Timeless Whisper (Timeless Hearts Series Book 1) Read online

  “They’re not made up.” Ryder took a swig of the brandy and sucked it through his teeth, making a slurping sound.

  “I don’t want to talk about that now. Aside from me bothering Uncle Teddy, what else can you suggest?”

  “Do you mean like, telling you to man up and get in touch with your feelings.” Ryder tilted his head. “No…then I’m all out of ideas.”

  Lance bit down on the inside of his top lip. “You’re enjoying my discomfort, aren’t you?”

  “I’m enjoying the fact you think you can just stop feeling, as if you’re not human. Well I’ve got news for you, you are. I for one, am glad her presence here affects you.”

  He stood and walked over to Lance.

  “At least what you feel now is real. Not some fantastical dream of a naive, scared boy, looking to latch onto the first thing he cared about. And now, after years of telling yourself not to feel anymore, trying to convince yourself you cared for nothing and no one, because it’s safer to close yourself off, and be alone. Here she is. But safer for whom, might I ask? Because from where I’m standing, you look petrified.”

  “I’m not. She fainted, and I don’t think I’m the best person to have around if she’s so fragile.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that wrapping a heavy rope around her, then having her run behind your horse, and dragging her through the court was a bit much? Not satisfied with that, you stretched her out across your saddle, got her back here, and had her hop all the way into the house. That couldn’t have helped either. Honestly, you take all that into account. I’m surprised she didn’t pass out sooner. Neither does it make her sound in the least bit fragile to me.”

  Lance felt the blood rush to his cheeks. He turned his back on Ryder and walked over to the table to pour himself a drink. He downed it in one before he could face him again. When their eyes met, Ryder was glaring at him.

  “What? Did you really think I wouldn’t hear about what you did to her? The whole town are talking about it, and Brad couldn’t wait to fill me in on the rest. You should stand there, and look embarrassed. It’s a wonder to me why you aren’t ashamed.”

  “Trust me, if I could go back in time, I would do a lot of things differently, but I can’t. I intend to apologize to her at supper. I don’t know why I let my feelings get on top of me like that. I just had all these thoughts.” Lance combed his fingers through his hair. “You know what. I don’t need your help. I’ll handle this on my own.”

  “You’d better. I won’t be around for much longer. She’ll be all you have. So don’t mess it up?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I think I’ve found a way to get home.”

  “You are home.”

  “Yeah, I guess it is.” Ryder shaded his eyes with his lashes. Lance couldn’t see his eyes, and he began to feel uncomfortable. He stared at him and rolled the tension from his neck. Ryder had been acting stranger than usual. He didn’t like it when he spoke this way. He was stopped from questioning Ryder further by Mrs. Jennings coming in to let them know supper was ready.

  They stood as Raven entered the dining room. She was wearing one of the dresses from the closet. A beautiful red and pink floral print with scooped neckline, the half sleeves had lace frills around them, and she seemed to have trouble walking in the wide skirt. Her hair was up and away from her face. She was beautiful, and Lance’s heart fluttered.

  He moved around to the side of the dining table and pulled the chair out for her, opposite Ryder. Her eyes never left Ryder's face. Their eyes locked in so kind of invisible combat. She sat and the men took their seats. Lance sat at the head of the table with Raven to his left and Ryder on his right.

  “I want my belongings back,” she said, narrowing her gaze at Ryder.

  He smiled at her and shook out his napkin, placing it on his lap, seeming intent to ignore her.

  Lance looked from one to the other, his gaze finally settling on Ryder. “You took something from her? What was it?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Ryder said, and began to sip at the soup placed in front of him.

  “Yeah, well it was my nothing, and I want it back,” she said.

  “Why won’t you give it back to her? If it is as you say, nothing.”

  “It would take too long to explain. I’m keeping it and taking it back with me, it has no business here.” Ryder glared at her. “Do you have anything else?”

  “Anything else? Like what? Will one of you explain what it is you’re talking about?” Lance said, feeling irritated by the surge of jealousy running through him. They had some kind of shared secret they seemed intent on keeping from him.

  “Raven brought something with her from New York. I mean to take it back there. I’m leaving in the morning, and I want to be sure I have it all. I’d like to speak with you before I go, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Do I have a choice? I’m your prisoner, remember,” she said.

  Lance didn’t like the way they were looking at each other. It was knowing and too intimate.

  She needed to leave. Her presence was too unsettling. “Not anymore. I’m releasing you from any obligation to me. I made a mistake, and I’m sorry,” Lance said, turning his attention to his meal.

  Both Ryder and Raven’s heads swiveled to face him.

  “Well I’m staying?” her tone was adamant.

  It was Lance and Ryder’s turn to stare at her, bemused. “Why would you? I’ve released you.”

  “It’s not up to you. I’m staying.” She turned away and began to eat.

  “I’ll work you hard.”

  She raised her head, then her brow, in a challenge. “I’m not afraid of work.”

  Ryder snickered, but said nothing and began to eat. The room fell silent, each of them appearing deep in thought.

