"If I can."

  "You know that Stone and I don't—well, to put it mildly—we don't quite see eye to eye about things. I'm afraid if I ask him, he'll turn me down flat."

  Tess raised her eyebrows and waited for Tillie to continue.

  "'Course I have to check with Jack first and see if he can find Rose," Tillie mused. "But Daddy's just not up to doing a lot more than his gardening, and it would be a shame for all the rest of that land not to be used."

  "Are you trying to say that you want to lease the land you can't use if you buy Rose's ranch, Tillie?"

  "Lease it with an option to buy whenever Stone can afford it," Tillie said. "Do you think Stone would be interested? Oh, probably not, coming from me. After all, I sure gave him a lot of problems, butting into his business. I know he's acting as if he might have forgiven me, but..."

  "If he won't, I will, Tillie. Stone needs more land if he wants his ranch to grow. But I wouldn't lease or buy the land without discussing it with him first."

  "He'll probably say no."

  "You let me work on that. Okay, Tillie?"

  Tillie returned Tess's wink and walked down the steps. "Don't forget next Thursday," she called as she headed for her buggy. "We're going to have weekly meetings for a while, instead of bimonthly. Just until we get a handle on the new direction we want the Guild to take. And we still have to plan that reception for you and Stone."

  "I'll be there." Tess crossed to the rocking chair Tillie had vacated and sat down, keeping one eye on the barn in case Stone decided to take a break and join her. He'd spent a lot of time with her the last few days, but she knew he did have chores to do. She would try to tolerate his almost workaholic attitude as best she could. Maybe they could afford a hired hand.

  She mentally bit her tongue when the thought flitted across her mind that they could most definitely afford to hire help if Stone would allow her to help pay for it, until the profits from the ranch were enough to afford the hand's wages. Tillie's idea was logical, also, and Tess had been fairly confident as she'd assured Tillie that she might buy the land herself. Yet she had felt compelled to add it would only be after a discussion with Stone.

  They still had so many things to work out. She really wanted to talk to Jack Pierce about doing just some part-time legal work with him, but she would have to catch Stone in the right mood to discuss that. And she wanted all the discussions she and Stone shared from now on to be carried out in a mature manner. She was committed totally to him now, and she would never, ever childishly threaten him with going back through the time warp if she didn't get her own way.

  As much as they had enjoyed the past few days since they had found each other again on the hillside, she sensed just a tiny reserve in Stone. Tonight, after the kids went to bed, she would have a heart-to-heart with him, and give him her solemn promise to always work things out between them.

  She looked at the corral when a flicker of movement caught her eye. Sateen trotted out from behind the barn and over to the fence, nickering in Tess's direction. The mare obviously wanted to be exercised, as had become Tess's daily habit. But she wanted to wait until Stone could join her, and he was busy right now.

  She frowned as she stared at the horse. Sateen's presence was the one thing for which she couldn't find a rational answer. She had accepted the fact that she had fallen into a time warp—one waiting to engulf her when she fell down the mountainside. But Sateen? How had the mare gotten here?

  Another idea had been tugging at her mind, too, since she now knew exactly where the time warp was. What would it hurt for her to at least take the computer and diskettes back and leave them on Saddleback Mountain, with a note telling whoever found them to deliver them to the law firm? Someone would surely notice them on the hiking trail sooner or later. She had no idea how much time had passed back in her former life, but even if Robert's former company's attorneys had won a summary judgment, it could be appealed for up to thirty days afterward.

  She continued to feel a stab of guilt now and then about having the necessary documentation with her to clear Robert, although she had absolutely no feelings left for her ex-fiancé. But she had no desire for revenge against him, either. She just hadn't been able to figure out how to approach Stone about her idea.

  When she turned her gaze away from Sateen, she saw three riders far down the road and recognized Rain's gray gelding. Silver Eagle was bringing the kids home. After glancing down at her bare legs, she walked into the house to get dressed. The shaman had been shocked to find his granddaughter in pants. What would he say if he found Flower's mother prancing around half naked?

