Leaving Lavender: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 3) Page 12

  Zan leaned back to study her face. “Did you fall into a dream, my love? Are you having trouble coming back to reality?”

  She wasn’t quite sure anymore just exactly which was reality. The smoke from the fireplace, the little girl with her cookie or right here sitting in Zan’s arms, the dog sleeping on her feet.

  “A dream,” she agreed because it was easier than trying to explain. Even Zan with his wide-open mind would have trouble understanding what had happened.

  She didn’t understand it herself. She just knew that it happened, but that somehow she must not overuse the privilege. She wanted to go right back to Maud and demand answers and advice, but somehow knew she shouldn’t.

  It could be like three wishes in the fairy tales. She might use them all up and they’d be gone.

  They sat quietly, finding comfort in each other’s touch as the guard approached them. “Dinner is served, Dr. Alston, Miss Stephens.”

  It was almost as though he were their butler instead of one of those holding them hostage. It was a pretense they allowed to continue while they tried to find a way out of this situation.

  The household servants went about their work as usual, but with strain visible in their faces. They moved slowly as if afraid of being attacked at any time. Though some of them normally left in the evenings for their homes, they were required to stay at the mansion. Their families had been informed by authorities that the household was under quarantine because of some unidentified illness.

  Now the Burdens and their ‘guests’ gathered around the long dining table as they did each evening. This was the only meal they were required to consume together, but this one was compulsory. Zan wasn’t quite sure why unless the intelligence gang had decided he would be more cooperative if forced to become more closely acquainted with the other hostages.

  He and Eddie seated themselves next to the chairs occupied by her aunt, uncle and cousin Jerry. Sara Burden, who had an obvious crush on the teenager took the chair next to him. Jerry grinned at her as though he didn’t mind the admiration.

  Mike Burden took his place at the head of the table, his wife on his right and Betsy on his left. It was irritating to see how hard Betsy was continuing to try and win her father’s affection. Zan was willing to bet that Mike had very little ability to love anyone, including his wife and two daughters. Mike’s life was all about himself.

  Tonight though he was playing the genial host and when Geoff unexpectedly joined the group, he had an extra chair brought in and dishes placed next to his wife, just as though Geoffrey Alston was an honored visitor.

  As for Zan, he felt distinctly uneasy. This dinner was going to be different from the ones on previous nights. The fact that Geoff had chosen to attend meant something was about to change.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Eddie had been brought up in a time when the family expected to dine together, but these dinners at the Santa Barbara house were considerably more formal than meals back in Lavender.

  A maid in a black and white uniform served them with leek soup while another poured water and wine into glasses. When Mrs. Burden dipped her spoon into the soup, the others also began to eat.

  She supposed it was good soup, but somehow it was tasteless in her mouth. Too tense to be hungry or savor her food, after the first mouthful, she simply pretended to fill her spoon, bringing it empty to her mouth. She noticed that no one other than the two youngsters seemed to be enjoying the food as they moved from course to course. They were all waiting to see why Geoff Alston was present and what he would say when he decided to speak.

  After day after day so uneventful that they’d almost become accustomed to being prisoners here together, they all were aware that somehow time had run out.

  Eddie felt fearful, her palms sweaty and her knees trembling even as she put every ounce of strength into trying to appear calm and untroubled. She wouldn’t let Zan’s brother see that he was upsetting her.

  By the time the flaming dessert was served, tasting of cherries, the silence had grown oppressive. Even Betsy had quit trying to get her father into conversation and her normally cheerful expression had turned sullen.

  This was suddenly too much for Eddie. “You have a perfectly good papa back at home,” she said in a loud voice that could be heard clearly from one end of the table to the other.

  For an instant, she thought Betsy was about to throw her plate in her direction the way she had one time back when they were children. On that momentous occasion, they’d both spent the rest of the evening in their rooms without finishing supper. Eddie had thought that tremendously unfair since she’d actually thrown nothing, but Papa had said she’d egged Betsy on.

  This time Betsy contented herself with only throwing a remark. “He’s your dad.”

  “Yours too, He’s the one who sat up with you when you were sick and went to school with you when you got in trouble.”

  “That was you. I never got in trouble.”

  Eddie grinned. “There was the matter of getting caught sending a note to John Henry Ralston.”

  Betsy grinned back. “He was so good looking. All the girls were crazy about him.”

  “Not me,” Eddie snapped back.

  “You never had any taste in men,” Betsy retorted with a long cool look in Zan’s direction.

  The others at the table acted as though they were at a tennis match, heads turning to first Eddie, then Betsy, depending on who was currently speaking.

  “And it’s not as if you wouldn’t like to see your mother,” Eddie was dealt the killer stroke. “And mama is the best mama in the world.”

  Suddenly Eddie was elsewhere. She was back by the fireplace in the ranch house where little Jenny was just finishing her cookie, a milk mustache decorating her adorable face.

  Maud was obviously finishing a sentence, not having apparently noticed her absence, or being so accustomed to strange comings and goings that she was undisturbed by them

  “. . .have a surprise for you,” she was saying. While Eddie stared at her, she got up and went over to a desk next to the far wall, pulled out a drawer and brought out a large envelope.

