If she had thought that learning to shoot and to ride, and doing the household chores, would ease her feelings toward Jake, Laura was very much mistaken. Being with him was enough to drive her to the point of rebellion. Telling herself her growing attraction to Jake was simply the result of proximity, and certainly not love, Laura was determined during the following week to prove her assertiveness by distancing herself from Jake’s immediate presence... by getting to Sage Flats and her Jeep.
She was beginning to feel desperate, especially since she had demanded several times that he take her to the ghost town and he had put her off with one lame excuse after another. During supper on the last evening of their second week together, she decided on a little casual probing so that she could plan her escape.
“Ah … How far did you say it was to Sage Flats?” she asked offhandedly, pretending to be preoccupied sopping up her gravy with a slice of bread.
“Four, five miles or so,” Jake said every bit as offhandedly, studying her over the rim of his coffee mug. “Why?”
“Just curious,” she said, raising innocent eyes to his. “Due west, did you say?”
“Mm-hmm.” He nodded and narrowed his gaze. “As the crow flies.”
“You don’t go there often, do you?” She kept her tone neutral.
“Not if I can help it.”
“After what you told me about the place, I can’t say I blame you.” She raised her mug to her mouth to conceal the smile of satisfaction on her lips. “You did say you were going to take me in a week’s time, but you haven’t, even though I keep asking you to.” She watched him carefully Jake didn’t answer. She had not expected him to. If he thought she was in cahoots with someone in Sage Flats, he wouldn’t want to give her a chance to meet her accomplice. Well, she’d make it to town on her own. Before first light, when Jake always left his bedroll, she would sneak from the house and head out—as the crow flies.
* * * *
Laura didn’t sleep a wink, and faking it wasn’t easy—not with Jake asleep on the floor at the other end of the room. Listening to his slow, even breathing and an occasional gentle snore didn’t make it any easier.
Then, at last, when her eyelids were beginning to droop, the faint pearl-gray of predawn smeared the eastern horizon. Stifling a yawn, afraid to breathe, Laura crept from the narrow bed and stealthily pulled on her clothes. With her eyes fastened on Jake’s sleep-sprawled form, she clutched her hiking boots in one hand and her backpack in the other, poised for a tiptoeing flight. Still, she hesitated, her gaze resting on his sleep-softened face.
She wanted his mouth. The realization brought an ache to the pit of her stomach, and to other places as well.
Shaken by the depth and intensity of her feelings, she hastened to the door. It creaked. She froze. Jake slept on. She stepped into the other room, drew a deep breath, and quietly shut the door. She entered the kitchen, took the canteen from her pack, and allowed water to dribble into it. God, she hoped Jake wouldn’t wake up!
She eased out the back door and, dropping to the hard ground, quickly pulled on her boots. She scrambled up, walked to the front of the house, and set off at a brisk pace, knowing she had to put as much distance as possible between herself and the ranch before Jake awoke and found her missing. Fortune must have been smiling on her, for luckily she happened upon rutted tracks leading west at the far end of the ranch yard.
Praying the parallel tracks would lead her to town, she followed them.
Although Laura stumbled occasionally on the uneven ground, the going wasn’t too bad until the sun cleared the horizon behind her. Then it was just plain hot.
After hours that seemed more like days, her face and neck slick with sweat, her damp shirt plastered to her body, beads of salty moisture trickling between her breasts, Laura was on the point of admitting defeat. Her canteen was more than half empty, and she reasoned that if she turned back now, she might just make it back to the ranch.
Relief shivered through her, banishing all thought of giving up as, reaching the crest of a slight incline, she discerned a cluster of buildings in the distance.
Sage Flats!
Her purpose and energy renewed, she proceeded once more, only to come to an abrupt halt as she recalled the old Indian’s advice to wear the bracelet for protection. Telling herself she was being foolish, she nevertheless dug the velvet pouch from her pack and clamped the cuff to her wrist. Then, allowing herself a sip of precious water, she strode forward again.
Her steps faltered as she drew nearer to town.
Finally she came to a complete stop, her eyes wide in disbelief at the sight that lay before her.
Sage Flats, the same town that just two weeks ago had been a ramshackle, rundown skeleton, a ghost town, now showed distinct signs of activity.
A queasy, sinking sensation overcame her as Laura stared in confusion and amazement at the obviously occupied community. The buildings now appeared more substantial, if not permanent. People, primarily men, roughly attired in the garb of a bygone era, moved along the dusty street, walking close to the buildings to avoid the traffic of horsemen and horse-drawn vehicles, mostly buckboards.
How could this be? Laura’s rattled, mind demanded, when just two weeks ago .,. Was it possible that Jake was right, and it really was 1860? But then, that would mean ... time travel!
Feeling sick, Laura shook her head in denial of the proof before her eyes. Traveling through time was simply not possible, she assured herself.
