Echoes of Tomorrow (13 page)

Elise would never, for any reason, coerce Reed into doing anything that would cause him to think less of himself.  Personal honor was not something high on most twentieth century priority lists, and she felt immense pride at Reed's stand.  Even if it did cause her to toss for hours in a lonely bed at night.

She clapped her hands together and rubbed them in an attempt to release some of her pent up energy.  The last of the tools were laying on the bed, so she snatched them up and tagged along behind Reed as he made his way to his next project.

"Hey, I didn't come up here to get all mushy.  I came up here to see if you want to go with me to Janice and Don's party."

She bumped into his back when he came to an abrupt stop in front of a loose towel rack in her bathroom.  He eyeballed the towel rack with a great deal of concentration, chose a screwdriver and applied it to the wobbly screw.

"Of course.  When did they say it was going to be?"

She watched the muscles in his arm flex as he concentrated on tightening each screw.

He glanced up and quirked an eyebrow at her.

"Oh, the party's this weekend.  Saturday night at eight."

He straightened and twisted a few kinks out of his back.  On one of the twists toward her he gave her a dazzling smile, displaying a row of straight, white teeth.

As he swiveled around in the opposite direction he said, "Do you think we could celebrate my birthday while we're at it?"

"Really?  Your birthday's May 7th?  You're kidding.  How old will you be?"

"One hundred and eighty seven."

Elise punched him in the arm for managing such a straight face.  She had to dance out of his reach while she did some quick subtraction.  His retaliation for her physical abuse of him was usually a healthy dose of tickling.

"So you'll be an old man of thirty-seven.  I'm not sure I want to be seen with you."

"Oh, so if you're such a babe in the woods, when were you born?"  Reed was stalking her now, his arms outstretched to block her escape.  Elise retreated toward the shower.

"I'll be thirty-two on June 22nd.  Considerably younger than your advanced years."  She now had one arm in front of her to ward off his attack and the other behind her in a frantic search for the handle to the shower door.  Just as she found it, Reed lunged.  She threw the door open and jumped into the shower, realizing her mistake too late.

A smug, victorious smile spread across Reed's face as he swaggered the last couple of steps to the shower door.  He pulled it open, then began inspecting his fingernails as he leaned against the metal frame.

Elise knew he was watching her out of the corner of his eye, but she wasn't ready to give up yet.  She waited patiently while he savored his victory.

"I know you're planning something, little one."  Reed took a step into the shower.  "You can forget it, though.  There's no way around -" An icy blast of water hit him full in the face.  His arm shot out just as Elise darted past him, and he pulled her under the frigid downpour with him.

"I've heard of taking cold showers," she yelled above the rushing water, "but I always thought the point was to take them alone."

******

Reed stood in front of his bathroom mirror, peeling the sodden tee shirt away from his stomach and over his dripping head.  It was a good thing the shower had been a cold one.  He wasn't sure if his resolve would have survived a moist, steamy encounter with Elise.  T
hings got steamy enough under cold water. 

It was getting harder for him to live up to his pledge to have Elise as his wife before making love to her again, especially since she made it clear she would be so willing.

Reed's mind wandered over the conversations they'd had this morning.  He warmed at the memory of her touching declaration of her feelings and the sincerity she'd conveyed with her eyes.  He had exercised every ounce of willpower to merely hug her and walk away instead of lowering her to the bed and allowing them the release they both craved.  He knew if he ever gave in to the ache which had taken up permanent residence in the center of his chest, he would never again be able to hold it under control.  The need was not just physical.  He knew no matter how many times he and Elise made love he would still feel this way.  He wanted  o show Elise how much he loved her.  His feelings were so strong he couldn't put them into words, even in his thoughts.  All he could do was
feel
them.  He had realized this the night he had carried her to his bed.  It was as if an unknown force had guided his every touch and translated his feelings into the most ancient language.

"Hey, it's getting hungry out here!"  Elise banged once on the door, then moved on down the hall.  He heard the distant jingle of car keys as she galloped down the stairs.

"Be right there," he called as he swung the door open, giving his left pant leg a couple of tugs.  A quick glance in the mirror told him it was safe to leave the room without having to limp.

As he grabbed a polo shirt and drew it over his head Elise reappeared at his door.

"Aren't you ready yet?  Geez, I had to re-do my hair and makeup and still beat you to the punch.  And they say women are vain."

Reed raised an eyebrow at Elise's insulting little grin and shrugged with a knowing smile.

"I guess I'd better not tell you then that...I'm worth the wait."

As he walked away, the warmth of her hand burned through his jeans as it trailed its way from the back of his waist to his left thigh.

"Oh, darlin', I already know that."

*******

The day dawned with a shimmering blue sky.  Occasional feathery clouds passed across the sun, doing little to dilute its brilliance.  At breakfast Reed offered to take Elise on the long-promised tour of "his" plantation as seen through 1844 eyes.

She tried to answer through a mouthful of croissant but only managed a muffled, "Mmph."  Nodding her head instead, she stood and gulped her coffee.

"It's a perfect day for one.  What a great idea.  The only thing is I have a trip that leaves at five o'clock, but it's just to Indianapolis, and I'll be back by one.  So when do we start?"

They both pulled on old jeans and tee-shirts for their explorations.  Sliding her hand into Reed's, Elise all but dragged him out the back door.  She'd been looking forward to this for weeks.

Their first stop was the solitary slave cabin still standing.  It had been kept up and maintained over the years as a storage shed.  Reed had even used it as one after he'd freed his slaves. But the shack now held scant resemblance to its original state.  His vivid descriptions, however, had Elise's imagination cranking at full tilt. 

