Forever Ashley (14 page)

“Tell me who you are.” He finally yielded.

“All right.” Taking a deep breath, Ashley closed her eyes,
praying that she would somehow find the words to convince him of who she was.
“My name is Ashley Wheeler. I live in Boston—only not the Boston you know.” She
reached for his hand again, holding it tightly. “Are you with me up to this
point?”

“Continue.”

“Yesterday—or maybe the day before—I’ve lost all track of
time,” she confessed, “but I was working at my second job in an
eighteenth-century museum in Boston when it started to rain. The windows on my
car were—”

“Car?” He stopped her.

“Yes, car—motor vehicle…a piece of mechanized equipment?”

“I do not know of this...car.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she conceded. “But we’ll get back to
that later. Anyway, I was going out to roll the windows up on my car when I
slipped on the stairs and fell. When I reached the bottom of the stairs...well,
that’s when I met you.” Her grip tightened. “Are you ready for this?” His hand
returned the pressure lightly.             “Continue.”

“The day I fell was April 15, 2013.” His grasp suddenly went
lax.

“Don’t be afraid,” she urged. “I know it’s impossible to
understand, and I can’t even begin to explain what’s happened, but I’m not a
spy and I’m not crazy. I’ve thought for the longest time that I was having a
dream and I just couldn’t wake up, but if that’s true, the dream just goes on
and on, and now I’m not so sure.”

“Two thousand and thirteen,” he repeated, stunned.
“Centuries into the future?”

“It is incredible,” she agreed. “Oh, Aaron, there’s so much
I could tell you about the future! The marvels in medicine and
transportation—we have automobiles with air bags and jet airplanes that fly faster
than the speed of sound—”

“Sound travels?” he echoed incredulously.

“Yes! Yes, it really does! And we’ve even put a man on the
moon! Right at this minute the American flag is proudly waving on the surface
of the moon where Buzz Aldrin put it!”

“The American flag is flying on the moon?” he repeated, even
more distressed. “Who is Buzz Aldrin?”

“He’s an astronaut—oh dear, you don’t know what an astronaut
is either—but the flag has fifty stars on it now, not thirteen!”

Aaron was trying to comprehend what she was saying, but it
was impossible. She spoke unsurpassed nonsense, yet he was sorely tempted to
believe her.

“The British?” he interjected.

“Oh, don’t worry about the British,” she soothed. “Let’s
see—what is the date today?”

“The seventeenth.”

“The British will come by sea tomorrow night,” she promised.
“And they will put up a good fight, but you’ll whip them but good. When you
said no more taxes, you guys meant it!” She grinned, hugging his neck. “I’m so
proud of you!”

He grinned, lamely hugging her back but not having the
slightest idea of what she was talking about.

“Listen.” Her face sobered. “You did a wonderful job, but
I’m afraid America is right back in the same shape we were two centuries ago.”

“The British are overtaxing you?”

“No, it’s our own government this time. Isn’t that ironic?”

Lying back on the pillow, she sighed, relieved to finally
have cleared the air. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt that he believed what
she had told him. At least now he knew that she wasn’t a spy, and she could
sleep tonight without the fear of impending doom in the morning. Her muscles
relaxed, sheer exhaustion overtaking her now. Tomorrow she would wake up and be
in her own bed, and she would laugh about all that had happened.

Her hand reached to assure herself that Aaron was still
beside her, and she suddenly felt very sad. Tomorrow he would surely be gone.

Aaron settled back beneath the covers, trying to absorb the
wonders of which she had spoken. Automobiles, air-eo-planes, and an American
flag with fifty stars. He shook his head in amazement. Was it possible she was
telling the truth? No, ’tis folly! Such a world did not and could not exist, he
reasoned. And the British arriving by sea on the morrow—they wouldn’t dare!
Though they threatened, they would not be so bold! No, Ashley Wheeler was
lovely, but she knew not of what she spoke.

A moment later Ashley felt his arm creep around her waist
again.

Irritably slapping it aside again, she mumbled something
about having a headache and rolled over, dropping off to sleep instantly.

