The Ghost and Miss Hallam: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 1)

by Barbara Bartholomew

  At least she wouldn’t have to be the one to pull the plug. The thought made her feel sick at her stomach.

  He was so alive, so eager and just beginning. He was a grown man who had been through terrible experiences and, at the same time, he was only entering on his nineteenth year in the larger world.

  She only hoped he came back tonight.

  Then she stepped into the living room and there he was, smiling at her. She stopped to stare at him, suddenly feeling shy.

  “Lynne,” he said. “Lynne Hallam. I like your name.”

  “Lynne Eleanor,” she answered lamely.

  His smile broadened. “Though it was Lynne Cynthia.”

  Suddenly she could barely breathe, much less remain standing. She sank into the deep softness of a chair. “They’ve already found out I’m not your sister. I won’t be allowed to visit you in the hospital again.”

  “It was a brave thing to do and very much appreciated. I can’t explain how it felt to hear your voice coming through the fog.”

  “You do hear then, even when you don’t seem to be responding.”

  “A lot of it. Sometime I seem to be asleep.”

  “When you didn’t come back last night, I thought you were gone.” She was glad that he couldn’t see that her legs were shaking.

  He stretched, his legs and arms long and thin, but still well muscled. He must have worked out while in prison. He was pale as though he hadn’t gotten enough sun, but otherwise looked to be in good condition. Her thoughts flew back to the man in the hospital bed. He had numerous broken bones, internal injuries, and a severe head injury. No evidence of those injuries appeared in the spirit keeping her company tonight.

  “Do you hurt?” she blurted out the query, suddenly anxious to know. “I mean when you’re back there?”

  “They keep me fairly well doped up.” It was an evasion and she recognized it as such. So maybe Mr. Grahame at the hospital was right and he would welcome release. She was the one who couldn’t bear to let go.

  “Are you still working on your research into Maud’s life?” he changed subjects so abruptly that it took her a minute to remember who Maud was.

  “I haven’t gotten much done so far. I’m going to have to settle in or Mom will want to know the reason why.”

  His grin showed strong white teeth and a great deal of natural charm. She felt so warmed by his presence, so drawn to him that she barely followed what he was saying.

  “I might be able to help you. That is if you’d like reporting on a personal interview with the lady.”

  She frowned, trying to take in what he was saying.

  “When I didn’t come last night, I went there. I met Maud Bailey Sandford face to face and let me tell you it was quite an experience. He went on to describe a strong, handsome woman in her later years who had made him hot cocoa and taken him with her to do the evening chores.

  Open mouthed, she stared at him, focusing on only one part of what he was saying. “You could drink cocoa? You could go outside?” She was suddenly so jealous she could barely stand it.

  “I was solid and real and so was she. She said I wasn’t a ghost, but merely moving through the thin dimensions of time. Apparently she occasionally has such visitors. Said she saw Coronado’s people move through when she was just a kid.”

  “Coronado?” she searched her mind for the name.

  “The Spanish guy. You know he went through this area while he was out looking for more gold. He mentions the Antelope Hills in his journals.”

  “Antelope hills?”

  “Up north of here. An ancient landmark even for the native Americans. We’ll have to drive up and show them to you.”

  As though he could drive anywhere. “I haven’t been here long,” she responded defensively. She was supposed to be the expert. “I’m surprised you know so much about this area.”

  “My grandmother was a history buff. She died when I was fourteen, but before then she told me lots of stories that have stuck with me. She loved this area. I suppose that’s what brought me here. Though the fact that it wasn’t a long drive from the prison at Leavenworth, Kansas played a part as well.”

  Now she was even more envious. While he was only a shadow here that she couldn’t touch, he’d been real and solid during his visit to Maud. She wanted both to see him in the flesh and to see the subject of her research as well. “She was an older woman when you saw her?”

  He nodded. “She mentioned that she was seventy.”

  She counted mentally. “She was born in 1889 so that means it was 1959. She was living at the ranch alone by then. Her mother died quite a while before and her daughter had moved away. They had some sort of terrible quarrel, you know.”

  He looked interested. “I thought you’d only just started your research.”

  “Mom gave me a briefing. She already knows a lot, but she wanted me to wade through Maud’s journals. Right now I’m back when she was only seventeen.”

  She stared wistfully at him. “I wonder how you ended up back there instead of here with me.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t know. I seem to have no control over where I go, but Maud thought there was a reason. She just didn’t know what it could be.”

  “And did she think there was a reason you come to me?”

  His face could be hard and cynical, but now it went soft. “I don’t have to ask anybody about that. You’re a pure gift. Being with you makes up for the things I missed during all the terrible years. You’re my miracle.”

  She’d never been so touched. Her heart melted within her. “And maybe you’re mine,” she said.

  She wanted so much to go into his arms to be held in a close embrace. But it was impossible. They could only look longingly at each other.

  She had to work hard to produce a rather wobbly smile. “We’re gaining ground,” she said. “This time you came during the daylight.”

