Page 37 of The Promise
"Enjoy your boy toy." There was a click and the line went dead.
Michael had crossed to her side. "What did he want?"
Cara smiled, not willing to ruin their evening by repeating Nick's snide remarks. "Nothing really. Just trying to get me to change my mind about the paintings."
Michael nodded, accepting her answer. He picked up the phone's receiver and listened to the hum of the dial tone. "This is a telephone isn't it?" He held it out to her.
Cara nodded, placing the receiver back in its cradle.
"I read about it. A guy named Bell invented it a few years back. I never dreamed it would really amount to anything."
"Oh, it's amounted to something all right." At the moment, she was wishing Alexander Graham Bell had never been born. Out of self preservation, she scooped the madras shirt from the floor by the bathroom, flipping it at him with an underhanded lob. "If we're going out for dinner, I think you'll probably want to wear this."
He caught it and slipped his arms into the sleeves. It was a little tight across the shoulders, but otherwise fit fine. She gulped as he started to button it. Even the simple action of his fingers sliding the buttons through each hole excited her. Oh Lord, she had it bad.
He sat on the couch and began pulling on his boots. "How long will it take us to get into town?"
"Not long. Maybe fifteen minutes."
He frowned. "On horseback?"
"No, we'll go in my Jeep."
"Jeep?"
She grinned. " A kind of automobile. You're gonna love it." There wasn't a guy alive who didn't love going fast. Not even one from the 19th century.
Jeeps were incredible.Not that he was really sure what one was, exactly. He'd heard about combustion engines, but this surpassed his wildest dreams. They'd careened down themountain in record time. And the road. Well, the road was amazing, too. No ruts, no mud, just an endless lane of something called asphalt. Not bad.
They slowed as they entered the main street of Silverthread and Michael jerked his head around, staring at the buildings on either side of him. The store fronts were different and the names had all changed, but most of the buildings were the same.
The shanties and clapboard were all gone. The bank building was there, though, housing something called CompuStore. And across the street, Bilker's meat market was still carved into the stone edifice of its brick building, although a sign underneath proudly proclaimed the best bagels in town. Whatever bagels were.
The dark cliffs of the mountains loomed ominously on either side, narrowing until they almost seemed to touch, framing Silverthread with their rocky crevices. The mountains, at least, had changed very little.
He could hear the soothing rush of Willow Creek, behind the buildings on the right. Somehow the noise was comforting. The boardwalks were gone, replaced by sidewalks made of the some material similar to asphalt but smoother. The street was dotted with automobiles and warm light spilled out from doorways and windows.
They'd passed the new electric plant on the way into town. Only now it was nothing more than a dilapidated old building. The mill across the way, was almost totally gone. Nothing left except a tailings pile and a section of sluice leaning drunkenly over the stream. He felt a deep sense of loss, everything familiar to him was long gone and forgotten.
The town itself was smaller, certainly, and of course, modernized. But the myriad of twinkling lights above indicated that the Flats were still the preferred place to live. At least some things never changed.
Everything was different. Everything was the same. Cara pulled the Jeep into a yellow striped space in front of what had once been an assayer's office. The awning covered windows now housed an artfully arrayed selection of paintings, each nestled on white velvet and framed in carved gilt. He didn't have to look for the sign. He recognized the work. "This is your gallery."
Cara nodded. "Want to come inside?"
"I haveto finish getting these paintings ready for shipping. They're being picked up tomorrow."
He nodded absently, intent on studying a painting hung in a small alcove on one wall. "Where was this painted?" He kept his voice mild, even though the blood pounded in his ears.
She stopped and turned back, glancing at the painting in front of him. "That's my grandfather's ranch. We passed it on the way in, but it was too dark to see it."
She started to turn away and he reached out to stop her. "That's Clune."
She froze, staring at the canvas. "Your ranch?"
"Yeah, only it doesn't look like this—yet." It was like looking at his dreams coming alive under brush and paint. The barn was there, finished and painted a dark green, just as he'd envisioned it. And the new ranch house, barely more than a plan in his head, sat exactly as he'd intended to build it, nestled in the curve of the creek, shaded by willows and pines.
The old hands' quarters still stood across the way, its walls and roof looking just as dilapidated as they did in his time. Pete's haven. The old man wouldn't hear of any improvements, no matter how much Michael argued that he needed them. He almost expected Pete to be in the painting.
