Here With Me (2 page)

Here
was the place Sarah Tremont had
traveled from and he had traveled to. Did she know something about
that? The hair on the back of his neck stiffened. “Why’s that,
ma’am?” he asked.

She shifted her gaze and stared past his
shoulder, out toward the ocean. He turned his body and settled down
in the sand next to her. Just the tip of the setting sun remained
visible and the violet and pink had turned into a smooth dark blue
with just a hint of purple.

He’d been close enough to her to know it was
just the color of Melody Song’s wide-set eyes.

“A little over a year ago my best friend
drowned at this beach,” she said. “You might have read about it in
the paper. Her name was Sarah Jane Tremont.”

George was grateful that he was sitting,
otherwise he’d have disgraced himself by falling down again. He
knew where he’d heard the odd name. This was the Melody that Sarah
had told him about, the woman who had been her coworker, her best
friend. But a year ago?

Sarah had been in his time for just weeks
before he’d placed his boots in the footprints that were to take
her back to her own time.

Christ, he thought his head might just split
in two it ached so badly. How could this have happened? Hannah had
been there. She had guided him and she would not have led him
wrong.

Melody put her hand on his arm. “Are you all
right?” she asked. “You don’t look so good.”

No. His heart was racing, he couldn’t think
straight, and his stomach churned, making him think that his lunch
would be on his boots soon.

Hell. He hadn’t eaten for over a year.

Impossible.

“What happened?” he managed to ask. He needed
to find out what he could. Needed to figure out what had gone
wrong.

She didn’t respond right away. When she did,
he could hear the emotion of loss in her voice. “There was a big
storm and the ocean was rougher than usual. As best we can figure
out, she got caught up in the waves and washed out to sea. Her body
was never found.”

There’d been no body to find. It was safe and
sound in 1888 Wyoming Territory.

“She was my best friend,” she went on. “We
were both social workers at the same grade school.”

The school where Sarah had met Miguel Lopez.
Perhaps Melody knew Miguel, knew where he could find the child and
his mother. He couldn’t just ask outright. “Were there many
students at this school?” he asked, hoping that he could steer the
conversation in the direction he needed it to go.

“Hundreds. But Sarah and I didn’t work with
all of them. There were a few special ones,” she said, and he could
hear a change in her voice.

“Like who?” he asked.

She gave him a half smile. “Tonight, the one
I’m thinking about is Miguel. Probably because I’m here.” She
pointed to a large boulder that sat about thirty feet back from the
water’s edge. “Sarah’s cell phone was found on the beach, wedged
behind that big rock. When the police investigated her
disappearance, they traced all the phone calls that she’d made. The
last one was to a customer service representative at an insurance
company. When the police told me that, I called him. He gave me
some information that would have been important to Sarah, important
to Miguel and the Lopez family.”

Sarah had explained much the same before he’d
left her and John Beckett in Wyoming Territory. She’d said that
Miguel’s mother wanted to care for her sick child at home, but that
would have required special machines and nurses. A company, the one
that had sold her something called insurance, had refused to pay
for these things. They had said that Miguel must go to a hospital
but the only hospital they would pay for was many miles from
Miguel’s home. Miguel’s mother had no way to travel there and even
if she did, she could not leave Miguel’s younger sisters alone.

Sarah had accepted that Miguel was going to
die. She could not accept that he would die alone. She had fought
for Miguel and his mother and finally the company had agreed to pay
for Miguel to be cared for at home, surrounded by his family. But
Sarah had been swept off the beach before she’d gotten to tell
Miguel’s mother. “What did you do?” George asked.

“I did what Sarah would have done. I helped
Miguel and his mother.” She shrugged her delicate shoulders. “We
became friends,” she added, her voice very soft. “I stayed with
them often. It was a difficult time. Especially toward the
end.”

Toward the end.
He leaned forward,
urgency ripping through him. “What happened to the child?” he
demanded.

“He died. Five months after Sarah did.” She
said it simply but he knew from the way her shoulders tensed and
the set of her pretty mouth that it hadn’t been simple at all.

