Page 37 of Stolen Time

Not for the first time since coming here, I wished I could have had a glass of wine with all this great food. Wine wasn’t as big a deal in Flagstaff as it was down here in the Verde Valley, thanks to the major differences in their climates, but because of Connor and Angela owning a vineyard and making sure bottles got handed out as gifts at the holidays, I’d drunk a lot more wine than most people in their early twenties most likely would have. These days, it just felt weird to have a nice dinner without it.

But I knew I’d probably make Seth’s head explode if I commented on the lack of a nice cab to go with our steaks, so instead I asked, “Do you have any favorites here?”

“Everything’s good,” he replied. Since he’d barely glanced at the menu before setting it down, I had to believe he already knew pretty much everything on it. “I suppose it depends on what you’re in the mood for.”

With Ruth and Timothy out of the house for most of the day, I hadn’t bothered with a big lunch, just some fruit and a piece ofcold chicken. Looking at everything offered at the restaurant, I had to keep my stomach from growling.

“Oh, a steak and a baked potato would be nice,” I told him.

Or…was that too extravagant? The menu I’d been given didn’t have any prices listed on it, so I had no idea how much any of this would even cost. Not that I had much frame of reference in a place where I’d seen a pair of pretty leather shoes in the mercantile going for the princely sum of $7.00. You couldn’t even get a burger for that much where I’d come from.

“Exactly what I was going to have,” Seth said, and he smiled at me from across the table.

All right, so I hadn’t been too out of line with my selection. Sitting there with him, however, I thought I noted some faint shadows under his clear blue eyes, and even though his expression was pleasant enough, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on in his life, something that might have been a bit more stressful than merely having to work long hours.

If I’d known him better, I might have asked. As it was, I had to be glad that a waitress came along right then — wearing the same plain black dress with a white collar that Maria had had on, apparently the restaurant’s uniform — and asked us if we’d like water or tea or lemonade. Tea seemed like the safest thing to have, since wine wasn’t an option, and Seth requested it as well.

“I’m sorry I disappeared this week,” Seth told me once we were alone. “But I had to work overtime at the mine, and I didn’t have the time to stop by Ruth and Timothy’s house to see you.”

“It’s fine,” I said. Even as tired as he looked, I was still glad to be sitting across the table from him, glad to hear his voice…and, although I knew I shouldn’t have felt that way, glad I’d been unsuccessful at sending myself back to the twenty-first century. “Your aunt’s kept me pretty busy.”

“That a fact?” he replied, an amused glint in his eyes. “Has she taught you her canning secrets yet?”

I couldn’t help making a face. “Mercifully, no…but that’s probably because it’s not the right season for that kind of thing. But I’ve learned a lot more about tending a garden than I’d planned, and I think I’ve almost got the whole cornbread thing nailed. I suppose I’ll just have to see when it comes time to make another batch.”

His expression grew confused. “‘Nailed’?” he repeated.

Damn it. I’d been doing my best to avoid as much slang as I could, but it hadn’t even popped into my mind that people might not have used that expression in the 1920s. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have nails back then.

I tried my best to smile and brush it off. “Oh, it’s something I heard someone say once. It just means to do well at a particular task.”

“Ah, I see,” he said, although he still looked a little bewildered, as if he was pretty sure he’d never heard of a single instance of someone using the word that way.

The waitress came back with our iced teas, and since Seth and I both wanted the same thing for our meals, the ordering process went smoothly. Soon enough, we were left alone again. We both picked up our drinks and had a sip — even as I wished we had some straws — and for a moment, that was all right.

But I could tell something must be going on, because we’d never been this awkward around each other before, not even that first time I’d woken up in his bungalow…my rented bungalow in the twenty-first century…with absolutely no idea how I’d gotten there.

Maybe we hadn’t yet gotten to a point in our relationship where I should be asking probing questions, but I didn’t know what else to do.

“Possibly it’s not my place to ask,” I ventured. “But…is everything all right?”

At once, the brooding expression he’d worn vanished as if it had never been. “Oh, sure,” he said, and smiled. “There’s just been a lot happening at the mine this week.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

He chuckled, and the sound seemed pretty genuine to me. “I didn’t ask you out to dinner so I could bore you to death. I promise I’ll put work away for the evening. So, tell me about your week.”

Since I could see he didn’t want to talk about it, I launched into a description of my various travails at being domestic, including the cake I tried to bake that looked as though I’d stomped on it. Through all of those tales, I did my best to keep my tone light, and soon enough, he was laughing outright at Ruth’s attempts to turn me into a decent baker.

And if he was at all worried that the woman he was interested in appeared to be a failure in the kitchen, he didn’t show any sign of it.

The food came and was excellent, the steak perfectly marbled and accompanied by bearnaise sauce, the potato melting with butter and baked to the point where it had a sweet, nutty flavor. I asked Seth about the restaurant, and he explained it had been operating here since the turn of the century, and got its beef and all its produce from ranches and farms in the surrounding areas.

That explained why everything tasted so fresh — and also why he was on a first-name basis with the staff here. It sounded as if he’d started visiting with his family as a child, whether for special occasions or because his father had decreed that Molly needed a break from cooking, and then had continued after he moved out and was on his own.

The one thing I didn’t ask was whether he’d brought any other dates here. His romantic past wasn’t any of my business, and besides, I got the impression that he hadn’t been seeing anyone else. Otherwise, Maria or our waitress might haveseemed a little surprised for him to show up with a different girl, and I hadn’t noticed a single sign of that happening.

It had cooled down enough when we went outside that Seth determined it would be better for him to put up the convertible’s top. I waited on the sidewalk while he took care of that task, which was a far cry from the single button-push that kind of procedure required in my day. Eventually, though, the top was secured, and we were headed down Main Street toward Clarkdale.

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