No Silent Christmas

by Barbara Goodwin

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  No Silent Christmas

  ISBN 9781419917646

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No Silent Christmas Copyright © 2008 Barbara Goodwin

  Edited by Helen Woodall.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Electronic book Publication October 2008

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing Inc., 1056 Home Avenue, Akron, OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  No Silent Christmas

  Barbara Goodwin

  Dedication

  To my loving family. You have given me unwavering support as I follow my dream. I write every word with love and if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be where I am today. I love you very much.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to acknowledge my editor Helen Woodall for her hard work and gentle guidance.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Barbie: Mattel, Inc.

  BlackBerry: Research in Motion Limited

  Cadillac: General Motors Corporation

  Coke: Coca-Cola Company

  Ford Model T: Ford Motor Company

  Glenlivet: The Glenlivet Distillers Limited

  Hershey’s Kisses: Hershey Chocolate & Confectionery Corporation

  I Love Lucy: CBS Broadcasting Inc.

  Lincoln: Ford Motor Company

  Los Angeles Times: Times Mirror Company

  Max Factor: Max Factor & Co.

  Pacific Coast League: Pacific Coast League of Professional Baseball Clubs, Inc.

  Packard: Packard Motor Car Company

  Quantum Leap: Universal City Studios, Inc.

  Rolls-Royce: Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited

  Starbucks: Starbucks U.S. Brands, LLC LTD LIAB CO

  Turner Classic Movies:- Turner Classic Movies LP, LLLP Turner Entertainment Networks, Inc.

  Variety Magazine: Variety, Inc.

  Warner Brothers: Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.

  Prologue

  December 21, 2005

  Multicolored Christmas lights sparkled as light snow fell past the window. Scott Forrester sat on the sofa in his brother’s house. Today was make-the-obligatory-call day. Each year Scott and Mike invited their father to Christmas dinner. Each year he refused. Scott wondered why they even bothered.

  A note had been taped to the door when Scott arrived earlier. “Come in. We ran to the supermarket. Make yourself at home.” Scott grabbed a beer out of the fridge and wandered through the new home his brother and his wife of one year had just purchased. The appliances were new and shiny. Tables gleamed from the warm color of rich maple. The scent of a real Noble Christmas tree mingled with vanilla and cinnamon from a batch of freshly baked cookies that sat on a plate on the kitchen table.

  All he wanted was a small, family Christmas. Life had been pretty crazy the past year as he learned his new job as a firefighter, but now he felt settled and looked forward to a celebration at home. Never one for big gatherings he craved a quiet Christmas with Mike and Mike’s wife in their new home.

  While he pondered calling his father, Scott thought about raucous family gatherings his friends told him about. He’d never had one, thankfully. Scott didn’t like being the center of attention, didn’t like large groups of people. He felt better in the background listening and watching others.

  He gulped the beer to fortify himself for the cold refusal his father would give them and wondered why after twenty-four years he hadn’t gotten used to the indifference of his father. What the hell, just get it out of the way, he decided. Then when Mike and Shauna got home they could drink and commiserate together.

  Scott reached for his BlackBerry and realized he’d left it in his car. Damn. He wanted the call over with but didn’t want to brave the sixteen-degree temperature or the ice on the sidewalks to go get his phone.

  He wandered the house thinking about his father and why he still felt like the little boy who’d been rejected by the one parent left in his life. After all, he was a grown man who saved lives. Responsibility had been ingrained in him since he was a boy by his Aunt Evelyn and it grated that his father had shirked his duty to them when their mother died at Christmas all those years ago.

  Scott had been only two years old at the time and he didn’t remember his mother. Mike told him it was better that way, no sad memories to remind him of their tragedy each Christmas.

  Buck up, buddy, he told himself. You’re old enough to accept the facts.

  Scott wandered to the front window and stared at the snow. His eyes fell on the BlackBerry lying on the entry table. Great. He’ll make the call on Mike’s phone and be done with the nagging, depressing responsibility of the season.

  Scott picked up the phone and turned it on. When it booted up he pressed the numbers for his father’s cold, stark apartment in Sisters, Oregon, twenty miles from his own apartment here in Bend. Nothing happened. Scott shook the phone and punched in the numbers again.

  Nothing.

  Damn. How hard was it to make a phone call? The BlackBerry had some different features from his and he figured his brother had a newer model. Scott pushed various buttons to see what would get it to work but nothing did. He smacked his hand against the right side of the BlackBerry and a tangerine light surrounded him. At the same time a high-pitched whine filled the room. Scott pounded the phone hoping to get the sound to disappear. “Goddamnit!” he shouted over the piercing noise. He punched in numbers at random but the sound continued. The tangerine glow brightened causing Scott to glance up. The front door to the house burst open and his brother and his wife ran into the room. “How do I turn off the noise?” Scott shouted.

