Chapter 8 #2
Inside, Foster’s Bakeshop bustled with morning business. Christmas music played low beneath the clatter of coffee cups and the buzz of conversation. Eliza stood at the counter in her red apron, sliding a tray of cinnamon rolls toward a pair of bundled-up customers.
When she spotted Fiona, her face brightened. “Hey, Fi. Morning.” Her gaze flicked to Rhett. “You must be Rhett. Wyatt’s in back. He’ll be thrilled you’re here.”
Wyatt appeared before Rhett could answer, wiping his hands on a towel. The moment their eyes met, Wyatt grinned. “Well, I’ll be. Took you long enough.”
Fiona smiled, keeping it casual. “I’m leaving him in good hands.”
“You are,” Eliza said. “We’ll make sure he stays out of trouble.”
Fiona waved goodbye to Rhett. “I’ll be back around five.”
He nodded. “See you then.”
Wyatt clapped him on the shoulder, steering him toward the kitchen. “Come on, partner. You can help me box cookies.”
Fiona turned for the door, the warmth and bustle fading behind her as she stepped into the cold again, Wyatt’s easy laughter following her out.
She paused on the sidewalk, the air cutting her flushed cheeks. Holbrook’s Hardware loomed at the corner, scaffolding braced against the brick.
She walked toward it, raising her phone, and framing shots for the Chamber of Commerce’s homepage.
Close up, she could see lines surfaced where the plaster had fallen away, faint, fragile, pressed into the brick. She zoomed in and snapped another photo. The colors long since leached away. Only the barest of outlines remained.
Hidden for almost a century and a half. Four horsemen galloping across the Montana grasslands.
* * *
Rhett followed Wyatt through the swinging door into the back of the bakery. He remembered Foster’s Bakeshop from his time, and it heartened him to learn it was still here, although it saddened him to realize Maggie Foster and her husband, Dr. Foster, weren’t alive.
Wyatt turned, already grinning. “Took you long enough to get here. Tessa said you already visited her and Cade at the ranch.”
“I’m lucky I got here at all. I still don’t rightly know what happened to me.”
“It takes some getting used to. Hard to cipher the magic.” His friend clasped his shoulder; dang, but he was happy to see Wyatt again.
“I’m real glad you and Cade are here. I thought you both died.”
“No, we’re just alive in 2025.”
“It’s a strange place. I can’t imagine you stumbling into all by your lonesome.”
“Yessir, it is. You settling in all right?” Wyatt leaned a hip against the counter.
The lost confusion he experienced since coming here hung on like a storm cloud. “Still feels like I’m walking through somebody else’s dream.”
“It’ll straighten out once you settle in. It’s always warm here, even in the dead of winter, and you don’t have to make a fire.”
“That is a fine quality. But what if I don’t want to stay?” The idea gnawed at him since he got here.
“You can go back. Cade and I both did.”
“Yep. He told me, but he didn’t make it sound like too much fun.”
“Well, you know Cade; he leads with the downside.” The chuckle that rolled out of his friend comforted him.
All at once, Rhett felt a strange heat in his pocket. What in the tarnation? He flipped open his coat and pulled out the Christmas card Jeb Ortega painted of him. The card was warm to the touch, almost hot. Light shimmered faintly around the edges like gold in sunshine.
He glanced up and met Wyatt’s stare. “Did yours do this?”
“The first time I tried to go home, it did.” Wyatt stared at the card, a mix of emotions crossing his face.
“The first time?”
“When I begged it to take me home,” Wyatt said.
“You begged it?”
Wyatt appeared shamefaced. “I got scared.”
“Of?”
“My feelings for Eliza.”
Rhett held Wyatt’s gaze. He understood what his old trail partner meant. He was having mighty feelings about Fiona.
“But mine was cold when I started asking, but yours is already shining.”
“What does that mean?”
Wyatt shrugged. “I can’t say for sure, but it might mean you could go home right now if you wanted.”
Did he want to leave? He thought of the loneliness of 1878, his life without Clara and Matthew, how he’d been living like a ghost. But the strangeness of 2025 was scary, and he had no idea if Fiona was developing feelings for him too.
“Something else to consider. You might not have a choice. Both times I tried, I asked to go back. But Cade? He got taken back when Tessa told him she didn’t need him.”
Rhett stroked his jaw, the stubble pricking his skin. “So there are no set rules.”
“None that we’ve figured out. We’re guessing at it.”
Rhett stared down at his picture. Already the light was dimming, the heat ebbing. It seemed he had a window; he could ask to return the way Wyatt did or risk waiting for the card to just take him in the way it happened with Cade.
He thought of Fiona and the tired, brave tilt of her chin, the way her eyes softened when she glanced at her boy. He thought of the two of them alone, trying to hold things together with no one left to lean on.
“You’re staying?” Wyatt asked.
“Reckon I am. At least for a while.”
The card cooled, and the light faded to nothing as Rhett tucked it into his coat pocket. His fingers brushed the top. Jamie had forgotten it on the floor, and he picked it up so no one would step on it and hurt their foot.
“Well, if you’re gonna stay, you’ll need clothes. Come on upstairs. I’ve got a few items you can borrow until you figure out what you want to do.” Wyatt crooked a finger.
He led Rhett up the narrow back stairs. The apartment above the bakery was small and warm, the windows steamed from the heat below. Eliza’s touch showed in every corner. Plants on the sill. A quilt thrown over the couch. A nutmeg-colored cat curled on the braided rug.
Wyatt crossed to a hall closet and pulled out a pair of denim pants like the ones he wore, a white undergarment, long johns, a red flannel shirt and a puffy navy blue coat.
“I don’t need a new coat.”
Wyatt raised a palm. “That duster attracts too much attention. You’ll fit in with this coat.”
The coat looked citified, but all right. Rhett nodded his thanks.
“Keep the clothes till you can pick out somethin’ yourself.”
“Thank you.”
Wyatt handed him a white flour sack. “You can change in the bathroom through there, and put your old clothes in this bag. When you get done, I’ll catch you up fast on 2025.”