Chapter 5
Kim
"You don’t have to come with me," Cade mutters, as we take to the trail that leads towards the nearby forest.
"I know I don’t have to," I reply, as I push a hand through my hair, sweeping my hands down my new dress to make sure it’s sitting right. "I want to, though."
I can tell Cade isn’t exactly convinced, but he knows better than to argue with me. I could see the guilt in his eyes when I woke up early to find him sneaking out of the bed before I so much as woke up, even though I did everything I could to convince him he had nothing to be sorry for.
Truth be told, I’m the one who’s sorry. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, letting myself get drawn into him like that, when I know that I’ll be little more than a passing novelty to a man like him.
I only have to think back to his reaction when he saw me on the side of the road, the way Lucy had to make a case for me to come back with them at all, to understand that.
I’m not crazy – I can see what’s right in front of me.
And I can see that I mean little more to him that Colton did back in the twenty-first century. Guess that’s just the effect I have on men, drawing them in and then pushing them away. I’m not the kind of girl who can lock someone down, even for a night, without their eye straying.
Better that I put it behind me, put the memory of his hands in my hair to the back of my mind, and figure out what the hell I am going to do here now that I’ve been dumped in another time and place.
He’s been doing his level best to avoid me the last couple of days, and I’m fine with that. I’m happy to let him keep his distance, it’s easier for me that way, too. Lucy seems oblivious to what has happened between us, chatting away with me happily about whatever’s on her mind.
I’m grateful that she’s not trying to push for anything more.
I get the sense that she’d be happy to set us up together if she thought that there was any interest, and I don’t have it in me to fight her on that.
He’s made himself clear, and the best I can do is listen to him and move the hell on with whatever my life is going to look like here.
When I overheard him telling Lucy that he was going to visit his brother and his wife, Riley, something in me perked up – Riley sounds like a pretty modern name to me, and I want to know if she might be able to shed some light on what happened to me to bring me here in the first place.
So, I’ve invited myself along for this walk into the woods, and I’m not about to take no for an answer.
Despite the fact that Cade put as much distance between us as he could before I so much as woke up the day before, after we had spent the night together – which he hasn’t bothered to explain to me, not that I probably should expect an explanation.
I can’t imagine that the rules of courtship here make any more sense than they did back where – and when – I came from, and I am not going to twist myself up into knots trying to make sense of it. No, I have to figure out what I am going to do about the fact I am here at all...
"So where exactly does your brother live?" I ask, as we move between the trees. There isn’t much of a path that I can make out, but it doesn’t seem to slow him down.
"In a cabin, in the woods."
"Why doesn’t he live with you and Lucy?" I wonder aloud. I can tell at once that my words have struck a nerve with him.
"Long story."
"I’ve got time-"
"I don’t want to get into it."
His voice leaves little room for argument, and I figure the best I can do right now is drop it. There are things he seems willing to share and things he doesn’t.
And besides, I’ve only just appeared in his life, the two of us barely know one another – I need to respect that a man like him is hardly likely to be willing to open up to me, not with the society he’s been raised in likely warning him to keep his feelings to himself at every turn.
So, as we walk through the woods, I try to make conversation about other things – about his niece, Harriet, about how much he adores her, how much he wishes his mother could have been around to meet her.
There’s a low pang in his voice when he speaks about her and it’s clear that the pain of her passing still hangs heavy over his head.
I wish there was something I could do to lift it, but, since the passing of my own parents in my teens, I know that it’s not the kind of thing you can just brush off like that.
Soon enough, we reach the cabin – or, at least, what I think is the cabin. There are two buildings out here in the small clearing in the woods, one that looks like a home, with smoke rising from a small chimney stack, and the other more like a hall or meeting place of some sort.
But before I can ask him what’s going on out here, a woman emerges from the smaller of the two buildings, a baby in her arms and a smile on his face.
"Cade, there you are!” she greets him warmly, and her gaze darts over to me. "Who’s this...?”
"I’m Kim," I introduce myself, glancing at Cade to make sure I haven’t overstepped anything.
"You must be new, Kim," Riley replies. "Haven’t heard anything about you before..."
"I just got here," I admit, and, as she eyes me, I see a flicker of something close to recognition in her face.
"I was just going to organize some stuff in the retreat," she remarks, jerking her head towards the other building. "Cade, your brother’s waiting inside – why don’t you take Harriet for me...?”
Cade seems glad to take the little girl into his arms, and he heads inside as Riley approaches me, steering me towards the large building behind us.
"So, you just got here, huh?" she remarks softly, as she opens the door and steps inside.
"Mhm," I reply, suddenly clamming up a little. How exactly do I tell this woman what happened to me, without sounding like I’ve completely lost the plot?
Hey, by the way, I magicked here across centuries with no explanation and no reason. Do you know anywhere good for dinner?
"You know," she continues, as she starts to arrange a few chairs in the large, airy space, which is lined with windows at either side. "I came here at...short notice, too. Kind of a shock, if I’m being honest. It’s not what I was planning, not by a long shot. But..."
She casts a gaze towards the house, and her face softens.
"But I met my husband," she explains. "And I saw that there was a whole lot of room for change in this place, you know? Not just for myself, but for other people. There are things that I learned before I came here, stuff that I brought to this place that I would never have had the chance to really use before. Skills that I can use to make people’s lives better. .."
She gestures around.
"Like this place," she explains. "A little mindfulness retreat, somewhere people can come when they need space to clear their minds and connect with their peace again..."
She gives me a look out of the corner of her eye, and I can tell she’s checking to see if I have clocked her use of such modern words. We might not be saying it out loud specifically, but both of us know what she’s saying.
And her words make some kind of sense to me. There’s so much that I could bring to this place – so much knowledge, so much learning, so much opportunity, if I play my cards right.
What was it he was saying to me earlier about the girls not getting education around these parts? Maybe I could change that. If Riley has managed to make a life here, there’s a chance I could, too...
"You think there might be room for...for other people to help out here?" I ask hopefully. A little glimmer shimmers inside my chest, of hope, of something that actually feels like roots being thrust down into the earth below me.
She grins.
"Look, I don’t know where you came from," Riley admits. "Or how you got here, or even if you want to stay. But as long as you’re here...as long as you’re here, we could use someone to help out. What exactly is it you...did, back where you came from?”
"I taught. I was a teacher."
Her face lights up, and she clasps her hands together, shooting a look back towards the house.
"That’s amazing," she tells me, lowering her voice as she leans forward. "Ever since I had my daughter, I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to be able to provide her an education, you know – not just giving her all the skills she needs to get by, God knows her father can handle that, but..."
She pauses for a moment, considering how best to put it.
"But to show her that there’s more to her than this world might have her believe," she explains, gesturing around. "As a woman, I mean. I don’t want her to feel limited by this place. Shit, I don’t want that for anyone."
Her grin broadens.
"And best way to dodge that is with a real education, right?"
Warmth blossoms inside of me at her words.
She’s right. My experience with English Literature might not exactly be what this place needs, but it’s something – it's a way to give these girls the language they need to get by, to understand this world a little better, maybe buck against their place in it a little. There’s change to be made here, and I might be the one with the tools to make it happen.
"Right," I agree. And, even though that one little word might not sound like much – to me, it contains multitudes.