Page 9 of Stolen Time

“Yes,” he said. “I found you in the mine yesterday evening. Do you have any idea what you were doing there?”

At once, I shook my head. Because, despite my history degree…I’d focused on medieval Europe…I knew so little about the world of 1926 that there wasn’t much chance of me cooking up a plausible explanation for my sudden appearance here. About all I could do was use the only excuse available to me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t remember anything at all.”

His brows drew together. Again, I couldn’t help but be struck by how handsome he was, from the way his thick brown hair waved back from his brow to those chiseled lips, not pouty at all, but still the kind a girl could easily imagine herself kissing.

Oh, no,I told myself.You are not going to think about him that way, no matter how good-looking he is. You need to use every available brain cell you’ve got to figure out how to get yourself home.

“You don’t remember how you got in the mine?”

“I don’t remember that,” I said, “and I don’t remember anything before it, either. I know my name is Deborah Rowe, and I know I’m twenty-two years old. But anything else just seems…gone.”

Now he appeared downright confounded. “You mean you have amnesia?”

“I suppose so,” I replied, still doing what I could to look utterly innocent and confused, rather than my true state ofmind, which was a lot closer to scared shitless. “That is, that’s what it’s called when all your memories are gone, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I’ve read.” He hesitated for a moment, as if not quite sure where he was supposed to go from here. “I suppose I should have my cousin Helen come talk to you — she’s a kind of nurse,” he added.

Probably the clan’s healer. Obviously, he couldn’t refer to her that way, not to a woman he had to believe was a civilian, but the point was clear enough.

“And she knows about amnesia?” I asked, not worried about how dubious I sounded. I had to believe pretty much anyone in the same situation would have been skeptical.

“She knows about a lot of things,” Seth said. “And she had a look at you last night, but she said she couldn’t find anything physically wrong. But now that we know we’re working with some kind of memory loss, it’s possible she might be able to offer some helpful advice.”

Strangely, his words relieved me a little. If this Helen person had already examined me — no doubt looking for some sort of head trauma — and hadn’t detected anything that proved I was a woman out of time, then it was probably safe to talk to her now. After all, my talent seemed to be working perfectly at concealing my witch nature, and even though I still wore my modern clothes, there really wasn’t much about me that could prove I hadn’t been born at the start of the twentieth century, just as Seth himself must have been.

“I’m feeling kind of sticky,” I said then, which was only the truth. The little bungalow was uncomfortably warm, and I had to believe it would get even hotter as the day wore on. No sign of modern conveniences like air conditioning around here, that was for sure. I hadn’t even spied a table fan or a ceiling fan, although I thought they must have been invented by 1926.

Most likely, they were still luxuries in an out-of-the-way place like Jerome, Arizona.

“Do you mind if I get cleaned up first?” I went on.

A sudden flush touched his cheeks, and I realized he was probably embarrassed at the thought of me using his bathroom.

Men in 1926 were clearly different from the guys I’d known in the mid-twenty-first century.

But he sounded steady enough as he said, “No, of course not. Let me show you where the bathroom is. My mother also put together some fresh clothes for you when I went over to the store last night.”

“‘Store’?” I echoed, although I’d already guessed at the answer.

“McAllister Mercantile,” he replied, an obvious note of pride in his voice. “My family’s owned it for generations. My mother took a few things from the stock there.”

“I’ll have to find a way to pay you back — ”I began, but he only shook his head.

“It’s the least we can do for someone stranded here in our town,” he told me. “But I’ll show you where the bathroom is.”

Finally, I pushed myself up from the sofa…only to have the room tilt around me. I stumbled, and at once, Seth was at my side, placing a strong hand under my elbow while I tried to steady myself.

“Thanks,” I said. “I must be a little woozier than I thought.”

“Do you need to sit down again?” he asked, expression all worry, but I shook my head.

“No, I’m all right. I think it was standing up that put me off balance. I’m already feeling better.”

And I was. Those few seconds of dizziness had disappeared as quickly as they’d come, and now I felt much improved…or rather, I felt about as good as I could, considering my unpredictable talent had just flung me back in time more than ahundred years, and I couldn’t begin to figure out how to fix the situation.

Almost as soon as Seth had taken my elbow, he let go, apparently guessing that I was all right to walk now. In a way, I almost regretted that he hadn’t continued to support me.

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