Footprints in Time

By Kate Welsh

Historian Sharon Henderson is transported across time to the middle of a prisoner of war camp in 1864 Maryland. There she meets Ridge Grayson whose home she inherited and whose portrait and journals have always fascinated her.
Wounded in battle, Captain Grayson faces death with one great regret. Though he’s searched he’s never found the woman of his dreams – until a Sharon visits the injured at Hammond Hospital.
Across time and space they instantly recognize each other as soul mates. Can she save his life and make a future for them by changing history? And should she?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kate Welsh
• Release date: Jan 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452434681

Kate Welsh

Kate Welsh lives her own happily-ever-after in the Philadelphia suburbs, with her husband of over thirty years, her daughter, their one-hundred-pound Chesapeake Bay Retriever Ecko, and Kali, the family cat. Kate loves hearing from readers, who can reach her on the internet at [e-mail]

Book preview

Historian Sharon Henderson is transported across time to the middle of a prisoner of war camp in 1864 Maryland. There she meets Ridge Grayson whose home she inherited and whose portrait and journals have always fascinated her.

Wounded in battle, Captain Grayson faces death with one great regret. Though he’s searched he’s never found the woman of his dreams – until Sharon visits the injured at Hammond Hospital.

Across time and space they instantly recognize each other as soul mates. Can she save his life and make a future for them by changing history? And should she?

While this is Kate’s first ebook she is an established award winning author with the following books in print.

Love Inspired/Steeple Hill

For the Sake of Her Child

Never Lie to an Angel

A Family for Christmas

Small-Town Dreams

Their Forever Love

The Girl Next Door

Silver Lining

Mountain Laurel

Her Perfect Match

A Love Beyond

Abiding Love

Autumn Promises

Joy in His Heart

A Time for Grace

Home to Safe Harbor

Redeeming Travis

Silhouette Special Edition

Substitute Daddy

The Doctor’s Secret Child

A Bargain Called Marriage

For Jessie’s Sake

Harlequin Historical

Questions of Honor

His Californian Countess

Honor Bound – May 2012

The Bride Wore Britches (Spring Brides Anthology) June 2012

Footprints in Time

by

Kate Welsh

FOOTPRINTS IN TIME by Kate Welsh

Copyright © 2011 Kate Welsh

Published by Kate Welsh

Smashwords Edition

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. – With the exception of quotes used in reviews, no part of this ebook may be reproduced or stored in any electronic storage medium, currently known or yet to be invented, except by the purchaser. If you are reading this book and have not purchased it or received it as a gift from someone who purchased it for you, please respect the authors hard work and obtain a copy from Smashwords.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

The author wishes to acknowledge the book by Edwin W Beitzell titled Point Lookout Prison for Confederate Prisoners which is mentioned in this ebook. Also, she’d like to acknowledge the Saint Mary’s Historical Society for the use of the drawing on page 105 as part of the cover art. Without both and the amazing visit to Point Lookout this book would never have been conceived let alone written.

Cover Art by Kate Welsh

This book was formatted for Smashwords by John Welsh.

Prologue

St. Mary’s County, Maryland–present day

Sharon Henderson looked up from the antique book she held lovingly in her hands. I’m sorry. What did you say?

Verna Brown, her daughter’s nanny, had a smug little glitter in her chocolate-brown eyes. The day your ex-husband picked up Marissa he saw that old journal you’re reading. Annoyed him no end.

Matt has his moments. Not many of them good, I’m afraid. If he bothers you overly much I’ll make sure I’m home when he brings her home.

Wasn’t annoyed at me. Just the book. So what is it? The book, I mean.

I inherited the home of the man who wrote them. He started this one the year the Civil War broke out. He died at Point Lookout Prison Camp in 1864. I accepted this temporary position here in Maryland so I could do research on his death. I’ve wanted to do it since I was a kid.

Your ex-husband is annoyed that you’re here to research an ancestor?

