Blue Haze

By Sandy Grissom

Did you ever feel like you lived in the wrong era? That life had gotten much too complicated for you and you wished that things could be simpler? What if...just suppose you could move back in time to a time you’d always been enamored with? A time that fueled your excitement in living instead of the dread you feel on waking up each morning? What if your destiny lay back there in the past? What if??

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sandy Grissom
• Release date: May 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458076380

Sandy Grissom

Sandy Grissom has loved books all her life. That love began by listening to her older sister read when she was still too young to discover the magic for herself. She's read everything from history to the phone book but her favorite authors are James Michener, Agatha Christie and the mystic William Blake. Over the years, romantic novels became a favorite. The top of that list is Pride and Prejudice. When she retired she had too much time on her hands and spent too much money and trips to the library to get books in order to satisfy her restless soul. It was then she began to write herself. As an adult she held a variety of jobs, all of them grist for her imaginative mind. The occupations in Choppy Waters will hopefully inspire someone to fight for their own dreams, to never give up on themselves or on love. A widow, Sandy recently moved to southern Indiana where she lives near the younger of her two beloved sisters.

Book preview

Blue Haze

A Romance Through Time

By Sandy Grissom

Smashwords Edition Copyright 2011 by S.K.G. Haag

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

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.

Cover image by: Joi Ito used under Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike License

Sandy Grissom has loved books all her life. That love began by listening to her older sister read when she was still too young to discover the magic for herself. She’s read everything from history to the phone book but her favorite authors are James Michener, Agatha Christie and the mystic William Blake.

Over the years, romantic novels became a favorite. The top of that list is Pride and Prejudice. When she retired she had too much time on her hands and spent too much money and trips to the library to get books in order to satisfy her restless soul. It was then she began to write herself.

As an adult she held a variety of jobs, all of them grist for her imaginative mind.

A widow, Sandy recently moved to southern Indiana where she lives near the younger of her two beloved sisters.

Did you ever feel like you lived in the wrong era? That life had gotten much too complicated for you and you wished that things could be simpler? What if…just suppose you could move back in time to a time you’d always been enamored with? A time that fueled your excitement in living instead of the dread you feel on waking up each morning? What if your destiny lay back there in the past? What if??

Chapter 1

Caroline Stafford stood at the window over the kitchen sink in the rental house. It was an old ranch style homestead. People rented it, she was told by the realtor, to get away from the hubbub of life. That was exactly what Caroline was looking for. He told her that it was located out in the country but when she was driving toward the homestead, Carrie thought the realtor had been misinformed because when she turned the last corner that was on the hand drawn map he’d given her, there were tract houses all along the right hand side of the road.

It was a large cookie cutter type development. Streets with identical side by side houses that went back across the landscape as far as she could see. Disappointment flowed through her. She had come to Montana looking for quiet and solace. She wanted to be off somewhere by herself. The view made her think that it wasn’t going to be that secluded country atmosphere that Carrie hoped for. It was more urban.

Carrie had flown from Kansas City to Bozeman, Montana and then rented a car. She drove to the small town where the retreat was located. She obtained the key and map that had been left for her and drove out to the rental property, hoping to find some peace and perhaps something of herself that seemed to be missing. It hadn’t been lost, she thought. Carrie was looking for something she had never had, though what that was Carrie had no idea, a piece of her soul perhaps.

Passing the tract houses, Carrie finally saw the well worn sign on the opposite side of the road. The faded letters read ‘Jackson’.

Finally, she muttered. I was so ready to get here and get settled. If it’s awful, I’ll just stay a few days until I can find something better.

Her expectations began to rise, however, after she turned into the lane. The gravel road became more and more private the farther she drove. A hopeful sigh escaped her as the feeling that she might indeed be able to relax came over her.

The serenity she had hoped for when she first arrived, had not come to her, though. In fact, she had become even more unsettled since then. It was different, though. Carrie wasn’t frustrated and overwhelmed as she’d been in Kansas City but she felt restless all the time as though something was about to happen. At first she attributed it to her nerves. In Kansas City, something was happening every moment of her life. So she had accepted being wound up tight there. No, this was different somehow. Something strange and a little scary seemed to be happening to her. Each day the unease she was feeling seemed to be getting stronger. Carrie didn’t know how to respond to this strangely welcoming yet out of control feeling.

