Letters From Another Town: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 2) Read online

  Letters From Another Town

  Book Two in the Lavender, Texas Trilogy

  Barbara Bartholomew

  Letters From Another Town: A Time Travel Romance

  Published by Barbara Bartholomew at Amazon Kindle

  Copyright 2013 by Barbara Bartholomew

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter One

  Sometimes Cynthia thought it a shame that couples didn’t write to each other anymore. Back home she treasured a stack of love letters wrapped in blue ribbon that her mom and dad had written when they were courting and she liked to read old missives from the past like the ones poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett wrote to each other.

  Now it was all about instant communication, tweeting and texting and e-mail. Concisely expressed, anything but private, the thought of the moment, but never sentiments meant to last a lifetime and past.

  Both her parents were gone now, but the feelings they had expressed so long ago were still hers to savor.

  That was why she was surprised when her brother came into the ranch house, holding what looked like a stack of bills in his left hand, but thrusting a slim envelope in her direction with his right.

  “Letter for you, Cyn,” he said.

  Frowning, she protested. “Nobody even knows we’re here. I didn’t tell anyone but the staff that we were leaving town.”

  “Hey, it’s addressed to you. Right here on the front, it says ‘Cynthia Caldecott Burden.’”

  “Maybe it’s from your housekeeper,” her sister-in-law Lynne contributed, looking up from the book she was reading while curled up under a warm throw on the sofa. Outside it was a cold and snowy February day, but they were all enjoying huddling in front of the blazing fire her brother had built first thing this morning.

  Cynthia loved visiting Moss and Lynne in their Oklahoma ranch home and her eight-year-old daughter had already spent an enchanted morning outside playing in the fluffy snow and now was enjoying a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream on top.

  “She would have texted or called if she needed something,” Cynthia retorted, but finally she accepted the envelope held out to her, finding the paper stained with what looked like a coffee spill. The feel of it in her hand was of something old and exquisitely fragile.

  “Maybe it’s from a secret admirer,” Betsy told her mother. Betsy was firmly of the opinion that her mother needed a boyfriend, hopefully one with marriage in mind. After visiting her aunt and uncle who were so visibly happy in their new marriage, she considered it to be a highly desirable state. Cynthia hated to burst her bubble by telling her that not every woman was so fortunate as to find a guy like her Uncle Moss or a special love like that between the two of them.

  She was number one witness to that fact since her own marriage had been a disaster from day one until it ended in divorce a year and a half ago. The only good thing that had come from that union had been her delightful little daughter.

  “One of dozens of admirers,” Moss added to his niece’s comment, settling down at his wife’s side close enough so they were touching. The glance he gave her was intimate as a kiss. “I understand several eligible men are pursuing my little sister.”

  Cynthia just caught herself before retorting sarcastically that maybe they were more interested in the fortune his sister had inherited than her lovely self. She didn’t want to pass on her cynicism to Betsy so she just smiled and went over to sit in the big recliner and read the letter that was probably some kind of cleverly designed advertising pitch.

  She opened the thin envelope cautiously, almost as though it were a precious artifact. The single sheet within, though thin, was of good quality, and the handwriting, though bold and strong was well formed almost like the writing from the past when people practiced graceful penmanship at school.

  She read:

  Mrs. Burden,

  Please forgive this message from a stranger, but a mutual friend suggested that we might enjoy corresponding. In fact, to be precise, she insisted on it.

  I have had the great pleasure of meeting your grandmother, the writer Maud Bailey Sandford, and she feels that since we have some similar interests we might benefit from exchanging letters now and then.

  Like you, I am left as the only parent to a young daughter and because of the demands of my profession am often without the solace of intellectual conversation. I am interested in good books and music and have a particular fascination with the study of history.

  I would be pleased to exchange occasional written communications with you if you would enjoy such.

  Most sincerely,

  Dr. Evan Stephens

  22 Crockett Road

  Lavender, Texas

  How really strange! Cynthia read the brief letter again. None of this made any sense. Finally she looked up to find all three members of her family staring at her.

  “Somebody trying to sell you something?” Moss asked, grinning at her.

  “A secret admirer,” her golden haired daughter suggested for the second time.

  Lynne didn’t say anything, but she looked concerned as though she suspected something more serious in the message.

  Cynthia swallowed hard. “Just somebody’s idea of a joke,” she said dismissively. She handed the letter to her brother.

  Frowning, he read it, than closely examined the envelope in which it came. “The post mark is for January 1890,” he said.

  A tremor ran through Cynthia’s body.

  “I’ve heard of letters being delivered years and years later. “ Lynne said hastily, obviously anxious to supply a logical answer.

  “It’s addressed to Mrs. Cynthia Caldecott Burden,” Moss told his wife, “and in the letter the guy says our grandmother, Maud Bailey Sandford, insisted he write.”

