If Braham hadn’t spent the last decade listening to Kit’s unusual vernacular, he’d be at a complete loss, with no idea what Jack meant. Braham knew Apple was a company which had helped make Kit’s wealthy family richer. Whatever the company made, it wasn’t fruit.
When Braham reached the entryway, his eyes went immediately to the stunning carved walnut flying staircase, which rose three floors without any visible support structure. Jack closed the front door and joined Braham at the foot of the stairs.
“This staircase is the most outstanding architectural feature in this old house.”
Braham studied the underneath side of the first landing, pinching his face in concentration. “What holds it up?”
“There’re two flat iron straps running wall to wall which allow it to float in place. Quite an engineering feat for the eighteen hundreds. A building inspector wouldn’t approve it today.”
“If it’s all the same to ye, I’d prefer not to climb any more stairs today. I’ll sleep here on the floor.” His incision burned as if a doctor was pulling out the stitches using fingernails.
“We have a guest suite down this way. You’ll be comfortable in there.”
Jack led him into a large and well-apportioned bedroom. The fireplace’s hand-carved woodwork featured more pineapples. The tall four-poster bed was the biggest Braham had ever seen. After the skinny hospital bed, he looked forward to having room to roll over. Two of the room’s walls had floor-to-ceiling windows, bringing light into the dark blue room. A set of French doors were open. When he lay in the bed he’d be able to see the river.
“I put jeans, sweaters, underwear, T-shirts, and socks in the dresser. Shirts are hanging in the closet. The bathroom is stocked with personal care items. If you have any questions, yell. My office is across the hall and my bedroom is directly above.” He took a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. “Charlotte shoved this into my hand when we passed each other at the hospital. You need two o’clock meds, a light snack, and a nap. She also listed four prescriptions.”
Braham set four medicine bottles on the table next to the bed. “It’s time for the antibiotic and pain medication, right?”
“It’s what the note says.”
“I don’t want the pain medicine. It makes me tired.”
Jack sighed. “You don’t want to get on her bad side. If she said to take the pills, take the pills.”
Braham opened two of the bottles and poured out the necessary pills. “I need to move and get my strength back. Not sleep the day away.” He’d hold the pill under his tongue until Jack looked away.
Jack handed Braham a bottle of water from a silver tray on the dresser. “Drink this.”
Braham studied the bottle and gave an impatient huff as he pulled on the top cap.
“Twist the cap. It breaks the seal.” Jack opened a dresser drawer, pulled out some clothes, and tossed them on the bed. “Pajamas and a T-shirt. You might want a shower to get rid of the hospital smell. I don’t know how Charlotte can stand smelling like sanitizer all the time. It dries out her hands, too.”
Braham didn’t think so. He remembered them as quite soft. They had warmed him when he shivered, comforted him when he was dying, and held a cup when he needed a drink.
“I’ll go fix lunch while you shower.”
“Ye don’t have to do anything else. Ye’ve done enough.”
Jack folded his arms, leaned against the desk, and crossed one booted foot over the other. “I spent two years in a Tibetan monastery studying an esoteric meditative discipline. For the first six months, I couldn’t speak the language or do the meditations. I felt inadequate and doubted my purpose for being there. A monk took me aside and said in English, ‘Follow me.’ He never said another word, and for the next six months I never took my eyes off him. Then one day he said, ‘Follow your own path.’ I never followed him again. You said I’ve done enough. How much is enough when a person is in need?”
“Give a man a fish and ye feed him for a day—”
“Teach a man to fish you feed him for life?” Jack finished Lao Tzu’s proverb.
“Ye don’t have to teach me to fish, but ye might need to show me around the bathroom.”
“Good idea. This shower has all the bells and whistles. Come here.”
After Jack showed Braham how to operate the controls, he gave a two-finger salute and left the room.
