A Tumble Through Time (8 page)

“What’s good?” Wes asked.

“Nothin’. Whatcha want?”

Wes glanced to the table next to him, where a man bent over his plate, pushing food into his mouth. “What’s that?”

“Beef stew.”

“We’ll have two bowls of the stew. And bread.”

She shuffled away.

“Are you sure we should eat here?” Anna had to look away from their neighbor, who
ran his tongue around his mouth and burped loudly.

“Everyone here seems to have no problem with the food.”

Anna leaned in closer. “Did you think maybe that’s why the undertaker is next door?”

They both jumped as the woman slammed two cracked bowls in front of them. A hunk of bread stuck out from either side of each bowl. “That’ll be fifty cents.”

Wes reached into his pocket and handed the coins to the woman. She grunted and hobbled off.

Anna ate a few bites of the stew, which had never seen a piece of beef in its life. The bread was surprisingly good, so she filled up on that. Being of a braver sort, Wes finished all of his meal.

“Now what?” Anna pushed the bowl away, and leaned her forearms on the table.

“We find the local sheriff and see if he knows anything.” He glanced around. “Although from the looks of things, that’s not a promising start, but we’ll try.”

It took them twenty minutes to find the sheriff’s office, since it wasn’t labeled, and no one they spoke with seemed clear as to where it was. Wes opened the door to a wiry man, his feet up on the desk, his hat covering his face, snoring away.

“Hey!” Wes shouted,
knocking the sleeper’s feet off the desk.

“What the goddamn hell!” The man shouted, scrabbling for his gun.

Wes had his drawn and pressed against the man’s chest before his fingers reached his holster. “You shouldn’t sleep on the job.”

The sheriff raised his hands. “Whataya want? I ain’t got no money here, it’s all over at the bank.” He gestured toward the window.

Wes pushed the gun again, driving the man back. “Well, aren’t you the helpful sheriff.”

“The town don’t pay me enough to get shot at
,” the sheriff groused.

“And it apparently doesn’t pay you enough to stay awake, either.”

The man shrugged as if it wasn’t a problem.

Wes shook his head in disgust, shoving his gun back in its holster. He
placed his hands on his hips. “I’m Marshal Shannon from Denton. I’m tracking four men who held up the stagecoach in this area a couple of days ago.”

The sheriff waved his hand in dismissal. “Don’t know nothin’ about that.”

“Well now, sheriff, I sure don’t want you to overwork yourself.” Wes glared at him.

“I told ya, I don’t get paid enough.” He stuck out a belligerent chin.

The muscle in Wes’s jaw tensed, but after a minute when the sheriff didn’t add anything more, Wes turned. “Let’s go.”

Anna had to hurry to keep up with h
im. “Wow. That was sure some sheriff.”

When he only grunted his answer, she added, “What do we do now?”

He turned, a glint in his eyes. “You tell me. I thought you were the
trained police officer
?”

“Not in this century,” she shot back without a thought. And snapped her jaw shut.
Oh God, what did I just say?

Wes came to an abrupt halt and caught hold of her arm. “What?”

Anna wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Nothing.”

He grasped her chin, and turned her face toward him. “It sure sounded to me like you said
not in this century
.”

“You misunderstood me. I said I wasn’t trained to be a sentry.”

He contemplated her answer for a moment. “We need to start questioning some of the shopkeepers, but this conversation will resume when we get back to Denton.”

Anna shrugged. “Where do you want me to start?”

Wes nodded toward the other side of the street. “You take that side, I’ll take this one.”

When she turned to go, he reached out and
grasped her arm. “Keep that gun tucked away. I don’t like the looks of this town, and the sheriff is anything but competent. If things get dangerous, come find me.”

Anna huffed. “I can—”

“Take care of yourself. I know. Just do what I said.”

She felt Wes’s eyes on her back until she entered the dry goods store, the light tinkle of a bell announcing her arrival.

Wes continued to stare at Anna as she opened the door and disappeared inside. More confused than ever about the woman, he headed to the livery for what would no doubt be a huge waste of time.

