This Time for Keeps

by Maureen Child

  Not even for her money and ranch were men willing to put up with her constant illnesses, her shyness, and her lack of beauty.

  Until Richard Bonner had come west to comfort his sister. He'd taken one look at Nora and went after her like a bear for honey.

  "That's not really the point now, is it?" she asked Richard quietly, patiently. "Since I don't remember our engagement, it never happened.”

  "Nora, dearest," he said and lifted one hand toward her.

  She took a half step back. "I know this isn't easy for you, Richard. But the truth of the matter is, I don't want to get married. Not to you. Not to anybody."

  The man looked as though someone had slapped him in the face with an iron skillet.

  Seth though, felt an instant sense of relief rushing through his bloodstream. Finally. She had seen through the fancy man's outside to what lay within. Nothing.

  She shot a quick look at him and Seth could almost see wheels turning in her mind. She wasn't through. Not by a long shot.

  Nora wanted to smack him. Not Richard. Seth.

  How dare he look so damned relieved that she wasn't going to marry Richard. Did he think that just because she was going to stay single that he would now get to be the one issuing orders? If so, he had another think coming.

  “I don't know why you're looking so pleased with yourself," she said and had the satisfaction of seeing his pale blue eyes narrow in wary expectation. "Just because I don't want to get married… that doesn't mean that I'm going to morph back into the Nora you used to know. The one who sat in a corner letting you call all the shots."

  "Morf?" he echoed, clearly confused.

  "Never mind," she said, reminding herself that slang didn't time-travel well. "The point is, Seth, I don't take orders well. Never have."

  "Nora," he said.

  She lifted one hand and sliced it through the air in front of her throat. "Can it, Kemosabe." she snapped. When one of his eyebrows lifted into a high arch, she told herself to go easy on him for now. One thing she didn't need was to force a showdown with a prickly foreman in front of witnesses. Handling men in any age was a trial. They were so easily wounded, their pride so effortlessly squashed.

  Deliberately softening her tone, she went on. "This is important to me, Seth. I don't want all of you people breathing down my neck and trying to tell me what I should be doing every time I turn around.”

  He blinked.

  "Do you understand?" she asked.

  "I do, my dear," Richard blurted and grabbed her upper arm, turning her around to face him.

  "She was talking to me," Seth announced and grabbed her other arm, jerking her back toward him.

  Perfect, Nora thought, shooting glares from one to the other of them.

  "It doesn't matter what you understand, Murdoch," Richard told him, tugging Nora closer. "You are, as I constantly am forced to remind you, an employee.”

  "At least I work," Seth shot back, giving Nora's arm a yank. "Where I come from, a man cadgin' his meals free don’t get much of a say so in anything."

  Her neck snapped violently at Richard's next pull on her arm.

  "I am a guest." Tug.

  "Unwelcome." Pull.

  She wished desperately for Dramamine as the room started to rock wildly in front of her eyes.

  "Release her this instant," Richard commanded. She slammed against his chest.

  "Let her loose, Bonner."

  Nora's head clipped Seth's chin as she flew into him. Okay, she thought, enough is enough. "Cut it out!" she yelled and had the satisfaction of seeing both men look at her as though they'd almost forgotten her presence. Of course, how that could be, since they were both still gripping her arms tight enough to cut off the blood flow, she couldn't imagine.

  Wrenching herself free, she took a step or two back from them and shot each man an icy glare. What she wanted to do was to tell them to drop their drawers and grab a ruler to take care of this "size" battle once and for all.

  Instead, she congratulated herself on her restraint and settled for saying. "I am not going to be wrestled over like the last piece of candy in a school yard.”

  A muffled snort of laughter shot into the sudden, stunned stillness. A heartbeat later, it was followed by a horrific hacking and coughing as Mike stepped out from between aisles stacked with everything from saddles to day-long suckers.

  She glared at the fat man's broad back until he was safely on the other side of the store. Only then did she turn around to face the two men staring at her as though she had grown another head.

  "So?" she demanded, tapping the toe of one boot against the floor. "Are you two finished acting like deranged children?"

