Cowboy of Mine (9 page)

Chapter 6

M
eredith
tried not to read Jake’s note a thousand times but couldn’t quite stop herself. His handwriting was lovely, the words sparse.

Dearest Meredith,

Use the Colt if in trouble. I’ll be back soon. Needed more ammunition.

Yours,

Jacob Cameron

P. S. You bake a hell of a pie.

P. P. S. Don’t argue with me about this. You’re beautiful, and that’s all there is to it.

She also tried not to let her heart swell in the glow of the words, or press his letter against said offending four-chamber muscle that kept beating and warming whenever she thought of Jake.

Oh, this was going to end badly.

She’d tried to tidy herself and the house, but there was only so much scrubbing a woman could do before she sat down again and read his note.

What if—what if he wouldn’t throw her away?

Remembering the way he’d touched her didn’t help any. She’d feel hot and tingly one second, the next about ready to explode from...what was this? It had to be just a simple case of lust. It had to be.

But when she heard the clip-clop of horse hooves on her drive her heart fluttered, and she flew to her cabin’s front window to see whether it was him, handsome, wonderful Jake. She chided herself for becoming too excited. Besides, she needed to contemplate more about her well-being. Someone had been on her porch, maybe doing something disturbing, staring at her.

Wait. The big man hadn’t been looking in her cabin at all, she suddenly realized. Well, then what had he been looking at?

Before she could think any further, the rider came into focus. She was dressed unlike any lady in Montana. At least none that Meredith could think of. This woman was refined in a maroon riding habit and matching bonnet that was more like a feminized top hat with maroon tool veiling it. Or wait—a lady of this time wouldn’t call the color maroon. Far too pedestrian. It was a dark coquelicot.

The woman rode sidesaddle, and as the stranger approached Meredith’s heart pitched at the color of a stray curl escaping the bonnet. That hue was decidedly blue. Not blonde, red, or brown. Not even so black it looked blue. This was sky-color, cerulean blue. Not natural blue. At least not natural on a head.

Although, Meredith couldn’t quite make out the woman’s face, she bolted for the gun Jake had left behind. The stranger had to be a muse or a friend of the muses who had kidnapped her and placed her here months ago. That was the only explanation for the blue hair.

And it was completely irrational, crazy even, but Meredith didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to go back to her time. Not now. Not after meeting Jake.

But he would surely throw her away, she reminded herself as she wrapped a cloak around her shoulders and hid the Colt behind her back.

Meredith opened her cabin’s door. The woman, who had her back to Meredith, had already dismounted and tethered her horse to a spoke close to where Meredith had painted her name and her simple address of “down by the creek.”

“Can I help you?” Meredith asked, noting her voice rasped and sounded as frightened as she felt.

The woman’s thin shoulders slumped. Then she seemed to take a huge breath and straightened them, the sound of refined silk rustling as she did so. Turning, she lifted her veil and revealed a lovely face Meredith knew well.

“Erva...”

Minerva, Erva, Ferguson-Hill nodded once. “Hello, Meredith.” There wasn’t an ounce of warmth in Erva’s tone. Not that Meredith thought there should be. This was the one woman who could condemn her to a life of hell, and Meredith knew she deserved it after what she’d done to Minerva.

Erva climbed the three stairs to Meredith’s porch and looked down at her.

“May I come in? It’s rather cold here in Montana, although, I’m surprised it hasn’t snowed yet.”

“Yes,” Meredith breathed, not too sure how to talk to Erva. Too surprised to think of how Erva came to be here, at this time. Such a shock on her system, Meredith followed Erva blindly.

Erva strolled into the cabin. As Meredith closed the door behind herself and her guest, she noticed Erva’s gaze bouncing around her home.

“It’s quaint.”

“It’s small, you mean.” Meredith didn’t know why she was confrontational with the woman. Erva probably just meant it was quaint. After all, she was a saint. Or nearly. And Meredith was the devil in comparison. Was that why she was argumentative? Because she was damned anyway?

