This story copyright 1999 by Elise Dee Beraru. Published by Hard Shell Word Factory.
8946 Loberg Rd.
Amherst Junction, WI 54407
http://www.hardshell.com
Electronic book created by Seattle Book Company.
eBook ISBN: 0-7599-2305-1
Cover art copyright 1999, Mary Z. Wolf
All electronic rights reserved.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and has no relation whatever to anyone bearing the same name or names. These characters are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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To Maria Carbajal, who was the first person (after me) to fall in love with Blair Carroll. To Josette Valtierra, who understands more than anyone how hard it is to write and run a law practice simultaneously. To Los Angeles Romance Authors and Romance Writers of America, for showing me how to get through the door that separates dreaming about being an author and becoming one.
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Chapter 1
SUNLIGHT PEEKING in from a crack in the drapes assaulted Blair Carroll's senses like a knife to his flesh. His head splitting like he had been struck with an ax, he slowly opened his eyes and tried to focus on his surroundings.
He was in his bedroom in San Francisco. He recognized the dark wood paneling, the dark blue wallpaper and curtains, the heavy oak furnishings. A fire blazed in the fireplace opposite him. How he got there he had no idea.
He glanced down. He was covered nearly to his shoulders with a fine percale sheet and silk counterpane of the same dark blue as the walls and drapes. His long arms at his sides were encased in the sleeves of a nightshirt on top of the coverlet. For a brief moment, it didn't seem right.
The blanket should be more colorful, not so smooth and dark. But that's ridiculous; I've had this same bedding for years.
At the bottom of the bed, a pair of stocking feet rested, crossed at the ankles. Blair followed their trail up to reveal the form of his brother, who sat in a chair beside him, dozing, an open book in his lap. Stephen was wearing his trousers and shirt, with his suit vest unbuttoned. A lock of his raven hair fell forward over his forehead. A couple of days' growth marred his usually clean-shaven face, yet he still managed to look boyish in slumber.
A sharp pain in his temple jolted Blair and instinctively he raised his palms to his forehead to find a padded bandage wrapped around his head. The pain subsided and Blair lowered his hands, seeing them in focus for the first time.
"My God!" he cried in anguish and anger, jarring Stephen awake so quickly that his book slid off his lap as he brought himself upright. So strained was Blair's cry that Stephen forgot to be glad that his brother was conscious for the first time in days.
"Blair, what's the matter?" Stephen blurted out.
"Look at my hands. What happened to my hands?"
Blair stared at his hands like they belonged to someone else. His right little finger was completely missing, both hands were tanned brown, rough calluses coated the palms and the pads of his remaining fingers, tiny scars from small nicks and cuts were evident. His fingernails were roughly pared and stained, as were his ragged cuticles. Small, black dye-filled needle pricks covered the tips of his left index and middle finger. On his left ring finger was a horseshoe nail forged into a ring.
"What's today?"
"Saturday."
"No, I mean the date."
"December sixteenth. You've been unconscious for nearly four days."
"I arrived home December twelfth?"
"Um-hmm."
Blair frowned and held out his hands again. "How could I have done this much damage to my hands in a month?"
Stephen started. "A month? What do you mean a month?"
Blair looked at his brother. "I left you in Milwaukee on November eighth. I was trying to ride to some goddamned depot in Wyoming because the track was out. I was held up--a couple of seedy bastards. They cold-cocked me. I'm sure it was November tenth or eleventh. Somehow it took me a month to get home. You just said I got home December twelfth. Unless I crawled home from Wyoming on my hands and knees, I couldn't have done this much damage to my hands in one month."
Stephen stared at his brother's face. The older man's gray eyes were dark with confusion and anger. The younger one's similar eyes were filled with dismay. He quietly asked, "Blair, what date do you think it is?"
"You just told me, December sixteenth."
"No, I mean the year?"
"Are you crazy?" Blair spit out angrily, "December sixteenth, 1873."
"Eighteen seventy-five," came the clear, quiet response. "You've been missing and presumed dead for over two years."
"It's not possible."
Stephen reached beside him to the floor where he had dropped the morning paper after reading it while sitting at the bedside. He handed it to Blair, saying, "Today's Chronicle."
Blair looked. There was no doubt. The numbers 1875 were clearly printed on the masthead. If he suspected a gag, the look on Stephen's face quickly relieved him of that notion.
"Blair, where have you been for the last two years?"
Blair leaned back on the pillows and closed his eyes. "I have no idea...." He squeezed his eyes tighter shut and put his palms to his aching head. "God damn it, I can't remember."
A long, silent, painful moment passed. Then suddenly Blair yanked the covers off and lurched to get out of bed. Stephen rose to aid his brother, but Blair pushed him off and walked over to the window, yanking the drape aside. The afternoon sunlight streamed into the bedroom, stabbing at his throbbing head. He then lurched over to the full-length mirror that stood beside the closet door. He pulled off the bandage on his head and looked in at his silvered reflection.