After two hours of nobody knowing anything, seeing anything, or for that matter, caring about anything, Wes met up with Anna, and they headed out of town.

“I’ve never seen so many surly people in my life,” Anna grumbled as they entered the wooded area that would lead them back to Denton.

“Something about this place makes me sure our outlaws are either holed up here right now, or will be sometime soon.”

Anna glanced at him and nodded as she kicked her horse’s sides. “I imagine we’ll have to camp out tonight?”

“We can probably find another abandoned cabin.” Wes wasn’t sure spending another night with Anna under the same roof was a good idea. Determined to uncover this woman’s mystery, he also found his attraction to her disturbing. She rode beside him, the wind whipping strands of her ink black hair that she’d let hang free. Her cheeks were flushed, and a slight smile tugged at her lips. Lips that he would love to cover with his own, right before he kissed his way down that stubborn chin to the tops of her rounded breasts he’d gotten a glimpse of the day she’d arrived in that strange shirt.

He sighed and attempted to restrain his thoughts. Anna was a problem he didn’t need and he had no right to act on his attraction to her. He didn’t dare drag a woman into his dark world. Until he got himself under control, it would be best to stay as far away from her as possible.

Not goddamn likely.

The rest of the day brought them into the deep woods where they passed a couple of cabins. They’d been riding single file, and the sun setting behind them would soon disappear completely. “Let’s stop at the next cabin we see,” Wes called out to her. Anna nodded, weariness visibly dragging her shoulders down.

Within a half hour they came upon another of the squat-roofed cabins that had housed trappers years before. In front of him, Anna veered off to her left and rode up to the hut. She slid off the horse, and placing her hands on her lower back, stretched on her toes, attempting to ease her muscles. With her breasts shoved forward, her nipples
stood prominent against the shirt she wore. Wes’s mouth dried up, his blood racing to his groin.

“I’ll take care of the horses.” He turned away swiftly. “Why don’t you see about getting our things inside?”

Anna watched Wes pull the saddlebags off his horse and drop it on the ground. He’d been in an odd mood all day, almost as if he was mad at her. She pushed open the warped wooden door and entered the cabin. If possible, this one was in worse shape than the one they’d stayed in last night. Cobwebs decorated every corner and the distinct sound of the scurrying feet of unknown small animals startled her. She gingerly moved toward the cold fireplace. Someone had left a few logs next to it. What she wouldn’t give for a good old gas fireplace that would blaze at the flip of a switch.

She spread the bedrolls on the floor and pulled out the food they’d purchased in town. Chilled, she rubbed her palms up and down her arms. With the dense forest around them, the dampness crept into her bones, bringing shivers to her body. The door opened, and Wes stood there, just staring at her.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Wes glanced at the bread, cold chicken, cheese, and fruit laid out on her bedroll. “Supper ready?” He attempted a smile.

Anna curtsied. “Yes, my lord. The only thing missing is champagne.”

Wes remained aloof throughout their meal, seeming to be deep in thought. Since she’d expected him to question her again about her background, it was with a certain amount of relief that they finished the meal, and settled into their bedrolls.

Anna propped herself on her hand and regarded him, lying across from her. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes. Why?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ve been very quiet all day.”

Instead of answering her, he reached across and cupped her chin, rubbing his thumb over her lips. “I’m trying to stay away from you.”

“Oh.”

Despite his words, he scooted over and brought his mouth to hers. Her insides fluttered, and she stroked his cheek, her fingers
running over the roughness of his stubble. She was lost in his scent, his warmth and taste.

He eased back and
kissed each finger, his gaze never leaving hers. Anna’s breath caught and she closed her eyes, the sensual play of his lips heating her blood.

“I wish . . .”

She opened her eyes at his words, meeting his gaze, filled with longing and sadness. He ran his knuckles down her cheek. “Good night.” Then to her amazement, he turned his back to her, the only sound in the room the skittering of little feet.

