Borrowed Time (The Witches of Mingus Mountain #2)

15. Lockett Meadow

15

LOCKETT MEADOW

Seth could immediately tell something was wrong with Devynn when he knocked at her room the next morning to fetch her for breakfast — while she would never look less than lovely to him, he also couldn’t ignore the shadows under her eyes, the way her fine skin didn’t seem to have as much color as it normally did.

“Is everything all right?” he asked her, and she only hitched her shoulders.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just tired, I guess. I didn’t sleep very well.”

Had she still been giving herself grief over the slippage in her last time-travel experiment? At dinner the night before, it had seemed to him that she’d put the incident aside, but now he couldn’t help wondering if she’d lain awake until all hours, unable to let go of what she clearly saw as a failure on her part.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t press her for details, as an elderly couple left their room right then, followed by a bellhop carrying their bags.

“Then breakfast should be just the thing,” he said, pitching his voice a little louder so their audience would know they’d been discussing something completely innocuous.

“I could definitely use some tea,” Devynn replied. “And some bacon and eggs.”

He was a little cheered by the way she brightened when she spoke of what she would like to eat, and he could tell after she’d eaten breakfast and drunk a cup of coffee that she seemed to be doing much better.

“Let’s go for a walk,” she suggested after he’d handed their waiter several coins for their meal and they’d gotten up from the table. “It’s such a pretty day outside.”

That it was. The clouds from the day before were gone, and everywhere was only bright blue sky. True, the clarity of the weather revealed that the San Francisco Peaks had received a new dusting of snow overnight, but Seth wouldn’t allow himself to worry about that. It hadn’t snowed down here in town, and that was the important thing.

They headed out of the hotel. Because the sun was so fierce, he didn’t bother to button his overcoat, and it seemed Devynn was just fine with her shawl, even though he guessed the actual temperature was only in the upper forties at best.

By some unspoken agreement, they headed toward the park. On this weekday morning, it wasn’t overly crowded, with only a few people taking advantage of the fine weather for a stroll along its gravel paths. The ducks, it seemed, didn’t mind how chilly the water must be, and splashed around at one end of the pond quacking and having what seemed to be a pretty good time.

Devynn paused not too far away from them — as much, Seth guessed, to let the noise the birds were making conceal their conversation as to watch their antics.

“This is better,” she said, although she let out a breath that was visible in the cold air, hanging like a puff of smoke before it dissipated. “But I still feel as if everyone is watching us.”

He allowed himself a glance around. One couple taking their morning constitutional had already meandered off in the direction of San Francisco Street, and the others were at the far end of the park, distant enough that he guessed they were well out of earshot.

Not that it seemed as if they were paying much attention to what he and Devynn were saying.

“I’m not so sure about that,” he said, and she gave him a tired smile.

“Maybe not right here, right now,” she allowed. “But still, everything just feels…oppressive.”

She sounded so weary, so defeated, that he couldn’t quite hold back a flash of alarm.

Surely she wasn’t giving up just because the experiment the day before hadn’t gone the way they’d planned?

“Devynn, what’s wrong? Did something happen last night?”

She tugged her cheerful flowered shawl around her a little more tightly, even as she shook her head. “Not really. Just bad dreams, I guess. But I’m letting them get to me more than I should, I suppose.”

As much as he wanted to reach over to her and pull her into his arms, he knew that wasn’t an option, not when they were standing in such a public place. And although he hated to hear her sound like this, he could guess where all this was coming from. While they needed to work together to get away from this time and this place, she must know that the means of their escape mostly rested on her. He could whisk them to Jerome without a problem, but if she couldn’t get her powers to do what they needed them to do, they’d be stuck in the past forever.

Or at least, until they aged naturally and at last caught up to 1926.

“This has been hard, I know,” he said. “And I think what you really need is to take a little break.”

She shot him a half-amused look, one eyebrow lifted slightly. “And how am I supposed to do that? It’s not like we can jump in a car and drive down to Phoenix to have a day in the sun.”

Was that something she used to do? He guessed it wouldn’t have been too hard, not with self-driving cars and all the Arizona clans apparently one big, happy family in her time. In late winter, when the cold and the snow-laden skies seemed to be far too much, it probably would be the perfect escape for Wilcoxes who needed a day of warm temperatures and sunny skies.

“Maybe not,” he allowed. “But still, you must have had your favorite places to go around town, didn’t you? Private spots where you could get away to think?”

