Badland Bride by Lauri Robinson Page B

technology, and therefore crave college. She couldn't imagine someone choosing not to go. She also didn't know how to begin to explain computers. “It stands for Information Technology.” She shrugged her shoulders, “It's really hard to explain."
    "It sounds like it.” Jessie reached over, patted her knee. “So, how did you meet Skeeter."
    She wanted a friend she could spill the beans to, and Jessie's kindness made the perfect companion for her—a scared, pregnant girl from the future. She twisted, looked Jessie in the eye. “This guy named Pete had given me a drug and raped me. Six weeks later I found out I was pregnant and tried to have him arrested. It didn't work out, and he's been stalking me ever since. Yesterday morning, he was chasing me down the highway, and I took a side road, it led me too an old homestead. I hid my car behind the sandstone bluffs and ran into the abandoned house."
    Jessie blinked a couple of times. “Then what happened?"
    "A voice or a feeling told me to crawl through a small door and into a tunnel. When I got to the end of the tunnel, Skeeter was there sleeping next to a fire. He said he'd participated in a ghost dance with an Indian named Buffalo Killer and he'd become a ghost in the house. He scared Pete away and made the house fall down, and when that happened the tunnel caved in, so I had no way to get back to the future."
    Jessie's finger's felt cool against Lila's heated skin as they brushed over her forehead.
    Lila reached up and clasped the hand, squeezing it. “I know it sounds unbelievable. It is unbelievable, but that's what happened. I swear to you. That's what happened."
    "I believe you,” Jessie whispered.
    She looked at Jessie seriously. “Why? Why would you believe me?"
    Jessie looked extremely sad for a moment. “Because I know how it feels to have people not believe."
    "Do you also believe me when I say I can't marry Skeeter? That I have to get back to the future?” The statement tore at her heart.
    With a frown Jessie asked, “To go back to the man who raped you?"
    "No, no, I'll get an order for protection or something. I have to go back so I can have the baby and give it away.” A new pain made her throat burn.
    "What?” Jessie's solemn eyes popped wide open. “Give your baby away?"
    Lila nodded. Her decision hadn't come lightly, but another thing about the millennium generation, thanks to divorce, single parents and latchkey life, was their independence and empowerment. The baby boomers called them selfish and lazy. She didn't believe she was selfish, just had a different attitude than other generations. “Yes, I'm not ready to be a mom.” She repeated the excuse she'd hoped to soon believe. Letting go of Jessie's hand, she rose to walk around the small room.
    The large brass tub had been removed. A bed, a dresser, a chair, and the table beside the bed filled Stephanie Quinter's bedroom. It was tidy and quaint. Jessie had led her in here after Kid cut the ropes binding her and Skeeter. Stephanie hadn't been happy about the happenings at all.
    Lila twisted to face the bed again. “Nor am I willing to have a baby in the eighteen-eighties."
    "Why not?"
    She threw her hands in the air. “It's dangerous for one."
    "Having babies is dangerous? How? It's a natural process,” Jessie said.
    "It's changed a lot between now and two-thousand-eight.” Lila knelt down in front of Jessie and took both of her hands. She liked Skeeter's sister-in-law, a lot. And she didn't want the girl to go through labor without modern medicine any more than she wanted to herself. “Jessie, women die during childbirth in this day and age."
    "There's always that possibility, I guess."
    "In the future, they have specialists, and ultrasounds, and neonatal units.” Her mind took a detour. “You should come back to the future with me,” Lila said.
    "But you said you can't get back to the future. That the tunnel caved in."
    Lila let go of Jessie's hands and began to pace the room again.