saloon.
But after she'd descended the stairs, the clerk behind the front desk smiled at her nicely, saying, "I'm glad you're up and about. We were worried about you yesterday when you didn't come down. We assumed you weren't feeling well."
It was as good a lie as any, Cimmy guessed. "Yes, yes." It did not come easy to her but was better than an explanation that would make her sound like she needed to be carted away to the loony bin.
"Feeling better today, I hope?"
"Yes, thank you, I am."
That wasn't the entire truth, either. As much as she wanted to dismiss what had happened to her over the past day or so, there was evidence that it had happened. She had awoken in her nightgown with the lady of the evening's robe still wrapped around her, and the gown still split up the front. Her voice when she spoke to the clerk was barely above a whisper, and she knew the reasons for that. To say nothing of the fact that, as she'd dressed, she had deliberately taken the time to examine herself in the mirror—something she seemed to be making a habit of lately. Only this time, she blamed the tendency squarely on him.
She'd wanted to see if she looked any different, and was disappointed, considering the changes her body had undergone in the past day or so, how innocent she'd been when she'd gone to sleep the night before last, and how sexually experienced she was now as she stood naked before the mirror.
Beyond the fact that her entire body—most especially the areas between her legs, and her breasts—seemed to be sensitive in a way she couldn't ever remember them being, there didn't seem to be much that had changed, outwardly anyway. The only part of her that showed any signs of wear was her behind, which was a mass of red and raw flesh. She could clearly see the imprints of the belt where he had lashed it down on her.
And as if that wasn't enough evidence, her privates were sore, and all too… unnaturally sensitive; so much so that they were hard to ignore whenever she moved—or didn't. She knew she was going to be spending the day blushing in two places on her body.
And Cimmy knew exactly what it was that she wanted to do, although she was again at odds with her own mind. A large part of her said she should simply pack her stuff up and go back to her home, and leave all of this weird stuff behind. Leave it at being a dream, a mental breakdown, even a bizarre time warp. Leave it behind and never look back. But a small—very insistent—part said that she needed to find a way to get back, somehow. Not because she was growing obsessed with Jude—although she was worried that that was true. Not because she lusted after him—and that was definitely true, though she hated to admit it. She convinced herself that it was because of his wound, that her doctor self felt an obligation to a man she considered to be her patient, despite the fact that he probably didn't see it that way at all. Her medical identity used to be the biggest part of her, but that was no more since he now filled nearly every nook and cranny of both her body and her mind, as evidenced by the fact that she hadn't entertained the idea of going home for more than a split second before realizing she had to return to him.
But this time she'd be prepared, she hoped. Or at least, she'd try to be, considering she wasn't exactly sure of how it was that she'd gotten herself back in time in the first place. However, she had a very embarrassing theory that she figured she was going to have to test out. She was going to take her best guess about whether or not she would be able to take things with her if she deliberately planned to go.
The extent to which she was already allowing herself to become involved with him would have been glaringly apparent to anyone who knew her. She blatantly broke several laws—ethics be damned—in order to write herself prescriptions for medications she wanted to bring with her, and spent the day in Settler's Bluff gathering as many things
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