Promises from the Past

Promises from the Past is a 1995 romance novel written by Victoria Bruce as part of the Timeswept series published by Dorchester Publishing Company under its Love Spell imprint. The plot centers upon Maggie Westshire and a 1993 journey for answers about her missing father that takes her to Hot Springs (Garland County) and results in her traveling back in time to the year 1926. This was the author’s first book, the second (and only other) being 1998’s Windmills in Time, and Bruce acknowledges being indebted to the Garland County Historical Society for help with researching Promises from the Past.

The book opens with Maggie Westshire, a perfumer by trade, having recently arrived in Garland County from southern California with her husband, David, to visit Maggie’s aunt Josephine with the goal of tracing her long-missing father, Jesse Taggert—known locally as “the Admiral” for his alleged career as a sailor—who disappeared when Maggie was six. The next day, Maggie goes to a local museum and opens a bottle of powder, apparently some old patent medicine, that brings back memories of her father and causes her to faint. When she is awakened by the elderly man who works there, Boo McGraw, she asks him about the Chigger Club, a former gambling establishment (her father was a known gambler). Boo informs Maggie that her father’s nickname was not related to a sailing career and that her father killed himself by driving into Lake Isabelle after losing a big bet. She later ventures to a rural graveyard and finds a stone inscribed with his name and a death date of August 11, 1966. When she goes back to the Arlington Hotel, she finds David having sex with a blond woman in the shower.

As Maggie leaves the hotel, she finds herself in the Hot Springs of days gone by, seeing vintage automobiles, “drummers” luring people to clinics, and a newspaper dated July 21, 1926. She faints again and finds herself in the Government Free Clinic, apparently mistaken for a prostitute with syphilis. She is rescued by a man with a gun, Shea Younger, and taken to a more legitimate clinic. There, she realizes that her experiences with the past have likely been caused by the strange powder she encountered in the museum. Her new doctor prescribes treatments at one of the bathhouses along Bathhouse Row. Maggie then ropes Shea into her search for the mysterious powder, and along the way they encounter Al Capone, who is backing a particular boxer in the next local match. They then see a local ostrich race.

When they do find a bottle of similar shape, a bathhouse attendant tells Maggie that it is the same kind that a “witch” named Mortiana up in Dark Corner “uses for her potions.” After Maggie witnesses Orville Briggs, owner of the Chigger Club, being murdered, she and Shea flee the scene, and near Lake Isabella she tells him her whole story about traveling back in time.

Being chased by first a mob and then corrupt local policemen, Maggie and Shea run to Dark Corner. They encounter a moonshiner named Jeb and stay at his place for a few days, and here Maggie and Shea’s mutual attraction leads to sex. They then visit Mortiana, who is aware that Maggie is from the future and gives her a bottle of powder. The Scruggs brothers, who have a vendetta against Shea, then show up. The pair tries to use the powder to travel through time, but it does not work, and they are caught and taken to the Chigger Club. There, Willy Widowmaker, who has taken over the club, offers Shea a lucrative employment opportunity if he will kill Maggie. However, Maggie escapes and runs back to the cottage where she has been staying. She briefly meets her father, who has been working for Widowmaker, before he is killed by a goon named Caps, who, in turn, is killed by Shea.

After the funeral of Maggie’s father, she and Shea leave town on a train. There, Maggie reads a letter her father left behind, describing how his sister had given him that powder to “help me escape my bad luck,” with him ending up in 1926. She then grows light-headed, realizing that the letter was scented with the powder. Back in her present timeline, she works unsuccessfully at her lab to recreate the scent of the powder and files for divorce from David, who tries to win her back by claiming he has a diagnosed sex addiction.

She returns to Hot Springs and finds an old newspaper article reporting that Shea had died during a fire at the Chigger Club the day after she disappeared. However, as she runs out into the street, Shea saves her from being run over by a trolley; he had her father’s reserve of the powder at the club during the fire and managed to travel forward. The book ends thusly: “And above the pharmacy, a phoenix rising out of the ashes, hovered the Chigger Club, watching two star-blessed lovers as it had for over sixty years.”

For additional information:
Bruce, Victoria. Promises from the Past. New York: Dorchester Publishing Co., 1995.

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas