Forever Ashley Read online

  Ashley blinked rapidly again, her heart pounding. Maybe this was just a dream. That’s it. She was dreaming! She would wake up anytime now and be in her own bed.

  “These are desperate times,” the tall man soberly reminded her. “You have placed yourself in a dangerous situation. I only hope the lobsterbacks are paying you enough.”

  Lobsterbacks! Ashley struggled to remind herself this was only a dream. That’s all it was. A crazy dream! Blinking furiously, she dabbed at the tears rolling from the corners of her eyes. A crazy dream.

  “The woman is mad! Completely mad!” one of the other men observed.

  Ashley blocked out the men’s voices. If it was only a dream, what they said or threatened didn’t matter. She would wake up any minute now.

  Moving away from the table, she sent clots of dirt scattering across the floor as she spied the catchall that doubled as her purse. She leaned over to scoop up the spilled contents, dismayed to see that her small bottle of perfume had broken. After dumping onto the table an assortment of lipsticks, loose change, compact, mascara, billfold, sun glasses, car keys, aspirin, cold and cough medicines, and old tissues, she rummaged through the pile, searching for the small bottle of saline solution for her contacts.

  Anger surged when she realized her cell phone was missing, and just when she needed it most. A lipstick rolled across the table, and she snatched it up before it fell to the floor.

  The men watched, completely speechless now.

  A tampon fell to the floor, and Ashley grabbed for it, her face flooding with color

  The tall man lunged forward, snatching the long white cylinder from her hand. Balancing it in the palm of his hand, he motioned for the others to gather around to inspect it.

  “Careful, men. The wench plans to do away with herself,” one of the men warned.

  With a tampon? Rolling her eyes, Ashley turned back to the table, picking up the small vial of saline solution. Weirdest dream she’d ever had. She tilted her head backward, dropped three drops into her eye, and blinked hard.

  “Here now!” Three of the men bolted forward. “She’s putting her eyes out!”

  Ashley squealed as her arms were captured and brought swiftly behind her back. “I’m only wetting my contacts!”

  The men gasped. “Fie! Wetting on her contacts? The woman is clearly daft!”

  The tall man grabbed the bottle of saline solution from her fingers and lifted it to the light.

  “What manner of evil does she use?” another asked.

  “Wetting solution,” he read.

  The men exchanged meaningless looks.

  “For contacts,” he added.

  The men’s jaws finned.

  “Who is your contact, young woman? Give us a name and you may avoid a hanging!”

  Ashley’s eyes widened. “Hanging? Okay. Wake up! Wake up, Ashley. Nightmare’s over!”

  “Now who is she talking to?” one of the men demanded.

  “She is addlebrained,” another reminded.

  “Or pretending to be,” the third conceded.

  Ashley blinked again, trying to clear her eyes.

  “See how she rolls her eyes.”

  “‘Tis only a ploy.”

  “Wake up, Ashley, time to wake up,” Ashley chanted. She jerked free of the man’s grasp, still chanting. “Wake up, wake up, wake up….”

  “Let her be,” the tall man ordered as the others scurried to capture her arm again. “She cannot escape.”

  Shooting her captors a smug smile, Ashley calmly reached up, pulled at her eyelid, and popped her contact lens out into her palm.

  “God’s teeth!” someone murmured. “The wench has dislodged her eye!”

  “What has been wished upon us? She speaks of contacts, obviously Loyalist, but denies being a spy. Is she a fool, or merely a poor, demented soul?”

  “She’s clever, would be my guess,” the tall one returned softly.

  Ashley squinted in his direction. She was so nearsighted that without her contacts anyone or anything more than five feet away was reduced to a blur. “Now that we know who I am, a daft, poor, demented spy, who are you?” she challenged, getting a little tired of the men’s chauvinist attitudes.

  The men exchanged pained looks.

  “Be not fooled. She knows our names, would be my guess,” one in the group observed, disgruntled. “She must be disposed of immediately.”

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen. Where are your manners?” the tall one chided. Ashley eyed him warily as he approached. “The young woman has inquired of our names.” He bowed mockingly. “Aaron Kenneman, physician, at your service.”