Chapter
Eight

The sun was just barely up when Ashley stirred the next
morning. She’d hoped that the next time she opened her eyes she’d awaken back
in her own bed. Doomsday had arrived right on time, she thought. Aaron was sure
to do away with her today.

She opened her eyes slowly and wasn’t surprised to find
Aaron standing at the window, staring down at the street reflectively.

“What time is it?” she murmured.

“Time for lazy women to be up and about.”

Lifting her head, Ashley tried to focus her eyes on the
hands of her watch. “Six o’clock?” Gad, the man kept dreadful hours. Groaning,
she let her head drop back to the pillow. “I’m sleeping in this morning.”

Aaron turned from the window and whacked her across the
bottom as he walked to the washstand. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘sleeping
in,’ but if it means what I assume it to mean, I can assure you that you
aren’t.”

“Uh-huh,” she countered.

His gaze ran lazily over the shapely outline of her backside
beneath the blanket. “This ‘uh-huh’ word. It means yes?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Time to get up, Mistress Wheeler.”

“Huh-uh.”

“Huh-uh’ means no?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Uh-huh,’ yes?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Huh-uh, no.”

“Uh-huh.”

Ashley grabbed for the cover as he quickly yanked it off her
and tossed it on the floor. “Please”—she groaned— “just ten more minutes!”

“Up, woman, we have business to attend to.”

Bolting up, she glared at him. “I’m exhausted. I didn’t
sleep five minutes last night,” she accused.

His eyes centered on her disheveled hair. “Then who was snoring?”

“Snoring!” She drew back, offended. “I wasn’t...”

He smoothed the horrific rooster’s tail that had formed at
the crown of her head before he returned to the wash bowl. “Then mayhap we had
a mouse in bed with us —a very worrisome creature who wheezed and blew and—” He
ducked as a pillow came sailing toward him.

Pouring fresh water into the bowl, he watched as Ashley
settled back on the pillow, closing her eyes again.

Gradually she became aware of the mouth-watering aroma of
meat and potatoes wafting on the air. Cracking one eye open, she saw a large
tray laden with eggs, meat, bread, potatoes, and large, red ripe strawberries
set on a table beside the bed.

She sat up, reached for one of the strawberries, and popped
it into her mouth.

“You have five minutes to dress and be ready to leave,”
Aaron warned.

“Where am I going?” she asked. “To the gallows?"

“Mayhap.”

“Mayhap, mayhap,” she mimicked, wondering why, if she had to
dream, it couldn’t have been in 2075 instead of 1775. She dropped back onto the
pillow and pulled the blanket over her head.

As Aaron washed and shaved, she dozed, wondering what he
really planned to do with her this morning. The appointed hour of doom had
arrived, and he didn’t look like a man who was about to commit murder. If for
one moment she thought he would actually harm her, she would be terrified, but
she wasn’t. Though Aaron’s commitment to protecting his country was apparent,
she didn’t think that he would take any pleasure in harming a woman. And
besides, she had seen the glint of interest in his eye when he’d looked at her,
and she had to admit that she was beginning to like it.

“Are you going to get up?” he asked again.

Rolling to her side, she stretched lazily, deciding to
aggravate him a little. “Huh-uh.”

As he leaned closer to the looking glass, Aaron pretended to
ignore her attempts to incite him. He’d never met a woman like Ashley Wheeler;
he didn’t know why he had to now.

Wiggling her toes, Ashley sank deeper into the straw
ticking, relishing the feel of having the whole bed to herself. If he would
just go off and do whatever American patriots did, she could sleep all day.

“Are you comfortable?” His eyes studied her reflection in
the mirror as he dipped the razor back into the water.

“Very, very, very, very.”

“Mayhap you wish me to rejoin you,” he offered.

“Mmm, mayhap I don’t,” she warned, recalling how, because of
his distracting presence, she’d spent another virtually sleepless night.

“Ah, but I must if you are not out of that bed in two
minutes.”

Yawning, Ashley wiggled to the edge of the bed to select
something from the tray. As she brought the berry lazily to her mouth, her hand
suddenly froze as she saw him unlacing his shirt.

“What are you doing?”

“If you are intent on staying in bed, then I shall join
you.”

Hurriedly scooting back to the center of the bed, she
watched him warily. “You wouldn’t.”

