Somewhere in Time (The Crosse Harbor Time Travel Trilogy) Read online

  Somewhere in Time

  Book 1 – Crosse Harbor Time Travel Trilogy

  by

  Barbara Bretton

  Praise for the Crosse Harbor Time Travel Trilogy

  "SOMEWHERE IN TIME sweeps readers away into a marvelous world where love is timeless and dreams come true. Combine this ingenious plot . . . with humor and sensuality and you have a great read." –Romantic Times

  SOMEWHERE IN TIME – Reviewers Choice Winner – Best Historical Time Travel

  TOMORROW & ALWAYS - "Bretton is a monumental talent who targets her audience with intelligence and inspiration." –Affaire de Coeur

  "[TOMORROW & ALWAYS] is an entertaining story." --Booklist

  DESTINY'S CHILD - "Wonderful wit, a feisty heroine, a gifted child, and great glimpses of friends from the past combine to make magic!" – Romantic Times

  Praise for USA Today Bestselling Author Barbara Bretton

  "A monumental talent." --Affaire de Coeur

  "Very few romance writers create characters as well-developed as Bretton's. Her books pull you in and don't let you leave until the last word is read." --Booklist (starred review)

  "One of today's best women's fiction authors." --The Romance Reader

  "Barbara Bretton is a master at touching readers' hearts." --Romance Reviews Today

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 1992, 2012 by Barbara Bretton. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  Cover and eBook design Copyright 2012 by Barbara Bretton

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  Excerpt from TOMORROW & ALWAYS

  Excerpt from DESTINY'S CHILD

  About the Author

  "She was what a woman ought to be."

  --Tombstone of one woman of Trenton,

  late 18th century

  Chapter One

  Near Philadelphia

  Zane Grey Rutledge downshifted into second as he guided the black Porsche up the curving driveway toward Rutledge House. Gravel crunched beneath the tires, sending a fine spray across the lacquered surface of the hood and fenders. He swore softly as a pebble pinged against the windshield, leaving behind a spider-web crack in the glass. A pair of moving vans were angled in the driveway near the massive front door and he eased to a stop behind one of them and let out the clutch.

  He didn't want to be there. Rutledge House without his grandmother Sara Jane was nothing more than a haunted collection of faded bricks and stones.

  "One day it will all matter to you," Sara Jane had said to him not long before she died. "I have faith that you'll see there's nothing more important than family."

  But he didn't have a family. Not anymore. With Sara Jane's death he had moved closer to the edge of the cliff. The lone remaining Rutledge in a long and illustrious series of Rutledges who had made their mark on a country.

  Lately he'd had the feeling that his grandmother was watching him from somewhere in the shadows, shaking her head the way she used to when he was a boy and had been caught drinking beer with his friends from the wrong side of town.

  He leaned back in his contoured leather seat and watched as the treasures of a lifetime were carried from the house by a parade of moving men. Winterhalter portraits of long-dead Rutledges, books and mementoes that catalogued a nation's history as well as a family's.

  His fingers drummed against the steering wheel. He'd done the right thing, the only thing he could have done, given the circumstances. Rutledge House would survive long after he was gone. Wasn't that what his grandmother had wanted?

  "Mr. Rutledge? Oh, Mr. Rutledge, it is you. I was so afraid I'd missed you."

  He started at the sound of the woman's voice floating through the open window of the car.

  "Olivia McRae," she said, smiling coyly as she prompted his memory. "We met last week."

  He opened the car door and unfolded himself from the sleek black sports car. "I remember," he said, shaking the woman's bird-like hand. "Eastern Pennsylvania Preservation Society."

  She dimpled and Zane was struck by the fact that in her day Olivia McRae had probably been a looker.

  "We have much to thank you for. I must tell you we feel as if Christmas has come early this year!"

  He shot her a quizzical look. She was thanking him? In the past few days he had come to think of her as his own personal savior for taking Rutledge House and its contents off his hands.

  "A pleasure," he said, relying on charm to cover his surprise.

  "Oh, it's a fine day for Rutledge House," she said, her tone upbeat. "I know your dear departed grandmother Sara Jane would heartily approve of your decision."

  "Approve might be too strong a word," he said with a wry grin. "Accept is more like it." Bloodlines had been everything to Sara Jane Rutledge. No matter that the venerable old house had been tumbling down around her ears, in need of more help than even the family fortune could provide. So long as a Rutledge was in residence, all had been right with her world.

  Although she never said it in so many words, he knew that in the end he had disappointed her. No wife, no children, no arrow shot into the future of the Rutledge family

  "Just you wait," Olivia McRae said, patting his arm in a decidedly maternal gesture. "Next time you see it this wonderful old house will be on the way to regaining its former glory."

  "It's up to you now, Olivia."

  "We would welcome your input," the older woman said. "And we would most certainly like to have a Rutledge on the board of directors at the museum."

  "Sorry," he said, perhaps a beat too quickly. "I think a clean break is better all around."

