Outside of Boise, Idaho
CARSON SAT NEXT to Sherri and completely enjoyed the lunch in the hotel dining room with the other four. He was so glad now that he had decided to just come clean to them, since both Bonnie and Duster were not worried about the implications of him doing that at all.
As Duster had said during lunch, “In some timelines you take this route, in others you decide to continue to hide from us. Decisions are just decisions we live with.”
After lunch, through the growing heat, the five of them rode back out to the mansion. Carson again tried to stay close to Sherri and they laughed and talked about different things along the way.
For the very first time in any trip into the past, he felt comfortable with others. And he felt really happy to have all of them in his mansion. Especially Sherri.
When they got to his home and had the horses taken care of in the stable, the women went inside and changed from their 1902 dresses to modern jeans and light blouses and tennis shoes.
Duster left on his jeans, but took off his hat and changed his shirt to a lighter dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves. Carson did the same, changing out the cowboy boots for sneakers and putting on a lighter shirt.
Sherri looked even more stunning dressed in modern comfortable clothes. She had her hair pulled back and tied and she had scrubbed her face. He could see through her light shirt that she had a sports bra on.
“Ready for a tour?” Carson asked as all five of them gathered in the kitchen. He had made glasses of iced tea for each of them to carry and because the house had been closed up for the morning, it was still moderately cool.
He started with the upstairs and the four massive bedrooms to each side of a hallway almost as wide as a regular room. He hated narrow hallways and had done that on purpose, adding some seating and bookshelves to the hallway to make it inviting at the top of the massive staircase.
Each room upstairs had high ceilings, electrical lighting he had installed himself about five years before, and 1890s period furniture. He had kept the drapes pulled closed for coolness on the tall windows.
“Any hidden rooms I’m going to find up here?” Sherri asked, smiling as she looked around with wide eyes, taking in every detail.
“Just wait and see,” he said, smiling at her.
After showing them the other three bedrooms and the bathroom off the hallway, he led them into his master bedroom, the last large stained-wood door at the end of the massive hallway.
“I even made my bed this morning because I had a hunch you all were coming out this way today.”
His massive master bedroom would hold three normal bedrooms, with ceilings that towered sixteen feet overhead. Three glass chandeliers hung from the ceiling, giving the room an almost daylight glow when he turned them on, even though the heavy drapes were still pulled.
He had four or five smaller reading lamps around the room and a couch and two overstuffed chairs around a coffee table in the middle of an area rug.
“Wow, this is a room,” Bonnie said.
“You could run laps in here,” Dawn said, shaking her head.
Two of the walls were massive bookcases that stretched up twelve feet and were filled with leather editions. A wooden ladder on a rail moved around so he could reach any of the books he wanted.
He loved this room and this library, even though he kept most of his really treasured books on the shelves in the basement.
“Now I see what you do for twenty years with no guests,” Duster said.
“And play a little poker,” Carson said, laughing. “But I do love to read, although many of these in here would be boring to most. Works on certain people who lived in Europe.”
He then showed them his walk-in closet that was as big as some hotel rooms, and lined on all four sides with hanging clothes. Shoes lined up under the clothes and hats fit along on the shelves above.
“It is usually not this neat, and since I have never tossed away any clothes in twenty years, that’s why it’s full. I’m not really this much of a clothes hound.”
“Wow, I would die for a closet this big,” Dawn said. “I am a clothes and shoes hound and damn proud of it.”
“I wondered what these two rooms was used for,” Sherri said. “I just thought it was a library and a storage room, not your bedroom and closet. All the books and furniture were gone by the time I bought the place, so it was tough to tell, especially with those chandeliers.”
Carson nodded. “Did you find this yet?”
He pointed to a built-in wooden bench to one side of the door into the walk-in closet. He had made it to look plain, as if just something to sit on while pulling your boots on.
“It still there,” she said.
He moved over to the bench and pointed to a small polished knot in the wood on the right. “Push that.”
She stepped over and pushed and the bench popped open.
She stepped back. “Wow, nifty.”
Inside he kept a little money and an extra gun and some extra ammunition for his two rifles in the case downstairs.
Bonnie and Duster were just shaking their heads.
“Now push the button again,” Carson said, smiling at Sherri.
She did and there was a click, but nothing happened.
Carson reached over and pulled on the lid of the bench slightly and the wall behind the bench, including the entire bench, swung open like a door.
“Now that’s clever,” Duster said.
Carson led them inside. The room behind the hidden door was about the size of a normal bedroom. He had shelves on both side walls holding extra stacks of money, a few stacks of gold bars and a couple bags of gold, and numbers of rifles and guns and ammunition.
There was also a chair and a reading light and a lantern and a number of books. At the end of the room a narrow staircase led down and another led up.
