A Fall in Time (Train Through Time Series Book 5)

by Bess McBride

  “It’s Miss Reed, or better yet, Sara. I’m not married. I lied to you about that.”

  Matthew opened his mouth to speak but hesitated, choosing his words carefully. He was inordinately pleased to discover there was no husband waiting for her.

  “Why would you lie about that, Miss Reed?”

  “I was frightened when I woke up and found you in here,” she said.

  He could well understand that, a single woman finding herself alone in the compartment of an unmarried man.

  “I think I understand,” he said carefully. “It is unusual to call a woman by her given name so early in an acquaintance. I think I must continue to call you Miss Reed.”

  “What’s your name?” she asked. She scanned the room as if looking for something.

  “Matthew Webster.”

  “Matthew,” she repeated. He enjoyed the sound of his name on her lips but wondered why she did not more properly address him as Mr. Webster, given their short acquaintance. She was certainly a very informal young woman. However, it would be rude to correct her, and he really did not care to. Matthew it was.

  She pursed her lips and blew out through her mouth before inhaling through her nose. She repeated the breathing several more times.

  “Miss Reed?” he asked.

  “Yes?” She turned to look at him, and he caught his breath. As he had noted earlier before she ran from the compartment, her eyes were brown with charming flecks of gold embedded in them.

  “A refreshment? You must have something, or I fear you will faint.”

  “Water?” she asked.

  “Something to eat? Did you miss dinner?”

  “Noooo,” she said as if uncertain. “I had dinner earlier before the train left. What time is it?”

  Matthew pulled his pocket watch from his vest.

  “Almost 9:00 p.m.,” he said.

  She stared at his watch.

  “That’s not possible. The train left the station at 10:30. I think I fell asleep right away.”

  “Ten thirty this morning? You must have slept the day away. I did as well, having had a sleepless night.”

  For the first time in an hour, he thought of Emily.

  “No, 10:30 tonight. Wait! What day is it? I couldn’t possibly have slept almost twenty-four hours.”

  “Wednesday,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Yup, it was Wednesday when I left.”

  “Where did you say you boarded the train?”

  “Spokane.”

  “I fear you are quite mistaken about the departure time. It was most assuredly 7:55 p.m.”

  She shook her head and eyed him, almost defiantly.

  “No, I don’t think I’m mistaken. Are you sure that thing is working?”

  She nodded toward the watch he held in his hand.

  “Yes, of course my watch is working!” he said, slightly insulted. A gift from his father on his twenty-first birthday, he treasured it.

  “Not too many men wear pocket watches today,” she murmured, her gaze continually fixated on the watch.

  Matthew looked at the watch in surprise.

  “I do not know many men who do not carry a watch,” he said.

  She brought graceful dark eyebrows together in a frown.

  “Wear a watch,” she said as if she corrected him. “And most men just look at their phones now.”

  “Come now, Miss Reed! I hardly think most men even own a telephone, much less stare at it. I cannot imagine what you are talking about. You sound...disoriented.”

  He was trying to be kind. She looked disoriented as well, very confused. To be fair, he was experiencing his own confusion, given that he had seen her before he ever really “saw” her.

  She met his eyes, and he experienced that moment of exhilaration again. His pulse quickened, and his breath stilled in his chest.

  Matthew, a pragmatic man at the best of times, was not one to believe in the supernatural, but he began to wonder if such were possible, for how else had he dreamed of a woman he had never before seen but who seemed to appear out of thin air.

  What force was at play here?

  “I am disoriented,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “But I don’t think tea or coffee is going to fix it.”

  “Perhaps I should have the porter see if there is a doctor onboard. We do not reach our next stop in Troy, Montana, until almost 2:00 a.m. It is such a small town that I fear they might not have a doctor. Kalispell would most certainly, but we do not arrive until some time after 5:00 a.m. I am worried about you, Miss Reed.”

  “I’m worried about me, too,” she said with a wry smile. “What are those bottles over there?”

  She pointed to the glass bottles of mineral water the porter had left for his convenience.

  “Water,” he said. “Let me pour you a glass.” He opened one of the bottles and filled a glass.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  She held the glass up as if to examine the water and then took a tentative sip.

  “Have you not had mineral water before?” he asked with a twitch of his lips. She really did have some unusual eccentricities, not the least of which was her clothing.

  “Well, no, I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone really believes that bottled water comes from mineral springs.” She spoke almost conversationally, although the knuckles of her hand holding the glass were white. She stared at the water as if mesmerized.

  “I thought it did. Are you saying it does not?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No, I think it’s just filtered tap water.”

  “Tap...as if from the water one draws in a house?”

  “Yes, only on a bigger scale. In factories. Must be a pretty big filter,” she said with an oddly choked chuckle.

  Matthew shook his head, unwilling to argue with her over such a trivial matter. She was certainly no shrinking violet, speaking her mind as she wished.

  “Is the water helping with your disorientation?” he asked. “I do believe some food would also be of benefit.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes shining with unshed moisture. His mouth went dry. Was she about to cry? Other than his mother on not more than one or two occasions, he had no experience with women who cried. Emily never did so, not even when they were children. She had been never been faint of heart.

