Catch the Lightning #3
Bowdry obligingly shook the dust from the faded sheet and the lumpy mattress while she swept the floor with an old broom she found in a hallway closet. A stub of a candle provided a bit of light.
Wincing, Bowdry sat on the foot of the bed. Rummaging in his saddlebags, he pulled out two hunks of jerky. He handed one to Macie, then reached into his saddlebags again and pulled out a sack of tobacco and a package of papers. Under Macie’s curious gaze, he proceeded to roll and light a cigarette.
“I’ve never seen anyone do that,” she remarked.
“People don’t smoke where you come from?”
“The smart ones don’t. Smoking’s bad for your health, you know.”
“Says who?”
“Doctors.”
He grunted softly. “Just where do you come from anyway?”
“California.”
He arched one brow. “You’re a long way from home.”
“Longer than you think. Where am I anyway?”
“South Dakota.”
“South Dakota! What year is this?”
“Don’t you know?”
“Would I ask if I did?”
“It’s 1880.”
She blinked at him as she tried to absorb that. South Dakota, 1880. Imagine that.
He regarded her curiously a moment, then said, “How is it that you don’t know what year it is?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“You’re bleeding.”
Frowning, he glanced down at his side. A bright red stain was spreading over the cloth wrapped around his middle. Jaw clenched, he dropped his cigarette on the floor, stubbed it out with his boot heel. Lifting his shirt tail, he removed the bloody cloth and tossed it aside.
“Here, let me.” Using water from his canteen, she pulled a clean strip of cloth from his saddlebag, wet it and washed the wound.
Bowdry held up one hand, staying her when she would have bandaged it again.
She watched in amazement as he chewed a handful of tobacco, then pressed it over the wound.
“OK,” he said, “bandage it up.”
Muttering, “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she wrapped the last strip of clean cloth around his waist.
Sitting at the head of the bed, Macie nibbled on the beef jerky. It didn’t taste anything like what she was used to back home.
“I don’t know about you,” Bowdry said when he finished eating, “but I’m tuckered out.”
“If that means tired, you’re not the only one,” Macie admitted. She glanced at the narrow bed, then up at Bowdry. Her stomach quivered when he smiled at her.
With every nerve on edge, she stretched out on the bed, as close to the edge of the mattress as she could get without falling off.
Bowdry chuckled as he stretched out beside her, then covered the two of them with the blanket. “Relax, pretty lady,” he murmured as he closed his eyes. “I’m too sore, and too tired, to bother you tonight.”
He was snoring before she could come up with a good retort.
Macie doubted she’d get much sleep, lying beside a strange man in a strange bed, but the next thing she knew, it was morning. When she opened her eyes, Bowdry was watching her.
Macie frowned as a rush of colour warmed her cheeks. “What are you staring at?”
He shrugged. “Nothing much else to look at.”
At a loss for words, her gaze slid away from his.
“I guess I owe you my thanks,” Bowdry mused.
“You’re welcome.”
“You never told me where you were from.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Right. California.” He grunted softly. “I’ve been to California a time or two, but I never saw anyone quite like you.”
“You just weren’t there at the right time,” Macie retorted with a grin, and then frowned, wondering how she could make Relámpago take her back to her own time.
“You got a fi rst name?” Bowdry asked.
“Macie.”
“That’s an odd name for a pretty girl.”
“Ace Bowdry is an odd name for an Indian.”
“My mother named me after my old man.”
“My mother named me after her mother.”
Macie’s cheeks grew hotter under Bowdry’s regard, even as wings of excitement fluttered in the pit of her stomach.
There was no denying he was an incredibly handsome man, just as there was no denying that he looked exactly the way she had always pictured the man she would marry, from his long black hair and dark eyes to his tawny skin and six-pack abs.
The fact that he was an Indian intrigued her, which prompted her to ask, “What kind of Native Amer– Indian are you?”
“Cheyenne, on my mother’s side. White on the other.”
“Oh. Are your parents still alive?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
A muscle throbbed in his jaw.
She was tempted to ask what had happened to them, but the look in his eyes warned her to keep silent.
Pressure on her bladder had her sitting up and glancing around, then chiding herself for expecting to fi nd indoor plumbing in such a primitive place. Murmuring, “Excuse me,” she hurried out of the room and out of the hotel.
The stallion whinnied at her as she ducked around the corner of the building and took cover behind a fat bush. If she had to go wandering through time, why couldn’t she have travelled to some place with indoor plumbing and toilet paper?
Bowdry was waiting for her in the lobby when she returned to the hotel. “Ready to go?”
“Where are we going?”
“Someplace with food and hot water.”
“Sounds good to me. How are you feeling?”
“Like I haven’t eaten in a week. Let’s go.”
It was dark when they reached the town of Whiskey Creek. Macie glanced from side to side as they rode down the street, thinking it looked like a twin to the town they had left behind.
Bowdry reined up in front of the Montecito Hotel. He dismounted, then lifted Macie from the horse’s back.
“I could have got down on my own,” Macie said, noting the fine lines of pain around his mouth.
“Yeah. Well . . .” He shrugged.
“Shouldn’t we tie the horse up?”
Bowdry shook his head. “He won’t go anywhere until his reason for being here is done. Let’s get something to eat.”
Macie followed Bowdry into the hotel dining room, a quick gaze taking it all in – the tables covered in red-and-white checked cloths, the cowboy hats hanging on the rack by the door, the rough attire of most of the occupants.
They found a table near a window and sat across from each other.
A harried-looking waitress appeared a few minutes later.
Bowdry ordered a steak “and all the trimmin’s” and after a moment’s hesitation, Macie asked for the same.
She wasn’t a big meat eater at home but hey, this was 1880.
Cows in this day and age probably weren’t shot full of hormones.
Bowdry leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. “So, I’m still waiting to hear why you don’t know what year it is.”
“You really want to know? All right, I’ll tell you. When I woke up yesterday morning, it was April 8 2009.”
“No sh – I mean . . .” He shook his head, and then he frowned. “You’re telling the truth, aren’t you?”
“I guess you don’t believe me. Not that I’d blame you.”
“No, I believe you.”
“You do?”
“There are stories among my people of medicine men who rode Relámpago through time.”
“Really? How did they fi nd their way back?”
“I don’t know. Same way they got there, I guess. Why? You in a hurry to go back where you came from?”
Macie thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “No.”
Bowdry leaned forwards. “It’s said the only time Relámpago appears to most people is when they’re in danger. Were you in danger?”
Macie’s gaze slid away from his. How could she tell him she’d been about to commit suicide?
Thinking about it now filled her with shame.
There were people all over the world who had it much worse than she did.
She lived in a free country. She had a nice house, her health, a car, enough food to eat and money in the bank.
“Macie?”
She blew out a breath. He was a stranger to her. They would part ways, and she would never see him again, so what difference did it make what he thought of her?
“It doesn’t matter.”
“If you say so.”
Macie was relieved when the waitress arrived with their meal. She didn’t know why she cared what Bowdry thought of her, but she did. “You were the one in danger,” Macie said after a time. “Why didn’t he appear to you?”
“I don’t know,” Bowdry said, and then he grinned. “Maybe he brought us together for a reason.”
“Yeah? What reason would that be?”
“Well, since you found me, I thought maybe you’d know.”
“I don’t have a clue.”
“Maybe if we spend some time together, we’ll fi nd out.”
His words, the look in his deep brown eyes, sent a wave of heat spiralling through her. Spending time with Ace Bowdry certainly wouldn’t be a hardship in any sense of the word.
After dinner, Bowdry secured two rooms in the hotel, then asked the desk clerk for lots of hot water to be sent up to their rooms as soon as possible.
Macie felt somewhat lost when she entered her room and closed the door, along with an unexpected sense of disappointment that they wouldn’t be sharing a room.
And a bed. She shook the feeling away. What was she doing here, anyway?
Surely whatever fate had sent her here must know she could end her life in this century as easily as her own.
Moving to the window, she pushed the white lace curtain aside and stared at the street below.
How was she going to get back home? If she asked Relámpago to take her, would he?
There had been times in her life when she felt like she didn’t belong, but in this case, it was true.
She defi nitely didn’t belong here, and never would.
Yet even as she yearned for home, she knew she would be sorry to see the last of Ace Bowdry.
There was no denying that she was attracted to him. And he to her.
Maybe Relámpago was more than a time-travelling horse. Maybe he was a matchmaker, as well.
The following morning, bright and early, Bowdry knocked on her door. “You awake in there?”
Scrambling out of bed, Macie wrapped a sheet around her nakedness and opened the door.
Bowdry grinned at her. “You ready for breakfast?”
“Do I look ready?”
“You look ready for something.”
The look in his eyes caused a shiver of excitement in the pit of her stomach. With his gaze focused on hers, he backed her into the room and shut the door behind him.