Part 15 (2/2)
”You'll be lucky to get a cramped cabin on a steamer, once we get to Champerico.”
”I don't take up much s.p.a.ce.”
”No. And you won't complain or hold us back, because if you do, I'lla””
”I can imagine. Don't worry. You shouldn't have any trouble pretending I'm not even there.”
Liam tossed the canvas over the crates again with somewhat excessive force. ”You'd better get some food from Fernando, and then sleep.”
She hesitated and decided to try one more time. ”You know, I wasn't snooping through your things to spy. I was looking for my watch. The one you stole.”
”You have something of mine.”
The pendant. He knew she'd taken it.
”Does Perry want it back?” he asked with an indifference that seemed a little too marked to be convincing.
”I want it. Call it a souvenir,” she said. ”If you let me keep it, you can have the watch.” She was going to need the pendant eventuallya”at least she hoped so.
He dismissed her with a shrug. ”We'll be leaving at dawn. No more delays.”
”I'll be ready.” She held out her hand. ”Shall we let bygones be bygones, O'Shea? Until we reach San Francisco?”
His laugh was caustic and brief. He grabbed her hand, the calluses on his palms and fingertips rough on her skin, enveloping her in warmth and strength.
”Peace,” he said. ”Until San Francisco.”
And then, my friend, Mac thought, all bets are off.
Part Two
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
a”John Donne
Chapter Ten.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
a”Charles d.i.c.kens.
San Francisco, mid-September, 1884.
THE DAY WAS incredibly, brilliantly clear. No trace of fog lingered over the Bay; Mac could see everything, every detail of the city she'd lived in all her life.
Except that it wasn't her city.
Enfolded in a dark woolen cloak Liam had bought from a fellow pa.s.senger, Mac stood on the deck of the steamer as it pa.s.sed through the Golden Gate.
There was no red-painted span stretched between the Marin Headlands and the Presidio. No TransAmerica pyramid to mark the skyline, no Coit tower, no Bank of America building, no skysc.r.a.pers. The silhouette of the city was strangely squat, frighteningly alien. And as the s.h.i.+p rounded the promontory, the vastness of the Bay itself spread before her: Alcatraz island rising bare and rocky out of the choppy waves, the hills of Berkeley and Oakland golden brown and almost unmarked by man, steamers and barges and ferries and great-masted clipper s.h.i.+ps plying the unbridged water.
It could still shake her, the knowledge that all this was real. She'd had proof enough during the journey herea”in the Guatemalan port where she and Liam had caught the steamer, aboard the steamer itself. But this surpa.s.sed everything else. This she felt like an adrenaline rush through her body, so that she had to grab the railing on the deck to hold herself upright.
This was San Francisco, and the year was 1884.
Mac leaned over the rail and watched the water rus.h.i.+ng alongside the hull of the boat. At least she hadn't been seasick. Considering the length of the voyage and the journey before that, by foot and mule through the jungles and mountains of Guatemala to the port of Champerico, she had done pretty well.
Especially considering that Liam O'Shea had been as good as his word. He'd brought her, all right, but he'd kept his distance, which had been just fine with her.
Fernando had been enough company until they'd left him behind at Champerico, and she'd proved to Liam that she could keep up. In the end, he'd given her grudging respect.
But no more, except to provide her with this cloak to cover her peculiar clothing, and securing her a tiny cabin to herself on the steamer bound for San Francisco. They'd been in luck that one had been due in port only a few days after their arrival, and that they'd been able to get cabins. The steamer had limited room for pa.s.sengers on its voyage up from South America. It was only later Mac learned that Liam was part-owner of the s.h.i.+pping company, and he could command more than any mere pa.s.senger.
Just a first indication that they were coming into Liam's worlda”a world where he was a wealthy man. A world where he knew the rules and she didn't. In the jungle they'd been equals, two people in a vast wilderness. But herea ”Miss?”
She turned. The captain's lieutenant, a pleasant young man with a darkly tanned face, touched the brim of his cap. ”We'll be docking soon. Mr. O'Shea wishes to speak with you.”
He looked at her expectantly. He wasn't the only one to do so on those few occasions that she'd left her cabin; she'd nearly gone stir-crazy with confinement, but she thought it better not to raise too many questions in such close quarters as the s.h.i.+p allowed.
They were all curious about her, the crew and small complement of pa.s.sengers. Well they might be. Liam had put out some sort of story about her being the daughter of an explorer friend, and that she'd been ill and needed quiet and privacy. The only times he'd come near her were when he brought meals or other necessities to her cabin.
But now he wanted to see her. She nodded at the lieutenant and pulled the cloak more snugly across her chest. ”Lead on, Mr. Harvey.”
”He's coming, miss.” Mr. Harvey touched his cap again and discreetly retreated just as Liam came into view.
Strange. It must be a measure of how disoriented she was, this slight wobble in her legs, this leap of her heart when she saw him. Standing on the deck, legs braced and tawny hair whipped by the wind, he was magnificent. Magnificent in the way a pirate is: dangerous, undomesticated, and with a heart as implacable as a machete blade.
She gave him her coolest smile. ”Well, Mr. O'Shea. Long time no see. I'm honored by your presence.”
His return smile was biting. ”Was the voyage not to your liking? Perhaps you'd have preferred to stay in Guatemala?”
She studied what pa.s.sed for the San Francisco skyline. ”Not at all. It was very much to my liking.”
”And how does it feel to be home?”
”It's not the city I left,” she admitted.
”In what way?”
”The full account would take quite a while. Let's just say that my San Francisco is considerably more vertical and a lot less roomy. And that's only from a distance.”
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