"Miss Josie?" Nell's voice was close.
I held my breath and shoved the phone back into my pocket. Seated on the saddle, I waited to hear what she'd do.
The slide of a shotgun's fore stock and the chambering of a round told me how serious she was. My mind raced. There was no way I was going to get the horse saddled and out of the barn before she got off a round or two. I needed to distract her long enough for me to get the hell out of here.
"Nell. Can we talk?" I ventured.
There was a pause. "You must join your father, Josie."
Swallowing the urge to cry, I wiped tears from my face shakily. "Father … father told me something before he died. Something he wanted you to know," I lied.
"What did he say?" Her response was fast and anxious.
"Don't shoot. Okay?"
There was a pause, then, "Okay, Miss Josie."
Jesus please let this work. I stood uncertainly.
Nell stood in the middle of the barn, shotgun lowered and attention riveted on me. "Can I ask you something first, Nell?"
She said nothing.
"You came from the future, didn't you?" As I spoke, I moved slowly towards the door. Lightning lit up the gaps around the closed windows and thunder made the ground rumble.
There was a hesitation then a brisk nod.
"You were in love with John from the beginning."
Another nod.
"Why did Carter send you back?" It was probably the least of my worries right now, but after hearing Taylor say no one understood the mastermind Doctor Who behind this adventure, I had the urge to know.
"To look over Josie. Make sure she was safe. And … to find Taylor Hansen." The emptiness in Nell's eyes bothered me. "John … was the best man I had ever met. I couldn't stop him. Couldn't save her. Couldn't do anything to help him when it was done."
Split personality or something. Nell's mind had snapped in two: the time traveler sent on a mission and the guardian of a woman she helped raise whose brutal death broke an already fragile mind.
The explanation that she was supposed to take care of real-Josie made little sense to me in light of my purpose here, unless it was like my original mission: the lie Carter used to get her to agree to going back in time.
"Were you a … governess in your time?" I asked.
"Yes. He said I was going to a place where a little girl needed me."
I didn't want to know how wrong I had been about Carter. Taylor was right; whatever cards Carter held, they were almost impossible to guess. What kind of man abandoned innocent people in the past to end up either dead or crazy?