Captured by Time Page 12

  He could see how she might be a little less enthusiastic than he was about that discovery, and she definitely was. He almost felt badly for her when he considered how much of an animal he was. He was constantly at her. They'd made love on the ground, on the horse, in one of the infrequent cabins they'd found like the original one, pretty much everywhere, and she rarely got an evening off from him either, which meant she was automatically also going to get a spanking. And the closer they got to Texas and the clearing of his name, the hornier he got. The day they were to bring all his evidence to the Colonel, he took her twice before he let her get up that morning.

  "Cimmy," he began, running his fingertips along her spine as they lay naked in each other's arms by the campfire. Jude held her tight, relishing in their body heat fighting against the morning air, which was still brisk as the sun had not completely risen. The heavy blankets were keeping them warm, along with their lovemaking. "Do you miss your time? Your home? Is there no one missing you?"

  "Most of my family has died, but I do have a cousin. I think she's sad I'm gone, but she understands." She snuggled up closer to him. "I was lost in my time. I had just become a doctor but had no idea what to do next. I didn't really have a home. Or no real sense of it, anyway."

  "Do you miss the future?"

  She shrugged. "Not really. You have kept me pretty busy," she teased, playfully elbowing him in the stomach.

  "I worry everyday about losing you to the future," he confessed. It wasn't like him to be so vulnerable with his emotions, but then, it wasn't like him to do a lot of things when it came to Cimmy. She possessed a power over him stronger than any dark magic could.

  "I don't think it's possible," she said.

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "For the first time in my life, I feel like I belong. There isn't a part of me searching anymore. I think time has brought me here for a reason. To find the true me, and to find… to find you."

  "I want to make you happy, Cimmy. You deserve better than traveling across this rugged land, sleeping on the ground, trying to prove my innocence."

  She positioned her body so she could nibble on his ear. In the smallest voice, that had his cock hard in an instant, she whispered, "I wouldn't have it any other way."

  "My little vixen." He sat up, causing her to stick out her lower lip in a pout. "We can't lie here all day, as nice as that sounds. The town is a short ride from here, and freedom's waiting." He stood up and pulled her to her feet, planting a deep kiss on her lips and slapping her on the ass at the same time. "Let's get a move on."

  The Colonel's office was easy enough to find, but they had to kind of skirt their way in there, and Jude spent all his time trying to make sure that Cimmy was all right, and keep her out of the line of fire if that eventuality happened and he was discovered before he could give Dawson his papers.

  But they were able to slip in while the admin was out to lunch, and Cimmy was glad to see that the man greeted Jude like a long lost son. She had had her suspicions about him, but she guessed she'd seen too much television. It would have been so easy for Dawson to betray Jude, but that didn't seem to be the case. Of course, nothing was immediate in a bureaucracy, but Dawson agreed that the evidence was more than enough to clear his name, and promised that he'd get the charges dropped as soon as he could.

  "Where are you staying? Is there anything I can get you?" he asked solicitously, eying Cimmy but not saying anything. Then he held up his hand. "No, don't tell me. You get yourself back to wherever it is you're hiding out, son, and you'd be wise to pick a place where there isn't a Ranger battalion stationed. You'll be the safer for it. Leave Miss—"

  "Monroe," Jude supplied with obvious reluctance.

  "Monroe in town, and I'll deal with her until I can call you back here and reinstate your rank." He shook Jude's hand with something akin to reverence. "That day can't come soon enough for me, son."

  Jude shook the older man's hand and escorted Cimmy out through the back door, which was extremely convenient since that was very near where they'd left Snow.

  As much as he didn't want to leave Cimmy alone, he realized that Dawson's advice was sound, and did as the man had suggested, installing her in a small but clean boarding house and finding his way back towards Abilene to hide out and wait for word.

  Before they parted though, he had given her words of caution; to mingle as little as possible with the other boarders, and keep to herself and not to think about anything sexual. He had given her a copy of the works of Edgar Allen Poe, and she promised to read 'The Telltale Heart' every evening before she went to bed.

  "That'll frighten the bejesus out of me, and I won't even be able to get to sleep, much less wander away."

  "Keep your thoughts pure, and don't you dare touch yourself." He glared at her and then pulled her into his arms, kissing her several times on the forehead. "I don't want you going anywhere. You're mine."

  She pulled away and smiled. "Don't worry. I learned my lesson in regards to that." She winked playfully, but he could see the sadness setting in across her features. It was as if a dark cloud moved over the bright light of her face—one he couldn't imagine not seeing every day when he woke.

  "I'll send word to you about where I am as soon as I think it's safe to do so."

  "Jude?"

  He looked into her big eyes that were beginning to tear up. One thing about Cimmy was she wasn't a big crier. He had to really lay into her to even bring her tears with a spanking of late. She was by far the strongest woman he had ever met—stubborn as all get out—but strong. So seeing her look so frightened and vulnerable tore at his heart.

  "You're going to be just fine," he assured her, kissing the top of her head. "It won't be long, and this town is safe."

  "I don't want to be apart from you."

  "It's for your safety."

