Somewhere in Time (The Crosse Harbor Time Travel Trilogy) (36 page)

"You would've screamed, too, if you'd seen the sucker," Dakota said to Shannon. "The darn thing was the size of a blue jay."

Andrew held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart and Shannon laughed out loud. "Now you know everything you need to about Dakota. She hates spiders and loves jelly donuts."

"Raspberry jelly donuts," Dakota said. "If you're going to spill my secrets, at least be accurate." She patted her hips. "I worked hard for each one of these pounds."

Shannon executed a curtsy in her direction. "I stand corrected, Mistress Dakota."

Andrew's head snapped around. "I have not heard you speak thusly."

"'Tis time," Shannon said. "I must learn to fit into your world, Andrew."

Dakota watched, a huge lump throbbing in her throat, as the lovers took each other's measure and were well-satisfied. Their auras shimmered like molten gold and Dakota found herself blinking back tears of joy...and envy. They said there was someone for every man and woman on the earth but at times it seemed to Dakota as if she were meant to go through life alone.

She'd been born with a wisecrack on her lips and cellulite on her thighs and that wasn't a combination destined to bring men to their knees. No, most men liked their women straight out of a
Victoria's Secret
catalog, demure and airbrushed to within an inch of their perfect lives.

She forced a saucy grin. "You're our time traveling resident expert, Andrew. How long is this going to take?"

"You are wrong, mistress. I am no expert in such matters. 'Twill take as long as it takes."

"That's what my father used to say when we were halfway to Disney World and had run out of comic books and candy bars."

Andrew met Shannon's eyes. "Disney World?"

"You didn't tell him about Disney World?" Dakota stared at her friend in disbelief.

Shannon shrugged gracefully, the way she did everything. You'd never believe her life had been anything but blessed. "We covered all major wars, important scientific advances, and why Dick Clark still looks twenty-five when we all know he's one hundred and seven. I had to forget something."

"An unforgivable gap in your education," Dakota declared to Andrew. "Disney World is a theme park."

Andrew looked at her blankly.

"A place where adults and children go to have fun," she explained, "and it all centers around a mouse named Mickey."

"'Tis a good thing I am leaving your time," Andrew said, shaking his head in amazement, "for your world is a place of uncommon strangeness."

Shannon went on in great detail about mice in short pants who always had a date for Saturday night, ducks with attitude problems, and amusement park rides whose sole purpose was to make grown men and women lose their lunches.

"Andrew is right," Dakota said, wiping away tears of laughter. "When you put it that way, it
does
sound strange. Maybe--" She stopped. "Did you hear that?"

Andrew and Shannon exchanged looks. It was obvious they had no idea what she was talking about.

"The magic fire," said Andrew, pointing toward the flame that kept the balloon inflated. "'Tis a distinctive sound."

"Not that," Dakota said with an impatient wave of her hand. "It's softer...more like a cry."

Shannon tilted her head to listen. "I don't hear anything either, Dakota."

Dakota wrapped her arms around her chest as a blast of wind rocked the fragile gondola. The little girl knelt in front of her, crying brokenly over a tattered rag doll. The child's brown hair was tangled about her shoulders and badly in need of a good shampoo and conditioning, while her cotton dress was woefully inadequate against the cold. The image was so clear, so real, that she wanted to reach out and wipe away the tears streaking down the girl's dirty face.

She hated when the visions came at her like this, swift and hard as a punch to the gut, knocking the wind from her lungs and toppling her defenses. No matter how many times it happened, she never quite got used to this sudden stripping away of the shadowy barriers between the different levels of reality.

Most of the time she accepted her abilities the same way other people accepted a gift for music or a talent for drawing. They were part and parcel of the way she viewed the world and the way she viewed herself. But there were times, like now, when she devoutly wished she could be like everyone else and see life in only one dimension at a time.

The child's cries tore at her heart. "She's lost...she'll never find her way out of the woods--"
It's too late, Dakota
, she told herself
. You can't help her. Her time is spinning past...

A stiff wind blew in from the west, rocking the basket as if it were made of tissue paper. The hairs on the back of her neck rose in response.
This isn't the way it's supposed to happen. Something's terribly wrong.

"Dakota?" Shannon placed a hand on her arm. "Maybe you should sit down."

"I don't belong here," she whispered. "This is a mistake. I have to go back."

"Nay, mistress, 'twas no mistake." The basket lurched to the right and Andrew steadied her. "You are here because it was meant to be thus."

"We saw you, Dakota," Shannon said. "You were fading away right before our eyes. It was this or--"

Another gust of wind buffeted the balloon to the left this time, sending the three of them smashing into the side of the basket.

"Andrew?" Shannon's voice sounded high and tight. "Is something wrong?"

"I do not know. My own journey to your time was most enjoyable. Indeed I did not believe I had traveled anywhere at all until I found you and saw the newspaper."

I'm the reason things are going wrong. This trip should be as easy as the last. I'm the problem--

Dakota swallowed hard. Another blast of wind like that and they would all be tossed overboard like excess baggage. She closed her eyes, struggling to capture an image, a whisper, some indication of what was to come, but her thoughts were filled with the sight and sound of a little girl's tears.

"Look sharp!" Andrew's cry pierced through the roar of the wind. "To the left."

The cloud, an angular black mass, towered upward like a caricature of a twister. She didn't need second sight to know what it meant.

