by Jae
CHAPTER 23
Washington Square
San Francisco, California
August 17, 1906
“Have you seen my tripod?” Kate called from the front of the cabin.
Giuliana shook her head at her. You would think it would be impossible to lose anything in a cabin that measured just fourteen by eighteen feet, but Kate somehow managed to at least once a week. Life without a maid had been an adjustment for her, and Giuliana really appreciated that Kate had never once acted as if Giuliana still held that role.
Not that Giuliana would have had the time to clean up after Kate. Training to become a nurse kept her busy. Her work with Lucy didn’t pay much, but it was a good feeling to have money of her own and to be able to support her family.
Grinning, Giuliana picked up the tripod that was leaning against the back wall and held it up.
“Oh. Thank you.” Kate crossed the cabin, took the tripod from her, and gave her a quick thank-you peck.
At least it started out that way. But as soon as their lips touched, they got lost in each other. Giuliana wrapped her arms around Kate’s shoulders and hung on as Kate teased her mouth open. Their tongues touched, stroked, caressed. A shudder went through her, and her knees turned into boneless oysters that couldn’t keep her upright. Breathless, she pulled back. “Kate.” The name came out on a moan, and not even Giuliana was sure what she was begging for—did she want Kate to stop or to continue?
“We must go,” Giuliana said as her ability to talk returned. If they didn’t leave now, they would never make it to the top of the hill in time to photograph the cable car that Emma, the Call’s only female journalist, was supposed to report on.
“Hey, you were the one who wouldn’t let me out of bed earlier.”
A blush heated Giuliana’s cheeks.
Living in such a tiny cabin was a blessing in disguise at times. With a washstand, a dresser, a small table with two chairs, and Kate’s workbench all crowded into the one room, there was no space for two separate beds. At least that’s what they told their occasional visitor, and no one had questioned them sharing a bed so far.
Kate grinned, her cheeks a little flushed too. Then her gaze fell on the pendant watch hanging around Giuliana’s neck. “Darn. We really need to hurry. Emma will have my head if I don’t get the photograph of her riding the first cable car up Nob Hill. Where’s my coat?”
Laughing, Giuliana handed it to her and pulled her out of the cabin, the carrying case and the tripod in tow.
* * *
Kate stood on top of the blackened pile of rubble that had once been her home and peered down at the city. All around her, from Van Ness Avenue to the ferry building and from the slopes of Russian Hill to the Mission District, a wasteland of ruins stretched in every direction.
Emma Gardner, the reporter she was sometimes paired with for assignments, had told her that more than five hundred blocks—three quarters of the city—had been destroyed.
For a moment, the same wave of despair rushed through her that she had felt months ago, when she’d first seen the extent of the destruction.
But then the sounds of hammers, saws, and shouted orders drifted from where workers were clearing the street and repairing the gutted Fairmont Hotel. Kate had heard that a female architect had been hired to oversee the hotel’s reconstruction and make sure that it would be ready for a grand reopening on the one-year anniversary of the earthquake.
And it wasn’t just the Fairmont. The cacophony of reconstruction reverberated all over the city. San Francisco was rising from the ashes.
“Kate!” Giuliana rushed up the street toward her. “Quick! It is coming!”
Finally! The moment she’d been waiting for was here. Quickly, she opened the battered carrying case at her feet, pulled out the camera, and scrambled down from the pile of debris.
A rumble started beneath ground, for a moment throwing her back in time to the morning of the earthquake. But she knew it was just the thick cable running underground.
She peered to the right, and there it was: the first cable car running on California Street since that fateful day four months ago. People were hanging from its poles, cheering and waving. Emma leaned out of the cable car, grinning proudly as if she were the one responsible for repairing the tracks.
Kate pressed the shutter just as the cable car reached the top of the hill. Grinning, she lowered the camera and waved at Emma. Without having to see the negative first, she knew she’d captured it perfectly.
“Did you get it?” Giuliana asked.
Kate closed the camera and put it back in its case. “Yes.”
“Magnificu! I found something else for you to make a picture.” Giuliana’s dark eyes shone.
Kate laughed. “You’re almost as bad as me, always looking for the perfect motif. So, what is it?”
Giuliana took the carrying case from her, reached for Kate’s arm with her free hand, and pulled her across the street. “This.”
All that remained standing of the neighbor’s mansion were the white marble columns that had flanked the front door, three on each side. Now the house was gone, and the Greek portico framed a breathtaking view of the city beyond—shattered City Hall and the new skyscrapers being built along Market Street.
