TWICE A HERO

by Susan Krinard

  Caroline was breathless with laughter. Like Mac, and totally unlike. All Liam felt as he watched Caroline laugh was rage.

  And fear. Gut deep, coming out of a past long gone—fear of failure. And loss, and death.

  He drove that madness away and pulled the surrey alongside the gig with a sharp jerk of the reins.

  They looked at him, Perry and Caroline—her smile fading, his gaze cool, united in their mutiny. Reins slackened, and the horses came to a stop.

  "You see, Liam," Caroline said triumphantly. "I can drive."

  Liam pushed the reins into Mac's hands and jumped down from the surrey. "Get out of the gig, Caroline," he ordered.

  She tightened her fingers on the gig's reins and lifted her chin. "No. Perry and I were only—"

  "Get out. Now." Liam reached up and snatched the reins from her hands.

  "See here, old man," Perry said. "There was never any danger. I'd advise you to calm yourself."

  Liam turned on Perry. "You blackguard." He helped Caroline down. "Go inside and wait for me."

  She feigned a sob. "Liam, please—"

  But he wouldn't be moved by her tricks. "Miss MacKenzie," he said between his teeth, "would you be so kind as to accompany Miss Gresham into Cliff House?"

  Mac scrambled down from her seat. "Get a grip, O'Shea," she hissed as she passed him. She gently took Caroline's arm, and the two women moved off.

  Liam turned back to Perry, clutching the carriage wheel in his hand. The rim cut into his palm. "Get out of here before I lose my temper."

  "A terrifying prospect indeed." Perry gathered up the reins. "Take my advice, old man, and consider the nature of your audience before you do something you'll regret. You're not hurting me."

  "Go."

  Perry went, though not without a certain leisurely insolence. He clicked to his team and sent them off down the lane, his unflappable demeanor completely intact.

  Liam strode back to the surrey. The horses were in need of cooling off after their run, and Liam himself felt near the point of explosion. He drove to the hitching racks beside the long white building at the top of the road and paid a loitering young man to walk the horses.

  His gut was churning with a snarl of emotions. He wasn't thinking as he stepped through the doors of Cliff House. The place was all but empty. A few families, groups, and couples were scattered amongst the tables in the main dining room. Caroline and Mac were the only visitors standing before the large windows that framed an impressive view of Seal Rock and the ocean.

  But it wasn't the view Liam noticed. He stared at the two women, deeply conscious of the vivid contrast between them. Against the window they were only shapes, but he thought he could see something more: a glow, a burning that was like a candle's flicker in Caroline and a roaring furnace in Mac.

  Mac glanced over her shoulder, meeting his gaze. Meeting and holding, challenging, promising…

  Liam broke free and strode across the distance between them. He grasped Caroline's hand, pulling her away from the window and Mac.

  Caroline didn't resist. Her bootheels clicked on the floor in a rapid, uneven beat as she struggled to keep up with him.

  He found a secluded hallway leading off the dining room. As good a place as any; this wouldn't be any delicate wooing. He'd been putting off the inevitable far too long.

  He released her hand. "We have something to discuss, Caroline."

  Her eyes were very blue and very wide, just as they'd been when she was a child. Only then they'd been filled with trust and admiration. "Discuss?" she said. "Like the way you… chastised me in front of Perry and Rose?"

  "Caroline," he said, more evenly. "You deliberately ignored my warnings. You could have been hurt."

  "Perry was with me. I was safe."

  "Safe?" He laughed. "What was the point of that little performance, Caroline? Did Perry put you up to it?"

  Her hands twisted in the folds of her skirt. "I… it was my idea."

  She looked up at him, as pretty and exquisite as a china doll. Perfect. Beautiful. An ornament easily broken, to be unwrapped only with the greatest of care—never to be handled with strong emotion. Or passion.

  There was no danger of that, no stirring within him, nothing to spark between a man and woman. The lack of that spark was an emptiness, a hollow yearning he could not remember feeling before he'd gone to the jungle.

  Before Mac.

  He clenched his jaw. "You're nearly eighteen, Caroline," he said.

  Her attention was fixed on him. Her lips parted; the delicate lashes of an angel fluttered against her cheeks. "Yes."

  "Your father gave your care into my hands."

  "You are not my father." She averted her face. "You don't care about me."

  The words twisted deep into the emptiness inside him. "I do care," he said hoarsely. He caught her chin and turned her face toward him again. "Caroline—"

  He caught her shoulders and lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was no more than a brush of lips, though Caroline shivered at his touch. Liam felt nothing. He had expected a sense of Tightness, of relief in doing what must be done. But the coldness in his belly only grew more chill, more fathomless, as if all his vows to Gresham and to himself meant nothing at all.

