Two Brothers
Page 1
Linda Lael Miller
Two Brothers
The Lawman
The Gunslinger
POCKET BOOKS
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An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS
First Pocket Books trade paperback printing October 1998
LOOK FOR THESE SUPERB ROMANCES BY BESTSELLING AUTHOR LINDA LAEL MILLER
BANNER O’BRIEN
CORBIN’S FANCY
MEMORY’S EMBRACE
MY DARLING MELISSA
ANGELFIRE
DESIRE AND DESTINY
FLETCHER’S WOMAN
LAURALEE
MOONFIRE
WANTON ANGEL
WILLOW
PRINCESS ANNIE
THE LEGACY
TAMING CHARLOTTE
YANKEE WIFE
DANIEL’S BRIDE
LILY AND THE MAJOR
EMMA AND THE OUTLAW
CAROLINE AND THE RAIDER
PIRATES
KNIGHTS
MY OUTLAW
THE VOW
TWO BROTHERS: THE LAWMAN & THE GUNSLINGER
AND DON’T MISS HER NEXT GLORIOUS NOVEL
Springwater
Coming soon from Pocket Books
Two Brothers
For years, bestselling author Linda Lael Miller has delighted readers with her passionate, evocative stories of life and love in the Old West. Now, with this innovative pair of novels, she creates two gripping stories of identical twin brothers, separated at birth, but drawn to each other’s side….
The Lawman
Marshal Shay McQuillan has a lot on his hands—stagecoach robbers to hunt down, a murdered fiancée to avenge. He certainly doesn’t need an identical twin brother he never knew existed turning up out of the blue and telling him what to do. Even less does he want pretty Aislinn Lethaby trying to rescue him from danger. Because, to tell the truth, Aislinn is a sweet distraction from duty whom Shay just can’t resist.
Aislinn Lethaby has a fine job at the town hotel. Soon, she’ll have saved enough to buy the broken-down homestead she has her eye on and bring her young brothers west. She has no business jeopardizing everything when she sees Shay in danger. But something about the man makes Aislinn lose all the good sense she thought she had—and follow the longings of her heart.
About the Author
LINDA LAEL MILLER has written more than twenty-three novels, including the New York Times bestsellers Princess Annie, The Legacy, Yankee Wife, and Daniel’s Bride. With more than six million copies of her books in print, she is considered to be one of the finest romance authors writing today. Ms. Miller resides in the Seattle area, where she is at work on her next novel for Pocket Books.
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The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS
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Copyright © 1998 by Linda Lael Miller
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ISBN: 0-671-00401-8
eISBN: 978-1-439-10679-2
ISBN 978-0-671-00401-9
First Pocket Books trade paperback printing October 1998
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Cover illustration by Lina Levy
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Printed in the U.S.A.
For Peggy Jean Knight, who introduced me to a whole new world and a lot of great people, most especially, herself. Keep on talkin’ to strangers, girl.
1853
FROM THE JOURNAL OF MATTIE KILLIGREW
I have neglected this journal sorely, since leaving home. I shall try to do better, for no doubt I will find it interesting in future years.
September is upon us already, and I fear I shall not be able to ride one more day in that wagon without going mad from the jostling. Surely it is a marvel that I have not given birth before my time; I am enormous and unwieldy, like a corn-fed sow in autumn, and from earliest light until sunset, we roll onward, ever onward, over rutted tracks, uphill and down.
Surely it is impossible that a mere four months have passed since we left St. Louis, Patrick and I, our hearts full of hope and wonder, our foolish heads brimming with glorious visions of adventure. It seems ever so much longer, looking back. So many rivers crossed.
In those first joyous nights, we slept beneath our rig on the feather mattress that was our marriage gift from Patrick’s grandmother, God rest her soul, and chattered on and on about the grand homestead we would have in the West. Three hundred and twenty rich and fertile acres, ours for the taking!
We have no living kin save each other, but it didn’t matter so much then, for we had set our faces toward the Promised Land, and we could already taste the milk and honey. Patrick would ofttimes lay a hand on my belly, there beneath our creaky old wagon, and say we were a family, he and I and the babe. That together we were more than enough.
I love him so much.
I shall never tell him, of course, how I wish with all my will and spirit that we had never left Ohio, that we had made a life for ourselves there, on the little farm where Patrick was born. Instead, we sold our land and bought this accursed wagon, these plodding, sweaty oxen, and more dried beans and hardtack than any mortal should ever be required to eat.
Some families have turned back—three at the first river crossing, two more when smoke signals appeared on the far horizon. We lost four to cholera, and were forced to leave the Flynns and the Lingwoods to fend for themselves when the sickness overtook them as well. The wagon master said we were losing too much time, that we must put the high country behind us before the snows came and, anyway, we could not risk an epidemic. Whole trains had been lost that way, he said.
