A Wife In Time

Remembering she had a fold-up fan in her purse, a convention giveaway, she dug inside the large bag hanging from her shoulder until she found what she was looking for. As she did so, she was struck by culture shock. When she’d gotten the free fan that morning, the year had been 1995 and she’d been a woman confident of her agenda.

Now she wasn’t confident about much of anything; but one thing was sure—that old saying about you not missing something until it was gone was right on the money. Now that the conveniences of modern life were gone, Susannah missed them more than she could say. Air-conditioning topped the list. Air freshener and deodorant were right up there, too, she decided with a dainty sniff. The room could use the former and the men in it, the latter.

A few minutes later, Kane returned to her side. “Are we leaving now?” she asked hopefully.

“No. We’re going to play some poker. Or more precisely, I’m going to play poker. You’re going to stand nearby and keep quiet.”

“Surely you jest,” she retorted.

“Not at all.”

“And how do you plan on playing poker with no money?”

“I suppose I could try and use you as the stakes,” he responded teasingly.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Try and die.”

“Somehow I figured you’d say that. So we’ll use your jewelry instead.”

“What’s with this ‘we’ business? And you’re not getting your grubby hands on my jewels.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, which gave him a devilish look that went well with his dark tux and tails.

“You know what I mean,” she muttered.

“You have a brighter idea?”

“There must be another way. A more reliable way than gambling.”

“If there is, we don’t have time to find out,” Kane said. “Jed tells me there’s a game just beginning in the back room. You’re welcome to wait outside with Polly, if you’d rather.”

She gave him a look that would have withered a rattlesnake before coolly informing him, “I’d rather have an iced cappuccino in front of an air conditioner set on High, but that doesn’t appear to be an option at the moment.”

“You’ve got that right. You’ll just have to make do with me.”

The man was laughing at her, damn him! She was prepared to give him a tongue-lashing—to use the vernacular of the time—when he put his arm around her, as if to solicitously lead her through the crowd in the tavern to the back room and the poker game. As he did so, he whispered a warning in her ear. “Don’t cause a scene here. Remember Bellevue.”

Bellevue? He had that right! She belonged in a mental institution for agreeing to this harebrained plan of his. Unfortunately she couldn’t come up with an alternative moneymaking scheme of her own at the moment.

So she kept quiet as Kane used the two rings she always wore—one a wide gold antique filigreed band she wore on her left hand, the other a half-carat channel-set diamond ring her parents had given her for her twenty-first birthday—as an opening stake into the game. Wryly wondering if her insurance policy covered losing her jewelry in a poker game held in 1884, Susannah was all too aware of the interested looks she was getting from the men in the smoky back room. Again, she was the only woman present.

The blue haze of cigar smoke was enough to make her stomach turn. Her queasiness was increased by the speed with which Kane began losing. Next he demanded her bracelet.

She immediately protested. “This was my—”

“Favorite bracelet. I know,” Kane said in a curt voice. “I’ll buy you another one.”

Despite the fact that he was losing, something about his confidence had her handing over her garnet-and-gold bracelet. And then her matching earrings. But she’d refused to take off her great-grandmother’s necklace. She absolutely drew the line there!

She watched with concern as the stack of coins Kane had been given dwindled to one. Kane had warned her not to say anything, but he was crazy if he thought she was going to stand here and watch him go into hock.

As if sensing her thoughts, he sent her a warning look before drawling, “Gentlemen, I appear to have a problem with dwindling resources.”

“Too bad,” a cigar-smoking man named J. P. Bellows said after spewing a series of perfect smoke rings. He was the most talkative of the bunch. “Appears I’ve won, then.”

“Not so fast,” Kane replied. “There’s still my wife’s necklace.”

Wife? Susannah doubted her hearing. Her ears were starting to ring from exhaustion. She’d gotten up at four that morning to catch a flight from New York to Savannah and had arrived at the convention center a little before nine, spent the day on her feet with little to eat—not to mention time traveling 111 years. A person was bound to get a little jet-lagged under those circumstances.

Which no doubt explained why she thought she’d heard Kane describe her as his wife. Not that she was going to argue the point now. She’d seen the heated looks the Southern so-called gentlemen had been sending her way and she had a feeling their thoughts were as blue as the air. She had no intention of becoming the center of their unwanted attention. Kane was the lesser of two evils. For the moment, at least.

While she’d been momentarily distracted by her thoughts, Kane had finalized the arrangements for using her necklace as collateral for his latest bet. And, to her horror, he bet the entire amount on the cards he was holding.

“You’re going to need more than a garnet necklace to call my bet,” J.P. told Kane.

The room was suddenly still. Into the silence fell a sudden beep-beep.

“What was that?” J.P. demanded.

“My watch,” Kane replied.

“I never heard a watch make that sound before.”

“It’s a very unusual watch.”

“Let’s see it, then.”

Kane held out his wrist and showed them his watch, with its LCD digital display and numerous function buttons.

“That’s no watch,” J.P. scoffed. “Where’s the face?”

“Doesn’t need one. See, the time is displayed in numbers.”

“Toss in that strange watch of yours and you’ve got a deal,” J.P. declared.

“Done.”

Susannah wished she knew enough about poker to know if his hand was good or not. The expression on his face gave nothing away. The dismay on hers no doubt encouraged the other men around the table.

Susannah clung to her necklace, which Kane had been wise enough not to try to remove from around her neck. Closing her eyes, she sent up a prayer.

Moments later she heard the collective groans from the other men at the table. Was that good or bad?

Her eyes flew open to see Kane raking a large pile of coins and paper money in his direction. “Did we win?”

“We won,” he confirmed.

A wave of wild relief overtook her common sense. “Yes!” She let out a triumphant whoop worthy of a football fan while making an elated victorious gesture, fisting one hand and rocking back on one foot.