door to a section of Indigo Bay which doesn’t exist, talk to
people I have never seen before in my life, and move through
this house as though you’ve lived here all your life.” He threw
up his hands in despair and began pacing.
“Oh, I thought you meant about the professor,” Mica
hedged, trying to figure a way to explain their circumstances.
Logan stopped pacing to turn in a circle, staring around
the apartment. In slow motion, he moved from the couch to the
dinette table, over to the TV and then to her desk, where
yesterday’s newspaper lay.
She rushed over to grab it, but the expression on his face
told her it was too late.
“That year can’t be real, can it?” He croaked as his head
swiveled wildly around.
Mica empathized with him. She hadn’t been ready for the
difference in time when she first entered his world. She reached
out to touch him, wanting to reassure him. Her hand passed
right through his shoulder.
“Oh, dear God!” Her hand flew to her mouth.
Logan turned back at the agony in her voice. When he
reached out, Mica could feel the tingles of his touch, but
couldn’t feel his warmth. Rather than become angry, he tried
again and again to touch her, but she could tell by his expression
he felt nothing.
“Michaela?” That single word echoed all his frustration
and fear.
She took a deep breath to calm herself before she blurted
out the truth of their circumstances. “The door—the one we
came through—is somehow a time passage. The year on the
newspaper is correct, and this is Sea Crest.” She gestured to
encompass the inn.
“The door leads from Indigo Bay?” His voice doubted her
words even as his eyes still surveyed the room.
“Yes, well, Sea Crest is Indigo Bay. A descendant so to
speak.”
“This—this is what’s left of my plantation? Who are those
mad people above stairs? Surely not descendants of mine?”
Mica almost giggled at his incredulous tone. “No. Actually,
this building is a bed and breakfast—an inn where people come
to stay on vacation.”
She knew this conversation didn’t make sense. Of course,
nothing about her relationship with Logan had made sense from
the beginning, but why was he taking this so well?
Logan plopped onto the couch, or rather seemed to be
absorbed by the couch. When he sat, the patterns shimmered
through his shirt, and it became harder to see him. Mica
panicked, wondering if the rules she had only guessed at could
somehow make him disappear at this end of the time spectrum.
“I am normally a logical man, as any lawyer should be,
but this is all beyond me.” Logan shook his head in disbelief.
“You say you live in the future, and you traveled back to the
year 1850, to Indigo Bay, by going through that door? Why
did you lie about who you were?”
His accusation stung, and Mica felt the need to justify
herself. “I never actually lied. I am from Sea Crest, and that’s
all you ever asked me. Remember when I asked you about your
Aunt Margaret and whether she knew anyone named
Theodora?” At his nod, she continued. “My great-great-aunt
was Theodora Josephine Ashley. She has letters written by
someone named Maggie—letters that identify Indigo Bay, you,
and Neil.
“On her deathbed, my aunt told me to help Thomas, and
when she died, she bequeathed me Sea Crest,” Mica continued
before he could respond. “I didn’t realize that you were that
person until I heard you called Thomas.”
Instead of ranting or raving, or refusing to believe her,
Logan listened without comment to her faltering explanation.
She moved to the French doors that led to the garden. How had
her aunt expected her to help him?
She spotted the Cupid statue, flooded with moonlight, and
recalled her aunt’s comments about a romantic man in Mica’s
life. Perhaps her aunt and her friend, Maggie, had known all
along that she and Logan would fall in love if they met. Perhaps
that had been the reason for her bequest—not for Mica to help,
but to have a chance at romance. But how could she have
known? There was no indication in the letters that she’d actually
met Logan.
She turned back to face him. She’d known from the start
that she played a dangerous game. Not knowing the rules had
proved disastrous. “I didn’t understand what my aunt meant
about helping you until it was too late.”
He came to stand in front of her, reaching out before he
remembered his transparent state. His hands dropped uselessly
to his sides. “Too late for what, Michaela?”
She sobbed into her hands, aching for his touch. “It was
too late, because I had already fallen in love with you.”
“As I have with you, sweet one.”
She gasped at his pronouncement, then sobbed all the
harder, cursing the fates for her misfortune.
“We have really entangled ourselves, haven’t we?” His
voice faded, and when Mica glanced up, she found he had
moved to the windows. “You picked a fine time to declare your
affections. All I want is to drag you off to the closest bed and
make passionate, consuming love to you, and I’m unable to
even touch you.” He gave a snort of disgust as he held his
hands up where the light appeared to filter through them.