  In deference to Silver Eagle she slipped on one of her dresses. Tess wished the weather would break. Back in the Adirondacks there were probably already signs of fall in the air, but she didn't really know whether Oklahoma's leaves changed each year. She did remember seeing weather reports of snow in the winter down here. And one of the firm's attorneys had come back from a spring seminar in Dallas raving about the beautiful wildflowers and dogwood he'd seen on a tour of the area. She'd bet spring would be gorgeous here.

  When she stepped out on the porch again, she saw Silver Eagle and the children dragging a bundle from the barn. A second later, she realized it was the tepee. At the Cherokee camp some families still lived in their tepees, although a few had already begun building permanent houses. She guessed the shaman must be planning to stay for a few days.

  Rain and Flower caught sight of her and raced to the cabin, where Rain overcame his little-boy reluctance and hugged her tightly, along with Flower. They both began chattering at once, trying to fill her in on their visit to the Cherokee all in one breath.

  "Whoa," she finally said. "You'll both have plenty of time to tell me everything you've done. Let me go say hello to your grandfather. And I'd like to learn how that tepee goes together, since I was busy in the cabin the last time it was put up."

  She hugged them both again, one in each arm. "I'm really glad you're home, kids. I've missed you."

  "Us, too," Flower said as she linked her arm with Tess's and walked out into the yard. "But the nicest thing was that we knew when we came home this time you'd be our real mother. With you and Pa married, I mean. Tess, you won't go away now, will you?"

  "I'm going to be your mother forever," she reassured her. "You won't have to worry about that ever again."

  Flower gave a deep, contented sigh, and Silver Eagle held out his hand as they approached. But Tess stepped up and kissed his weathered cheek. "Welcome to our home," she said. "I wanted to ask you if it's all right for me to call you Father now."

  "You are the mother of my grandchildren," the shaman said with a smile. "I would be honored."

  "I'm the one who's proud of it," she replied. "I hope you're planning to stay for a while."

  "Only for two days. We have a saying among the Cherokee that fish and relatives smell after three days."

  She laughed gaily. "I thought that was a white saying. Can I get you any bedding or...?"

  "Tess," Flower hastily put in. "Wait 'til you see what I made for you at the camp." She grabbed her arm and started to pull her away, but Silver Eagle shook his head at her.

  "It is—how does your new mother say—okay, Flower," he said. "She has only been part of the Cherokee for a few weeks. You can teach her our customs."

  "What's wrong?" Tess asked, frowning. "I did the wash—everything's clean."

  Rain snickered, but cut it off when Silver Eagle gave him a stern look. "Uh... it's like this, Ma," he said, and her heart swelled at the term. "It's sort of rude to offer our sheets and stuff—like you think what Grandfather brought with him isn't clean."

  "Oh. I'm sorry," she said, then added, "Well, I hope it's not rude to offer chocolate cake. I made a huge one early this morning, and I'd hate to have to eat it all alone."

  "Chocolate cake's fine," Rain assured her seriously, glancing around in surprise when they broke into laughter.

  Thirty-Seven

  Where in the world was everyone? Tess asked herself when she realized how quiet the cabin was the next afternoon. And why was she sitting in here at the table, hemming the curtains she and Flower had cut out? She could just as well do that out on the porch, where it was a little cooler.

  She gathered up another pair of curtains and carried them, with Flower's sewing box, out onto the porch. Well, there was Flower—watering her rose bushes with the umpteenth bucket of water from that well. She really wished Sid would get that pipe out here. How long did it take for orders from Oklahoma City to arrive, anyway? Probably quite a while by wagon, she realized, since no trains ran to Clover Valley.

  Stone, of course, had ridden out to check on the cattle, but he should be back any minute. She'd heard Stone ask Rain to keep an eye on the mare in the barn, in case she showed signs of foaling early. Perhaps that's where Rain and Silver Eagle were—in the barn. She tossed the curtains on the rocking chair and set the sewing box on the seat.

  "Flower," she called, "have you seen Rain?"

  "He and Grandfather rode out a few minutes ago, Mother," Flower called back.

