1

Lost. On a two-lane county highway, straight as the narrow road to ruin. Out of luck and unless there was a miracle, I was about to run out of gas before I found out exactly where I was lost at. Course, if I knew where I was lost at, I wouldn't be lost anymore, would I?

Good to see my sense of humor wasn't as fried as the landscape. I thumped hard on the gas dial in some last ditch mental wish that I could force the dial to give me more gas in the tank. My eyes searched the horizon. Nothing but dusty stretches and cacti and hills and sun. "Gawd. I HATE Arizona," I screamed.

This was getting me nowhere. I yanked the wheel to the right and pulled over on the shoulder. With every last fiber of self-control I had in me, I fought giving in to a sense of dread and panic that had been stalking me for the last hour. Scanning the horizon again. Nothing. A whole Hell of a lot of nothing.

Okay. You'll be fine, I told myself. You've got plenty of water and even food in the cooler. You planned real well for this trip, you knew you'd be driving across the desert, you just didn't plan on getting lost.

I was driving to meet a recluse. Honest. "But not this much of a recluse," I muttered to myself. And then saw the humor in it. "When you said off the beaten track, guess you really meant it, eh?"

When I started laughing too hard at my own sick joke, I worried. So, out of the car. Quick run out into the rocky, dusty roadside then jog back. Work off some of the nerves. Calm down. I found myself striding purposely up a dry arroyo. And when it curved around a hill, something drew me up there. From that height, I reasoned, maybe I'd see something.

And, I did. I cupped my hands over my eyes and peered off into the distance. A town. In the middle of God's most forsaken acre. It looked like it had about twenty or thirty buildings; surely, there'd be some humans there who could help me. Surely they had a radio or phone or some means of communication. And even if they didn't, night was coming and it would be a lot better spending it there, than in my car. I searched for the road leading in. I couldn't really make it out but I took an educated guess as to where I'd need to turn. There was really only one way that poked through the surrounding hills. Even if there wasn't a road, I'd have to follow the trail through the break in the hills. It was the only answer.

I ran back to the car, started the engine and took off. My eyes tracked where I'd seen the break and when I drew even with it, there wasn't really a road, but the earth was pretty flat and it looked like I'd be able to make it.

Patting the seat next to me. "Thank God I drive an SUV. And I won't ever have to listen to my brothers kid me about why in fuck's name I need an SUV to haul my ass around the city," I said to my car.

Almost thirty minutes later, I'd picked my way into the center of the town. And as I sat there behind the wheel, I let myself cry.

It was a ghost town. The wind swept through the main dirt trail in and it swirled in bright red dust devils. Every inch of old wood and brick was coated thick in the dust.

There I was. Night was falling on me. In the desert. Miles from civilization. Low on gas. And no idea what I was going to do.

"Stop it. You stupid ninny. Stop the tears, stop the pity party. This is an adventure you'll tell your grandkids about some day," I announced, trying hard to shore up my courage.

Out of the car. I walked toward the closest brick building. Above its wooden awning, there was an old faded sign; I thought I could pick out the words 'Club & Café.' Up three wooden steps and onto some kind of wooden walkway that linked most of the buildings. In front of me, wooden doors swung crookedly on their hinges like drunken sailors. They looked like in their better days they'd been the kind of doors you saw in all those old Westerns. The ones that banged back and forth to let people into the saloons. I shoved tentatively and they parted for me.

Inside, the dying rays of the sun slanted into windows that were wavy and uneven. I ran a sleeve across one of them to clear some of the grit and noticed it was real old-fashioned glass, not like the stuff mass-produced in today's factories. "Charming," I announced. "Just charming."

Stood in the middle of the floor and looked around. Just as I would have imagined an old West saloon to look like. Eerily, it was like it might have looked if people had just suddenly abandoned the place about a hundred or so years earlier and I was the first person to see it since. The chairs were all still drawn up to the tables. There was a huge bar along the far wall and the shelves behind it still held a huge assortment of bottles, now covered in the red dust. I walked over to one of the tables, pulled out a chair and sat. I swiped my arm along the top of the table and discovered that under layers of dirt, there were cards still lying there.

That sent a distinct chill down my back. Surely, if this place had been abandoned, someone else would have come along in all the intervening years and found it? And if it had been found, someone would have either trashed it or carted off what wasn't nailed down.

My eyes drove up the back wall to the bottles on the shelves behind the bar. I walked over and peered closer at them. They still had liquid in them. I reached up and pulled one down. It's amber fluid shone in the dying sun. I yanked out its cork and sniffed. Whiskey. Hmm. Using my shirttail, I cleaned off the lip of the bottle and then took a tentative swallow.

"Sweet Jesus!" I yelped. Rotgut. It burned as it slid down me. But, instantly, my insides felt warm. Another sip and it tasted better. By the fifth sip, I was beginning to feel a little more at home in the saloon. "Home for the night, I think."

It took me about a half hour to cart in sleeping bag, cooler, and suitcase. I went hunting for a basin to wash up in and found a wonderful old kitchen. By then, I was carrying around my whiskey bottle with me and sipping a lot more than was prudent. Before long, I was washed up, snuggled in my sleeping bag and not at all worried about sleeping on top of the bar.

There's something about sleeping like that. When you just give in to a really bad situation and go with it. And trust that things will look better in the morning. I slept the sleep of the dead and the drunk.

It was only the orange-red newborn sun shining through my eyelids that forced me to acknowledge that it was morning. I turned away from the windows and groaned. Sleeping on that hard wood had made my very bones ache. And my head must have grown about three sizes bigger in the night. Somehow, I found the will to rise to face the day. Holding my head with both hands to keep it from falling off my shoulders, I slowly rose up out of the sleeping bag. It took long, long minutes to sneak down off the bar. An hour later, I had two bottles of water in me, had managed to eat a breakfast of apple and granola. As I packed up the cooler and lugged it back to my car, I realized my hangover was subsiding. When I was ready to leave, I took another long look around at the town.

That's when it hit me. Hangovers were never quite over that easily, were they? For some reason, I went stumbling in search of an appropriate place to heave. Found myself back behind the main street's buildings. When I felt better, I walked back toward the car. Passed a water trough and eyed the metal pump it was attached to. I started pumping. If water could come gushing out, it would be nice to wash up just a bit and not have to use what little drinking water I had left for this purpose. After all, it looked like it was going to be a long day of hiking ahead of me if my car's gas gave out before I found help so I'd need it to survive.

Suddenly, water started gushing forth. I'd only had to pump hard about six times. Initially, I just cupped my hands in the falling water and splashed water up into my mouth, rinsing out the bad taste before spitting into the hard packed earth. I let the water keep going, filling up the deep trough and giggling at this good fortune. When it was deep enough, I swept off gunk that had floated to the surface and then stuck my arms in. Splashed my face and it felt good to be clean. Then got another bright idea.

Got soap from my bag, stripped and proceeded to give myself a cat's bath. The rising sun dried my skin almost as quickly as I finished washing it.