He shook his head in disbelief before continuing. “For the
moment, I’ll assume what you say is true. How is it possible
for you to travel back in time where I can touch you and make
love to you, but I cannot do the same? I’m like a ghost.”
“Dear Lord.” Mica’s hands fell away from her face as
understanding dawned. The professor’s machine really did
work. A horrid thought struck her. The machine had taken
pictures—photos of Logan and her after they came through
the door. Now she understood why she had felt the need to
protect him when they had been in the hallway.
“Make me understand, Michaela,” he pleaded, and her heart
ached for his situation.
Since little could be done about the professor and his
pictures, she concentrated on Logan. Actually, he was handling
this very well considering his circumstances. How much could
she tell him, however, without further disrupting the flow of
history?
“I’ll try to explain what I’ve learned about the rules
involved in traveling through time. If a present-day object exists
in some form in 1850, it can go through the passage. If not, it
disappears.” She looked around the room for something to prove
her theories. “The letters from your aunt, for example.”
“And where are these letters?” He arched a brow in
disbelief.
Mica groaned. “They’re still in my room at Indigo Bay.”
“What about me? Why did I change? Don’t men exist in
your time?”
Mica ignored his sarcasm. “I haven�
�t quite figured out your
end of it. Perhaps since the future hasn’t happened yet for you,
you can’t visit it. Whereas the past has happened, and therefore
it’s possible for me to go back.” She saw by his expression he
still questioned her explanation.
“Look, I’ve found out some things don’t travel well. For
example, my silk and cotton clothes remain the same, but
zippers and plastic buttons just evaporate. Probably because
they haven’t been invented yet.”
His inquisitive gaze swept her figure. “That’s why you were
dressed so strangely at times.”
“Yes. All I know is I’d better not wear polyester.”
He stepped away from the window and became a little more
visible without the strong light shining through him. As he
moved closer, Mica could feel the energy emitting from his
body, the body she longed to touch and caress once more. His
eyes deepened to a dark brown.
“And what would become of this...this Polly Ester?” He
spoke the word as though it were a name.
Captured by his gaze, and wrapped in the electrifying aura
that bound their spirits if not their bodies, Mica stammered,
“It’s a fabric, and it would ... disappear.”
He grinned at her. “Then I would definitely like to see you
in polyester.” As quickly as his smile formed, a frown replaced
it. He took the final step toward her so their chests touched and
lifted his arms to wrap around her.
“Can you feel me, Michaela? As we stand here touching,
and yet not touching, do you have any idea how much I want to
make love to you? Can you understand how desperately I want
to claim you for my own, regardless of all you have said?”
Mica felt the heat and vibrations of his body even if she
couldn’t see him very well, and she craved his hard, solid
presence. Unable to voice her heartbreak, she shook her head
in denial.
Logan’s arms dropped back to his sides as he sighed. He
glanced once more around her apartment, then walked toward
the door.
“I have no purpose here. I have no existence. I must go
back to my people, to my own time.” He turned to her, his
glorious brown eyes full of misery which reflected her own.
“I love you, Thomas Logan Rutledge,” she whispered on a
sob.
His shoulders lost some of their rigidity as his gaze caressed
her. “I know,” he answered quietly, but remained at the door,
waiting.
“I’ll take you home,” she sighed in resignation. Grabbing
the key, Mica prayed her guests were once again safely tucked
away in their beds.
This time when they reached the second floor, Mica turned
to walk down the hall farthest away from the professor’s door.
She motioned for Logan to move in silence before she realized
he couldn’t make any noise. Her heart beat double-time, scared
that if the machine was on, the alarm would start any instant.
“Damn it to hell!” She had reached up to insert the key
only to find someone had jimmied the lock. Rough grooves
dug into the wood around the doorknob, and the flat metal
plate on the door frame had been bent. The key wouldn’t turn
in the lock.
“It won’t work,” she whispered, frantic that someone would
discover them. Whoever had tried to open the door might still
be awake and watchful. She threw a furtive glance over her
shoulder, imagining the Barkers with ears up against their door,
ready to pounce at the slightest noise.
“Here, let me try.” Logan reached around her to grab the
key only to have his hand pass through the metal. She could
see the panic in his eyes this time. “Do something. I don’t exist
here.”