Finally, alone for the first time in days, Braham stared out the French doors, which opened onto the riverside portico. Teach a man to fish. Fine. But he didn’t intend to stay. He didn’t belong here. It was different for Kit. She was out of place to begin with, but not him. He had a home, a winery, and a law practice to return to after the war. He had a life planned out in intricate detail—a plan he would not veer from; a plan which included a political career. The door to the office of the governor of California would one day have his name engraved on a brass plate.
He appreciated the Mallorys’ time and attention, but he had to return. The president depended on him. He had responsibilities and commitments. How could he make Charlotte understand? Abandoning his life would be tantamount to asking her to give up being a doctor, and he doubted she would ever consider doing it. Then how could she expect him to give up his dreams?
13
Mallory Plantation, Richmond, Virginia, Present Day
Charlotte knocked lightly on Braham’s door before entering quietly. The French doors were open to an exquisite view of the moonlight undulating on the surface of the river. The windows were slightly cracked, and a cool breeze rippled through the sheer curtains. Braham had fallen asleep on top of the covers wearing Jack’s black pajama bottoms with a lightweight blanket thrown haphazardly over his legs. A white T-shirt stretched tight across his expansive chest, and a dusting of hair peeked through the shirt’s V-neck. He and Jack could be bookends on a shelf stacked with romance novels featuring kilt-clad heroes.
Charlotte squeezed her arms to her chest, surprised by a warm swelling low in her belly. What was different about Braham now to cause such a strong reaction? What did she see she hadn’t seen before? Different clothes? Shaved? Hair washed? All those things and more. In a restful sleep, pain had released its grip, relaxing the tightened muscles around his eyes. No doubt about it. The man was gorgeous, and blessed with a constitution she rarely saw in patients.
He stirred and his eyes opened. “I worried about ye driving here in the rain,” he said in a raspy voice.
She turned on a lamp and the soft yellow light curled around him. “It stopped before I left the city.” She crossed to the other side of the bed and placed her hand on his forehead. “Jack said it only drizzled here.”
Braham’s eyes probed into hers, green and hard and full of questions. “Do I have a fever?”
“You feel slightly warm, but my hands may be cold. She rubbed them, blew on them, and touched her own forehead for comparison. “It’s me.”
He pulled himself up, grimacing slightly, and his biceps bulged as he leaned against the headboard and laced his fingers across his chest.
She had an insane desire to wrap her hand around his arm to feel the muscle flex. A small knot lodged in her throat. “I’m glad you rested. Looks like Jack followed instructions for a change.”
“Doesn’t he always?”
“No. Not often.” It took an effort of will to look away from his sculpted arms and the physical strength they represented. But she did, her eyes moving slowly down to his belly. The pajamas drew her eyes to the area of his incision and down further, to other parts.
She carefully lowered the elastic waistband and peeked at the incision, then gently palpated his abdomen. His body reacted to her touch, and she gently let go of the fabric, steeling herself to not react to his growing erection.
“Looks good.” She cleared her throat. “It’s healing nicely.” She placed her fingers on his wrist. His pulse was strong and fast, but not from illness. So was hers. “Dinner will be ready in about thirty minutes. I’ll bri
ng a tray in for you.”
“Are ye cooking?” He watched her. His eyes were liquid and sleepy and full of desire.
Needing a distraction, she reached for an unopened bottle of water on the bedside table, untwisted the cap, and took a long gulp. “If any cooking’s done in this house, Jack does it. He’s an accomplished chef, and has far more patience than I do with certain things.”
“Like what?” Braham asked, his eyebrow arching.
“I don’t do well with patients who ignore my instructions and compromise their healing.”
“I do what I say. Never doubt it.” His biceps twitched ever so slightly, as if to reinforce the statement. “Ye saved my life, and I’m grateful, but in a couple of days I must go home. I have timely information about Richmond’s defenses, the condition of Lee’s army, and, most important, the movement of troops and material between the Petersburg-Richmond corridor and the Shenandoah Valley. Lincoln is waiting for my report, which will directly impact Grant’s major offensives around Petersburg. I have to go back. Even if I wanted to stay, Charlotte, it’s impossible.”