  “Push the button on the bottom right front of the phone,” Shauna, Mike’s wife shouted.

  “What?”

  “Push the button!” Shauna pointed to the bottom of the phone.

  Scott shook his head. The glow brightened and now the walls seemed to shimmer. “I can’t hear you.”

  “Goddamnit,” Mike shouted, “push the button on the front!”

  Shauna glanced at her husband with a look of apology. She stepped forward to grab the BlackBerry out of Scott’s hands as the high-pitched whine settled to a steady sound. “Give it to me, Scott,” she hollered.

  Scott couldn’t hear them. He continued to bang on the phone until he realized the whine had increased and the color around him had changed to gold. He glanced up at Shauna. “Can’t you get it to stop?”

  “Too late,” she shouted and Scott disappeared from the room.

  C
hapter One

  The whining wound down as the gold glow faded and disappeared. Scott stood on a dirt street in a cloud of dust. People ran down the street hollering and pointing. “Fire! Fire!” Instinct kicked in and he shoved the BlackBerry into his pocket as he ran toward the flames he saw coming from a wooden structure. Scott pushed through the looky-loos and quickly assessed the situation. The front of the building was engulfed in flames. He heard the clanging of a fire truck amid the roar of flames and shouts of men.

  “There’s someone inside!” a voice shouted.

  Scott grabbed a towel that lay on the ground and plunged it into a nearby bucket of water. He threw the towel over his head and ran into the building. The man was unconscious on the ground next to the door. Scott picked him up, tossed him over his shoulder and ran out of the building. The fire trucks pulled up and started spraying water on the building.

  “Out of our way, people,” a fireman shouted. “Come on, move it.”

  People parted and let the men do their jobs. Scott reached down to the unconscious man and checked his pulse and pupils. He had a pulse so he knew the man was still alive. “Oxygen! I need oxygen.” A firefighter ran over with a bottle and slapped a mask over the man’s face. Within a few minutes the man coughed and opened his eyes. “Don’t get up,” Scott said. “Keep the mask over your nose.”

  The man nodded his understanding and took great gulps of oxygen. He coughed. Tears made tracks down his face through the dirt. Scott wiped the soot from his own face and checked the man for burns. He seemed okay. Lucky for him he was near the entrance to the building when Scott found him.

  “Mr. Goodman. Oh, thank goodness you’re alive,” a female voice said from the crowd.

  “Don’t get up yet, sir. You need more oxygen,” Scott said. He placed his hand on the man’s shoulder to restrain him.

  “You saved him,” the woman said. “Thank you.”

  “It’s all part of my job,” Scott said. He checked the man’s pulse again and felt it strong and steady. “Give him a few more minutes and he should be well enough to get up. Then he needs to see a doctor.”

  “All right. I can’t thank you enough,” the woman said.

  “No need.” Scott patted the man on his shoulder. “You’ll be good as new by tomorrow. Don’t push it too much today.”

  Scott stood and surveyed the situation. The fire was now under control, and smoke had cleared enough for him to see his surroundings. He saw other wooden structures and realized they were only the fronts of buildings. Where were the backs? Scott turned in a circle. Nothing made sense. Why were the cars and trucks so old? Why was the street made of dirt? Wooden boardwalks?

  He scanned the crowd and saw people dressed unlike anything he’d ever seen before. Women wore straight, tubular dresses with dropped waists. No curves were evident and they looked like boys. Skirts were a few inches below their knees, hair was short and bobbed. All the women looked the same. Men wore slim trousers and almost every one had a hat. Some men were wearing jeans and work shirts and others had guns slung on their hips and wore cowboy hats.

  This just didn’t make any sense.

  As Scott scanned the crowd a panicked feeling rushed through him. He studied the men and women and then saw the surrounding fire equipment that had been hidden behind the smoke and the fire trucks. While the feeling mushroomed into full-blown hysteria his eyes fell on a beautiful young woman. She stood out because her sunny, yellow hair was long and wavy, a direct contrast to every other woman on the street. She wore the same style of clothes as the others but stood aside from the crowd, slim and regal.

  A magnetic pull propelled Scott toward the woman. Her big blue eyes widened. Her mouth fell open and she licked her lips leaving them wet and shiny. Need shot through him like wildfire, stopping him cold in his tracks. He clenched his jaw and forced his mind away from the intense raging desire. Who was that woman? Where the hell was he?

  “Hey, mister,” a deep male voice called. Scott turned and saw the man he’d saved standing behind him. “Come here a minute.”

  Scott turned back to glance at the woman again but she was gone. A feeling of emptiness raced through him so fast he staggered. He scanned the crowd to find her but she had disappeared. Damn. Forcing his tangled thoughts to the background he walked to the man. “Hello. I’m glad to see you’re feeling better.”

  The man stared at Scott. “My goodness. You’re perfect.”