Erva’s jaw line kicked. Her nose flared. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

“I’m sorry,” Meredith whispered. Trying to hide her movements, she placed the Colt on her pantry, covering the gun with a kitchen towel, turning her back to Erva in the process. There, she could finally give clarion to her sentiment. “I’m so sorry, Erva.” Like a coward, she could only talk with her back to the one woman she’d hurt so much.

Erva didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to, and Meredith knew it.

Tears surfaced and rolled out of Meredith’s eyes before she could stop them. But something about crying, something about being so damned vulnerable in front of Erva broke the little pride Meredith had.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Meredith turned, staring at Erva. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Erva’s jaw line worked again, but a flash of compassion passed through her lovely amber-brown eyes. Meredith didn’t deserve it.

“I don’t know how you got here,” Meredith continued. “I don’t know why I’m here, but I’m so sorry for everything I’ve done, done to you.”

“The muses didn’t tell you why you’re here?”

Meredith swallowed, panic streaking through her chest, pulling her lungs too tightly together. “You know about them?”

Erva nodded slowly. “They gave me a
glimpse
. They sent me back to 1776.”

“A
glimpse
?”

Erva kept nodding. “Isn’t that what they called it when you landed here?”

Meredith shook her head, looking down at her hands making a moving lump under her gray wool cloak. She twisted her fingers, gripped at her hands in nervousness. Her movements made it look like the beginnings of an alien about to surface from her belly. How fitting, Meredith thought, as she found the courage to tell Erva how she came to be in Montana in 1887. She was going to explode with the truth.

“I had just gotten the summons for the Harvard hearing. The one for my plagiarism of your work. I was looking down at the note, when it evaporated, and I woke up here. In this bed.” After pointing with a wave of her hand toward said bed, she finally looked up at Erva again. “There were two women in golden togas. One of them said how being here was for my own good, punishment for what I did to you.”

Erva’s mouth gaped. But Meredith continued.

“I—I thought I had gone insane. That the stress had gotten to me, the guilt and shame, making me...see things. I’m known as the town’s loon now for telling everyone I was from the future.”

Erva swallowed and looked down at her perfectly matching maroon silk gloves. “I’m sorry. That must have been horrible.”

Meredith snorted a laugh simultaneously more tears pooled in her eyes. “I deserved it. I
deserve
worse.”

Erva’s light blonde brows puckered. She took a big breath and removed her riding bonnet, revealing bright blue hair. It was in a style worn by the ladies of 1880s, caught up in a chignon of curls, but it was freaking blue. And looked lovely on Minerva.

“I like your hair.” Meredith covered her lips with her hand, angry with herself for saying anything other than an apology.

Erva smiled that beautiful, breathtaking grin of hers. “Thanks. I like it too.” She walked close to the one small table of Meredith’s. “May we sit? Keep talking?”

Meredith didn’t know whether she could be so close to Erva, so scared of—well, Erva already knew Meredith was a liar, a thief, a scoundrel of the worst sort, the very worst of humanity, so what more could it hurt if she sat close to her? Swallowing her dread, Meredith flung off her cloak, folded it neatly on the chair in front of her, then took the seat opposite Erva.

“Would you like something to drink?”

That was said by Erva. She was trying to make Meredith feel more comfortable. But it stung that her guest had to remind her of her manners. God, she’d turned into a wolf with her etiquette, Meredith chided herself once more.

“Tea?” Meredith finally asked. “I’m sorry. I don’t have coffee.”

Erva’s amber eyes widened. “But you love coffee. I had to run across campus to get you your soy latte almost everyday.”

Meredith couldn’t stand to look at Erva then. The affirmation of what a bitch she’d been tore through her. Why had she been so demanding of Erva, making her run around fetching coffee? What had she been thinking? Meredith wasn’t the kind of woman who made others do her bidding. She’d never planned on being a tyrant.

Meredith knew she hadn’t been thinking when she’d been Erva’s supervisor for her PhD. She hadn’t been thinking at all. She’d only been hurting.

“I’m sorry,” Meredith whispered to a swirly grain in the wood of her table.

Erva sighed. “I, believe it or not, didn’t come here to rake you over the coals.”

“You could though.” Meredith couldn’t talk very loud, although she probably should. “It’s merited.”