  “So very nice to meet you, Dr. Kenneman.” Ashley calmly squeezed a few drops of the saline solution into the palm of her hand. She was going to have a good laugh about this dream in the morning.

  When the contact was thoroughly rinsed, she caught it on the tip of her finger and popped it back into her eye. After blinking three or four times, she relaxed. Wonderful. She could see again.

  “Now, Dr. Kenneman.” Her smile was decidedly cool. “If you would be so kind as to tell me what is going on?” Dreams have an odd way of leaving a person at a disadvantage at times.

  His smile was as cold as his eyes. “Going on? Why, my dear, you’re in the Green Dragon Tavern. You didn’t know?”

  Ashley frowned. “In Boston?”

  “In Boston,” he verified dryly.

  Ashley’s eyes moved around the room curiously. “What is the date?”

  “Date?”

  “Yes, tell me the date.”

  “April 15, 1775.”

  “The Green Dragon Tavern. April 15. Income tax day. ” And she still had her tax forms lying in the front seat of the car. The rest of what he’d said suddenly penetrated her mind. “Seventeen seventy-five.” Ashley hesitated. Seventeen seventy-five? Three days before Paul Revere’s famous ride. Oh, this was cute. The dream had taken her back to Paul Revere’s day! “And I suppose this ‘meeting’ I’ve disrupted is to decide what to do about the British?” She grinned. Sure it was.

  “Aha! I told you she was a spy!” one of the men exclaimed. “How else could she know about our meetings, Aaron?”

  Oh, this was rich! Ashley stared at the man who had just spoken, and it suddenly dawned on her who he was. Paul Revere. It was Paul Revere!

  Well, sure, why not? Ashley leaned forward to get a closer look at the men now seated at the table staring at her. The dream was remarkable. These men looked even better than the pictures of the American Patriots in the history books.

  “Paul Revere?” she said aloud, pointing to the portly, fortyish-looking man.

  He had been momentarily distracted by her tangled wig, which lay amid the rubble on the table, but he glanced up when she said his name.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s really you? Paul Revere?”

  Paul looked at the other men.

  Ashley grinned as she looked slowly around the table. Yes…yes, the dream was exceptional, all right. She remembered seeing all these men in the history books—except Aaron Kenneman.

  She pointed to the man sitting next to Revere. “John Hancock, first signer of the Declaration of Independence.”

  “It is assured. She is daft,” Hancock grumbled.

  Her finger moved about the room randomly. “And…you are John Adams, and you are…Church…Dr. Benjamin Church.”

  Each man nodded solemnly.

  Ashley smiled, enthralled by the dream’s authenticity. “And you’re Dr. Joseph Warren?” Ashley’s gaze focused on the man in his mid-thirties sitting to her right. “From Lexington.”

  Warren nodded gravely.

  Dream or no dream, this was amazing! “‘Dr. Joseph Warren, the greatest incendiary in all America’” she quoted. “You’re a member of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, and temporary president of the Provincial Congress, and the man who sent William Dawes and Paul Revere to Lexington to warn Hancock and Samuel Adams of British plans to arrest them.”


  Warren paled. “Gentlemen, the woman is ruinous. She must be disposed of with no further delay.”

  Ashley sprang to her feet. “No!” she exclaimed. “No, I’m not a spy.”

  “Then pray tell, lovely lady, who are you?” Aaron Kenneman demanded.

  “I’m…I’m…” Ashley shrugged helplessly. Turning her palms up, she smiled at the men. “Dreaming?”

  Chapter Two

  “Dreaming?” Eyes of cold gray steel challenged Ashley. “I think not, wench. State your name!”

  “We can delay no longer, Aaron,” Warren warned. “The woman must be done away with.”

  Ashley tensed, vividly recalling the methods of punishment handed out in 1775. Visions of dunking stools and the pillory mixed with branding, mutilation, and hanging haunted her.

  “Lashes would loosen her tongue, I assure you,” Warren threatened.

