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

  The good people of Lavender had voted her a living wage for her efforts and Grandpapa, who still served on the city council in spite of his age, had led the way in funding a project to begin making paper from the abundant woods on the east side of the community. Some of the more scientific minded youngsters were even working on building a second printing press from used parts.

  Other more essential innovations got priority, however, and everybody was proud of the tiny forest of wooden windmills that pumped enough power into town to give limited hours of light. One of the farmers, accustomed to using a windmill to pump water for his cows, had made the original suggestion and everybody who could pitched in to help with the project.

  Lavender hadn’t stood still in the last few years. Bright young people were coming up with new ideas all the time and the main thing they had to deal with was too avoid overuse of limited natural resources.

  Now when most everybody was seated and engaged in the loud hum of eager conversation that took place whenever a group of these hard-working and, in the case of the farm families, talk-starved people got together, Grandpapa got up, welcomed them and then turned the program over to Betsy.

  The audience cheered, led by several of the golden haired girl’s more ardent admirers, as she got to her feet . Eddie didn’t feel even a twinge of envy. The last thing in the world she would want was get up in front of half the community and have to open her mouth and tell a story.

  Not only her tongue would freeze. Her brain would too.

  Now she settled herself comfortably and waited to hear the first words of Betsy’s latest creation.

  2027 Oklahoma

  Zan Alston woke early, his brain buzzing with the knowledge that while he’d slept he’d made a break-through on the design problem he’d been worrying for weeks. At first he thought it was the revelation that had awakened him at such an untimely hour, but then it he realized the answer was more commonplace.

  He hadn’t lived at the Caldecott Ranch long enough to be quite accustomed to hearing a rooster crow the dawn awake.

  Even though it was barely six a.m. the last thing he wanted was to go back to sleep. He was one of those rare people who needed only half a dozen hours of sleep a night and even though he hadn’t gotten home until midnight, he was more than well rested.

  What he really wanted was to pull on some clothes and have his car drive him across the miles to work. But he’d promised Geoff when he’d been forced to move way out here in the country that he wouldn’t spend more than twelve hours a day in the lab. His brother thought he worked too hard and was damaging his health.

  He didn’t like to worry Geoff so he’d agreed to move out to this ranch where intern Jerry Caldecott’s parents tried their best to treat him as one of the family, even though it was the last thing he wanted.

  He had agreed only because he had a small cabin to himself that no one else was allowed to enter, not even the young intern. The one thing absolutely essential to his health was a huge dose of privacy and as for the limitation on lab hours, well, he could work anywhere. It all happened inside his head, after all.

  Even Einstein, who normally greeted the day with enthusiasm, emerged reluctantly from the foot of the bed, stretching and yawning and looking at Zan as though this had to be some kind of mistake and they were both about to crawl back into the cozily disordered bed.

  Instead he followed Zan from the rustic cottage that had been built for ranch workers, stepping out onto the little porch to survey the landscape. The updated ranch house where the Caldecott family lived set half an acre to the north, but to the south he could see miles and miles of sparsely covered red hills. The Caldecott’s beautiful horses ambled across their share of those hills, already cropping at the spring grass. A small pond sparkled as the rising sun sent rays of light onto the water.

  Zan had lived most of his life in cities, most of his hours inside laboratories or classrooms. When Geoff, concerned about his health, made arrangements for him to come out and live on the property belonging to his young intern’s family, he’d felt he was being sent to purgatory.

  It hadn’t worked out that way. He had discovered an untapped love for the wildness of this Oklahoma county where wind farms and oil wells mixed with ranching as occupations and the population dwindled each year as technology replaced human workers.

  He liked the isolation and the rugged beauty; it made his brain whirl its ideas about more energetically. Geoff would not be pleased to know that this was the best place he’d ever been to think because for Zan thinking was working. He was working harder than ever and might have even forgotten to feed Einstein if the dog hadn’t been smart enough to go to his dish in the little kitchen and bark until he got the necessary attention.