For some reason, that just restored some good humor to me. I was clean, I was alive, I had a water supply. Things could have been a whole lot worse. With new eyes, I looked back over the town. My eyes caught the stone fountain that stood smack dab in the middle of the main road, down at the end, in front of a two-story structure that almost looked like a Victorian house. Must have been the town's center back in its heyday, I guessed. In addition to the saloon, there was a jail, a mercantile, a cabinetmaker's shop, a feed store, a large building that must have been a hotel, several other smaller shops, and a church. And a livery place down at the end. Most of the ten two-story buildings were reddish brick with wide wood awnings stretched over the wooden walkways. The other fifteen or so smaller, one-story buildings were a mixture of brick and wood.

I kept getting this eerie feeling that I might have been the first person to see this place since it had been abandoned. It probably dated to the mid 1800s, maybe like the 1870s? I itched to explore it. After all, I was out here in this hellhole in search of a story for the magazine I worked for. I was supposed to be interviewing this author who wrote about cowboys in the old West. Trouble was, no one had ever convinced him to do an interview before and for some reason, out of the blue, he'd agreed to my twentieth letter of request. His directions were a bit vague, but as I'd taken off from Tucson, I was pretty sure there weren't too many ways to get lost in such an undeveloped area. I mean, it wasn't like I was going to be counting stoplights or gas stations, so you'd have to figure it wouldn't be too tough. Obviously, I'd been wrong.

Maybe, this town would offer me either a completely new story or it would be integral to the story I would write someday after my rescue from the jaws of death. In that case, I reasoned, I should explore.

I walked through the livery stables, peered in stalls. Rope, corded and looped, still hung from pegs in the wall. There were still saddles pitched along the dividers between some of the stalls. Tongs and horseshoes littered one area that looked like a blacksmith must have worked the iron forge there.

Outside, I wandered along the wooden walk, peering in dusty windows. Stepped into the jail and the keys were still hanging on the wall. An old wooden desk with its chair were off to one side and if I squinted real hard I could imagine a lawman sitting there. On the walls, 'wanted' posters were hidden under layers of grit and red dust. Next building I entered was a gunsmith's shop. Swiping off a glass case, I peered down at old guns. "No way someone would have just walked off and left all this stuff," I reasoned.

I marched purposely toward the big general store or, as the sign said, the mercantile. I heaved against the old doors and they finally budged enough for me to go in. Seeing the merchandise still lining floor to ceiling shelves along the wall and stacked on display tables sent me into creative overdrive.

"It's like some alien came in and abducted the whole town. This is amazing," I said to myself in wonder. "Damn. What a fucking good story this will make!"

I whirled around toward the door when I heard a bell ringing. The church. I ran for it, peering up into the tower, seeing the bell heaving back and forth and the clapper striking its sides. A person had to be ringing it, I knew, because no amount of wind would have been capable of getting it moving. For some odd reason, I wasn't scared of seeing a person. I was thrilled at the idea I might find someone there who could tell me about this ghost town. I wanted to know the story.

Took one big gaze around the interior of the church as I burst into it, spied the interior door leading to the tower and I was through it in an instant. Raced up the stairs, two at a time, watching the rope swinging but sure that the hand pulling on it had to be up on the next landing. When I reached the landing, the rope was still swaying. The bell was no longer swiveling hard enough to make a sound.

And there was no one around. I looked back down the stairs. Two sets of footprints leading up to where I was - mine... and someone else's. My eyes went back to the rope. Now, it was stock still. Eyes at my feet and I followed the trail of the footprints that weren't mine; they led to the edge of the landing where it was obvious from the scuffed up dust there that someone had stood in that spot pulling on the rope to ring the bell. But, I saw no evidence the person had retreated back down the stairs; besides, surely I would have passed anyone heading down? So the person must have gone higher up into the tower. My eyes focused on the stairs rising in front of me. Nothing but heavy dust, no footprints. I looked up the tower. The bell was also still. Something was drawing me up there. A mystery. I went up slowly but deliberately. When I got to the top, there was still no one there. I peered off over the town from my vantage point. Nothing but my car down there.

Sighing, I leaned against the wall. Maybe I was still drunk. Maybe I was dead somewhere in the desert and this was the hallucination I was dying with. Shook my head, straightened and began walking back down. Just as I reached the landing, I saw the rope swing again. Startled, I walked over to the platform edge, but something caught at my foot, tripping me, and I found myself pitching forward, toward the open central shaft of the tower. In desperation, I reached for the rope to stop my fall, but as soon as my hand gripped the rope, my body's weight as I fell yanked it from my grasp and I let out a huge scream. It's gonna hurt when I land, but it's less than a one-story drop to the floor, I quickly told my panicking mind.

Landed with a distinct thud. Wind knocked out of me, pain shooting through me, blackness creeping in the edges of my sight. Footsteps rushing toward me. Tried to turn my head, sure I'd see the mysterious bell-ringer. And then... nothing.

Awareness crept in slowly. I heard voices and they seemed near but far. Struggled to regain full consciousness. Focused on the voices to welcome back reality. Snapped my eyes open and found a pair of dark eyes peering intently at me.

Opened my mouth and couldn't make my voice work. 

It was an old face looking at me. White, longish hair framed his head. White shirt but all his other clothes were black. "Child? Hear me?" came out in this waving voice that seemed soothing somehow.

I nodded at him. He looked away and behind him. "She's come to, sheriff. Why don't you help me carry her out into the church so I can have a proper look at her. Mind her foot there, looks like it's hurting her."

He rose away from me as I heard another voice say, "Right, Doc. Let's get her out of here, then."

Another face swam into my vision. I swallowed and wondered if I was seeing things. Closed my eyes and then re-opened them as he bent close to me. Blue-green eyes held me in their power so strongly that I probably forgot to breathe. His arms gathered me up and as he rose, I felt pain shoot through me from one hip to my ankle as he lifted me. I let out a pitiful moan, reached my arms around this strong man and held on as he carried me from the tower's floor and into the main area of the church.

"Doc? Where you want her?" the man carrying me said. His voice rumbled from his chest and I felt its vibrations against the side of my head that was pressed in to him there.

I looked up at him as he began laying me onto one of the benches. He was so ruggedly beautiful that I wondered again if it was a dream or hallucination. Dark brown hair, long, thick and parted in the middle so it kind of flopped down his head. Stubbly beard that made his jaw seem sharper completed the look of pure masculinity.

He cleared his throat and I saw this little grin come out on his face. Real quick. If I hadn't been gawking at him, I would have missed it.

"That's a good place, sheriff," I heard the other voice say. 

When my brain clicked back, I realized that somehow I'd been rescued by a cop and a doctor. Well, shoot, I thought, my reclusive author must have sent a search party looking for me when I didn't show up at his place yesterday. Of course it would be law enforcement doing the search and of course they'd have a medical person coming with them because they'd figure I might have been hurt. Oh, and what woman alive would not have seen being rescued by a man like this as a dream come true? I mean, really. Tall, dark, handsome, strong... and a lawman to boot.

"Thank God. I'm so frigging glad to see you," I said to the sheriff as I grabbed his arm. He stopped; he'd been rising to leave me and my words made him look hard at me. "I got lost and my car's almost out of gas. I cannot believe you found me out here. Did Mr. Carlson call you when I didn't show up?"

The sheriff just stared at me then looked up at the other man. Then back at me. "Ma'am? Can you tell me what you were doing in there?"

