Chapter 3
Chapter Three
But nothing prepared him for standing in a barn from the future while a beautiful woman in a blinking reindeer sweater babbled about something called “Instagram.”
His brain felt like someone had taken it out, shaken it like dice, and shoved it back in upside down.
Grab onto what you know.
Instinct kept him alive through stampedes, saloon fights and his father’s get-rich-quick schemes falling apart one by one.
Horses. He knew horses. Even if these were the tiniest creatures he’d ever seen.
He approached the chestnut, Einstein, she called him. The animal came up to his belt buckle, maybe, decked out in ridiculous antlers that looked as if someone strapped tree branches to his head. Which, she likely had.
“Easy there, small fry.”
Einstein’s ears flicked forward. Good. The little beast was listening.
Cade stepped into the animal’s space. Einstein shifted. He backed off. Pressure and release. The dance every horseman knew, whether the horse stood sixteen hands or... whatever height this was. Heavens above, 2025 had shrunken horses.
Einstein lowered his head. Ah, submission.
The relief flooded him. His methods still worked. At least the language between man and horse hadn’t changed in a hundred and forty-seven years. He could still do this one thing.
“Oh my gosh!” Tessa bounced on tiptoes. The motion did things to the sweater that should be illegal in any century. “How did you…what did you…you’re amazing!”
Her enthusiasm hit him like a shot of rotgut whiskey. She looked at him like he performed actual magic, which was ironic considering she’d yanked him through time with a Christmas card.
“It’s basic pressure work,” he said. “Any horseman knows it.”
“Well, I’ve been doing it wrong for weeks.” She giggled. “Though to be fair, Einstein’s kind of an ass. Aren’t you, buddy?”
She said it so casually, like women in this time could just say things. In his day, a lady wouldn’t even acknowledge she knew such words.
Though looking at her, sawdust in her dark hair, wearing pants that hugged every curve, calling her horse an ass with obvious affection. His definition of ‘lady’ might need serious updating.
“You want them pulling the sleigh,” he said, surveying the line of miniature horses. “Dressed as reindeer. That right?”
The whole concept was so absurd his brain kept rejecting it, like trying to swallow backward.
“I know it’s silly.” Her shoulders sagged, and in that moment, she looked younger, more vulnerable.
His heart squeezed in an odd way.
“Trust me, I know how it looks. Tiny horses in antlers pulling a sleigh. But I made a bet, and if I can’t deliver...” She trailed off, biting her lip. His focus dropped there too, hunger sparking and he just couldn’t stop it.
Focus, Sullivan. Horses. Not lips.
“Your reputation is at stake.”
She brightened. “Yeah, you get it.”
“Show me the harness setup.”
She showed him and e got straight to work. Pressure, release, patience, authority, calmness, understanding. The minis responded like they’d just been waiting for someone who spoke their language. Within fifteen minutes, he had them standing in formation.
She’d given them the silliest names and he did his best to remember them. Domino, who was black and white, stopped trying to murder Einstein. Marshmallow, fluffy and cream-colored, actually moved when asked. Even the smallest one she called Cupcake, chocolate fur with a pale mane and tail, kept up.
“Reset the traces,” he told Tessa, and adjusted Biscuit’s position.
“Like this?” she looked up for his approval.
No, lower. Let them feel the weight gradual-like.” He demonstrated.
She scrambled to follow his instructions, and he struggled not to notice how she moved, quick and eager. Or how she kept stealing glances at him like she’d rubbed Aladdin’s lamp and he was the genii that popped out.
Truth be told, he wasn’t believing this himself.
“Walk on,” he commanded the mini, and they moved. Not perfect, not smooth yet, but they moved as one.
Tessa squealed. “They’re doing it! They’re actually doing it! You’re a miracle worker!”
He’d done it. He’d taken her disaster and turned it into something workable. He had purpose. He should feel grounded.
Instead, he felt unmoored. Because succeeding here, in this impossible place with these tiny horses, meant it was real.
All of it.
The time jump, a century and a half gone, his men still out in that blizzard wondering where the hell he’d vanished to. Captain Murray. Rhett. Holden. The others. Were they searching for him? Did they think he died? Abandoned them?
And Tessa stared at him like he’d hung a harvest moon, her blue eyes bright with gratitude and relief. An expression that stirred him something powerful. He’d known her for an hour, and his body responded to hers like they were magnets, as if the universe itself pushed them together.
It was reckless. Dangerous. He didn’t believe in falling this fast, this hard, but his body betrayed him, dragging him toward her like it decided for him.