He smiled. “Ah, but you do misunderstand me, Mistress
Wheeler. Actually, I find the thought of spending the day in bed with a woman
quite appealing.” His eyes grew darker. “Extremely appealing.”

“Any woman, Dr. Kenneman, or just me?” she mocked, wondering
why she would be crazy enough to play such a dangerous game with him. There was
a hungry, predatory look in his eye, one that hadn’t been there earlier.

“Ah, you wish to play games, Mistress Wheeler?” He pulled
his shirt over his head and Ashley was stunned by the sight of his muscular
chest.

“Or do you merely intend to test me?” he countered in a
deceptively negligent tone. “If it is the latter, then ’twould be wise that you
reconsider.”

His took a step toward her. Ashley quickly scrambled out of
bed. After tightening the laces of her dress, she crammed her feet into the
buckled slippers and was standing by the door, ready to leave, in exactly one
minute and twenty-five seconds flat.

Pulling his shirt back on, Aaron commented, “I thought you
might see it my way, Mistress Wheeler.”

“You are the worst male chauvinist pig I’ve ever met, Dr.
Kenneman!”

His brows lifted. “I am to assume I have been insulted?”

“You can safely assume that you have.”

He nodded graciously. “And never by one so lovely.”

Ashley snatched up her bag and followed him down the
stairway a few minutes later, wondering how she could find him so attractive
when he was so aggravating.

Ashley clung to Aaron’s waist with every breathtaking turn
of the road, fearing that he was going to kill them both. He seemed to know
only one way to ride a horse: fast.

“The name Willie Shoemaker doesn’t ring a bell with you,
does it?” she called.

“Who?”

“Never mind!”

When the horse left the shabby inn district and headed for
the open road, her fingers relaxed her hold on his waist. At least he hadn’t
chosen public humiliation and death as the choice of punishment, she thought
with relief.

Some twenty minutes later, the horse turned up a cool shady
lane where trees grew thick along the road. Straight ahead, Ashley could see
the roof of a house nestled in a small clearing.

“Where are we?”

“This is where I live.”

“Your house?” She was relieved at first, then, on second
thought, her pulse double-timed. Her fingers dug into his waist. Had he brought
her out here to do away with her discreetly? Out here where there wasn’t a sign
of another person, where her screams for mercy would never be heard?

“Will you stop gouging me?” Aaron squirmed, trying to break
her painful hold on his waist.

Ashley murmured her apology, unaware that she had been
squeezing him like a lemon. “Why are we here? I want to go back to the Black
Goat,” she demanded.

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do!”

After riding up to the house, Aaron reined in the horse and
climbed out of the saddle. He lifted Ashley down, turning her in the direction
of a small shed at the side of the house.

“Will you walk!” he demanded when her feet faded to respond.

“No.” Her heart was beating like a jackhammer. “Please let
me go,” she whimpered.

But her plea fell on deaf ears. Her feet felt like two
blocks of concrete as he began to drag her along the overgrown path. Her heels
dug into the dirt as her eyes fixed on the shed. How was he going to kill her?
A single ball from a musket to the head? A clean slit across her throat? A
brief moment with his strong hands around her neck?

Or would he be less merciful? What if he just decided to tie
her up and leave her in the shed to die of starvation? No one would hear her
screams; no one would come to rescue her. Or maybe he would club her senseless,
then leave her to die, alone and bleeding. Oh, how could she have been so
foolish to feel secure with him! She should have tried to escape again. Maybe
she still could...

The shed loomed closer, and Ashley willed herself not to
faint. She had to talk him out of it. Somehow she had to bargain with him,
maybe offer to tell him the British plans even if that resulted in completely
modifying history. She wracked her brain. What were the British getting ready
to do one day before Paul Revere’s ride?

As he hauled her up to the shed, Aaron quickly fumbled with
the front of his breeches.

Oh, Lord! He was going to rape her first!

Grasping the door to the shed with one hand, he pointed at
her sternly. “You stay right here. Do you understand?”

She nodded vacantly, fighting to keep from passing out. Did
he have to prepare for her murder? Sharpen knives? Load guns?