A stranger stared back. The face belonged to the hands, but neither belonged to Blair Carroll. His eyes and nose were the same, but there the resemblance ended. The stranger's hair was black, but below shoulder length and thickly wavy. He had two weeks' growth of black beard and his mustache was bushy and long, the ends covering his closed mouth. The skin was bronzed from hours in a hot sun, although there were dark circles beneath the eyes. A yellowing purple bruise and some scabbed-over lacerations decorated his left temple, but there was also an older scar running across his forehead from above his left eyebrow and into his scalp. In the bright sunlight, he could detect the evidence of tiny stitches on the older scar.
None of this was familiar. Blair never allowed himself to become shaggy or tanned. Except for a well-trimmed mustache, he was normally as shorthaired and clean-shaven as his brother.
For a minute he looked at his right hand. The same tiny stitch scars were present where his little finger had been. Whoever had stitched him up had done a really careful job.
The silence of his exploration was punctuated only by the steady breathing of both brothers. Ignoring his brother's presence, and feeling his nightshirt binding him across the shoulders and chest, he reached down and pulled it over his head to stand naked before the mirror.
If his face was a stranger's, his body shocked him even more. He was massive; previously broad shoulders made even larger by well-defined musculature. The bulging muscles of his forearms, biceps and pectorals were defined as if sculpted. His stomach was ridged like a washboard, covered with a pelt of familiar black hair; perhaps the only familiar sight he recognized on this stranger in the mirror. From the waist up his skin was nearly as tanned as his face. From the waist down his flesh was white, but his thighs and calves were thickly muscled and his buttocks firm and hard. There was not an ounce of fat on him; not that there had been before, but he had been slender, impressive physically only in height, bearing and de
meanor. He stared at himself for long minutes, analyzing, not admiring, turning slightly to get a full picture of his metamorphosis.
"I look like a stevedore. Wherever I was, I must have been working like one."
Stephen nodded. Since he had bathed Blair and dressed him in the nightshirt, he had already seen the radical physical changes to his brother's body.
Blair strode back to the bed and sat down heavily, pulling the nightshirt back on for privacy sake, even though it clung to his massive form like an uncomfortable second skin.
"You must have been looking for me all this time. The last thing I remember is one of those fucking bandits aiming the handle of his gun at my head. What did you discover?"
"About a month after you disappeared, your ring and watch were discovered at two different locations in the Wyoming and Colorado Territories. I've got them now. Did you have them on when you were robbed?"
"My watch was in my vest pocket, but I had already given it to the bandits. My ring was under my gloves when the leader cold-cocked me."
"You always had trouble getting that ring off, didn't you?"
"Yeah," Blair affirmed.
"Well, when I put you to bed, I noticed that the scar on your hand and the one on your head had been stitched up."
"Yeah, I just noticed that myself...I'll bet those bastards couldn't get the damned ring off and cut off my finger to get it."
"And probably left you for dead. Only someone found you and stitched up the two wounds. Can you remember who found you?"
"Not at all. I haven't any clue."
Stephen brightened. "Maybe there's a clue in the clothes you were wearing when you arrived."
"Somehow, I have the feeling they're not my usual style."
"I'll say." Stephen brought a bundle over to the bed.
On top of the bundle was a large pair of worn, scuffed, brown leather work boots with worn leather laces. The boots had been cleaned and polished by a servant, destroying any evidence of their origins. Putting those down on the floor, Blair looked at the clothes.
The leather gloves had once been a butternut color, but were water-stained and work-worn. The right little finger was stuffed with cotton batting and tacked to the ring finger with tiny stitches; obviously so it would move with the finger, giving the illusion of a complete hand. The shirt was handmade of cheap muslin, but he could tell it had been made by a skillful stitcher or tailor by the careful, even stitches and the elegantly worked buttonholes. Blair thought for a moment that the stitcher must have really taken pride in her work, even if she had to use the meanest quality fabric.
The vest, on the other hand, was of good quality black broadcloth and lined with silk. It was also carefully made, but he noticed a seam down the center back of the vest. A normal vest back was usually made of a solid piece of fabric, but a suit jacket would have a center back seam. The trousers were made of the same fabric. He saw that the legs had been extended with the same black broadcloth. It dawned on him that this vest had been someone else's jacket and that the tailor had pirated the sleeves to extend the length of the pants' legs. The silk lining had come from the original suit jacket and had been cut down with it to make and line the vest. These clothes, as well made as they were, were makeovers from the wardrobe of a much shorter man.
The sheepskin jacket was the only commercially-made garment, but it bore the label of a well-known manufacturer in Chicago. One could purchase a jacket exactly like this one right here in San Francisco as well as just about anywhere west of the Mississippi River. No help there.
"Stephen, was I carrying anything? Money, papers?"
Stephen had not heard Blair sound so desperate since the day they met their father's mistress. He was actually worried about Blair's state of mind.
"You had a few dollars, mostly in coin, and a pocketknife." He handed his brother the pocketknife. It had a horn case, well worn, but no distinguishing marks or initials. "Nothing else except the ring you're wearing now."
"This isn't a ring. It looks like a nail."
"Well, I had it off for a moment and your skin is white and smooth under it, so you've been wearing it like a ring for quite some time, I'd guess. What do you think it means?"
