Leaving Lavender: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 3) Read online

  Though Jerry was staring, a wide grin beginning to spread across his young face. “Zan!” he said.

  Then Lynne let things slip a notch. “You’re not a ghost,” she said, somewhere in between a question and a statement.

  “Don’t be silly, Mom,” Jerry reprimanded. “This is Zan Alston, one of the top scientists in the world. It’s some sort of experiment.”

  “What about your voice?” Eddie asked anxiously. “Will they be able to hear you?”

  “I’ve got a sound disrupter in my pocket. They’ll just think it’s the weather kicking up. Looks like a storm is moving in.”

  “It’s rained most of the day,” Moss said conversationally.

  “We thought you weren’t going to get here in time for the wedding,” Lynne said. “Where’s your brother and the judge?”

  “I didn’t let my brother in on my plans. And as for the judge, well, I guess the wedding’s off. The place is surrounded and my illusion will wear off within a few hours. I just came by to say goodbye to Eddie, then I’m heading for the badlands.”

  “I will go with you,” Eddie insisted, desperately clinging to a hand she couldn’t see, than added irrationally, “but I was so much looking forward to the pretty wedding Lynne planned for us.”

  “You can’t go, honey. It’s too dangerous. Besides they would see you leaving and we’d both be betrayed.”

  He pulled her close to him and begged the others. “Five minutes alone with her is all I ask.”

  Jerry grabbed the dog, dragging him along in the direction of the kitchen. Moss and Lynne followed their son.

  “We are alone,” Eddie said as though he couldn’t see as well as be soon.

  He kissed her slow and hard as though that one kiss would have to last forever.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  When they stepped back from the kiss, she reached out to sock him hard just about where she thought his jaw would be. “Dolt!” she said with a snarl.

  “Why Eddie, darling.”

  “You promised me a wedding and here I am all dressed up and Lynne has made sandwiches and a cake and everything. I ought to sue you for breach of promise.”

  She could hear his breathing, but not a word came out of his mouth. The faint sound of the choppers came from overhead. If the neighbors were wondering about what was happening at the Caldecott Ranch, they had the good sense not to come see. Or maybe they were being kept back by the patrol.

  “You look so pretty, Eddie. I’m just thankful I got to see you in that dress. I’ll remember you like this always.”

  “Chances are you won’t have much time to remember anything for long if you are heading out in the badlands with half an army chasing you.”

  “It’s the only way.”

  She supposed she should be scared to death, but instead she was mad as fire. And all that anger was directed at this man she loved. “And I don’t get any say at all.”

  He started to speak, but didn’t get more than one word out before she went on. “Don’t interrupt, Zan Alston. I guess you just said wanted to marry me because you’d ruined my reputation and felt you owed it to me. And now you’re backing out.”

  “Eddie, that’s ridiculous. You know you mean more than life itself to me. That’s why I’m leaving you, so you’ll be safe.”

  “Well, I am telling you there is no other choice but taking me with you. Not if you want a chance to stay alive and save all those people by taking them into space or into pockets in time the way you planned.”

  Apparently one of them at least was talking really loud because Moss and Lynne came hurrying back into the room. And Einstein was barking from the kitchen while Jerry yelled at him to be quiet.

  She didn’t have time to fool with unnecessary explanations. “I want to be married and I want to go with you and you have to take me because I have Great-Grandpapa’s journal, his first one that tells all about the experiments. Now I do not know enough about x and y and all that to guess if he tells what you want to know, but I figure there’s a good chance.”

  “You have Tyler Stephens’ journal? And you didn’t tell me?”

  “How could I? Ever since Betsy left, you have told me not to say anything secret. This is the first chance we’ve had to talk without being overheard.”

  “You could have written it!” Now he sounded almost as mad as she was.

  “I figured they could see what I was writing. You said they were always watching and listening.”

  “Well, there is that, of course, but Eddie how did you keep the journal safe? Where is it?”

