“So my angel returns,” he drawled, wondering why she felt the need to dress like a man instead of a woman. “You’re not a dream after all.”
“I’m not your angel.” She didn’t come close to the bed, but kept her distance.
“You don’t need to be afraid of me, ma’am,” Wood called out when she eyed him suspiciously.
“I’m not.”
“Good. Then maybe you’ll undo these fancy knots you tied and let me go find Hannah. I need to talk to her.”
She stood silently assessing him, as if he were a bolt of fabric in the dry goods store that she couldn’t quite make up her mind about.
“At least take pity on the fact that I haven’t relieved myself since sometime yesterday. If I don’t get off this bed soon I’m going to embarrass myself. You wouldn’t want to see a grown man wet himself, would you?” Wood’s grin did little to persuade her.
Apparently his physical needs were of little concern to her. She didn’t move toward him. Instead she folded her arms across her chest and said, “I guess we weren’t introduced last night, were we, Mr. Dumler? I’m the Hannah you’re looking for. Now what is it you want to say to me?”
“You’re Hannah?”
“Yes. You look disappointed.”
He was about to tell her the reason why—that the Hannah he had expected to find was his sister. But then realized that it probably wouldn’t be wise to give these people any clue to his real identity. The three of them had mistaken him for a Mr. Dumler, and he was content to let them think that’s who he was. By now his name would be plastered all over “Wanted” posters in the area. Once these women went to town, they’d know that he had nearly been hung for murder.
“I’m not disappointed,” Wood assured her. “Perhaps a little surprised, that’s all.” He could see that she didn’t believe him.
“I’m sorry if I’m not what you expected, but I didn’t answer your ad,” she said in a defensive tone. “Gabby did and she’s the one who’s responsible for any assumptions you’ve made.”
Ad? What was the woman talking about? And what assumptions was he supposed to have made? If she wasn’t aware of his true identity, then why was she looking at him as if he were a fly in her apple pie?
“And haven’t you made some assumptions about me, Hannah?” he asked.
To his surprise, she looked him straight in the eye and said, “Look, I’m going to be honest with you, Mr. Dumler.”
“Wood,” he automatically corrected.
“Wood, I didn’t invite you here. My aunt did.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
He thought a hint of red colored her cheeks, but he couldn’t be sure. “Not until you’re well enough to make it back to wherever it is you came from.”
Wood knew that she didn’t want him to stay a minute longer than was necessary. It was there in her eyes. He chuckled to himself. What she didn’t realize was that he shared her sentiment. He wanted to leave. As beautiful as she was and no matter how tempting it would be to enlist this Hannah’s help in locating his sister, he’d be foolish to spend one minute longer than was necessary at the Davis farm.
“I understand perfectly,” he told her.
“Good. So how are you feeling this morning?” she asked politely, as if she hadn’t just told him he wasn’t welcome in her home.
“I feel pretty damn good for a man who’s been tied to this bed all night.” He didn’t mean for the words to sound so sarcastic, but he had never been a woman’s prisoner before and he found the experience rather unsettling. But then everything about the Davis family unnerved him. They dressed oddly, they talked funny and they couldn’t quite decide whether to treat him as a friend or enemy. Right now Hannah Davis was looking at him like the latter.
“I had to restrain you last night,” she said coolly. “So you wouldn’t hurt yourself.”
“And why would you think I would do that?”
“You were behaving rather strangely, wandering around the yard talking incoherently. Gabby and Jeremy said you’ve been behaving oddly ever since they found you stretched out in the cornfield. We weren’t sure what you might do,” she told him. She rubbed her hands across her folded arms. “If it had been up to me, I would have sent for the sheriff, but you’re here at Gabby’s invitation, and she assures me you’re sane.”
“You think I’m crazy?”
She took another step backward. “I don’t know you, Mr. Dumler.”