I blinked my eyes at him. "Sure. I got lost trying to find Mr. Carlson's house. I was running out of gas and thought there'd be someone in this town who could help me or could get word to someone to come help. But when I got here, it was just a ghost town. I thought I heard someone in the bell tower but I fell before I got back down. I'm just really glad to see you."

He studied me for a while. Then turned puzzled eyes to the doctor, who nudged him aside and began looking me over. The doctor smoothed his hands down my hurt leg and when he reached the ankle, the pain jolted through me but I knew it wasn't broken.

"Yep. What I figured. She'll live." He looked in my eyes. "Miss, you just rest for a minute. Things'll make sense soon enough."

He rose and the two men traded looks. "What? What's wrong?" I asked.

The doctor smiled sweetly at me, laid a hand on the sheriff and told him, "Sheriff, just keep her still. I need to go back home and get a splint for that ankle."

When he was gone, the sheriff looked at me solemnly. "Can you tell me where you're from, Ma'am?"

"Okay, I know you think I'm an idiot from the city who just wandered into the desert without any reason, but there is a good explanation. And the fact that I'm from northern California is nothing to hold against me," I told him. Then I chuckled because his face suddenly looked very wary of me. "Come on, now. It's not like San Francisco is on another planet. And, look, I brought water and food... I mean, my car was well-equipped for this trip. I was just sandwiching in the interview with a camping vacation I was taking to Colorado so..."

My voice trailed off as I watched him back away from me. His eyes were wide and he was staring at the PDA I was slowly edging out of my pocket. I was getting it out to show him my carefully mapped out itinerary and to give him some phone numbers he could call to verify what I'd been telling him. He was obviously convinced I was either a wacko or some flat-footed tourist who'd got herself in this trouble out of sheer stupidity.

"Just drop your hands, nice and slow," he told me. My eyes noticed one of his hands resting on the grip of a revolver resting in his holster while his other hand was stretched out toward me, palm up.

I rolled my eyes but I still put my hands up in the air so he wouldn't take me as a threat. "What? You think this is a weapon? C'mon, sheriff, even out here surely you guys have seen these?"

His hand snaked out and he grabbed the PDA from my pocket. Sharp eyes studied it but I could tell he was nonplussed by it. He was still studying me warily when the doctor wandered back in. In no time, he had my ankle stabilized and wrapped in cloth strips over short wood splints to support the ankle. When he finished, I swung my legs over the side of the pew and went to rise.

For some reason, the room seemed to shift. My eyes couldn't really focus but something I was seeing didn't seem right. The sheriff's arms braced me and I felt steadier. I tried hobbling on my foot, wanting to test it. But his big arms swept me up off my feet. One arm under my knees, the other behind my back. I found myself holding on to him again and looking back up into those captivating eyes. It wasn't a bad place to be at all, I told myself.

"I'm not making a very good impression on you, am I?" I asked him, trying to give him my most winning smile. Feeling my insides flutter crazily when he gave me this half smile back.

He carried me outside. The sun was bright, barreling down on us without mercy. He paused and looked at the doctor.

"Doc? What ya think? Hotel? Or Jail?" At my sharp breath of shock, he looked down at me and grinned. "Sorry, ma'am. Shouldn't be having sport at your expense, I suppose. Hotel, then?"

"No, I don't need a hotel tonight. If you could just help me figure out how to get to Mr. Carlson's place? I have the directions in my car and..." I stopped talking for a second as his face got serious again. My Lord. I couldn't have picked a better rescuer, I thought; this man's like a fantasy come true. Every expression on his face gets me a little hotter. "Um... my car's right over there and..."

I gestured toward the car and turned to look. It was... gone.

Poof. Like it had never existed.

But... that wasn't actually the most frightening thing I was seeing. For before my astonished and very terrified eyes, the entire town had changed. What had once been a dust-coated ghost town of broken down buildings, was now a much less dusty but very busy, very inhabited, very real town.

There were people out there. They were walking on the wooden walkways, crossing the hard-packed dirt road. Riding horses and driving wagons along that road. And they were dressed like something out of an old Western.

My head turned back and I looked at the sheriff. He was watching me like I'd gone ... loco. I shoved myself out of his arms and struggled to regain my feet, moving steps away from him, ignoring the pain in my sprained ankle.

I looked at his silver badge in the shape of a star and then looked at his clothes. Dark pants, white shirt rolled up at his sleeves and black leather vest. Hanging around his waist was the holster that I'd noticed inside but suddenly seemed wrong. His whole get-up seemed wrong, out of date. "What the fuck is going on?" I growled out to him. "Is this some kind of game?"

"Ma'am. Let's just calm..." He put out a hand to me, adopted a soothing voice, but I was so freaked out that I backed away from him and looked around for an escape. Took in another sweeping survey of this town.

Hard stop. Eyes blinking into a brightened day. Mouth open. Eyes wide. Heart thumping fast. Breathing in a pant. Head swiveling and mind in total denial.

I turned back to the church and the sheriff was now looking at me with real concern.

"This isn't happening. I'm dreaming," I told him. I reached down and pinched my arm hard. When I looked back up and he was still there, I limped to the side of the building and slammed my fist into it, grinding out the words, 'wake up, wake up' over and over as pain shot through my arm. I looked over at him. He was still there and he looked like now he was sure I was crazy. "This can't be happening. Please tell me you're in my dream."

I couldn't seem to breathe. My head got dizzy and before I knew it, everything started getting dark. My next memory was of waking up in a bed. It was lumpy and uncomfortably soft in spots. A quilt was covering me. My eyes swept over bare wood walls and then came to rest on his face.

"What's happened?" I asked him, hearing my voice shake. He was sitting in a chair by me and he leaned toward me, taking one of my hands between his.

"Tell me your name," he asked softly.

"Ginny Powell," I said. "I got lost."

"Okay. That's fine. Do you remember how you got here?"

"I drove here. From the highway. Last night. Where am I anyway?"

He smiled at me. "Redemption."

Stomach fluttered again. "Okay. And you are?"

"Sheriff David Cortland. But most everyone calls me Cort, Ma'am."

This was turning into one of the most vivid, if weirdest, dreams I'd ever had in my entire life. On the other hand, I'd had worse men inhabit my dreams. And, as long as it was just a dream, why not enjoy it?

2

Funny how the mind plays tricks on you. My mind was saying one thing and my eyes were shouting a whole other story.

I looked into his amused eyes and said, "I honestly do know that right this very moment, I'm lying at the bottom of that bell tower and I'm hallucinating. I'm unconscious, obviously. But, you make about the sweetest fantasy I've ever dreamed up. I hope this becomes a wet dream. I really do. Because you're just so... But if I touch you, will that make me wake up?"

"Ma'am? I'm not sure if I'm catching it all, but trust me. You're very much awake," he told me, his mouth twitching like he was trying not to laugh out loud.

Oh, Ginny, I squealed inside to myself, you've done a good job this time. You've even dreamed up the perfect voice. Deep, smooth and it vibrated through me. He was still sitting there in that chair, holding my hand, and looking like the man I should have been fantasizing about for all those years of wasted night sweats.

"Think we can skip all the silly stuff that I'll need to dream until I get to the part where I can get into your pants?" I asked him, watching his eyes widen as I sat up and pulled his hand toward my breast. "I mean, if it's my fantasy, then let's get to it. Something tells me that I'm so going to enjoy screwing you."

