"Are you sure you do?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Last night I got the feeling you're not as connected to this little town of yours as you'd like me to believe."
"I wish you wouldn't say things like that." She suppressed a shiver. He'd come too close to exposing her own fears. "Crosse Harbor is my home...my family helped build this town after the War was over."
"We're a lot alike," he said over her objections. "We're both looking for something we may never find." He stepped closer. "Did you ever think maybe we've already found it?"
"I'm not looking for anything." How false her words sounded. How empty. "I like my life the way it is."
"Like hell. Admit it, Em. You're an adventurer, Emilie. You want more than this little shore town can give you." His words, taunting and too close to home, broke the last of her control. She lurched across the swaying gondola toward him. He grabbed her by the wrist then pinned her arm behind her, a wicked glint of amusement in his eye. She tried to pull away but each time she did, the gondola swayed alarmingly, sending her stomach into a roller-coaster dive.
"You got away with it once," he said, his tone holding a hint of steel. "I wouldn't push my luck."
Dangerous or not, she went to kick him in the shins but he pulled her up against his body and held her fast.
"Take a look, Em," he warned. "It's a long way back to earth."
She peered over the edge of the basket and gasped. They were sailing up over the morning fog, over the treetops, and into the clouds.
His grip eased at the look of wonderment she knew was on her face. "Impressive, isn't it?"
She nodded, unable to pull her gaze away from the panorama beneath her. "There's the main road into town," she said, pointing to a dark ribbon winding its way through the lush green countryside. "I never thought of it as beautiful before."
"Perspective is everything."
"I have to hand it to you," she said. "You always did know how to make the morning-after as memorable as the night before. I wish--" She stopped. "My God, it's freezing." She wrapped her arms across her chest against the sudden drop in temperature. The sensation of movement had ceased. She felt as if the balloon was suspended in an icy, silver-grey cocoon. "Is this normal? It is normal, isn't it?"
The words were no sooner out of her mouth than the balloon and gondola dropped like an elevator shimmying between floors.
"It's okay," Zane said, raising the pilot flame to combat the sudden descent of the balloon. "Don't worry. Nothing's going to happen to us."
"There's something wrong, isn't there?"
"Those clouds." He pointed to the east. "A second ago it had been dead clear. They blew in out of nowhere."
She started toward him as he worked with the sputtering tank of propane. The balloon shook like a platter of Jell-o then dropped again.
"There's nothing to worry about," he said. "If I can just stabilize her, we can regain altitude once we clear this cloud cover."
He sounded so sure, so confident. One of the chosen few who could face down a tornado and live to tell about it. She wanted to believe him but wicked crosswinds rocked the gondola and she was thrown against him as they plunged even deeper into the icy grey clouds.
He pushed her toward the floor. "Lie down in the middle," he barked. "You'll be safer there. I don't like--" His words were lost in the vicious gust of wind that roared in from the west.
The gondola tilted to the left like an amusement park ride gone crazy, followed by the horrifying sound of the silk balloon ripping apart.
"Hold on to me, Em!" he shouted, as tatters of bright red silk drifted down from the sky. "We're going down!"
Chapter Three
Emilie was alive--or at least she thought she was—but it was hard to tell..
If she was dead she was pretty sure she wouldn't hurt like someone had dragged her across five miles of bad road.
Her eyelids stung. Her shoulders ached. Knees, hands, face...every single part of her body, including the appendix she'd lost when she was three years old.
Champagne, she thought groggily. She had a vague recollection of a bottle of Cristal and--
And then what?
There must have been a good reason for polishing off a bottle of fancy French champagne but for the life of her she couldn't imagine what it was. If she'd had any idea what torture lay ahead of her, she would have reached for the diet soda instead.
She tried to pry open her eyelids but the sunlight was so intense that she just groaned and buried her face in the sand.