  Chapter 20

  After supper, they retired to the living room. “If you’re staying, I’d better get you the list of chores I’ve written up for you,” Lance said, then left the room.

  Ryder moved over to the drinks table and poured himself a drink.

  “Would you like one?” He raised his glass toward her.

  “No. I’m good. You said you wanted to talk to me, so talk.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Try me.”

  “In Cissie’s backroom.”

  Her eyes widened when Ryder slapped his thigh and shouted, “I knew it.”

  She tilted her head, and asked, “Knew what?”

  “That was how you got here. What time are you from?”

  “You know?” Goose bumps formed on her skin as she looked at him in wonder. If he knew, why hadn’t he said anything to Lance?

  “Yes. What time period?”

  She hesitated, then thought, why not tell him. “It’s 2017.”

  “Hot damn. That’s a lot farther than I thought. Who’s on the other side?”

  “I don’t know what you mean?”

  “The name of the woman who sent you here. What was she called?” he asked impatiently.

  “Moira.”

  Ryder seemed to turn in place, but he looked excited. “Finally, I can go home.” He laughed.

  “You’re freaking me out.” Raven stared at him, his behavior was weird at the best of times but he seemed even more unusual. He knew about her time travel. She’d got that from the way he reacted at the courthouse but now he was just scary crazy.

  “What do you mean you can go home? This is your home?”

  “I’m like you. I came here from the future, by accident. But back then, the woman on this side was called Moira and Cissie was the one that sent me here.”

  Raven gasped. “I don’t believe it. How old were you when you got here? How did you cope? I have so many questions.”

  “And I’ll try to answer them. I came here in 1989 when I was twelve. I’ve been here fourteen years. Moira couldn’t send me back, and there hasn’t been anyone else from the futu
re that I know of since me. The portal or whatever it's called, just seemed to stop working. I almost forgot that life until I saw you. Your clothes, sneakers, and from the way you talked, and moved. I just knew it.”

  “Is that why you took my stuff?”

  “Yeah, and why I’m going to take it back with me when I go and see Cissie. If Moira is on the other side, I can go home.”

  “What home? You’ve been here fourteen years, dude. How are you going to go back? You should be like, what, forty? Everyone you know will be old and if you go back to the time you left, you’ll be old. At least that’s what I think. And if I’m right there’s nothing to go back to.”

  Raven watch the spark die in his eyes as his excitement diminished. She felt sorry for him. It was obvious in his excitement, he hadn’t thought it through. Unlike her, that was all she could think about. Knowing that if she stayed here, she might never be able to go back. It was one of her biggest fears, and she needed to speak to Cissie. Two months was long enough but she couldn’t imagine what it would be like going back after fourteen years.

  Deflated, he flopped into the armchair opposite hers. “When you said you knew Hunter. I just…I just thought I’d get to see my older brother again. Thinking about it, he’d be nearing fifty in your time. And still be away in the army in mine.”

  “Well I don’t think how this time travel thing works. Do you really think if I had a choice I would ask to come here to a time where they hang people and shoot them on a whim? Not to mention the all-round inequality.”

  Ryder sat scratching his head, and didn’t answer. He stared blindly at her. His hand fell to cover his mouth and rubbed the side of his jaw, obviously thinking. “What brought you here?”

  “I think Charlotte did, for Lance.”

  “How? As far as I know, Charlotte is still in this time.”

  “She is, I guess, but it wasn’t her physically. She’s an ancestor like my great, great, not sure how many greats but a lot, grandmother. She says Lance will die if I don’t stay. But I think you figure a way back, because she said you disappear. It puts Lance over the edge, and he gets himself killed because of it.”

  “So that’s why you’re staying?”

  “One of us has to, and I don’t think it will be you somehow.” Raven knew she was right.

  When she’d set off for her run, she was drawn to the diner. At first, she thought it was because of the wedding happening in the other direction, now she wasn’t so sure. All the events leading up to her entering the diner, meeting Moira, all felt like some grand design. She was where she was meant to be and pretty soon Ryder would be where he was meant to be too.

  “If my leaving is going to hurt Lance in any way, I can’t go. I can’t leave him alone. What if like before, I can’t get back for another fourteen years?”

  “We both have to do what we have to do. I hope I’m wrong and that isn’t how it works. I think I was drawn here and you were too. If you’re feeling the need to go back, maybe you’re being forced to return by whatever means brought you here the first time. It’s all very weird and confusing. As well as scary.”

  “It will get even scarier if you mention things from the future. Acquaint yourself with things, people, and places of this time. Try not to use too many phrases from the future too, like dude. You called me it. But no one knows what it means here. I let myself forget and used words from my past, which Lance thinks I made up. For a long time, I tried to hold onto my past by telling him stuff. But as he got older, he stopped believing me and thought they were just stories. He’ll never understand, so don’t try to make him. This is his world, not ours, and we can’t bend him into accepting it. Lance can never know you’re from the future.”

  “Wow, where’s that coming from?”

  “You asked me how I coped. I’m telling you. It was easier for me to get away with some things, I was a child. But not now I’m older, even more so when Lance started seeing my tales as fantasies. I was losing who I was until you showed up. I don’t think I could ever settle again. Not anymore, knowing what I know.”