“Jeez, Meredith, what happened to you?”

Meredith looked up, wondering about the question.

Erva slightly shook her head, staring at Meredith with incredulity. “I—I prepared to talk to a different woman. The woman who accused me of calling this perfect cabin small, that’s who I came here to talk to. The woman who made me run her errands, teach her classes, and kept holding my dissertation back, not letting me obtain my PhD. That’s who I came here to talk to.

“My husband and I spent hours role playing, so I could do this, talk to you. He wanted to be here—”

“You’re married now?” The familiar sting of envy cut into Meredith, breaking her heart and all her bones.

“Yes.” Erva’s smile appeared once more, and she beamed down at an emerald ring on her left hand. “Yes, I’m married now.” She glanced up again, trying to control her obvious joy. “I can tell you, since you’re here having your own
glimpse
that I—I met my dissertation, Lord General William Hill. He—we fell in love. And we—”

“He’s alive?”

Erva’s sunbeam of a smile brightened. “Yes. He lives with me now. We didn’t get to know each other very well before we married. I’m finding all sorts of weird things about him, like why he can’t clean one area of the sink that has all his whiskers. He really can’t seem to see that area, and it drives me nuts. But I’m sure I drive him nuts too. And how great is that? I’m very happy now.”

Meredith swallowed trying to wrap her head around what she’d been told. Because she’d been Erva’s supervisor, she knew Erva had studied General Hill to a point of exhaustion. She’d seemed almost obsessed about the long dead man. The research had been extensive and Erva wrote with such a passion and flow that Meredith’s envy had bitten into her all the more.

“Congratulations.” Meredith meant to make her voice sound happy, not hollow. She hated herself for her envy. She wanted to be happy for Erva. God knew the woman deserved it.

Erva’s jaw line ticked. Again. Her warm eyes hardened. “Thank you.” Her voice was metallic. “Now I can say it.” Erva’s lips thinned minutely in her noticeable anger. “I didn’t come here to rake you over the coals. But I did come here to confront you. You had no God damned right to do the things you did.”

“I know.”

“You held me back, and you know it.”

“I did.”

“You held my life back by holding onto my dissertation, not letting me argue it to the committee.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You—you—God damn it, would you let me finish? I had this all scripted out. Will and I spent hours on this.”

Something about imagining beautiful Erva sitting with a handsome British general who was supposed to die centuries ago, visualizing him helping her, supporting her, being proud of her, broke Meredith even more. She caved around herself, clasping onto her arms, bowing her head to cry.

“Oh, Meredith, I’m sorry for shouting.”

Meredith snorted an unladylike laugh through her tears. “Please, don’t be. You’re incredible, Erva. You have every right to hate me, but you apologize to me.”

“My silly manners drilled into me.”

Meredith shook her head then wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “No, that’s not it.”

Erva’s face tightened.

“It’s because you’re so beautiful on the inside, that’s why you apologize when you don’t have to. You’re an incredible person. And I managed to hurt you so much to make you hate me.”

“I don’t—”

Meredith shook her head. “You should.”

Erva slowly inhaled, straightening her lithe form. Her gaze bounced around Meredith’s face. She must have looked disgusting, but she wouldn’t try to cover it up anymore. She was a monster. She was a villain.
She
was the bad guy.

“You know, when we first met, I instantly liked you.” Erva softly but ruefully laughed. “I thought...Well, the reason I chose you to be my supervisor was because I thought we’d become friends. I
wanted
to become your friend. We had the history in common.”

Meredith laughed too, also with a touch of sad irony. They both were American Revolution experts. Erva specialized in the military history, while Meredith had politics and sociological aspects of colonial peoples. It was thanks to her own dissertation that Meredith had taken so well to 1887. She’d always wanted to know what it was like to be a frontier’s woman, making her own food, building her own lodgings, riding a horse with ease. Granted, Meredith had wished she’d been taken to 1776, seen the American forefathers for themselves—their very human side, not the hagiology she’d recited in her classes before she’d made Erva teach them. She’d wanted to see their faults, wanted to see their obvious bigotry, wanted to see that through all their errors they still made a country where freedom was a virtue.