  Cynthia watched as her brother and his wife stared at each other. Once again she shivered. They knew something she didn’t, something that struck them deeply.

  “I don’t even remember either of my grandmothers,” she said, trying to keep things light, “but I’m sure neither of them was named Maud.”

  “Maud Sandford was a several generations removed grandmother,” Moss told her solemnly, “the woman who left this ranch to me.”

  Left it in a will written before her brother was even born, only stating that it would go to her father’s firstborn son. Cynthia was familiar with the strange family story.

  “The writer, Mom,” her daughter reminded her, waving at a shelf that contained the old books authored by their ancestor.

  They all looked so serious that Cynthia somehow managed to laugh. “You’re suggesting that a strange man wrote a letter to me on the advice of a woman who died years and years ago.” />
  Moss and Lynne again exchanged glances. “Stranger things have happened,” Lynne insisted quietly.

  Huge flakes of snow drifted down on his buggy and onto his long-suffering mare as they dragged their way into town. Usually Hero stepped up her pace as they neared her stable and the possibility of a meal of warm grain, but it had been a particularly difficult drive and a long cold night and it was taking the last ounce of her strength to get them back to the house on the hill where he lived with his family.

  Evan had lost a patient tonight. After many years of practice he should be used to the fact that he couldn’t save everyone, but it still hurt terribly. His old grandfather, the man who had inspired him into becoming a doctor, had predicted that his skin would eventually toughen, but after fifteen years of being a physician it didn’t seem to be happening. The best he could do was try to spare his family and friends from seeing the pain so that as time passed he was becoming more withdrawn and, some said, downright cranky.

  It was a little past three in the morning by the time he had Hero dried, fed and bedded down in her stall in the stable and went tiptoeing in the front door of the big house his dad had built for his family a dozen years ago. Now they lived here alone, he and Dad and little Edith and it was in no way the kind of home it had been when Mama and Jenny had been here.

  Still he wanted to do his best for the daughter Jenny had left to him and Mama had adored. He and his father had never gotten along particularly well. Mama said they were too much alike, and the last thing he’d ever planned was to come back here to live. But under the circumstances, there hadn’t been much choice.

  Anyhow the little town needed a doctor and it seemed somehow that God had left it on his hands. Lavender lay in darkness now, but in a couple of hours its people would be stirring, ready to face another day. And, just like people everywhere, they would get sick and hurt themselves. They would need medical care.

  Grandpa had saved the town and its people, but in so doing he’d trapped his grandson forever.

  He moved quietly through the gingerbread castle his mother had designed, wanting a house like those she read about in books, pausing only on the first floor to peek into the room where Eddie slept. Two years ago when his daughter had turned six, he’d allowed her to redecorate the pink and white bower her grandmother had made for her into something closer to her own taste and personality. Now she slept on the top level of a bunk bed. The lower bunk, she said, was for the sister she would have some day. His face twisted at the thought. There would be no more children in his life. The woman he’d married was gone forever.

  He barely avoided stumbling over the new sled he’d given his daughter for Christmas. It was so precious to her that she kept it parked right next to her bed.

  She’d kicked all her covers off so he pulled them up and tucked her in.

  She stirred, only half wakening. “Papa,” she said. “You’re back.”

  “I’m back,” he agreed softly. “Go to sleep. Mrs. Myers won’t be here for hours yet.”

  A smile flickered across her face and then she was quickly asleep again.

  He lingered only a moment, reassuring himself in her presence, then headed for the second flight of stairs. “That you, Evan?” his father called from his bedroom at the back of the floor. “Everything all right?”

  “It’s me,” he answered shortly. “No, it’s not all right.”

  No more need be said. His dad, son and father to medical men, would know to ask no more. He knew young Mrs. Connelly had been suffering a troubling pregnancy and bad news meant that either mother or baby, maybe both, had not survived.

  Evan tried to be grateful that Matt Connelly still had his young wife and the possibility of other children. It was hard to think of anything but the infant he had been unable to save.

  In the solitary bedroom put aside for his use so that he could get a few hours necessary sleep even when the rest of the family was up and about, he took off his shoes and then fell into bed fully dressed. In spite of the deepening depression encompassing him, he fell almost immediately asleep. It was only later, as a wintry dawn began to brighten the high eastern window of the tower room that he remembered his dream.

  He’d visited Maud again and she’d scolded him about writing a letter to her granddaughter until he’d admitted he’d finally done so, though he’d gotten no reply. She’d told him in no-nonsense tones to try again and after that he’d slipped into the first truly restful sleep he’d had in weeks.

  Good old Maud. She might be as fey as his grandpa had been, but whatever she was, wherever she was, she was good for what ailed him.