The thought that she might be losing her mind was a possibility. It could be leftover stress from the events she’d recently gone through. Whatever it was, Carrie wasn’t sure how to come to terms with it. She actually wondered if it didn’t have to do with this place more than her but then that would be silly. At times, she would think that maybe she should leave the ranch house. But whenever she did, the thought would barely come into her mind when she would feel a little tug, almost a whisper that seemed to say ‘stay’. Carrie worried about that. It unnerved her not knowing what the something she felt was coming, might be.

What could I possibly be waiting for, she wondered aloud. I came for peace but I’m getting rattled instead.

So much had happened to Carrie in the recent past, too much. She wondered if she could handle even one more thing. But the idea of waiting, or perhaps it was closer to wanting that she was feeling, was ever present in her mind. It continued to worry her more and more each day that she stayed at the old homestead.

Carrie only had two real friends. There was Brad who she’d grown up near. She’d known him since they were kids. Other than him, there was only Ellie, the housekeeper and cook. It was the two of them who had encouraged her to get away. Carrie imagined they thought she would take a trip to Acapulco or some other tourist spot. But Carrie knew she needed tranquility right now and she would never find it in a place crowded with people.

So she had come to Montana. Carrie found the retreat online and it seemed like it spoke to her somewhere deep in her soul. When Carrie checked, it was vacant. She could leave right away. So she had done that very thing.

As Carrie stood at the sink now, she stared at the view outside the corner window. A deep sadness came over her at what she saw. Oh, it was a nice view but Carrie knew that at one time it had to have been a spectacular view. Of course that would have been a long time ago, maybe 150 years or so. She imagined a colorful meadow lay where those tract houses now stood. It would have been gorgeous then. Carrie let her mind wander a bit wondering what it would actually have been like. She knew exactly where the tract houses were situated. She could even partially see one through a small opening in the trees.

I hate cookie cutter tract houses, she declared aloud.

The view to the south where those houses stood was obstructed, ruined forever and it bothered her. If it had been 150 years earlier, she would be seeing mountains instead of those cookie cutter houses. The mountains wouldn’t have been as tall as the Rockies but they would have been impressive nevertheless. It didn’t seem right to her that the houses should be there. Carrie felt like they didn’t belong, that they were intruders. It felt funny to think such a thing and Carrie could only explain it to herself by saying that it would have been more honest if they weren’t there. She knew that it was a strange way to put it but that’s how she felt.

Carrie realized that off to the west as she looked out the corner window, she would have seen a view of the higher Rocky Mountains. The range would be clearly visible but instead Carrie could only see a few peaks on the tops of those spectacular hills. Tall skyscraper buildings in the nearby city obliterated the full view.

Carrie turned from the window feeling sadness at the loss of the view as she walked over to the kitchen table. She looked across the parlor and out through the window in there off to the east. Plains would have gone on and on for miles in that direction. She knew Ft. Benton was that way and she wondered what it would have been like when it was a true fort, not a town. She would be able to smell Sulphur Springs too, if the wind came blowing from just the right direction.

Well, at least there aren’t houses on this side yet, she told herself.

Carrie walked back to the kitchen window and took a second look outside. It would have been such a peaceful view back then. She just knew it. She wondered if people in that time lived with the serenity that she had hoped to find when she came here. Every morning since Carrie arrived, she had stood at that window, looking out and seeing the same thing but wishing it were different.

Her thoughts each morning and throughout the day seemed to be of that earlier less complicated time. Something seemed to actually be drawing her thoughts there. At first she thought it was the house. But when she thought about it, she knew that it was more than that. Still, she supposed that the house could have brought the thoughts on. There was a terrible depression that was beginning to settle over her. It had already started back in Kansas City and it had intensified since she’d arrived here.

The bottom line was that Carrie didn’t like the way her life was turning out. In Kansas City, she had come to accept that there was no way out. People expected a certain lifestyle out of her, but Carrie had always felt like a fish out of water. The contrast between what she wanted for herself and what she was being pushed toward, had caused a terrible frustration.

Now Carrie wondered if maybe she was simply creating a place in her mind where she could be happy. She didn’t want to deal with the complicated business matters that were thrust upon her day after day. Even technology bothered her. The busy streets got to her. It had all become so overwhelming.

