Chapter 3
Chapter Three
A cowboy stood in her kitchen.
Six feet and then some of man, his boots planted on the tile floor she scrubbed last night because she couldn’t sleep.
Dark blond hair that needed cutting fell past his collar in waves. Broad shoulders filled out a canvas coat that had seen better decades.
Everything about him radiated solid presence, from his worn leather vest to the way he held himself, alert but calm, like a man used to reading danger.
Her heart slammed so hard her vision pulsed with each beat. The rush of blood in her ears competed with the impossible truth.
Rhett Kelsey, circa 1878, had answered her desperate plea.
It was true. All of it. Cowboys from 1878 who time traveled through Christmas cards. Eliza hadn’t been drunk. Tessa hadn’t been lying.
Dear heavens, what had she done?
Jamie bolted upright in her lap. His eyes rounded, thumb sliding into his mouth, a habit she thought they had broken last year.
The storm inside him vanished as if someone threw a switch. The thrashing stopped. The screaming cut off mid-wail. Silence rushed in to fill the space his anguish had occupied.
His gaze fixed on the stranger, lips parted, stunned into absolute stillness.
The quiet rang louder than all the screaming. Her apartment seemed different with it, larger somehow, or perhaps smaller. She couldn’t tell.
Rhett crept close, then crouched in front of Jamie and pressed one knee to the tile. He scanned the wreckage of her kitchen, and she viewed it through fresh eyes.
Scattered ornaments glittered like broken promises across the floor. The toppled chair from Jamie’s initial resistance. Christmas decorations strewn everywhere from her desperate searching.
Her, in her nightie on the floor with hair sleep-mussed. She must appear unhinged. A disaster of a woman who couldn’t even calm her own child.
He flicked his attention back to Jamie. From his vest pocket, he withdrew a small wooden top. He balanced it on the floor, then wrapped a string around its middle. One smooth tug set it spinning.
The gentle whir filled her kitchen, a sound from another century.
Jamie gasped. His thumb slid free of his mouth with a soft pop, and he leaned forward, eyes locked on the toy.
The top whirred across the floor in perfect circles, its passage creating a gentle hum that seemed to reach deep into her son’s overwhelmed nervous system.
Fiona caught her breath, afraid to move, afraid to break whatever spell was being woven.
Jamie had never gone from storm to stillness this fast. Often, the aftermath of a meltdown left him limp and unresponsive for hours, lost in recovery. But now he stared with rapt attention, his breathing already evening out.
The top slowed, wobbled, and tipped forward, falling.
Rhett captured it in his palm, wrapped the string around it in three quick loops, and sent the top spinning again. No words. No rush. Just patient repetition.
Jamie crawled closer, transfixed. Tentative at first, then more confident when Rhett didn’t react except to adjust his position, maintaining that careful distance that said I’m here but not threatening.
A laugh bubbled from her son. Not hysteria, not mania, but genuine delight at the spinning toy.
Fiona splayed her palm over her mouth, pressing hard to hold back the sob building in her chest.
“Would you like to try?” Rhett’s voice held a slight rasp as if he hadn’t used it in a while.
Jamie nodded.
She bit down on her bottom lip, her muscles coiled to act at the first whiff of danger.
Her son’s fine motor skills weren’t exceptional on the best of days, and after a meltdown, his hands might shake for hours. He would get frustrated and trigger another episode.
But Rhett was already showing him, those work-worn hands gentle. “You hold it like this.” He demonstrated the grip. “And then pull the string.”
Jamie held out his palm, and Rhett set the top in it. The size difference between their hands was startling, Rhett’s weathered and capable, Jamie’s still chubby with childhood.
Her son tried to spin it, but he yanked the string too fast and the top just toppled over, clattering against the tile.
Jamie grunted and scowled, his face scrunching in frustration.
She fisted her hands on her knees to keep herself from taking over, from swooping in with here, let Mommy help like she often did.
“Try it again.” Rhett nodded, encouraging but not pushing.
Jamie tried again, tongue poking out in concentration. This time the top made two circles before falling.
Rhett showed him how to wind the string, those patient hands guiding him. “Again.”
Jamie did. This time the top spun across the floor in widening circles, the whir filling the kitchen with its simple song. Jamie squealed with joy.
“It’s yours to keep,” Rhett said.
Jamie hugged the top to his chest, rocking back on his heels, and giggled. Pure sunshine breaking through storm clouds.
Fiona pressed her back against the cabinet, her knees weak with a relief so profound it hurt. She carried the weight of Jamie’s meltdown in every muscle, and now it released at once, leaving her wrung out.
Jamie sat cross-legged. Trails of tear salt on his cheeks, but his breathing was even, his shoulders loose. The transformation was complete, from chaos to calm, from storm to peace.
Her throat worked, trying to form words around the impossibility of it all. “I didn’t mean…I shouldn’t have called you. You don’t belong here.”
Rhett turned his head, giving Jamie a moment to adjust to losing his attention.
When his eyes locked on hers, she realized they weren’t the icy blue tones from the painting but a darker ocean blue. Like they knew too much and kept it all filed away behind careful walls.
* * *
Rhett pushed to his feet, his knees stiff from crouching too long. He reached for the counter and pulled himself up.
His ears kept popping, pressure building and breaking like he scaled a mountain in time. Even gravity felt off. Not much, just enough wobble in his boots, like the ground wanted his steps shorter or longer.