Wait just a minute. Sand? Spreading her fingers wide, she felt the area around her. Small pebbles, sharp pieces of shell, silky grains of beach sand--
She pulled herself upright and opened her eyes. The sky overhead was an amazing, picture-postcard shade of blue, streaked with one or two snowy-white clouds. She found herself wishing she had a pair of sunglasses with her to shield her eyes from the glare bouncing up off the sand.
Gingerly she touched her face, her shoulders, wiggled her arms and legs. Nothing was broken, thank God. Her knees and hands were badly scraped, stinging each time the salt water lapped against the shore. She supposed she should be greatly relieved to be in such good shape, but she'd be even more relieved if she only knew how it was she'd come to be there on the beach.
With a groan she rose to her feet and looked about in an attempt to regain her bearings. The lighthouse rose from a rugged outcropping of rocks not thirty feet away from where she stood. She shuddered as she looked at the jagged boulders with the sharp edges and imagined what might have happened. Many a man had met his Maker along the shores of Eagle Island, the tiny spit of land across the harbor from her house.
"Think, Emilie," she said out loud, searching for a clue. "It's morning. You're near the lighthouse." She glanced down at her bizarre attire: an 18th century bodice worn with black leggings and ballet flats. She was all in favor of mix-and-match but usually tried to limit her choices to the same century.
A costume party, maybe?
If only she could think straight. Her brain felt as if it were filled with those Styrofoam peanuts that come tumbling out of packing boxes when you open the lid. Not even the worst case of jet lag had made her feel so goofy and disoriented. She squinted down at her watch. The crystal was cracked but the second hand was still ticking. Nine a.m. on July 25th.
Suddenly the images came at her in a dizzying blur. The sleek black foreign car with the lion's roar of an engine.
The uniform from a distant time.
A man with eyes the color of the deepest sapphire blue who'd protected her with his own body as the earth rushed up toward them and--
Zane!
She swayed on her feet, as her center of gravity realigned itself. A mounting sense of panic gripped her by the chest, making it hard to breathe. Where was the gondola? The crimson silk of the balloon itself? Even the beach looked oddly different, as if all signs of life had been airbrushed away. No soda cans tossed into the dune grass. No bottles bobbing up and down at the water's edge. Not even a McDonald's wrapper or a Burger King bag, two of the most ubiquitous signs of human life.
And, worst of all, no sign of her ex-husband.
"Okay," she said out loud. "There has to be an answer to all of this." The sound of her own voice steadied her. "Just use your head, Emilie. You can figure it out."
Maybe it wasn't so confusing after all.
They'd drifted into some pretty weird cloud formations. She wasn't an expert in aeronautics, but everyone had heard stories about wind shear and cross-currents and weird thermal down drafts that had vexed better pilots than Zane Grey Rutledge.
She remembered the stomach-churning sensation of vertigo as the gondola tumbled end-over-end after the balloon itself collapsed. She'd probably tumbled from the basket as they drifted past the beach, while Zane continued to struggle with the gas tank and the sputtering flame.
"The rowboat," she said, brightening. If she remembered right, the rowboat w
as tucked away near the east side of the lighthouse. All she had to do was jump into the boat, grab the oars, and she could be back on the mainland in fifteen minutes flat. She patted her waistband, amazed to discover that the embroidered purse with her car keys, American Express card, and spare change was still there. A quick phone call to Crosse Harbor Taxi and she could make it to the celebration before they sent out the rescue squad to find her.
She turned, about to head toward the lighthouse and the rowboat, when something caught her attention. Shielding her eyes against the sun's glare, she scanned the shoreline. Everything seemed okay, but she could have sworn she'd seen a flash of crimson in the water.
"Yes!" she said, focusing all of her attention on that point of color. There it was, something bobbing in the water about one hundred yards out. "Oh my God! Zane!"
He was struggling against the current and from the looks of it he was losing the battle.