“All the gold and money I take back to the cavern each trip,” Carson said. “I pull it all out of here, carry it up near Silver City and bury it, then dig it up when I leave. If I get killed while in Europe, there’s a hidden gold stash someone might find at some point.”
Duster nodded. “Looks like you are adding to the fund some.”
“On the trips I make it back alive,” Carson said. “I think I’m about even so far.”
“How do you make all that?” Sherri asked.
“Duster will teach you,” Carson said.
Duster and Bonnie both nodded.
“This is my safe room,” Carson said after he clicked on the light and allowed them to look around for a moment. “Instead of fighting off someone trying to attack the place or rob it, I could just sit in here.”
“Ever happen?” Duster asked.
“Not in all the time I have spent in this place,” Carson said.
Duster nodded. “Boise is one of the safest places in the Old West.”
“Where do the stairs go?” Sherri asked, walking over to the up staircase.
“The up staircase goes to a trap door in the roof that would allow me to get out along a ledge and into a large tree to the right of the mansion if I needed to escape for any reason like a fire or attack. The down staircase leads to a hidden door in the kitchen.”
“So you could go from your room in the basement, through the kitchen and up here to your bedroom without ever going out into the larger main part of the house,” Dawn asked.
“I could,” Carson said, nodding, “but I like the rest of the house too much. I tend to live in most parts of this place except for the extra bedrooms. Those have never been used. I change out the sheets and quilts every five years just in case.”
After that he led them back out through his bedroom and out into the book-lined hall and back downstairs. Then he showed them the main rooms downstairs before they ended up back in the kitchen.
“Amazing place,” Duster said. Bonnie and Dawn both nodded.
“It is wonderful,” Sherri said. “I hope I can do it justice in 2017.”
“I t
hink you can,” Carson said, looking into her wonderful dark eyes.
She smiled at him. “Thanks, I’ll try. If you’ll help.”
Carson had to admit, in all the times building this same mansion in varied timelines, and living in it for twenty years every time, he had never felt more proud of anything before.
“It would be my honor,” he said.
She just blushed, which he liked a lot.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
August 6, 1902
Idanha Hotel, Boise, Idaho
SHERRI COULD NOT believe how much had been packed into one day. This morning she hadn’t even really known Carson Edwards. He was just a handsome man across the dining room from her who smiled at her.
Then discovering he was a time traveler like she was and the owner of the mansion. And that the ghost was a fake she could fix easily.
Then the wonderful lunch, the fantastic tour, and a comfortable dinner that she had helped him with. It felt so natural being in that kitchen with him beside her. They had laughed, joked, teased each other, and every time they touched, she wanted to just kiss him.
But it wasn’t until after dinner when she and Carson had gone back up to the kitchen to get desserts for everyone that she couldn’t take it any longer and had kissed him.
And he had kissed back.
And the warm kitchen had gotten a lot, lot warmer very, very quickly.
She wasn’t sure if they lost track of time or what, but by the time that kiss broke, she had known they both wanted the same thing. The problem was 1902.
So as they both caught their breath and finished dishing up the light chocolate cake to take down to everyone, she had said to him.
“I’m alone in the Avalanche Creek suite on the sixth floor.”
“Is this an invitation?”
“Damn tootin’ it is,” she had said, smiling at him. “I need someone to scrub my back in that big tub in my suite. Bring a change of clothes for breakfast.”
“A woman who knows her own mind,” he had said, smiling, then kissing and pressing his entire body against her.
He had felt wonderful. She certainly wasn’t a prude, but kissing him had the excitement of a first date all over again. And she had loved it.
Now she was back in her room after another hour of conversation in Carson’s basement, then a nice ride with Bonnie and Duster and Dawn into town. Carson had said he would meet them all for breakfast and they could talk about what to do next.
Sherri had gone to her room, washed the first layer of dust off her arms and face and changed into a pair of running shorts and a t-shirt with nothing on under it. She had combed her hair and pulled it back.
She had left the drapes in the big suite pulled closed while she was gone, which had kept the rooms slightly cooler than outside, but now the early evening was starting to cool down. Later on, when it got much cooler, she would open a top window on both sides of the room to let out the hot air and allow a cool night breeze to come into the room.
There was a light knock at her door and she moved to the door and said, “Yes.”
“Carson,” the voice on the other side said.
She opened the door, standing behind it slightly so no one in the hallway would see her shorts and t-shirt.
Carson stepped through and she pushed the door closed. He was dressed as he had been at the house in a light silk dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and dark jeans. He had a saddlebag over his shoulder.
He dropped the saddlebag beside the door and looked at her with a look she loved. “Wow, you look great.”
She held out her arms. “I dressed up for you.”
He laughed and stepped toward her and kissed her, pulling her against his body.
Again, like the first kiss in his kitchen, she lost track of any sense of time.
Finally they broke the kiss and stepped back slightly, holding hands.
His face was flushed and she knew her face was as well.
