He hung up his poncho and hat. “My days rarely proceed as planned.” He reached for her shoulders, caressed them. “I’m used to a flexible schedule. Although being in a cabin in the Rockies—with a beautiful woman—is a bit unusual, but I’m glad I’m here with you.”
She reached up and patted both of his hands, her fingers slightly chilled despite the gloves she’d worn. “I’m glad you’re here, too.”
Her parted lips made for a perfectly kissable mouth. He was like a damn teenager on a first date, unsure of what to do. Before he could commit to a kiss, her lips closed, she removed her hands, and he eased his grip in response. He had hoped she wanted to connect in the most human of needs, the simple touch of skin to skin. But he was wrong. Even her attempt at a half smile was gone now.
“There are some of Dad’s sweatpants in the armoire in the bedroom unless they’ve been stolen since the last time I was here.” She lit one of the lanterns and the comforting smell of lamp oil permeated the air. The lantern glowed, throwing a soft mellow light over the cabin and its furnishings.
How many times would he put himself out there before he got it through his thick skull that she wasn’t interested in anything beyond… Business? Friendship? If he continued to play the role of a fool, then he deserved the coldest of shoulders.
He masked his frustration, giving her an excuse to walk away. “Go change while I start the fire.”
“Are you sure?”
He waved her away, not looking in her direction to hide any hurt that might spark in his eyes. “Go, before you get chilled.”
“There should be enough kindling in the bucket to get a fire going. I’ll bring in more later.”
Connor set two logs on top of the grate and tossed in a handful of kindling. Once the fire was burning evenly, he dropped in a handful of softwood kindling between the hardwood logs. He had a blazing fire going by the time Olivia returned wearing black, form-fitting yoga pants.
She moved to stand in front of the fire and rubbed her hands. “Nice going.”
His gaze slid over her ass, down her hamstrings to her muscular calves, then his eyes cut away quickly. “Easy enough to do with this kind of wood. I’ll bring in more while I’m still wet.”
She left the warm spot in front of the fire and crossed the room to the kitchen sink. “I’ll get the coffee going while you’re out.” The coffee grinder sat on the table, the beans in the pie safe. She dumped the beans in the grinder and began to grind vigorously. The smell of fresh ground coffee soon spread through the cabin.
Connor settled Olivia’s father’s damp hat on his head once again, thankful he hadn’t turned down the offer to borrow it. “Do you think you could rustle up a classic Italian hero sandwich? I’m starving.”
“I thought you were Irish.”
“I am, but my friend, Pete Parrino, is Italian. He got me started on them: prosciutto, capicola, sopressata, marinated mushrooms and peppers, and fresh mozzarella.” Connor kissed his fingers. “Delizioso.”
She laughed. “How about baked salmon with a parmesan herb crust, scalloped potatoes, and fresh asparagus.”
“Add strawberry shortcake to that menu and I’ll have died and gone to heaven even without a hero sandwich. I’m so hungry, I’ll eat whatever you’ve got.”
“Lunch will be ready when you get back.” She pointed to the corner near the fireplace. “There’s a leather log carrier over there if you want to load it up.”
“Sure.”
He stepped down the porch steps into the now-saturated yard and sloshed over to the wood pile. While he was gathering firewood, he filled the log carrier twice, leaving one load on the covered porch. When he went back inside the cabin, the mouth-watering aroma made his stomach growl.
He poked at the fire and threw on another log, pleased with how well it was burning. He didn’t grow up with a fireplace in his family home in New York, but the guest house on MacKlenna Farm had a large one, and he was becoming more adept at building fires.
“I put hot water in the pitcher on the wash stand. You can clean up in the bedroom.”
He brushed the wood shavings from his hands, letting the debris fall into the fire. “Thanks. My mother, rest her soul, would disown me if I came to the dinner table this dirty.”
The water was steamy, and the soap had a natural, woodsy scent. Next to the washbowl was a wash kit complete with a new toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, lotion, talcum powder, razor, deodorant, small bottle of shave oil, and medicated shampoo—everything needed for an overnight stay in the mountains, except for a half-dozen condoms.