I had pulled him toward me and, although his ass stayed glued to that chair, his upper body was so close that I could feel his breath on my face.

Placing his hand lightly on my breast, I reached for his face with both hands. God damn, but this was a man so sweet and inviting, I just didn't know what I would have him do with me in this little fantasy. And, in that instant, I wanted a real taste of him. Pulling his head to me slowly, I rose to my knees as my lips met his. Soft lips; they tasted so good. At first, he resisted when I deepened the kiss, trying to pull away; but my hands were gripping his face and I was pretty intent on what I was doing. It didn't take that much insistence; his mouth opened to me and our tongues brushed against each other delicately.

Since he wasn't fighting me anymore, I dropped my hands from his face and ran them down to his shoulders and around behind his neck. His body was still too far away, over there in that chair. From where I was, it was so simple to crawl over to him. I straddled his lap and settled in against him. He was well into the kiss by then, his arms gripping me tight to him. I felt him growing hard and I smiled into the kiss. Breaking away from his lips, I kissed down his stubbled jaw, hearing him moan as I made it to his throat.

It made me look at him. His eyes were almost closed and he seemed in another world. God, what a man, I thought, feeling the wetness almost leaking from me below and all because he was so into the eroticism of what this felt like. I reached a hand between us and stroked him, feeling him grow bigger under my touch. Suddenly, he seemed to snap out of the reverie. His eyes widened and he pushed me up off his lap.

He jumped to his feet, sending the chair toppling backwards and he stumbled away from me. "Miss Ginny, it'd be better if you just get right back in bed. Doc wants you to rest your ankle. Might be best for... well, for both of us... if I just let you rest now."

"Oh, come on. That's not how this is supposed to go. I shouldn't have to chase you. You...," I verbally pouted to him, pointing an accusing finger in his direction, "you are supposed to be over here, right now, forcing me. You're supposed to be ripping my clothes off and then making me come because, of course, I secretly want you just as much as you want me. Why aren't you cooperating?"

Under his deep tan, I caught a blush creeping surely up from his neck to his cheeks. He shook his head at me, his eyes glued to mine and he backed up again, knocking the chair out of his way and in three steps, he was at the door. "I'll... I'll, uh, just let Doc know he might need to come pay you another visit. Uh... Yeah."

He was out that door so fast it was a miracle he didn't leave tread marks in his wake.

This is not the fantasy I wanted, I told myself; this is very disappointing. Do I have some type of commitment issues I'm dealing with in this dream?

Noise outside caught my attention and I hobbled over to the window. The sun was high above and the dirt road was almost blinding in the way it reflected the rays back up to me. People were milling in front of the building I was in; if my eyes could be believed, I was up on a second story. From my vantage point, I swept my eyes across the buildings and tried to remember how the town had been laid out. If my memory was correct, I was across the street from that saloon I'd spent the night in. Wonder why in my dream that, instead of being inside the saloon, instead I was in a building across from it and watching the place in this ghost town I was most familiar with? I'd have to ask my analyst next time I saw her.

Oh, damn. My analyst was going to have a blast deconstructing this dream, I giggled to myself.

Down below me, the sheriff came rushing out into the road. Loud voices rose toward me. I watched as he got between two men who looked like they were hanging on to each other's jacket lapels. I threw the sash up, leaned out where I could see better. It was too damned difficult to understand what was going on.

Well, now, if I'm gonna dream a conversation between these people, obviously I was meant to hear it, I thought. So I hobbled out of the room, down the hall and eased my way carefully down the stairs. I was deep into wondering what it meant that in my dream I was in pain while I was limping across the salon on the first floor. When I made it to the doors, I pushed through and took in the people.

Very authentic. I was studying just how well my mind must have paid attention to details in Western movies I'd seen. Some of those women's dresses were quite fetching, but most of them were drab and uninspiring.

From where I was, I still couldn't hear a thing. I started shoving my way through the bodies, discovering the vast majority were men. By the time I reached the inner core of the group, it was nothing but men and they certainly seemed taken aback by my presence. I smiled at their faces.

What it appeared I'd walked in on was the sheriff breaking up a drunken rumble between two gamblers who'd decided to settle their differences over a bet the old fashioned way. He stood between them, his back to me, an outstretched hand on each man's chest. Talking low and steady, alternating between them as they wavered slightly. I noted both man had a hand resting on their holster.

"Stop being such a party pooper, Sheriff," I told him, my voice loud enough to get everyone's attention. Total silence descended and he slowly turned his head toward me. I looked around at the men forming a circle around the would-be combatants. I was really doing a good job with this; everyone looked so different and so unlike people I knew. Most of the time in my dreams, if I imagined people this distinctly, they were friends or co-workers. But I didn't recognize any of these men. It tickled me. Smiled at them eagerly as I chirped, "Who wants to see 'em shoot it out? C'mon. Who's with me on this? A real gunfight. To the death. I'll even do the countdown for 'em. How 'bout it, boys?"

Murmurs from the assembled onlookers. The two gunmen whipped their heads away from me and glared at each other. Sheriff Cort shoved them further apart, growling out, "Don't. You. Two. Move."

Then he turned and walked purposefully to me, standing in front of me and scowling at me. I grinned up into his face. "No sex? No violence? What kind of man are you, anyway?"

His hand gripped around my upper arm like a vise and I yelped in surprise. He turned me around and began leading me back to the hotel. A path had appeared before us like he'd ordered people to move out of his way. We were on the top step when a yell went up. I turned and saw the two battling drunks weaving away a few steps from each other as onlookers began rushing for the wooden walkways. The sheriff dropped my arm and took off running toward the closest man.

But before he could get there, a shot rang out. The man dropped directly in front of the sheriff, who just stood there, looking at the body. I limped over to his side and peered down at the man. Hmm. This is novel; don't think I've ever dreamed a death before, I thought. Well, if my mind went this far, wasn't I meant to have a peek?

So, I squatted next to the fallen man, shoving him over onto his back. Huge bloody mess where his abdomen had been; a horrible vision that I couldn't believe my mind was capable of creating.

"Oh, Christ," I sputtered out, sprawling backwards to get away from the sight. Held my hands up in front of my face. There was blood and bits of the man's body that had been pulverized by the force of the blast.

Big hands reached down and picked me up. He bent down, his eyes almost level with mine. "What in the Hell were you thinking? Is life so cheap to you in that city you come from?"

"I want to wake up now," I said, my voice all trembly and wavery. Feeling tears swelling up into my eyes as I stared up at the sheriff. "I don't like this anymore."

His face changed as I stood there willing myself to wake up. Then I had my hands hanging on to his vest and my eyes were pleading with him to help me. He swallowed hard and I saw him look behind him at the other gunman. But I was clinging on to him like my life depended on it and that seemed to have his attention more than anything else going on.

When I started shaking and my knees buckled, he picked me up and carried me back inside the hotel. I closed my eyes and reached my arms snug around his neck. As he reached the top of the stairs, I whispered to him, "This isn't a dream, is it? I'm really here. All this... all of you... you're real, aren't you?"

He stopped and looked into my eyes. "We're as real as you."