  Seth glanced at the man beside him.

  Richard's cheeks were aflame with red, whether from temper or embarrassment, Nora couldn't be sure. Nor did she care, at the moment.

  “Back to my original question, fellas," she said fairly calmly, all things considered. “Are you guys going to leave me alone to make my own decisions or not?"

  This had to be settled. Before any of them left this store, they all had to agree that she was now in charge of her own life.

  Several long moments passed in stony silence. A thread of worry wiggled and danced in the pit of her stomach. If Seth decided he couldn't live with the new rules, she wasn't sure what she would do. How did one go about hiring a foreman? How would she know who to trust?

  "C'mon Clint," she prodded, hoping for the best. "What do you say? Are you game?”

  If possible, his eyes narrowed even further.

  Ridiculously enough, yet another thought shot through her mind. Why was it, she wondered, that she felt herself drawn to a man who was so different from the type of male that usually caught her interest? Back in her other life, she would have given Richard all the encouragement he seemed to want now.

  As Tracy Hill, she had preferred tall, good-looking blond men who wore power suits and loved the challenge of the business world as much as she did. In fact, the night of the bowling incident, it had been a blond, blue-eyed lawyer who had purchased the French fries that proved her undoing.

  Blue eyes.

  She glanced briefly into Richard's confused, amber gaze, then shifted a look into Seth's penetrating, pale blue stare. Her throat closed. A chill settled at the base of her spine. Snakelike tentacles of misgiving writhed from the center of that knot of cold, reaching for her heart and strangling her breath.

  "I told you before, Nora," Seth said before she could respond to the sudden rush of anxiety rocketing around inside her. "I'm not going anywhere, despite your damn fool notions. And I'll leave you in peace to make your own choices-" He shot a telling look at Richard. "Unless you're fixing to do something really stupid."

  That was something, anyway. With an effort, Nora dragged her gaze from Seth to look at the other man.

  "I won't give up," Richard said softly, this time reaching for her and dusting the tips of his fingers along her jaw. “I've waited a long time for you, Nora. And I won't stop trying to convince you that we are meant for each other.”

  There was no coiled sense of eagerness in her stomach at Richard's touch. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but unfortunately for him, he didn't exactly send her nerve endings into hyperdrive.

  Unfortunately for her, apparently he was just as stubborn as she was.

  Nora took a long step backward and looked from one man to the other. Two men. So different from each other. So different in how they affected her.

  Which one should she trust?

  Richard? The old Nora had given him her heart, but she felt nothing more for him than a vague, but growing sense of impatience.

  Seth? The old Nora had trusted him implicitly. But she looked into his eyes and saw memories of other times, other tragedies.

  She rubbed her arms viciously, hoping to dispel the chill that seemed now to be bone deep. She was safe though, wasn't she? In the past… and the future, it had been love that had brought her to disaster time after time.


  But in this life, Tom, Dick, and Harry had promised that she wouldn't be bothered by love.

  Yeah, a voice in the back of her mind whispered. But can you trust them?

  #

  Late that night, Nora sat up in bed, pillows behind her back, trying to lose herself in one of Charles Dickens' latest releases. Smiling to herself, she thumbed the leather cover and ran one finger along the binding. Imagine, her owning a first edition of Dickens. And all she'd had to do was jump into his century. Heck, she thought, warming to the theme, maybe she'd take a cruise to England, look Charlie up and have him sign her copy.

  Still smiling, she looked up when someone knocked on her door. “Who is it?”

  "Elizabeth, dear. May I come in?"

  Surprised, Nora set the book down, rose from the bed, and crossed to the door. Opening it wide, she admitted Elizabeth, who was carrying a tray with two china cups and a matching teapot.

  With a breezy smile, the other woman sailed past Nora in a flutter of purple silk. Her nightgown and matching wrapper were trimmed in lavender, dyed ostrich feathers. Her bare feet were tucked into white silk slippers encrusted with tiny seed pearls.

