Authors: Carolyn Faulkner,Alta Hensley
In truth, she was more tired than she could ever remember being, even when she'd been a resident and studying for her boards. She was wiped, and to her great disappointment, she fell asleep almost immediately, vowing not to let him squirm out of letting her check his wound in the morning.
When she awoke though, she was on her back, and it wasn't an uncomfortable rope mattress beneath her, but a feather one. Even before she opened her eyes, she knew she was back in her room at the hotel. Cimmy sat bolt upright and looked around the room, but she was the only one in it. Instead of feeling relief, she felt panic. Jude! She was no longer with Jude.
She made it across the room in about two strides—kind of like he had several times that night—and opened the chifforobe—and all her clothes were right there where she'd put them. After donning a skirt and shirt, she wandered slowly downstairs, peering carefully down into the lobby, which she wasn't sure was going to be a lobby or a saloon.
But after she'd descended the stairs, the clerk behind the front desk smiled at her nicely, saying, "I'm glad you're up and about. We were worried about you yesterday when you didn't come down. We assumed you weren't feeling well."
It was as good a lie as any, Cimmy guessed. "Yes, yes." It did not come easy to her but was better than an explanation that would make her sound like she needed to be carted away to the loony bin.
"Feeling better today, I hope?"
"Yes, thank you, I am."
That wasn't the entire truth, either. As much as she wanted to dismiss what had happened to her over the past day or so, there was evidence that it
had
happened. She had awoken in her nightgown with the lady of the evening's robe still wrapped around her, and the gown still split up the front. Her voice when she spoke to the clerk was barely above a whisper, and she knew the reasons for that. To say nothing of the fact that, as she'd dressed, she had deliberately taken the time to examine herself in the mirror—something she seemed to be making a habit of lately. Only this time, she blamed the tendency squarely on him.
She'd wanted to see if she looked any different, and was disappointed, considering the changes her body had undergone in the past day or so, how innocent she'd been when she'd gone to sleep the night before last, and how sexually experienced she was now as she stood naked before the mirror.
Beyond the fact that her entire body—most especially the areas between her legs, and her breasts—seemed to be sensitive in a way she couldn't ever remember them being, there didn't seem to be much that had changed, outwardly anyway. The only part of her that showed any signs of wear was her behind, which was a mass of red and raw flesh. She could clearly see the imprints of the belt where he had lashed it down on her.
And as if that wasn't enough evidence, her privates were sore, and all too… unnaturally sensitive; so much so that they were hard to ignore whenever she moved—or didn't. She knew she was going to be spending the day blushing in two places on her body.
And Cimmy knew exactly what it was that she wanted to do, although she was again at odds with her own mind. A large part of her said she should simply pack her stuff up and go back to her home, and leave all of this weird stuff behind. Leave it at being a dream, a mental breakdown, even a bizarre time warp. Leave it behind and never look back. But a small—very insistent—part said that she needed to find a way to get back, somehow. Not because she was growing obsessed with Jude—although she was worried that that was true. Not because she lusted after him—and that was definitely true, though she hated to admit it. She convinced herself that it was because of his wound, that her doctor self felt an obligation to a man she considered to be her patient, despite the fact that he probably didn't see it that way at all. Her medical identity used to be the biggest part of her, but that was no more since he now filled nearly every nook and cranny of both her body and her mind, as evidenced by the fact that she hadn't entertained the idea of going home for more than a split second before realizing she had to return to him.
But this time she'd be prepared, she hoped. Or at least, she'd try to be, considering she wasn't exactly sure of how it was that she'd gotten herself back in time in the first place. However, she had a very embarrassing theory that she figured she was going to have to test out. She was going to take her best guess about whether or not she would be able to take things with her if she deliberately planned to go.
The extent to which she was already allowing herself to become involved with him would have been glaringly apparent to anyone who knew her. She blatantly broke several laws—ethics be damned—in order to write herself prescriptions for medications she wanted to bring with her, and spent the day in Settler's Bluff gathering as many things as she could in her bag, most of which directly related to needing to doctor him—some suture needles and sutures, antibiotics, and prescription pain killers were all added to the things that were already in her kit.
She also found a pawn shop and bought some money of the correct era—both bills and coins—and it wasn't cheap. Unfortunately, that wasn't a keepsake of the era she had bothered to collect over the years, but then, she'd never expected to actually need any
of the things she'd accumulated.
She tried to get a bulletproof vest; to hell with the prime directive of time travel and the butterfly effect and all of that crap, as far as she was concerned. She wanted him to be safe. But Settler's Bluff was too small a town to have anyone who sold them, unfortunately.
The one thing she was careful not do, that she thought someone else in her position might have, was to Google, 'Jude Buchanan 1880'. She was terrified of what she might find out about him if she did, and ignorance in this case, as far as she was concerned, was bliss.
And just like that, Cimmy entered her hotel room again—possibly for the last time. She sat down at the small desk and took out a piece of paper and pen to write a letter to her cousin, Eva.
Dear Eva,
If you get this letter, then I am gone, and not sure of my return… if ever. This isn't an easy letter to write to you, and the decision I'm making isn't one I'm taking lightly. But something in the depths of my soul tells me it is a decision I need to make, regardless.
All my life I have felt as if I don't belong. Like I never really fit in. Life passes me by at such a fast speed, I seem to struggle constantly to keep up. Love never found me, or at least I never allowed it to. Even the new career I'm about to begin doesn't excite me. I've been lost, and I believe I've found a way to find who I'm meant to be. I have the chance for the adventure of a lifetime, and I want to take it.