Kit Grayson isn’t my ancestor. He was an ancestor of my guardian. I inherited Violet Hill from her. Matthew never liked that I read Kit’s journals or that his portrait still hangs at the farm. Matthew claimed I loved Kit more than I ever loved him.

That’s ridiculous, Verna scoffed.

Of course it is but as Matthew is so often ridiculous, it makes a sort of perverted sense. I was always fascinated by Kit’s life, but like all teen-age girls, I grew up. How could I be in love with a man from another century? What Matthew never understood was I’d never have married him if I hadn’t thought he was like Kit.

Verna frowned. Then why the divorce?

Because I was blinded by Matt’s solicitous attitude and dedication to me. I didn’t see the truth. Matt isn’t like Kit at all. Kit was honorable and kind. Matthew Henderson married me because his parents handpicked me. Once the ring was on my finger, Matthew’s mask evaporated and a resentful child emerged.

Verna frowned. But you don’t regret reading the man’s journals?

Never. I love history. That’s why my guardian, Ann Grayson, gave me the journals for my thirteenth birthday. The journals start with Kit’s thirteenth birthday and continue until he left for war. Ann hoped I’d learn from Kit’s inner thoughts what to look for in a man. Unfortunately, men like him don’t exist anymore.

Oh, yes they do. My Ozzie was a good man. A good man is worth the search. What about Sheriff Winston?

He’s my friend but he doesn’t touch my soul. Kit never found what he was searching for either.

Sharon turned quickly to the page where he’d explained his dilemma. Listen to this: ‘June 19, 1860, she read, relaying the private thoughts of a man she’d never met but who she knew better than anyone.

Mother invited the Calverts for the day and once again dangled Melanie before me as a candidate for my wife. The day was excruciating. She is a girl of seventeen and I remember her in short skirts. She possesses none of the qualities I admire and would bore me to death within a week. Hell, she bored me within minutes. She is disinterested in pursuits of the mind and has no natural curiosity about anything. I am told that is proper for a young lady but I find it annoying. I cannot seem to explain my objections to Mother in a way she understands. I confess I am not even completely sure what I am looking for. But I have been looking.

I know this, I want a wife with strength of character. I want her to care about fashion but not be a slave to it. I want her to be able to forget she is a lady in my bed but never in public. She would need a sense of humor. To be intelligent. I want to be able to talk to my wife long into the night if that pleases us. I want her to have opinions.

Am I asking the impossible?

I know it sounds peculiar, but it is as if I can feel her out there somewhere. As if she searches for me as desperately as I search for her because she is the other half of me. Where are you, woman of my dreams?

Sharon looked up from his faded copperplate and shrugged. I’m afraid, like me, he never met that other half of himself. He died unmarried less than four years later in a war he never wanted to see begin. But it helps to know he faced the same regrets I do.

Verna leaned forward and squeezed Sharon’s hand. But he did solve it. He knew what he wanted. He simply ran out of time. You have the time he didn’t. That’s his lesson to you.

Sharon smiled and nodded. And I have time on my side. You’re right.

Chapter 1

Sharon’s brakes squealed as she brought her SUV to a skidding halt. When she swung her door open it barely cleared the small, white brick building she nearly hit. She winced, hoping the park ranger hadn’t seen her nearly demolish the only building left standing from Point Lookout’s days as a Civil War prison camp.

Howdy, Ms. Henderson, the elderly ranger called to her as he ambled her way. I did just like you told me–left it the way I found it. Hope you’re not going to be disappointed. Since I called you, a few waves have uncovered it some more. It’s just a pocket watch, not gold coins like I thought.

Her thoughts scattering like seedpods on the wild wind. Could it be Kit’s watch?

Then she told herself to stop being an idiot. Coincidences like that didn’t happen. Maybe Matthew was right about the journals. The watch the ranger found had probably been in the water weeks–not over a century.