Now she looked thoughtful. “I used to like driving up to the overlook on Mars Hill” — she pointed to a large forested hill west of downtown — “but I think it’s still too close in. My other favorite place was Lockett Meadow.”

“Where’s that?”

Her gaze moved to the snow-crested peaks of the San Francisco range. “On the other side of the mountains. It’s a gorgeous place with lots of aspens, and it’s absolutely spectacular in the summer and fall. Even now, I’m sure it must still be pretty, although the aspens must be bare by this point.”

It did sound like a good place, far enough away that they could be alone without having to worry about anyone intruding on their solitude. For all he knew, there weren’t even roads out there yet, since it sounded as though it must be fairly rough country.

“Except I have no idea how we’ll even get there,” she went on, echoing his thoughts. “Even in my time, it’s a rough dirt road, and in 1884, I’m not sure anyone has even ventured out to that spot at all except maybe some loggers and a few surveyors or whatever.”

These sorts of logistics were not the sort of thing he needed to worry about. “We don’t need roads, Devynn,” he said, and she gazed back at him for a second before comprehension dawned in her clear blue-gray eyes.

“You’re right,” she said, and this time the smile she wore looked real enough. “But we should probably go back to the hotel first.”

Yes, that was true. He had a feeling that even the disinterested couple on the other side of the park might be startled by having the two of them disappear into thin air.

He looped his arm in Devynn’s.

“Let’s go.”

As she’d said, this place seemed so far removed from bustling Flagstaff that it might as well be on the other side of the planet. They’d gone back to his hotel room, and she’d taken up a pen and paper provided for guests’ use and sketched out a quick picture of the meadow and the peaks above it, ones that looked very different when viewed from this entirely new angle.

And now they stood here, with everything utterly silent except the faint sigh of the wind in the pines and the cry of a hawk far off to the west.

“It is beautiful,” he said, gaze sweeping over the aspens, elegant and slim, the naked branches creating their own intricate patterns.

“Told you so,” Devynn replied, a twinkle in her eye. She seemed much more cheerful now, as though being away from all those watching eyes in Flagstaff had given her an immediate lift to her spirits. “Like I said, it’s amazing in the fall, and also in the summer when everything is green. But it’s still balm for the soul even when it’s like this.”

A fallen log lay on the forest floor a few feet away from where they stood, and he took her hand and led her over there so they could both sit down. This time, she wore a dark green cloak over her wool gown, since she’d told him the elevation in the meadow was a good deal higher than it was in town, and that it might be colder there.

Words that were proven true as soon as they appeared in the meadow, since the air had more bite to it and small patches of unmelted snow lingered under the pines. But because she had on that cloak, Seth knew she wouldn’t have to worry about any dirt or sap from the tree possibly soiling her dress.

Almost as soon as they were seated, her gloved hand went in his. “This feels much better. I’m sorry I was so cranky earlier.”

“I don’t know about ‘cranky,’” he said. After all, he’d been around his cousin Helen’s kids when they were toddlers, so he knew all about crankiness. No, Devynn had just seemed tired and maybe a little out of sorts, which was to be expected if she really hadn’t slept well. “This has all been hard for you, I know.”

Her shoulders moved slightly. “I’d think it would be harder for you. We’re in enemy territory, after all.”

Seth supposed that was true, although — well, with Samuel excepted — he found it hard to think of Flagstaff in those terms. Not now, after the help Jeremiah had given them…and after he’d realized that while the Wilcoxes might be in a position of power here, they certainly didn’t make up the majority of the town’s residents or even run things.

No, it was a normal enough place, not the citadel of black magic he’d once imagined.

“I don’t know if I can call it that,” he replied. “Jeremiah’s been pretty friendly. And even the rest of them don’t seem too bad.”

“Except for a certain someone who will remain nameless,” Devynn remarked. Now her eyes had that teasing glint in them he loved so much, and she seemed far more like herself.

Yes, getting away appeared to have been a very good idea.

“Except for him,” Seth echoed, and knew he smiled a little, too. Out here, Samuel Wilcox seemed like a bad memory and not much more.

And Devynn was so beautiful, sitting there with the morning sunlight catching gleams of copper and gold in her warm brown hair, that the only thing Seth could do was lean over and kiss her.

How sweet she was, like the strawberry preserves she’d spread on her toast at breakfast earlier. Her mouth opened to his, and he tasted her, the kiss deepening even as his arms stole around her corseted waist so he could pull her close.