  He fished in his pocket for his handkerchief and held it out to her.

  Miss Reed stared at the kerchief with a bemused expression before taking it.

  “You know,” she said in a mumble, “I’d say you’re really old-fashioned, but I’m beginning to think that’s not the case.”

  “You would be right, madam. I am considered old-fashioned by my friends and family. I do not aspire to many modern things and live quite comfortably in my habitual ways.” He sighed and shook his head. “The turn of the century has been fraught with innumerable changes, and I prefer the older, more simpler ways. The telephone is such an invention. While my parents installed one in their house, I cannot say that I am comfortable using it. I still prefer to visit or send a note around.”

  He blinked as the pinkness in Miss Reed’s cheeks drained away. She looked stricken, as if his words had gravely injured her in some way. What had he said?

  “Miss Reed, are you all right? Perhaps you should lie down. I do not imagine there is a lady whom we could call to care for you, but I believe I might make a passable nurse.” He rose hastily and pulled a pillow and blanket from the closet next to the lavatory. He placed the pillow in the corner of the bench and urged Miss Reed to lie down. She resisted, and he could not force her. She looked faint.

  “What turn of the century?” she whispered.

  “This year, Miss Reed, in January. Nineteen hundred.”

  He caught her in his arms as she slipped forward off the bench.

  Chapter Four

  Sara awoke to hear the rustling of paper. She dared not open her eyes for fear she would see Matthew sitting on the opposite bench in the sleeping compart
ment of a turn-of-the-century train. Not that she feared him exactly. And not that she feared seeing him sit across from her. No, it was the number “nineteen hundred” that had scared her. She could pretend, even to herself, that she had heard him wrong, but she hadn’t. And she had known long before he said the word that something was horribly, horribly wrong.

  The train rumbled on, and she heard its whistle. She was still on the train. But which one?

  She slowly lifted one eyelid. As she suspected, Matthew sat on the opposite bench, his legs crossed, reading a newspaper. He had removed his jacket, revealing a formfitting gray silk vest over a crisp white shirt. He had not loosened his gray tie or the tight high collar that reached to his chin. His posture, though seemingly relaxed, was stiff and upright.

  He lowered the paper to look at her before she could slam her eye shut.

  “Miss Reed!” he said, dropping the paper at his side and rising to peer at her. In a motherly gesture, he laid his fingers across her forehead as if checking for a fever.

  “How do you feel? You gave me quite a fright, but I think you must be exhausted. I admit to feeling guilty that I did not call for a physician, but there are elements about you, about your appearance in my compartment, that I do not wish made public. For your sake.”

  He allowed his fingers to trace her cheek before withdrawing his hand hastily.

  Sara breathed deeply, holding back a wave of nausea. “I’m okay,” she said. She pushed herself up, noting he had covered her with a blanket. She clutched the blanket to her chest and lowered her feet to the ground.

  “Nineteen hundred, huh?” she said in a shaky voice. She put a hand over her mouth to stifle the queasy feeling.

  He drew his brows together as if confused.

  “Yes. The beginning of a new millennia.”

  He reached for her glass of water and handed it to her.

  “Drink this. I insist. You are as pale as a ghost.”

  “I think I am a ghost,” she said.

  As if he couldn’t help himself, Matthew’s lips twitched.

  “I have been contemplating what you are, Miss Reed, and have speculated on many supernatural notions, but I do not think you are a ghost.”

  Sara shook her head. “They don’t burn witches anymore, do they?” she asked in a wry voice. She was trying hard not to think about the implications of what had happened to her.

  Matthew’s brows shot up, but he answered her gravely. “Not since the eighteenth century, Miss Reed. Do you believe you are a witch?”

  She threw him a quick wide-eyed look and shook her head vehemently. No point in suggesting things to him.

  “No, I was just kidding.”

  Matthew dropped his eyes to her legs and cleared his throat.

  “May I ask you about your attire, Miss Reed? Surely you must know your...em...garments are somewhat unusual for a woman.”

  She looked down at her yoga pants and self-consciously pulled the blanket across her legs. Her shoes, canvas slip-ons, were probably passable, and she still wore her dark-blue fleece jacket over her red T-shirt. She had dressed for comfort, anticipating a long ride in a coach seat on a modern train, not—she found it difficult to think the words, much less say them—not travel 114 years into the past.

  There! She’d said it. At some point over the past few hours, she’d accepted that she wasn’t in the twenty-first century anymore. She had tried for one moment to pretend she was on a train of reenactors or had slipped into a historical movie location shoot, but she knew that was a desperate grab at any sort of rational explanation, however remote the possibility.

  “My attire?” she asked, stalling as she wondered if she should tell Matthew what she thought had happened or come up with something a little more logical than the notion of time travel.

  “I am quite aware that it is impolite of me to ask about your clothing, but I would not wish you to be the subject of gossip when you detrain in Grand Forks. I have never stayed in that fine town, and perhaps long johns are an accepted form of attire for the ladies, but I find that difficult to believe.”

  He quirked a dark eyebrow and waited for her to say something. She looked down at her lap.