He stepped inside the small building, and a moment later she
collapsed against the side of the shed, nearly fainting with relief when she
heard him relieving himself. An outhouse.

Leaning against the wall, she felt hysteria bubbling inside
her. It wasn’t a shed he was going to kill her in, it was an outhouse!

Aaron emerged a moment later and found her giggling almost
hysterically.

“I hardly think a gentleman going to the jakes is an
occasion for such merriment.”

“You would”—Ashley gasped, trying to catch her breath—“if
you had thought you were about to be murdered!”

He frowned. “Murdered?”

“Yes...I thought that was what you had brought me out here
to do!”

“If I were to murder you, it wouldn’t be in the necessary,”
he said indignantly. Color stung his cheeks now.

With a grin, she reached out and pulled his nose
affectionately. “I don’t think you’re going to do it anywhere.”

He drew back, affronted. “Are all women in your century like
you?”

“Only the good ones,” she assured solemnly.

Turning, he walked back down the narrow path that led
through a tall hedge.

Ashley meekly followed behind, still snickering.

“I thought you’d live in town.”

“No. I’m an outliver.”

“What’s an ‘outiver’?”

“Someone who lives near the outskirts of the town. I’ve
loved this house since I was a small child. I finally was able to purchase it a
few years ago.”

Ashley had somehow pictured Aaron living in a small, quaint
cottage in the middle of Boston, but this house was large and quite grand.

The tall, two-story building with a gambrel roof had a wide
front door framed by carved pilasters and capped by a graceful swan’s neck
pediment with ornamental rosettes. Two windows were set on either side of the
door with four above on the upper story. The house resembled the pictures of
saltbox houses she had seen at the museum.

“But it’s so large for one person!”

Aaron shrugged. “It will be filled with children someday.”

“Yours and who else’s?” she teased.

He ignored the comment as they climbed the steps together,
and he opened the door.

Entering the house, Ashley was filled with curiosity. The
inside was every bit as elegant as the outside. The spacious entry hall had a
rich dark wainscoting that extended to a tasteful room to the right of the
entry.

“Is that a drawing room?”

Aaron smiled as she stepped inside the room just off the
hallway. There was a crystal lamp on a table in front of the window, flanked by
two chairs. Two wing chairs and a sofa were setting on a blue rug situated near
the fireplace, and several pieces that would be priceless antiques in her day
were scattered throughout the room.

“It’s lovely,” she murmured, reaching out to touch one of
the polished oak tables.

“I find it comfortable.”

“Did you know the former owners?”

“Yes, they passed on several years ago.”

Ashley followed Aaron to the next room and peeked inside.
This room looked cozy. A spinning wheel had been shoved into a corner. A large
desk, littered with papers and various accounting records tucked into its
cubbyholes, was set near the fireplace. A poker resting against the stone face
made Ashley think that this fireplace was the one most frequently used.

“I bet this is where you work,” she guessed.

She moved to the silk sampler hanging on the wall over the
desk and read the inscription aloud: “Agatha Benchly bom May 27, 1710, died
1770. Jonathan Benchly bom August 12, 1705, died 1770.”

Turning, she looked at Aaron. “Why, they died the same
year.”

“The same day,” Aaron said. “Agatha and Jonathan’s sons
inherited the farm upon the deaths of their parents. The boys were a greedy lot
and they couldn’t come to terms on how to disperse the land, so they decided to
split it. Consequently, I was able to purchase the house and a few acres. I had
the samplers made in Agatha and Jonathan’s memory. Come, the kitchen is this
way.”

Clasping her hands behind her back, Ashley took a peek up
the stairway as they walked past, wondering if he would choose to show her his
bedroom.

As they entered the kitchen, she saw a wide, deep fireplace
with a very long mantel. A variety of iron rods rested against the wall
flanking the fireplace, along with a couple of large trivets upon which the
pots were placed after they cooked over coals. A hook set into the stone held a
variety of small skewers, and a blackened teakettle rested on a trivet on top
of a cold fire. In the middle of one wall, there was a tall chest, and its open
door revealed a collection of small crockery pieces. A pot with a lid was
setting on the floor nearby as if the owner of the house had simply run out of
room to store the crockery.