The water in his stomach surged upward and he
had to work to keep from vomiting. Miguel was already dead. He’d
come for nothing. Had left everything for nothing.

Melody stared at the ocean, oblivious to him.
“You know, it’s been more than six months now and I can still hear
Miguel teasing his sisters,” she said. “Or reading the newspaper to
his mother. He desperately wanted to teach her to read and write
English.”

Sarah had told him that, too. George focused
on breathing in through his nose and out his mouth and when he felt
able, he asked, “And did his mother learn?”

“She did. Rosa Lopez knew that learning to
read was her final gift to her child.” She turned to look at him
and he could see the sheen of tears in her pretty eyes. He
understood why she was unaware of the affect of her words. She was
dealing with her own pain and had no reason to think that what she
was saying would be important to him.

“It was a horrible time but there were days
that were wonderful,” she said. “Days that were so full of love. In
the end, he died in his mother’s arms, and I think he was
content.”

George closed his eyes and prayed for the
child who had fought the final battle and the mother who had
watched him go. It made him remember the desperation he’d felt when
Hannah and their unborn child had been killed. It made him remember
the rage, the absolute sense of loss.

“I’m glad that you were there,” he said. “I’m
sure Sarah. . .your friend. . .would have been grateful.”

“I’d like to think so. I miss her.”

He had to tell her the truth. She’d already
spent a year missing her friend. “There’s something you should
know,” he said. “I—”

“You know what really helped me when Miguel
died,” she interrupted, “is that I knew that Sarah was already
there waiting for him. I knew he wasn’t going to be alone. It’s the
one thing that really gives me peace.”

Was it his place to rip that peace away from
her? Could he tell her that her friend hadn’t drowned? That she’d
been swept off the beach and traveled back to 1888 Wyoming
Territory? That she’d met John Beckett there?

What would Melody think if she knew that
George had met Sarah in a saloon? That he’d left his home in North
Dakota months earlier and had been tracking a man who had killed
his wife and unborn child, intending to avenge their deaths? Would
she cower in fear again? Even though, in the end, when the man had
been killed, it had not been by George’s hand.

He’d never seen two more miserable people
than Sarah Tremont and John Beckett when it looked like Sarah was
going to have to return to her own time to help Miguel Lopez and
his family. Then the footprints had appeared—but not for Sarah or
John. No, it had been George who had taken first one step, then
another, and had been whisked up into darkness.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to
interrupt you. What were you saying?”

This woman had suffered two great losses but
she’d obviously come to terms with both of them. If he told her the
truth, would she miss her friend any less? Would it only cause her
grief because the peace that she’d clung to for the past few months
would disappear?

He knew better than most that peace was
mighty hard to come by.

“Um. . .nothing.” He rubbed a hand over his
face.

“I came here tonight to tell Sarah I was
leaving. I thought she’d want to know.”

“What about your job at the school?”

“After Sarah’s disappearance, the school
expected me to cover her caseload. I already had all I could
handle. There was no way I could spend the time I needed to spend
with Miguel and his family. I took a leave of absence but
ultimately the school ended up replacing both Sarah and me. So
there was no job to go back to.” She smiled at him. “It’s for the
best. I really need to go home.”

“Where’s home?”

“My grandmother has a place about two hours
north of San Francisco. In the hills of Napa Valley. Have you ever
been there?”

He’d heard of San Francisco, had even had a
neighbor once who’d traveled there and back again to North Dakota.
But he had no idea what this valley might be. He shook his
head.

“It’s a beautiful place. Even when the roads
are jammed with traffic and there are tourists everywhere, it’s a
special place.” She chewed on her lower lip. “I’m leaving early in
the morning. I haven’t come back here since Sarah’s death but for
some reason, I couldn’t go until I came tonight. And when the water
kept edging farther up onto the beach, I wasn’t scared. It was like
I was suddenly closer to her.” She stopped and shook her head. “You
must think I’m crazy.”

“I don’t think that.” Crazy was stepping into
footprints and traveling a hundred plus years forward. Crazy was
arriving a year too late. What the hell had happened?