  She gave it to Eddie. “Go ahead,” she said. “Look at what’s inside.” The normally contained Maud had something of the air of a person offering a birthday gift to a child.

  The envelope had been opened before. Eddie reached in and drew out a photograph. It was of a woman in her middle years, her eyes dark and hair not showing its reddish tones in the photo. Her face so much like Eddie’s that she could be no one else.

  “I suppose you’ve seen pictures of her when she was young?”

  Wordlessly Eddie nodded. Jenny Stephens. Her mother. “Where did you get this?”

  “It took almost a year, but I advertised in several of the newspapers in the cities. She lives in Dallas and when she answered my notice, I wrote to her saying I was looking for information about the mother of Edith Stephens of Lavender, Texas. She thought I was a fraud at first, said there was no more Lavender anymore and her daughter was gone.”

  “But she sent this to you?”

  Maud nodded, her expression solemn. “Finally. I had to tell her I had no sure way of contacting you or your father, but that I might be able to get word through. It was obvious from what she wrote that she knew the whole story, knew that she herself had shut the door that left you behind. She begged that I at least try to get a message to you.”

  “A message,” Eddie repeated stupidly.

  “In the envelope.”

  She reached inside again and found a smaller envelope. It had not been opened.

  And then she was back again at the dinner table at the house in Santa Barbara, but still clutched in her hand was a small sealed envelope.

  Whatever it was that had happened before, had happened again. Only Zan seemed to be aware that for a couple of minutes Eddie’s mind had been away, though her body had remained present in the chair next to his.

  Her face was so white now that her red mouth look
ed striking and her eyes were large and dark.

  “Are you all right?” he whispered.

  Eddie nodded. They had no further time for discussion because during the brief interval in which she had been gone, Geoff had taken center stage. He was standing now and all eyes were turned in his direction.

  She couldn’t help thinking how much he and Zan looked alike. Oh, Geoff was probably several years older, his hair sprinkled with premature gray and his face weathered by stress, but anybody could have identified them as brothers.

  And yet, it seemed to her there was a darkness, a calculation in his gaze that did not exist in Zan. Somehow, somewhere he’d been corrupted.

  He was silent, deliberately waiting until he had the attention of them all.

  His voice sounded, deeply persuasive. If she had not been instinctively distrustful she might have been comforted just by the sound of that voice. In one hand she clasped the precious envelope she’d brought with her from the past, with the other she reached out to place her hand within Zan’s. He squeezed it and seemed to draw her slightly closer to his own body.

  “First of all I want to apologize to all of you for the inconvenience you have suffered these last few days and want to assure you that it was entirely necessary as a matter of vital security for our country.”

  Mike Burden burbled a few barely intelligible words about how they were glad to be of service.

  Uncharacteristically Betsy snorted in most unladylike fashion and Eddie suspected that her father’s obsequious words were the last straw in her attempt to find real character or caring in the man.

  Thank heavens her sensible Betsy was back. Though, the letter in her hand, she could also feel the other girl’s pain.

  “Our papa’s a man to be respected,” she called down the table.

  Betsy smiled broadly, some of the sorrow fading from her eyes.

  Geoff ignored this byplay between them as though it was without significance. “I’m glad to be able to inform you,” he went on like a man making a public speech rather than one addressing his dinner companions, “that by morning you will be released to go about your lives and you, Mr. and Mrs. Burden will be released of your uninvited guests, both official and unofficial.”

  Nobody looked particularly pleased, Eddie thought, but more as though they were wondering what the next trick was that Geoff Alston had up his sleeve.

  She exchanged glances with Zan and knew what he was thinking. They’d given up on the gentle approach. Now the hard stuff was coming.

  It wasn’t until they were in their room and Betsy showering in their private bath that she opened the letter from her mother. The handwriting was beautifully styled with loops and flourishes and she took a second to admire it before beginning to read.

  My dearest Daughter:

  To have heard you are well and happy even though living in that lost place with your father has brought me the greatest joy of my life and now I want to try to explain why I left Lavender without you.

  I was very young and frankly spoiled by my parents, much too young to have married much less become a mother. Looking back I am able to see what a fine man Evan was, but then all I thought was that he neglected me for his work, that he left me alone to worry about his patients and to listen to his grandfather’s wild talk.

  And then you came and after that I seemed to go mad for a little while. I couldn’t see my beautiful baby, but only that I was myself still a young girl and locked in with all the dreary responsibility and no good times or admirers anymore.

  I left gladly to go home to the luxury of my parents’ home. They arranged a divorce for me and told me to leave it all behind me as if everything in Lavender had never happened.

  Then about six months later, I woke up aching for you and began for the first time to realize what I had done. Your pretty little face, your tufts of reddish hair seemed the most beautiful things in the world to me and I knew I would live with regret for the rest of my life. I had left the person I most loved in this world behind and I would long for her forever.

  I turned my back on the life that had so fascinated me to this point and trained to become a nurse working with children and did this for several years before I met a wonderful man, a widower with a little son. He is the only child we have, but I love him as my own, the way I love you.