You ought to hurry. the ranger advised. This storm’s moving in fast. It could wash back out. Sharon needed no further urging. Even though it was probably only a modern piece, she grabbed her camera and followed the elderly ranger to the Potomac’s shoreline. There it is, he said pointing.

Sharon nodded as she stooped down to shoot a picture, documenting the find. If it turned out to be of historical significance she’d need it.

I’ve got to complete my rounds. Try not to stay too long, the ranger said, drawing Sharon’s attention. This is one wicked storm brewing. The warning was unnecessary. Sharon hated storms. And watch out for the Walking Lady. She’s been making mischief lately.

Sharon chuckled at that. She didn’t believe in ghosts or any of the other paranormal activities reported at the sight. Putting her eye back to the viewfinder, she sharpened the focus and the details of the watch’s case cleared.

And her world tilted off its axis.

She instinctively tossed the camera to dry sand–photo unsnapped.

It can’t be.

Spellbound, she stared at the watch, unaware of the cold river water lapping about her ankles. Then a wave washed between her feet and over the watch and impelled Sharon into action. She plunged her hand in rooting around in the murky water for a frantic few seconds before her fingers closed over the relic from the past.

She straightened and stared at it where it rested in her palm. Her heart pounded in her chest, throbbed in her head, thundered in her ears. She didn’t understand how it could be but Kit’s watch lay nestled in her hand.

The watch he’d been given for his twenty-first birthday, and had thrown into the river nearly one-hundred and fifty years ago in defiance of his guards.

Sharon walked to her SUV then sank to the running board, deep in thought. She remembered with a touch of pride the letter he’d written home explaining his reason for tossing the gift from his father into the river. It had apparently set the tone for the rest of his imprisonment. Kit Grayson had died in defense of a young boy and his body had never been returned to his family.

The first place Sharon had gone when she’d arrived in Saint Mary’s County had been the site of the Civil War Memorial. It was dedicated to the Confederate soldiers who’d died at Point Lookout Prison, some of whom were buried there. Kit was more than likely among them. Sharon had been drawn there to find the name of the man whose face she knew from his portrait and whose heart she’d learned through his writings.

Now she traced every curl of the initials engraved on the watch’s case. Time went unnoticed in the thrill of holding Kit’s most prized possession. Her short blond hair ruffled in the stiffening breeze but Sharon barely noticed. She was absorbed, as always, in another time.

Kit had died in 1864 after being transferred into the prison from Hammond Hospital. But his green eyes, in that long-ago portrait, had always seemed so alive and vital. His journals, their pages yellowed with age, had spoken to her across time.

He’d fascinated Sharon from the first. The fascination had led to the formation of a deep bond between Sharon and Ann Grayson, the woman who’d eventually become Sharon’s guardian when Sharon’s mother died.

She shook her head to clear away the fog thoughts of Kit always created in her mind. He was dead and had been since before the end of the Civil War yet he’d always seemed close enough to touch. She turned the watch over and read the dedication again. His father had always called him Ridge and his mother had called him Kit. Sharon thought of him as Kit, too.

A heavy raindrop landed on her head and she glanced toward the water. She blinked. The Potomac had grown dangerously choppy, the sky dark and turbulent. Thunder rumbled, lightning streaked and the skies opened up. Sharon gathered her things and scrambled behind the wheel, dropping her tote in her lap.

She hated storms and driving in them. The causeway off the point was little more than a slightly elevated, two-lane ribbon of asphalt between the Chesapeake Bay and the mouth of the Potomac River. Ghosts or no, she intended to pass the storm right where she was.

Rummaging through her bulging tote, she looked for a plastic specimen bag for the watch but a powerful gust of wind shook the SUV and tore open the door to the small building next to her. Her attention snagged, Sharon glanced at the building’s yawning doorway.

What the hell…? Inside the little building a phosphorescent mist swirled and took human form each time lightning flashed then it faded to near nothingness until another lightning burst.