  “Long johns,” she said in a bemused tone. She supposed they did look a bit like thermal underwear. A bit. Sara decided then and there not to tell him she thought she had traveled in time. She would “detrain” in Grand Forks and figure out something out...something. Especially a way to get back to the future.

  Surreptitiously, under the blanket, she patted her jacket pockets. Empty. No wallet. No money. No phone. No, they had all been in her purse. If she had, for whatever crazy reason, actually traveled to nineteen hundred though, identification, money and a phone from the twenty-first century would do her no good. They might, in fact, get her into trouble.

  “Well, yes, the long johns. I was raised by a single mother,” Sara said, sticking to the truth as much as she could while lying. “Being ill a lot, she couldn’t work and didn’t have much money, so I wore what she could find in thrift shops. She thought these looked warm, and she bought them for me.” Truthfully, her mother had bought seven pairs of baggy sweatpants that some girl must have cleaned out of her closet, and Sara had worn those in the winter throughout elementary and high school. She had longed for tight jeans like the other girls wore, but no tight blue jeans had ever shown up at the thrift store, or if they had, they’d been quickly snatched up.

  Sara had been an absolute and utter geek in her hand-me-down clothing, but she hadn’t realized it until she attended college on a scholarship. Few girls at Gonzaga University wore baggy sweatpants, preferring the tightly fitting yoga pants, and with her first paycheck from working in one of the school cafeterias, Sara bought several pairs. She loved them, preened in them and wore them everywhere.

  Now, of course, their tightness was a bit awkward. The thought of her mother brought a knot to her throat. She had lived long enough to see Sara enter college but had died of her heart condition a year ago.

  “Thrift shops?”

  Sara bit her lip. Didn’t they have thrift shops in nineteen hundred? How was she going to survive until she could figure out how to get back to her own time?

  “Secondhand clothing stores,” she explained, hoping they at least had those.

  “Ah!” Matthew said. “Yes, of course.” He still looked dubious, but Sara pressed her lips together in a firm smile and pulled the blanket more tightly around her.

  “I have skirts at home,” she said.

  Matthew quirked an eyebrow.

  “And where is home, Miss Reed? Are you from Spokane or Grand Forks?”

  Sara quickly tried to think her answer through, but she could not reason through the implications of any particular response while Matthew watched her with those aquamarine eyes.

  “Spokane,” she said.

  “I do not believe you ever told me if you were visiting family in Grand Forks or not,” he continued.

  Sara did not get the impression they were having a friendly conversation so much as she was being interrogated. And he was probably entitled to do so, since she had barged into his compartment twice, the last time asking for help.

  “Yes, I’m being met by family,” she said with a firm nod and what she hoped was a pleasant smile.

  “I am pleased to hear that,” he said. “Though I admit to some concern that you are still somewhat confused about your compartment or seat on the train.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Sara asked, stalling. How could she explain her desperate plea for help? “Oh, you mean when I ran into your compartment asking for help?”

  He nodded. “And when I found you asleep in here only a short time before that.”

  “You’d think I was sleep walking or something, wouldn’t you?” She really had nothing. She couldn’t dazzle him with nonsense for much longer.

  “Perhaps the first time you came to my compartment, but you were fully awake and quite desperate the second time you arrived.”


  “Yes,” she conceded with a nod. She fidgeted with a corner of her blanket. Her mind was blank. If she couldn’t just confess all, she had to come up with something. Anything!

  “Okay, I really didn’t want to have to tell you this,” she began, “but...”

  Nothing. Nothing!

  “Yes, Miss Reed. Go on.” He watched her carefully.

  “Well, this is going to sound crazy,” she said. Anything! Please!

  He waited.

  “I hopped aboard the train in Spokane without a ticket,” she burst out. “As I told you, my mother didn’t have money, and I haven’t done much better.”

  In fact, Sara’s scholarship to Gonzaga’s law school, and excellent health, ensured that she would probably do much better than her mother had, but she needed some excuse for not having a ticket.

  Matthew reared his head at her words as if they surprised him.

  “I did want to go visit family in Grand Forks,” she hurried on to say. “My grandmother is ill. And since I didn’t have any money, I snuck onboard the train. Please don’t tell them. They’d only throw me off.” She clasped her hands in front of her. She was serious about that part.

  The furrows on Matthew’s forehead relaxed, and his eyes softened. Sara felt awful lying to him, but she didn’t see that she had any alternative.

  “I apologize, Miss Reed. It was most uncharitable of me to force you into such an embarrassing confession. No, of course I will not reveal your secret to the conductor or porter, and you are free to use my compartment as long as need be. I shall make arrangements for another compartment.” He rose, picked up his hat and reached for an overcoat and a small bag in an overhead bin.

  “No, wait!” Sara jumped up. “Don’t do that! I don’t want you to have to move.”

  He blinked, and she realized he really had no choice, not if this was really nineteen hundred.

  “But we cannot stay in the same compartment, Miss Reed.”

  “But if you ask for another compartment, they’ll want to know why, and they’ll know I’m here. They will want me to pay, and I don’t have any money.” All of this was true at least, though somehow the truth wasn’t making her feel any better.

  Matthew stilled, appearing to give the matter some thought.