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1800s…”
    “It was just a joke. Lighten up.” Jack scowled, and so did the woman. He turned and started for the stairs. As he stepped loudly onto the first one, he said, “We’ll be checking out in the morning.”
    The woman’s eyes gleamed. “You reserved the room for a week.”
    Jack took two more steps upstairs and then rushed back down. “Wait a second, are you saying I have to pay for a week of time travel?”
    “There are no refunds once you—”
    “Seriously? She registered for a week? Now I have to stay here for a week?”
    The woman nodded.
    Jack held up his hands and walked backward. “Okay. Thanks. Thanks a lot.” He wanted to stomp up the stairs, but he didn’t.
    Sleeping on the sofa won’t kill me.
    Jack marched back into the room and second-guessed his earlier assessment. The “sofa” was an old loveseat that was four feet long. He sat down on it, and it moved under his weight. The white cushions were only about an inch thick. He rubbed them between his fingers, trying to figure out what they were stuffed with.
    Hay?
    Replacement stuck her head out of the bathroom and looked sheepishly at him.
    “What?” He tried not to sneer.
    “Can I take a bath? They have a giant tub. I could swim in it.”
    “Sure, kid. Knock yourself out.”
    She let out a little squeal and disappeared. After an hour, she came back out, purring like a kitten. He was glad that he’d gotten her a T-shirt and a pair of sweats, but even dressed like that…Jack swallowed hard and tried to keep his focus on her face.
    “Smell me! Smell me!” She ran over and thrust her hand under his nose.
    Jack was going to protest the odd request, but she smelled like lilies of the valley.
    Mrs. Lincoln.
    Jack had a teacher in elementary school who wore it. She’d been his first real crush, and even now he could picture the young woman standing before the class.
    “It’s nice.” He sighed as the image of his smiling teacher retreated from his mind.
    “Feel!” Before he could stop her, she grabbed him and rubbed his hand up and down her arm. Her body was still warm from the bath, and his hand glided over her silky skin. She let go, and Jack caressed her arm with the back of his hand. On the upswing, his fingers paused at the large, open sleeve.
    He pulled his hand back. “Okay. Enough touching and smelling. You’re good with both. We better get to bed.”
    “I’m on the right.” She giggled, dashed over, and got under the covers. When her head appeared, she snuggled down into the comforter and peered out at Jack. “You’re not going to sleep on that?” She laughed as she noticed his blanket.
    Here I’m trying to be nice about her screw-up, and she laughs at me?
    “I know you didn’t know better, but you should have gotten two beds.” Jack plunked down on the sofa.
    “Why? This one is enormous. You’ll be all the way over there. Two beds wouldn’t even fit in this room.”
    “I’m fine. I slept on worse in the Army.”
    “But you don’t have to. I don’t mind. I’ve seen you naked.” She snickered.
    “We’re not sharing a bed. Go to sleep.”
    It was quiet for a couple of minutes and then she said, “Okey-dokey. If you need to, just climb in on the left. I’ll put pillows between us.”
    Jack smiled and lay back. He might as well have tried to sleep on a balance beam. The loveseat defeated him after an hour, but there was no way that he was going to get in the bed. He wrapped himself in the blanket and got down on the floor.
    Jack rolled over and, as he lay on his back, he could feel his hair billowing in a cold breeze. He couldn’t tell where the wind was coming from, but a draft blew air steadily across the floor. He curled up tighter in the blanket. As the hours ticked by, he realized it wasn’t the floor or the cold that kept him from sleep. He had dealt with far worse.
    Twenty years. He’d seen her face a thousand times in his sleep but, before today, it had been twenty years since he’d been in