Anna thumped her fist on the bedroll. The man was driving her totally crazy. He heated her blood, making promises with his touch, and then drew back. If he wanted to stay away from her, she wished he would
do it, and stop torturing her. She huffed and lay back down, arms crossed over her chest as she eyed the patchy ceiling. From the heavy breathing coming from Wes, he’d been left as frustrated as she.

Her weariness fought with frustration, and soon fatigue won out and she fell into a deep slumber.

It seemed only minutes later that Anna was jolted out of a sound sleep by a loud voice shouting, “No!” Her heart slammed against her chest as her eyes flew open and she shot up, fumbling for her gun.

C
hapter Eight

W
es tossed his head back and forth, sweat beading his forehead. He gripped the edges of his bedroll and groaned, “No. Please, sir, let her go.”

His eyes popped open, and he stared at Anna leaning over him, shaking his shoulder. “Wes. Wake up, you’re dreaming.”

He’d been back in the woods, on that terrible morning. The girl’s pleas and the sound of the grunts coming from the animal who raped her resounded inside his head in rhythm with the pounding of his heart. He sat up and ran his palm down his face, wiping away sweat.

Anna pulled her bedroll up, closer to her neck, slight shivers shaking her body.

“Are you cold?” His voice was raspy. How much had she heard? Would she be disgusted if she knew what a coward he’d been?

She hugged the bedroll closer. “A bit. More startled, I believe.” Her small hand covered his. “Are you ready to tell me about it?”

Wes shoved his cover away, then stood. “There’s nothing to tell. We all have bad dreams once in a while.”

Anna nodded. “That’s true. But this wasn’t just a bad dream. You were reliving something terrible.” She reached up and tugged on his hand. “Oftentimes it helps if you talk about it.”

He glanced down at her, the care and concern in her eyes tightening his gut. In all the years since he’d kept silent, he’d hoped for the memory to fade. But each and every time he lived through it again in his dreams, it felt as if it had happened yesterday.

Another tug from Anna and he sat, his elbows resting on his bent knees. He raked his fingers through his hair, wishing he could squeeze his skull until the memory fled.

“Where I come from, people pay other people to listen to things that are troubling them.” Anna’s voice was barely a whisper.

“In Tulsa?” Wes snorted. “Remind me once you find that place, to never go there. Everyone wailing about their miseries must make for a strange
town.”

“It’s not like that.” She pulled her knees up, and rested her chin there. “These are trained professionals that patient
s go to. They know how to help a person deal with their problems.”

He turned to her. “
Men?”

She nodded.

“Tulsa is indeed unusual. Women attend academies where they learn how to wrestle a man to the ground and hunt outlaws, and the men sit around crying about their problems.” He grinned. “No thank you. The day I have to pay someone to listen to me talk is the day I quit chattering.”

“All right, so
tell me. You’re not paying me, and I want to know what that dream was all about.” She reached over and took his hand. “Please?”

Despite her talk of men from her imaginary place, he didn’t want to watch the concern in her eyes turn into loathing when he told her his story.

“Please?”

He stared at her for a minute. How he wished he could unburden himself. Not to seek forgiveness, because there was none, but the peace of saying the words out loud, letting them leave his mouth, flee his mind.

Wes closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Years ago, at the end of the war, I witnessed the rape and murder of a young girl.”

A slight intake of breath was the only reaction Anna gave him.

“Go on.” She nodded.

Wes stood and paced. He started out slow, describing the girl, her terror. Within minutes the words burst forth, stumbling over each other, disjointed. He couldn’t stop himself now if someone put a gun to his head. All the agony of the girl and the revulsion he’d felt washed over him, sending fire to his gut, and drops of sweat to trickle down his chest and back.

Once again his nightmare stood front and center. The way the woods smelled, the whimpers of the girl, the grunts of his commanding officer. And, the final sound that lived in his mind for years. A single gunshot to the girl’s head that had echoed in the still morning.

