Unless…
Unless something of magnitude had happened in our absence.
My lungs compressed at the thought; my every instinct screamed that this was true.
And whatever Fallon did must have been catastrophic.
But what?!
I imagined the worst, ill at the thought that he had killed someone in my family or Marshall’s; I could envision nothing more devastating. When last in Fallon’s presence, I had been a prisoner in his train car, rolling toward Chicago. There, he’d detailed an account of his own abilities, taking great pride in the fact that he could leap across centuries to harm those Marshall and I loved, including Marshall’s beloved mother, Faye. Horror further drained my self-control as I reconsidered what Camille’s presence in 1882 meant.
Whatever Fallon did, your family knew about it before you. Somehow Camille knew where to show up to deliver a message. Even if she was swept back in time without her control, she knew when and where Fallon would appear.
But how?!
“I hate waiting. I fucking hate not knowing what’s happening!” The words flew like darts from my mouth, startling both Celia and Birdie to silence. I rarely cursed in front of them.
Celia hooked an arm around my waist. “You and everyone else drawing breath at this moment, honey-love.”
The afternoon sun inched along the sky’s western curve. Marshall, Axton, and Grant returned and gathered around the table in the kitchen – now free of biscuit dough – occupying their time by taking apart and cleaning their firearms, talking in low voices. I knew they chafed at the necessity of remaining all but hidden indoors, but Miles had died only a few yards from the front door of the house; to this day, despite several suspects, we didn’t know exactly who had fired the rifle that terrible morning. Grant’s men bristled with armaments, every last one of them on high alert; inside and out, the atmosphere was one of heightening tension but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were all balanced on the edge of a blade, waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen.
I sensed Fallon out there.
I knew I wasn’t just imagining it.
He knows.
He knows Camille is here, he knows we’ve been warned.
Enmeshed as we were in the midst of the longest days of the year, each hour lasted a tiny eternity, chipping away at our sanity. A rich purple dusk eventually settled over the land, the sun melting in a magenta river behind the mountains. Birdie and Celia served supper but no one was hungry. I paced the floor in our bedroom, drawn time and again to the window even though there was nothing to see. Marshall lay on the bed with both arms folded beneath his head, eyes closed though I knew he wasn’t really sleeping. Afraid, restless, and emotionally drained, I wanted to pick a fight if only to crack the tension in the air.
“Sweetheart, come lay down for a minute. You’re gonna wear a hole in the floor.” Marshall chose his words with care, sensitive to my volatile state; I knew he was really saying something along the lines of, Quit pacing before I go fucking insane, woman!
“Camille is in this century, Marsh. Right now. I can’t believe she’s really here.” I rested my forehead to the window glass, which retained the day’s heat. “How did she get here? What happened to cause it?” Of course we had already exhausted every conceivable possibility; Marshall was every bit as terrified that someone we loved was already gone – that a death had spurred Camille’s journey to the nineteenth century. Speculation reached a point at which it became unproductive, if not outright maddening, and we were well past that point.
Marshall dropped all pretense of resting, propping on his left elbow. The last of the daylight bathed his lean, handsome face with a bronze tint, gilding his features and highlighting his lips. A pulse of pure desire caught me unaware; this was hardly the time for lovemaking. I thought of how, under other circumstances, he and Axton would have been in Howardsville at this moment, to meet the new marshal. Another pulse – but this one of prickling awareness. My thoughts spun in a completely different direction.
“What is it, angel?” Marshall studied me with a familiar crease of worry between his brows. “What did you think of?”
I moved to sit on the bed, bending my left knee toward him, which he immediately cupped. “You and Ax weren’t supposed to be here tonight. If not for Malcolm’s telegram, you would have been in Howardsville.”
Marshall sat straighter, nodding. “Leaving only Grant to protect the house.”
“And there’s only ever two, maybe three, ranch hands not on duty at any one time. Most of them are out with the cattle, nowhere near the house,” I added. My thoughts flew back to the hour in Fallon’s train car. Parts of that encounter had since blurred; self-defense against the terror of the memory. But I recalled enough to know Fallon wanted me dead. I’d broken his arm, I’d sent him flying through the channels of time to God only knew what destination. Over a year ago now – and other than in the dark spaces of nightmares, I had not seen him since.
But he had seen me, I was certain. Camille’s arrival and Malcolm’s telegram had altered events, had somehow thwarted Fallon’s intentions.
A knifepoint scoured the length of my spine.
I stood in a rush, thrusting aside the urge to cower instead. “He’s out there, Marsh, right now.” Breathless, agitated, I returned to the window. Awash now in crimson light, the rippled glass appeared to glow with fire.
“I know it. I can sense him waiting like a fucking ambush predator. I’ve felt it all day but he’s biding his time.” Marshall slid from the bed with his typical grace, joining me at the window and enclosing my waist in his arms. I wilted backward against the security of