  Names that had meant nothing to her when she’d studied history suddenly sprang to Ashley’s mind: John Morris found, guilty of sheep stealing and receiving a brand in the middle of his hand, Daniel Martin receiving fifteen lashes for stealing a wooden horse. Good heavens! What would they do to a spy? What if they paraded her up and down the street, or put her in the stocks?

  “You can’t do that,” she whispered, grabbing the tall man’s shirt. “I’m not a spy.”

  Aaron coldly peeled her hand from his sleeve. “One must be prepared to pay for one’s actions.”

  “But I’ve done nothing! Nothing!”

  Church lost his patience. “God’s teeth, cease her babbling, Kenneman. We must choose our course of action!”

  “Babbling! Can’t you see I’m not a spy? Do I look like a spy?”

  The men studied her costume. “‘Tis a fine garment,” Revere conceded. He reached out and felt the material of her sleeve, rubbing it between his fingers thoughtfully. “Excellent cloth.”

  After a moment’s hesitation Church did the same, his face flushed with anger now. “‘Tis only further proof.”

  “What proof?” Ashley exclaimed.

  “Proof you are not a patriot,” Warren accused.

  “You judge me guilty by the dress I wear!”

  “And a wretched spy you are,” Church jeered. “Patriots have sworn not to purchase English goods. The colonists are sworn to wearing only their hand-woven cotton and wool. The cloth you wear is too fine not to have been imported from England. Do you deny this?”

  “Yes, I can and do,” Ashley said emphatically. ‘This is a simple polished cotton blend, so the costumes won’t wrinkle when they’re washed. And this lace is plain old polyester…” She faltered when she saw her words were falling on deaf ears.

  “Babble,” Church muttered beneath his breath.

  “It’s not! It’s the truth!”

  “I say we take her to the jail and be done with it,” John Hancock interjected. “We have wasted enough time.”

  “No!” Ashley clutched Dr. Kenneman’s arm again. “Don’t let them do this to me!” This was crazy! Was she actually going to have to endure a hanging before she woke up?

  “My dear young woman, we are indeed serious,” John Adams assured her gravely. “We are in the midst of a struggle that will change our lives. Our mission cannot be endangered from any quarter. Most especially not by the prattlings and rantings of a demented young woman, whether that guise be a ploy to gain information, or the true ravings of a depraved mind. Be you a witch? Or be you a spy?”

  Visions of burning at a flaming stake flashed through Ashley’s mind. “No, I’m not a witch! I don’t know what’s happening to me, but you’ve got to help me!” She looked beseechingly at Aaron Kenneman.

  “One should more seriously consider the consequences before becoming a spy for George.”

  “George?” Ashley asked.

  Kenneman’s look was disdainful, and Ashley’s back stiffened in resentment. Obviously the man meant King George of England, but this whole thing was so absurd….

  “She knows something of what we’re about,” Revere conceded. “Mayhap she could be persuaded to share her information, or its source?”

  The men’s eyes focused on Ashley.

  “I don’t know anything about what you’re doing,” she vowed, although that wasn’t quite true. In college, she had elected to major in history with an emphasis on the Colonial American period. But five weeks into the course she had dropped out, realizing that she really didn’t like history all that much. Yet six months ago, an unexpected five-hundred-dollar car repair bill had forced her to accept the part-time job at the museum. One of the job requirements was that she memorize large segments relating to the Revolutionary War period, and be able to answer questions concerning that period.

  “If you’re reenacting the Revolutionary War, through—”

  The men visibly tensed again. “War? Explain your words.”

  “Could she have intercepted one of our messages?” Warren murmured.

  “If she has, we’ll soon know of it.” Aaron grasped Ashley’s arm and turned her around to face him. “You are a Tory spy!”

  “I am not!”

  “Then you claim to be a patriot?”

  Ashley drew a deep breath, trying to think. If she wasn’t a spy then there was little choice but to be a patriot. “Of course I’m a patriot.”

  But the men did not believe her.

  “Utter nonsense she speaks,” Revere muttered. “We should be done with it before more precious time escapes us.”

  “Join or Die,” Ashley suddenly murmured.

  Hancock whirled. “What say you?”

  “I said ‘Join or Die.’ Isn’t that one of your mottoes?” She was sure she had read that somewhere.