Her eyes met his, and Wood saw fear in them. He wanted to say something that would persuade her he wasn’t going to hurt anyone, especially not her. “I am not crazy,” he told her, although he wasn’t quite convinced of it himself. “And I am not dangerous. I won’t cause any trouble for you or your family.”
She held his gaze for several seconds before looking away nervously. “Gabby assures me she’s checked your references thoroughly. She seems to think you’re trustworthy.”
“But you don’t, do you, Hannah?”
“I’m not seventy-five, Mr. Dumler....”
“Wood,” again he corrected her.
“And I’m not in the habit of letting complete strangers into my house.”
“If you’ll untie my hands, this stranger will leave your house. I don’t make a habit of staying where I’m not wanted.”
He could see she was still a bit apprehensive about untying him, but finally she moved closer to the bed. Tentatively, her fingers reached for the frayed ends of cloth, carefully avoiding any contact with his flesh. As she struggled with a knot that didn’t want to be undone, Wood saw straight white teeth tug on her lower lip. The longer she worked at the knot, the more he studied her face.
She knew he was staring at her. She’d sneak a quick peek at him, then quickly return her attention to the knot, a delicate pink spreading across her cheeks. For someone with such a sharp tongue, she had a very kissable mouth. Soft. Full. Wood had to look away for he could feel his body reacting to her nearness.
Not that it helped. Even with his eyes on the ceiling he was very much aware of her presence. The scent of orange blossoms wouldn’t let him forget that she was close enough to touch.
“There.” She breathed a sigh of relief as the knot finally came undone. “Can you get the rest?”
“I don’t think even a sane man could untie one of your knots with only one hand,” Wood answered.
“I get the job done,” she said proudly. She had to stretch to reach his other hand, the action pulling her shirt free of her trousers so that Wood caught a glimpse of bare flesh. Automatically his body responded and he tried to focus on . something—anything to take his mind off of her.
It was then that Wood noticed the leather band on her wrist. In the middle was a small gray square with numbers.
“Is that some sort of time piece?” he asked.
“It’s a digital watch,” she replied flatly, then straightened and gave him a look that said in no uncertain terms was she going to help him with his ankles.
Digital watch? Something was definitely odd with these folks. In all of the time he had been in Minnesota he had never heard anyone use such foreign words or dress so unconventionally. He needed to get away from the Davis farm. He freed his feet, then flexed his muscles, before pulling on his boots.
“Are you all right?” Hannah asked when he dropped his head in his hands.
He nodded. “My head’s sore.” Confused would have been a better word, but he didn’t want to give Hannah Davis any fuel for the fire. “Jeremy said your privy’s near the house?”
“Our what?”
“Privy.” He remembered that Jeremy had told him they called it something else in this part of the country. “The bathroom.”
“You’ll have to come up to the house,” she told him, her face revealing just how distasteful that thought was.
Wood was getting tired of her displeasure. “This might surprise you, but I don’t want to be here, either. Just show me where the privy is, give me my hat and I’ll be gone.�
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“I don’t know where your hat is.”
“I reckon I can get along without it,” he said unhappily. “I don’t suppose anyone found my horse?”
Her brow wrinkled. “You brought a horse? I thought Gabby said you came on the bus?”
What was the bus? Wood could only guess that it must be some kind of wagon. “I had a horse, but I’m not sure what happened to it.”
Again, wariness had her stepping backward. She motioned for him to follow her outside. As Wood stepped into the bright sun, he squinted. When his eyes finally adjusted to the light, he stopped in his tracks. Across from the bunkhouse were four round metal buildings.
“What are those?”
“Grain bins,” she replied in a tone that said he had to be the dumbest man on earth if he needed to ask that question.
“They’re metal.”
“Yeah. So?”
As she led him past the bins his footsteps slowed at the sight of the oddest looking contraption he had ever seen. It was red with two small wheels at one end and two large wheels at the other.
When he stopped to stare, she said, “What’s the matter? You act as if you’ve never seen an old tractor before?”
