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e-mail, fax, telephone.
"Probably not."
He nodded, his eyes still closed, as if to say, "I thought not."
"Why don't you let me write an article for your paper?'' If Alec had the ring cut off and she stayed in
1830, she would need some way to make a living. Maybe this was her chance to network a little.
Samuel pried open both of his eyes and looked at her, as if determining whether she was joking. She
just stared at him.
"Miss Sumner, our publication is rather radical. We do not print ladies' recipes and household hints."
"Good, because I don't write recipes and household hints."
He sighed and his head sank back into the pillow.
"Very well," he said. "Write something and I will look at it."
She tried not to let her anger get the best of her. It didn't take a mind reader to know that he was
humoring her because she'd saved his life. Her anger wouldn't put food on the table if she found herself
stranded here.
She tucked the covers up to his chin, closed the window against the chilly evening air, then turned down
the oil lamp.
"I'll have something for you tomorrow," she said, then shut the door when a gentle snore answered her.
She halfway hoped that Alec would be waiting for her when she went downstairs, waiting to smooth
things over and put things right. But the only person who greeted her was Martin as he made his evening
rounds.
"Good evening, miss," he said in his ever-formal tone.
She tossed a "Hi, Martin," over her shoulder, then escaped out the back door. She wasn't in the mood to
talk to anyone but Alec, and she wasn't even sure she could have talked to him.
As she let herself into the cottage she noticed that he had obligingly shut the door behind him. Somehow
that symbolized how he'd shut her out of his life. She was just an embarrassing mistake to be dealt with. A
little legal snafu that would be ironed out quietly and then forgotten.
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Sumner," she chided as she shut the door behind her. "That'll get you
nowhere, and you have a story to write. And stop talking to yourself."
She lit a lamp on the small desk, pulled out paper and ink from the drawer, then fumbled with the stupid
quill pen, trying to remember how she'd dipped it into the ink.
What she wouldn't give for her trusty old fountain pen.
What had happened to it? She closed her eyes and tried to remember.
Had she dropped everything again when the ship lurched? Had she held on to it and left it in the cabin?
When a shiver rippled through her in the chilly room, she stoppered the ink and went upstairs to find a
shawl. Margaret had draped one of beige cashmere across the back of the rocker. Phillipa's shawl.
Shaelyn wrapped the soft fabric around her and sank down on the bed with a sigh. She didn't even have
her own clothes here. Suddenly everything hit her at once. Fear of staying in the past. Fear of going back
and never seeing Alec again. But there was no reason to stay if he was married to someone else.
She missed her parents and her friends. How would her parents take it when they found out she was
missing? Did they already know? Was time passing there at the same rate? They would be frantic.
Devastated. Brianne would be worried sick.
The foreign feeling of tears burned at the back of her eyes. She blinked them away but they came right
back until her eyes filled with them and spilled over onto her cheeks. She wiped them away but they
continued to flow, hot trails that chilled against her skin. She finally let herself cry, let all the anguish and
fear she'd been hiding finally come to the surface. She missed her parents, her friends, her job. She missed
jumping into her car to go places. She missed her telephone and her laptop. She missed diet Coke and
microwave popcorn. She wanted to run a hot bath and soak without turning it into a chore for three or four
servants. She wanted her own clothes. She wanted to wear jeans again.
She curled into a little ball on the bed and let the tears flow. She cried for all she missed and for all she
would miss if she went back. She cried at forever being torn between two worlds. The tears came, hot and
free, until her chest heaved and her head ached. She searched her pocket for a handkerchief, then cried
harder at not having Kleenex that she could throw away. She cried over everything reasonable and
unreasonable, and when she ran out of things to cry about she fell asleep to live it all again in her dreams.
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