Dream on, cowboy.
On the other side of the washbowl, the handles of a natural-bristled hairbrush and matching mirror gleamed in the lantern light. He picked up the brush and ran his fingers along the scalloped edge. The handles of the brush and mirror were whispered reminders of the two metals that brought miners to Leadville—gold discovered in the early 1860s was later overshadowed by the silver rush that followed, the rush that brought Olivia’s ancestors to the mountains.
He stripped down to his boxer briefs and washed his face, letting the layer of splattered mud and sweat from the day slide away. He moved on to his arms and chest. Then, reasonably clean, he dressed in the cotton sweatpants and black T-shirt she’d left on the bed. Refreshed, he returned to the kitchen to find her glowing in candlelight, and the aromas from the plated food added to a delicious shudder of anticipation.
He held the chair for her then took a seat across the table. “If this came from a package that will keep for twenty-five years, I’m sold. The salmon smells like it’s been cooked perfectly. My compliments to the chef.”
“As soon as we find her, you can tell her yourself.”
They finished eating in silence and afterward took their coffee to sit in the rockers in front of the fire. “Is there any other place you want to search for Amber besides the cave?”
“There are three sites that I can think of. She’s dug in all three but keeps going back. They are farther than the cave. Assuming this squall doesn’t last long, we’ll barely have time to get to the cave and back before the sun sets.”
Connor’s phone rang. He excused himself and went into Olivia’s parents’ bedroom before he answered David’s call.
“I enlarged yer pictures of the box. There’s a faint outline of a brooch on the velvet lining. The measurements are identical to the other brooches. It’s safe to assume Amber has been whisked off somewhere. I’m still feeding information into the computer, but do ye have any ideas?”
Connor lowered his voice. “The Jurassic Period—a hundred fifty million to two hundred million years ago.”
There was silence on the other end. Then finally David said, “Any chance it’s some time closer to the last Ice Age?”
“I don’t know. She’s a mining lawyer with a degree in geology and a passion for dinosaurs. I don’t have any idea where she could have gone, and if I press Olivia, she’ll want to know why. Can you hack into her computer at work?”
“At work and home, but it’ll take a few hours. If ye can get any information from Olivia, let me know.”
Connor stood in front of the window and watched the torrent of rain for several minutes. He had been critical of Olivia for lying to him. Wasn’t he doing the same to her? She’d been afraid of his reaction if he knew Amber had a history of disappearing. He was equally afraid of Olivia’s reaction if he told her Amber had disappeared again, but this time she’d gone too far for them to reach without a well-planned rescue.
Olivia had nodded off in the rocking chair, her head tilted to one side. She was beautifully silhouetted by the lantern’s feeble glow. He picked up an afghan folded over a cedar chest and remained there a moment, beyond the reach of the lamplight, quietly studying her.
Sleep had relaxed the tightness in her face, but when she woke, it would return. Where could Amber have gone, and if Olivia was asked if she had any ideas, what would she say? He covered her with the blanket and gathered
it close about her shoulders while he tried to puzzle out the answers. He didn’t want to go on another adventure, but he would. And God, he hoped to hell it wasn’t to the Jurassic Period.
He added more logs to the fire and idled there near the warmth for a few minutes, listening to the rain’s steadying murmur and watching shadows and light from the lanterns leap up on the log walls of the cabin, as if they were trying to find chinks to crawl through and escape into the rainy night.
Olivia’s hands dangled over the arms of the rocker. He sat in the other chair and took one of her warm hands in his. Her long, eloquent fingers with manicured nails fit handsomely in his palm. She stirred when he lightly squeezed her fingers, but she didn’t pull away.
For the tenth time at least, he checked his messages. Nothing from David in the last five minutes. Connor didn’t like being out of the loop, but there was nothing he could do, except wait patiently.