Blair shrugged. "I've never worn a ring on this hand. If a woman were wearing a ring on this finger, I'd say she was married. Shit, Stephen, you don't think I managed to get myself married."
Stephen gestured helplessly. "Well, it's certainly within the realm of possibility."
"It figures some bitch would get her claws on me while I was out of my mind...."
"But why a horseshoe nail?"
Blair picked up the clothes and dropped them in disgust. "Wherever I was, there couldn't have been much money. We probably use better quality cloth than this shirt for dustrags. I'll wager whoever she was married me hoping her scrimping days were over."
"You never sent for any money. If you knew you were Blair Carroll, or she knew you were, one of you would have wired or written, don't you think? Do you think you knew who you were?"
"I don't know. The time is gone as if it never happened. I feel like Rip Van Winkle. Stephen, if it's true--if I'm married--can I get out of it?"
"I'm not sure. It's not exactly my field of law. Let me check on it and let you know. In the meantime, I suggest you stay out of any romantic entanglement until we resolve the problem."
"Believe me, the last thing I want now is a romantic entanglement. Speaking of entanglements, does Julia know I'm back."
"It's possible. Rumors fly. I haven't told her myself, but it wouldn't matter much. She's been married for over a year--to Gerald Rafferty."
Blair leaned back on the bed, exhausted. "Rafferty, huh? Son of a bitch always wanted what I had. I hope he's happy now. What other little surprises do I have in store? Do I still have a business?"
Stephen looked perturbed. "Of course, damn it. I'm not you, but I'm no idiot. We're as rich as we ever were."
"Dad still in Europe?"
Stephen shrugged. "Got a letter from him a couple of months ago. He was mildly concerned about your continued absence, but not enough to come back home to take up the reins again. I guess as long as his allowance keeps coming he's willing to let us run the business while he plays the man of the world; even if it's been just Winslow and me for the last two years. I doubt he'll ever come home."
"Let him stay away. I don't miss him any more than he misses me. I think I want a bath and then to sleep. Also can you get a barber and manicurist in here?" Blair added, rubbing his bearded face, "I think I'm going to need a lot of help returning to normal."
"Of course, I'll send Lopez to get Giovanni and his daughter for a haircut and a manicure later this afternoon and I'll get someone to fill the bathtub for you right away." Stephen turned to leave, then turned back, "One more thing I forgot."
"And that is?"
"Cherry Leval died three weeks ago. Your son should be arriving in San Francisco in about a month. His name is Joshua, in case you care."
Chapter 2
November 1873
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
"The woman is nothing but a goddamned whore. If she had the bad judgment to get herself pregnant, then she has less sense than most. But I'll be damned if I let any son of mine be dragged around from theater to theater all over the country."
Blair Carroll paced the confines of the richly-appointed Milwaukee hotel suite like a caged lion.
"Are you sure the boy is mine?"
"You know there is no way to be a hundred percent certain, Blair." Stephen Carroll walked calmly to the bar and poured himself a small whisky while he responded once more to the barrage of angry questions thrown at him, then returned to an armchair near the fireplace. He sat down, crossed his long legs and held the glass up to the firelight, turning it slightly in his long, graceful fingers. At 24, Stephen was four years younger than his brother in years, but decades younger in outlook. "Our investigator says his August `69 birth date corresponds to December `68, when she was p
laying in San Francisco and you were--um--intimate with her."
"We got good use out of each other."
"Yes, if you must be vulgar about it. Miss Leval is a blue-eyed blonde. The investigator says the boy has black hair and gray eyes. The Carroll looks, if you will."
The Carroll looks that seemed to defy dilution by any spouse for generations. Both brothers were over six feet tall, with Blair six foot four and Stephen two inches shorter, lean of build with broad shoulders, large hands and feet. They shared the same wavy black hair, gray eyes, aquiline noses and strong mouths and chins. They both had arrestingly good looks that made them favorites among the well-bred ladies of their native San Francisco, and neither would lack for female companionship if they chose.
Blair's upper lip was adorned with a well-trimmed black mustache while Stephen was clean-shaven. Their differences were as striking as their similarities, and that was the least of the differences. Blair's eyes were the gray of forged steel, hard and stormy, as he was. In his well-tailored suit he looked every inch the hard-driven executive he was.
Stephen, on the other hand, had eyes like gray velvet, gentle and sympathetic. He smiled often, revealing straight, white teeth. Had Blair ever smiled, he might have looked more like his younger brother, but Stephen could never effect his brother's deadly gaze.
Blair took a deep drag on a cheroot, then tossed it angrily into the burning fireplace. He never seemed to finish one before he tossed it away. He turned that steely gaze on his brother. "Stephen, I don't care how you do it, but I want you to get me custody of the boy."
Stephen noted that Blair never called him "Steve" anymore. It was indicative of the loss of the easy intimacy they'd had as boys. That intimacy had been riven ten years before and Stephen's recent extended absence while away at school hadn't helped matters any.
"If this were a divorce case," he began in the requisite calm, businesslike manner, "that wouldn't be a problem. But assuming the boy is yours, he's illegitimate. You don't exactly present the image of the loving, caring father to get a woman pregnant and then forget about her."
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