His gut rolled.
The woman who called his name and dragged him through… what? Space? Distance?… sat on the floor, pale legs folded under her, hair wild as if she’d risen straight from bed to battle.
Not a saloon girl painted up to please. Not a prairie wife in a stained apron. Something new, bare and unguarded in a way that hit harder than any ribbon or lace. The thin fabric clung, reckless of how much it revealed. She didn’t seem to care, too intent on protecting her boy.
She was tired, he saw that plain. Tired, but fierce. And beautiful. Beautiful in a way that knocked the breath from his chest. Beauty burnished by fight, by care, by truth no one could sand down. He couldn’t stop staring.
“I didn’t mean— I shouldn’t have called you. You don’t belong here.”
He glanced around. “Where are we?”
“Evergreen Springs. Montana.”
The closest town to the camp shack, but a lot of things weren’t right. Like this room filled with blazing light. He walked to the window and peered out. Buildings outside rose higher than any timber frame he ever saw. Roads smooth and black. No lantern smoke, no wagon tracks cutting through mud.
Rhett turned back.
She watched him with wary eyes.
“When are we?”
“December sixteenth. Twenty-twenty-five.”
2025?
The number made no sense. A hundred and forty-seven years in the future? No. No. It couldn’t be. But everything around him laid the truth bare. He was out of step, out of time, slammed down in a whole new world.
He glanced down, saw a card lying on the floor. He bent to pick it up and lost his breath. His own likeness stared back. Him, leaning against the shack, mountains rising behind. Across the top, in faded red script: Merry Christmas.
The brushstrokes, the shadow work. He knew them. “Jeb. Jeb Ortega painted this.”
Her eyes narrowed on him like looking down a rifle sight. “You know the man who painted it?”
“Yeah. Peculiar fellow. Rode with our outfit on occasion. Always sketching when he ought to’ve been eating or sleeping.” Rhett turned the card over. Brown ink spelled out his name in a hand that wasn’t his.
The boy sat cross-legged, spinning the wooden top Rhett gave him. The repetitive whir, the small hum, mesmerized him.
The woman got up, tied her robe tight around her. “I’m Fiona Walker.”
Fiona. A lovely name. It suited her. Soft and pale.
“Rhett Kelsey.”
She waved at the painting. “I know. From the card. And this is my son, Jamie.”
The boy paid them no mind, counting under his breath, each spin of the top a number in his tally. Silence stretched. Not comfortable. Not hostile. Just full of everything neither of them knew how to explain.
“What happened?” he said at last.
“I asked you to help me with Jamie… or rather your picture, and here you are.”
“What made you ask it?”
She took a deep breath as if steadying herself. “My friends, Eliza and Tessa, said they found cards like this and wished for help, and the cowboys appeared.”
“Wyatt and Cade?”
“Yes, you know them?”
“They were in the same outfit as me and then disappeared this December.”
“They came here.”
He wasn’t in 2025 alone? Hallelujah! “Where are they? Can I see them?”
“Umm, Wyatt’s staying with my friend Eliza, who runs her family bakery—”
“Foster’s Bakeshop?”
“Yes, it’s been there since 1878.”
“Maggie Foster is her grandmother.”
“More like great-great-great-grandmother, but yes.”
That whacked the wind right out of his sails and put one hundred and forty-six years into chilling perspective. He pushed his hat back on his head and hitched his fingers through his suspenders. “Whew-wee. I can’t cipher that.”
“I can’t imagine what you must be feeling.”
“Neither can I.”
Their gaze met and they both laughed at once. Staring into her eyes made him feel like all the happy moments in his life rolled up into one fat ball and filled up his chest. He didn’t want to stop looking. The spark in his heart burned hotter than coal.
“Well.” She dropped her gaze. “Well.”
“You said Wyatt is with your friend, Eliza. Where’s our partner, Cade?”
She winced and that expression clipped a layer off his relief at learning his trail compadres were in 2025. “I’m not quite sure. Tessa told me his card took him back to 1878 night before last.”
Rhett nodded. “Sure did. I saw him myself, but then he up and left again.”
Their gazes met again, the shimmer between them just as strong before. Her pupils widened and it matched the gaping hole in his chest.
“Do you think Cade came back to 2025?”
He bobbed his head. “I reckon so.”
“Wow. That’s terrific news for Tessa. She was heartbroken over losing him.”
“Cade seemed right torn up too.”
From the corner, the boy counted. “Sixty-one seconds.”
“He likes to count; my boy enjoys numbers.” Love laced her voice.
“I can see that.”
Another long silence stretched and he worked up the courage to ask, “So you don’t need me anymore?”
“I guess not. You and that top did a wonderful job of calming him.”
He studied her, admired the way her messy blond hair tumbled around her shoulders. “So what happens now?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“How do I get back home?”
“I don’t know that either.” She tapped her bottom lip with the end of her thumb like she was puzzling on it. “I really am sorry I dragged you into my mess.”
He offered her a kind smile. “It’s all right. I weren’t doin’ nothin’ anyway ‘cept carving that top.”
“Let me call Eliza and Tessa and see if Wyatt or Cade has any suggestions.” She moved for a glowing little black rectangle sitting on her counter and picked it up.
“Call?” He frowned. “You gonna just throw open the back door and holler at ‘em?”
A grin lit up her face, making her more beautiful than ever. “Oh wow. You sure do have a lot to learn.”