Hannah had been there, directing, guiding. He
was sure of it. She wouldn’t have led him astray. Never.

He stared up at the now-dark sky, dotted with
sparkling stars and a quarter-moon. He’d never been a devout man,
had counted on Hannah to take care of the praying for both of them.
It didn’t seem right now to suddenly start, no matter how much he
wanted answers. He gave the sky one last, lingering look before
turning to face Melody.

She stared at him for a long moment and he
couldn’t stop himself from staring back. She had strikingly strong
features, everything from her expressive eyes to her high
cheekbones to her full mouth.

“I guess I better be going,” she said.

He stood up and held out a hand to help her
up. Her skin was warm and soft and when she swayed, as if she
wasn’t quite steady on her feet, his heart thumped in his chest. He
held on to her hand and her wedding ring felt warm against his
palm. “Are you ill?”

She shook her head. “If I don’t eat every
three hours, I get a little light-headed. I think I’m about a
half-hour behind schedule. Once I get home, I’ll have some crackers
and hot tea and I’ll be fine.”

Hannah had loved tea. Every night before bed,
she’d brewed a cup. She drank it strong and very hot. He wondered
how Melody Song liked her tea?

But that wasn’t his business. She had a
husband who would know those things—would know whether she liked to
sweeten it with sugar or cream, would know what cup she liked to
drink from. “I imagine your husband will be worried about you,” he
said, wanting to distance himself from her female charm.

“I don’t have a husband,” she said. She
pulled her hand away.

His hand felt suddenly cold. Oh, hell. “I’m
sorry.” He looked deliberately at the ring. “I didn’t realize you
were a widow.”

“I’ve never been married.”

She said it without malice, without much
emotion at all. He wasn’t at all sure what to make of it.

“I bought this ring just today. Got a good
deal on it. Nobody wants plain wedding bands anymore. At least
that’s what the guy at the jewelry store told me. I told him that
I’d lost the ring that my husband had given me and needed to
replace it quickly while he was out of town. I don’t think he
believed me. Probably because I was stumbling over my words. But it
didn’t stop him from selling me a ring, though.”

It was a rambling explanation but he thought
he understood now why she was going home to family. “It’s not my
place to judge,” he said quickly. “Will your parents meet you at
your grandmother’s?”

She looked at her hands. “Sarah’s death was
the second time that the Pacific has stolen from me. Fifteen years
ago, during a rainstorm, just an hour north of here, my parents’
car slid off the road, right through a guardrail. They fell a
couple hundred feet before they hit the ocean.”

Life had dealt Melody Song her share of
hardship. Sarah had told him about the square metal boxes on wheels
that they called cars. The things must be hard to control. It made
him realize that while he’d left a world that was sometimes hard
and unforgiving, he’d perhaps come to a time of even greater
dangers.

“After they died, I went to live with my
grandmother,” Melody said, looking at him once again.

“Does she know that you’re with child?”

“She does. She’s delighted. Of course,” she
added, shaking her head slightly, “she also thinks I’m
married.”

He was grateful for all his years of being a
sheriff and the many times he’d had to piece together bits of a
story. It helped him now. “Because you told her that.”

She rubbed a hand across her mouth. “I’m
twenty-eight years old and I swear, it’s the craziest thing I’ve
ever done. But it just seemed like the right thing to do at the
time.”

“Why?” He’d met this woman less than thirty
minutes ago but he felt like he had a right to know. He’d dragged
her from the ocean, after all.

“My grandmother means everything to me. And
while she’s a very modern-thinker, Grandmother hangs tight to a few
of the old traditions, the old beliefs. And of all the things she
feels very strongly about, legitimacy of a child is right there at
the top.”

“And that’s wrong?”

“Oh no. Trust me, she has very good reasons
to feel that way. But I’m sure you’re not interested in all that.
Anyway, now she’s. . .ill. Very ill. My aunt Tilly called a few
days ago and said that Grandmother wanted me home. She wants to
meet my husband.”