  Zan nuked a frozen sausage biscuit to go with his morning coffee, stepping back out on the porch to eat it. Moss Caldecott, the rancher father of his intern, and his landlord, walked by, heading down toward the pasture.

  “Hi,” he said.

  Zan gave a brief nod. Sometimes when he met Moss or his wife Lynne, he pretended not to see them. They were used to him by now and didn’t seem to notice even though Geoff said it was rude to act as though you didn’t see people.

  Before he’d finished his biscuit, Lynne strolled by, wearing a large straw hat on her head and carrying a bucket of what looked like grain dangling from one hand. She knew better than to speak to him, especially this early in the morning. Jerry’s mom pretended she didn’t see him, which he appreciated.

  He went back inside. Even though they had made no attempt to force him into conversation, he still felt a certain disturbance in his thought pattern. No telling how much data he’d lost because of those two interruptions.

  Fortunately Lynne and Moss Caldecott and Zan were the only people other than Jerry, who always slept non-school days until ten at least, who lived on the ranch. They’d once hired help, but these days they managed all the work themselves thanks to modern ranch equipment. And new residents were forbidden by law from moving into this restricted area.

  Einstein, who was particularly attached to Mrs. Caldecott, had run off with her to feed her pet chickens, so he was free to think his own thoughts.

  Only they didn’t go into the usual places where higher math and complicated physics dwelt. Oddly enough, he couldn’t help thinking what it would be like to have somebody in his life the way Lynne and Moss had each other.

  What foolish thoughts, considering he’d found long ago that he was not destined for a close relationship with anyone. If, somewhere in the very back of his mind, there was a woman who haunted his dreams, she’d have to just stay there. No real live woman would understand him or tolerate his strange ways.

  Chapter Two

  1904 Lavender

  Eddie Stephens sat frozen in horror as the storytelling session ended and her sister made an announcement.

  Well, maybe it was more of a suggestion. “I have a wonderful idea,” Betsy said with her usual enthusiasm. Her lovely face dimpled with that irresistible smile. “We need to collect our history, the history of this community going back to the Native Americans and coming right through until now. The trouble is we don’t have supplies to produce a written book, so I think we should do as they did back in the old days. One person should be chosen to memorize that history so they can recite it and pass it on to our children.”

  Excited chatter broke out across the audience. Eddie didn’t know if it was because Betsy’s own enthusiasm tended to sweep people along with her or because it hit on a real need. Their experiences were unique. What other community had been cast aside, separated by its own choice in time and place by a heroic decision to save lives? They were proud of themselves. They wanted to be remembered.

  Eddie closed her eyes, knowing exactly where this was going. She and Betsy had talked about it too many times before.”

  “You can do it, Miss Stephens,” one of her sister’s admirers called from the audience. Years ago Betsy had shed her own father’s na
me, taking on that of the man she considered to be her real father. She was Betsy Stephens, not Betsy Burden.

  Eddie opened her eyes. She was ready to second that motion. Maybe Betsy would be elected historian on a wave of popular acclamation.

  The trouble, she knew, was that Betsy had the worst memory. Mrs. Myers was always saying she’d forget her head if it wasn’t tied on. Betsy knew that too.

  So her next words were not a surprise. “I would like to nominate my sister Eddie as our historian.

  Eddie wanted to say, ‘you can’t do that. This is an entertainment, not an official meeting. And the floor isn’t open for nominations.’ Where was Grandpapa when you needed him? He was always so insistent on proper order.

  But there he sat, looking so pleased that his granddaughter was being honored.

  He didn’t get it. Nobody else wanted the job. Researching and reading, memorizing for goodness sakes, who would want to spend their days doing that?

  She never spoke at public meetings, but this time she had no other choice. Nobody else was going to say it. Popping to her feet, she shouted, “No, I refuse. I can’t do this.”

