He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. "You didn't have any complaints last night."
Her gaze skimmed his face, down his neck, and back again. "No complaints at all."
"Good, because there's something I'd like to ask you."
She shifted in her chair, setting her wineglass on the table. "What is it?"
He took a deep breath, feeling uncharacteristically unsure of himself. "Randi, I don't know exactly how to say what I need to say. I've followed my dreams for fifteen years now, building this plantation into something I'm very proud of. I also have a daughter who is a joy. Before you came to Black Willow Grove, I didn't know I was missing anything else in my life."
He reached across and took her hand in his. "In the weeks you've been here, I've learned about your unusual views on life, your differences, and even the things we have in common. You've filled a place in my heart that I didn't know was empty."
"Oh, Jackson. That's so beautiful," she whispered, her hand squeezing his, her eyes bright with tears.
"I know you're worried about the flood, but we've taken every precaution. I don't want your bad dreams of disaster to keep us apart."
"Jackson, I can't--"
"No, wait. You've always told me you had to leave, but that was before last night. I realized this morning that my life is not complete without you. I want you to stay."
Her brow furrowed and her eyes appeared troubled. "In what way? I've already gotten a lecture from Suzette and a bunch of raised eyebrows from everyone else."
"In time, I want to make you my wife."
His words fell heavy in the silence of the room. Randi stared at him, panic and sadness in her eyes. He'd thought she'd be surprised, of course, but not . . . this. "What's wrong?"
"Jackson, I . . . I don't know what to say."
"You're refusing my suit?" he asked, a feeling of incredulous unreality settling over him.
"No, not really. I mean, I don't want to refuse." She pushed back from the table, her skirts swirling around her as she paced across the floor. "There are things about me you don't know. Things I haven't told you."
"I'm aware you have a mysterious background, and I've stopped insisting you answer."
"I appreciate your understanding, but this is important," she said from near the window, where rain still rain in rivulets toward the saturated earth.
"What is important? My God, just tell me," he said, rising from his chair and tossing his napkin on the table. He walked toward her, ready to take her in his arms if that would help her over this hurdle she had yet to cross.
"No, I need to sit down," she said, more anxious than he'd ever seen her. He was becoming alarmed himself. What was so terrible that she experienced such reluctance to tell him?
"You're not already married, are you?" he asked, growing nervous energy coursing through his body.
"No!" She sank into a nearby wing chair. "I wish it were that simple."
"Randi," he said, taking the chair across from hers and holding her icy hands in his, "just tell me what is the problem. Surely we can find a way to solve whatever is plaguing you."
She began to tremble. Alarmed, he pushed out of the chair, pulled the cover off the bed, and draped it around shoulders. Kneeling in front of her, he took her cold hands once more.
"Keeping this secret is causing you more distress than anything you could tell me."
"I know," she said, her voice faint. "But I know you're not going to believe me, and I don't want to see the expression on your face once I tell you my secret."
Jackson had never felt such intense frustration. He wanted to force her to tell her hidden truth, but knew of no way. How could he convince her that he wouldn't react poorly to her secret when she'd given him no clue as to what she was hiding?
He ran a hand through his hair. "Please. I promise I will try to understand whatever you have to say."
She closed her eyes, her hands balling into fists inside his grasp. "I don't want you to hate me," she whispered. "I'm not crazy, Jackson. What I'm going to tell you is the truth."
"I'm listening."
She raised her eyes. "I'm not from New Orleans. I was raised in a small town just north of Memphis, not too far from here."
"Do I know your family?"
She dropped her eyes from his and scoffed. "No, you don't. You couldn't know anything of my family." She looked at him again. "Please, Jackson, sit down in the chair. Get comfortable, and then let me tell my story."
He obliged, letting go of her hands with reluctance. She seemed to need this space between them, settling back into the chair as though she might blend right into the fabric and padding.
"I already told you what happened last winter with my pregnancy. I left out that losing the baby made me think about where my life was going, what I wanted to do. I realized I'd put my dreams on hold. I'd forgotten what I'd wanted and settled for what I had."
"I don't understand."
"I know you don't," she said with compassion, then took another deep breath. "All my life, I'd wanted to be an artist or an architect. I drew cartoons when I was young, then animals and trees and anything else that interested me. I found out my big love was drawing buildings, inside and out. It's called perspective drawing. I seemed to have a talent for it. Before long, I was creating new designs. My art teacher in high school encouraged me to go to college."
"High school?"
"I don't know what you call it now. High school are the last three years, usually. You know, like after grammar school?"
"You wanted to go to the university?"
"Yes, but no one in my family had ever gone."
"Randi, you are a young woman," he reminded her. "There are no universities for you to attend."
"Not now, but there will be."
"What do you mean?" he asked, sitting up straighter. He felt a tingling of concern that Randi was not facing reality.
"I mean that in the future, there will be universities for woman all over the place. All of them, as a matter of fact. It's going to be illegal to discriminate because of a person's sex."
"You mean you hope that there will be such things," he said, the tingles increasing.
"No, I mean that in the future, that's the way it's going to be."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because that's where I'm really from, Jackson. The future."
His mind fell empty for several seconds as he tried to make sense of what she'd said. Finally, he asked, "How can you be from the future?"
She shrugged. "I don't know how it happened. One minute I was in the museum, trying to finish up and go home, and the next I was standing in Rose's nursery, holding her in my hands."