“I can’t.” Her voice broke, her nerves raw from all she had
been through. In the distance, she heard a soft bleep-bleep-
bleep and realized they didn’t have time to stand in the hallway
and argue.
“Come back to the apartment. I’ll have to call a locksmith.”
Since she couldn’t touch him to move him away from the door,
she made shooing motions with her hands.
Immediately upon entering her apartment, Mica raced for
the phone book. Her hands shook as she thumbed through the
Yellow Pages, praying a locksmith lived in Cameron. The only
number listed rewarded her with an answering machine. The
voice on the message assured her he would get back to her as
soon as possible. Mica practically shouted her name, number
and address into the receiver, never thinking how odd her actions
were until she hung up and turned to face Logan.
His expression was one of disbelief. “What is that
contraption?”
“A telephone.” She glanced from the phone back to him.
All the marvelous inventions of his future couldn’t take him
back to his own time. She sighed. “It won’t be invented for
another twenty-five years or so.”
“Telephone.” He sampled the sound of the word. “If the
telegraph means written words over a distance, then
telephone—phone coming from the Latin for sound—could
mean sound over a distance.”
He raised both eyebrows in surprise. “Do you mean it’s
possible to send your voice over a wire, like the telegraph, and
“In another place, yes, but not another time.” Not unless
you count Pacific Time, Mica thought, but decided not to try
to explain that to him.
Logan spun in a circle. “This is incredible. You are living
in an age of wonder. What other machines have been invented?
Tell me what will become of my plantation.” His face showed
a sense of awe, as though she were a fortuneteller.
Mica knew she must be cautious. “How much should I tell
you, and how much do you really want to know?”
If it were possible for a ghost to turn pale, Logan did. Barely
above a whisper, his voice frightened her with its intensity.
“You know when I die?”
“No, I don’t know that. It’s just that you’re talking about
more than one hundred years of history. Suppose I tell you
something I shouldn’t, and when you return to your time, you
inexplicably change history? What do you think might
happen?”
As if to emphasize her dire prediction, the clock on the
wall chimed—four dainty tinkles that sounded more like a death
knell. She shifted her eyes to the clock, unable to meet Logan’s
direct gaze.
“Michaela, talk to me.” His insistent voice caused Mica to
glance over to find him sprawled on the couch as though he
belonged there. He was taking this entirely too well.
“How can you just sit there as though nothing is wrong?”
she questioned, holding her stomach against the panic she felt.
“I long ago concluded there are certain things over which
I have no control. In such cases, it is better to adapt until a
solution presents itself. Is there something else I can do about
my predicament before your voice person answers your shouted
message?” His voice sounded concerned but not desperate as
he glanced at the phone. “He will somehow contrive to answer
you, won’t he? Once the operator relays your message?”
Mica refused to explain answering machines and the
instantaneous method in which telephones operated. She was
a lawyer, not a technological wizard. “Yes, he’ll return my call.”
Defeated for the moment, she slumped into a chair opposite
him.
“I’ll tell you something of my life and the twenty-first
century, but I will not explain anything remotely close to your
time in history, okay?” She had to make sure he understood.
At his nod, she commenced with a fascinating overview of
the time in which she lived. For two hours she talked, and Logan
listened avidly, only interrupting for details on inventions and
other technology. She spoke of world trade, automobiles and
airplanes. Fast food restaurants and inventions such as
microwaves and computers. She showed him how the TV
worked, but oddly enough he seemed more interested in the
stock market concept.
Mica knew there were numerous things she could share
with him, but it was difficult. She was so used to the
conveniences in her life, they didn’t seem that awesome to her.
Finally, she quit talking and leaned back in her chair.
She refrained from even hinting at the devastation of the
War Between the States, Lincoln’s assassination, or what would
eventually happen to his precious Indigo Bay.
“What role do you play in this incredible, fast-paced world
of yours?” Logan questioned when she paused for breath. “Do
you manage this inn you call Sea Crest?”
“Actually, no. Aunt Theo bequeathed Sea Crest to me, but
I only came here for a vacation. I’m a member of a law firm in
Charleston with my father and my uncle.”
“You’re a secretary for your father?”
“No, I’m a lawyer.”
Logan shot upright from the couch to stand over her, hands
on hips. “Women do not pursue careers, especially not a career
in law,” he stated emphatically.
She started to protest, but he held up a hand. For the
moment, she decided to allow his nineteenth century
chauvinistic ego to spout off.