She kicked off her shoes and raced for the water, trying desperately to keep him in sight, but he kept disappearing beneath the swells. Hang on, Zane, she pleaded silently as she plunged into the water. She was a strong swimmer, but the current presented a daunting challenge and each time he disappeared, she thought her heart would stop beating.
"Zane!" she managed as she reached him. "Grab onto me."
No response. A feeling of dread washed over as she realized he had lost consciousness.
Working frantically she rolled him onto his back, making sure his nose and mouth were clear of the water. "You can do it," she urged. "Hang on to me."
Her words were as much for herself as they were for him. He was a big man, large-boned and heavily muscled. She thanked God for the buoyancy of the salt water. Without it, they wouldn't have had a prayer.
The shoreline was growing closer and she rejoiced when her knees scraped against the sand. She stumbled to her feet in the calf-deep water then continued pulling him toward safety. His eyes were closed. An ugly gash ran from the end of his right eyebrow down to his cheek. Blood mingled with salt water, leaving an ominous trail behind them.
"You can't be dead," she said as she struggled to haul him onto the sand. "You wouldn't dare do that to me." She tried to ignore the trail of blood that he'd left behind on the sand. He had to live, if only so she could tell him that he was the most arrogant, irresponsible, crazy excuse for a grown man she'd ever met.
She placed her ear to his chest but couldn't hear a thing. His color was dreadful. She pried open one lid, but he didn't stir. Her own breathing was rapid, ragged, and she willed herself to calm down before she hyperventilated, something that would do neither one of them the slightest bit of good.
There was only one thing she could think of that might help and, straddling his chest, she began to administer CPR, praying the class she'd taken last year at the fire department had covered all the necessary bases.
"Breathe, damn you!" she ordered as she pounded his chest. "Breathe!"
It was like being trapped in a bad dream, the kind where you were running and running through an endless tunnel with no end in sight. But she couldn't stop, she couldn't just let him slip away no matter how hopeless it seemed.
And then she heard it. Faint at first, then louder, stronger. He was coughing, spitting up sea water. And then the wonderful, miraculous sound of him breathing!
"I could kill you for this," she said, brushing away tears of relief. "You scared the living hell out of me."
When he came to, she intended to give him a piece of her mind, enough so that he felt guilty all the way to Tahiti. Her relief was short-lived, however, as her eyes were drawn again to the blood seeping into the sand. A man didn't bleed like that for no reason. She'd saved him from drowning, but what if there was something more serious wrong with him?
She was no doctor, but it occurred to her that the worst thing she could do was leave him lying on wet sand. He could go into shock or take some water into his lungs and end up with pneumonia. The thing to do was get him dry and warm, then call for help.
She glanced toward the lighthouse. She'd manage somehow to drag him across the beach but she wasn't entirely certain she'd be able to get him up the wooden stairs that led inside.
"You won't know unless you try," she said. The only thing she knew for sure was she couldn't leave him lying there on the sand. She retrieved her shoes then approached him.
Gingerly she bent down and gripped him under the arms. He groaned loudly and she backed away, horrified that she'd obviously hurt him. She looked closely and noticed that his right arm was bent at an odd angle, one that made her insides twist into a knot.
She tried to favor his right side but with his weight balanced unequally she felt as if she were dragging him around in circles.
"I know this hurts," she said apologetically, "but it's the only way."
Gripping him beneath both arms, she moved as quickly as her burden would allow, until she reached the bottom of the cottage adjacent to the lighthouse.
She paused to catch her breath while she tried to figure out the best way to get him up the short flight of stairs. She'd always believed wit and ingenuity could see a woman through any difficulty, but this time she had to admit that brute strength would have been a welcome addition.
"Zane." She touched his shoulder. "I need your help."
He mumbled something but didn't open his eyes.
"I have to get you inside," she persisted, "and I can't do it if you don't help me."
He opened his eyes and struggled to a sitting position.
"Do you know what I'm saying, Zane? I have to get you up those stairs."