Your graduation gift to me was more of a gift then you will ever know. It has allowed me the opportunity to find where I belong. I know you want me in Chicago, but that just isn't me. It's not who I am or where I belong. I believe that I truly know where that place is now. A twist in time, an open door of sorts, has presented itself to me, and I'd be a fool not to follow my heart. You are the only family I have and the only ties keeping me here, and although I will miss you dearly, this is my chance for a change. Please understand that I have to do this. I need to explore this new opportunity. If anyone would understand, it would be you.
Unfortunately, where I am going is somewhere from which I may not be able to reach you, but I want you to know that I love you and wish you well. Just know that I am happy, I am safe, and I am following my heart. Do not worry about me, please. The day may come that we meet again. But until then, take care of yourself.
Love,
Cimmy
Cimmy wiped at the tears falling down her face, dripping onto the desk, barely missing the letter. She folded the paper neatly, putting it in an envelope with Eva's name and address. Saying goodbye wasn't easy, but she knew that her cousin would want this for her. Eva would want Cimmy to allow destiny to take control. Eva would want Cimmy to follow her heart. Going back in time a second time might not even work, and if it did, it may mean never returning. It was a risk. It was dangerous. Hell, it was insane to even be considering this. But Cimmy wanted to return to 1880. Jude needed her, and she needed… well, she needed Jude.
So, how to travel back in time? Again? She wasn't sure if she needed to wait until the same hour as when it had happened before, but she did, just in case that helped. So, when she went to bed that night, she wore all of the clothes she wanted to have access to—including a new nightgown that wasn't quite period but was close enough—over multiple layers of other clothing, some of which would be for him, and piled everything else she wanted to take back with her on her body, so that it wasn't just touching her, it was
on
her.
Then, with the help of some lubricant she'd bought that she'd conveniently left in the pocket of the skirt she was wearing, she hiked all of those clothes up or down, so she could open her legs, which was something she hadn't thought to accommodate, and began the extremely awkward, unfamiliar process of pleasuring herself.
To her surprise, it was much easier this time than on any of her other attempts, which usually left her feeling frustrated and stupid and had her resolving to study that much harder rather than trying to do something that had as little reward as that did for all of that mortifying effort.
And she knew it was all because of him—because her sexual experiences with him had given her both a baseline and a considerable boost towards her end goal. All she had to do was to conjure up images of what he had actually
done
to her, and she was almost already there. That had been one of her problems when she had tried on her own. She hadn't had anything to draw on. She wasn't the most imaginative of people, and fantasizing wasn't comfortable for her.
But she no longer had to do that.
As soon as her eager fingers found what they were after, slippery as they were with the lube, she knew it wasn't going to take long; that this was going to be an entirely different experience than she'd ever had before, and she wasn't wrong. She turned her mind to Jude, to the things he'd done to her—remembering his mouth on hers, the way her nipples had ached and hardened as he suckled them. How his mouth had danced over the place where her fingers were now.
Soon she was breathless from the visions that played through her mind, and was surprised and not a little embarrassed by the fact that they weren't all memories of times he had made love to her. Some of what was playing behind her eyes were the times when he had spanked her, and that only seemed to make her clit jump with disturbing eagerness beneath her fingertips.
As she drew closer and closer to the edge, visions of him spanking her began to mix more regularly into her fantasy, especially the ones just before he took her. She even replayed the moments of losing her virginity, recalling how surprisingly tender he'd been with her when he realized. But then her mind went where she hadn't thought it would—to the cabin, when she'd been tied down and he was using his belt on her, and then, at last, what had her hurtling into her own vortex of ecstatic spasms was remembering the way he'd fucked her afterwards, forcing her to pleasure as he did so, fucking her hard, and making her come just as hard…
She had to clench her teeth together tightly in order to keep from screaming as her body was wracked with convulsions that had her thinking she was going to go out of her mind from the sheer paradise of it. One completion led into another, and then another, and then another, and before she had a chance to even begin to recover, she fell into a deep sleep.
"What are you doing here?" she heard him ask, his words waking her up. "And who told you that you could do that?"
"Do what?" she asked softly. She recognized his voice, but it sounded a bit different from what she remembered.
Suddenly, she felt someone covering her hands and pressing against them, which were apparently right where she'd had them before she'd fallen asleep—at her privates.
"I'll deal with that later. What is all this stuff? And where did you go? And how did you get here? You've been gone for a day or more, and I know you didn't come in through the door."
Those last two questions brought her out of her half sensuous, half sleepy reverie. Cimmy sat up—barely able to, considering the quantity of clothes she was wearing—and looked down at the bed they were sharing. She had returned to the cabin he had brought her to, and she had been right to put everything around her. It seemed as though all the items she'd wanted had made the trip.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, facing her, one hand on the bed frame and one next to her legs, effectively trapping her where she was.
"I want some answers, Cimmy Monroe, and you're not going anywhere until I get them."
She didn't respond to his threat in the least, but instead reached up and put her palm to his forehead. "You're burning up. Trade places with me so I can take care of you," she said.
"I know what's happening to me. I knew it before you left. I've got an infection, and I'm going to die of it." He surprised her by getting up to retrieve his satchel, which he handed to her. "I have no right to ask you to do anything, but I would be very grateful if you would take this to Col. Range Dawson in Texas. You can have what little money is on me. It'll help you get there. If you ride out of the cabin due east, you'll hit civilization eventually. I've already got enough food for you to take to get there. Take the train as soon as you can; the trip'll be a lot easier on you."