"There was a huge, flat rock here, used as a door step.  And there were two windows instead of one.  See?  Someone boarded the west side up.  A small fireplace burned over here, in the center of the longest wall.  A rope bed stood against the south wall, and a homemade table and two chairs sat close to the fire."

The clutter of the cabin melted away, and she could almost smell dinner cooking on the fire as Reed spoke.

Next he led her to where an apple orchard had existed in his time.  Only a few scattered trees remained and the place bore no resemblance to an orchard at all.  Reed speculated that one of the trees was the one he'd fallen from and broken his left arm when he had been eight years old.

None of the fields remained of the original property.  They'd been sold generations ago, perhaps even after the Civil War to pay taxes. 

His shoulders slumped a little as he scanned the horizon.  Elise wasn't sure if his reaction was from the failure to find anything familiar, or from homesickness brought on by his reminiscing.

As they swung around to return to the house, he again pointed out where the family cemetery had been.  They'd gone in search of this place after his arrival, only to find that all traces of a cemetery had disappeared.  There were no headstones or markers of any type.  Elise assumed the war had been responsible for that.  The house and grounds had fallen on hard times during the 1930's.  She wasn't sure when one of Reed's descendants had found the capital to restore the home, but apparently the cemetery had been forgotten.

All in all, this little adventure wasn't going as she'd expected.  To distract him, Elise grabbed his hand and pulled him into a run, challenging him to a race she knew she would lose.  Of course, he let her win, and when she caught up with him at the backdoor, he offered to describe the house the way it had been in his time.  It was as if he needed to go through this - to finish the tour and put it to rest in his mind.

He walked through the downstairs rooms, pointing out all the things that hadn't changed and describing those that had.

"The white ballroom was white even in my time.  The chandelier would have been filled with candles of beeswax whenever the room was being used.  Elise, I wish you could have seen it.  Flowers and garlands covered every surface, filling the air with their perfume.  Ladies sparkled in their finery..."

Elise could see it - could almost hear the music and murmuring voices of a genteel past.

In a voice barely above a whisper she said, "I wish I could see it, too."

They shook off their whimsy and moved on to the dining room, which had originally been blue.  Blue paint had been extremely expensive because of the pigment used in making it, and therefore was saved for the rooms where people were to be entertained and impressed.  The epergne in the center of the table was not familiar to Reed, but had it been his, he informed her, it would have been filled with lemons.  Again, the fruit was extremely rare and expensive and was used to symbolize wealth during social functions.

Elise already knew all of these little tidbits of information, but she enjoyed his look of pleasure while he related them.  His version of blue paint and lemons was the twentieth century's version of expensive art and status cars.

He continued walking her through the downstairs, gave details of the ventilation system in the summer and pointed out a renovation that had been made in the area she used for a kitchen. 

"My kitchen was separate from the house.  This had been a work area for the servants and held the stairs to the cellar.  C'mon, I'll show you."

A little more enthusiastic now, he opened the door to the cellar and motioned with his head for her to follow.

The two prowled around the dingy basement for a while.  Reed seemed to be looking for something.  After a few minutes he spoke.

"This was my favorite place to come and hide as a child.  Nell would let a couple of the plantation children play hide and seek with me, and I always headed straight for the cellar.  I bet you don't even know this is here."

He walked over to one of the rough hewn planks covering the wall and gave it a shove.  A whole panel of planks popped open and with a loud, rusty creak the door swung outward, revealing a small, closet-sized room.

Elise's heart jumped at the discovery.  Her house had a secret room!

"Wow!  This is great.  What was it used for?  Hiding runaways?" 

"My father died when I was so young, I never knew why he had this built here.  But it was great for hide and seek."

The two of them crowded into the tiny room.  Dusty plank shelves decorated with lacy cobwebs lined the walls, and several old brown crocks  were scattered randomly on the shelves.  There was not enough light in the room to see well, so Elise squeezed back out.  Reed brought a couple of the crocks with him.

After she knocked the dust from her jeans and pulled a few cobwebs from Reed's hair, she hefted one of the crocks and started upstairs with it.

"These'll look great in the kitchen.  It can use a little 1844 ambiance."

When she plunked the stoneware down on the counter, her eyes fell on the clock.

"Oh, my gosh!  Look at the time.  I've got to get ready for work, and I definitely need a shower before I go."

She started to run out of the room but turned and skipped back to Reed.  Shouldering up to him, she smoothed her hands across his dirt-smudged, tee shirt-clad chest and nuzzled his neck.

"Care to help me get cleaned up?" she questioned.  Her voice lowered to a sexy huskiness.

Reed gazed down at her with a "what am I going to do with you" look.

"Little one, you have to be at the airport in less than two hours.  If I helped you get cleaned up, you'd be lucky to get there by next week." 

The heat in his voice left her with no question that he meant what he said.

CHAPTER TEN

She was so happy it scared her.  She spent half her time walking on a cloud and the other half waiting for a disaster.  No one could be this happy and not have the rug yanked out from under her.

Right now she'd been swept off her feet.  Literally.  Reed had waited up for her again, in the ballroom, and they'd relived that glorious night, right down to their clothes.

He'd waited for her there on other nights when she'd come in from a trip.  They'd always gone to their separate rooms and spent frustrating, lonely nights alone.  But she could tell tonight would be different.  She could feel it.  And when he'd scooped her into his arms with a low, animal growl, all remaining doubt vanished.