A
Crack in Time
Catherine
St. James
Genre:
Paranormal Western Romance
(Gold
Rush Time-Travel)
Date
of Publication: November 17th, 2015
ISBN-13:
978-1518781643
ISBN-10:
1518781640
ASIN:
B01430HCSA
Number
of pages: 206 (paperback)
Word
Count: 52,129 (paperback)
Cover
Artist: Rogenna Brewer
Book
Description:
Their
love may be trapped forever between the past and the future…
Sara
Witherspoon is a beautiful and brilliant research microbiologist who
calls herself “a crackerjack gene-splicer;” she’s about to
marry Bruce Rule, a high-flying commodities broker.
But
while visiting St. Elmo’s Fire, Vermont, Sara encounters an anomaly
in the space time continuum and falls through a crack in time to the
1870’s gold rush town of Bury-Me-Quick Colorado, where she meets
Clay Dunhill, a soft-spoken, gentlemanly outlaw awaiting trial for
murder.
At
first, Sara thinks she’s hallucinating - prenuptial jitters, stress
or an endocrine system malfunction - but she quickly finds out the
bullets are just as real as her growing love for Clay…
Available
at Amazon
Excerpt:
Sara
sat up and looked around. It was daytime and she was sitting on a
grassy slope next to a road. There was a mild, tingling sensation
where the spark had hit her in the forehead. She stood up, feeling
lightheaded. She could see a haphazard cluster of buildings‚ tents,
lean-tos, and shacks stretched out along a tree-lined creek bed about
half a mile away. A blue cloud of smoke hung in the air. And beyond
was a majestic, snow-capped mountain range.
How
could this be? A moment ago she was in Vermont with her aunt and
Bruce. She obviously wasn’t in Vermont any longer. There were no
mountains like this in Vermont.
She
heard something approaching along the road. She turned and saw a
horse-drawn buggy driven by a white-haired man. The driver stopped
next to her. He was dressed in a black suit, a white shirt with a
starched collar, a string tie, and a black-brimmed hat. Sara’s
first thought was that he was Amish. Was this Pennsylvania? How did
she get to Pennsylvania? But how could this be Pennsylvania? They
didn’t have any high mountains like this in Pennsylvania, either.
“You
all right, miss?” the man in the buggy said.
“I
don’t know.”
“Your
horse throw you?”
“Horse?”
“You
look a little dazed. I’m Doc Clifford. You want my professional
medical opinion, I think you should get in out of the sun. Get
aboard, I’ll give you a ride into town.”
She
got into the buggy and, with a flick of the buggy whip, the buggy
lurched forward.
He
leaned over and looked closely at her eyes. “When we get to town,
maybe I ought to give you a good examination. Looks like you got a
pretty good bump right in the middle of your forehead. Jarred your
senses.”
He
blinked at her, then flicked the reins of the horse. It sped up. “I
think you might have a bad concussion there.”
“I
do feel a bit woozy.”
The
rough dirt road curved around the slope of the hill and carried them
into town. There was a lot of construction going on and at first Sara
thought it might be a movie set. The main street was curved upwards,
with short side streets—little more than alleys—shooting off from
it. A cluster of buildings in the center had board sidewalks and
porches and a line of skinny poles holding up a single wire.
Smoke
from a dozen cook fires and chimneys lay over the town like a
blanket.
The
buggy had slowed as they entered the town. The streets were crammed
with wagons, carriages, mules, donkeys, and people‚ mostly men in
flannel shirts and jeans and cowboy hats. A medicine man on the back
of a garishly painted wagon was hawking his wares to half a dozen men
and a couple women dressed in long skirts and bonnets and carrying
parasols.
“What
is this?” Sara asked. “Are you having frontier days or
something?”
“I
don’t catch your meaning. This is Bury-Me-Quick, Colorado.”
“How
did I get here?”
“Probably
took the train to Denver and the overland stage from there. That’s
how most folks get here.”
They
were passing the jail. The gallows were under construction next to
it.