"What's happened?" Still whispering, but now tears were interfering with my ability to speak clearly. My mind was clutching for sanity, for an explanation, for something. But there was nothing there. If this was real... where was I? How did I get there? How was it even possible? Was I really saying that I'd somehow been magically transported 130-some-odd years into the past? It was either that... or I was crazy. Which would have been worse?

Inside my room, he lowered me to the bed. I rolled toward the wall, shut my eyes and burrowed deep under the blanket, pulling it over my head. And started crying, long deep sobs that racked my body. I felt his body settle onto the bed next to me. When he put a hand on my arm, I peeked out from the blanket at him. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching me, concern lighting sparks in his eyes. There was an unspoken invitation in his face.

I sat up and reached out for him. He let me hug in around his waist and his big arms circled around my back. Holding on to me and letting me whimper against him. "This cannot be happening. It just can't be."

Inside the circle of his arms and taking immense comfort. One of his hands stroked my hair. "Whatever's happening, we'll figure it out."

I heard footsteps approaching the room and they paused at the doorway. The doctor, I saw when I pulled my head up from the sheriff's chest. He took me in with sharp eyes. Then turned away, reached for a glass on the chest of drawers, filled it with water from a pitcher. From his black case, he pulled out a glass bottle and poured a few drops of whatever was in there into the water. The water turned a cloudy white. He handed me the glass, raised his eyebrows and indicated that I should drink it.

I looked at the sheriff; he nodded. When I finished drinking the water, he laid me back down on the bed. I turned back to the wall, closed my eyes and must have fallen asleep almost immediately. By the time I woke, the brightness of the sun was fading to a warm rosy hue of dim light. My head felt fuzzy, my mouth felt hazy. I turned over in the bed and looked around the room. I was alone.

At the window, I looked out into a world I was now convinced was real. How I had gotten there was the mystery of the ages. Literally. One minute, I'm in the year 2002 and the next I'm somewhere in the 1800s? But this was too realistic and too grim to be a dream.

Light tapping at my door. I opened it to find a girl of about 15 standing before me. Long, light brown hair. Timid smile; drab, shapeless dress covering her. In her arms was a tray with food on it. My stomach growled; hadn't even realized I was hungry until then. I smiled at her.

"I thought you might be hungry, Miss Ginny," she said. Her name was Katie and she told me she was the hotel owner's daughter as well as the chief employee of the establishment.

"Will you keep me company?" I asked her, smiling and trying to put her at ease. Grateful for company. She put the tray on the chest, then settled down on the bed. I sat in the chair and ate from the dishes she'd brought. Some kind of stew and biscuits. They tasted like heaven.

While I ate, she prattled to me. I learned I was the subject of much conjecture among the people of this tiny town perched in the middle of nowhere. The common wisdom was that I'd wandered in from the desert and collapsed in the church, hiding inside the bell tower until the preacher heard me moaning.

That sounded odd to me. If my scattered brain was of any actual use, and if this really were happening, I remembered screaming when I fell.

Falling. When I thought of the actual fall, some bit of discombobulating unease overtook me. Whatever was happening here, it started with the fall. I'd been in my normal time at the top of the tower. It was coming down... Something inside me knew it was the fall. And even though there was a part of me that wanted to hide within the notion that I fell and conked my head and was even now in a well-imagined coma, I knew otherwise.

Nothing in my life, nothing in my imagination, could have dreamed up the blood and guts I'd seen that day. I shivered at the memory of the dead man.

Her hand stroked along my knee. She smiled into my face and her other hand swept away the tears that had started falling again. "What can I do for you? They told me they didn't find you with anything. No clothes? No belongings at all?"

I looked down at my dusty jeans, took in the simple broadcloth shirt I was wearing. Looked at Katie and giggled. "Can you believe a woman would ever travel without at least a tube of lipstick?"

Her eyes grew puzzled. "Lipstick?"

Oh, Lord. Now I was corrupting her with modern words. "I wonder what Capt. Kirk would do about the Prime Directive in these circumstances," I said, giggling again. And I wondered if I was slipping over into hysteria of some sort. Shook my head, cleared my mind. Looked back at her. "Katie, I have to go to the restroom. Where is it?"

More puzzlement in those brown eyes.

"Bathroom? Toilet?" Suddenly, dreaded where this was heading. "Outhouse? Privy?"

Her eyes brightened and a smile erupted on her face. She reached under the bed and pulled out a ceramic chamber pot. "No need for you to use the privy," she said proudly.

I worked hard to control my reaction. But when she left me, I looked at the chamber pot, shook my head and muttered, "Where are the ruby slippers I need to click three times so I can go home?"

Katie came back to check on me as night was falling. She was holding a kerosene lamp and lit one for my room before she left me. She had brought me a dress that was her mother's, assuring me we were about the same size and that her mother wouldn't have minded me wearing her clothes.

"Did you ask her before you just took this? I don't want you to get into any trouble," I told her.

She smiled. "Mother died almost two years ago. The fever took her. Tomorrow, I'll let you see what other clothes you'd like. Papa will be happy to see someone getting good use out of them."

When she left me, I just wasn't sure what to do. Didn't really feel like sleeping, but I didn't have anything to read to occupy my time.

I could hear people outside; loud noises seemed to float up to my room from across the street. I sat in the window for a long time, watching men come and go into the saloon opposite me. The warmth of the light spilling out of its doors reminded me of finding that old saloon building the first night I came to this town. Last night, I reminded myself. Looked over at the lumpy bed and reminded myself it would still be softer than the bar I'd slept on the previous night.

After I turned down the wick on the lamp, the room was cast into virtual darkness. Under the blanket, I hid from reality and hoped in the morning the world would be as it should again.

3

Morning cast a rude light across my face. I shoved my arm over my eyes, willing my mind to turn back off so I could stay in the escape of dreams. Just as that thought entered my brain, I sat straight up in bed.

"That does it," I said to the room. "I cannot be dreaming. You don't dream dreams inside another dream."

I rose from the bed. Looked out the window. Studied the town. In the morning's light and with no distractions, I started picking up words on the buildings. The big saloon across from me was called Pigeon's Nest Club & Café. I flashed back to the memory of only being able to read the last few words on that sign the first time I'd seen it. On the left of that two-story brick building, was another brick building that was only one-story but it had a huge façade of a roof. On the façade, fancy lettering spelled out "Pulqueria." Hmm. Wonder what that means?

On the other side of the saloon, was a huge brick building with the words "Mercantile" on it. I flashed back to the exploration trip I'd taken that first morning, back in the real time. This was where I'd found all those goods just left like they must have looked even that day, displayed for customers.

Pulling my head back inside the window when I heard a polite knocking on my door. Heard Katie's voice. When I opened the door, she was holding a bucket of water. Inside my room, she filled the big pitcher, handed me a bar of soap and a towel. Told me to come down when I was ready and she'd get me some breakfast.

When she left, I stripped. Poured the water into the small wash basin and rubbed the soap on my wet skin. Sniffed it. Strong scent and I knew it had to be lye soap. After my bath, I put on the dress Katie had brought me the night before. It fit; a bit snug in the chest but I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Overnight, my ankle had stiffened but the pain was a lot less. I barely limped when I walked down the stairs and across the foyer. Stuck my head inside a door and discovered a room with five square tables; each table could seat four people. The room was empty but Katie must have been waiting on my arrival because she was shortly popping her head in from another doorway.