  The woman's warm brown eyes misted over. "How thoughtless of me! This must be dreadfully difficult, coming so soon after the loss of your beloved grandmother."

  Zane looked away. Little in life unnerved him. Talk of his late grandmother did. "I have a flight to catch," he said. No matter that the plane didn't take off until the next afternoon. As far as he was concerned, emotions were more dangerous than skydiving without a parachute. "I'd better get moving."

  Olivia McRae peered into the car. "You do have the package, don't you?"

  "Package?" His brows knotted.

  "Oh, Mr. Rutledge, you can't leave without the package I set out for you." She looked at him curiously. "The uniform."

  "Damn," he muttered under his breath. The oldest male child in each generation is entrusted with the uniform, Sara Jane had told him on his twelfth birthday when she handed him the carefully wrapped package. Someday you'll hand it down to your son.

  He hadn't forgotten about the uniform. He knew exactly where it was: in the attic under a thick layer of dust, as forgotten as the past.

  "You wait right here," said Mrs. McRae, turning back toward the house. "I'll fetch it for you."

  He was tempted to get behind the wheel of the Porsche and be halfway to Man
hattan before the woman crossed the threshold. For as long as he could remember that uniform had been at the heart of Rutledge family lore. His grandmother and her sisters had woven endless stories of derring-do and bravery and laid every single one of them at the feet of some long-dead Revolutionary War relative who'd probably never done anything more courageous than shoot himself a duck for dinner.

  Moments later Olivia McRae was back by his side.

  "Here you are," she said, pressing a large, neatly-wrapped parcel into his arms with the same tenderness a mother would display toward her first-born. "To think you almost left without it."

  "Heavier than I remembered," he said. "You're sure there isn't a musket in there with the uniform?"

  Mrs. McRae's lined cheeks dimpled. "Oh, you! You always were a tease. Why, you must have seen this uniform a million times."

  "Afraid I never paid much attention."

  "That can't be true."

  "I'm not much for antiques."

  "This is more than an antique," she said, obviously appalled. "This is a piece of American history . . . your history." She patted the parcel. "Open it, Mr. Rutledge. I'd love to see your face when you –"

  "I will," he interrupted, edging toward the Porsche, "but right now I'd better get on the road."

  "Of course," she said, her smile fading. "I understand."

  She looked at him and in her eyes Zane saw disappointment. Why should Mrs. McRae be any different? Disappointing people was what he did best.

  He tossed the package in the back seat and with a quick nod toward Olivia McRae, roared back down the drive and away from Rutledge House.

  He was almost at the Ben Franklin Bridge when he noticed the needle on his gas gauge was hovering around E. He whipped into the first gas station he saw and couldn't help grinning at the crowd of attendants who swarmed the sports car.

  "Fill it," he said. "And it's okay if you want to check under the hood."

  He was thinking about where he'd stashed his passport after his weekend in London last month when out of nowhere he heard Sara Jane's voice.

  You didn't think I was going to let you get away without a fight, did you?

  He jumped, cracking his elbow against the gear stick. Sara Jane? Ridiculous. It was probably his guilty conscience speaking.

  It's not too late, Zane. Open your eyes to what's around you and your heart will soon follow . . .

  What the hell did that mean? It sounded like something he'd read in a fortune cookie.

  He glanced toward the package resting on the seat next to him. Experience had taught him that the best way to handle anything from a hangover to a guilty conscience was the hair of the dog that bit you. He might as well get it over with while he waited.

  "Okay," he said out loud, unknotting the string then folding back the brown paper. There was nothing scary about a moth-eaten hunk of fabric, even if he was hearing voices.

  So what are you going to do, Zane, toss it in your closet and forget it the way you forgot everything else? You owe my memory more than that. Do the right thing this time.

  Okay, now it was getting weird. If he didn't know better, he'd swear Sara Jane was sitting in the car with him. He didn't have time for any of this..

  Make time! Wasn't I the only one who ever made time for you?

  The truth hurt. Sara Jane was the one person he'd been able to count on when he was growing up, the only one who'd never let him down.

  Maybe he was crazy. Maybe she really was contacting him from another plane of existence. Or maybe it was just that guilty conscience of his speaking up. Whatever it was, two hours and six phone calls later, he was on his way down the Jersey shore.

  It wasn't possible. He knew that as well as he knew his own name. The odds against it were just too overwhelming. But time and again he'd heard the same thing: "Emilie Crosse is the one you need to see." From Professor Attleman at Rutgers to Deno Grandinetti at the Smithsonian, every historian he contacted all sang the praises of the woman with the old-fashioned name and outdated occupation who just happened to be his ex-wife.

  The woman who had broken his heart when she walked out the door one soft spring evening and never looked back.

  "You play dirty, Sara Jane," he said as he raced south along the Garden State, "but it's not going to work. I'm dropping off the uniform and then I'm leaving for Tahiti, understand?"

  It's a start, dear boy, the familiar voice said with a laugh. It's a start.

