Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Light.
Faint and distant, but real. A flicker of gold against the endless white appeared.
Fiona lifted her head. The effort took everything she had. Her neck muscles screamed. Her vision swam, dark spots blooming at the edges.
The light wavered, small as a candle flame, impossibly far away.
Jamie.
The thought cut through the fog in her mind. That light meant shelter. Shelter meant people. People meant Jamie might be there.
She had to reach it.
Her body refused to obey. The cold worked so deep she couldn’t feel most of herself anymore, but she forced her hands into the snow, shifted her knees forward, crawled.
One movement. Then another.
“Jamie.” The wind swallowed his name.
She crawled. Snow bit into her palms and knees, each point of contact a separate agony. The nightgown dragged, soaked and heavy, the wet fabric clinging to her thighs. Rhett’s coat snagged on a rock. She yanked it free and kept going.
The light grew marginally larger. Still distant. Still impossibly far.
But there.
She fixed her eyes on it. Every few yards, she whispered his name, the repetition turning into prayer, apology, chant, promise. Her arms shook. Her vision narrowed until the world held only one thing that mattered.
Jamie.
Time meant nothing. She might have crawled for minutes or hours. The light grew until she could make out a low dark shape behind it. A building.
Hope flared, sharp enough to hurt.
She crawled faster, breath breaking in short gasps. The building resolved into logs chinked with mud, a stone chimney trailing smoke into the wind.
A corral stretched beside it. Dark shapes moved within, horses shifting and snorting. One lifted its head, ears angling toward her.
She reached the fence, and her strength gave out. Her arms buckled. She hit hard, cheek pressed to frozen wood, splinters catching on her skin.
The horses stepped closer, curious. One blew softly, breath misting in the cold. Another pawed the ground.
Fiona tried to push herself up. Failed. Tried again. Her arms wouldn’t hold.
A horse nickered loudly.
The door flew open.
A man burst out, rifle raised, his bulk filling the doorway. He scanned the corral, then the field beyond, searching for wolves or raiders or whatever danger threatened his herd.
His gaze found her. “Christ almighty.”
He dropped to his knees beside her, hands hovering over her shoulders, uncertain where to touch. Up close, he was younger than she expected—thirty maybe—with a strong jaw and dark hair pushed back under a worn hat. Stubble shadowed his cheeks.
“Ma’am? You hurt?”
She tried to speak. Couldn’t. Her throat had sealed shut.
His hands steadied on her shoulders, grip firm but careful. “Can you stand?”
She shook her head. Even that small movement drained her.
“All right. I’ve got you.”
He lifted her easily, one arm beneath her knees, the other supporting her back, and carried her toward the door. “Jeffers! Feed the fire!”
Warmth hit like knives, stabbing into her frozen skin. She jerked back with a strangled sound, every nerve ending screaming as blood tried to return to places it had abandoned.
“I know it hurts,” he said, voice calm. He kicked the door shut behind them, sealing out the wind. “It’ll pass.”
The interior was small and dim, thick with smoke and the smell of leather and men and old coffee.
A stove crackled in the corner, its heat spreading through the room in waves.
Two men stood near it, both young, both staring with expressions caught between alarm and curiosity.
One, presumably Jeffers, fed fresh logs to the flames.
Orange light spilled across rough wooden walls.
On a cot pushed close to the stove, bundled in what looked like every coat they owned—
“Jamie!” The cry ripped from her throat. She lurched out of the man’s arms, stumbled, and dropped to her knees beside the cot. Pain shot through her kneecaps, but she didn’t care.
He was warm. Breathing. Alive.
Relief shattered her. Sobs broke free, harsh and unstoppable, wrenched from somewhere deep in her chest. She buried her face in his hair, her whole body shaking with something more than cold. His hair smelled like smoke and boy-sweat.
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you. Mommy’s here.”
Jamie stirred, confused and groggy. “Mom?”
“Yes, baby. It’s me.” Her voice broke on the words.
“The Christmas card with Rhett’s picture took me here.”
“I know. Go back to sleep. It’s going to be okay.” He burrowed against her, his small body fitting perfectly against hers, the way it had since he was born. Within seconds, his breathing evened again, soft puffs of air against her collarbone.
She held him tighter, one hand cupping the back of his head, the other around his shoulders. Her tears soaked his hair, hot against frozen skin, but she couldn’t stop them. He was safe. He was alive. She’d found him.
Even if they were in 1878.
A blanket settled across her shoulders, the wool rough and scratchy. The man crouched beside her, expression somber.
“You need to warm up slow or you’ll go into shock.”
She nodded, unable to speak past the thickness in her throat.
“I’m Holden Reed. Those two are Jeffers and Skeet.” He gestured to the others, who turned back to the fire, giving them a semblance of privacy. “This is our winter line shack.”
She managed another nod. Her throat refused to work. Her lungs burned as they thawed, each inhale like swallowing glass.
Holden rose and crossed to the stove, returning with a tin cup. Steam rose from the liquid inside. “Coffee. Take it slow.”