Still, Ellen Lingwood was my friend. I shall never forget the despair in her eyes when we abandoned her with her sick husband and four feverish little children, there beside the trail, as if they had no more value than the discarded pipe organs and china cabinets and cedar chests we come across on occasion.
I confess I fear that fate more than anything, even the red savages who occasionally watch us from a distance, spears in hand, their painted ponies restless, eager to give chase. More, in fact, than death itself. To be alone, surrounded b
y all this vast and uncaring emptiness—I can hardly bear to contemplate it.
Patrick says cavalrymen patrol these parts, that I mustn’t fret, for the Lingwoods will surely be found and taken in, as will the Flynns. We have not seen a single soldier since we passed through Kansas; perhaps he thinks I haven’t noticed. This land belongs to the Indians, and rightly so, and were it up to me I should let them have it for all of time and eternity!
I will set aside my writing, for now, although it comforts me mightily. I must conserve my ink, for I have only this one bottle, now partly gone.
* * *
Three days have passed since my last entry. We are climbing, climbing, higher and higher into the mountains. Sometimes the wagon is at such an angle that I can barely hold my seat at the reins, and our belongings slide and clatter behind me. Twice I have had to beg Patrick to climb up and drive, for I am too fearful. In the steep places, though, where the track is narrow, he must walk alongside the oxen, murmuring to them, guiding them, lest they panic and lose their footing.
How I thank God when eventide comes, and we can stop and take our rest! Patrick must hoist me down from the wagon seat now, for I am ever so great and awkward. Mrs. Chambers says my babe has dropped, that I will surely enter my confinement soon.
I am so afraid. We cannot stop, and unless my pains come in the evening, I shall have to bear my child in that infernal wagon. Mrs. Chambers says I am not to fret, for she has had experience in such matters, and will take me in charge and see us both safely through the ordeal. And an ordeal it is; other women have borne children during our passage west, and their shrieks of pain reached every ear, though most pretended not to hear. Some were hearty, and came through gamely, but others were buried beside the trail, with their infants cradled in their arms.
Patrick says it will be over quickly, and I will have a fine son or daughter to show for my travail. Love him though I do, I confess that sometimes I want very much to strangle him.
There are two babes inside me, I am sure of it. They are making war, one against the other, like Cain and Abel. When I told Patrick I thought I was carrying twins, expecting husbandly sympathy, he beamed and said God had blessed us.
I wonder if he would think that if he were the one facing the valley of the shadow, not once, but twice.
Perhaps I should have been a spinster.
* * *
There is a great storm brewing—the sky has been ominously dark for days—but the summit is not far off, and the wagon master has been pushing us all to our limits, haranguing the stragglers. Patrick is grim-faced with the tension of it, and he thinks of little but driving the oxen to the verge of collapse. They bellow in protest, poor, wretched beasts, their hides lathered and steaming; no doubt they yearn for the quiet fields of home, and I feel great pity for them. At midafternoon yesterday, the Swannells’ mules simply gave out. They lay down and would not rise and go on no matter how strong the urging.
The sight disturbed me prodigiously; I scrambled down from the wagon, though it was moving still to retch in the bushes. I expected kindly words from Patrick; instead, he was impatient with me for causing a delay. My dearest husband, who has never spoken harshly in my presence in all the time I’ve known him, growled at me like a bear. (Of course he later apologized, as well he should have done.) It makes me sore fearful to know he is so worried; I am still smarting a little and will take my time letting him know that I’ve forgiven him.
It came today, the rain that has been burdening the dark and rumbling sky, and we are up to our axles in mud. The torrent pounds at the canvas top of our wagon as I write this, by the light of a kerosene lantern, and there is a heavy ache, low in my belly. Patrick is frantic, as are the other men, for the summit is still some distance ahead, a seemingly unattainable goal that must, nonetheless, be reached. I take an uncharitable measure of cheer in the knowledge that we cannot be left behind in this terrifying place, for the other wagons are stuck fast, too. Patrick has not upbraided me again, and last night before we slept, I let him know I had put aside my grievance with him. He is very fetching and very persuasive, my Patrick, and his kisses move me in a way that would not be seemly to record.
Still more rain. We remain stalled just short of the mountaintop, and this morning several Indians rode right into our camp, bold as brass, demanding horses and sugar and tobacco. I peeked out through the flap and saw their feathers and painted faces.
They were given everything but the horses, these savages, and it was plain that they were not satisfied when they left. The wagon master said they were renegades.