While Olivia slept, Connor did a web search for Amber. Several images came up. Besides identical hazel-brown eyes, he could see the echoes of Olivia in the graceful swoop of Amber’s eyebrows, balanced mouth, and no-nonsense nose. They were both extraordinarily beautiful and talented women. But it was Olivia’s moderate anxiety disorder, exactly like his mother’s anxiety over the O’Grady kids, that he found utterly irresistible. Olivia would be an awesome mother to some very lucky kids.
He let his thoughts go quiet, but his memories wouldn’t be silenced. He saw his mom in the kitchen, her slender hands dancing through the air, weaving dreams for her children. Connor swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat and forced his memories to go quiet too. He closed the browser, pocketed his phone, and closed his eyes. Before he could take two easy breaths, he fell into a fitful sleep.
4
1878 Leadville, Colorado—Amber
When the claustrophobic fog lifted, Amber was no longer on the floor of Hughes Cabin. She was squatting on a crate in a dirt-packed alley filled with a season’s worth of animal excrement, empty boxes, and garbage. The stench made her gag. There was a buzzing in her ears, and her head throbbed. Where was she? Her bouncing gaze made her head ache even more—worse than a tequila hangover. And she should know. She’d footed the bill for more than one parade of Patrón shots.
The faint smell of new-hewn timber seeped from the adjoining buildings and tickled her nose. Hundreds of hooves, wheels, and boots churned up the dirt in a rutted thoroughfare that intersected with her muddy alley. Honky-tonk music blasted from a saloon and drowned out the thunder of boots as pedestrians hurried along crooked boardwalks. A swirl of newsboys banged out of a nearby emporium hawking the daily news.
A mean-looking man idled nearby, his sheepskin coat hung open and his thumbs hooked in a shell-belt sagging from a slim waist. Beneath the cowboy hat was a hard face shadowed by whiskers. A black cigar was clamped between his teeth. He looked like a character actor in a low-budget film. Matter of fact, the whole scene resembled a Spaghetti Western. Had she been called to audition for the role of damsel in distress or maybe Big Nose Kate—Doc Holliday’s sidekick? Amber could play Big Nose, but damsel in distress wasn’t a good fit for her. All she had to do now was find the casting director and audition for the part.
As if having an out-of-body experience, she stepped up on the wooden boardwalk and stopped the first person who walked by. “Do you know where the casting director is?”
A pimple-faced teenager scratched his cheek. “Don’t reckon I do.”
“Good job with the dialect.” She gave him a thumbs-up and kept walking, dodging actors dressed in period costumes. When she came upon a woman wearing a cute hat that came down to a point on her forehead, Amber stopped and asked, “Love your hat. Is that yours or did you get it from wardrobe?”
The woman’s eyes roved over Amber’s clothing, and an expression of disgust spread across her face. The woman untangled the veil wound up on her hat, pulled the netting down, and adjusted it smartly. “Hughes Store.” She opened her parasol and shoved past Amber, crowding her toward the edge of the boardwalk.
“I’ll stop by there. Thanks.”
Amber was dazed by all that was happening around her. She glanced down the street toward the mountains and the recognizable rolling terrain of the western slope of the snow-capped Mosquito Range. Her mouth dropped. She knew exactly where she was.
“Say it ain’t so, Joe.”
The surrounding mountains held the city of Leadville in the palms of their hands: Mosquito Range in one, Sawatch Range in the other. But this wasn’t the Leadville of her childhood, or her teenage years, or even the city in the twenty-first century. If a production company was filming a Western in Leadville, the set designer would win an Oscar.
Her legs turned to jelly. She needed to sit down before she collapsed in the thoroughfare and was run over by a freight wagon. A bench outside the batwing doors of a saloon stood vacant and looked reasonably clean. Maybe if she rested for a while, her out-of-control world would straighten upon its axis again. Or, maybe she’d wake-up from this weird dream and be back in Hughes Cabin.
The tinkling of piano keys and the smell of beer and cheap whiskey drifted out of the saloon. The skills of the pianist fell somewhere between beginner and never-played-before. The off-key rendition of “In the Evening By the Moonlight” brought a dose of reality to the surreal mix of fact and fantasy.