  “The actual books are in the library back in our house in Lavender. But I have it in my head too.”

  “Your head?”

  Moss finally found space to interrupt. “Betsy did say that Eddie had that kind of memory. You know, the kind where you read or hear something once and it sticks word for word. That’s why they gave her the job of historian in Lavender.”

  “So you see, you have to take me with you.” She was able to speak in a calmer voice now that it looked like she was winning. “Even if it is only because you need me. In a scientific way, of course.”

  Even as the sounds from outside seem to get louder and closer and Zan reminded himself that his ideas about how long his treatment would lost were all theoretical, Lynne and Moss helped Eddie put together the last details of the wedding.

  Jerry, who didn’t seem any more troubled that Zan wasn’t visible than was Einstein, had to tell him about his latest project at school while Zan reminded himself he had to stay cool and calm. He’d left the auto he’d driven parked alongside a country lane several miles back and walked the rest of the way. If he and Eddie could get back there, then they’d have a chance to escape.

  But they’d see her! How would he ever get her out safely? You’re supposed to be a bright guy, Alston. Think of something!

  “But we don’t have a judge or a minister or anyone who has a right to perform a wedding,” he suddenly cut into Jerry’s monologue to protest. “There’s nobody to marry us.”

  Eddie looked up from where Lynne was attempting to restyle the hairdo he’d undone with his enthusiastic welcome. “In the olden days, the couple just got together with their friends and family and said their vows. Judges and preachers weren’t around at just every location back in pioneer days.”

  “You made that up,” he accused.

  “No, I read it.”

  He remembered about her fantastic ability to recall what she read and couldn’t argue with that.

  “If you really want to get out of marrying me . . .” Eddie let the words trail off.

  He knew she was teasing, but he couldn’t help panicking. “I want to marry you more than anything.”

  Within five minutes, they were standing together, hearing choppers overhead and autos in the road, repeating vows that Moss and Lynne suggested, neither of them very accurately, he suspected.

  “Do you promise to love, honor and obey?” Lynne asked him. “No, I mean cherish.”

  “I will,” he said with as much solemnity as if he stood in a church in front of God and a thousand people. Well, he sure hoped God was here anyway.

  Things were going weird for Eddie. Even as she stood at Zan’s side, listening to him make his promises to her, she could almost see him. He kept flashing in and out and she would see the expression on his face that was somewhere between delight and terror.

  He wasn’t dressed to match her formal wedding dress, of course, but wore light brown pants of some rough material, work boots, and a long-sleeved shirt. He’d gotten ready for the long trip ahead. She’d need to hurry to dress accordingly. She couldn’t go tripping out into the badlands in Jenny’s wedding dress.

  Then he was gone again and she was making promises in another room, no the same room, but at a different time.

  A thin, ancient looking Maud stood facing her. “Eddie, this is urgent,” she insisted.

  “I’m so sorry, Maud, but I can’t talk now. I’m getting married.�
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  And she was back with Moss asking her, “What’s wrong, Eddie? You seemed to just blank out.”

  “No, nothing’s wrong.” She saw Zan and then he was gone again. Lynne repeated the words she was supposed to say, something about loving and honoring . . .

  She was finding it increasingly hard to focus, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t entirely sincere about the commitment she was making. “I love you,” she said to Zan. “Even when I can’t see you.”

  “We must talk,” Maud insisted just as a heavy knocking sounded at the door and Lynne and Moss said together, “We pronounce you husband and wife.”

  Then they were all gone and Maud, who looked to be about ninety though her face was still as interesting and wise as ever, said “Thank goodness. You’re back.”

  Eddie opened her mouth to protest this interruption to her wedding, than gaped with it wide open as she saw the tall, dark man seated in Maud’s favorite chair. “Papa,” she said with a gasp. Papa, what are you doing here.”