“You okay?” Her hand touched his arm, light as a bird landing. “You look a little...”
“I need to find Wyatt McCready. You said he’s here.”
She blinked. “Yeah, of course. He’s at the bakery with Eliza. He’d living with her. It’s very domestic and adorable.”
Domestic. Wyatt McCready, who could put six bullets through a playing card at thirty paces, was domestic?
But if Wyatt could make sense of this place, maybe he could too.
His life in 1878 was gone. Cut off clean as a knife through rope. But Wyatt had survived it. Had built something new. Had found someone worth staying for.
He looked at Tessa, that funny red nose blinking on her sweater, he melted.
And Cade, who’d learned long ago not to want things he couldn’t have, felt himself falling toward something far more dangerous than any journey through time.
Her.
“Wyatt,” he said. “Please, just take me to see Wyatt.”
* * *
Tessa had made a lot of questionable decisions in her twenty-seven years. The mohawk in tenth grade. The tequila incident at her cousin’s wedding. The incident when she tried to train a goat to pull a cart and ended up in the ER with a concussion.
But walking a time-displaced cowboy from 1878 down Main Street in broad daylight might top the list.
“You okay?” she asked Cade, who had turned an interesting shade of green during the truck ride into town.
“Fine,” he said.
Sure you are, tough guy.
He’d gripped the door handle like it might save his life and muttered what sounded like prayers in three languages. He’d also asked all kind of question about 2025 that she’d been happy to answers. Cell phone, motor vehicles, modern customs and conveniences.
“The bakery’s just there.” She pointed to Foster’s Bakeshop, its windows strung with twinkle lights Eliza strung up the day after Thanksgiving.
Cade stopped dead in his tracks. “Foster’s.”
The word came out filled with awe and wonder, as if he’d seen the ghost of an old friend.
“Yeah. You know it?”
“Know it? Sam Foster’s wife used to give us free cookies when we came into town. Said we looked hungry enough to eat her horse.” He stared at the building like it might vanish. “It’s still here. Still standing.”
Wow, just thinking about it dizzied her head. This man once bought baked goods from her best friend’s ancestor. “Small world. Or, you know, small century-and-a-half-spanning world.”
The bell over the door jingled. The place was hopping, every table full, the line three deep at the counter, the coffee machine hissing steam trying to keep.
Ten days ago, Eliza’s shop had been struggling, overwhelmed by the new corporate bakery across the street, and then Wyatt showed up and everything changed.
Several heads turned as they entered. Mrs. Yancy’s eyes went wide. Tom, the mailman, did a double-take. Even the teenagers in the corner looked up from their phones.
Nothing to see here, folks. Just your average Wednesday with a cowboy from the nineteenth century.
Tessa’s skin prickled with aware of Cade beside her, radiating the particular kind of masculine energy that stupefied her brain.
Get a grip, Mitchell.
Then Wyatt saw them.
He was at the register, mid-transaction with Reverend Jones, a twenty in his hand. The bill fluttered to the counter as Wyatt’s whole body went still. His face! God, the expression on his face! Shocked recognition and joy so profound it hurt Tessa’s chest.
“Cade!”
Cade took a step forward. “Wyatt.”
Wyatt vaulted the counter, like an action hero, which would’ve been funny if Tessa wasn’t so focused on the way the two men crashed together in an embrace that had nothing to do with modern male awkwardness and everything to do with finding family in the place you least expected.
They held on like they were afraid to let go. Like they were validating each other.
The entire bakery went quiet, even the coffee machine paused.
When they finally pulled apart, Wyatt’s eyes were misty. “How?”
“Christmas card,” Cade said. “Same as you, apparently.”
Wyatt’s gaze flicked to Tessa, and understanding dawned. Then he looked to Eliza, who stood behind the counter, eyes wide.
“A c-card? Tessa, you found a card?” Eliza peered at her.
Wyatt gripped Cade’s shoulder. “Come on. We need to talk.”
They disappeared into the bakery kitchen, leaving Tessa facing Eliza, whose expression shifted from shock to panic.
Eliza moved smoothly into damage-control mode. “Sorry about that, folks. Old friends reunion. You know how emotional the holidays can get.” She turned to Mrs. Yancy at the register. “Let me comp your order for the wait.”
The buzz of conversation resumed, though Tessa still felt curious glances following her as she went behind the counter to fill in for Wyatt.
It took another ten minutes to clear the bakery.