“Stop!”
she said.
“Whoa!—What
is it?”
“Who
are they getting ready to hang?”
“Some
gambler. Shot an unarmed man, so six witnesses said. Me, I wouldn’t
believe any of them six witnesses if they swore the sun was high in
the sky at noon.”
The
horse had stopped. Sara got off the buggy.
“Young
lady, you best come to my office!”
“I
have to check something out.”
She
went into the sheriff’s office at the front of the red brick jail
building. Inside were a roll-top desk, a gun rack, and a pot-bellied
stove. The walls were papered with wanted posters. Behind the desk,
opposite the door, sat a fat, bewhiskered man in a rumpled suit with
a striped vest. He stood up.
“Afternoon,
siss. What can I do for you?”
“The
man you’re going to hang. I’d like to talk to him.”
“Are
you a friend?”
“I
think so. I’m not sure.”
The
sheriff smiled. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt. A shame Clay got
himself into this braggadocio, but I got to do what my sworn duty
says I got to do, and that’s hang him at dawn tomorrow.”
“I
wish I knew what’s going on around here,” Sara said. “Are you
folks making a TV show or something?”
“I’m
afraid I don’t know how to answer that, ma’am. You want to see
Dunhill or don’t you?”
“I
guess I do.” Sara felt a shudder of fear, as she sometimes did when
she had to give a presentation. Her skin tingled.
The
sheriff led her through a door to the back room. There were two small
cells, one on the left, one on the right. A young deputy sat on a
high stool against the wall opposite the cells with a shotgun in his
lap. He nodded to her as a greeting and spat some tobacco juice into
a spittoon.
“Afternoon,
ma’am.”
The
only inmate was sitting on a bunk tossing cards into his hat, humming
a tune. He turned around. It was the man Sara had seen in the crystal
ball, with the same cocky grin. His dark eyes lit up when he saw her.
“Well,
now, who’s this?” He squinted at her. “Do I know you?”
Sara
felt a rush of confusing emotions. Her heart fluttered. She was
dizzy. She touched the spot on her forehead where she’d been hit
with the spark. This was all some kind of crazy dream, she decided.
That was the only explanation.
“I
hope you don’t find me too forward,” Clay Dunhill said, “but
could I know your name?”
“Sara
Witherspoon.”
“A
fine name.”
“Do
I know you, Mr. Dunhill?” Sara asked‚ approaching the bars to his
cell. His gaze seemed so deep and he looked at her with such intense
warmth and tenderness she couldn’t quite catch her breath. She was
excited, yet frightened—she’d never felt this way before.
Clay
Dunhill touched her hand through the bars. A jolt of electricity went
through her and, in its wake, a warm sensation spread throughout her
being. Her heart felt as if it would burst. Looking into his dark
eyes stirred something deep within her and turned her incredibly soft
inside.
But
how could she feel anything for a complete stranger? Maybe she had
inadvertently taken some kind of drug. She had read about fungi that
caused people to hallucinate. Yes, that was it, that had to be it.
She had taken some hallucinogen by accident. Maybe it was the lunch
she had at a roadside diner in a little Massachusetts town she and
Bruce had driven through.
“My
old grandmother said once I was destined to meet a woman who would
steal my heart. You might just be the one. Too bad I’m about to be
hung.”
About
the Author:
Catherine
St. James wanted to be a writer as soon as she learned to read at age
four. She has an adventurous spirit and has traveled widely,
including time in Ethiopia where she spent some months in a Coptic
monastery praying, fasting, chanting, and meditating. She's an award
winning short story writer and lives on a 28 foot sloop, Write-on!,
in Northern California with her cat, Rascal. Recently she's met the
love of her life and has yet to discover where this adventure might
take her, and is eager to find out.
Catherine
writes romance and mystery.
To
hear about her latest books first, sign up for her exclusive New
Release Mailing List here: http://eepurl.com/bDTxLv
Website:
https://about.me/catherinestjames
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