The hotel in Caldwell was as bad as she remembered it and she decided that instead of taking a chance with the bed, she would sleep in her own bedding on the floor. Better to do that than catch lice.
She found out the next morning over breakfast in a small dining hall that all of them had done the same thing.
That afternoon they rode up to the Idanha Hotel in downtown Boise and left their horses in the stables behind it.
The day was getting hot, but not as hot as Dixie knew it would get in a few more days. She needed a cool bath more than anything to get off the grime and dust that she felt like coated everything.
“Wait until you see this place,” Dixie said, smiling at Brice.
“They remodeled and restored this in our time,” Brice said, staring up at the towers on the four corners of the building and the stone and brick. “But I never took the time to go look at it.”
“It’s amazing how history can just sit right in front of us all the time and we never see it,” Duster said.
“I love this place,” Bonnie said. “But you two ought to see the fantastic hotels in San Francisco. Pure class and luxury.”
Duster laughed. “And not my style at all.”
“Yes, dear, I know,” Bonnie said, shaking her head.
Dixie was just as shocked the second time at the spectacular beauty of the hotel as they entered.
The huge front lobby seemed larger than she remembered, with the oak trim on everything, the stone floors with scattered carpets and furniture, and light stone columns.
The towering windows let in the bright summer sun making the insides feel as bright as being outside.
The open doors and windows were managing to keep a slight breeze blowing through the big rooms, keeping it moderately cool for the moment.
Duster had them wait in the middle of the big lobby and went and got their keys.
Brice just stared at the ornate room and plush furnishings. “This is amazing, simply amazing.”
“It is a wonderful place,” Dixie said.
“I made reservations a month ago,” Duster said as he came back over to them after just a few minutes.
He handed Brice a key. “Sixth floor in the Lost River suite on the south corner.”
He handed a key to Bonnie. “Our regular suite, the Dutch Flat suite on the east side.”
Then he handed a key to Dixie and smiled. “I have you back in the Avalanche Creek suite. I hope that’s all right?”
“It’s perfect,” Dixie said, taking the key and staring at it.
She had made it back here, back to 1901 and the Idanha Hotel. And she was standing with the love of her life, someone she wasn’t certain she would ever be with here again.
If it was possible, she loved this Brice more than she had loved the first one she met here.
Now she just had to figure out a way to tell this Brice what happened to her the first time she had come here.
She had no idea what he might say.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
August 16th, 1901
Brice’s Timeline
BRICE HAD SMILED and nodded his thanks when Duster put Dixie back in the Avalanche Creek suite. She didn’t know it, but she would love that suite. And at some point he would tell her how she had been there before.
Another alternate timeline her. And what had happened. But telling her scared him to death. He felt like this news might be the news that drove her away from him.
That first night they had a comfortable dinner down the street in one of Duster’s favorite steak houses. Both women dressed in fancy dresses and both wore wide-brimmed hats to keep the sun from their skin. Dixie had her striking red hair pulled up and tucked around under her hat.
Brice and Duster wore suits with vests and cowboy hats.
Dixie looked flat stunning as far as Brice was concerned, even dressed as she was for this time.
After dinner they retired back to the hotel.
They all planned on meeting at six in the morning for breakfast, just as the hotel dining room opened.
Bonnie and Duster walked up the flights of wide stone stairs slowly in the heat ahead of Brice and Dixie, said goodnight at the top, then turned toward the east.
The wide, carpeted high-ceilinged hallway at the top of the stairs went in two directions. Oak wood trim and lined wallpaper covered the walls between stone pillars with lamp sconces every ten feet giving the hallway a clean, almost bright light.
Dixie and Brice turned in the other direction from Bonnie and Duster.
Dixie had gushed about how much she loved her suite at dinner and thanked Bonnie and Duster at least twice for bringing her to the past and hiring her in the first place.
“Thank Brice,” Duster had said at one point during dinner between bites of steak and the best tasting butter bread Brice remembered ever tasting. “He was the one who suggested we get you on board for some of the coming math problems we’re all going to be trying to solve.”
Dixie had just nodded to that, but he could tell that the brilliant mind of hers hadn’t missed that comment in the slightest. Up until that comment, hiring her had all been Bonnie and Duster.
As they walked in the direction of Dixie’s corner suite, she looked up at him and smiled from under her wide-brimmed hat. “I know this might be improper for a woman of my status in this time, but would you like to come in.”
Brice bowed slightly to her. “I would love to.”
When they got to the big oak door with the bronze plaque that read Avalanche Creek, she stopped and pulled out her key.
“Any idea where that is at, or if it even exists?” She pointed at the sign.
“Actually,” Brice said, “I do. It’s a small creek in the Monumental Creek drainage about three miles below where the town was buried under water.”