Her Cherokee! She had parked the Jeep a little way outside of town. All she had to do was find it, her solid assurance of the twenty first century.
Swallowing the coppery taste of fear, she took off at a trot, skirting the town and heading for the spot where she had parked the Jeep. But when she arrived where she was sure she’d left the vehicle, there was no sign of it.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Laura sent up a fervent prayer for deliverance, then pried her eyes open again. Her prayer went unanswered. She saw only the nineteenth-century town and its scruffy residents.
Dazed and shaken, seriously beginning to question her grip on reality, Laura forced herself to walk on trembling legs into Sage Flats for a closer look at the town and its inhabitants. It was not a pretty or encouraging sight. In fact, it was plain god-awful.
The men and two women were even more disheveled than they had appeared from a distance.
Stunned, she stood to one side of the saloon, staring, staring. A sharp tug on her backpack shattered her reverie.
“Hey, little gal, what ya got in that pack?”
The sneering voice, definitely male, outraged Laura. She did not need some hick Casanova accosting her.
“None of your damned business!” she said icily, yanking the pack away as she spun to face the man. He looked every bit as oily as he sounded.
Medium in height, he was thin, bordering on skinny. His long, narrow face was pockmarked, and his hair hung lank and greasy to his shoulders. His worn, dirty clothes seemed to have been of good quality at one time. A black string tie was crumpled against his shirt. But what caught Laura’s gaze was the lethal-looking pistol holstered in the well-worn gunbelt around his waist.
“Now’s that any way for a pretty little gal to talk?”
Panic-stricken at the threat underlying his jeering voice, she glanced around, hoping to find a champion, but the few people who were within view took no notice of her predicament.
“Ain’t ya the prettiest piece I ever did see,” her tormentor said.
“Go away and leave me alone,” Laura said in a hard-won tone of authority, taking a cautious step back.
“Cain’t do that, pretty lady.” The man smiled suggestively. “I’m plannin’ on you and me havin’ some real fun.”
Fun! Certain she knew the manner of fun he meant, Laura nearly gagged. Terrified, and only vaguely aware of a tingling warmth encircling her wrist beneath the bracelet, she shook her head, clutched the pack to her chest, and took several more steps back into a narrow alley separating the saloon from the next building.
Then Laura heard the slow, muffled sound of approaching hoofbeats and Jake’s low voice behind her.
“I’m coming up alongside you. Be ready to grab my hand and mount.”
Even before he had finished speaking, Jake moved the horse forward, between Laura and her would-be attacker.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doin’?” the man snarled, as Jake heaved Laura onto the horse behind him.
“I don’t think I’m doing anything,” Jake answered, moving his hand to the butt of the special-issue weapon, strapped to his waist. “I’m doing it.”
The heat coiling her wrist intensified, but still Laura gave it scant notice. Mesmerized, she watched the man stagger toward them.
“Well, if it ain’t the two-bit rancher. Whatcha doin’ off yer land? Got somebody keepin’ an eye on that gold mine of yers?” he asked, a sneer twisting his lips.
“I should have known. It’s Fancy Frank Finnegan,” Jake murmured, his slitted eyes glued to the other man as he approached Jake’s horse.
“I know thar’s gold on your land and I aim to find it. So ya better not sleep, Wilder, ol’ boy.”
“Really?” Jake drawled cynically, keeping his gaze steady on Frank’s gun hand. “Well, I’m gonna tell you only once. Stay off my land, because if I catch you on it, you won’t live to tell about it.”
Frank’s hand moved toward his pistol, and Jake said, “Hold on,” then yelled, “Ya-hah,” and slapped the reins against the horse’s rump.
The horse leapt forward, and in the same instant, searing blue heat emanated from the turquoise stone in Laura’s bracelet and shot out in a crackling, radiating arc at Fancy Frank. With a startled cry, he backpedaled in the dirt street in a frantic attempt to get out of the way of both the animal and the whip-like tongue of sizzling turquoise fire.
Jake kept the horse at a gallop all the way back to the ranch. Hanging on for dear life, her heart thumping in time with the horse’s hooves, Laura was immune to the bouncing ride.
“Goddamn!” Jake turned to stare at her the minute he brought the horse to a shuddering stop in front of the house. “What in hell happened back there?”
Shaking, Laura gasped for breath before trying to answer. “I don’t know,” she finally managed to reply, and raised her arm to stare in fascinated amazement at the bracelet. “The Indian told me this would protect me, but—”
“I thought you said the Cherokee wasn’t a person, but a wheeled vehicle.”
“Not the Cherokee,” she said, shaking her head. “That is a vehicle. But on my way here there was an Indian with a stand by the side of the road selling hand-crafted jewelry. I bought this bracelet from him. He said it possessed magical powers. I—I didn’t believe him.”