A tractor? Grain bins? Bus? Wood did a complete circle, looking in every direction, trying to find something familiar in the landscape. There was nothing. It was as if he had fallen off his horse and landed in a foreign country.
“This is Minnesota, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
From the look on her face Wood knew he needed to be careful or she would call the sheriff. “I thought so,” he said as calmly as he could, Although he was feeling anything but calm.
He wished he knew what the hell was going on. Maybe he was crazy. Where was his sister, Hannah? And how was he ever going to find her when he didn’t even know where he was or how he got here?
Nothing made sense. A digital watch that flashed numbers, a canteen that was bright red, clothes unlike any he had ever seen before. It was as if he had awoke in another era.
The thought caused his heart to pound. Yesterday Gabby had said “back in 1940.” Could it be that he was in the twentieth century? He shook his head. No, he was crazy if he thought that.
“Alfred! Are you well enough to be up and around?” Gabby had come out of the house and stood in front of him, critically assessing his condition.
“He’s fine,” Hannah answered for him, which Wood thought was rather odd. But then everything on the Davis farm seemed odd.
Gabby shuffled over to Wood’s side. “I’m the one who should be taking care of you.”
“He needs to use the bathroom. Gabby,” Hannah pointed out, hinting that the old lady should move out of their way so they could get up the steps of the house.
“Of course he does,” Gabby crooned. “Hannah, you go in and start breakfast. I’ll see that Wood is taken care of.” She insinuated herself in between Wood and Hannah, wrapping her bony fingers around Wood’s arm.
Hannah didn’t object. In fact, Wood thought she looked relieved to be able to turn him over to her aunt. She climbed the stairs and disappeared into the house without another word.
As soon as she was gone, Wood asked Gabby, “Can you tell me what date it is, ma’am?”
“Why sure. It’s September the eleventh.”
So he had lost a few days. The question was, had he lost years, too. “I don’t mean any disrespect, ma’am, but may I ask what year you were born?”
“Why, 1923,” she answered cheerfully.
Wood felt as if all the air was being sucked out of his lungs. 1923! He hadn’t misheard her when she’d said her cousin’s wedding was in 1940. Hannah had said Gabby was 75. It couldn’t be...Or could it?
He had thought that when he’d awakened in the Davis’s cornfield he had lost a couple of hours of his life. Now he knew that simply wasn’t true. Instead of a hundred and twenty minutes passing, he had skipped a hundred and twenty years...or a hundred and twenty-two to be exact.
It was 1998.
Chapter Four
“You didn’t tell Hannah why you’re here, did you?” Gabby asked anxiously.
Stunned from his discovery, Wood didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He was still trying to comprehend how he could have passed through a hundred and twenty-two years and not be dead. It had to be a dream, yet this old woman clutching his arm was as solid as the ground beneath his feet.
“Did you tell Hannah why you’re here?” she repeated.
“No, ma’ am.”
She exhaled in relief. “Good. You see, Hannah doesn’t know I placed the ad. She thinks you put one in because you were looking for work.”
It only took a few moments for Wood to realize that Gabby was still under the false assumption that he was someone named Alfred Dumler. She had no idea that he was an 1876 man who by some strange phenomenon was now in the twentieth century.
He thought about telling her the truth, yet how could he? How could he explain something he himself didn’t understand? Hannah Davis already suspected he was crazy. He had little doubt she would call the sheriff and have him dragged off to an insane asylum if he uttered one word about traveling through time. Not that he would blame her. Hell, it had happened to him and he still wondered if maybe he wasn’t crazy.
“Are you sure you’re feeling all right? You’re looking a little pale,” Gabby remarked, giving him a thorough appraisal.
Pale? He felt as if he’d been thrown from a horse. Disoriented. Sore. Lost. No, he was definitely not feeling all right. “I reckon I’m feeling as well as can be expected, ma’am.”