  There was only one answer to that nothingness. He lifted Caroline against him, taking her lips more fully, seeking life itself.

  The life he'd sensed when he'd held Mac in his arms, hot and bright and pulsing as the jungle sun. The wash of ocean waves and barking of seals became the beat of rain and shrieking of parrots, another place and another heart pounding close to his, a radiance that knew no limits.

  But it wasn't Mac he was holding, and the light within Caroline was not bright enough, not strong enough to pierce the darkness, to make him feel…

  The wrongness of it shocked him back to himself as surely as the sound of purposeful footsteps rounding the corner into the hall.

  Mac stopped in a swirl of skirts, her ears red as summer roses. Liam released Caroline; she put her hands to her lips and backed away to lean against the wall, trembling and mute.

  The darkness in Liam spilled over, a bedlam in his mind that left him numb to any feeling. He took Caroline's hand and pulled her out of the hall and across the dining room to the door. The fresh ocean air let him breathe again; he paused on the steps and searched the line of carriages waiting at the hitching racks.

  A respectable-looking hack driver was leaning against his brougham, smoking a cigarette and blowing smoke circles lazily into the air. Liam strode up to him, Caroline in tow.

  "Are you for hire?" he demanded.

  The driver dropped his cigarette and crushed it under his heel. "I'm waiting for my fare…"

  "I'll double what they're paying if you take this lady home directly and see that she is put into the keeping of her chaperon. Tell Mrs. Hunter that no one is to see the young lady until I return. If I hear you've done exactly as I tell you, I'll triple the fee. Liam O'Shea's the name."

  The driver straightened. "I know you, Mr. O'Shea."

  "Good. Then you know I don't tolerate incompetence. She's to go directly, and safely, to her home. Can you guarantee that?"

  "Sure. I'm the best driver in the city."

  Liam snorted and counted out a handful of coins. "Send another driver to pick up your fare and come to my house for the rest of the money when the job's complete. You'll find the Gresham home on California Street."

  "I know it, sir." The driver pocketed the coins and tipped his hat. "She'll be home safe and sound in a jiffy."

  Caroline made no protest as Liam handed her into the brougham. She peered at him through the window, pale against the glass. Soon the carriage was down the lane and rounding the headland, out of sight.

  He walked to the surrey to retrieve the dogs. Both were gone—probably down at the beach for their run. Grimly he went back into Cliff House, but Mac was nowhere to be found.

  She was not outside, nor on the descending road to the ocean. It wasn't
until he looked over the railing along the rocks and down to the beach below that he saw her.

  She was walking close to the surf, her skirts caught up in one hand. The dogs were with her—Norton bounding ahead and doubling back again, Bummer chasing the waves at her feet.

  Liam strode along the curved lane and onto the sand, ignoring the coarse grains that worked into his shoes and destroyed their fine polish. All he could see was Mac.

  Her walking boots, stockings, and hat lay in a heap just out of the water's reach. He stopped to gather them up. Her footprints melted into wet sand as he followed them.

  The sand also muffled the sounds of his approach, allowing him to observe uninterrupted. The hem of her gown was soaked five inches up, and her hair was tangled with salt spray. She didn't mind displaying her ankles for all to see. Once she'd revealed a great deal more, only for him.

  She was a bloody siren, bent on dragging a man to his doom under the icy waves.

  No. She was a sea nymph, unselfconscious in her immodesty, unaware of its effect on mortal men who came too near.

  His body stirred, betraying him. With a final long stride he caught up to her.

  "Well, Mac," he said harshly. "I see you've found a way to amuse yourself."

  She turned without surprise, pushing her spray-wet bangs from her forehead. "It's a hell of a lot better than watching your little soap opera up there. I can get that at home for free." She whistled sharply and Norton came running up to her, beating her skirts with his sandy tail. "Is it finally over?"

  "It's over." He snatched up a piece of driftwood. "Why did you run, Mac?"

  "I didn't—"

  "Of course," he said with a fierce edge of triumph. "You're jealous. You couldn't bear to see me with anyone else."

  Her stillness was sudden and profound. Mac's fingers pushed deep into Norton's rough coat. "You think I'd want to be in Caroline's shoes after what you did up there? Humiliating her, treating her like a baby—"

  He felt heat under his skin. "I know what Caroline needs."

  "Sure. That's really the way to show it, all right. You have it down pat. Congratulations."

  "You wouldn't know a bloody thing about how a lady should be treated. You're little better than a tramp, Miss MacKenzie."

  "Tsk, tsk. You're forgetting to be a gentleman, Mr. O'Shea. But that's all right. Go on just as you've been doing, and you'll make things easy for everyone."

  "And what do you mean by that?"