“It’s perfect.” Kate wanted to kiss her for finding this symbolic photograph opportunity, but with all the workers milling the street, she didn’t dare. It would have to wait until they got home to their cabin.
Giuliana opened the carrying case and held it out so that Kate could take the camera.
Kate dropped down the hinged front panel and extended the bellows. As Giuliana ducked out of view, she took several steps back and looked at the upside-down image on the ground-glass screen. She could already see the photograph on a neatly printed page of the San Francisco Call. Her finger on the shutter, she paused.
In the past, she had hid away behind her camera or in her darkroom so she could be alone and not have to deal with her parents and their expectations. But now she no longer needed that shield. She looked at Giuliana, who stood waiting patiently. “Can you come over here?”
“Is something wrong with the camera?”
“Yes. You’re not holding it.”
Giuliana’s eyes widened. “Me? You want me to make the picture?”
“Let’s do it together.”
On legs that looked a little shaky, Giuliana went over to her.
“Don’t be nervous. You’ll do just fine.” Kate stepped behind her. Their fingers brushed as they both held on to the camera. “Good. Now you focus the lens.”
“Here?” Giuliana turned her head to send a questioning gaze back at her. Her warm breath bathed Kate’s neck, making her shudder.
“Yes,” she said, her voice hoarse.
With a slight smile, Giuliana turned back. Her finger slid along Kate’s as she adjusted the lens. “And now?”
“Now we take the picture.” Kate guided Giuliana’s hand to the shutter.
The telltale click announced that the glass plate had been exposed.
“Perfect,” Kate said.
Giuliana turned, still within Kate’s embrace. “Yes. It is.”
They stared at each other.
“T’amu cu tuttu lu cori,” Giuliana said softly.
Lord, she loved it when Giuliana spoke to her in Sicilian. The melodious tone and the softly rolled Rs made her quiver inside. “With all of the hammering up on the hill, no one can hear us,” Kate whispered. “Will you tell me what that means?” She knew t’amu, of course, and she also had a pretty good idea what the rest of the sentence might mean, but she wanted to hear it from Giuliana.
A smile played around Giuliana’s full lips. “No.”
“No?”
“I will not tell you.” Giuliana’s eyes were smoldering. “I will show it to you.”
Kate shoved the camera back into the carrying case, took Giuliana’s hand, and dragged her down from the pile of rubble. “Come on. Let’s go home.�
��
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If you enjoyed Shaken to the Core, you might want to check out Jae’s historical romances Backwards to Oregon and Hidden Truths, which tell the stories of Lucy’s grandparents and her aunt.
ABOUT JAE
Jae grew up amidst the vineyards of southern Germany. She spent her childhood with her nose buried in a book, earning her the nickname professor. The writing bug bit her at the age of eleven. For the last eight years, she has been writing mostly in English.
She used to work as a psychologist but gave up her day job in December 2013 to become a full-time writer and a part-time editor. As far as she’s concerned, it’s the best job in the world.
When she’s not writing, she likes to spend her time reading, indulging her ice cream and office supply addictions, and watching way too many crime shows.
CONNECT WITH JAE:
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: jae-fiction.com
Blog: jae-fiction.com/blog
Facebook: facebook.com/JaeAuthor
Twitter: @jaefiction
Other Books from Ylva Publishing
www.ylva-publishing.com
Backwards to Oregon
Jae
ISBN: 978-3-95533-028-6 (mobi), 978-3-95533-027-9 (epub)
Length: 147,000 words (512 pages)
“Luke” Hamilton has always been sure that she’d never marry. She accepted that she would spend her life alone when she chose to live her life disguised as a man.
After working in a brothel for three years, Nora Macauley has lost all illusions about love. She no longer hopes for a man who will sweep her off her feet and take her away to begin a new, respectable life.
But now they find themselves married and on the way to Oregon in a covered wagon, with two thousand miles ahead of them.
Kicker’s Journey
Lois Cloarec Hart
ISBN: 978-3-95533-057-6 (mobi), 978-3-95533-058-3 (epub)
Length: 157,000 words (472 pages)
In 1899, two women from very different backgrounds are about to embark on a journey together – one that will take them from the Old World to the New, from the 19th century into the 20th, and from the comfort and familiarity of England to the rigours of Western Canada, where challenges await at every turn.
The journey begins simply for Kicker Stuart when she leaves her home village to take employment as hostler and farrier at Grindleshire Academy for Young Ladies. But when Kicker falls in love with a teacher, Madelyn Bristow, it radically alters the course of her tranquil life.
