Excerpt from 'Tripping Through Time"

I hope you enjoy this short excerpt from my book. It will be in released in ebook format on 1/2/09 by The Wild Rose Press, and print on 3/27/09. Thanks Mary Ricksen


This time when she woke, she sat up with a
start. Her lungs ached and she felt disoriented. The
darkness of the room she found herself in impeded
her vision. Then it came to her. Had she really
jumped in the lake? Recalling the wooden pier she’d
walked to the end of before leaping in, the aged wood
rough with encrusted barnacles, confused her. When
she jumped in there was a quay, when she woke on
the shore, there was nothing.

Because the lake had a silted bottom and a
sharply rocked shore, they always wore their
sneakers in the water to protect their feet. Each
camp needed a pier, with railings and stairways to
guide you down to the water. Almost all of the trees
had been removed for better views of the lake.
Weeping willows replaced them, with white,
wrought-iron benches resting beneath and large,
lush lawns. Fields of corn swayed in the breezes
along the sides of the gravel roads leading to the
vacation homes on each part of the bay.
She knew that cars and motor homes, boats and
canoes, had filled the driveway areas. Water skis
and fishing poles leaned against sheds and pump
houses labored, when she went into the water, all of
these things were there. What happened to them?
All she’d seen when she woke the first time was
a wooded shoreline and nothing else. The trees had
been so dense that she couldn’t make out any
structures at all from her position on the beach. Had
she drifted to some more desolate area? Impossible,
there just weren’t any. Lakefront property was dear
in 1969, and almost every piece of property had a
structure on it.

Now, nothing but woods had surrounded her.
And the man. Who was he? She had no clue whose
bed she lay in now. Exhausted from her ordeal, she
fell into a deep slumber. All this had to be a result of
her tripping. Her last thought before she fell asleep
was that the alcohol would wear off, and when she
woke everything would be back to normal.

This time when she come around, she still didn’t
recognize anything, but her mind had cleared quite a
bit. Why was it so dark? She looked around her and
she saw that she lay in an immense bed with a soft,
down-filled mattress. She’d been in this room for
quite a long time. Judging by the darkness, it was
night. A small candle flickered on a finely crafted
end table. Her eyes adjusted to the low light, and she
searched around the room.

Next to the candle sat a beautiful porcelain
pitcher in its matching bowl. A mirror with a carved,
hardwood frame hung up high on the wall behind it,
on the rose-colored Fleur de Lis patterned paper. A
window, opened to the breeze, blew lace curtains
gently. It was early evening and no moonlight
brightened the shadows on this night. What
appeared to be a large braided rug lay on the
planked floor, between the bed and door. Several
needlepoint pieces covered the walls. As she sat
behind the closed hardwood door, her nervousness
amplified. Her heart started to thump.

What the hell? She knew this wasn’t still some
part of that nightmare trip she’d taken. It was too
real, the place too old-fashioned. She heard crickets
and saw lightning bugs twinkle outside the window.
A fly buzzed over her head and she listened to a
mosquito or two, droning in their search for the rich,
red blood beneath her skin.

She didn’t hear the blast of car horns, tire
sounds on pavement, or the grinding noise from
trucks changing gears as they flew up and down the
hilly countryside. It was so quiet, no music, no
talking, nothing. Then she heard a latch lift and
something large and furry jumped up onto the bed,
knocking the breath out of her.

Anxiety left her speechless as the light from the
open door spilled into the room and onto the bed she
lay in. The dog was next to her, warm and wild
smelling, doing her no harm. The large figure
approaching her now made her breathless, anxious.
She knew it was a man; his silhouette starkly
outlined by the light behind him.

When he reached the bed, he bent toward her,
only to pick up the tiny piece of candle still barely
burning. He lit a stained glass-covered lantern and
placed it on the bed stand beside it. Keealyn stared
into a pair of green eyes that reminded her of misty
mornings.

Clean-shaven, his thick, dark chestnut hair
flowed past the collar of his navy muslin shirt. It
opened halfway down the front, to reveal a smooth
muscular chest. Very tall, lean, and brawny, well defined
biceps, triceps, and pecs filled his shirt. He
had a slim waist and strong shoulders. His worn
blue jeans, held up with a handmade leather belt,
hung low on his hips. His skin seemed to glow in the
lamplight in a warm, bronzed tone.

He was gorgeous.