Now and Forever (9 page)

She hadn't rowed more than three feet before she found herself sorely regretting letting her membership at the health club lapse. The wooden oars were as heavy as they were huge and a few weeks of pumping iron would have been a welcome rehearsal for the enterprise.

"Think positive," she admonished herself as she struggled to move the oars through the water with firm, even strokes. She'd already done the impossible twice today when she'd saved Zane from drowning, then dragged him upstairs and into the lighthouse. Certainly she could manage to row a measly boat across the harbor and get help.

Lowering her head, she channeled all of her concentration into the job at hand. Under normal circumstances a person could row across the harbor in fifteen minutes.

After a half-hour, even Emilie had to admit that she was getting nowhere fast. Her arms trembled from the effort and she was starting to feel lightheaded. At the rate she was going, she could row all day and all night and not see one of the usual landmarks.

But that was ridiculous. Still there had to be some reason why she was having so much trouble getting her bearings.

She stopped rowing and stared across at the shoreline she had known and loved all of her life. Where was Brower's Dockside Restaurant? The marina with the brightly colored flags waving overhead in the sea breeze? The fishermen who should have been plying their trade for hours by now?

"Don't panic," she told herself. "There has to be a simple explanation."

Maybe this wasn't Eagle Island after all and that wasn't Crosse Harbor.

Maybe she and Zane had floated down toward Cape May or up toward Long Branch.

Or maybe--

Her breath caught in her throat as she wondered why it had taken her so long to see what was right there in front of her very eyes. The water was crystalline; the sky a blue so pure and deep that it reminded her of a Disney movie. The air had the sweet fresh smell of a mountain top. Where were the signs of modern life in the late20th Century, the sludge and pollution and everpresent noise?

Her entire body jerked with the shock of realization. It couldn't be. Things like that didn't happen in real life. Peggy Sue and Marty McFly might travel through time but real people were bound by the laws of nature, not the whims of some Hollywood scriptwriter.

New strength filled her arms as she rowed back to the lighthouse, determined to unravel the mystery. She brought the rowboat into the dock then tied it to a post.

The first thing she noticed when she reached the front door was the absence of a lock. In today's world? Not very likely. The hinges were new and free from rust. She burst into the front room and headed straight toward the window seat where she'd found the dogeared copy of
Common Sense
that she had chuckled over earlier.

Her hands trembled as she opened to the first page.
Printed in the year of Our Lord 1776
.
No copyright. No reprint information. No mention of Doubleday or Simon & Schuster or McGraw Hill.

Exhilaration rocketed through her.

It was a first edition.

And it wasn't very old.

Chapter Four

This couldn't be happening. There was no rational explanation for any of it, but Emilie couldn't deny the evidence right there before her eyes.

She'd seen enough reproductions in her day to know the difference and this copy of
Common Sense
was the real thing.

She sank to the floor, her legs trembling too violently to support her weight.

No wonder Crosse Harbor had looked so different. The signs of progress had been erased as if they'd never happened.

At least, not
yet.

A wave of dizziness spiraled through her body and she lowered her head, breathing in the clean salt air. The Industrial Revolution was yet to be born. Clean air, clear water--everything the citizens of the late 20th century were struggling desperately to regain--were standard issue here.

Why on earth hadn't she realized it sooner? She lifted her head then looked slowly around the cabin, trying to absorb the enormity of it all. No telephones. No electrical wiring anywhere to be seen. Amenities like indoor plumbing and refrigeration were still the stuff of dreams. She'd sensed something was different, but her eye had seen only what it was accustomed to seeing while her imagination had filled in the blanks.

Any reasonable woman would be downright terrified to find herself catapulted back through the centuries. Fear of the unknown was one of the most basic human responses. Emilie, however, was galvanized with an almost supernatural energy that rocketed through her veins and flooded her mind with wonder.

Could it be that Fate had had something planned for her, something more dangerous and exciting than even the adventure-loving Zane Rutledge had ever known?

"Oh God," she murmured, glancing toward the man sleeping fitfully on the trundle bed by the window. He'd never believe it. No matter what evidence she paraded before him, he wasn't going to relinquish the world he knew.

Not without a fight.

Zane was a man comfortable in his own skin--and in his own time. The uncertainties and longings that had shadowed Emilie from the day she was born were alien to him. He took from life what he wanted and moved on when he'd had enough. How would he react when he found himself stripped of everything he knew and understood?

There had to be a logical answer, some combination of elements that would explain what had happened. She thought about that shimmering sense of destiny she'd experienced the first moment she saw Zane striding up the driveway.

How they had managed to end up back in the 18th century mattered less to her than why, and she knew he would never rest until he understood.

"What the--?!" He opened his eyes and tried to prop himself on his right arm.

She was at his side in an instant. "Easy. Lie back down, Zane. You broke your arm."

He fell back on the bed, breathing heavily. "I'm seeing two of you," he managed. His normally ruddy complexion seemed dangerously pale and she remembered the bloodstains on the sand.

"There's only one of me," she said, struggling to keep her tone light and upbeat. He tried to sit up but she placed a hand against his chest. "Don't."