She took the cup with trembling hands, wrapped both around the warm metal. The liquid scalded her tongue, but she didn’t care. Heat spread down her throat, into her chest, loosening the knot that had formed there. She took another sip, then another, feeling warmth bloom in her stomach.
“Thank you.” Her voice came rough, barely above a whisper. “Thank you for finding him.”
“He wandered in about two hours ago. Barely conscious. We got him warmed up, figured someone would come looking.” Holden’s gaze moved over her and the nightgown, Rhett’s coat, her bare feet.
Cataloguing details with the methodical attention of someone used to reading tracks.
“Didn’t expect his mother to come dressed like that. ”
She glanced down. The nightgown hung torn and filthy, the hem black with mud and snow, ripped in places she didn’t remember tearing. Rhett’s coat gaped open, revealing too much. Her feet were blue-white, beginning to pink as blood returned, each toe outlined in pain.
She pulled the coat closed with one hand, still holding Jamie with the other. The wool scratched her throat where she clutched it.
The motion knocked something loose from the cot. Jamie’s wooden top clattered to the floor, spun once, and toppled.
Holden bent to pick it up. He straightened slowly, the toy balanced in his palm. His whole body went still, shoulders tensing.
“Where did you get this?”
The sharp edge in his voice made Jeffers and Skeet look up from the fire.
“It’s my son’s.”
“Where’d he get it?”
Her thoughts stumbled. Should she mention Rhett? Were these men his friends…or foes? Cowboys could be anything out here. Partners. Enemies. The cold had slowed her brain, but instinct kicked in.
Holden touched the coat she wore. His expression changed, unreadable. “This is Rhett’s coat. And this”—he held up the top—“this is Rhett Kelsey’s carving.”
The other men stepped closer, boots against wooden planks. Fiona’s pulse quickened, a new kind of fear layering over exhaustion.
“Rhett went missing on Tuesday,” Holden said. “Middle of the day while we were out with the cattle. He was guarding the remuda.” His gaze locked on hers, searching. “How did you get his coat?”
Her mind raced for words that wouldn’t sound impossible. There weren’t any. Every explanation led to questions she couldn’t answer. “He gave it to me.”
Holden blinked. “Gave it to you?”
“Yes.” Her throat ached with the lie that wasn’t quite a lie.
“You’re from Evergreen Springs, then?”
She nodded. One hundred forty-seven years in the future. “Yes.”
His gaze shifted toward Jamie. His expression tightened, a crease forming between his brows. He reached out and brushed Jamie’s sleeve, frowning at the fabric, rubbing it between his fingers like he’d never felt anything like it.
Fiona tensed, clutching Jamie close, positioning herself between the boy and Holden’s reaching hand. “What are you doing?”
He dropped his hand but kept looking, eyes narrowed with concentration. “That cloth—“
“It’s just pajamas.”
Holden looked from the boy to her, calculating. “What kind of cloth is that?”
Her mind kicked into overdrive. He didn’t recognize polyester. There wasn’t an explanation that wouldn’t sound strange, wouldn’t open doors she couldn’t close. Every answer was a trap that would spring more questions. Keep it short. Keep it simple. Don’t feed the questions.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Holden studied the sleeve again, tilting his head. The firelight caught on the fabric, making the blue shimmer in a way cotton never did. “Where’d you buy something like that?”
Fiona’s arms tightened around her son, feeling his ribs expand and contract with each sleeping breath. The question wasn’t harmless. Synthetic fabric. Modern dyes. Elastic waistbands.
She met his eyes. “Why do you want to know?”
His brows lifted, surprised she challenged him. A flicker of something crossed his face—respect maybe, or reassessment. “Just never seen colors hold like that.”
She kept watching him, measuring his tone and intent. Nothing overtly threatening in his posture, but he was leaning forward slightly, weight on the balls of his feet. Ready to move. He studied them like a puzzle he meant to solve.
The warmth and the coffee steadied her hands, but not the new kind of cold sliding under her skin. Three men. All armed. All looking at her like an enigma that didn’t fit their understanding of the world.
She catalogued details with the same care she’d learned as a single mother. Which men watched too long, which doors had exits, which situations could turn.
The knife on Jeffers’s belt, worn handle polished from use. The way Skeet kept glancing at her and then looking away, like she made him nervous.
Holden’s hand near his gun when he shifted his stance, fingers brushing the grip before dropping away. He wasn’t threatening her, but he could if he wanted. Any of them could.
She was alone. Unarmed. Barely able to stand. She tugged Rhett’s coat tighter, the hem brushing her bare feet, still numb enough that she couldn’t feel individual toes.
Running wasn’t an option, not in this condition, not with Jamie barely conscious. Fighting wasn’t either. She’d never win against three armed cowboys who worked cattle and knew how to handle trouble.
She would stay small. Stay polite. Keep Jamie between her and the wall where they’d be harder to separate. Answer only what she had to. And try to figure out a way to get back home before these men’s curiosity turned into something worse.