  "Jude…" She paused and looked down at her feet for several moments. Looking back up into his eyes, she declared, "I don't ever want to be without you. I love you."

  He leaned down to kiss her and realized that she was already crying, and it tore at his heart that he was the cause of her pain. "I love you. I loved you from the minute I saw you. Time brought us together, and there ain't nothing going to keep us apart. Dawson'll get things done lickety split, I promise, and we'll be together again before you know it."

  * * * * *

  Cimmy tried not to cry, and nodded her head in agreement as best she could, although her heart was breaking to watch him walk away and know that she couldn't even call him to find out if he was all right. That when they were separated by as few miles as there were going to be between them, it might as well have been two hundred years.

  It took three long, horrible weeks of waiting and wondering, but eventually Dawson got in contact with her and had her come into his office. He handed her a legal looking document that stated that the charges against Jude had been dropped, and he also showed her the warrant and the wanted sign for Jude's former partner, who he believed would be picked up within the week.

  The man also gave her a large wad of bills, saying it was at least some of Jude's back pay that he'd lost when he'd been charged with the murders. Cimmy wasn't sure whether she believed Dawson about that, or whether he was giving Jude money out of his own pocket, but it sounded right to her that he ought to get back pay, considering he'd been framed and no one from the Rangers had done anything about that. Although she didn't know whether Jude would see it that way.

  She got word to Jude via telegraph, telling the clerk that the recipient would pick the message up at the office in Abilene.

  Two days later, she answered a loud, insistent knock on her door, and there he was. He stood bigger than she remembered him to be, for sure. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, which was a strict no-no according to the owner of the rooming house. Grabbing her up in his arms and swinging her around, he had the biggest grin on his face she'd seen in the entire time she'd known him.

  "We did it! We did i
t!"

  She was so happy for him she could practically burst.

  After a long while of dizzying kisses, he put her down on her own two feet. "Thank you for your help. I couldn't have done it without you."

  Cimmy snorted in an unbecoming manner, saying, "Oh, please. You could have done it much more easily without me; the greenhorn, tender-footed time traveler tagging along."

  "I could have, but it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun," he growled into her ear before nibbling her earlobe.

  It seemed like an eternity since they had been together, and they fell onto the bed as if they hadn't seen each other for months rather than just a few weeks.

  It didn't take eagle eyed Mrs. Raymond—the owner of the boarding house—very long at all to notice that her strange little boarder had a guest of the opposite sex in her room, and she bustled quickly up the stairs to rap sharply on the door.

  "Miss Monroe, open this door immediately! You have a man in your room, and that's against my rules. I'm afraid you're going to have to—"

  She stopped her bellowing when Jude opened the door and nearly bowled her over with a big hug. "Thank you, Mrs. Raymond, we're on our way out anyway." He'd already paid her for Cimmy's stay, but then he peeled several bills off the wad that Dawson had given Cimmy to give to Jude and handed them to the starchy older woman. "Early Merry Christmas, Mrs. Raymond. Buy yourself something nice, on us."

  Then he grabbed Cimmy's hand and looked down into her eyes, falling to one knee in front of her landlord and all of the other boarders that had gathered at the ruckus. "I don't have a ring on me, Cymbeline Ophelia Monroe, but I do love you to distraction. These past three weeks have been hell on me, and not just because of what we were both waiting for, but because you weren't with me. Marry me, and we'll travel through time together."

  Cimmy dissolved into tears. A proposal was the last thing she had expected from him. In truth, she hadn't expected anything at all. He was free. He could do anything he wanted, and apparently he wanted to do it with her.

  "I don't ever want us to be apart. Ever. Nothing can stand in the way, not even time," he added, while she gathered her words and tried to control the tears cascading down her cheeks.

  Cimmy sank down on his drawn up knee and put her arms around his neck. "I would be very honored to marry you, Captain Buchanan."

  Chapter Sixteen

  Weeks later, Cimmy was a very proud Mrs. Buchanan as they mounted the front steps to what had once been a very beautiful old Virginian mansion, but had fallen somewhat into disrepair and didn't look anywhere near as pristine as it had while he was growing up, as he'd described it to her. Everything about the house reminded her of all the movies she had seen. She sometimes felt as if she had to pinch herself to make sure that she was indeed not dreaming. No matter how long she stayed in 1880, and even though she was pretty confident she would remain, it was still hard to believe she really was standing in history.

  Cimmy had convinced Jude to come back to see his parents and maybe his sister, if she was still there. He still wasn't completely on board with the idea, and fully expected to be driven off the land they were standing on now. He couldn't imagine his father would tolerate his presence, considering the loss of their favorite youngest son and his betrayal of 'the cause'. But Cimmy knew how important family was, and since she only had Jude, she wanted more for him as well as her. Jude needed to erase the demons he had, and she believed going home was the way to do so. Not to mention that, selfishly, she wanted to see more of the world in 1880, so traveling all the way to Virginia would quench her thirst for that adventure.

  An older black woman answered the door, saying, "May I help you?" There was a moment of awkward silence between them, and Cimmy could see that Jude was swallowing hard as recognition dawned on that beautiful face. "Mr. Jude? Is that you?"