His body told him he wanted much more than this kiss, and if it had been high summer with a warm sun blazing down on them, he might have dared to unbutton her tight-fitting bodice to see what lay underneath.

Now, though, the air was much too chilly for those sorts of intimacies, and he knew he would have to settle for hoping for warmer days and better times.

When they parted, her breath came more quickly and warm color burned in her cheekbones. However, she didn’t look away as women of this time might have after sharing those sorts of intimacies, and instead she said, “Right now I really wish we were back in Jerome. A warm summer afternoon in your bedroom….”

She let the words trail off, but he understood what she meant. To fall on the feather mattress, to feel her lithe body under him, unencumbered by the bulky gown she now wore?

Yes, that would be a little piece of heaven.

“Maybe we will be soon enough,” he replied, and something of the light went out of her eyes.

“If I can manage it.”

“You will,” he assured her. She didn’t have her power completely under control yet, but he had to believe she would in time.

How much time was the real problem.

Her lips pursed, and she glanced away from him. To see what, he didn’t know; he could tell they were utterly alone here, with their mere presence enough to keep away any deer or coyotes or foxes who might be roaming nearby.

“And if I can manage it, we still don’t know exactly when we’re going.”

Although her tone sounded neutral enough, he could tell she was troubled.

Bad dreams might have kept her awake last night, but he’d been equally wakeful, if for an entirely different reason. No, he’d spent some of the dark watches of the night wrestling with their situation, brooding over their conversations about traveling in time and all the various pitfalls involved.

And he’d come to a decision. One she’d probably want to challenge, but he knew he wouldn’t change his position on the subject no matter what she said.

He took her hand again, his fingers pressing against hers, hoping his touch would be enough to reassure her that he was making the right choice.

“Yes, we do,” he said calmly. “We’ll go to your time.”

Startled, she stared back at him with widened eyes. “You can’t really mean that.”

“I do mean it,” he said, even as he hoped the firmness and sureness of his tone would be enough to convince her that he wasn’t just saying this in a bid to please her. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think you were right when you said there are a lot more complications involved when a person from the future travels into the past rather than vice versa. If you come to stay in 1926, then there’ll always be a chance that your knowledge of the future will somehow meddle with the timeline, even if you didn’t mean for it to. Whereas there’s nothing I can bring with me that can change the future, because everything I would know about has already happened.”

Devynn didn’t reply right away. However, she continued to hold his hand, which seemed to be an indication that she was carefully considering his words rather than rejecting them at once out of principle.

Then she said in a low tone, “Do you even know what you’d be giving up?”

He had to chuckle there, although he tried to keep any bitterness out of the sound. “My family. That part will be hard. But the rest?” He paused, then forged on. “There isn’t that much. I thought I had a career, but the whole bootlegging mess with Charles effectively ruined that. Everything I was building at the mine was gone anyway, and I was going to be back working the counter at the store. And even” — he had to stop again, because he found his voice going thick with emotion, and he didn’t want anything he was saying to dissuade Devynn from this necessary course of action — “and even not being around my family won’t be as hard as it could be otherwise. Going into the future, I’ll at least know what happened to them. If we go to my time, then you’ll never know anything about your family and friends.”

Her lips pressed together, and he got the impression she was holding back all the things she wanted to say, partly out of respect for him and the position he had taken…and partly because she understood deep down that she wasn’t about to change his mind.

“Besides,” he went on, deliberately lightening his tone, “I’ve always wanted to see the future. That’s why I loved reading books by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and why I borrowed those science fiction magazines from my cousin Freddie once he was done reading them. It might have seemed as if I was always focused on here and now, on the clan and my job and all that, but one part of me was always looking forward.”

For the longest moment, Devynn only stared at him. In her clear eyes, he could see a reflection of the slim trees around them, the unwavering blue of the sky.

“I love you, Seth McAllister,” she said simply.

“And I love you, Devynn Rowe,” he replied. “And I’ll be with you in the twenty-first century or 1926 or in a castle in the Middle Ages. That we’re together is the important thing.”

Their mouths met again, this time with an almost dizzying intensity.

Or maybe it was merely the realization that no one else in the world could ever be like her, and that he should be down on his knees thanking the goddess Brigid or whatever forces might be at work in the world that somehow, against all odds, she’d come into his life.

It didn’t matter how long that kiss lasted, since they were utterly alone here, finally given the privacy they’d been craving for the past week. Even when it was over, they clung to each other for another eternity, this time with her head pillowed on his shoulder, as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to break their contact.