  He turned over and slept another couple of hours before going down to join Dad and Eddie for breakfast. Mrs. Myers, the grandmotherly lady who cooked and cleaned for them as well as keeping an eye on Eddie when she wasn’t in school, had made pancakes and bacon this morning.

  He ate and prepared to face another day trying to keep the residents of Lavender and its surrounding rural acres alive.

  And, oh yes, he must write another letter to Cynthia Caldecott Burden or the next time he dreamed about Maud she would want to know the reason why he hadn’t.

  Chapter Two

  Fortunately Cynthia was alone at the ranch when the second letter came only two days later.

  Betsy had gone into Cheyenne with her aunt and uncle to stock up on groceries because the weatherman on the Oklahoma City channel was calling for a winter storm watch starting tonight.

  Cynthia had lingered over her coffee and toast, than taken a walk down to the pasture to talk to the horses. No sense of a storm lay in the air. It was one of those winter days that felt like the beginning of spring.

  She stopped by the mailbox down by the gate on her way back to the house, extracting the usual pile of bills and catalogs and it wasn’t until she was back inside, dumping the stack in the basket Moss kept for that purpose, that she saw what looked like an envelope identical to the one her brother had brought into the house for her a couple of days ago.

  This had to be somebody playing a trick on her. Or, as her daughter had playfully suggested, a very imaginative admirer. Well, that was the last thing she wanted or needed. Her former husband and the extremely large settlement she’d given him to get him out of her daughter’s life had cured her of any tendency toward a romantic view of life.

  Anyway, how could anybody fake a U.S. postage stamp with George Washington’s picture on it? Quickly ideas presented themselves: actual old stamps, counterfeit old stamps . . .

  She opened the letter and read:

  My dear Mrs. Burden:

  Forgive me for bothering you again, but Miss Maud accuses me of failing to write, or even possibly neglecting to put my letter in the mail to send it to you.

  With greater justice, she suggests that I might have failed to write an ‘interesting’ letter. Since these days my family and friends are accusing me of lacking the ability to take part in ordinary conversation, that charge probably comes closer to the mark.

  I am the only practicing physician in our little town and am kept very busy, often spending my evenings making calls in the countryside. Last night was one of those and not I’m afraid a very successful one, though I won’t trouble you with a description of that unfortunate event.

  As the only surviving parent I feel torn between the needs of my patients and giving my eight-year-old daughter enough of my time. Maud tells me you are in a similar position, raising a small daughter alone. I would be interested in any tips on how you manage.

  In my scant leisure time I enjoy reading and am particularly interested in the history of our country but I also indulge in fiction now and then and am a fan of both Mr. Dickens and Mr. Twain, both of whom I consider to be excellent storytellers.

  Your grandmother imagines that I am lonely and that the black dog of depression shadows me these days and wishes to do me the favor of giving me a letter-writing friend who will brighten my gloomy ways.

  It would please both me and
Miss Maud if you could see your way to sending an occasional letter in my direction.

  Most sincerely,

  Evan Stephens

  This wasn’t the letter of a prankster, Cynthia suddenly decided. A naturally upbeat person, she’d suffered too many of life’s blows in her life not to have had a few visits from the black dog herself. At twelve her comfortable, privileged life had been struck down when her beloved older brother was sent to prison for life. Neither of her parents had ever been the same and to protect her from her brother’s notoriety and their own devastation, they’d sent her to boarding school in New England.

  Barely out of school and with her mother dead and her father dying, she’d married a charming conman, who hadn’t spent much time even pretending affection for her or the daughter they shared. After all that it had been hard to hang on to her native optimism and it had taken her a long time to dump her loser husband and focus her life on little Betsy.

  Two years ago her brother had come back to her, bringing a sister-in-law who had become her best friend, but she tried not to intrude too much on their well-earned happiness. She doubted she’d ever fully trust another man, certainly not enough to put her life, and more importantly that of her daughter, in his keeping.

  She dated occasionally, tried to keep busy volunteering and seeing to the upkeep of the palatial west coast home left by her parents, but sometimes the only thing that kept her going was the faith she saw in her daughter’s eyes. Betsy believed her mom could do anything.

  She didn’t understand about the letter. Like the first one, this one was post-marked Lavender, Texas and had been sent with a two cent stamp featuring the likeness of George Washington. The date on the envelope was too smudged for her to read.

  The paper was as worn and aged looking as the first had been.

  None of this made sense, but still the message reached out to something within her so that she pulled a sheet of printer paper from the box Moss kept near the computer and picking up a pen, began to write.

  The letter poured out in a mixture of doubt and caring, and signing it hastily, she put it into an envelope and addressed it to Dr. Evan Stephens, 22 Crockett St., Lavender, Texas. Taking one of her ‘forever’ stamps, which cost considerably more than two cents, she walked down to put it in the mailbox and raise the flag.