  Feeling uncomfortable because he could not join her in eating, she had a cup of instant soup and some saltines for supper. Having thrown away most of her lunch, she knew she had to eat something. He sat across from her, chatting about this and that while she quickly consumed her food and then put the dishes in the dishwasher.

  The conversation moved back through the living room and Moss insisted she step outside as an experiment to see if he could follow. The minute both feet were firmly on the boards of the porch, she felt the emptiness around her. Oh, no! He was gone.

  He couldn’t leave the house. Moss could see her through the glass in the door. She looked startled and lost like an abandoned child. Her pretty, dimpled face was forlorn and he wanted so much to go to her. But he couldn’t. He guessed he was the ghost who haunted the old farmhouse. Its walls were the limits of his existence as far as Lynne was concerned.

  He waited while she seemed to take her bearings and then walked slowly back inside, her face brightening with joy when she saw him still standing there.

  He stretched out his arms and she ran to him—and through him until she reached the wall on the other side and leaned against it, weeping silently.

  He felt slightly terrible himself, but he couldn’t give in to despair. He was so lucky just to be here, to be able to see and hear her. But it hurt not to be able to comfort her with his touch, not to be able to kiss away the tears.

  “I’m here. I’m thankful for that.”

  A smile chased the tears away. “So am I. So thankful.”

  The chirping of her cell phone broke through their moment. Her ringtone was an odd one, like songbirds singing their delicate songs. The sound was delectably right for her.

  She took the phone from her belt and glanced down at it. “It’s my mom. Guess I’d better take it.”

  Since he had little apparent control over his movements, he couldn’t offer to leave and offer her privacy of her home for the conversation. In fact he didn’t even want to leave the room. So he did the best he could and settled in the most distant chair.

  Still he couldn’t help hea
ring Lynne’s side of the conversation. “Hi, Mom,” she said, sounding like a little kid dreading a scolding.

  She listened in silence while the phone spat words he couldn’t quite catch. “Well, I’ve been quite busy, Mother, but I have made some headway in reading the journals.” He saw her cross her fingers like a little girl warding off the telling of a lie. She shifted nervously in her seat.

  Mom must be one hell of a lady, he decided with amusement. He wanted to tell Lynne to buck up and remember that she was an adult and didn’t have to allow anyone to tell her what to do. His own mother had been a strong woman, but soft-spoken and totally convinced that her children did little wrong.

  He knew she had declined and died, not because she couldn’t bear the pain of what had happened to him, but because of the thought of what he was going through. She would have gone to prison herself to save him the experience.

  “That’s true, Mom,” Lynne said, her voice expressing nothing of the irritation he saw in her face. She was full of rebellion, all of it suppressed, and he wondered what her family was really like. “I did go to the hospital, but I had a very good reason. I wanted to help . . .”

  Another interval of listening and then she went on, “No, I’ve never met the man, but he has nobody and he’s lying there in a coma. . “

  The woman never seemed to let her finish a sentence. “Yes, Mother, I think he does know that someone is there and it matters a great deal to him.”

  Listening again, then she retorted, “I’m not being impulsive and over-emotional and I’m not sorry. I would do it again.”

  She ended the call.

  He wanted to applaud.

  She searched the room with her eyes, her gaze coming to rest on him with such pleasure that her dark eyes brightened. They were large eyes with fringes of sweeping lashes. He could lose himself in their gaze. “Good for you,” he said, “Don’t let her talk that way to you.”

  She squirmed. “She’s really a very nice woman. It’s just that I’m the youngest and everybody in the family tries to look after me.”

  The chirping ringtone sounded again and she answered this time without looking to see who the call was from. “Now, Mother,” she began impatiently, then her expression changed and she said instead, “Oh, hi, Dad.”

  She listened, looking tired. “I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings, Dad, but I’m here and you’re not and it’s impossible for you to understand everything that’s going on.”

  Listening again, then she said, “No Dad, I don’t need anyone to keep me company. I’m just fine. It’s time you all realized I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

  Once more she clicked the call off and got to her feet. “They’re wasting our minutes,” she said impatiently. “This is our time and so far we’ve had so little to spend together.”

  The phone sounded again and this time she turned it off. “No doubt I’ll hear from both sisters and my big brother before the evening is over. Well, they’re just going to have to wait.”

  She smiled as she seemed to entirely dismiss the question of her family and began to ask him about himself. “What do you like to do?” she asked. “How do you spend your time?”

  In her delicate way, she was asking him what his life in prison had been like. If anyone else had questioned him about this, he would have refused to comment, would have said it would be years before he could talk about the time from his eighteenth birthday until the day when he’d left the prison, arranged for his new car and drove across the border from Kansas to Oklahoma.

  But this was Lynne asking him. He would tell her whatever she wanted to know.

  In response to her gentle questioning, he told her how he’d spent the first year in sullen resentment and shock, struggling to keep safe with survival as his main goal. After that he’d made an adjustment of sorts and realized gradually that if he didn’t keep his mind occupied he would surely go insane and be as violent and profane as the worst of the prisoners. At first he’d taken reluctant advantage of the classes in any possible subject from painting to welding, gradually coming to comprehend that he needed to work toward some semblance of a goal.