  Nora glanced down at her own plain white cotton nightgown and felt like the ugly stepsister to Elizabeth's Cinderella. Briefly, she wondered if there was a nineteenth-century equivalent to Victoria’s Secret.

  "I hope you don't mind," the woman cooed as she set the tray gingerly on the mattress and turned around. "But I have so missed our little late night visits."

  Nora's eyebrows lifted. Another surprise. "No." she said quickly. "Of course I don't mind."

  “I've made cocoa," Elizabeth said, with a wave of her hand, indicating the teapot. “I’m sure it won't be as tasty as yours, but I did my best.”

  "I'm sure it's fine," Nora assured her as she closed the door and walked to the bed. Looking into Elizabeth's brown eyes, she realized this was the first time the woman had actually spoken to her without fainting. What was going on?

  "Come, sit,” Elizabeth urged, pushing the tray more toward the center of the mattress.

  Nora sat, took the preferred cup, and held it between her hands, waiting.

  She didn't wait long.

  “Richard was so upset, poor dear," Elizabeth started in a throaty whisper. “He is so concerned for you, Nora. He only wants your happiness. Surely you can see that.”

  Ah. Apparently, Richard's sister had come to plead his case. Offering a smile, Nora said, "I didn't mean to hurt him."

  "Of course you didn't. That's exactly what I told him." She shook her head and her unbound blond hair shifted gracefully across her shoulders. "But I do believe you've broken his heart," she sighed theatrically. "Just as mine was broken when your dear father passed on.”

  Was that a tear in the woman's eye?

  "I had so hoped that you and Richard would find the happiness denied Jake and I." she added.

  Nora's gaze moved swiftly over the woman sitting close enough to her that their knees touched. In the soft lamplight, Elizabeth looked lovely and Nora could well imagine why Jake had been so enthralled with her. The busty woman ran the tip of one finger along the valley between her breasts and Nora couldn't help but glance down at her own, much skimpier endowments.

  No justice.

  Elizabeth took a sip of cocoa, then spoke haltingly. "I don't know quite how to say this, Nora dear, but I feel I should. After all, but for a twist of fate, I would be your mother now.”

  There's a thought.

  A twenty-seven year old woman with a thirty-five year old mom.

  "Besides," Elizabeth went on, "you've always trusted my advice before this.”

  “What is it?” Nora asked.

  "I have noticed that you and Seth are spending quite a bit of time together."

  "Unfortunately," she agreed. "He always seems to be one step behind me, no matter where I am."

  "Yes, well." Elizabeth leaned in closer, giving Nora much too clear a view of her formidable cleavage. One look at that, and the old Nora's father probably hadn't stood a chance. "Since your memory hasn't altogether returned yet," she said politely, "I thought you should be made aware of potential dangers."

  "Danger?" Nora set her cup down onto the tray, cocoa untasted.

  "Oh, aren't you going to drink it?" Elizabeth asked.

  “I'm not very thirsty.”

  A flash of disappointment crossed the woman's features briefly.

  "You were saying? About Seth?"

  "Oh yes, of course. Well, how do I put this delicately?" she wondered, then plunged ahead. "He once made… lascivious advances to me.”

  "Lascivious?" Nora leaned back and stared at the woman. She tried to imagine Seth making a move on Elizabeth and couldn't quite do it. Oh sure, being a man, he would probably have looked, but from what she'd seen of him, he didn't seem the type to go for the flowery, feathery sort of female.

  “Are you sure?” Nora finally asked.

  Elizabeth's features tightened and even the forgiving lamplight wasn't enough to soften them again. “Yes. Though he knew that Jake and I were…"

  “I understand," Nora said quickly, hoping to avoid an in-depth description.

  "When I refused him," the woman continued heatedly, a spark of remembered anger in her eye, “he became violent.”

  "Seth?" No matter how angry he had been with her in the last few days, he hadn't shown any tendencies toward violence. Oh, he had a temper. But Nora had never once been physically afraid of him. Intrigued, she eyed Elizabeth with more curiosity than before.

  "He… grabbed my person," the woman continued, "attempting to force himself on me."