"Hang together!" Andrew called out. "We will--"

His words were torn apart by another vicious gust of wind that grabbed hold of the basket and threatened to flip it end over end.

This is wrong,
Dakota thought, clinging to the lip of the basket as the child's cries grew louder inside her head. Shannon and Andrew were meant to journey safely back to his time. His friends' lives, and the lives of their descendants, depended upon it. Wasn't she the one who'd found the proof in black and white on page 127 of
Forgotten Heroes
? She was the wild card, the X factor that changed the equation and threatened their future.

The fire sputtered as the basket withstood another pummeling gust of wind. Shannon crouched on the floor, gripping the ropes that connected the gondola to the balloon itself, while Andrew reached out to Dakota.

"Grab my hand, mistress!" his voice rang out.

The basket tilted wildly to the right and she let out a scream as she fell to one knee.

"Now!" Andrew commanded. "We are dropping fast."

A few years ago she'd gone into Manhattan for dinner at a rooftop restaurant when the skyscraper's elevator malfunctioned, dropping the car three stories in the blink of an eye. This was the same stomach-turning sensation, magnified one hundredfold. But was she dropping only through space or hurtling down through time as well?

The towering black cloud enveloped them in a tunnel of darkness. She could hear Shannon's and Andrew's voices rising above the roar of the wind but it was impossible to see them. The bottom of the basket made a sickening noise as it scraped the tops of the trees. Her nostrils twitched at the smell of pine and rich earth coming closer, closer.

"I hate you!" The child's voice trembled with pain. "I
hate
you!"

Dakota felt the little girl's pain in the center of her heart, in that place reserved for the children she would never have.
Go with it. You have no other choice.

Whispering a swift prayer, Dakota climbed to the top of the basket railing and jumped.

Chapter One

It was said by the good people of Franklin Ridge, in the Colony of New Jersey, that Patrick Devane was the angriest man in four counties and on that December morning he did little to dispel the notion.

His housekeeper, Mrs. O'Gorman, dabbed at her rheumy eyes with a wrinkled handkerchief. "'Tain't my fault, sir," she said through loud sniffles. "The child's willful as her mother and there wouldn't be a thing I could do to stop her."

"The child is six years old," Patrick snapped. "She requires a firm hand and a watchful eye, two things you are unwilling or unable to provide."

Mrs. O'Gorman's expression shifted from lugubrious to sly. "And a child needs a father, if I may be so bold, and it seems to me you been one in name only."

"Enough!" His roar rattled the walls. "You'll be out of my house by nightfall."

"And I'll be thanking the Almighty for that," Mrs. O'Gorman said, thrusting her chins at him. "I'd rather be workin' for Fat George in London than spend another day in this terrible place."

"Take care, woman, or I'll see that you get your wish."

Mrs. O'Gorman, no longer concerned with employment, was a woman unleashed. "'Tain't my wish that's comin' true, mister. 'Tis yours. The child is gone--just the way you wanted it--and if she has the sense of a May fly, she won't be back here where she ain't wanted."

With that the woman stormed from the library.

He swore softly at her retreating back. He'd heard them whispering belowstairs. How his cold heart had driven his warm-blooded wife into the arms of another man. And they said the way he treated the child was cause for scandal, although he kept her clothed, fed, and sheltered as was his duty as a Christian man, and would see to her education, as well. More than that surely he could not be asked to provide.

"'Tisn't natural to treat your own flesh and blood this way," Mrs. O'Gorman had said to her cronies the other day when she thought he could not hear. "All that money and not an ounce of warmth in his black heart."

"My papa is the best man in the world," Abigail had declared, biting Mrs. O'Gorman in her plump forearm.

Mrs. O'Gorman had tried to shake her off but the child clung to her prey like a hound to a fox and it had taken three servants to finally pull her off.

"Poor little thing," Rosie, the scullery maid, had whispered loud enough to be heard in Trenton. "Him always treatin' her like a poor relation when it's his fault she's the way she is."

Abigail had rewarded the girl with a kick in the shins that had sent Rosie packing. If he did not put a stop to it, the child would drive every member of the staff from the house, nursing bite marks and bruises.

She loved him, the child did, and he felt the weight of her love with every breath he took. She was so like him, lashing out in her pain and confusion, but loyal in a way he knew he didn't deserve. How well he understood her. There were times he saw himself reflected back in the flash of defiance in her eyes and then he remembered. His heart wasn't the stone the townspeople believed it to be. How much easier this would be if it were. How often had he steeled his heart against the child in an attempt to make the inevitable parting easier for them both and how often had he failed.

This last series of tantrums had forced his hand and he was not ungrateful. Danger was everywhere in the town of Franklin Ridge and he needed to see to the child's safety before it was too late.

"This cannot go on, Abigail. Arrangements will be made for you to attend school in Boston." He had hoped to delay this action another half-year but in truth this was the safer course of action for the child's sake, if not for his.

"No!" Her gray eyes darkened like the sky before a storm. She had spirit, this child. He would grant her that. It would serve her well in the future since she had not been granted her mother's beauty. "You cannot make me!"

He chose to ignore the challenge. "The Girls School of the Sacred Heart is a fine place. They will teach you the things a young lady must know to make her way in the world." The things a mother would teach her daughter, if the mother had seen fit to stay. She would be safe there, no matter what happened to him as the War played out.