  Tess allowed herself a smile of pleasure at Flower's new title for her, and a brief thought that she hoped she never look the meaning of the term for granted, before she said, "Do you know if he checked on the mare before he left?"

  "Probably," Flower replied. "He's pretty responsible about doing whatever Pa asks him to."

  He was, Tess agreed silently. She glanced at the curtains, but Sateen called to her from the corral. The poor mare. She hadn't exercised her yesterday—it had slipped her mind after the children had returned. And she hadn't had that heart-to-heart with Stone, either.

  Once again, the mare reminded her of the time warp and the computer diskettes. As hard as she tried to convince herself that Robert deserved whatever happened to him, she couldn't overcome her guilty feelings.

  If she did take the computer and diskettes back, and if someone did find them, whatever hullabaloo her disappearance had caused would probably be stirred up again. Yet no one would ever find her back here in 1893. After seven years she would be declared dead and her estate settled. The only real asset she had was her life insurance policy. She hadn't changed the beneficiary on it, having planned to get around to it sometime before the wedding. Instead of Robert benefitting from it, as he would have as her husband, it would still go to set up a yearly scholarship for a deserving student at her hometown high school in West Virginia.

  She quickly reentered the cabin and hurried to the bedroom, changing into her jeans. A few minutes later, as she strode to the barn, she relayed to Flower her plans to take Sateen for a run. Her daughter waved a hand to indicate that she understood and bent to pull out a weed from the roots of the rosebush she had just watered.

  Good, Tess thought. Flower didn't notice the leather case I'm carrying. Propping it against a corral post, she hurried into the barn and returned with tack for Sateen. A short time later she mounted and rode out of the yard, the leather case in the hand that wasn't controlling the reins.

  As she headed toward the hillside, a niggling thought came to her—perhaps she should have tried harder to discuss this with Stone—asked him to come with her. But he might not have agreed that this was the best thing to do. He didn't much care to discuss her former fiancé and his moldy money.

  Sateen tossed her head and balked for a second when Tess urged her up the hillside.

  "I know," she said. "You'd rather head out to the range and go for a full-tilt run. We will, before we go back to the corral."

  The mare snorted, then obediently took the path up the hillside. The steep climb forced Tess to keep Sateen at a walk, and just before she rounded the same bend in the trail that had given her the first glimpse of Stone, she became aware of voices ahead of her. She pulled Sateen to a halt and listened quietly.

  Rain and Silver Eagle's voices—so that's where they had gone. But she could swear she also heard a woman's voice. She cocked her head as another strange male voice reached her ears. Who else was up here on the hillside? She kneed Sateen forward, around the bend.

  She pulled up the mare again and stared in astonishment. The two figures hovering in the air above Rain and Silver Eagle disappeared with a tiny poof, but the misty fluffiness where they had stood remained.

  "Michael, the cloud!" Tess heard the woman's voice say, and the white cloud dissipated.

  She blinked her eyes—rubbed at them—then closed her open mouth with a snap. She shook her head and stared at the place above Silver Eagle's head where she had seen—no, of course not. She looked higher, at the sky. All the other clouds were far above her.

  Oh, shoot, what was she thinking? She drew her gaze back to the shaman and her son. Rain ducked his head and shuffled a foot in the dust, but Silver Eagle stared back at her with a thoughtful look on his face.

  "What...?" She cleared her throat with a croak. "What—or who—was that? Did you see...? Were you talking to...? Were those sp... sp... spirits?"

  Angela whispered frantically to Michael, "What are we going to do? Oh, we're in trouble now. We weren't supposed to let her see us, and we forgot while we talked to Rain and Silver Eagle."

  Michael cocked an ear upward. "I don't hear Mr. G yelling at us yet," he whispered back. "Maybe it's all right. Uh-oh. Look at Tess!"

  Tess slid from her horse and marched toward Rain and Silver Eagle, carrying the leather computer case with her.

