The Lantern Light: A Time Travel MM Holiday Romance by C.L. Beaumont

Author:C.L. Beaumont [Beaumont, C.L.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Carnation Books
Published: 2021-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

12

December 1882

They thunder into town.

Old Jane is frothing at the mouth, her mane whipping Peter’s cheeks. They haven’t heard hoofbeats from behind them in well over a minute, and Peter thinks that maybe a miracle happened and their pursuers rode straight off a cliff like in a cartoon. He cracks open one eye from where Amos has got him shoved down in the saddle and gapes in shock as the town of Big Timber rushes past—a splintery saloon and dance hall, a general store with a crooked swing door in front.

Not a single thing remaining from the town Peter knows every boring inch of. Not even a gas pump or a flickering neon sign or a Ford pickup truck.

Nausea swirls through his stomach in a wave. Amos spurs the tired horse on, flying down the icy road towards what looks like a town square. If Peter hadn’t fully believed it before, he fucking believes it now.

Amos had said, “Year’s eighty-two.”

And Peter finally accepts it: 1882.

Amos is breathing hard and fast in his ear, breath in clouds of mist. Peter has no idea what the plan is as they fly down the road, nothing but the Crazies and open hills lying beyond the town, the black scar of a railroad track lancing through the dead grass, no train in sight.

Then a sudden burst of fresh bullets rains down around them, little sparks barely missing the horse’s feet.

Old Jane gives a shrill scream. Or maybe it’s Peter. Then Amos mumbles something that sounds like, enough of this, under his breath. He yanks on the reins, swinging them towards the covered wooden walkway.

“Watch your head,” Amos barks, and Peter barely has time to process what’s happening before there are arms around his waist, and his ass leaves the saddle, and he’s being unceremoniously hurled into a tiny alleyway with a grunt of effort.

He lands, feet in the air, in bales of stacked-up hay with a yelp.

“You stay hid,” he hears over his shoulder in a gruff command. When Peter finally extracts his head from the hay and looks back, Amos is gone.

He curses under his breath. It feels like he’s dying, his lungs refusing to take in oxygen. He does a quick once-over of his body, making sure no bones are sticking out—he shudders to think at what would pass for medical care in this godawful place—then he crawls towards the mouth of the alleyway, plucking straw from his hair.

He feels uncomfortably afraid, being suddenly parted from Amos like this, never mind the fact he only learned his real name half an hour ago. He’s in his hometown, and yet he’s decidedly not, and even the air feels wrong and foreign. Peter keeps glancing at the cold sky, terrified like some claw will emerge from the cloudless blue, pluck him up and fling him off into no century at all, just an empty abyss. The distance between himself and everything he’s ever known feels nauseating and huge. And now he’s just been quite

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