  Betsy smiled benignly down from the stage. “Oh, Eddie, don’t be so modest. This may be the most important thing we can hand down to the next generation and you are just the right person to do it.”

  Betsy was the pied piper. Whatever she said the others would pretty much follow. And the thing that made her so convincing was she truly believed what she was saying.

  The audience burst into clapping and cheering so that nobody could hear Eddie’s protests. Almost before she knew it, they had voted her in, announced the time for the next storytelling session, and people were beginning to file from the auditorium.

  Eddie sat unmoving, stunned. “Well, I don’t see how they can make me,” she muttered.

  Her father, seated at her side, grinned at her. “My money’s on Betsy,” he said. “She has a will of iron under that mop of curls.”

  She trailed out of the auditorium with her family behind Betsy and her hoard of admirers. It wasn’t until they got home that she let her true feelings out.

  The minute Betsy closed the door and joined the rest of them in heading for the kitchen where Opal Myers, their housekeeper’s granddaughter, had supper waiting, she let herself go.

  “Betsy, how could you do this to me?” She flopped into her own chair as her sister slid gracefully into hers. Sylvie was seated between the two of them.

  “What did she do?” Sylvie asked, helping herself to a hot biscuit.

  Her father frowned at her. “You could wait at least until everyone is seated, Sylvie,” he scolded.

  “But Evan, I’m so hungry.”

  This was definitely something no one but Eddie could get away with. Back when she was in her mid-teens she’d had to develop her own way of addressing her parents. Instead of calling Cynthia ‘mama’ she’d gone to calling both of them by their first names, while Betsy had used ‘mama’ and ‘papa.’

  Surprisingly nobody had seriously scolded her. They sensed no disrespect was intended.

  But now Sylvie protested. “Eddie says it.”

  “Eddie is Eddie,” Evan Stephens said firmly. “You are Sylvie.”

  The little girl frowned, trying to take that in while her mother distracted her by serving her with a bowl of potato soup to go with her biscuit.

  This was so frustrating. She had planned a confrontation that would make it clear she had no intention of being slotted into this position Betsy had mapped out for her.

  “I will not be historian,” she said firmly.

  She was well aware that the word in their household was that nobody could manage Eddie, nobody but Betsy. And she did it so politely and with such kindness. Betsy thought Eddie could do anything.

  “Got a date tonight?” Cynthia asked her daughter in an obvious attempt to change the subject. Cynthia liked to believe that her little family got along with few bumps in the road.

  “Anyone coming courting tonight,” Evan corrected with a mildly reproving glance at his wife. Because of their very different backgrounds—his at the turn into the 20th century and hers over a hundred years later, they saw lots of things differently. Eddie gathered that dating meant actually going out alone with a boy without a chaperone, something that didn’t happen here in 1904 Lavender, Texas, not if Dr. Evan Stephens had anything to say about it.

  “I favor that young fellow that opened the new business on the square,” Grandpapa contributed.

  “I like Jonas,” Evan protested. Dr. Jonas Henry was the young man in his twenties now being trained to become the town’s much needed third doctor. Eddie sometimes thought she could have liked him if he hadn’t been so crazy about Betsy.

  Betsy had a habit of falling in and out of love. At just twenty one, she’d been engaged twice and both time broken off the engagement as gently as possible. She didn’t leave broken hearts behind her, just young lovers who still hoped for a second chance.

  “Nobody tonight,” Betsy said. “I cleared my calendar so I could help Eddie get started.”

  “Betsy, I will not . . .” Eddie tried to say.

  “I thought we might work in Papa’s library,” Betsy’s words rode right over Eddie’s.

  “Good idea,” Grandpapa approved, “There’s some old journals in there nobody’s looked at in many years. You’ll find tremendous amounts of history there, Eddie.” He smiled warmly at his granddaughter.

  Eddie was about to put up the argument of her life, but then she thought of another factor. For years she’d been trying to talk Betsy into doing something with her, but the other girl had refused.

