Free Here With Me by Beverly Long Page B

photograph. “Even though it’s in black and white,”
she rambled on, wondering exactly what she would do if all six feet
of him decided to topple over. “I can just imagine what the sky
must have looked like. Probably a mass of reds and oranges.”
    He nodded and swallowed so deliberately that
she could see his throat muscles working. “I expect you’re right,”
he said after a deafening moment of silence.
    “I’m not sure what this is,” she said,
pointing to a series of squiggly lines about an inch from the
bottom, on the right-hand side. “At first I thought it was the
photographer’s signature but I can’t make it out.”
    He looked at the picture more carefully. “I
don’t know,” he said, sounding concerned. He carefully laid it on
the bed and backed away a step, then another. Hell, if he weren’t
careful, he’d back himself all the way out the door and roll down
the stairs.
    “Grandmother is going to expect me to show
you around,” she cautioned. “I don’t want her to think there’s
anything odd going on.”
    He jerked his head, his eyes shifting quickly
from the photograph and settling on her. For a minute, he looked
almost wary.
    “George, is everything okay? Please don’t
tell me you’re going to back out of this now.”
    He pulled himself up straight and his broad
shoulders seemed even wider, to take up more space, to spread
maleness in the midst of what had always been purely female. When
he shook his head, she could feel the warm relief flow through
her.
    He inclined his head toward the bed. “You
going to hang that photograph?” he asked.
    “Yes. If you don’t mind,” she added. “I mean,
it’s your room, too.” Brother. Could she be any more awkward at
this?
    He didn’t say anything for a minute. Finally,
he looked at her and gave her one of his gentle smiles. “I think
I’d enjoy seeing it,” he said. “Reminds me of home.”
     
     

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    By the time they got halfway to the large red
shed, George could feel his lungs start to work again. For a
minute, when he’d seen Melody holding that photograph up against
the wall, he’d thought all the air had been sucked right out of
him.
    He’d taken the photograph of John Beckett and
Sarah Tremont the night before he had gotten into a stage with them
headed for Cheyenne. The plan had been for Sarah to get on a train
there and return to California, to her own place, hopefully to her
own time. John Beckett was to have returned home to his ranch in
Cedarbrook, Wyoming, and George was to have gone back to his
position as sheriff of Bluemont, North Dakota.
    But instead, they’d gotten halfway to
Cheyenne before the storm had started. Before he’d seen the next
dawn, he’d placed his feet in the footprints and traveled more than
a hundred years forward, to Sarah’s place, to Sarah’s time. And the
photograph, made from the glass plate he’d put in his bag with the
intention of giving it to John once Sarah had left, had been
waiting for him.
    How did things like that happen?
    “Let’s find Bernard,” Melody said, breaking
into his memories. “You can learn more about winemaking from him in
ten minutes than you could from most people in ten days.”
    “He and Pearl seem fond of each other.”
    “I think it’s a lot of mutual respect.
Grandmother knows that Bernard works like crazy and that Sweet Song
of Summer wines wouldn’t be half as successful without him. Bernard
knows that Grandmother trusts him implicitly—she never
second-guesses his decisions.”
    Maybe it was the photograph or maybe it was
hearing her describe the relationship between Bernard and her
grandmother so simply that suddenly made him homesick. He’d had
that kind of relationship once. With a whole town. He’d liked the
people of Bluemont, North Dakota, and he’d worked hard to earn
their respect as sheriff. In return, they’d trusted him. At least
until he’d left, a mere day after he’d buried his wife.
    He taken their trust,