slapped

  a hand against her mouth. She couldn’t believe she had

  screeched like that.

  “Katie, talk to her.” Matthew turned away to pour a drink

  from the sideboard. He could be a sweetheart, and Katie loved

  him dearly, but Mica couldn’t stomach his chauvinistic attitude.

  He, and many men she knew, thought a woman was stressed

  out if she had a single idea of her own and it didn’t agree with

  theirs.

  Katie turned to her, rolling her eyes upward, and Mica put

  up her hand.

  “Okay. You might as well know the real reason behind this

  madness. Although Matthew has politely refrained from saying

  so, I know that’s what he’s thinking.” She sighed. She would

  tell them about Logan, and if Matthew didn’t haul her away to

  the loony bin, he’d get her the gold.

  For the next hour, Mica recapped her month with Logan.

  She tried to explain the time warp, how desperately Logan

  needed the money to help his people, and her love for a man

  who didn’t exist in their century.

  “Oh, Mica, how very, very romantic. I never would have

  thought it.” Katie was the first to find her voice when Mica

  stopped talking.

  “Bullshit,” Matthew exploded. “That’s the most absurd,

  ridiculous...Mica, if you’re doing drugs, as your friends, it’s

  our duty to see you get help.”

  “That’s enough, Matthew,” Mica snapped. “I didn’t tell

  you to gain your approval, or your belief. I told you because...”

  She looked from husband to wife. Katie’s eyes were brimming,

  and Mica truly didn’t know whether she believed her or not.

  “Katie?”

  Katie walked over and clasped Mica’s hands, squeezing

  them almost to the point of pain. She turned to her husband,

  and in a voice filled with awe and perhaps fright, said, “She’s

  not on drugs, Matthew. Her Logan was in the room the entire

  time I visited with her. I kept thinking I heard voices down the

  hall, but it must have been him.” She turned teary eyes to Mica.

  “And...I felt his presence.”

  Mica gasped. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  Katie gave a nervous laugh. “For exactly the same reason

  you didn’t. Matthew would have put me away.” She glanced

  fondly at he
r husband. “In country club style, of course, but

  still ‘off to the funny farm.’”

  “I don’t believe this.” Matthew couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take

  their word for what had happened.

  Mica knelt down beside the sofa on which he had dropped.

  Clasping his hands, she spoke earnestly. “Listen, I’ll

  compromise with you. Get me the gold, and by—” she paused,

  not sure she could make the time table she wanted. “—by next

  Monday, if I haven’t accomplished what I need to, I’ll put it all

  back into your trusting hands.”

  “What about the Internal Revenue?”

  “To hell with the government. It’s my money. Besides, if I

  can get it to Logan, there won’t be any trace of it for them to

  worry about.”

  “That’s just the problem, Mica. How will you explain where

  it went?” She knew he felt justified in asking her questions,

  even if he wouldn’t be directly involved.

  “Let me worry about that. After all, if need be, I know a

  good lawyer.” She gave him a smile. Probably the first real

  smile she had managed since leaving Indigo Bay.

  Matthew capitulated. “All right, give me until Friday.”

  “Wednesday.” Now that she had a plan, she didn’t want to

  wait any longer than necessary.

  “That’s only two days. I’m not sure it can be done.”

  “You said my stocks could be cashed on the spot.”

  “But the market might not be good.”

  Mica threw up her hands. “Matthew, it doesn’t matter. I

  want my money, however much there is of it. Let’s compromise.

  I’ll give you until Thursday.”

  Mica and Katie left Matthew to his brooding. Katie tried

  to persuade her to stay, but she declined.

  “I’m in court again tomorrow. As much as I hate this

  particular case, I still should go home and review my briefs.”

  Katie gave her a hug. “At least you’re not a criminal lawyer.

  I’d hate the thought of you associating with hardened felons

  and murderers.”

  “Well, as far as I’m concerned, sometimes the best dressed

  businessmen are just as bad.” Mica replied, then changed the

  subject as they reached the front door. “Katie, did you really

  see, I mean feel, Logan, or were you just saying that to help me

  out with Matthew?”

  Katie smiled as she answered. “I thought I was imagining

  things, but yes, I definitely felt him.”