"You mean that it seems like you were one place one minute, and somewhere else the next," he said carefully. "You simply don't remember traveling to Black Willow Grove or entering the house."
"No, that's not what I meant. I was in the museum, which is built right here where the house now stands, and I heard a baby crying. Actually, I'd heard the same sound for the past two nights. I couldn't stand it any longer. I thought someone was playing a sick trick on me, reminding me of the baby I'd lost. So I grabbed the plastic cover, ripped it off the replica of Black Willow Grove, and reached inside to see if the little baby doll was somehow connected to wires."
"What replica of Black Willow Grove? What are you talking about?"
"I already told you the house was destroyed in the flood. They found sketches with your former slaves, and eventually they built something that looks like a dollhouse. They'd just placed it inside the museum when I started hearing the cries of a baby. They were Rose's cries, Jackson. Somehow, I heard her nearly a hundred and fifty years into the future."
"A hundred and fifty years! Surely you don't expect me to believe you come from this place that many years distant?"
"I said you wouldn't believe me," she said sadly.
"How can I believe something that . . ."
"Crazy?" She finished the sentence for him.
"Randi, you must admit that your story is preposterous."
"I know that, Jackson. Why do you think I waited so long to tell you? I can certainly understand why you're reluctant to believe me, even though my feelings are hurt that you won't try. You should know that I'd never intentionally hurt you."
"I can believe that, but--"
"I wouldn't hurt you by asking you to believe such a tale if it weren't true."
"You believe it to be true," he said as gently as possible.
"I know what happened. I just don't know how it happened." She dropped her gaze to her clenched hands. "And I don't know how to get home," she added just above a whisper.
"Black Willow Grove can be your home."
She raised her eyes to his. "Even if the house does survive the flood, I can't live here."
"Why?"
"Because this society is obsessed with so much of what I can't stand. Prejudice, snobbery, and a total lack of opportunity for women and blacks. Where I'm from, we've come a long way in solving those problems. Oh, we haven't gotten there yet. We're still far too prejudiced against anything that is different than we are--no matter who "we" is--and men and women are still fighting over gender roles. But as I see how backward this culture appears to me, I know we've come a long way."
"Randi, I don't know what to say. I can't change society."
She turned away, looking toward the blackness outside the window. "You know I'm terrified of the river. The idea of being caught in the flood scares me to death. And even if I thought we'd be safe here, I'd still miss my family. I'm so close to them, Jackson. I love my parents. I miss my brother and sister so much. If you knew them, you'd understand why. How can I leave them, especially when they have no idea what happened to me? I was all alone in the museum when I fell through the replica into the past. My car will still be in the parking lot. No one will know that I'm okay, that someone didn't break in, abduct me, rape me, or murder me. Can you imagine how worried my family will be when no trace of me is ever found?
"Randi, I know you believe that you vanished from this museum, but that sort of thing is impossible."
"I would have said the same thing, except it happened to me." She looked back at him, a spark lighting her eyes. "Wait a minute! I know how I can prove to you I'm from the future." She pushed out of the chair and grabbed his hand. "Come with me."
"Randi, I'm hardly dressed for--"
"That doesn't matter. You've got to see my photos and driver's license."
"Your what?"
"Just come on, Jackson. Please."
He allowed her to pull him out of his bedroom, down the hall, and across the stair landing to the other side of the house. She was staying in the first bedroom on the right, sharing the same front view as his room.
"I hid my things under the bed so no one would find them and discover my secret. Now I want you to see what I came here with. You don't have anything like this in 1849."
She let go of his hand, leaving him to follow across the room. On the far side of the bed, near the window, she knelt down. "My fanny pack is right under here."
"Your what?"
"Fanny pack. It's like a thick belt. Don't you remember when I first showed up? You must have noticed it, but you didn't take it off me. When I woke up in this bed, it was still around my waist."
"I don't remember the details of that day. I was too angry when I saw you holding my daughter."
"Here it is!" She pulled out an odd shaped leather bag with a belt on each end.
"You wear these when you want your hands free--when you don't want to wear a purse."
"A purse?"
"Yes. I'm sure you have some sort of word for it. It's a small bag that women carry things around in."
"A reticule."
"Okay." She pulled on a small object and an opening appeared. Jackson stepped closer, ready to see the nature of this strange bag.
He barely heard the sounds from outside the house. A prickle of unease made him stiffen, then stride to the window. He couldn't see anything but darkness and rain, but he heard the shouts.
"Something's wrong."
With a desperate prayer that all the levees still held, he rushed downstairs.
#
By mid-morning, enough weak sunlight leaked through the heavy rain clouds to show the extent of the damage. All around them, water covered the earth. Randi tried not to panic; at least with the windows closed and the rain coming down, the smell of the muddy river wasn't overwhelming.
If she didn't look outside, she could almost forget that she was surrounded by the life-threatening flood.
"Baby, what am I going to do?" she asked Rose, swaying back and forth to calm the infant. Rose seemed to have picked up on Randi's nervousness and the general disruption of the household. She was fretful, restless and refusing to nurse.
Suzette was just as uneasy, pacing the other end of the nursery. "I feel so bad, Miss Randi," she said. "There's just nothin' I can do to help. Even the kitchen is filled with people."