Ten minutes of Eliza smiling, serving, chatting, while Tessa tried not to unravel from introducing a time-traveling cowboy to a bakery full of people.
Finally, when everyone had gone, Eliza flipped the CLOSED sign and waved Tessa to a table in the corner.
“So, you found a Christmas card, and you used it,” Eliza said.
“I didn’t mean to, although I did wish for help, but—”
“Tessa.” Eliza let out a soft chuckle. “You summoned a man through time. When did this happen?”
“About two hours ago. The card fell from the barn rafters after I threw a little temper tantrum and danced like a crazy woman.”
Eliza raised an eyebrow. “That sounds like a story.”
“The minis weren’t behaving. I was having a moment. I slipped, fell, got peed on, asked for help… and then poof! Cade appeared.”
“Two hours.” Eliza shook her head. “I do remember those first few hours. The surreallness of it all. The complete break with reality. How are you holding up?”
“I’m in shock. Also, he fixed my horses in thirty minutes, so I’m riding a competency high.”
“Ah yes.” Eliza smiled. “Wait until he mends your gate latch with baling wire and pure 1878 ingenuity. In my case, it was a century-and-a-half-old cast iron oven. The competence of a nineteenth-century cowboy is embarrassingly hot.”
Oh, she fully knew that.
“Two hours.” Eliza pressed a palm to her forehead. “Goodness, Tessa. And you’re already bringing him to town?”
“He wanted to find Wyatt.” Tessa paused, fumbling for the right words. “He needed someone who understood.”
“Yeah, I can imagine.” Eliza glanced toward the kitchen. “It’s only been ten days since Wyatt arrived, and every day is a crash course in the twenty-first century for him.”
“What’s it been like?”
“Insane. Beautiful. Terrifying.” Eliza exhaled. “The first nights, he insisted on sleeping in the storeroom. Said it wasn’t proper for him to be in my apartment. Then he had nightmares about the men he left behind. Cade, Rhett, Holden. He calls their names in his sleep.”
“Yikes. Eliza, I should be asking how you’re holding up.”
“It’s all the little things you never think about.
He didn’t know how to use modern plumbing.
The electric lights give him headaches. Yesterday he jumped so hard at the coffee grinder he dropped a stack of plates.
His reflexes are highly tuned from a world where you had to be ready to fight or flee at any second. ”
“How do you explain it?”
“You don’t. You can’t. How do you cover a hundred and fifty years of progress? Antibiotics. Airplanes. The internet. Nuclear weapons. Space travel. Women voting. Civil rights. Two world wars. I tried to explain the moon landing, and he looked at me like I was telling fairy tales.”
Eek. Tessa hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Every interaction with other people must be careful. We’re making it up as we go. Yesterday someone asked where he learned to bake, because he’s incredible, and I babbled something about it running in his family.”
“But it’s working?” She crossed her fingers. “The two of you?”
“For now. But Tessa, this can’t go on forever. He needs identification, a job of his own. And I have no idea how to give him that.” Eliza’s eyes filled. “He gave up everything to be here. His horse, his work, his friends, his entire world.”
“There has to be a way.”
“Maybe. Eventually. But right now?” Eliza shook her head. “Right now we’re just trying to get through the holidays. Teaching him about crosswalks, credit cards, and why you can’t open carry a gun on Main Street.”
“He has a gun?”
“In 1878. Not here. A Colt .45. He was more upset about giving that up than anything else so far. Said it was like going outside naked.” Eliza’s laugh was soft. “Can you imagine? This man who’s faced bandits, bears, and blizzards, and now he’s helpless in our world.”
“How is he adjusting?”
“He’s trying so hard it breaks my heart. He watches everything, memorizes everything. He’s learning to read my phone like it’s a foreign language. This morning he successfully made toast without jumping when it popped up. I was so proud I almost cried.”
“Would you wish on the card if you could do it all over again?”
“In a heartbeat.” Eliza gripped Tessa’s hand.
“Because when he looks at me like I’m his whole world, I just melt.
Because he chose to stay in this impossible place for me.
And, Tessa, he loves like his life depends on it.
I’ve never known anyone like this. The men of his time, when they commit, they commit.
No halfway measures. No maybe. All in, or nothing. ”
“That’s—”
“Terrifying? Overwhelming? Completely unlike anything modern dating prepares you for?”
“Yes.”
“It’s all of that, and it’s also wonderful. But you need to know what you’re signing up for. This isn’t just a relationship. You’re his world.”