She smiled at him and nodded and he had a hunch he had just slipped as Duster had slipped. He would have had no reason to look it up.
They looked both ways down the hallway to make sure no one was watching, then she opened the door and they both went inside and she closed and bolted the door behind them.
She had left two windows open, one in the bathroom and one in the corner of the living room in the round tower area of the room and a slight breeze had kept the room fairly cool. One thing he had always loved about Boise was that even on hot days, the evenings and nights cooled off. It made the hot days bearable.
The suite was as he remembered it. All the wonderful afternoons and evenings they had spent at the table in the big round stone turret with its tall windows and perfect light. The two of them had solved Bonnie and Duster’s math problem, and even more together.
Brice just stood gazing at the room, letting the memories wash over him.
After a moment he realized Dixie was staring at him and he smiled. “Great room.”
“A wonderful place,” Dixie said. Then she took off her wide-brimmed hat and flipped it on the couch, walked over to him, and pulled his head down to kiss him.
He melted into her, holding her, kissing her, wanting the moment to never stop.
And clearly she didn’t want it to end either, but finally she held him at arm’s length, looking up into his face. “I’m going to go down to the front desk and have the housekeeping staff bring up some hot water to take the chill off that ice water from the tap.”
He nodded to that, but the kiss had pretty much taken his breath away and caused him to sweat even more than he had been before.
“Then,” Dixie said, “I’m going to take a lukewarm bath to get a few layers of trail grime off.”
“Good idea,” Brice managed to say.
“You want to join me after the housekeeping folks leave?”
All Brice could do was stand there, his mouth open and his head nodding.
She laughed and pulled him down and kissed him again.
“Now get to your room, give the staff a good thirty minutes, change into your breakfast clothes, and bring a change of modern night clothes ba
ck. I assume you brought some.”
“Running shorts and a couple of tee shirts,” he said, nodding.
“Good,” she said.
She kissed him again and then the two of them went back out into the hall and she went to the staircase to go down to the front desk while he headed for his suite.
Thirty minutes exactly, he went back to her suite and knocked lightly.
He heard a “Yes,” from the other side.
“It’s Brice,” he said.
He heard the latch unbolt and the door swung slightly open and he stepped inside.
Dixie pushed the door closed and then turned to him, completely naked and smiling.
Again all he could do was stare at the most beautiful woman he had ever known.
In any timeline.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
August 16th, 1901
Dixie’s Timeline
THEY MADE LOVE before they got to the big tub. She had surprised Brice by being naked when he came back and he had just stood there staring at her, which she flat had loved.
When they finally got to the big tub in the bathroom, the water was cool, but not ice cold, perfect for the warm evening.
She had brought soap from the future and they used it to scrub each other down, washing off layers and layers of dirt and more suntan lotion from her than she wanted to think about.
But somehow, after being outside for more than three days, she hadn’t really gotten any damage at all from sun. Most of that was because of the wide-brimmed hat, long sleeve blouses, and the lotion.
The bath felt wonderful and the big, soft towels even better.
As they were drying each other off with big fluffy white towels, Brice asked the question she had been worried about.
“What did Duster mean it was your idea to hire me?”
She turned and reached up and kissed him. Then she said, “Put on your running shorts and tee shirt and let’s have a talk.”
“That serious, huh?” he asked, looking into her eyes with those wonderful green eyes of his.
She nodded. “As serious as Bonnie and Duster telling you about the lodge and the crystal cave.”
“Oh,” was all he said.
He moved into the other room near the bed and quickly slipped on a tee shirt and running shorts while she did the same. It felt weird to be dressing in 2016 clothing in 1901, but alone like this, there was no reason not to.
“The table in the turret,” she said.
He took one chair, then she took another facing him.
He looked worried and as she sat down he said simply, “Just blurt it out. Better to start that way.”
She nodded. She had gone over and over this moment in her mind since Bonnie and Duster had managed to get him to go to work with her. Now was the time, the final step.
“In another timeline,” she said, “you and I sat at this very table, dressed as we are right now, for almost two months every afternoon and evening, working on math in notebooks, trying to solve a math problem Bonnie and Duster had hired us to solve.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it and sat back. “Of all the things I was worried about you saying, that wasn’t it.”
“What were you worried about?” she asked.
He brushed that question away with a wave of his hand. “Me just being worried you don’t like me or couldn’t be with me for some strange reason.”
“Actually,” she said, “that’s exactly my worry with all this.”
“So how did it happen?” Brice asked. “I assume the me you are talking about was from another timeline?”
Dixie nodded. “Bonnie and Duster, when looking for mathematical help on the problem they faced with the lodge happening, they boiled down the candidates to you and me. They called it a coin flip.”