“And now you do?” Skepticism laced his voice and stamped his face.
“I...” She shifted a quick glance from him to the bracelet then back to him. She swallowed, then blurted out, “I don’t know. After what happened back in town, and two weeks ago, after I fell into that hole, I—I just don’t know what to believe.”
“Wait a minute.” He held up his hand. “What do you mean?”
She frowned. “I don’t know how to explain it. It was so strange.” She ran a hand around the back of her neck; it came away wet with sweat, “Look, could we go inside, out of this heat? I need a drink.”
“Yeah, sure. You go on in,” he said, dismounting then turning to help her. “And sit down before you fall down again. I’ll be in as soon as I take care of the horse.”
Laura was seated dejectedly at the kitchen table, staring fixedly at the bracelet, when Jake entered through the back door.
“Is it possible, Jake?” she asked in a tremulous whisper. “I mean, what that Indian said about the bracelet having magical powers? Could something like that really be possible?”
“I don’t know, and right now I don’t much care,” Jake said in a hard-edged voice. “What I want to know is what you were doing in Sage Flats, and what you and Frank were cooking up together.”
“Cooking up?” Laura blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“You know damned well,” he shot back. “Were you giving him directions to the mine entrance?”
“No!” she cried. “I couldn’t have even if I wanted to. I don’t know where it is.” She paused, taking a shuddering breath, then rushed on. “Jake, will you think! You saw the situation when you arrived. I was terrified of that man. Besides, if I was in league with Frank, wouldn’t the bracelet have zapped you instead of him?”
“Well. . .” Jake frowned and stared into her eyes. He sighed. “I suppose so. But that doesn’t explain what you were doing there.”
Laura inhaled deeply. “I went looking for my Jeep so I could go home. But it wasn’t there. It’s disappeared.”
He gave her a searching, wary look. “Are you really who you say you are?”
“Yes, Jake,” Laura answered wearily. “I really am. Do you believe me now?”
‘‘Don’t know yet,” he muttered, turning toward the sink. “I just don’t know what to think anymore.”
She trembled, and gratefully accepted the cup of water he got her from the tap. Though it quenched her thirst, it was ineffective against the chill permeating her overheated body. She began to shake in delayed reaction to the recent shocks to her system: her tumble into the hole; her subsequent rescue and surprise at the primitive house; the sexually and emotionally tense, altogether wonderful two weeks she’d spent with Jake; and then the ultimate shock of the town and that crude bully, or gunslinger, or whatever that awful man was.
“Laura?” Jake came around the table to stand beside her. Bending, he stared into her face with concern-filled eyes. “You’re as white as a ghost. What’s wrong?”
“I’m scared,” she whispered. Panic curled through her, bringing a wail from the depths of her being. “I don’t belong here. I’m a botanist, not a pioneer! What am I going to do?”
He pulled her from her seat and into his arms. He stroked her back in a gesture meant to calm her, but it only intensified her shivers.
She raised her head from his chest to peek up at him. “Do you enjoy holding me like this?” she asked, really needing no answer, for she could feel the bulge pressing against her lower abdomen.
“Yes,” he said, meeting her wide-eyed gaze with an expression of heavy-lidded desire. “Unless you tell me no and push me away right now, I’m going to kiss you, Laura.”
She chose not to heed his warning. Instead, filled with her own desire, she boldly parted her lips in blatant and hungry invitation.
Slowly, enticingly, he lowered his head to touch his hard male lips to her soft female ones.
Never before had she felt anything quite like the riot of feelings exploding inside her. She wanted, needed, ached for... Jake. She made a moan of protest when he lifted his mouth to look down at her.
“Sparks?” he asked in a tone laden with hope.
“No,” She shook her head.
“No?” His frown was fierce.
“A raging inferno,” she confessed, parting her lips to be consumed once more.
A growl of satisfaction rumbling deep in his throat Jake lowered his mouth.
Clinging to him, returning his ardor in equal measure, she purred acceptance when he swept her off her feet and carried her into the front room, to the bed. Then, feverish with a raging desire she would not have previously believed herself capable of, she reciprocated in kind when he began to remove her clothes.
Her senses on fire, fanned by flames of need, she caressed his muscle-ridged body as he lifted her onto the narrow bed and eagerly parted her legs.
Not once did she give thought to the wantonness of her response to him, or to the fact that he was still a stranger. Entering her, possessing her, Jake didn’t feel like a stranger to her, he felt like a part of her, an integral part that had been missing all her life.
As his gliding hands learned all her curves, and his lips fed greedily on the tightening crests of her breasts, she forgot all her fears and concerns about being in the wrong time. For the moment, time stood still, as she explored the. hard angles and hair-roughened “textures of Jake’s body.
And all the while, Jake thrust into her, igniting within her a fiery tension that grew steadily until it snapped, flinging her into a world that knew no time at all.