OverTime 03: Slipping (First 70 Chapters)

Chapter 15: That Slutty Betsy from Pike (Lillabit)

What's the old saying? Once is chance. Twice is coincidence. But three times is a pattern. Or maybe a habit. Or enemy action?

I'd now had three intensely futuristic dreams. Three instances where I'd felt myself starting to slip... or had I? They could have just been really intense, realistic dreams.

I wanted so badly to tell myself that they were merely dreams!

But could I risk that?

All I knew for sure was that I'd had only one of those dreams with Jacob anywhere nearby -- and even then, he had been off across the hollow, not beside me.

It's really too bad I seemed to be Jacob-repellent.

He might be my best and only hope to stay here and start the family I longed for.

Our ride out to the Courthouse and Jail Rocks? Turns out it wasn't exactly a date, because we weren't alone. Half the camp got to go look at the rocks that evening, while a skeleton crew held the herd. The other half would go sight-seeing the following morning. Apparently, visiting big stone structures were almost as exciting as stopping outside a town.

Still, it felt lovely to be sitting my side saddle and riding Valley Boy again, especially nearing sunset, when the worst of the August heat eased. Especially with my husband riding tall and straight beside me on his brown mare, sometimes so close we could have reached out and held hands between us.

We didn't do that. Nor did we hug, when he rode in to fetch me, or kiss hello, no matter how much I wanted to do both. Not in front of the cowboys, I reminded myself. No spectacles.

But it would have been physically possible.

We even got a little conversation in!

Well, me. Mostly me. "You're from Texas, right?"

Jacob nodded, dividing his attention between me, his men, the two rocks off ahead of us, and the landscape spreading away from us. I guess you never know when wolves or outlaws or Injuns might sneak up -- apologies to the Native Americans.

I made the mistake of asking another closed-ended question. "Have you got family left there? Other than Thaddeas and his aunt?"

He nodded.

"Like...?" I prompted.

Jacob's eyes moved as if he was counting them in his head. "Mother, two brothers. Four sisters." More thinking, then a dismissal. "Passel of cousins."

Oh my. "You've got a mother?"

He blinked at me, nonplussed. "You figure maybe I hatched?"

That made me laugh, both at the wording and at the joy of us getting to know each other. He seemed startled by the laugh, but not displeased. "Wow," I said. "I've got in-laws."

Including a mother-in-law.

I wondered if mother-in-law stereotypes dated back to the 1870s, and feared they did. Would she hate me? Thank goodness I'd be in Wyoming!

Crossing Pumpkin Creek made for a short, splashy thrill, leaning waaay back in the saddle as Boy descended into the water, then waaay forward with my hands in his mane when he lunged up the other side.

Conversation had gone so well, I asked his siblings' names. "Or did you all just grunt at each other and point?" I teased, when he didn't seem to understand why it mattered. So he caved in and listed them: brothers Zachary and Matthew, mother Ida, sisters Trudy, Berta, Lottie, and Heddy. I had the strong feeling I was being humored.