“Up for a cool bath?” she asked, smiling.
“With you,” he said, smiling, “I doubt any bath will be cool.”
She kissed him again, then slid out of his grasp and headed for the bathroom, taking off her clothes as she went until she got to the bathtub and bent to turn on the water completely nude.
He had followed her through the bedroom and to the bathroom where he stood in the door watching, his face red, his eyes wide.
She turned to face him so he could see all of her. She loved how he was admiring her. It had been a very long time since any man had looked at her like that.
“It seems that one of us,” she said, “has far too many clothes on and I don’t think it’s me.”
By the time he had his clothes off and had joined her at the large claw bathtub, she had climbed in and was standing in the warmish water. It seemed the water tank on the roof of the building had warmed up the water some in the day’s heat.
Either that or she was so sexually aroused, her body was warming the water. More than likely that was the cause.
She watched him climb into the tub, admiring his wonderful body and all his muscles. And he was clearly excited about what they were doing.
She had brought some soap from the future, so they spent the next ten minutes scrubbing each other in all sorts of ways while kissing and laughing and splashing far too much water onto the floor.
Finally, they crawled out and toweled each other dry. By that point, all Sherri wanted to do was make love to this fantastic man. So she pulled him into the bedroom, threw back the quilts and kissing, the two of them fell onto the soft featherbed.
Once again all sense of time left for her as they just seemed to fit together in more ways than she ever wanted to admit.
She had only known this man for less than a day and she was already falling head over heels for him. This was not something that had ever happened to her before.
Their first session was fast, hard, and intense. Exactly what they both needed.
Then they rested for a short time in each other’s arms until he started kissing her shoulder and working his way down her body slowly, one gentle kiss at a time.
This time the lovemaking was slower.
Much slower and much, much more fun.
Afterwards, even though the room was still warm, they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
For Sherri, that felt perfect.
And she didn’t want to even think about a relationship with a man she barely knew as perfect. At least not at the moment.
Or all the problems the two of them being together would cause.
She just wanted to enjoy it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
August 7, 1902
Idanha Hotel, Boise, Idaho
CARSON AWOKE TO some birds chirping outside the hotel window. It was still dark out as far as he could tell, and Sherri was curled with her back against him. In the light from the one lamp they had left on in the bathroom, she looked stunning. Her long black hair cascaded over her shoulders and her seemingly perfect skin was so soft to the touch, he couldn’t seem to stop touching her.
They had just fit perfectly together making love as well. How was it even possible he was sleeping with a woman from the future in 1902? A woman he had only known for day? In over 800 years of living in the past, he had never felt anything like this, and honestly it scared him.
Not enough to change anything, or even want to. It was just a new and exciting fear. A fear that he wouldn’t be good enough for this fantastic woman.
He stared at her for a few long minutes until she rolled over and kissed him. Before they could get started once again, she asked, “Any idea what time it might be?”
“Let me find out,” he said, rolling reluctantly away from her and going to his jacket and his pocket watch. It was almost five in the morning. They needed to be dressed and downstairs in an hour for breakfast.
He turned and she was staring at him, smiling. “Anyone ever tell you how handsome you are?”
“Not
in a very long time,” he said, moving back over to the bed and crawling onto the bed so he could face her and look at her wonderful body as well. “But you realize that in this body I am twenty years older than I am in the future.”
“We are the same age there,” she said, nodding. “I like that.”
“So do I,” he said. “I’ll have more stamina.”
She laughed. “Promises, promises.”
He moved against her and kissed her and thirty minutes later, after another wonderful session, they were up together, naked in her bathroom, washing up and getting ready for breakfast.
After she was mostly dressed and he was just finished pulling on his boots, she asked, “So how are we going to get downstairs?”
He laughed. “Bonnie and Duster and Dawn are three very smart people. I think we just walk down together. They won’t be surprised. Would you in their position?”
She laughed and shook her head, then turned to have him help her button up her dress in the back. He loved doing that, loved watching her dress, loved being around her.
After she was ready to go, her sunhat in her hand, her long black hair up and held by two bone combs, she stood in front of him, looking completely radiant.
“Does this scare you?” she asked, her dark eyes looking very serious.
“Petrified,” he said. Then he decided to be honest with her because he felt he just couldn’t do anything else. “This feels very special to me and I’m deathly afraid of doing something to screw this up.”
She smiled and kissed him quickly. “I feel exactly the same way.”
“So two time travelers scared to death,” he said.
“And not about traveling in time,” she said, smiling. “And I can’t believe I just said that.”
He laughed and they headed to the door. She opened it, looked both ways, and the two of them stepped into the hallway.
“Back to being a lady and a gentleman in 1902,” he said.
“Like being on a stage,” she said as they walked slowly toward the stairs, not touching.
He most certainly wanted to hold her hand, but did not.
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