Read West (History Interrupted Book 1) for Free Online

haggard suddenly, tired and worn. “I prayed to God every night when you were gone.”
    From what I recalled, Indian Territory later became Oklahoma and northern Texas. Astonishment bloomed within me. Carter really was a genius. Realizing Nell was staring at me, I blinked and returned to the conversation at hand.
    “Gone where?” I asked. “I can’t remember living here at all.”
    “Of course you did, child,” Nell said, concerned. “Your father knew you on sight when them savages and that sheriff brought you in. I did, too. You been gone for a year, but we knew you.”
    Hmm. So I have a father . I wasn’t sure how else to ask about who Nell thought I was. Carter had said to play along. I just needed a few notes on who I was supposed to be, and then I could probably manage it. He had clearly placed me in a safe environment, or so it seemed.
    “Look.” Nell pulled a photo off the mantle and crossed to me, sitting beside me on the bed. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
    The girl in the photograph did look a lot like me. Long, flowing blonde hair, a small frame. There was no color in the photograph, but her eyes were light, her skin ivory. The differences were subtle: the girl in the picture appeared a little taller than me, if the chair photographed was the same one by the window. Her lips were thinner, her hair straight where mine was wavy.
    We could’ve been sisters, I acknowledged silently. But this isn’t me.
    “I expect there are some changes. Frontier life is not easy on us,” Nell said, before I was able to speak. “But your father … he came back to life when you were brought to his door.” Her eyes sparkled with happiness. “As did I.”
    Play along, Carter had said. Thinking of him made me stretch for the pocket that wasn’t there.
    “Nell!” I exclaimed. “Have you seen my phone?” At the blank look she gave me, I racked my mind for an explanation. “A small, silver box that was in my pocket when I came here.”
    “You mean the devil’s box?” Nell’s voice was hushed. “I have it. I did not let your father see it, Josie.”
    “Right. Where is it?”
    Nell hesitated then got up and went to a jewelry box on a vanity near the window. She opened it and pulled out the phone.
    I almost sighed with relief.
    Nell put it back quickly, closed the box and kissed the dainty golden cross she wore on a thin chain around her neck.
    “So I am the daughter of John,” I began. There was no easy way to figure out who I was. “I’ve been gone for a year because … why did I leave?”
    “A certain obligation,” Nell whispered, as if I should know. “Do you remember?”
    “No.”
    “You were to marry a man your father chose.”
    I started to laugh then stopped at Nell’s confused look. I hadn’t thought twice about the status of women in the Old West. Recalling that the women’s rights movements didn’t start for another almost hundred years, I began to think I had a lot of learning to do in order to fit in.
    “Now that I’m back, do I have to marry him still?” I asked.
    “He has since married another,” Nell added.
    “Oh.”My gaze went to the jewelry box. “Good for him, I guess.”
    “Would you like to dress to see your father?”
    “Um, yes. Yes I would.”
    Nell appeared pleased. “I’ll prepare your gown.” She hurried out the door.
    I shook my head and went to the vanity. I pulled the cell free and examined it again. Like yesterday, there was no battery and no signal – and two messages from Carter. At least he was keeping up his part of the deal and texting. I gazed at the phone, grappling with the idea that somehow, Carter was communicating with me, even though we were two centuries apart.
    I wished I’d had more of a science mind. I knew nothing of physics or how any of this was possible. Not about to question it, so long as he was talking to me, I kissed the cell, my one connection to my time.
    Be like Amy Pond or Clara Oswald, I told myself, recalling my favorite