Eventually, the words lessened to a trickle. The heat in his
middle turned to an icy lump of fear. Now he had to face Anna. This brave, although reckless, woman. He would see coldness in her eyes as she realized what a coward he truly was. Any respect she’d gained for him would be lost. True to his cowardly nature, he kept his back to her, facing the rising sun peeking over the windowsill.

He jumped when he felt her warm hand on his arm.

“Wes?”

His muscles tightened, but he didn’t turn. Not to be thwarted, she scooted around him, and cupped his face in her hands. “You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

He closed his eyes and groaned. “You don’t understand.”

“Of course I do. How old were you?”

“Nineteen.”

“You were a young man. A teenager.”

Those strange words again. “Still, I didn’t report him. Who knows how many other girls he might have done that to?”

She pulled his head down, meeting his eyes. “Hopefully, none. But even if he did, it was his sin, his crime. You were a young soldier, fighting in a horrendous war, told by your commanding officer to keep your mouth shut.”

Wes took her hands from his face and held them. The condemnation he’d expected to see wasn’t there. Relief flooded him, but only for a minute. Maybe she didn’t hate him, but that didn’t change what he’d not done. “I was a coward.”

“No.” She sighed. “If you did report him, your commanding officer was right. Who do you think they would have believed? You or him?”

The same question he’d asked himself a hundred or more times. “Him.” He licked his dry lips.

“So you would have probably hung for a crime you not only didn’t commit, but was forced to witness. You relied on his word that once he was through with the girl, he’d let her go.” She paused. “Where I come from—”

“Yes. I know. Right now I’d be sitting around with a bunch of men, weeping like a woman. No thanks.” He attempted to turn.

Anna’s mouth quirked with humor as she stopped him. “Well, there are such groups, actually, but—”

Wes rolled his eyes. “Please don’t tell me any more about this upside down world of yours.”

“All right, I won’t.” She tapped his chest with her finger. “But you need to convince yourself that entire episode was not your fault, you had nothing to do with it, and aside from burying the girl and praying for her, there wasn’t anything else you could have done.”

How he wanted to pull her to him, to cover her mouth with his, forget all the ugliness of that day, and lose himself in Anna. She heated his blood like no other woman he’d ever met. Her touch set his skin on fire, and when her soft body was pressed up against his, all common sense fled. The mystery surrounded her no longer seemed important, and all he wanted was to plunge into her body and hear her cry out with pleasure.

Instead, Wes tightened his jaw and bent to gather up the bedrolls. “It’s time we were on the road.”

Anna rode alongside Wes, enjoying the cadence of the horse’s hooves pounding the dry ground as they left the wooded area. The sun warmed their backs when they turned from the stagecoach path onto the main road back to town. Wes had been silent the entire time, his face void of all expression.

She considered again the horrific story he’d told her. A slight smile curved her lips when she remembered his comments about the men in her time. Perhaps the modern era had softened its males. Boys were punished for fighting, for playing cowboys and Indians, and God forbid one of them should point a finger at his playmate and shout, “Bang, you’re dead.”

Men now visited tanning salons, got manicures and pedicures, and smelled better than a lot of women. Where once a man plowed the fields, built his own home, and protected his family with his strength, a good many of them now dressed in suits and ties and sat in front of a computer all day. No wonder Viagra was such a big seller.

Although she would never excuse his behavior, perhaps a lack of maleness had something to do with Robbie screwing her roommate. Did he feel the need to assert his masculinity by proving himself in bed with more than one woman?
Bullshit
. There were just too many men who were faithful to their wives for her to believe that nonsense. But she had to admit, as much as she liked having her independence as a modern woman, she was not alone in her love of romance novels, the pages dripping with alpha males.

Despite Wes’s confession and his feelings of cowardice, there was absolutely nothing lacking in his masculinity. Tall, broad shouldered, and muscular, he could easily grace one of her novel covers. And when he shot her that lazy, sexy grin, everything female in her answered his call. She drew herself up. It would be wise to stop her thoughts from going in that direction. Her life existed over a hundred years from now. And that was what she wanted.