  Evan Stephens was a man of considerable reserve and great dignity, but that didn’t keep him from holding out his arms to his daughter. She ran to give him a hug, feeling just like the little girl who always thought nothing very terrible could be wrong if her father was with her.

  “Either I am in your dream or you are in mine,” Papa said.

  For years she’d called both him and Cynthia by their first names, but she didn’t think about that now.

  “Oh, Papa, we’re in such terrible trouble, Zan and me. That’s my new husband. His name is Alexander Alston, though everybody calls him Zan and he’s a brilliant scientist like your grandfather was.”

  “Betsy has told us about him, though she didn’t say you’d married the fellow.”

  “Just now. Moss and Lynne did the ceremony for us.”

  The lines in his forehead deepened. “They aren’t preachers, child. We’ll have to do the whole thing over once you get home just to make sure it’s legal.”

  She laughed with sudden joy. “Oh, Papa, if only we could come home.”

  She looked around, having almost forgotten Maud’s presence, and saw the look on her face. “You’re wearing my Jenny’s wedding gown,” she said softly.

  “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Nothing I could like better. But now, Evan, we’ve got to help this girl think how she’s to get herself and that man of hers back home to you.”

  “Has this always been where you’ve come in your dreams, Papa, the ones you told me about? Have you come to Maud?”

  He nodded. “We’re old friends. Maud’s been like a mother to me.”

  “More like a big sister,” Maud corrected sharply, smiling slightly at the look on Eddie’s face as though she knew the younger woman was visualizing a short time ago when they had been about the same age. “When I met him, Eddie, I soon realized he was your dad. We’re all family in a way, I suppose.”

  Eddie’s heart jumped as she began to hear the knocking on the door once again. “We’re running out of time.”

  Dr. Evan Stephens was instantly all business. “Estimate how long it will take you to get to Lavender from here.” His rare grin brightened his rather serious face. “You’ve got to understand I have always come by rather unusual means.”

  “With modern transportation, only a few hours,” Maud told him.

  Eddie couldn’t help thinking just how fast ‘modern’ transport was these days, especially if you were in a rush. “I don’t know how we’ll do it, but we’ll get there as quick as we can.”

  Evan nodded. “As soon as I’m back in Lavender and awake, I’ll take Betsy to the crossing point by the creek. She’ll be watching for you.”

  Eddie frowned, distracted. “It was your grandfather that worked the science of Lavender, so how is it that Betsy can stroll across at will while the rest of us are stuck.”

  Evan shrugged.

  “It seems to me that there is science in your family, Eddie,” Maud explained, “but in my family and Betsy’s there’s something else, a kind of magic inherited from long ago. I see into the past, Betsy crosses time lines and for some like your mother and my daughter, the ability skips a generation.”

  Eddie had so many more questions, but she was running out of time. She could sense the scene around her fading. “We’ll get there some way, Papa,” she managed to say and then Moss pulled open the front door and Geoff Alston stomped into the room, rain dripping from his jacket.

  “We need to search the house,” he said abruptly. “My brother is missing.”

  Suddenly Eddie knew the way to get home.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Zan looked down at his own hands. Thankfully they were still invisible.

  Geoff appeared highly disturbed and, cynically, Zan wondered if It was because he genuinely worried about his brother, or was concerned about what his compatriots were going to do to him if he didn’t find Zan in a hurry.

  “Somehow he got out of the spaceport, though it seemed impossible,” Geoff told Moss, still holding the door open behind him so they could see the fall of rain in the darkening evening and the flashing of emergency lights out on the roadway. Several of the cars were now parked directly in front of the house.

  This sure would be a bad time to go visible. Poor old Geoff, he looked like he was about to have a heart attack.

  The sudden sound of sobbing drew everybody’s attention as Eddie threw herself face-down on the sofa. “I’ve been left at the altar. I’ve been jilted. Oh, the shame, the shame.”

  Zan grinned, wishing he could tell her not to overdo it. He recalled reading somewhere that back in the time where she lived young women were given to swooning and having attacks of the vapors, whatever they were.