  "They were spirits, weren't they?" she asked, astonished. "And I've heard those voices before—up on Saddleback before I fell, and outside the cabin one day. Who are they? They've got something to do with how I got here to Oklahoma, don't they? Or, if not me, then they sure as heck brought Sateen here! I can believe that I fell through that time warp, but Sateen had to have had some help!"

  When Silver Eagle and Rain remained silent, she stamped her foot and crossed her arms, holding the computer case against her chest. "Answer me, darn it! I demand to know what's going on here!"

  "But you haven't fasted, Ma," Rain began in a tentative voice. "I mean, we didn't either this time, but we did the first time."

  She gripped her arms tighter and glared at Silver Eagle. "Who were they?"

  Silver Eagle glanced at Rain, and Rain looked overhead, then shrugged his shoulders at his grandfather. Tess could have sworn that Rain's actions indicated he had consulted with one of the figures, which could still be hovering over him, invisible to her.

  "Rain!" she almost shouted.

  "They were spirits," Silver Eagle finally said. "They say they are your guardian angels."

  "My..." Her jaw fell again and locked open. Her arms dropped to her sides, and she slowly shook her head. "Ah..." She lifted a hand to pop her jaw closed so she could speak. "I don't believe you."

  "It's rude to call Grandfather a liar, Ma," Rain said in a hurt voice. "'Sides, I saw them first and told him about Michael and Angela."

  "Michael and Angela," she repeated. "Oh, my God. You're telling me the truth, aren't you?"

  Rain sighed in exasperation. "'Course we are. Angela came with you that day on the hill, and Michael just after that. They've been here all the time, but I couldn't try to talk to them until after Grandfather and I fasted at the Cherokee camp. We knew they'd come with you—they never follow anyone else."

  "I see," she murmured. "Or do I? Rain, I'd like you and Silver Eagle to leave me alone now. There are a couple of slices of cake left down at the cabin, in the kitchen."

  When Rain hesitated, Silver Eagle smiled and laid a hand on his grandson's shoulder, urging him toward their horses.

  Rain mounted Smoky, and as soon as Silver Eagle settled in his pinto's saddle, they both reined their horses past Sateen and headed down the hillside without another word to her.

  Suddenly she wished she'd asked them to stay. Despite the bright daylight, it felt rather spooky here now. Maybe she should have asked the shaman to help her talk to the angels. But when she looked behind her, Rain and Silver Eagle were already out of sight.

  She turned back and took a deep breath. "Uh... Michael. And Angela. I'd like to speak to you."

  She stood quietly for a long moment, but nothing happened. Then she repeated her request in a firmer voice.

  "What should we do, Michael?" Angela whispered.

  "You got me," he replied. "Are there any rules for this?"

  "I don't know. Rain and Silver Eagle saw us all along. But then, Silver Eagle's a shaman. I've never slipped up and let an assignment see me before, and ask to speak to me. Maybe we're supposed to use our own judgment."

  "All we can do is try it and see what happens," he said. "If Mr. G doesn't want her to see us, we probably won't be able to appear to her."

  "Look," Tess said, her voice taking on a slight edge, "I've already had a glimpse of you, so I know darn well you're there. You were up on Saddleback with me, weren't you? And you followed me here, didn't you? You kept me from being hurt when my horse threw me off out there after the wild stallion attacked, didn't you? You brought Sateen here, too."

  Her voice rose another notch. "Didn't you? Now you get your little butts back on that cloud and come out here where I can see you!"

  She gasped and backed up a step as the mistiness began materializing in the air again. Her hand flew to her throat, and she stared in astonishment at the two figures on the cloud. What an incongruous pair. They both had beautiful white wings folded on their backs, and the woman looked the most angelic, what with her white robe and pretty blond hair. The man was pudgy and balding, wearing a pair of flowing white pants.

  Tess giggled and shook her head. How could she be afraid of these two?

  "Hello. I guess you're Michael and Angela, huh?"

  "Yep," Michael said. "And I guess you can see us. We weren't sure if you'd be able to."

  "You let Rain and Silver Eagle see you."

  "That's different," Angela said, but she didn't offer any further explanation.