“You need some food in your stomach. We’ll go inside and get you something to eat, but first I need to know that you’re not going to tell Hannah why you’re really here.” She thrust her arm through his and pulled him close. “Will you do me this favor?”
Wood’s voice was tentative. “You don’t want me to tell Hannah that you were the one who was looking for a man, and not the other way around?”
She nodded vigorously. “Right. You see, I did it as a surprise for her. I figured once you got here and she got to know you she would...” she smiled shyly, “well, things would happen and you know.”
Wood assumed she meant Hannah would approve of him as a hired hand. Obviously, Gabby had arranged for hired help without Hannah’s knowledge. He could be that man for now—providing the real Alfred Dumler didn’t turn up.
“You’re not mad at me for pretending to be Hannah, are you?”
“No.” Why should he be? Since he wasn’t Alfred Dumler, it truly didn’t matter to him what the old lady had done, although he didn’t think she had a malicious bone in her frail body. She had been nothing but kind to him.
“Then you still want to go through with it?” she asked hopefully.
What he wanted was to go back to his old life. To his sister. To his job at the bank in Missouri. To the life he knew. He didn’t want to be in 1998 where everything was as strange as a two-headed calf.
Yet he couldn’t tell Gabby that. At least not yet. Until he could figure out how he could get back to 1876, he really had no choice but to let her assume he was this Alfred person. With nowhere to go, no place to stay and not a single friend, he was at the mercy of the Davis women.
“I appreciate your hospitality, ma’am, but Hannah doesn’t want me to stay,” Wood warned her.
Gabby flapped her hand in midair. “It’s only because she’s stubborn and thinks we can get along without a man around here. That’s why I was the one who wrote the ad. I knew she’d never do it. You do understand, don’t you, Wood?”
He nodded. “I’ll do what I can to help you.”
“Good. Now you need to get inside. We’ll discuss our plan later.” She winked at him then led him up the porch steps. “The bathroom’s on the second floor, so you’re going to have to do some stairs. Do you think you’re strong enough?”
“It shouldn’t be a problem, ma’am.” Wood moved in front of her so he
could open the screen door.
“It’s really sweet of you to call me ma’am, but it’s not necessary. Why don’t you call me Gabby?”
“All right. Gabby it is.”
She smiled gratefully at him as she sashayed by. “Here’s the kitchen,” she announced.
Wood took one step inside the house and stopped suddenly. If he had any doubts that it wasn’t 1998, they were gone now. The room was not like any he had seen. Nearly everything was white—the cupboards, the walls, the ceiling—even the floor. The only splashes of color were the blue curtains on the windows.
“As you can see, everything’s been updated,” Gabby told him.
“What’s updated?” he asked, wondering what the date had to do with anything.
“The microwave is new.” She pointed to a square white box with a black front. “And so is the dishwasher:”
Wood had no idea what a microwave was nor did he see any dishwasher. The only other person in the kitchen was Hannah, who stood in front of a large white metal box that appeared to be a stove. When she turned a knob, blue flames glowed in a circular pattern. She pulled a cast iron fry pan from the wall and set it on a grate in the fire.
When she noticed Wood staring at her, she asked, “Is something wrong?”
“I’ve never seen a stove like that,” he remarked, although it wasn’t the stove that had his attention, but Hannah’s backside. Tight-fitting trousers clung to her derriere revealing curves women normally kept hidden beneath their skirts. If all the women in 1998 dressed so provocatively, he wondered how the men kept their concentration on the task at hand.
Hannah gave him a look that told him she knew exactly what he had been staring at and that she didn’t appreciate it. She moved to a large metal closet with two doors, one above the other. “I suppose you haven’t seen a refrigerator like this, either.” With a yank of her fingers, the lower door opened.
Wood moved closer and peered over her shoulder. “You have light in that thing?”
“It’s not that old,” she snapped.
Wood watched her reach for a bowl of eggs, rearranging several jars in the process.
Mail Order Cowboy (Harlequin American Romance) Page 6