  “Perfect for what?” Scott indulged the medium-sized man’s odd behavior. Oxygen deprivation can cause confusion for a while after a fire. He studied the man’s horseshoe of hair that surrounded his head, mussed and sticking up in different directions. It enhanced his round wire-rimmed glasses and slightly pudgy cheeks. The man’s color looked good, though.

  “Selma, come here,” the man said to a woman. She was the same one who had thanked him for saving her friend. “He’s perfect, isn’t he?”

  Scott felt as if he were under a microscope. The woman, Selma, studied him like a test subject.

  “Yes he is, sir.” She smiled at Scott but he felt it was more predatory than welcoming.

  “Son, what’s your name?” the man asked.

  “Scott Forrester. And you are—”

  “Sidney Goodman. Thank you for saving my life.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Goodman.” The men shook hands. Scott looked around again and this time he saw rough wooden signs hanging in front of the buildings that said, “Hotel”, “Baths”, “Apothecary” and “Saloon”. “Uh, can you tell me where I am?”

  Sid Goodman boomed out a laugh. “You take in too much smoke, son?”

  Scott wondered if he had. Nothing was familiar. The street, the way people were dressed, even the sunshine felt different. A skittering of apprehension ran up his spine. “I might have. So…what is this place?”

  “Forrester,” Sid Goodman said. “You’re on a movie set. We’re filming The Gunslinger’s Wife.”

  Relief flooded Scott. A movie set. That’s why everything was so unfamiliar. Now the fronts to the buildings made sense, the clothes, the old trucks and cars. But wait…there weren’t cars in old westerns. People didn’t dress the way these people were dressed when they worked on a movie set. Scott stared at Selma. A beautiful woman, she too wore the long, straight dress that other women wore and had a short, dark bob. Beads hung down the front of her dress. Another rush of fear tingled through his blood. “Mr. Goodman—”

  “Sid. Call me Sid.”

  “Okay. Sid. Ah…what year is this?” Scott wasn’t sure if he wanted the answer to that question.

  “Maybe you ought to sit yourself down, boy. You knock your head on something while rescuing me? It’s the year of our Lord, 1925.”

  “1925?” mumbled Scott. “It can’t be 1925.” He blindly turned away from Sid Goodman and walked around the movie set. People were cleaning up from the fire, but Scott didn’t see any of it. His body felt heavy, sluggish. His mind felt clouded with fog. His heart thundered and he heard a ringing in his ears.

  Ringing. Scott shook his head. That reminded him of the BlackBerry weighing down his pocket and the high-pitched whine he’d heard just before seeing the fire. An overwhelming feeling of dread slithered through him and he sank to a wooden bench under the sign for the saloon.

  Scott realized he’d picked up his sister-in-law’s time travel device, not his brother’s phone. She must have redesigned it to look like the most popular electronic device of their time, a BlackBerry. That way no one would find out she’d come from the year 2110.

  Shit. For the first time in his life, Scott felt lost and alone. For the first time in his life, Scott Forrester felt fear.

  For here he sat on a movie set in 1925 and he had no idea how to get back home to his time.

  * * * * *

  “Look son, I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I do know how to get that glum look off your face. Here, follow me and Selma.”

  Scott watched the two walk away from him. A feeling of
panic rushed through him at the thought that these two strangers would leave him.

  Galvanized, he jumped up from the bench and followed them. Sid Goodman and Selma with-no-last-name strolled deeper into the studio lot past the sets for the western they were shooting, past a street with the fronts of row houses like those in New York City and further along, past a set that looked like something from the moon. He caught up with the pair when they turned left onto a street that looked like an industrial park. Sid opened the door to a building and entered, leaving the door open for Scott. Selma followed behind.

  The sign on the door said, Sidney Goodman, President, Artists Unlimited. Scott raised an eyebrow at the title but didn’t say anything when he entered the large office in the back of a larger room.

  “Sit. Sit,” Goodman said. “Selma, get the young man something to drink.” He turned to Scott. “Excuse me Forrester, I need to make some calls.” Before Scott could say anything Sid picked up the phone and said, “Gracie, get me Damon Westerly and that young Gant boy, you know the one.” He slammed down the phone and stared at Scott.

  “You didn’t let her answer,” Scott said. He felt foggy, as if he were having an out-of-body experience.

  “She’s the operator. For God’s sake, boy, I don’t let them speak, they do what they’re asked and that’s it.”

  Operator. Oh, God. People had to go through operators to make a call. Scott pushed himself up from the chair and walked to a stack of magazines and newspapers on the coffee table. He picked up a copy of Time magazine dated December 14, 1925. The cover showed someone named Charles Gates Dawes. As Scott flipped through the magazine he read that Dawes was the President of the United States. God. That’s who’s president now? He tossed the magazine on the table.