"What happened?"

"Looks like we didn't make it to Langley Park in one piece." Or in the same century, but she'd save that nugget of information for another time.

"You...how are--?"

"A few bumps and bruises, but I'm okay. I'm afraid you took the worst of it."

"Good." Her heart turned over at that simple word.

He's in bad shape. You've got to do something!
The thought of setting his broken arm made her feel faint, but who else was there? She'd always prided herself on her knowledge of Crosse Harbor during this time period, but her mind was a blank. Until she gained her own bearings, she didn't dare risk searching for a doctor.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, leaning over him.

"Stupid," he said, wincing as he tried to shift position on the trundle bed. "Where are we?"

"The lighthouse," she said, truthfully enough.

"Where's the balloon?"

"I don't know. I woke up on the beach. You were in the water." And the balloon and gondola had both vanished without a trace.

"You saved my life?"

"I did what needed to be done."

"Remind me to thank you," he said, closing his eyes. "After I wake up...."

"Don't thank me yet, Zane," she whispered as he drifted back into sleep. Once he discovered where they were, he might not feel particularly grateful.

She'd made it through the first round of questions, but the second round was bound to be her undoing. Wait until he asked her to dial 911 or arrange for an x-ray or call his travel agent to change his flight to another day.

First things first
.
Survival was the order of the day. They needed water and they needed food. And if she could find some clean bedding and a smooth piece of wood to use as a splint she'd consider herself a very lucky woman.

She'd noticed a cellar door hidden beneath some wild strawberry vines when she was tying the rowboat to the dock after her aborted trip to the mainland. Hurrying outside, she elbowed her way past the thicket of vines and dune grass then breathed a sigh of relief.

There it was! The door was painted a dusty greyishblue, weathered only slightly by the salt air and water, and she was struck anew with the knowledge that the lighthouse was in its prime, not dilapidated and forgotten as it is
was?
now.

The hinges also were free of rust and she easily threw open the heavy door and made her way down the stone steps into the cool darkness of the cellar where, if her knowledge of colonial ways was half as good as she'd always believed, there was a better than even chance she'd locate a cache of preserved foods.

Ceramic pots of jams and preserved vegetables were lined neatly on wooden shelving, rough and unfinished, while a smoked ham hung from a hook suspended from the ceiling. It was far from an impressive display of goods but she couldn't have been happier if she'd been let loose in her local supermarket with a blank check.

"I hope you don't have a blood pressure problem, Zane," she murmured as she made her selections. Without refrigeration, most people of the late 18th century relied upon salt as a preservative. It was bound to be a shock to their modern palates but beggars couldn't be choosers.

"We'll learn to adapt," she said, wishing she had a basket to carry her bounty. "We can--" She gasped as the food went flying and she found herself pinned face first against the damp stone wall of the cellar.

"State your business fast, lass," a man hissed as he held her against the wall, "or I'll slit your pretty throat from ear to ear." He was around her height but triple her strength and she wondered if she'd survived a lightning trip through the centuries only to meet her Maker in a musty root cellar.

She considered her options, her situation, the incredible happenings of the past twenty-four hours, then she did exactly what a proper 18th century woman would have done in her position: she fainted dead away.

#

Andrew McVie was many things but a fool was not among them.

Ofttimes the enemy appeared in a comely package, designed to cloud a man's vision and lead him astray from the road he was sworn to travel.

These were dangerous times in which they lived. A wise man withheld his trust until a reason for that trust was offered.

 
But when the beautiful lass with the flaming red hair swooned at his feet, caution took second place to gentlemanly concern and he dropped his blade to the ground and sprang to her aid.

"Aye, you're a tall one," he said as he placed her on the stone bench near the door. Her shoulders were broad, her breasts rounded and full. She was a strapping woman, one a man could easily imagine warming his bed on a cold winter's night but he started in surprise as he realized she wore not the usual maidenly array of skirts, but a pair of black breeches much like his own.

If he'd seen a donkey walk like a man, he would not have been more surprised.

What manner of female was this? The cellar was bathed in shadows and he bent down to look more closely at her. No demure mobcap held back her fiery tresses; they cascaded freely about her face.

His eye was drawn to the hand at her throat and to the king's ransom he found there. On the middle finger of her right hand she wore a heavy ring of braided silver and gold while at her neck, suspended from a fine golden chain, was a most amazing glass globe that seemed to have captured all the colors of the rainbow within its depths. His gaze moved from the rise and fall of her breasts to the amazing display of wealth she carried on her person. He was uncertain which intrigued him more. He frowned as he followed the line of her limbs with his gaze. The black breeches were an affront to her womanliness. Surely she could afford to garb herself in clothing more pleasing to the eye.

He wondered if the lass might be part of the spy ring but the notion was so absurd he laughed aloud. Who would believe such nonsense? No, she was probably the wife of one of the local fishermen, who had rowed across the inlet looking to steal a few potatoes for her children's supper. Times were difficult and the good woman could not be held accountable for doing what was necessary to keep their bellies filled.