Together, the lovers flee the brutality of Madelyn’s father and the prejudices of upper crust England in search of freedom to live, and love, as they choose. A journey as much of the heart and soul as of the body, it will find the lovers struggling against the expectations of gender, the oppression of class, and even, at times, each other. What they find at the end of their journey is not a new Eden, but a land of hope and opportunity that offers them the chance to live out their most cherished dream – a life together.
Charity
Paulette Callen
ISBN: 978-3-95533-076-7 (mobi), 978-3-95533-077-4 (epub)
Length: 94,000 words (334 pages)
The friendship between Lena Kaiser, a sodbuster’s daughter, and Gustie Roemer, an educated Easterner, is unlikely in any other circumstance but post-frontier Charity, South Dakota. Gustie is considered an outsider, and Lena is too proud to share her problems (which include a hard-drinking husband) with anyone else.
On the nearby Sioux reservation, Gustie also finds love and family with two Dakotah women: Dorcas Many Roads, an old medicine woman, and her adopted granddaughter, Jordis, who bears the scars of the white man’s education.
When Lena’s husband is arrested for murdering his father and the secrets of Gustie’s past follow her to Charity, Lena, Gustie, and Jordis stand together. As buried horrors are unearthed and present tragedies unfold, they discover the strength and beauty of love and friendship that blossom like wild flowers in the tough prairie soil.
Cast Me Gently
Caren J. Werlinger
ISBN: 978-3-95533-388-1 (mobi), 978-3-95533-389-8 (epub)
Length: 100,000 words (353 pages)
Teresa Benedetto and Ellie Ryan couldn’t be more different, at least on the surface.
Teresa still lives at home. As much as she loves her boisterous Italian family, she feels trapped by them and their plans for her life. Their love is suffocating her.
Ellie has been on her own for years, working hard to save up enough to live her dream of escaping from Pittsburgh to travel the world. Except leaving isn’t that simple when she knows her brother is out on the streets of the city somewhere, back from Vietnam, but not home.
When Teresa and Ellie meet and fall in love, their worlds clash. Ellie would love to be part of Teresa’s family, but they both know that will never happen. Sooner or later, Teresa will have to choose between the two halves of her heart—Ellie or her family.
Set in 1980, the beginning of the Reagan era and the decline of Pittsburgh’s steel empire, Cast Me Gently is a classic lesbian romance.
Coming from Ylva Publishing
www.ylva-publishing.com
Finding Ms. Write
Jae & Jove Belle (editors)
Twelve authors of lesbian fiction bring you a collection of romantic short stories about “book people”—heroines who are somehow involved in the publishing industry.
From a novelist with the world’s biggest crush on her editor to a beta reader connecting with her cabinmate on a cruise, from a woman seeking rare books who finds love instead to a bookstore owner who’s drawn to the shy writer sitting by the shop’s window every day, this anthology is full of stories guaranteed to have a happy ending.
Step into our world of books and enjoy a glimpse into the lives of writers who are chasing deadlines…and finding love.
Includes stories by Jae, Jove Belle, A.L. Brooks, Elaine Burnes, Anastasia Vitsky, Melissa Grace, Lea Daley, Chris Zett, Cori Kane, Kathy Brodland, Jacelle Scott, and Hazel Yeats.
Welcome to the Wallops
Gill McKnight
The villages of High Wallop and Lesser Wallop have graced either end of the Wallop valley since medieval times. And competition between the two has never ceased since, especially over the famous Cheese and Beer festival.
As head Judge of Show, Jane Swallow has always struggled to keep peace, friendship, and equanimity within the community she loves, but this year everything is wrong. Her father has just been released from prison and is on his way to Lesser Wallop with the rest of her travelling family and their caravans.
Her job is on the line, and her ex-girlfriend from a million years ago has just moved in next door.
Her life is going down the drain unless she can pull off some sort of miracle.
Shaken to the Core
© by Jae
ISBN (mobi): 978-3-95533-663-9
ISBN (epub): 978-3-95533-664-6
Also available as paperback.
Published by Ylva Publishing, legal entity of Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.
Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.
Owner: Astrid Ohletz
Am Kirschgarten 2
65830 Kriftel
Germany
www.ylva-publishing.com
First edition: June 2016
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Credits
Edited by Michelle Aguilar
Cover Design by Streetlight Graphics
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Jae, Shaken to the Core