Sharon jumped at a tremendous crash behind her. She glanced into her rear-view mirror as lightning struck the river. This time the thunder boomed simultaneously. The catch of the watch bit into her tightly clenched hand. In a desperate bid to put the raging storm and swirling mist out of her mind, she centered her thoughts on the watch. She flipped it open to read the inscription she knew was inscribed on the inside.

"‘Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time.’"

A blinding, blue-white light, an ear splitting rumble and a wild, tingling charge assailed her. The watch in her hand began to tick and the bottom seemed to drop out of her world. She was wrapped in blue-white light. Her car vanished from around her. Flashing light and deafening noise became her universe.

Sharon noticed the little building was still next to her. As was the swirling mist. She fixed her eyes on that mist, an ephemeral anchor in a world gone mad.

The light faded but, with the next crash, it intensified. The tingling returned with a vengeance. As the light faded, the mist solidified into the ghostly form of a young woman. Another crack of lightning and the form became flesh.

A flesh and blood woman.

In the next instant Sharon plunged to the ground–no longer insulated from the wind and rain. The young woman who’d materialized out of the mist stood huddled in the small building, gaping at Sharon.

There was no telling who was more shocked but the woman reacted first. My goodness. she shouted over the pounding rain. Where on earth did you come from? Come in here and get out of this weather. You’ll catch your death, boy.

Sharon looked around her. There was no boy but what she saw had her gaping, too. Buildings, several of them, stood at a distance even further away than where the lighthouse should have been but no longer did. She peered through the downpour toward the river. It was so far away. Much further than it had been only minutes earlier. Didn’t storms kick up the tide? Push the water in closer?

Sturdy buildings now stood at the river’s edge and a pier had somehow risen from the depths. Two paddle-wheel boats bobbed on their tethers in a river gone wild with storm. Only water had been all there moments ago. She was sure of that, though there didn’t seem to be another single thing she was sure of.

She started to shake. To regain control Sharon forced her mind to order itself and take stock of her surroundings. Her car was gone. She currently sat on the muddy ground soaked to the skin clutching her tote bag to her chest, the watch clasped tightly in her hand. She could feel it ticking.

Ticking after a century and a half in the water.

Now you just march yourself inside here, young man, the woman inside the building ordered.

Sharon climbed to her feet and looked back, this time noticing the clothes the woman wore. They were more than a century out of fashion. She hadn’t heard the park service had decided to dress its guides in period costumes. Besides which, there were no guides since there was so little left with the bay claiming more and more of it all the time. She glanced back at land that hadn’t been there before the storm.

What was going on? Where was she?

Do you work here? Sharon asked the woman as she, stumbled into the building, her body shaking from more than the damp cold

Why you’re a girl. the woman exclaimed.

Do you work here? Sharon demanded this time, feeling weak and as if she was in shock.

That was it. The SUV had been hit by lightning. So she was unconscious. Probably hallucinating.

No, I don’t work here. I visit the patients in the hospital, the woman said. My father acts as the minister here.

Sharon put her hand to her forehead, disoriented.

Did you hit your head when you fell? the woman rushed on. And what on earth are you doing inside the military lines?

Mil–military lines? Sharon stammered. Goodness she sounded dim-witted. Perhaps she was. No. I’m hallucinating.

The young woman took Sharon’s shoulder and turned her toward the door pointing to the left at a sharp angle. You see the wire stretched between those fence posts? It runs up behind the buildings and separates the hospital from the military camp and the prison compound.

Point Lookout Prison? In St. Mary’s County? Sharon asked grabbing at the doorframe. She felt nauseous. Dizzy. And scared. Hallucinations could be frightening. I guess they could.

Are you lost?

Sharon glanced in another direction, noticing more things out of place. It all looked disturbingly familiar, yet not. Her stomach flipped. She’d seen all of this on the cover of the book about the prison–the book in her tote. She started to shake. And her breath seemed to dam up in her lungs. She dropped to her knees, thankful she’d skipped lunch.

