Page 74 of Borrowed Time

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I can tell we’re in the past, but I don’t think it’syourpast.”

No, it most definitely wasn’t.

A few leaves scurried across the empty street, only seeming to emphasize the somehow forlorn feeling of the place.

What had happened here?

A man emerged from McAllister Mercantile. He looked vaguely familiar, but….

“Seth?” the man said, his voice incredulous.

Dear Goddess.

The man was his brother Charles.

A very changed Charles, with gray showing in his light brown hair and deep lines of dissatisfaction cut around his eyes and dragging their way down from nostril to mouth.

Seth wanted to ask how any of this was possible, but he already knew the answer.

The woman standing next to him, her arm now locked with his as though she feared if she didn’t hang on, she might collapse.

“You — ” Charles began, then ran a hand through his hair. At least it looked almost as thick as ever, even with all the gray. “You haven’t aged a day! Where have you been?”

“In the past,” Seth replied. He was sure of that much, even if everything else about his world felt as though it had been tilted on its axis.

Why this time? Why not the glowing twenty-first century Devynn had spoken of, and if not that, then at least his own familiar decade?

Because she didn’t have any time to prepare,he thought.You translocated, and she time-jumped, all in a panic. You’re lucky you ended up in Jerome at all.

Maybe so.

“Where — ”he began, then paused. “What year is it?”

Charles stared at him for a second or two, his expression that of a man who wasn’t sure whether he was dreaming…or having a nightmare.

“It’s 1947,” he said flatly.

Twenty-one years. They’d missed the mark by twenty-one years…or actually, a hell of a lot more, if you considered that Devynn had probably been aiming for her own decade.

“What the hell are you wearing?” Charles asked next, and Seth summoned a weary smile.

“We were assured it was the top of fashion in 1884,” he replied. “But if the store is still selling ready-made clothes, it’s probably a good idea for Devynn and me to climb out of these getups.”

Charles’s eyes narrowed, deepening the lines around them. “What happened to ‘Deborah’?”

“It was the name I used while I was in your time,” she said crisply. “Back then, I was doing my best to hide who I was and where — I mean, when — I came from. But I suppose the cat is out of the bag now, so I’d prefer to go by my real name. I can’t tell you how many times I almost forgot to reply when someone referred to me as Deborah.”

This remark was accompanied by the sort of smile that always had an effect on Seth. His brother, on the other hand, seemed uniquely impervious to its charms.

“Hell of a name for a woman,” he remarked, then went on, “But sure, we’ve got clothes in the store. Come inside.”

He headed back into the mercantile, with Seth and Devynn trailing behind him. She sent him a questioning look, but Seth only shook his head. They’d need to talk, of course, but for now, the smartest thing would be to get situated, and that meant exchanging their Victorian attire for something more period-appropriate.

Good thing Main Street had been so deserted. Otherwise, people surely would have wondered what the hell the two of them had been doing, wandering around dressed up like they were extras in a cowboy movie.

The store didn’t appear as changed as he’d feared. Sure, the goods on display were a little different — the radios had shrunk from the large cabinets he remembered and were now models clearly meant to be set on a tabletop, and the bins full of grain and flour and beans had disappeared altogether — but the overall layout hadn’t been altered too much, with the clothing still in neat stacks behind the counters and wrapped in brown paper.

“Take what you like,” Charles said, nodding toward the clothing. He didn’t seem inclined to ask how Devynn had been miraculously healed, even though she’d been bleeding out the last time he’d seen her. Maybe her presence was enough to prove she’d survived the experience, and he saw no reason to inquire as to the details of what exactly had happened. “It’s not like I’ve got people beating down the door to buy the stuff.”

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