She brought me flapjacks and I grinned at her. Fresh churned butter. Hot coffee. "This is a feast," I told her.

After breakfast, I carried my dishes in through the door she'd disappeared behind. Inside the kitchen, I stood and talked to her while she washed stacks of dishes. But when she was finished, she shooed me out because she had to start cleaning the three rooms with visitors.

I wandered outside. People I passed would stare at me until they saw me looking, then they'd find something really interesting at their feet or above their heads. Not a single soul said a word to me. But I heard them whispering about me after I'd pass them. I'd strolled down most of that side of the street when I found myself standing in front of the jail. Peeking inside the window, I saw the sheriff seated behind the desk. The memory of the first time I'd walked into the jail lit my brain.

I pushed the door open and stepped in. It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the lower indoor lighting but I caught how quickly he jumped up to his feet when I stepped in. "Good morning, Sheriff. I, um, wanted to... thank you for helping me." His eyes studied me, his face serious. "And, I also need to apologize for... well, I wasn't very... um, lady-like..."

Cleared my throat. Suddenly embarrassed, as the memory of latching on to his lips and rubbing on his body rushed over me. How to explain that I'd thought I was having a wonderful sex dream when in his reality, he must have only seen this oversexed harlot climbing all over him? I could just imagine what a man of his time would think of a woman of my time. Hell, even some men in my time were a bit unsure how to handle a woman like me.

"I don't do things like that. I thought I was dreaming..." I told him, awkward with the need to clarify why I'd done what I did to him. Feeling the heat of a blush on my face. Meeting his eyes and seeing a definite twinkle there; somehow, it made me feel shy. "It won't happen again. I assure you."

"Oh? That's too bad," he said, the serious look on his face finally giving way to a small grin.

We shared a chuckle, breaking the tension.

My eyes caught his display of 'wanted' posters on the wall. I almost jumped when I saw the ring of keys hanging from the very peg I'd seen them on when I'd first come into this jail... I wanted to do the math; I would walk into this jail in how many years? "What year is this, Sheriff?"

"It's 1872. And I'd be grateful if you'd call me Cort. It still feels wrong to hear people calling me Sheriff," he said. Tilted his head to the side and that long, thick hair of his swung with the effort. "Do you want to talk with me about all this? Have you remembered anything more about how you got here?"

"Yeah, I would like to talk, Sher... um, Cort. But... I'm not sure it's even possible to ask you to believe this. I don't belong here. Where I'm from, the year's 2002. Not 1872. And I..." His eyes were slits as he examined my face, watching me closely; for what, I wasn't sure. But, I listened to my own words and knew they didn't make sense. How could he believe me? "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

He reddened and dropped his eyes. Shuffled his feet. "No, not at all, Miss Ginny. I think... well, it seems to me that it's likely you did hit your head and it's got you... confused."

"Confused? Yes, that I am." Now his eyes came up to meet mine. "Maybe I should just shut up?"

"Perhaps it would be better if I asked you some questions. That might help you... to not be so confused."

"Okay. Shoot." At his puzzled expression, I held my hands up and laughed. "No. Not that kind of shoot. It's just an expression from... from where I live. It means that you should go ahead and start asking away."

This tiny snicker escaped his lips before he grew serious, gesturing me to the wooden chair in front of his desk and then taking a seat after me. "What's the last thing you clearly remember?"

"I... well, I clearly remember driving into this town and... Listen, I know you won't believe it, but when I drove in, this town was deserted. And, I don't think you're likely to believe the rest of my story because there's no way you're going to ever believe I'm really from the future. Is there?"

He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a bound, black book. Holding it up to me so I could read the gold inlaid words on its cover: Holy Bible. "My life has taken such unexpected turns, Miss Ginny, that there would be many who would not believe it either. But for these past years, I have been dedicated to making amends for the evil that I participated in. I am now a believer in things that I would never have imagined. The Lord has taught me to learn about people as much by their actions as by their words. I tell you this because I want you to trust that I will hear your words with an open heart. Can you trust me enough to tell me?"

Such a powerful message and delivered with a voice that ordered me to believe in him. So I told him about getting lost, finding the deserted town, hearing the bell ringing in the church's tower and then finding evidence someone had been to the landing before me but that whoever it was had disappeared. And then of falling, losing awareness only to come back to find myself lost in a mystery. And how I'd been so sure it was a dream or hallucination, but that now I was convinced it was reality even though this knowledge was not easy to absorb.

"Then it is the church tower that centers in this mystery," Cort said. "Perhaps that is where we should seek answers?"

Of course. He was so right. "You'll come with me?" I asked him. And getting that flutter in my stomach when he smiled at me; his eyes steady on mine.

"Let me just check on my prisoner first." He walked toward a door on the back wall, opened it and through the opening, I glimpsed bars.

Going over to peer inside, I saw there were about three cells inside the area. Inside one was the gunman from the day before, the drunken gambler who'd killed a man because I'd interfered with Cort's attempts to stop them. I was shaking by the time Cort came back out. When I told him my thoughts, he put an arm around my shoulders and told me he understood.

The walk to the church was another exercise in people avoiding my eyes and listening to them whisper after we passed. Cort told me there were some among the townspeople who believed I had magical powers to travel in time but that most thought I was simply crazed from wandering in the desert too long. But whichever side they fell on, I was certainly the hottest subject of intrigue and gossip among the residents.

Inside the church, we paused. The pastor was inside, setting up for a prayer meeting that evening. Cort explained we were going to look around the tower. The preacher insisted he would come with us.

As we trudged up the short flight of stairs to the landing, the preacher turned back to me and said, "They are saying you came from the future. Why do you believe that's true?"

I told him what I remembered of the tower and of falling. His serious face listened to me without flinching; his eyes seemed to take it all in as if he had no problem hearing the words. His acceptance made me take an instant liking to him. Must be something about men who believe in the Bible in this particular age, I thought, because both these men seemed willing to suspend the laws of reality and believe in possibilities that were unexplainable.

The three of us stood on the landing. I looked at the rope then looked down toward the ground floor. Looked up, following the rope to the bell. Cort reached a hand out and tugged on the rope. We watched the bell's clapper kiss the side of the bell and a soft 'chink' sound slipped down to us.

"The answer's in the falling down the shaft," I said quietly. "If I want to go home and I truly believe the only place this could have happened is in there, then I should jump in. Right?"

I looked between the two men. Cort's soft eyes were shadowed in concern. The preacher's dark brown eyes were knit in confusion.

"How do you know that if you jump in, it will take you back to your time?" the preacher asked. "If it's a gate across time, perhaps it only works in one direction and you will find yourself going ever backwards in time. Perhaps you'll never find your way home."

"Damn. I never thought about that," I replied, feeling my heart thud hard. "But I have to try. Don't I?"

The preacher laid a hand on my shoulder. "Perhaps there was a reason God sent you to us. Leaving before you find out may be a terrible mistake."

I looked back down into the tower. Took a deep breath. I knew what I needed to do. It wasn't fate or God that had brought me there. It was a mistake. Some ripple in time, or a gate across time as the preacher called it. And I couldn't stay there, it wasn't where I belonged. The only way I would make it home was to take a chance. "This will be my leap of faith," I told them.