  Now that just didn't sound right at all. Instinctively, Nora prepared to defend the man she spent most of her time fighting. Elizabeth didn't give her the chance, though.

  "I escaped, thank heaven and went straight to Jake." She shook her head again. "I showed him my torn dress and demanded that he fire Seth Murdoch immediately."

  "But he didn't," Nora said, her impression of Jake Wilding lifting a notch or two.

  "No, sadly he did not." She sighed heavily. "He was certain that I had imagined the incident. The very next week, before I could convince him otherwise, my darling Jake was gone from me forever.” She sniffed, pulled a lace hanky from the sleeve of her wrapper and dabbed delicately at her eyes.

  "I'm sorry," Nora said, not sure what else to say.

  "Of course you are, dear,” Elizabeth patted her hand. "And we have consoled each other, haven't we?"

  The woman's smile was eager, ingratiating. A flicker of cunning shone in her dark brown gaze, but was quickly gone again. Somehow, Nora thought, she liked Elizabeth a lot better when she was unconscious. Had the old Nora really been so close with her father's mistress?

  The blonde leaned over to hug Nora briefly. Her long, delicate fingers were surprisingly strong as they dug into Nora's upper arms.

  "I'd like to think," the woman said, releasing her and sitting back, "that you still look to me as you might a mother.” She straightened her spine slightly, urging her breasts forward like a young mother showing off her precocious children.

  Nora blinked. Good Lord.

  "Now I'll leave you to your rest," Elizabeth said, scooting off the bed. She reached for the tray, then paused when she had it held firmly in both hands. "I want you to know Nora, should you have any other questions about…"

  Was she blushing?

  "A wife's duties," she went on, “please feel free to come to me. Although," she added with a small wink, "if you would just reconsider Richard's proposal, I assure you that you would find him a gentle teacher."

  With that amazing statement still hanging in the air, Elizabeth flounced from the room, closing the door behind her. Quickly, before the woman changed her mind and came back, Nora jumped from the bed, scurried across the floor, and turned the key in the lock. Her back against the door, she stared blankly up at the ceiling.

  Rubbing her hands up and down her arms as s
he went back to bed and slipped underneath the quilts, she wondered what Elizabeth's real purpose had been in dropping by and just how she could avoid a repeat performance.

  She reached over, turned the wick on the lamp down until the flame went out, and with the room in darkness but for the moonlight peeking through gingham curtains, Nora closed her eyes.

  #

  Smoke and music filled the air. The heavy, dark scent of beer from the open cask behind her made her think of the home she was leaving in search of better times. How many nights had she and Sean sat in the pub, dreaming of going to America? And now they were on their way. Sailing on the finest ship in the world, so Sean said. In no time a'tall, they'd be in Boston where Sean would join his brother Paddy at the brewery. And one day, when they'd saved enough money, the Muldoon brothers would open their own place where they would brew the fine, dark beer of Ireland and make their fortunes.

  Molly Brennan searched the faces of the crowd in steerage, searching for her betrothed. Her Sean. At last she found him, as usual in the midst of the men, telling one of the tall tales he told so well. A mug of ale in one hand, he used the other to decorate his story with wild gestures. Everything would be fine, she repeated to herself, much as she had done since setting foot on this fancy ship. The Titanic. What kind of name was that, she wanted to know? For weeks, she'd heard nothin' hut how grand a boat the Titanic was. How fine and beautiful. Well, she thought, perhaps on the upper decks, it was. But here in steerage, where the Irish huddled together for warmth as much as company, she'd seen nothin' fine enough to make up for the awful queasiness in her stomach. Should a ship this big rock so bloody much? she wondered, and thanked God that they were below decks, where she didn't have to look out on the black ocean surrounding them.

  A change in the tone of the crowd captured her attention. As she looked toward Sean, she heard the fiddle player drag his bow across the strings in one last gasp before stopping altogether. A man shouted something at her Sean, and typically, her betrothed laughed. How she loved the sound of that booming laugh as it raised up and settled over her like a soft kiss. Grinning to herself, she watched her handsome Love move through the crowd toward her. The people parted for him and the man following him.