  He’d earned two bachelor degrees, simply following his own interests in history and math before finally turning to the study of law. Responding to criticism that this wasn’t the best way to work toward a future, scattering his efforts across a broad spectrum in a world that honored specialization, he had responded that he had no future. Even so he had been encouraged to continue his study of law with some vague hope of someday proving his own innocence, and though he’d never taken the bar exam, academically he was next best thing to being an attorney.

  In the long run, though, his own efforts hadn’t gotten him released. A chance arrest for drug possession had led to the culprit’s confession of string of murders of young girls, one of whom was the girlfriend Moss had been convicted of killing. His first thought when he heard the news was to be glad for Jennifer, who had deserved so much more than being strangled to death at seventeen. Then he’d realized what it meant for him and felt mostly a great bitterness that his parents would never know.

  And then all he’d wanted was to be free and, advised of the considerable trust fund left by his parents for his use, he’d bought that ill-fated Corvette and when they’d finally set him loose had sped away to this moment.

  “The story of my life,” he concluded with an apologetic smile. It hadn’t hurt as much as he’d expected to talk and remember because of her soft voiced questions and understanding expression.

  “Oh, Moss, you were so brave. I’m so proud of you.”

  Then, of course, he couldn’t help trying to kiss her, but he felt nothing, no touch of that soft face or those sweet lips. He saw that she was weeping and knew that she too had wanted that kiss.

  He left as evening fell. She watched as he faded away, calling her name, “Lynne, Lynne. I love you.”

  She could never know but that each parting might be the last one and she would never see him again. She thought about calling the hospital to see if he was still alive, but thought that nobody was likely to give her any information. She’d probably have to read his obituary in the newspaper to know he’d died.

  The thought was almost more than she could endure. To distract her mind, she went for Maud’s journal and curled up on her bed to read.

  Chapter Seven

  We met again today down by the little pond in the far pasture where the willows drip over into the water’s edge. Today there were ducks on the water and the day was warm, but not hot. I brought a little picnic from the house, sneaking out cold fried chicken, half a loaf of the bread I made Monday, cookies and apples, and a jar of cold tea.

  We talked and talked and kissed a little now and then. I’m never lonely, the animals and the ranch, the freedom to ride Salome wherever I wish is usually enough for me. Having someone else here, a visitor like when Cousin Hattie came for a week, just gets in the way. I’m glad to see them at first and then I just want them to go away so I can get about my life. But with Edward it isn’t like that. We can talk or be silent together. Having him near me is like being with Salome, a warm living presence that comforts me and strengthens all the ordinary pleasures.

  Oh, I am so foolish about this man that I can’t imagine my life without him, but Mother hates him and all his family. She thinks because they come from the south that they are uncouth and uncultured. She has even quit going to church because she says they are heathens and treat her as a yankee pariah.

  The war was over long before I was even born, but to Mother the old hatred is new as yesterday. Oh dear Lord, what will become of all of us?

  I don’t have to think about that right now. I will go to bed and dream of him and hope that Mother will come to see reason. I have no desire to play Juliet to Edward’s Romeo, but only wish for us all to get along and live our lives happily together.

  Maud was seventeen and in love! And her mama didn’t like it. The Baileys had come to Indian
Territory from Missouri and Edward’s family was from the deep south. Apparently that had made a whole lot of difference, at least to Eugenia Bailey.

  Having made some notes for her mother, Lynne went back to reading but discovered only a daily accounting and considerable teenage rhapsodizing about the beauties of nature, she eventually grew too sleepy to continue. Yawning, she went back for a warm bath, pulled on a night shirt having decided not to indulge in nude sleeping in a house where you never knew who might drop in. She checked her phone and saw that both her parents and all three of her siblings had left messages. Even Lana’s husband, her brother-in-law, had left a message.. She listened to them, but made no attempt to contact the senders. She couldn’t deal with anything else tonight.

  She only hoped she would dream of him and even as she slipped from consciousness said a little prayer for his well being.

  Moss would rather have spent his evening with Lynne, but still he was grateful when he didn’t once more find himself immobile and in pain in a hospital bed.

  Looking down at his own hands, he saw they were substantial and solid looking, long, useful looking hands.

  “I wondered if you would be back,” Maud said and he glanced up to see her looking at him over the top of her reading glasses. She held a notebook in her hands and had obviously been writing on its pages.

  “Working on the novel?” he asked, quickly ascertaining that he was still in the ranch house living room, though both furniture and companion were different.

  “More working at it,” she admitted, “It doesn’t seem to want to go anywhere. I’ve been stuck for days.”

  “Writer’s block?” he asked, having read of the ailment and wanting to sound sympathetic.

  “Young man, I never permit myself to indulge in such a thing,” she said severely. Then she sighed. “I am at a halt because I’m not quite certain what direction to take with the story. But I can’t bear to talk about it.” She tossed the notebook to her side and straightened a little to look more closely at him. “You still look very much alive.”