  The woman gathered him to her forcibly and hugged him tight, barely willing to let him go when he pulled back.

  "Mamie, it's so good to see you."

  "You sure are a sight for sore eyes, Mr. Jude. You're just what this place needs." Eventually, her attention turned to Cimmy.

  "Oh, this is my wife, Cimmy. Cimmy, this is Mamie. She raised me and earned her place in Heaven by not having killed me for all the bratty things I did to her while I was growing up."

  Cimmy offered her hand, but was immediately caught up in the same kind of bear hug that had been given to Jude.

  "You two come on in. Miss Letitia is in the morning room, and won't your ma be surprised to see you—and with a bride, no less!"

  Cimmy wasn't quite sure that surprised was going to be the word, but she followed as Jude tucked her hand into his elbow and they walked through the house he had grown up in to see his mother for the first time in more than a decade.

  And when Jude's mother first laid eyes on him, she gave him almost more of a hug than Mamie had, although she was too frail to match the other woman in strength. But she outdid her with heart instead, dissolving into tears as soon as she saw her oldest son. It turned out that his father had passed on not long after the war, and that his sister had married a man who had been Jude's partner in crime while he was growing up, and they lived about a half hour away.

  With that kind of enthusiastic welcome, they decided to stay for lunch and ended up never leaving. It wasn't just the house that was in disrepair, but the entire farm, and Jude was more than up to the challenge of setting it right again. He questioned Cimmy carefully about whether she thought she could be happy here, with him, in the Stone Age, and she answered him with her whole heart. "Yes! I'll live anywhere as long as I'm with you."

  * * * * *

  The first few months of her marriage were of almost unadulterated bliss.

  They were alone in their new house, which wasn't the Virginian mansion but sat on the same land, and Jude had insisted that there was no need for her to dress. After the first three days of lounging together, mostly in bed, him largely taking care of her in a manner no one had ever done in her life before—feeding her dinner from his own plate as she sat on his lap, bathing her gently and carefully and with intimate attention to detail that had her squirming long before he allowed her to get out of the tub, generally doing everything he could to accustom her to his touch, and making love to her at every possible opportunity—he reached for her and she flinched away from him automatically, not because she was scared of him, but because she was sore from all of his vigorous attentions.

  He was quite horrified that he'd allowed that to happen to her with his eagerness to be inside her, to be close to her in every possible way, and made it up to her with his mouth and fingers, massaging muscles that hadn't seen much use until he came into her life, his lips and tongue soothing—and then exciting—the part of her body that had seen the most activity over the past few days and yet was the least used to it.

  Jude spent long hours loving her most thoroughly, teasing her relentlessly, not allowing her release until the last possible moment, then holding and caring for her tenderly, all the while deferring his own lust as best he could, although it constantly strained and throbbed against her soft skin, trying to divine its way into her in any manner possible.

  The next day, though, he had to get up and go to work on the farm, insisting that she remain in bed as long as she liked, and that she didn't even bother to dress fully at all.

  "The easier it will be to ravish you when I come home for lunch, and then again when I come home for supper," he informed her in a wicked tone as his hands made free with her body beneath the modest nightgown she had taken to wearing, instead of letting him aggressively go through all of the pretty lingerie he'd had made for her in town as a surprise for their wedding. She wanted to save some of it for their honeymoon trip, whenever that ended up being. She was happy having their trip to Virginia count as a honeymoon, but Jude wouldn't hear of it. He insisted he show her more of the world in 1880.

  "Do you want me to make you something for lunch and supper? I can cook, you know." Mami
e had been doing all the cooking up to that point, which Cimmy found odd, but welcomed. The woman's cooking was by far better than that in any southern diner she'd ever been in. But still, Cimmy hadn't had a chance to show Jude she could be a 'proper' wife.

  "No, my dear wife, you will be more than enough sustenance for me, and besides, Mamie has that department covered." He kissed her loudly on the cheek, saying sternly, "Behave yourself, or it won't be my mouth between your legs that will have you screaming when I get home."

  That tone could still send chills up her spine, despite how truly loving he could be with her sometimes. He could still be just as vicious and tediously thorough if she crossed or disobeyed him.

  "Yes, sir."

  He chuckled, already halfway out the door. "I like that…"

  A modern day woman rarely called her husband 'sir', if at all, but Cimmy liked the way it sounded on her lips. She adored being submissive, and something about being in 1880 made all her internal women's lib go away.

  She got into trouble with him at least as much as she had before they were married, only it was almost worse that he punished her now that he was her husband and knew her so much more intimately. Cimmy would swear that he spanked her longer and harder now, and then he would flip her over and press himself into her, as if spanking her had aroused him unbearably, only he was then very careful not to allow her her own pleasure, but rather take her entirely for himself and leave her cruelly unfulfilled, as another part of her punishment.

  "Naughty girls do not deserve such a reward," he had said the first time he did that, after crisscrossing her tender behind with that thick leather belt of his, expertly reducing her to sobs after only the first few strokes but not letting that deter him in any way from exacting a painful toll from her bottom for her disobedience.