  “Thanks, I’ll try to remember that.”

  “If I can make it back to the future, I’ll need to take anything you brought from there back with me. It can’t stay here. When I realized what happened to me, I buried everything I had that didn’t fit. Tell me what else you have?”

  “I left my hoodie, it’s like a sweatshirt jacket.”

  “I know what a hoodie is.”

  “Okay, well I left it at Cissie place, with my wallet inside the pocket. It has my driver’s license, credit cards, and money in it.”

  “Well that good. I’m sure Cissie has already dealt with it. I’ll go see her in the morning and get some answers.”

  “Answers from who?” Lance asked, coming in on the tail end of their conversation.

  “Cissie, I’m going to the boardinghouse tomorrow, like you asked me too.”

  Lance looked at Raven in confusion. “I thought you said you were staying?”

  “I am, but a lady likes to keep her options open.”

  He screwed up his face and shook his head, thrusting his hand toward her. “Here’s the list of your chores.”

  Raven took it from him, read through it, and wondered if it was too late to change her mind.

  Chapter 21

  It had been four weeks since Ryder went to the boardinghouse and never returned. Raven was mucking out the stables wearing Lance’s suit pants and old shirt tied in the middle. He’d given them to her after she’d put them on and worn them to muck out the stables the first time.

  When she’d gone down the list that first night, she’d asked him for pants to do the outside chores, and he’d said no. “Women shouldn’t wear pants,” and he wouldn’t allow one in his house wearing them. Ryder hadn’t been much help, sitting there laughing.

  She couldn’t use her running shorts, but Lance thought they were her underwear. Besides, Ryder had taken them with him when he went to see Cissie. Even though the closet had been full to bursting with women’s clothes, none of them could have be considered comfortable or appropriate to work in. She’d looked across to the other side of the closet where Lance’s suits hung and decided if he wouldn’t buy suitable clothes, she’d help herself to his. She’d tried on a pair of pants.

  They were too big in the waist, but the legs were long, and they hung off her hip. Raven had carried them back to her room, where she’d seen a sewing basket and rifled through it, then took a pair of scissor to them. She stitched the hem so they fitted better.

  Without a thimble she couldn’t take in the waist, but she’d returned to the closet for a shirt that was fraying at the cuffs. She grabbed a belt, punching a few more holes in it with a knitting needle. And had planned to ask Mrs. Jennings for a thimble so she could finish the job—thankful to her mother for insisting she learn to sew.

  The first few days went well. Lance stayed out of her way, only appearing during meal times, then disappearing into the living room to drink. He never invited her to join him, and she didn’t offer to accompany him. She worked in the house alongside Mrs. Jennings.

  By the end of the week, he was like a bear with a sore head—snapping and snarling, barking orders at her.

  She stopped having her meals with him. Being his doormat was not what she’d signed up for. And she was about ready to kill him herself. How could her ancestor think she would be the one to tame him? He was clearly traveling with more baggage than she was willing to help him carry.

  By the second week, she hardly saw him at all. Brad came over and took her for a guided tour around the ranch. On her return, she heard things being thrown around in his study. Mrs. Jennings, face flushed, rushed along the hall as Raven went to open the door to his study to find out what was wrong with him. Grabbing her hand which has been paused on the door handle, Mrs. Jennings pulled her away. She walked her a little way up the hallway, away from the crashing sounds coming from inside.

  “What’s wrong with him?”
Raven had asked.

  “I don’t know. Mr. Lucore used to be the one to deal with his moods when he got like this. I’m afraid to go in there, and you should be too.”

  “Did he return home this way?”

  “No, not really. He was a little broody. He asked where you were. When I told him you were out with Mr. Stolfi, he stomped off and began to thrown things in there. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this bad before, it doesn’t usually go on for this long.” She’d placed both hands on her cheeks and jumped every time she heard a crash.

  “I’ll see if I can find out the cause...” Raven had started back toward the door.

  Mrs. Jennings had grabbed her arm. “Please don’t go in there, his rage is unpredictable. You could get hurt.”

  “Well, someone has to do something. I’m not going to sit and listen to this racket all night.” It’s wasn’t like the house was soundproof.

  “Just be careful,” Mrs. Jennings had said, and backed away from her, as she walked toward the door.

  Raven’s knuckle had risen to knock on the door before going in. Then she’d decided against it. She’d taken a deep breath and thrown the door open.

  “When you’re quite finished in here, you can do the living room next. It could use some remodeling.”

  He’d frozen in the process of toppling the desk. His hair had fallen into his face, and his eyes were dark and menacing. He placed the table back on the ground and pushed the hair from his face. Like magic, the hard lines softened, dripping from his expression like butter on a warm knife.

  “You came back?”

  “I didn’t go anywhere. Mr. Stolfi took me for a tour of the ranch. He said if I was going to be here for a while, I should get a lay of the land.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have been the one to show you around. I’ve been a little preoccupied lately. No one knows where Ryder’s gone, and I’m worried.”

  “Is that why you trashed your study?”