  “Oh, no, Edith . . .I mean, Eddie. Zan loves you. He would be here if it was at all possible,” Geoff assured her.

  Eddie rolled over to face him. Her face was contorted and quite red. Zan wondered if she could turn on that flush of hers at will. Tears trickled from her eyes. “Then you’re telling me that he’s dead. That my dearest Zan is lying on the ground in the rain, cold and dead?” She gave a little howl and clasped her hands to her face. Given her fair complexion, Zan had little doubt that pushing her hands against her face would redden her skin even more.

  She looked like a woman in the midst of disaster, he thought admiringly. Who would have thought his Eddie would turn out to be such an actress?

  Two men dressed in the uniforms of the state guard appeared in the doorway, looking first at Eddie, then at Geoff. “We’re supposed to search the place,” one of them said.

  Geoff frowned, than nodded at them to go ahead. Zan supposed this was an illegal search, but neither Moss or Lynne protested, though Einstein barked fiercely until Jerry called him to his side where he settled down to grumble in a low growl.

  Moss came over to kneel beside Eddie, patting her back and murmuring comfortingly while Lynne got a box of tissues from the desk, giving a handful of them to Eddie, even as she glared at Geoff for putting her poor niece into such distress. “It is my belief that man has abandoned this lovely child,” she told his brother. “And you’re just covering up for him.”

  More guardsmen came into the house, finally closing the door behind them before assisting in a search that took the house apart from drawer to closet.

  “I certainly hope you’re planning on cleaning up the mess you’re making,” she said indignantly. “I spent all day cleaning for the wedding. And baking. You tell your men not to touch that wedding cake,” she ordered Geoff.

  “Oh, no ma’am,” he assured her. “They wouldn’t do that.”

  “There, there,” Moss said, continuing to pat Eddie’s back.

  Right then the only thing Zan was really afraid of was that Jerry would burst into laughter at any moment. His face looked as though he was having a hard time keeping it in.

  “That’s a lovely dress, Edith,” Geoff tried to offer what comfort he could. “You make a lovely bride. Or I supp
ose I should say you would have made a lovely bride.”

  Go ahead, Geoff, put your foot in your mouth. Funny how he used to think his brother the sultan of suave. All that smoothness seemed to have fled him these last few months.

  By now Eddie was crying so hard that even though her dress still looked good, her face was red and puffy and her eyes swollen. This wasn’t all just acting. He only wished he could go over and take Moss’s place at her side, but he couldn’t risk somebody tripping over him and the whole charade being exposed.

  As it was, Jerry was having to hang on to the dog with both hands to keep him from rushing over to Zan. Apparently invisibility didn’t work with animals.

  Abruptly Eddie stood up and Moss rose to stand supportively at her side. Zan ducked back against the wall to avoid being run over by a passing guardsman. If this wasn’t so terrifying, it would almost be funny.

  She faced Geoff, her expression a mixture of sorrow and anger. “Please just let me go home, Mr. Alston. One way or the other, there’s no future for me here. Just let my aunt and uncle drive me back home and I’ll leave you to take care of things with your brother. I just pray that he’s still alive.”

  She was quiet now, soft-spoken, all the dramatics gone. She just seemed exhausted and so very sad. So this was the game she was playing, she meant to force Geoff to send her-– them—to Lavender.

  The searchers seemed concentrated on their work, but Zan was sure they and whoever they were hooked up to outside, were hearing every word.

  “It might be best,” Lynne said. “After what she’s been through.”

  Geoff nodded and for one blazing instant Zan thought he would agree. “You come from Texas, don’t you, Edith? Some little place down there.”

  “A farm not too far from Bonham. I want to see my family. Please, Mr. Alston. And if you ever see your brother again, please explain to him and tell him that I loved him, but that I just couldn’t take any more of this.” Another tear slid down her cheek. “Except I’m afraid he’s dead.”