  Revere glanced at Aaron. “But how…?”

  “I read it in a book,” Ashley explained.

  The men stiffened.

  “Gentlemen, a word in private,” Revere requested.

  Ashley tried to collect her thoughts as Aaron drew five of the men to the opposite side of the room. She was aware that they were discussing her fate, but she now felt oddly detached from their quandary. It was only a dream, and dreams eventually ended no matter how scary they became.

  Heads pressed tightly together, the men spoke in hushed tones, glancing up occasionally to stare in her direction.

  When this was over, she and Sue would have a big laugh, Ashley decided. Here she was, dreaming of Paul Revere, John Hancock, Joseph Warren, John Adams, and Dr. Benjamin Church. Men—vitally important men who had formed the colonial resistance against England. She couldn’t place Aaron Kenneman, though he did seem to be a strong part of this farce. But why dream of the Revolutionary War? She’d obviously been working too many hours at the museum. She needed a vacation.

  Ashley glanced back to the men as they conferred among themselves. She smiled. The dream was quite exciting, actually. Naturally, the men would be concerned about whether she was a spy for the British if the dream was indeed reality and not fantasy. But if, by some broad stroke of fate, it was reality and not just a dream, and if the men were convinced she was a spy, they would very likely order her death.

  Whether she liked it or not, she had to consider that possibility. If she wasn’t dreaming, then where was she? Had she fallen into a time warp?

  Ridiculous. Time warps existed only in movies and comic books, didn’t they?

  While the men continued to converse among themselves, Ashley struggled to remember all she could about the era in which she found herself. They’d said it was April 15, 1775. That meant that the Revolution had actually begun fifteen years earlier, in October 1760, when a pop-eyed, twenty-two-year-old in England became King George III. Though young, King George had been certain that kings never made mistakes, which was, in Ashley’s opinion, at the crux of the problem.

  The Americans were loyal to King George and were under the mistaken impression that Parliament, not the king, was responsible for England’s poor policy in dealing with them. England’s war with France had been expens
ive. The English found themselves deeply in debt, and British taxes were exceedingly high. Lord Grenville, who became prime minister in 1763, was a notorious penny pincher, and he suggested that England raise taxes in the colonies. He thought the Americans should support the army sent to protect them from the Indians.

  Grenville began trying to enforce some old laws called the Acts of Trade and Navigation. This included taxes payable to Great Britain on imports shipped into colonial harbors. The law also restricted the places where American ships carrying produce could go to sell their cargoes. The law affected virtually everyone’s ability to earn a living.

  Ashley brushed at her skirt, glancing at the men again. If she could get the facts straight in her mind, she could convince them that she was not crazy and not a spy. She did not understand what was going on, but she was not here to interfere with history. She frowned. This was incredible. Ashley Wheeler, American patriot.

  She began to pace, struggling to arrange her thoughts in the proper sequence of events.

  The men turned, their conversation dying away as they watched her talking aloud to herself as she paced.

  “Grenville’s next plan was to tax a variety of papers: legal documents, newspapers, marriage licenses, college diplomas, ships’ papers, and a good many other things. All such papers were required to carry a large blue paper seal called a ‘revenue stamp’ as proof that a tax had been paid.

  “The mandate created two major problems: The tax denied Americans the right to fix their own ‘internal’ taxes, and it was very expensive. Americans began to hate the stamp. The rallying cry became ‘No taxation without representation.’” Ashley ticked off the points on her fingers as she paced back and forth across the room. “The confrontation was now between the American assemblies elected in each colony by the people against the English Parliament.

  “In July 1765 Lord Rockingham succeeded Grenville as prime minister. Rockingham recognized that the Stamp Act was costing more than it brought in. He began to talk with British merchants and persuaded them to complain to Parliament. As a result, in 1766 Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, which overjoyed the colonists. But a new law surfaced: the Declaratory Act, another unfair law that Parliament passed at the same time it repealed the Stamp Act. If anything, the Declaratory Act was worse. It stated that Parliament had the power to write laws for the colonies ‘in all cases whatsoever,’ which meant they could write all tax laws.”