"Miss Ginny, it is a leap, isn't it?" Cort said, laying a warm hand on my arm. I paused; I had decided I was just going to step off the platform and fall. "Shouldn't you wait to jump from this height until after your ankle is strong enough to survive the landing?"

His eyes held me as I looked at him. Something in there was speaking volumes to me, pulling me in, making me want to know more. A feeling came over me like a misty cloud, prickling my spine with a sense of intuition.

"Maybe waiting another day is a good idea," I said. "By tomorrow, my ankle should be much better. I'll come back then."

When we left the church, I was at a loss as to what to do with my time. I wanted to spend time with Cort, if I was truthful. For some reason, it was because of this man that I'd chosen to stay a little longer. And it wasn't just the attraction to his body; there was something else that I couldn't put into words. Nothing will come of this, I told myself. But I still knew I would take such pleasure in the moments I would spend with him.

As we walked back to the jail, I told him about exploring the town and what I'd seen in the various buildings I'd entered. He listened intently. We passed the saloon and I noticed the building held another entrance I'd not seen before. It was a café, he told me, and the more respectable side of the establishment.

"Would you care to join me for the noon meal?" he asked me, his eyes focusing on my feet and a slight blush coloring his cheeks.

How could he feel shy around me when it was so obvious he'd already charmed me so completely? And all through lunch, I learned new reasons to find him adorable. He treated me as if it was perfectly normal for him to have a woman like me fall into his life - someone he surely had to alternate between wondering just how crazy I was or how to make sense of me arriving out of time in his town. I reverted to my role in my real life and conducted a disguised and easy interview of him. He told me little of his past, but what did escape his lips made me see there were layers to him that would take more time than I had with him to unravel. He also told me little tidbits about some of the townspeople who would gawk at me before turning away when I would meet their gazes. His tales were never malicious, but were funny insights into the personalities of his town.

After lunch, we parted at the hotel. I searched for Katie, hoping I'd be able to help her with some of her chores; anything to keep busy. When I couldn't find her, I wandered around the town; but in no time, I tired of the looks and the whispers. Back in my hotel room, I languished in ennui. Took a nap that lasted until early evening. I only woke because Katie tapped at my door to invite me to take dinner with her and her father. After dinner, I helped clean up the kitchen and chatted with Katie until I noticed her yawn. Pretending to be retiring to my room, I waited until the hotel settled for the night.

Bored beyond all possible expectations and nothing to occupy my mind or my time. "I need a drink," I muttered to myself as I watched the town from my window. Hmm. That's indeed what I needed. A diversion and what better place than in a saloon full of old West coots? I'd just slip in and watch the happenings. It'd be a crime to pass up the opportunity, I decided.

Outside, the night air had a chill to it that I hadn't expected after the withering heat of the day. In the middle of the dirt road, I looked up at the stars. Their numbers and brilliance were awe-inspiring. Sounds in front of me reclaimed my attention and I headed for the saloon. Just as my foot reached the bottom step, a familiar voice came from the shadows.

"Out taking a late stroll, Miss Ginny?" Cort asked me. I turned my head to find him but it wasn't until he moved away from the building that I recognized his form. "Could I escort you on your walk? It's not always safe for a lady such as yourself to be out alone this time of night. Especially not so close to the saloon."

"I had actually thought I might go in and have a drink. Would you care to join me?" I replied, feeling this blinding rush at the good fortune of being so close to him again.

He shook his head and took my arm, drawing me along with him as he walked down the wooden pathway. "Different types of ladies than you might be comfortable in there. But, something tells me, you'd find the place a bit... um, rough. Perhaps you'll walk with me instead?"

"Now, Sheriff, are you telling me you're worried about my virtue? If so, how do I know I'm not in more danger of having it compromised by you than by one of those drunks inside?" I teased him.

"You have only my word, Miss Ginny. Will that be good enough?" he asked me softly, taking my teasing and making it suddenly more serious between us.

I nodded at him and in the light from the saloon's window I could see him smile at me. Got those instant flutters in my stomach again. "What are you doing out here anyway? Do you always watch out for the weak and the foolish?"

"I was making my rounds. Just checking to make sure nothing truly criminal was going on," he replied. As we walked, he stopped at the shops we passed and tugged on their doors, checking their locks.

At the end of the walkway, we paused before crossing to the other side. On the way, we passed the stone fountain. "Does this still work?" I asked, going over to peer inside at its dry well.

"Hasn't for a few years," he said, with a sharp tone that made me turn to look at him.

"Is there a story behind this?" I asked him and watched as he turned away from me for a moment.

He turned back toward me, changing the subject instantly, saying, "Why were you out walking? It's not... usual for ladies to be out so late."

"I was bored." I smiled at him and shrugged my shoulders. "If I just had a book, at least I'd have something to do to occupy my mind. It's really hard not having anything to do for hours on end."

"You like to read?" His eyes sparkled, reflecting the torches set out by the Pulqueria, which he had told me was the place the town's Mexicans went to drink a type of high-octane tequila. "I had thought I might be the only person in this town who chose to devote themselves to books."

Before I even knew it, we were perched on the stone edges of the fountain, discussing the love of reading and the various types of novels he liked to read. How I loved to get lost in another world, I told him, letting an author's crafted words pull me in and away from reality's harsher elements.

"I could loan you one of mine." He looked at me through slanted eyes, as if this was a bold suggestion.

"Now? That would be great," I told him, then noticed a hesitation. When he told me it wouldn't be seen as proper if I went back with him to his rooms to retrieve a book at this late hour, I laughed and reminded him I was leaving the next day. "Somehow I think my reputation can survive for the amount of time I have left here. Besides, most of the people in your town don't know what to think of me anyway."

His rooms were in the building that housed the jail, part of his pay for the job he did for the town. We walked to the rear of the building because that's where the outside entrance for his rooms was.

He had three rooms, really. The one we entered was a small sitting room and the main wall held a large built-in bookshelf that I couldn't wait to explore. Another wall held a door that he told me led directly into the jail, a convenient route to work for him. He showed me the small kitchen that ran off the short hallway and just pointed further down at another door and allowed as how that was his bedroom.

Leaving me to go check on his prisoner, I was alone with the books. Many of the names I didn't recognize; either the author or the novel. But tucked in amongst them were classics; my mind tried to remember if they would have been contemporary works in his time or if they had been elevated to the classic level by then. I admired the fact that he had works by Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry Fielding, the Bronte's and Jane Austin. But my fingers reached with true eagerness for his bound copy of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

I had been tempted to re-read this book just before the last movie made from its plot came out a few years earlier. But, alas, I'd been too busy in my life to find the time to read a book I'd first cherished as a teenager. And in the past year, a lot of bad had happened to me and mine; the way I'd lost my connection with that book seemed to symbolize what I'd lost in the past year. Here I stood, holding a simple book and being moved to complex emotions just to be holding it.

Lost inside my mind, I was so far away from where I was standing that I never noticed him come in. When he touched my shoulder, I turned to him with tears in my eyes.

"This was my mother's favorite book. She gave me a copy of it when I was 14. I'd forgotten all about that," I told him, feeling myself wavering in an emotional onslaught of desire for the clock to turn back to better days. "I was just wondering where that copy is. When I get back, I'm going to look for it."