  In her own mind, she was suddenly back hiding in the large pantry in this very room. She and Betsy were overhearing some important information that they had kept between them since they were barely in their teens.

  Betsy wanted so badly for her to undertake this little project. Perhaps this was leverage to get her sister to cooperate in another project that Eddie had in mind.

  2027 Oklahoma

  Mrs. Caldecott tended to chatter today. Zan supposed it was because she needed someone to talk to when her husband was away on business. Moss Caldecott hated to be away from the ranch, but sometimes it was necessary as he acted on family affairs.

  Zan didn’t observe much in the way of faces, but he was well enough aware that Lynne Caldecott was almost as pretty as her husband thought she was, but he wondered how Moss put up with the continual conversation. People who talked too much broke into his thought processes and usually the ranch owners were sensitive to his need for privacy. He didn’t know what was wrong with Lynne that she was behaving so differently today.

  He and her fourteen-year-old son Jerry were trying hard to get at work that Geoff was demanding be completed in a hurry. Sometimes he needed to talk out his thoughts to see if they really worked when he said them out loud. Jerry, an exceptional bright youngster who had the advantage Zan had not possessed of understanding parents, not only listened. He was able to understand to a certain level and bounce back ideas of his own. Geoff had great hopes for the boy’s future with the company.

  Lynne Caldecott kept talking in her soft voice. “Isn’t it a beautiful day? Just a little wind, no more than a breeze really, soft and warm . . .”

  Her voice trailed off and Zan, who was not particularly responsive to verbal cues, managed a nod.

  “Your parents must be so proud of you, Dr. Alston.” Lynne was a person with a lot of social savvy. She was trying hard to be kind to him, though he didn’t know why. Usually she just ignored him, which she had to know was what he liked best.

  Damn! If people out here started talking to him, he’d have to find someplace else to live. He thought he’d made that clear when he’d moved to the ranch.

  “All parents are proud of their kids,” Jerry contributed, looking up from his figuring on an electronic slate.

  “Not mine,” Zan answered honestly. “Not so much.”

  Usual
ly he wasn’t good at reading people’s expressions, but even he couldn’t miss the wide-eyed look of horror on Lynne’s face.

  “They’re proud of Geoff,” he tried to reassure her.

  “You’re kidding,” Jerry said. “Hey, Mom, can I go fishing?”

  “You’re working,” Lynne protested automatically.

  “Dr. Alston won’t mind. Right, Zan?”

  Zan shook his head. No, he didn’t mind, though he didn’t understand. He couldn’t imagine letting his attention be so divided when he was absorbed in an earth-shaking train of thought. Fishing?

  “Don’t mind,” he said and Jerry ran off toward the shed near the house where apparently he kept his fishing equipment.

  Lynne shrugged. “He’s just a kid,” she said.

  Zan nodded. He didn’t ever remember being the type of boy who would put aside his work for anything.

  “I’m sure you just don’t know how proud your parents are of you,” she reverted back to her original topic as he glanced down at his own tablet. To his annoyance, she reached out to cover the numbers with one little hand. Lynne was a small woman, not much over five feet tall he’d guess, but right now in her determination she seemed to tower over him. “I know because I’m proud of my Jerry. He’s a very bright boy, but it scares me the way he’s moving away from his own peer group. He needs friends as well as a possibly brilliant career.”

  Zan frowned. He looked up to meet her eyes, something he rarely did. Looking into a person’s eyes made him uncomfortable as though he were letting them see inside him. “You don’t want him to be like me,” he finally guessed.

  She grimaced, embarrassed. She reached out to touch his hand, which he quickly withdrew. “We think the world of you, Dr. Alston, both Moss and me. Otherwise we wouldn’t trust our son to you. But as a role model, well, you don’t seem like a particularly happy person to me.”

  “I lead a fulfilling life,” he protested indignantly.