Her eyes locked with his, and she saw the faint lines of tension at the corners. A sense of foreboding settled in her gut. “You almost died. You’re not even close to healed. You need to give it a couple of weeks, not a few days.”
He tapped his fingertips together rhythmically. “I can’t wait. I’ll take it slow for a few days after I see the president. But I can’t delay here any longer.”
She pulled a reading chair closer to the bed and sat, sighing. “What if the brooch takes us back to Richmond? You won’t have the strength to fight your way out.”
He stopped tapping, steepled his fingers, and pressed them against his lips. “Where did ye leave from? Cedar Creek, right? And ye returned there. If we leave from Washington City, we should arrive there as well.”
“You obviously have more faith in the sapphire than I do.”
He dropped his hands and shrugged. “It’s my Celtic heritage, I suppose. A friend once told me some see darkness where others see only the absence of light.”
Charlotte scratched gently at the side of her face, letting the thought swirl around in her brain. “What does it mean?”
He glanced out toward the river, and his voice whispered over her skin like the cool breeze blowing in through the window. “There is more to the world than we can see. Always keep yer mind open. Even without light, ye can hear and feel and taste. But if ye close yerself off to other possibilities, ye’ll wither in the darkness.”
He took her hand in his, with all its cuts and bruises from the fight he had been in, and, using a warm fingertip, traced the lines etched into her palm. The corner of his lip turned up in a wry smile. “When I lay dying, a doctor who I thought was a man came to my bed and held my hand. When I looked into his eyes, I knew I had a life yet to live. It was the darkest place I’d ever been, but I could feel and taste and smell the light.”
His vivid memories held hope. Hers, on the other hand, had turned into nightmares. She shook off the edgy sensation triggered by her traumatic experiences after being catapulted into another world. “Another couple of hours and you would have been dead.”
“Ye arrived when ye were meant to arrive. If I hadn’t been dying, there would have been guards posted, and I probably would have been chained to the bed.”
Heat rose to her face and her heart raced. “Let’s not talk about it. Are you hungry?”
“Yes, but first I need a commitment from ye to take me back to my time. If ye won’t, then let Jack. But in two days, I must leave.”
“You’re not—”
“I don’t require coddling. Ye have to let me go.”
Her phone beeped, and she silently thanked God for the interruption. She checked the message. “I have to return this call. We’ll talk about it later. I’ll bring you a dinner tray, or if you’d like, you can join us in the kitchen.”
“I’ll join ye. I need to get up and move around.”
“Okay. Dinner isn’t fancy. Come as you are.”
He glanced down at what he was wearing, smirking. “A gentleman would never present himself at the table dressed so informally.”
She laughed as she headed for the door. “What do you think Jack’s wearing? A suit? Not likely. He’ll be dressed just as casually. If you’d feel more comfortable wearing a robe, there should be one hanging on the back of the bathroom door.”
She closed the door and rested her head against it while her hand continued to grip the doorknob. She had to emotionally swim against the current to disengage from the intimacy they had shared, and from intruding memories. She had dipped into a swirling stream, and the surface was rippling from the force of the undercurrent.
Fear of the ambiguous gemstone, memories of being in danger, and an attraction to a man from the nineteenth century she couldn’t possibly have a relationship which propelled her away from the door and up the stairs. She ran into her old bedroom she still used on weekends, stripping off her clothes as she headed toward the shower, hoping to restore her equilibrium. Her call could wait another ten minutes.
Thirty minutes later, she entered the kitchen, composed.
Jack was standing on one side of the counter, and Braham sat on a barstool on the other. They were clinking their glasses of red wine, participating in a toast.
“To a profitable venture,” Jack said.
Charlotte grabbed a glass from a wall-mounted wine rack, picked up the bottle of an Australian pinot noir, and read the label before filling her glass. “What profitable venture are we celebrating with a four-hundred-and-fifty-dollar bottle of wine?”