He nodded. It was obvious even so small a motion as that caused him excruciating pain. Her heart ached for him but this wasn't the time for sympathy.
She moved to his left side. "Put your arm around me," she ordered in her most businesslike voice. "I'm going to help you stand up."
His hold on consciousness was tenuous at best but she managed to get his arm around her so she could use leverage to bring him to his feet. He tried to help. She could feel it in the way his weight shifted and in the sight of the beads of sweat breaking out across his handsome face.
"Too heavy..." he said, "...forget--"
"Shut up," she ordered, not unkindly. "Keep your mouth shut and don't fight me. We'll get you up these stairs."
She'd spoken the words with great assurance, confident that her adrenaline would kick in and give her that little extra strength she'd need, and to her everlasting gratitude it did. They made it to the landing and she reached for the doorknob, overjoyed to discover that someone obligingly had left it unlocked.
That extra second might have spelled disaster.
They staggered together into the lighthouse as he once again lost consciousness. She tried to cushion his fall with her own body, wincing as his elbow caught her behind the ear.
What was one more bruise, she thought as she rolled him onto his back. She'd managed to get him up the stairs and into the lighthouse and now all she had to do was see to it that he was dry and warm. Then she could figure out a way to call for help.
"Now don't take this personally," she said with a wry smile as she reached for his belt. "This is all in your best interest."
He was as gorgeous today as he'd been last night. She felt like a pervert for even noticing. The poor man was in agony and she was admiring his pecs and abs. Still you'd have to be blind not to notice.
Quickly she stripped him of his wet pants and shirt. She debated the wisdom of leaving his shorts on him, but decided that was ridiculous. A beautiful quilt rested on a ladder-back chair near the fireplace, along with a pale blue coverlet. She dried Zane with the coverlet then used the quilt to wrap around his body for warmth.
She glanced around the front room of the lighthouse for a blanket or another quilt. It struck her as odd that these two beautiful specimens had been waiting for them here in the lighthouse. The place had been empty for more years than she could remember and quilts as fine as these were co
llectibles that fetched impressive sums.
Sam Talmadge, one of the members of the Crosse Harbor Historical Society, was in charge of the light show that would be staged later tonight from the harbor. Could he have brought over the quilts to keep his grandkids warm while they watched the spectacle from the tower?
She'd never been inside the lighthouse before and she noted with interest that it looked anything but abandoned. The walls had obviously received a recent coat of whitewash. The wooden staircase that led up to the tower seemed sturdy and solid. The dilapidated radar equipment was gone and in its place were a compass, a telescope and a copy of Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense.
"Good for you, Sam," she murmured as she helped Zane to the trundle bed beneath the leaded glass window. She'd always known Sam Talmadge was a great believer in period detail during these Revolutionary War recreations that Crosse Harbor was so fond of, but there was something about this that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise.
Maybe it was the silence. She tilted her head to one side, listening. Eagle Island was small, but it was never quiet. This morning all she could hear were the faint sounds of gulls circling overhead as they hunted for food. Where were the sounds bouncing across the water from Crosse Harbor? Lawn mowers, the laughter of kids playing stickball, the putt-putt engines of the motorboats that cruised the waters in search of the ultimate fishing spot. Even the gnat-like buzz of small planes en route to the glitzier pleasures of the Atlantic City casinos was absent.
Apparently everyone was at the village green enjoying the celebration.
Or were they?
"Now you've really gone crazy," she said as she went back into the front room to check on Zane. Her imagination was running riot.
Her body had weathered the accident in good form; she was no longer so sure about her brain cells.
From the trundle bed Zane moaned loudly, bringing her back to the situation at hand.
"Oh, God," she murmured, as she bent down to look at him. A huge purple bruise had blossomed over his right eye and it was almost swollen shut. She was positive his arm was broken and she wouldn't be at all surprised if he'd cracked a rib or two in the bargain.
Somewhere in Time (The Crosse Harbor Time Travel Trilogy) Page 5