Page 5 of Borrowed Time

A blink, and then that part of it came back as well. I’d told Seth my name was Deborah because no one in 1926 was named Devynn.

The room felt as if it had begun to tilt around me as soon as I was even partially upright, and I let myself fall against the pillows again. Or rather, I smooshed them up against the headboard so I wasn’t lying completely flat, although I definitely wasn’t sitting up, either.

From that position, I could see that Seth was seated on a plain ladderback chair that had been pulled up next to the bed. The room beyond him was unfamiliar — striped wallpaper, one of those old-fashioned tables with a mirror hanging between two posts and a large basin, presumably for water, sitting on the tabletop.

An odd little potbellied stove with flames blazing behind the glass. It gave out a surprising amount of heat, but still, I could tell that this room was much, much colder than any space in Jerome, Arizona, in June should be.

“Where are we?” I asked.

Even though the room wasn’t that well-lit, I couldn’t miss the way Seth’s mouth tightened. “In Flagstaff,” he said, then hesitated. “In 1884.”

For the longest second, I could only stare at him, wondering if I was still asleep, trapped in some kind of awful nightmare. I had vague memories of being lost in dark dreams before I’d awoken, but mercifully, the details had fled just as soon as I opened my eyes.

Except this was all too real — the unfamiliar room, the hint of icy air slipping in past the window casings.

The man who sat on the chair nearby, his expression tense and worried.

On my behalf?

I realized then that he wasn’t wearing the white linen shirt he’d had on when we’d last seen each other, but instead a black coat with a blue brocade waistcoat underneath. True, he sported a white shirt now, too, but it had a high, stiff collar partially covered by a black puffy tie.

The whole ensemble looked like something out of a Wild West show.

Then again, if we really had ended up in 1884, I supposed the outfit was the sort of thing he needed to wear so as not to attract notice.

I knew I’d never seen the blue flannel nightgown that covered me up to my chin, which meant someone must have changed me out of my blood-soaked dress.

“What happened?”

Rather than respond right away, he reached for the pitcher of water that sat on the bedside table and poured me a glass. “Do you think you can hold this? Emma said you’d be a little weak for a while.”

Who the hell was Emma?

However, I didn’t tack another question onto the one I’d already asked, and instead said, “I think I can manage.”

He handed the glass to me, although I noticed how he held on to it for a second or two after I’d wrapped my fingers around the tumbler, as if to make sure I wasn’t going to drop the thing. It felt a little awkward, but I was pretty sure I would be able to hold it without any problem.

To reassure him, I lifted the glass to my lips and sipped from it. The water tasted cool and sweet. Probably from a well, even though I had no idea where such a well might be located.

“What do you remember?” Seth asked.

“That man shot me,” I said, and he gave a grim nod.

“Lionel Allenby. He was my supervisor at the mine…and in league with the local bootleggers. Charles knocked him out, but…”

“…but it was too late,” I finished for him, and Seth tilted his head toward me in agreement before he sat back down again.

“You were bleeding all over the place,” he said. “We were going to try to drive you down the hill to see my cousin Helen, but I honestly didn’t know whether you were going to make it. You asked me to kiss you” — he paused there, and I could see the way he swallowed before continuing — “and when we did, it was as if the whole world spun out of control into darkness. The next thing I knew, I was standing on Jeremiah Wilcox’s front walk.”

This revelation only made me stare at him in consternation. “Youwhat?”

A half smile, although Seth’s expression wasn’t terribly amused. “We appeared in front of Jeremiah’s house. I have no idea how we ended up there. But he went to fetch his sister, who’s the clan healer, and she took care of you.”

I glanced around the room again. It appeared nicely furnished and clean, but it also didn’t seem quite as fancy as I would have expected a room in the formerprimus’shome to be. “Is that where we are now? In Jeremiah Wilcox’s house?”

“No,” Seth replied at once. “He didn’t think it was a good idea for us to stay there. We waited until Emma said you were recovered enough to be moved, and then Jeremiah got his horse and buggy and brought us over to the Hotel San Francisco. I’ve got the room next door.”

“Oh,” I said, since I wasn’t sure how else I was supposed to respond. Honestly, my head was spinning, and I didn’t think it was just from the aftermath of being healed of such a terrible wound. Maybe there were healers in the world who could just snap their fingers and have you up and walking around in a jiffyno matter how badly you were hurt, but in general, even magical healing required some recovery time.

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