“Since you have an overbooked schedule, I decided to take Braham home.”
She covered her mouth so she wouldn’t spew the sip she’d just taken. “What? You decided? Don’t you think I have a say here?”
He gave a deliberately nonchalant shrug. “It’s the only logical solution.”
“There’s nothing logical about your proposition. You’re always chasing a story, Jack. If you go back in time, I can’t even begin to imagine the damage you could do.”
Jack gasped, slapping his chest. “Oh, ye of little faith.”
“When it comes to you, there is no ‘little faith.’ Only a huge faith telling me you’ll get so caught up in researching the war that trouble will find you a willing victim. So forget it.”
“Then I’ll go with you. Remember, I’m a better fighter.”
Her nightmares kept her from wanting to go back, but if she had to go, having Jack along would certainly help her feel safer. “Okay, but we’re not staying. We’ll drop Braham off in Washington and come straight home.”
“You make it sound like we’ll do a drive-by. Isn’t it more complicated?”
“I don’t even know if it will work again. And if we get there, can we get back?”
Jack picked up a piece of cheese from a snack tray of crackers and Brie. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
Charlotte plopped on a stool next to Braham. “I don’t want to venture anything or gain anything. I only want…I don’t know what I want, but I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to land in the middle of a battle again. It scared the crap out of me. I shiver in the night remembering the screams and the cannon fire and the bleeding, dying men I couldn’t help.”
Braham’s jaw was squarely set and his upper lip compressed. He listened intently, his eyes roving from her to Jack and back.
“Take all the time you need to decide, sis. I’ll give you five minutes.”
When she caught Braham’s eye, he smiled, but the smile was seemingly in contradiction with the weariness in his eyes.
Jack gave her his book jacket smile, the irresistible one capable of triggering emotional highs in complete strangers and making fans see things in a more favorable light. Like forking over twenty-five bucks for one of his hardcover books. He squeezed her shoulder. “Come on, sis. You met Sheridan, Lincoln, and Grant, and toured Washington and Richm
ond. The least you can do is give me a few hours to explore.”
This would be a perfect time for a snappy retort at the smiling coconspirators who were so busy manipulating her, but nothing came to mind. She’d already been to the past, thank you very much, and had discovered time travel was fraught with danger and rife with long-term consequences. But Jack would never believe her until he experienced it for himself.
It wasn’t a Japanese puzzle box she had opened. It was Pandora’s, and it had arrived without a warning label telling her to keep it sealed or suffer the wrath of the time-travel god.
If it was possible, Jack’s smile grew across his face to his eyebrows, and even his body was smiling. She finally acquiesced. “We’re not staying overnight. A couple of hours, max. That’s it. It should give you time to see Washington and stop by the White House.”
Laughing, Jack said, “Let’s eat. The steaks are ready.”
After a delicious dinner which left them all moaning from too-full stomachs, they took cups of coffee to the library and settled into the deep, tufted leather chairs. Braham told the story he had promised during dinner.
“Although I was born in America, I was raised in Scotland from a very early age. My friend Cullen and I finished our education at the University of Edinburgh then studied law at Harvard. When we finished our studies, we joined a small firm in San Francisco. Cullen met his wife on a wagon train heading west in 1852.” Braham paused and studied the mug in his hand. His face betrayed nothing other than a look of fond remembrance, but then his eyes darted as if trying to grasp an annoying thought.
“They settled in San Francisco,” he continued, focusing his attention once again on his listeners. “The next year they bought land in the Napa Valley and started a winery in 1854. A year later I started one, too. I discovered I loved nurturing the vines, putting my hands in the rich soil”—he examined his fingers and seemed to be surprised to find there was no dirt under his nails—“and spending time with my horses rejuvenates my soul.” He gave a one-shoulder shrug and sipped his coffee. “I solve problems working outside, even in the rain.”
The Sapphire Brooch Page 10