WANTED (A Transported Through Time book) (10 page)

Ginny frowned. “What’s she talking about, Jesse?” She moved back two steps.

Jesse stroked a finger down Samantha’s cheek and jawline, pressing her face toward his. He met her eyes and tried to read what he saw. The stormy blue orbs revealed nothing more than basic fear.

“Samantha,” he said firmly, now more interested in calming his sister. “Where does it hurt?” Samantha needed to get a grip on her emotions quickly. She needed to answer him. He tried to say as much with his intense stare.

It seemed to work. Samantha’s gaze locked onto his, and her features relaxed a bit. She pointed to her ankle. “It doesn’t hurt as bad as before.” She kept looking at him.

“Good,” Jesse said and left her there, pulling Ginny out into the kitchen.

“This isn’t proper, Jesse. You can’t know where she was going, or who she is. Stealing an evening is one thing. …”

Jesse held up a hand. “I know. I mean to ask her all those things. If she isn’t concerned about propriety, you still can be, but not until I find out what’s going on.”

“Something isn’t right here, Jesse. I can feel it.”

The last thing he wanted was for his sister to get one of her feelings, which most times were dead accurate. He needed her to leave, so he could be alone with Samantha and figure out what in the hell had happened. Better yet, he wanted to know who she was and what she was doing here. He’d let lust cloud his good sense, and now he had to set it straight. Not simply for his own safety. For Ginny and Tommy’s, too.

“If you want her to stay with you, I guess that would be proper enough, but I can’t move her to your place tonight, not until the pain subsides.”