Her senses seemed to be working fine, down to the gnawing pain in her empty stomach. Whatever was going on with her didn’t involve sleepwalking or dreaming. She wasn’t ready to rule out the only other logical explanation—filming a movie. But as she glanced around, there were no cameras or crew members wearing normal clothes. No trailers for the actors. No refreshment tent with donuts and coffee. No costume designers. No makeup artists. If this wasn’t a dream or audition, then she had fallen into a wormhole and gone back to a time before automobiles and electricity.
Hold up one dang minute…
Worms belonged in tequila bottles, not in outer space, where they captured unsuspecting humans and hurled them about like fast-pitched softballs.
Next to her, a handful of miners lurked outside the saloon entrance, their voices abuzz in a mixture of European accents. Their faces were gnarled and creased as pieces of petrified wood. Their clothes needed a good dunk in the river. Sad to say, but even with the services of a barber and the purchase of new clothes, the men could never make themselves presentable enough, even to a spinster’s desperate father.
When one of the miners, a man with corn-silk hair and a longhorn mustache, mentioned finding a deep red stone mixed in with the silver in his mine, her head snapped up.
“Found it the other day,” he said, smoothing the mustache curving around his mouth. “First, I threw it away, then changed my mind and snatched it back.”
Another man, beset with a coughing fit, held out his hand. “Let me see it.”
The miner hawked and spat off to the side before pulling a stone from his pocket. “Thought I’d give it to June over at the Silver Dollar. Matches her red hair.”
Amber stood to get a look at the stone. Her knees nearly gave way and one of the men caught her elbow in a steadying grip. “May I see that?”
The miner extended his arm in her direction with the gemstone glinting in the palm of his leathery hand. Her fingers curled around the pear-shaped gem, red with a hint of pink.
“This is an exquisite piece of rare rhodochrosite. Fifteen, maybe sixteen carats. Where’d you say you found it?”
His face tightened, his eyes narrowed. “None of your business where.” He grabbed it from her and shoved it back into his pocket.
“Hang on to it. One day it’ll be very valuable,” she said.
“It’s valuable today. Give me two bits and you can keep it.”
One of the other men laughed. “He’s hopin’ those two bits marry up and raise a litter of pennies, make him a millionaire like Mr. Tabor.”
Horace Tabor? Leadville’s silver king?
“If I had t
wo bits, I’d give it to you.” She patted her pockets. She didn’t have a dollar. She didn’t have a penny either. Neither did she have any rings or earrings. Then it all came back to her. The puzzle box. The broken loom. The odd words. The smelly fog. The disorienting twisting about. The brooch…
“Damn.”
She shoved past the men and dashed back to the alley. Where is it? Frantically, she tossed the crate aside and raked her nails through the mud. Where is it? Dammit. Then she stopped and took a long breath. What was she doing? She knew better. This wasn’t how you excavated anything. She needed to calm down, swallow her panic, and search methodically. Start at the beginning. That meant returning to her squatting position on the crate. Okay. That’s where she was when she came out of the fog. So where was the brooch?
She looked at her hands. Right or left? Left. She was sure of that. She was also sure that when she came out of the fog, she had been leaning forward with her hands covering her face. If she dropped the brooch, it would have landed near her left foot. It wasn’t there now. She must have stomped it into the mud.
What she needed was a shovel or a stick. With all the crates and garbage, surely there was something usable. She pilfered through several piles of garbage but didn’t find anything sharp. How many times had she been on a dig without a specific tool in her field kit and had to improvise? Dozens.
She picked up a crate and threw it against the wall until it splintered. Then she stomped on the weakened sides until it broke apart. Using two of the thicker pieces, she squatted and dug where she believed the brooch had fallen out of her hand, probing the soft ground as if her last meal was buried in the muddy patch of alleyway.
The brooch had been in the breast beam for a century and a half and she’d lost it within a few hours. She was almost hyperventilating when the stick hit a hard surface. She stiffened. Was it the brooch or a rock? She tossed the sticks aside and used her hands, throwing her rules out with globs of mud.
The Amber Brooch: Time Travel Romance (The Celtic Brooch Book 8) Page 6