Am I lost? she murmured, her throat dry. Of course she wasn’t lost. But she must have hit her head. And there’d been that lightning. Perhaps this was all electrical shock. She must be unconscious and dreaming. No not dreaming. This was a nightmare, though the ghost seemed quite nice.

Sharon shivered but whether from cold or fear she wasn’t sure. Then she looked again at the young woman’s clothing. It was disconcertingly authentic. Men walked in the pouring rain as if on patrol, unmindful of damage to their uniforms. Horses were pulling wagons despite the weather.

The young woman put her arm across Sharon’s shoulders. You look awful pale. Perhaps you should get off the damp ground. Come, sit over here. There are chairs though there is no fire in the stove to warm you. My name is Amelia Cole. Tell me your name and where you come from.

Through some cosmic accident Kit’s watch had just come into her possession. She’d been thinking about how he’d thrown it in the water and when. So…okay. It was a dream. She might as well calm down and even play along. It was her dream after all and she was a historian and an archaeologist. She’d simply subconsciously filled in the blanks. A mental exercise while hopefully medical personnel were trying to help her.

Sharon Henderson, she answered. I come from… Hmm…why would she be dressed in pants with short cropped hair? Amelia Cole had taken her for a boy at first. And why was her southern accent somewhat diluted? She smiled. This could be fun. …from near Philadelphia where I went to a boarding school but I’m from Virginia originally.

So that’s why your accent is so contaminated with flat Yankee vowels.

Whoa. Talk about hostile. Of course that made sense in the general scheme of the time period she’d apparently conjured up. Maryland hadn’t seceded from the Union but the residents had been Southern sympathizers. So, of course, she’d create Amelia as a woman hostile toward the North. You sound like a Southern sympathizer, Sharon commented.

Amelia shrugged one shoulder. Most of us here abouts are. Why we’ve been practically under military occupation since this War of Northern Aggression began. What were you doing there if you could be in Virginia? Amelia asked sharply. And why on earth are you in Maryland, dressed like a boy? These Yanks would shoot you for a spy, skulking around the way you were.

She’d looked like she’d been skulking? Well, this could be fun. She was in the middle of a historical spy dream. Why not? It was just a dream.

Sharon tried to order her mind to the shifting scenario. Would she confess to being a spy? Nah. No self-respecting spy would give out that kind of information to a stranger. I wasn’t skulking. I was…trying to find out where I am. That was true enough. So I climbed up on the roof to see how far I could see. I slipped and fell.

Amelia frowned. I didn’t hear you on the roof?

Because you were still a ghost.

Perhaps you need a doctor, Amelia said carefully.

Sharon chuckled. Knowing what medicine had been like back then she’d rather not steer this further into nightmare territory. When the lightning flashed, you looked like a ghost, Sharon came back, unsure of why a character of her own making continued to ask such hard questions. You probably didn’t hear me because of the thunder.

Amelia put her hands on her hips. That doesn’t answer what you’re doing here.

Doing here?

Here in Southern Maryland. Goodness, girl, you have to go north to go anywhere from here. That’s why those Yanks chose it for their prison camp.

Sharon’s mind spun. Why couldn’t she keep her own dream on track? Because it’s a nightmare, remember? She shook her head trying to wake up but it only made her dizzier. I need to wake up, she whispered, feeling more like Dorothy Gale every second. Except her Scarecrow was a difficult, nosy woman.

You are awake, dear. Have you been trying to get home since the war started? Goodness that was three years ago.

Right. She’d put her dream three years into the war. 1864. Just about the time Kit tossed the watch away. It made perfect sense. Really it did.

Why you poor thing. Amelia Cole went on, continuing to fill in Sharon’s silences. And I suppose you had to dress like a boy for your own safety or be ravaged by those Yankee animals.

Sharon stared. Ravaged? That word wasn’t even in her usual vocabulary. She wouldn’t have put that in her dream. Would she? What dizziness and nausea had abated with the distraction of conversation returned full force. She started to shiver even harder thanks to the wind blowing through the open door.