The frustrations were not new ones. They had been in her mind for a long time. They had only gotten worse as time went on. Eventually Carrie had to get away from it all. She realized that her discontent had increased after the accident but she’d begun to think about her life well before that happened, and before her parents’ businesses had crowded in on her.

I won’t live like that, Carrie vowed. It would have been better if I’d lived in simpler times like those settlers who lived on the early ranches back then. Like the people who lived on this place when it was a real ranch. I know life was hard in many ways back then but it was also simpler, too.

That thought created another one.

I wonder if people could be born out of time?

Carrie had often heard people say that they had a fascination for a particular time in history. People said they didn’t understand why they did, but Carrie wondered now if she had developed such a fascination herself. Lately, she’d been recalling things about the old west that she’d studied in school. She remembered reading articles about the hard pioneer life, wagon trains moving west and so on. Those things had been coming back into her mind in recent days, she realized. It was if they had remained there in the back of her mind…almost waiting.

But for what, she asked herself again.

Carrie wondered if somehow it was being here in the homestead that triggered the thoughts of that earlier time period. The house had been preserved. It was built, the realtor had told her, sometime in the 1870s. Perhaps, she thought, she simply was curious about the people who had lived in this house. That’s probably all it is, she told herself.

I should look up the place online. It might prove interesting.

Her thoughts went back to how busy she’d been of late and how she didn’t like a life where every moment was filled up for her. Others seemed to love keeping busy all the time but not Carrie.

I can understand why people refuse to leave their homes. Life is just too complicated for them and for me, Carrie moaned.

Her thoughts roamed back in time once again. There would certainly be less hustle and bustle in those days. That kind of an existence seemed far better to her. She knew she’d miss some things about the time she lived in. There were so many things that took the need for manual labor away from people.

In those earlier times, there were no automatic washing machines, no electricity or cars. Carrie felt there was a lot on the plus side of living back then, though. Families were closer. Small daily occurrences were noted, things that today would be overlooked as miniscule but were important in relationships. Happenings were not only discussed but appreciated back then.

She felt that people in those days weren’t as jaded in their thinking as today. Carrie thought people would trust others more instead of doubting them like today. You wouldn’t have to prove to people you were good like today. It would be accepted that you were unless you proved you weren’t. A handshake would have been a contract back then, not like some of the fifty page documents she’d been forced to read lately.

Even this stupid document, she said as she slapped at it lying on the counter. You could just tell a neighbor to watch the place while you were gone. Times have truly changed and I don’t know that it’s for the better.

This caused Carrie to begin to ponder what the years ahead would bring her. She could only see business meetings and more long documents to read. The future seemed awfully bleak to her. Boring, too, she thought.

Carrie had turned down Brad’s proposal of marriage before coming to Montana. She and Brad didn’t love each other. But they had known each other for years and neither of them felt that they would ever find love. They each had their own reasons for feeling that way. Still, that was no reason to get married.

Carrie knew that she wouldn’t make Brad a good wife. He needed an entirely different kind of woman than Carrie was. He thought he wanted a woman who would be in the background helping him succeed in business. Carrie wasn’t sure that kind of woman would be good for Brad. It seemed like such a boring life to her. All Carrie was truly sure of was that Brad needed someone he could be proud of. Carrie knew that wasn’t her.

She recalled as she stood there how she’d always tried to be an accepting child. Lately, that had gotten to be too hard to do. She had come to one decision while here at the ranch. Carrie now knew that she couldn’t accept her life the way it was going.

It’s not that I’m being stubborn, she declared. It’s not that I won’t accept my parents’ lifestyle; it’s that I can’t. I would lose myself in that kind of a life.

To Carrie, her life seemed empty. It seemed to have little meaning. It didn’t make any difference in the grand scheme of things and she needed her life to matter.

Carrie’s parents had each had careers. They worked long hours so Carrie never saw them much. The housekeeper and cook, Ellie, was the one who had raised her. Carrie always knew in the back of her mind that she didn’t want a life like her parents had lived. Lately the thought of living like that had closed in and begun to suffocate her.

Carrie had been alone most of her life. She hated that it had been that way and knew that she could