Which was fine. He would be here for her just as long as she needed.

When she finally shifted, though, moving so she could look into his face again, her eyes had that dancing light in them again.

“I’m pretty sure the plumbing in castles is even worse than what we’ve got here.”

He had no doubt of that, since he was pretty sure castles hadn’t had any plumbing at all. “Which is why I’m looking forward to your century. Self-driving cars and central air conditioning…”

“…and tankless water heaters and jets that can fly us to Europe,” she finished.

Seth had no idea what a jet was, although he assumed it must be some kind of airplane. “We don’t need a jet,” he reminded her, and she smiled.

“Right.” She paused there and tilted a curious look up at him. “Do you know how far you can travel with your ability?”

Good question. Although he’d been tempted once or twice to look at a picture in a book of Venice or Buckingham Palace and try translocating there, he’d always worried about what would happen if he couldn’t manage to blink himself back home.

Or worse, have his talent come up short and drop him in the middle of the Atlantic ocean to drown.

“The farthest I’ve gone is a couple hundred miles, down to the Phoenix area,” he said. “I haven’t tried anything much more than that. Even if I were able to send us all the way to Europe, wouldn’t there be a problem going into a strange clan’s territory?”

Her expression grew subdued, and he realized she hadn’t stopped to think about that part of the situation. “Maybe,” she allowed. “I got so carried away, I kind of forgot that maybe the French or Italian or whatever other witch clans out there might have an issue with us suddenly popping up in their territory. But still, there are a million other things that make living in the twenty-first century a lot easier than you could possibly imagine.”

“And no Prohibition,” he joked. True, he didn’t have to worry about that here, either, but there were a lot of other reasons why he’d prefer to limit his time in the 1880s.

“None at all,” Devynn said, clearly opting to take his words at face value. “In fact, there are wineries all over the Verde Valley, and they make some really good wine — it wins tons of awards at national and even international competitions. You’d need more than a week to visit them all.”

The picture she was painting was so appealing, it felt as though he could practically see it in his mind’s eye. Was it too rosy?

Well, he supposed he’d find out for himself once he got there.

“I’d like to visit them with you,” he said. “I want to see what my corner of the world is like in your century.”

Her fingers tightened on his. “I think you’ll recognize a lot of it. People have worked hard to preserve the historic charm in places like Jerome and Clarkdale and downtown Cottonwood. But it’s much more populated, with lots of new housing tracts and shopping centers.”

“‘Shopping centers’?” he repeated, and she smiled.

“Places that are built on purpose to have lots of stores and other businesses clustered together so it’s easier to run a bunch of errands at once. Most of them have grocery stores or drugstores, and then maybe a pet store or a nail salon — ”

Clearly, he was going to have a lot to learn about the twenty-first century. “You have special salons just to do your nails?” he asked. Although he’d heard of nail polish — and his cousin Tilly had caused quite the scandal when she ordered some from New York, which her mother had promptly thrown away, saying that nice girls didn’t wear such things — it certainly wasn’t common where he came from.

Now Devynn grinned. “Oh, you sweet summer child.”

Before he could puzzle that one out — true, he’d been born in July, and yet he didn’t think she was referring to his actual birthday — she continued.

“Yes, women go to salons to have their nails done. In all sorts of crazy colors and patterns, so try not to stare when you get there.”

Well, he supposed there would be plenty of other things to stare at in the twenty-first century, and that meant he could probably avoid paying any undue attention to women’s fingernails.

“Did you get yours done?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“Not most of the time,” she said. “For special occasions, sure. I did them myself if I wanted to have polish on.”

“You weren’t wearing any when I found you.” At least, he thought her nails had been bare at the time.

“No, I’d taken it off a few days earlier. Good thing, I suppose. I wouldn’t have wanted you to think I was a tart.”

Because he could tell she was joking, he only smiled. “I would never think that.”

Devynn leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Good to know.”

Then she got up from the log where they’d been sitting and brushed at her skirts. “Do you want to explore a bit? The going shouldn’t be too rough around here as long as we don’t stray too far from this clearing.”

Seth thought he would have preferred to remain sitting next to her, although he had to admit that log wasn’t the most comfortable seat in the world.

But they’d kissed several times, and had hashed out a few issues that had been weighing on his mind. If she still secretly thought he was making a mistake, he knew she wouldn’t argue with him, not when his mind was clearly made up.

So he rose as well, and took her hand in his once again.

“Yes, let’s explore.”