  #

  Crosse Harbor, New Jersey

  At the moment her life changed forever, Emilie Crosse was balanced on a stepstool on her front porch, watering a flowering begonia plant that had seen better days. She was considering whether or not to put the poor thing out of its misery when the deep roar of a car engine brought her up short.

  She wasn't expecting anyone. The most traffic her dead-end street usually saw was the appearance of the red-white-and-blue US mail truck every morning and the truck's engine sputtered rather than roared.

  She climbed down from the stepstool and, wiping her hands on the sides of her pants, glanced toward the street as the sound grew closer. A shiny black foreign car rounded the corner and she felt the kickstart of adrenaline hit her bloodstream. It didn't take an automotive genius to figure out you could run the Crosse Harbor school system on what the driver had paid for that sleek beauty.

  It also didn't take a genius to figure out where the car was headed. Hers was the last house before you hit the water.

  The car roared up her driveway as if it were the home stretch of the Indianapolis 500 and screeched to a stop aggressively close to her dumpy old Chevy.

  She'd only known one person in her life who wouldn't be overshadowed by a car like that and she'd been crazy enough to marry him

  The car door swung open and she pinched herself sharply on the inside of her arm then looked again. No doubt about it. Striding up the driveway was Zane Grey Rutledge, the Main Line Philly son with the Wild West name who had captured her heart back when she still believed in happy endings.

  "Been a long time, Emilie," he said in a voice so rich with testosterone that it made her knees buckle. "You look great."

  "You too," she said, shaking her head at the understatement. "So let me guess: you were in the neighborhood and decided to pop in and say hello.”

  He smiled but the look in his eyes gave her pause. "I would've called but you're not listed."

  "Emily Crosse Restorations. I'm in the book."

  "I'll keep that in mind."

  "Is there something I can do for you?"

  "You're not going to ask me in?"

  "You're here for a reason, Zane, and it isn't to talk about old times." She sounded cool and collected. He'd never in a million years suspect the way her heart was thundering inside her chest in an approximation of flat-out, unadulterated, completely ridiculous joy. "What do you want?"

  "Your professional opinion."

  She barked a laugh that embarrassed her. "You're kidding."

  He didn't look like he was kidding. To her surprise she caught a flash of vulnerability behind the movie-star smile and her defenses started to melt.

  "I have a package in the car that I'd like you to look at," he said, shifting his weight to his left foot.

  "Is this some kind of joke?"

  "Trust me, Em, it's no joke."

  "I'm pretty busy," she said, "but if you make an appointment I'd be happy to see what I can do."

  "I can't. I'm leaving for Tahiti tomorrow morning."

  Instantly her defenses started to regroup. He'd always been on the way to Tahiti or Aspen or the dark side of the moon.

  And he'd always been able to turn her into a hopeless romantic with a soft spot for happily-ever-after endings that never came true.

  "Then it can wait until you return."

  He didn't hear a word she said. He was already halfway to his Porsche, his long legs eating up the ground with each stride. She watched, awash in a weird combination of appreciation and annoyance. Time ha
d been unfairly kind to him. He cut a dashing figure in his tailored grey slacks and white shirt of silky Egyptian cotton. Broad shoulders. Narrow hips. Powerful legs.

  Definitely the poster boy for pirate fantasies.

  Too bad a good marriage required more than great sex and a well-worn passport.

  "Okay," he said, as he mounted the porch steps and rejoined her. "When can you start?"

  "When you come back from Tahiti."

  "I'm not coming back."

  "Then time shouldn't be much of an issue."

  "I need to take care of this before I leave."

  "You should have thought about that sooner."

  "Wish I could have, Em, but this all happened a few hours ago."

  She eyed the package as an unexpected thrum of excitement began to move along the base of her spine. "What exactly is this?"

  He hesitated just long enough for her to notice. "Clothes."

  "Jeans? A Dior ball gown? Help me out here, Zane."

  She heard the quick intake of breath before he spoke. "Some kind of uniform."

  "A uniform." The low thrum turned into a buzz. "How old?"

  "Two hundred plus a decade or two."

  Her breath caught in her throat. "Revolutionary War era?"

  He nodded. "That's what they say."

  "Who says?" she demanded. "Where exactly did you get this from?"

  "I didn't steal it, if that's what you're worrying about."

  She stared up at him, her mind ablaze with excitement. "Rutledge House?" The glorious family mansion near Philadelphia that had housed generations of his family's secrets and dreams.

  "Lucky guess," he said with a shrug.

  "I read that you were turning it into a museum."

  "That's what Sara Jane would have wanted."

  She shot him a look but held her tongue. From everything he'd told her about his grandmother, what Sara Jane Rutledge would have wanted was to see Zane married and settled down, filling the grand old house with children and grandchildren who would carry on the family name.

  "I was very sorry to read about your grandmother's death." The passing of one of the last great ladies of Philadelphia society had made news all across the tri-state area.