Nothing about this dream was in the least…dreamlike.

The air smelled cleaner. Earthier. She looked around the tiny building. It was freshly painted. The mortar in between the stone was new and not a century and a half old. There was a potbelly stove. She fingered the wood of the chair. It looked to have been made by hand but it had no patina from age.

Sharon stood, legs trembling and walked back to the doorway. Kit’s watch still ticked in her hand. Running her free hand along the frame, she found smoothly painted wood instead of a paint crazed, cracked and weathered by season after season, year after year.

She felt for as if she’d been tossed through some weird rip in the fabric of time. Was there really such a thing? She whirled and stared at the ghost turned woman. Oh, dear God. Amelia walked toward her with her hand out, concern stamped on her plain features.

Sharon backed up into the threshold of the door and a heavy raindrop rolled down her back. She twisted toward the scenery but it was more frightening than a ghost turned woman. Sharon swung back to face Amelia.

Tell me what you’re doing here, Amelia urged. Perhaps I can help.

Tears welled up in Sharon’s eyes. Could it be? Had she somehow been thrown through time by a lightning bolt? It made no sense. No sense at all. But there stood the ghost turned living breathing woman everyone called the Walking Lady

Help? Sharon asked, sounding a touch hysterical. She wasn’t sure even Einstein could help her if the wild imaginings of her mind were somehow the answer.

I will try to help, Sharon. I promise.

Amelia did exude trustworthiness. Kindness too. Sharon had to trust someone but she could only go just so far. Amelia would need answers she’d never understand. Sharon didn’t even understand nor did she think she was could give voice to her fears. There was no choice but to lie but she’d keep as close to the truth as possible, though.

I was married to a man from Philadelphia, Sharon began and then full, devastating impact of what she was afraid had happened nearly leveled her. If time could tear. If someone could be sent through to the past, where was Marissa? Where was her precious little one?

Married to a Yankee, Amelia Cole exclaimed, then her eyes narrowed. From the way you say that, you aren’t a widow. Goodness, did he put you aside because of the war?

No. She’d done the divorcing. Matt’s jealousy, his need to control her every move, and finally that last violent outburst toward her had driven her away. But he loved Marissa and so far he’d exhibited none of the destructive emotions that had destroyed their marriage. She watched him closely, however. She didn’t trust his parents not to damage Marissa as they had Matthew nor did she trust him to stand up to them.

Marissa’s smiling face rose in Sharon’s mind. If she was really in the past and not having a nightmare, she might never see Marissa again. Grief pressed in confirming that even if the impossible had happened it was still a nightmare.

And what about Marissa’s emotions? Sharon had weathered the grief of losing her own mother but this would look different. Would Marissa think Sharon had abandoned her? That she hadn’t loved her or wanted her?

Sharon ducked her head, pain swamped her as tears she couldn’t fight rolled down her cheeks. She looked up and spoke without thinking. I’m afraid I’ll never see my little girl again.

The Yankee devil took your child. No wonder you want to get home to your people and no wonder you were desperate enough to shear off your hair and dress like a boy.

Sharon was too devastated to think clearly so she let Amelia create the rest of her story while she counted the years, deciding that against all odds and scientific evidence she must have landed in 1864. She felt the cold and breeze and wet of the moment. Though odd this nightmare marched forward with none of the fits and starts of a real dream. She didn’t know how. Or why. Only that it seemed to be.

She had a daughter who would not be born for a hundred and fifty years.

Were you bothered by a Yankee while dressed as a woman? Amelia rushed on, apparently misinterpreting her silence for embarrassment.

Sharon was about to deny the implication of bothered but hesitated, to get hold of her run-away emotions. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her speeding heart and roiling stomach. She’d need help. While Sharon knew more than the average twenty-first century person about this period in history, there was a world of difference between historical knowledge and day to day survival. She nodded at Amelia’s inference and looked to the floor.

"Don’t you worry your head about a single thing, honey. You must come home