Later, I overheard Patrick telling Mr. Swannell that we, the company of travelers, are as vulnerable as ants in a puddle of honey. At the time I didn’t give that remark much weight, thinking it was a fine and merciful thing that we’d been made to stop, for it gave those woeful mules a chance to rest.
Mrs. Chambers has been to see me twice. She said my babes are uncommon big, and shook her head once or twice, in response to some private thought. I am small; perhaps too small, and only eighteen. That seemed an advanced age, before we left Ohio, but now I feel very young.
They came back, the Indians, at first light. The rain had ceased, and our men were busy digging out the wagons, railing and cursing and pushing at the poor animals. I did not care a whit for any of it, as my pains were upon me.
I called for Patrick, but he did not come to me. That troubled me greatly.
The babes were born amidst savage shrieks and gunfire; even then I could think of naught but how they were tearing me asunder, these fierce, strong children, as though I were not flesh and blood, but merely some brittle shell to be broken open and left behind.
I have seen them, held them, all too briefly, for I am weak. Mrs. Chambers agrees that they are fine boys indeed, with their fair hair. Surely they will resemble Patrick when they are grown.
Something is wrong, for all that my travail is ended at last and the babes are here, safe and strong. Mrs. Chambers has tears on her face, and enjoins me now to put aside my pen and sleep. She has never seen anyone write at such a time, she says. The Indians are gone, she tells me, and I may rest in the assurance of safety.
I must not stop until my strength fails, however, for if I do, if I lie idle, then I cannot but credit the fact that Patrick has not come to the wagon, not even to look upon our sons. Perhaps I have shamed him before the company of travelers, with my screaming.
I hope that is it. Dear God, surely he did not die in the fighting.
Patrick is dead, felled by an arrow in the chest. I believe I knew he was no more when night fell and there was still no sign of him. And I shall perish soon as well; I have seen that bitter truth in Mrs. Chambers’ kindly face. I have lost too much blood.
I have begged them to let me see Patrick, but they will not.
I am not afraid to die; no, without my beloved, it is life I fear. I know that he waits for me, somewhere just beyond the shadows.
Arrangements have been made. Margaret Saint-Laurent came to call, just a little while ago. She is a kindly lady, and educated, and she held my hand and spoke in a soft voice, and took down these final words for me when I asked it of her. She and her husband, John, will take one of my sons on to Oregon and raise him as their own. They mean to call him Tristan.
Shamus and Rebecca McQuillan have agreed to bring up the second babe, for they have only daughters, and are glad to get a son. They mean to christen our little boy Shamus, and California will be their home.
I am sorry that I was not stronger, for the sake of my children. I would surely have loved them as deeply as any mother could, had there been time. If there is a way, then let them know that I am buried in my rightful place, beside their brave, good and generous father, alongside the trail that led to our dreams.
Shay
The Lawman
1883
Chapter 1
PROMINENCE, CALIFORNIA, JUNE OF 1883
HE DIDN’T EVEN ATTEMPT to draw on the intruder; it was far
too late for that. The cold weight of a pistol barrel rested in the hollow of his throat, and he heard the click of the hammer as it snapped back.
“Don’t move.” The voice unnerved him almost as much as the situation in which he found himself, for it might have come from his own throat. The tone, the timbre, were his.
“I didn’t plan on it,” he answered. It was still dark in the jail cell, where he had made his bed after a night passed in the card room behind the Yellow Garter Saloon, and all he could make out, looking up through his eyelashes, besides the blue-black barrel of the gun, was a glint of light hair and an impression of wolf-white teeth.
Delicately, the stranger relieved him of the .45 in his holster, still strapped to his hip, spun it fancy-like on one finger, and laid it aside with a clatter. A match was struck, and Shay caught the sharp, familiar scents of sulphur and kerosene, mingled. Thin light spilled over the jailhouse cot and dazzled him for a moment, but he knew he was still square in the other man’s sights.
The visitor whistled low through his teeth. “So,” he said. “It’s true.”
Shay blinked a couple of times and then squinted. Except for a few minor differences, mostly matters of grooming and deportment, he could have been looking at himself. The other man’s hair was a shade or two darker than his own; the stranger wore a full beard, too, and a cheroot jutted from between his teeth, but virtually everything else was the same—the lean build, the blue eyes, even the lopsided grin, tending toward insolence. “What the—?”
The specter chuckled. “Hell of a thing, isn’t it? You always sleep in your own jail cell, Marshal?”
Shay ventured to sit up, and the other fellow didn’t shoot him. Taking that for a good sign, he swung his legs over the side of the cot and made to stand, only to find himself looking straight up the barrel of the pistol.
“Not so fast.”