My mother had died almost exactly a year before that day. Her memory swam before me, adding layers to my current state of unrest. I tried to swallow back on the emotions but before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face and I turned away from him.

He stood behind me, coming close, wrapping his strong arms around me, his mouth near my ear, whispering to me, "It's all right. You're allowed to cry. Go on, Ginny. I'll hold you."

I leaned back against him and let myself be held by a stranger who had ceased to feel like a stranger to me. Relishing the way he held me. I turned my head toward his and our eyes met. Something solid passed between us in that crystal moment, something that seemed right and true. His lips brushed mine. A question, a request. An invitation.

Turning in his arms, staring up into eyes I wanted to wander around in. My hands went around his shoulders and I pulled him closer to me. He leaned in and kissed me, the pressure from his lips was stronger, almost insistent. We pulled apart, just for a breath and I found myself staring at his lips. Then closed my eyes when those lips met mine again, opening for him when his tongue nudged me. We stood there kissing, softly, forever. So long that I felt as if this were a gift of time from him. Taking so long just to test and explore.

He kissed like he was putting his soul into it. I felt greedy, but I wanted to take all he would give me. There was something about the way he made me feel.

Eventually, our desire seemed to increase the tempo of our actions. I could feel his hardness pressing against me below. He pulled his lips from mine, his mouth opened slightly as he took deep breaths. There was something about the way he looked at me.

"You are so..." I tried to say it, tried to put it into words. I couldn't find them. What I would have wanted to say, if I'd had years to put the feeling into words, was that he was the man I might have been looking for my whole life. But how do you tell that to a man you've only met a day before? How could you know that so soon? How could one instance of true physical connection bring that forth from me? All I can say, all I've ever said since, was that there was something inside me that knew I'd been waiting for him.

Up on my toes, I found myself kissing along his jaw and then trailing lighter kisses on the underside of that jaw. His neat, barely-there beard was somehow softer than I'd expected, and so inviting that my lips traveled along it down his throat. My fingers began undoing the buttons of his shirt and vest, trying to clear a path to more skin.

"I don't want to leave you tonight, Cort," I whispered to him, my mouth pressed along his neck. "There is something between us, isn't there? I just want to be with you, even if it doesn't make any more sense than my being here at all does."

I trailed wetness from his neck down to his chest. When I took one of his nipples in my mouth, flitting my tongue against it before caressing it softly, he moaned with such sincerity that I felt a gush of moisture come from me below.

"Ginny... my Ginny," he whispered to me, making me pause and look up at him. In that moment, he moved quickly, his hands pulling the buttons of the dress apart and then slipping the entire dress over my head. Underneath, all he found were my panties and bra; I could tell by the way he was looking that he'd been expecting things like slips and petticoats.

I pressed in closer to his body, liking the way his bare chest felt against my skin. He helped me pull his shirt and vest off his body and I ran my hands up his arms, from his wrists to his shoulders, feeling the muscles flex. Then feeling his big hands sweep down my sides before grabbing hard on my ass, yanking my body up against his even as he shoved his tongue into my mouth as he pulled me up. His hands slid along my thighs and he wrapped my legs around his waist before returning to knead my rear again. He had me pressed tight against his rock solid erection; I couldn't stop myself from wiggling against it.

Keeping his hands tight to me, he began walking down the short hall to his bedroom. I looked up at him, smiling and saying, "Cort, I've never been carried by a man as often as you've had the task of doing with me in these past 36 hours. Is it an old West thing?"

"Don't know. Right now, it's just the most efficient way to move you to my bed," he replied.

No need to ask if that's where I wanted to be. We both knew it was the one place I wanted to be most in the world just then.

Inside his room, darkness overtook us. The windows were covered with gauzy curtains and they let in only filtered blue moonlight. Cool colors washed over us; heat was coming off our bodies in waves.

He laid me gently on the bed, then broke the kiss we'd be in. Standing beside the bed, he stripped off his remaining clothes. And I just absorbed him in that state. Broad chest with a dusting of light hair; an inviting trail of heavier hair below his navel that led to his groin and increased the erotic effect of his rising cock, standing proud. I was still staring when he moved to me, his hands touching my skin just above my ankles and then gliding up my legs until he reached my panties. My hips raised of their own as he went to slip them off. My arms stretched out, reaching for him, pulling his chest to mine. My neck arched back when his lips started moving up it. My hands reached to feel and stroke his hardness.

His hands fumbled at first but soon got my bra's clasp undone. His mouth was soft and tender on my breasts, making me sigh out this long moan of pleasure. When he slipped further down my body, my hand lost connection with his cock. But I didn't mind so much. Especially not when I felt his breath sweep across me below and his fingers spread me gently. He murmured something but I didn't understand the words. Nonetheless, his voice strummed my clit.

"Oh. God. You've got... Cort. Yes," I breathed out, hearing this husky quality to my voice that mirrored the impact his mouth was having on me. He seemed to have instantly discovered the perfect spots to stroke with his tongue and I was simply struggling not to buck hard against him, afraid he might stop. But when he slipped two fingers into me and then sucked hard on my clit, I couldn't help the cry that escaped me and the way my hands kept his head pressed against me.

By the time that orgasm slowed, I felt way in over my head. And I wanted him in the most absurdly desperate way. My hands dragged him back up my body and our mouths joined, hard and eager. Tasting myself on him, feeling my wetness on his grizzly beard.

And then I could feel the hardness that was him pressing in against my opening. I moved against him, welcoming him; my hands slipped down his back, encouraging him. My mouth sucked his tongue in, making a suggestion to him if he needed it.

When he began slipping into me below, I held my breath. A big man; I wasn't nervous to feel his girth and length in me, but I knew it would hurt initially if he wasn't careful. And in this joining, I learned that he would be a patient, if ravenous, lover. By the time he was in me all the way, my head was swimming with the sensations firing up where he was stroking inside me.

At first, our union was controlled, careful. But, in no time, we both lost that bit of control that was binding us to earth. We seemed to wrestle for dominance, taking turns being on the bottom, destroying his bedclothes as we rolled over and over until he finally refused to let me go again. By then, he was almost pounding into me, sweat dripping from him, making our bodies slick against each other.

Neither of us made intelligible sounds, we were grunting or groaning, although I know I fairly chanted to him just before he made me come. And I came with a hard, jolting rush that was a pulsing wave of pleasure. It became ever better when I felt him thrust hard into me and knew from the way his hips quivered that he was coming into me. His mouth was buried in my shoulder and the only real sound I heard from him was an escaping groan of a whimper. Even through the pulsing that was still licking me, I felt his spasms as his cock released into me, sending his fluid gushing into me, then tickling my skin as it overflowed and ran out of me.

Completely spent, emotionally and physically, I couldn't even move. But his mouth somehow found mine. He gave me a slow, gentle, caressing and utterly devastating final kiss. When our breathing normalized, he rose from me, shifting his weight onto one arm and peering down at me as his other hand smoothed my sweat-soaked hair away from my face.

"Did you feel it? Right there?" he whispered, touching the skin above where my heart was still beating fast in my chest. "This was something special between us. I felt it. Did you?"

I nodded to him, slowly, carefully. Unable to find the smile that should have been there. "I did feel it, Cort. I did."