Wasn’t it?

“You best drop behind me, so we don’t call attention to ourselves. It wouldn’t do for the town folks to see us coming back together.”

As much as she wanted to blow off his concerns, it would be better to not flaunt their time together. Until she could figure a way to get back home, she had to live in this town, in this time period, so it would be best to stick to the standards of the day.

“What will you do now?”

Wes shrugged. “Wells Fargo will put a shotgun rider on each stagecoach for a while. Hopefully that will prevent any more hold-ups, but it hasn’t in the past.”

“How do you go about catching a gang, anyway?”

He raised his eyebrows, and that sexy grin slowly appeared. “Aren’t you the bounty hunter? What would you do?”

“Nothing that you would understand,” she mumbled.

Wes snorted his response. “I’m headed to the jailhouse to relieve Arnold. See that you stay out of trouble.” He tugged on the brim of his hat, and kicked his horse into a gallop.

She studied his broad back and muscular legs as he rode away. Yes, definitely an alpha male.

Anna shifted the bundle of sheets over her arm and knocked on the door of room twelve in the Mason Hotel. When no one answered, she withdrew her skeleton key and let herself in. Three days had passed since her trip with Wes to find the outlaws. So far, no other stagecoaches had been held up, and the few times she’d seen Wes, he merely tipped his hat in her direction and went on his way.

As much as she hated to admit it, she missed the man. Hopefully, his nightmare and subsequent confession hadn’t made him so uncomfortable that he was avoiding her. Since she started this new job as
a hotel maid, her thoughts had been occupied by two things: Wes, and a way to get back home. Sort of a contradiction in terms. Had this been another place, and definitely another time, she would have loved to explore her attraction and growing feelings for the marshal. But with her hearing looming, with no idea as of yet how to get back, it was probably best if Wes was indeed avoiding her.

She pulled the dirty sheets from the bed, rolled them into a ball and tossed the bundle into the corner. Not only was she expected to clean the rooms, empty the chamber pots−
gross
−and change the sheets, in this time period the maid was required to wash the sheets and towels. In the twenty-first century, she thought herself to be in good physical shape. But no amount of gym workouts could compare to day-by-day physical labor.

Anna swung around as the door to the small room opened. Harold Mason, the hotel owner, stuck his head in. “Two more rooms to clean when you’re done with this one, Miss Devlin.”

She nodded and wiped the sweat from her forehead. “Which ones?”

“Nine and fourteen.” He moved further into the room. “Ya know, you could make more money over at Miss Edith’s place. Can’t figure out why you would rather clean rooms.”

Anna stiffened. The man must own an interest in the bordello because he’d mentioned it to her every day since she took this job. “No, thanks. I don’t intend to earn my living on my back.”

He, showed off yellowed teeth in what passed for a smile. “Just thinkin’ a gal like you could do pretty good over there.” Harold gestured toward the window, where Miss Edith’s
often-visited bordello sat.

“While I appreciate your concern for my finances, Mr. Mason, if it’s all the same to you, I prefer to do this job.” Well, not really, but it was certainly preferable to prostituting herself.

“Up to you.” He shifted a wad of tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other. “Don’t make me no never mind.”

Anna turned from him and resumed making the bed. Two more rooms. After which she had to wash all the linens, then hang them out to dry. The door clicked closed, and she eased her sore muscles as she sat on the bed. She really needed to borrow a horse and ride out to where Slug had first picked her up. Walking around the area hadn’t worked. If the ‘peace chair’ was out there, she could have missed it.

If you go back, you won’t see Wes ever again.
Her stomach clenched.

The pull to return had diminished somewhat, but as things stood, she had no life here. What was she supposed to do? Join a sewing circle, and catch herself a husband? Those were about the only options for women in this time period. Or
−as that sleazeball had pointed out−she could take job at Miss Edith’s. She shuddered, and ran her palms up and down her arms. Now if Wes Shannon was a regular customer . . .