“You’ve been taking too many risks, Jesse,” Ginny said, shaking her head. “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.”

~~~

Chapter Nine

Carla rinsed the antique teacup in the sink. She rubbed the crackled pattern with soap and warm water until the fluid ran clear.

Carla didn’t quite know what she had expected, but Samantha Hendricks had not been it. When the tall blonde had walked into her store not days, but weeks, after her father passed, Carla hadn’t known whose daughter she was. The girl, well, woman now, didn’t look a thing like her daddy, and not at all like Carla remembered.

Sammie didn’t remember Carla, of that she was sure. Not a single flicker of recognition in those big eyes at any point in their conversations. It had been so many weeks since Henry’s death, Carla wasn’t sure Sammie would ever walk through the door. But she had.

Henry had been right after all. He knew his daughter well. Now Carla would have to see his last wishes through without revealing she had any affiliation to the girl or the father.

Or the outlaw.

So far, everything had gone according to plan. Sammie wanted to sell the maps, agreed to the price, and was following through by turning them over today. Henry was likely gloating up in heaven, or whatever place existed beyond mortality. As well he should.

Sammie’d grown into a stunning, savvy young woman. She wasn’t the kind of girl who used her looks as currency or for flirtation. The exact opposite of the kind of girl Carla had been. Conservatively dressed, Samantha held herself proudly and made steady eye contact when she spoke. Polite, but not submissive.

Out the second-story window, she could see Sammie’s car parked close to the street.

With the figure Carla had proposed, Samantha’s law school should be just about covered. The auction might bring in even more than the sum she’d quoted. All that could wait. The money wasn’t nearly as important to Henry as his other last wishes for his daughter.

Should she move the car to the rear, or did it risk someone seeing her do it? Leaving it where it was meant visibility. Moving it meant fingerprints, hairs, and fibers. Either way, it wasn’t as though Carla could come up with any easy explanation, and sooner or later she would have to.

Henry had long insisted all she would have to do is play dumb and wait it out. But Henry couldn’t say how long Sammie’d be gone. Other than waiting, the only thing he could advise was for her to ask for a lawyer. Lawyer up. That’s what he called it. Too many crime shows and not enough socialization is what Carla called it.

Too early to worry about those things. It might take a week or longer for anyone to even report her missing. Self-sufficient as the girl likely was, she might not even have told anyone where she was going that morning. Or why.

Carla set down the cup and turned her attention to the saucer. Once dry, she would return them to the set, to be auctioned off that afternoon. Wouldn’t want any residue on any of the pieces. Or to have any pieces in the house, in case the police came calling.

In case someone looked for Samantha here.

Ah, Henry, what had she gone and gotten involved in? She could only pray the old goat knew what he was doing when he planned this out those last few weeks. She knew the how. She knew the where and when of it. She’d long ago stopped asking why.

*

Samantha was glad he left, even gladder his sister left. She didn’t like the way the more-than-helpful woman, real or not, had looked at her. There was that knife a moment earlier too. She didn’t know what part of her psyche the woman represented in this strange, surreal delusion. She didn’t want to know.

What would Charles say about knife-wielding women? Snakebites were pretty obvious, sexual-deviation guilt, penis envy, or something along those lines. Jesse. What did Jesse, the glorious, gorgeous cowboy represent?

Her dreams, her desires, her goals, her lack?

Samantha couldn’t guess. All she knew was how magical she felt when he was near, and whatever this was, she was willing to prolong it to spend another moment with him. She searched her brain for any other possible logical conclusion and short of time travel, a nervous breakdown might be the only answer.

Crap.

Well, if she was hurting herself somewhere, wherever she had managed to wander off to in her current sleepwalking, semiconscious state, someone would find her. Someone, Charles maybe, would find her and wake her, or get help or whatever needed to be done. This definitely went beyond a dream.

Dreams did not smell as good as Jesse. They did not have lapses of waiting, or even have much logical order. So what did she do? Sit and wait around til it ended? Navigate this new psychosis?

The thing was, she really, really liked this craziness.

Jesse. He was a fantasy worth any tight, white jacket. She’d stay in those arms forever if there was ever a chance to.

That settled it. Until the spell broke, she would enjoy him as long as delusionally possible.

So, snakebite. What did that mean? Adam and Eve. Sin. Punishment for dallying with Jesse? If it was punishment. What was her last form of punishment, the last time she’d dreamed of him? Besides a wicked headache and a bit of nausea, nothing.

Did that mean, as long as she came to terms with her deviant sexual behavior, her outright sluttiness, a behavior she’d only flirted with before, did that mean she would stop punishing herself?

She hoped so. Because she wanted to enjoy this stuff, not mutilate herself in reality while she lived out suppressed desires.

Interrupting her contemplations, Jesse returned with a blanket roll and a glass of water. He helped her sit up to drink and propped up her foot on the roll. The fabric was coarse and itchy, but the attention was sweet.

Sweet as it might be, his attentions also made her uncomfortable. She suffered the discomfort. He was there with her. That was all that mattered. The cowboy hero her mind had created to rescue her from herself. The outlaw who had fascinated her father was now her dream adventure. The gentleman outlaw murdered at the tender age of twenty-nine, a day before his thirtieth birthday, by his two cohorts in crime. Shot in the back.

The headline of Carla’s newspaper came up fresh and clear in her mind. A stolen life. She’d only minored in psychology in her undergraduate work, but most any educated, and some uneducated, could probably figure out this one.

“How’s your leg?” Jesse said, lying next to her.

“Better.”

“Good.” He smiled. “How’s your head?”

“My head? Fine. Why? Did I hit my head, too?”

Jesse chuckled. “No. But you sure were talking like you did. Ginny got scared. And she doesn’t scare that easy.”

Samantha winced inwardly. She’d scared her own psyche’s representation of obstacles. God, all these deductions and conclusions overwhelmed her brain. Fatigue seeped through her.

“Sorry about that,” Samantha said. “I was a little out of it.”

“But you feel better now?”

“Much.” She snuggled up to his chest, being careful not to un-prop her foot.

Jesse covered her up, tucked in the edges, and hugged her close. “I need to ask you some questions, Samantha.” He paused, as if he didn’t want to say what he had to say. “Is that all right?”

Samantha cringed inside. She found herself returning to the psychoanalysis and forced it to stop. “You can ask me anything, Jesse.”

His body heat warmed her toes and limbs, hands and cheeks. His heart beat steady and sure beneath her ear.

“Who are you, and I don’t mean your name? How did you find me?”

Samantha swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. What could she tell him? Certainly not the truth. Not that which would certainly cause a total mental breakdown, and she’d be sitting in the front row to watch her own demise into insanity.

Stop.

“I’m Samantha Hendricks. Born and raised in Southern California.” She stuck as close to the truth as possible. “I didn’t come here to find you. I just happened to come across the right place and the right time, I guess.”

Jesse stroked her arm with his thumb. “Why did you come here?”

Samantha realized she had no idea where “here” was. Was she in Santa Barbara, where Carla’s shop was located? Or home in San Diego? Winnemucca?

He hadn’t asked
where
she was, only why.

What was she supposed to say? “My father died a few weeks ago. I came to sell my inheritance. When your sister’s husband found me, I had come from the home of the buyer.”

Her eyes were so tired, anyway, all she wanted to do was rest them and listen to him breathe. He didn’t respond. But, he didn’t press further, and while she couldn’t gauge if her answers had satisfied him with his eyes so guarded, she wasn’t about to verify if they did.

*

Charles Whittaker might not be the nicest or friendliest person in the world. He let waiters know when they’d failed proper service. He didn’t hedge the truth if someone asked how he or she looked. He might be blunt and opinionated, but he was not inconsiderate. He had done absolutely nothing to deserve being ditched, or worse—forgotten—at the airport.

“Samantha, where the hell are you?” he asked her voice mail, the third message since landing.

His plane landed three hours ago. Not one. Not two.
Three
. Sam was nowhere to be seen. He’d had her paged; he’d called their home number and her cell. He’d left three messages, ranging from annoyed to furious to plain and outright worried. He refused to leave more.

Every man had a limit. He had reached his. Charles ignored the curious and sympathetic stares from the kiosk workers who’d no doubt watched him pace and come and go and call and hem and haw. Screw them. So his ride hadn’t shown. They probably had five different friends to call as backup in such a situation. Charles did not. They probably made minimum wage and picked pimples on their back for each other. Charles did not.

Holding his head high, he dragged his limping wheeled luggage, which had seen far better days but still had a respectable and clear Gucci logo, onto the walkway. He would have to take a cab. Hopefully, he would get a driver who didn’t rattle on in a monologue and didn’t listen to rap at supersonic volume.

Samantha was going to get more than an earful over this little stunt. He hoped against the sick feeling in his belly it was, in truth, a stunt. Let her be in the bath, or off with some guy who’d swept her off her feet in the last forty-eight hours, or just mean and mad. Let her be any of those things, as long as she was alive, safe, and okay.

He’d clearly been watching too many reality crime shows. He should simply stick to being pissed and plot exactly what he would say to scathe the insensitive bitch.

Samantha wasn’t insensitive. While she might seem bitchy, she was no bitch, either.

A cab pulled up in the line. Charles peered in and tried to hide his distaste. The old driver looked like a raging alcoholic, with those ruddy cheeks and puffy nose. He shrugged. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, now could they?

Wishing he could hold his nose, Charles climbed in and stated the address. The scent of old cigars em
anated from the man. Oh, dear, t
his was going to be one long ride home. …

As Charles left the cab and it pulled away, he jiggled the lock open on the front door, the screen pressing heavily against his back. The little wires from the screen portion poked into his skin through his thin cotton shirt. The door and pokes may as well have been an evil little imp menacing his temper into full force. When he saw his wayward roommate of four years, going on five … If she was lucky, and he forgave this insult, he would give her a scolding that would make Manson blush.