“In your timeline you won the flip and in other timelines I won the flip,” Brice said. “Standard timeline branching decision.”
“Exactly,” Dixie said, relieved that he was understanding that much.
“So how could it happen that we met here?”
“Bonnie brought me back to this hotel and left me after a few days,” Dixie said. “In the other timeline, Duster brought you back and left you here after a few days. They didn’t see each other until they returned.”
“So the Bonnie from our timeline met a Duster from another timeline?” Brice asked.
“That’s right,” Dixie said. “First time in the thousands of years they have come back here that had happened.”
“Because of the closeness of the timelines you won the flip and I won the flip,” Brice said, nodding, clearly lost in thought.
“Exactly,” Dixie said. “And because your counterpart and I solved so many problems together, it was clear to Bonnie and Duster that we should work together.”
“More than that I assume,” Brice said, staring at her.
She nodded and took a deep breath. “I fell in love with you during those two months, and I am even more in love with the you sitting here now.”
“You mean the counterpart me?” Brice asked.
“No, you,” Dixie said, her voice as firm as she could make it and looking him directly in the eyes. “Except for your year of teaching, you are exactly the man I fell in love with. I fell in love with you at first here in this hotel. I just hadn’t met you, the professor yet. And then I fell in love all over again with you, the professor you, while we worked together the last two months.”
Brice opened his mouth again and then closed it, just staring at her.
She sat there letting that brilliant mind of his grapple with what she had told him.
Finally he said, “Did the counterpart me decide to meet you in his timeline?”
“He did,” she said. “But you know the math of alternate timelines as well as I do. There were three major turning points in getting to right here.”
Brice nodded. “I would either leave teaching or not leave teaching.”
Dixie nodded. “Different timelines split off for each.”
“I would walk away from the job when Bonnie and Duster told me about the lodge,” Brice said.
Again Dixie only nodded. She knew that in a large number of timelines, she was sure Brice had both stayed teaching and walked away.
“And the third turning point is this moment right now,” he said. “How will I react?”
She nodded. “And I’m scared to death. I want to be with you for a very long time, work with you, make love to you, laugh and talk with you and explore the boundaries of math and history together.”
She just sat there after that, her heart racing as she stared into his green eyes.
He didn’t seem to be even reacting. She had no idea what or how he was feeling. In the two months back here and in the two months after Bonnie and Duster had hired him, she had never seen him angry. Focused, yes, snippy with stupidity, yes, but never angry.
She didn’t want to see him angry now. She didn’t know what she would do if he turned his back on her.
Outside the sun was just setting, the sounds of music drifted through the air from a few nearby saloons. A wagon rattled past on the street below. All sounds she had grown to love with Brice facing her across this very table.
A Brice from a different timeline.
But still the same Brice.
They sat there for what seemed like an eternity. She wanted to give him time to think, so she somehow managed to say nothing.
Finally, he shook his head and sighed and sat forward. He looked at her as intensely as he could. Was he going to tell her to go to hell?
Was he going to be angry with her for tricking him to this point?
She wouldn’t blame him for yelling at her.
“In your list of things that you wanted to do with me, you forgot taking baths together,” he said. “Toss that in and you just might sway me to stay with you and do all those other wonderful things you mentioned as well.”
She stared at him for a moment, blinking.
He wasn�
��t upset.
Finally he smiled and she flat wasn’t sure what to do next. She damned near fainted off the chair because she had been holding her breath.
She stood and moved over to him and sat on his lap and kissed him harder than she had ever kissed anyone before.
And he kissed her back.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
August 16th, 1901
Brice’s Timeline
THE NEXT MORNING to get to breakfast, Brice and Dixie had done what they had done for almost two months in another timeline. They had waited for the coast to be clear and then left her room together to go to breakfast. But instead of him going back to his room for a few minutes to stagger their arrival, this time they walked down the stone staircase together.
Dixie looked ravishing in her blue summer dress and tall boots. She carried her large matching hat and had her red hair loose and pulled together with a decorative comb. He wore jeans, a vest and suit coat, and carried his cowboy hat.
He couldn’t believe she hadn’t been angry with him. In fact, after he told her, she had kissed him long and hard and then asked a ton of questions about her counterpart and how she handled being alone here in the past in the west.
Then they had made love in the big feather bed and drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms.
For Brice, it had been wonderful. Two months of constant worry that he could get to that very moment with the Dixie of his own timeline, and he finally had.
The woman he loved was once again at his side and knew everything.
The dining room was like returning to an old home. The high ceilings and tall windows let in the morning light and a cool morning breeze. Each table was covered in a white cloth and each table had a flower in the center.
Dixie was shocked at how stunning the large dining room was and how wonderful the large stone and brick fireplace against one wall was.
“Where did I sit before we met?” she whispered as they entered.
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