  Please forgive me.

  Your loving mother

  She wasn’t aware Betsy had emerged from the bath until the letter was snatched from her hand. Betsy, barefoot and clad in a bathrobe danced around the room, waving the thin sheets of paper in her hand.

  “A love letter!” she gloated. “From Zan. I wonder what he has to say.”

  Eddie’s alarm didn’t come from the source her sister suspected. Betsy had just been through a horrendous few days with her father, learning that he’d not gotten better over the years, but was worse. He not only didn’t love her, he seemed to have little feeling for her newly discovered younger sister. Hers was a dream that would never come true and Eddie only wanted her to realize that she had the best father in the world already in Evan Stephens.

  Betsy thought she was teasing her with a mushy love letter from Zan when actually what she had in her hand was proof that a person could change for the better, that Betsy’s own mother had come to realize her genuine love for the daughter she’d abandoned.

  This knowledge would be rubbing salt into Betsy’s wounds.

  Eddie knew Betsy would have no hesitation about reading her letter. They were sisters and over the years these were the kinds of games they’d played.

  She ran after Betsy, trying with all her might to grab that damaging letter. Betsy laughed, jumping on one of the beds to dangle it just out of her reach.

  Desperately Eddie reached for it again and managed to seize the sheets of paper, pulling them to her with all her might. To her dismay instead of taking the letter from Betsy’s hand, the paper ripped, leaving the bottom half of the pages in her grip while Betsy retained the top half.

  “Uh, oh!” Betsy said with a laugh. “Your own fault, you tore it.”

  Eddie sank onto the mattress, almost in tears. Her mother’s precious letter was ripped apart.

  Seeing her face, Betsy went into immediate remorse. “Oh, honey, I was only teasing. Look, I’ll read the lovely words to you and you’ll feel better.” She got only as far as the salutation, “My dearest daughter . . .”

  All the color fled Betsy’s pink cheeks. She sank down next to Eddie. “A letter from your mother? But Eddie, I don’t understand. She was born back then, before Lavender, she must have died long ago.”

  Eddie nodded. There was nothing to do now but reveal everything. “I’ve been having these dreams.”

  “Dreams?” Betsy frowned, puzzled.

  Eddie swallowed hard. “You remember the dreams Papa told us about where he met with a woman named Maud Bailey Sandford.”

  Betsy’s face brightened. “Who could forget? Those stories he told us about the old woman who was a writer and left the ranch in Oklahoma to Uncle Moss . . .” She managed a slight laugh. “I never believed a word of it, though of course, Papa is such a good storyteller.”

  “When I meet her she isn’t old. She’s just about our age, but of course back in time. And she managed to contact my mother and tell her we’re all right. And this is the letter she sent me in return.”

  Betsy’s mouth curled scornfully. “I suppose she couldn’t care less,” she said bitterly.

  Eddie didn’t know what to say.

  “Will you read it to me?” Betsy asked. “I’d like to hear it, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Quietly Eddie read the letter aloud, then they both sat in silence until Betsy said, “You’re so lucky.”

  “Bets, I’ll never see my mother.”

  “I wish I’d never come looking for my dad,” Betsy said bitterly.

  Eddie took her hand. “Evan and Cynthia, Papa and Mama, together they make a complete set of parents for both of us.”

  Betsy n
odded. “And I can’t be sorry I got a chance to meet Sara. She’s a sweet kid. But Eddie, if they really do release us in the morning, then I’m ready to go back home to Lavender.”

  Eddie didn’t say anything.

  “Edith Stephens! You aren’t thinking about staying?”

  “I don’t know. I’m kind of mixed up right now. How can I leave Zan when he’s in so much trouble?”

  Betsy laughed. “We’ll take him with us. We’ll tell Papa he followed us home like a lost puppy.”

  Eddie joined in her sister’s laughter. “You always make me feel better, Bets.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Zan slept little that night, his mind unable to let go of visions as to what his brother might be up to. It couldn’t be good, he knew that.

  He was up early, showered and dressed in jeans and a knit shirt, a far cry from the dark business suit with tie that his brother favored.

  Going into the dining room for coffee and to help himself to bacon and a bagel from the breakfast buffet, he was unsurprised when Geoff joined him.

  His brother greeted him with his usual affability, got himself a breakfast of his own choosing, then took a seat across from him

  “Talked to Mom and Dad last night. They sent their best.”

  Zan nodded. He had little feeling toward the parents who had always seemed to regard him more as a bewildering stranger dropped in their midst than a son. Years ago he’d distanced himself from them emotionally even as they’d distanced him physically by sending him away to one school after another, setting his heart instead on his big brother as his only family.

  And now that was, utterly and painfully, gone. He didn’t want anything bad to happen to Geoff, but all the sweet memories were now tainted.

  He found himself unable to eat and so only sipped his coffee, waiting for his brother to speak. “We leave as soon as you can be ready,” Geoff said, the pretense at brotherliness abruptly gone. “Vehicles are ready to transport the others where they wish to go. The Burden family will be left in possession of his daughter’s home unless the daughter or her uncle protest. That is a matter to be resolved between them.”