  But she seemed to have thought better of what she'd said, for she turned her back and walked away along the surf's edge. Liam tossed the driftwood aside with a savage jerk, and Norton set out in pursuit with a joyful bark.

  "Damn it," he said, lengthening his stride to catch up to her. "I warned you, Mac—"

  "The way you warned Caroline and Perry?" she said, trailing her sodden skirts. "You're good at that. Always need to be on top, huh?"

  "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" He finally caught her arm and swung her around. "You'd like me on top in a very different situation."

  "Pardon me?"

  He pulled her closer. "You can fool the others, Mac, but not me. You'll always be what you are, no matter how many Mrs. Wyndhams approve or how many gowns you wear. It's all paint over dross."

  She tried to jerk free. "You should know."

  The blood was pounding in his ears. "Should I?"

  "You think you've figured me out, Liam, but I can play the same game. You're a man who's had to fight all his life for everything he has." Her voice dropped so low that he almost couldn't hear it over the surf. "You had a hard childhood, no privileges or gentleness, only stark poverty and struggle. Now you're rich, but you haven't left that childhood behind, have you? Is that why you want to marry Caroline, because she's like some pretty toy you didn't have as a kid? Because she means you've finally succeeded?"

  He let her go as if her flesh had turned to fire. "Lucky guesses, Mac?" he rasped. "Or is this Perry's opinion?"

  "Perry has nothing to do with it. But Caroline does. You don't know when to stop, Liam. You're trying to make Caroline into something—Damn it, what's going to happen when she really proves she has a mind of her own?"

  Liam felt cold through to the center of his heart. "You don't need to be concerned about that, Mac. Soon it'll be over, and you'll be out of this city. That's how it will be. How it has to be."

  She only gazed at him, looking almost lost. Conceding the last word to him, granting him victory.

  A victory that felt utterly hollow.

  He turned and called the dogs. They came running, Bummer dancing around and around his feet and Norton leaning companionably against his side. True friends, incapable of using human speech to wound and rend and betray.

  "I'll take you back to the Palace now, Miss MacKenzie," he said tonelessly.

  "And Caroline?"

  "I've sent her home."

  "I think I'd rather walk."

  He wouldn't have been surprised if she tried it. "Will you come willingly, or shall I throw you over my shoulder?"

  "Someday," she said, sitting down in the sand to pull on her soiled boots, "you might learn there are better ways to get what you want than brute strength and intimidation."

  He didn't answer her. They walked stiffly, Mac in the lead, back to the road.

  The carriage ride to the Palace was made without conversation. Mac, somber and unyielding, was ready to speak only when he let her off in the Grand Court.

  "Ask yourself one thing, Liam," she said quietly as he prepared to drive away. "Why are you so anxious to be rid of me now? Why are you so afraid?"

  And she turned away before he could summon a reply.

  Liam kept his mind blank as he drove home. Even the dogs were unusually quiet. Only on the last stretch of Sacramento Street did he set the horses in one last, reckless run to the gates of his great, empty house.

  It was at those gates that the world lurched violently and threw Liam forward against the dashboard of the surrey. The horses screamed and reared. A hard grip on the seat kept him from falling out; the effort wrenched his arm and slammed his head against the roof. He heard a yelp and a whimper and struggled to right himself.

  The carriage had collapsed on one side, front and rear wheels tilted at an impossible angle. Bummer lay very still on the ground a few feet away, Norton licking him with worried nudges of his muzzle. Ignoring the pain in his arm and head, Liam scrambled out of the surrey. He gave the horses a swift check and found them trembling and white-eyed but whole. He moved quickly to crouch beside the dogs.

  "Bummer," he said. "Can you hear me, boy?"

  The terrier's visible eye opened and then shut again. His whimper was barely audible. Liam ran his hand over Bummer's side, careful not to exert any pressure. One of the dog's legs was bleeding badly, and he flinched when Liam brushed his ribs. Pushing Norton gently out of the way, Liam gathered the terrier in his arms and strode for the gates.

  Chen met him before he reached the front door. "Mr. O'Shea, what—"

  "We've had an accident, Chen. Send for the veterinarian immediately. And clean up Bummer's leg. I think his ribs are broken."

  With utmost care Chen took the dog, murmuring assurances into the terrier's limp triangular ear. "I will take good care of him."

  "I know you will. When Bummer's safe, send a message to Mr. Bauer that I'll need to see him right away. I'll be in front speaking with Forster."

  "At once, Mr. O'Shea." Chen vanished into the house, Norton trotting anxiously behind.

  Liam knew Bummer couldn't be in better hands until the veterinarian arrived. His next most pressing business wouldn't wait. He went out into the garden and was taking the path toward the carriage house when he saw Forster by the surrey, bent over one of the ruined wheels.

  "Well?" he said, joining the other man. "What caused it?"

  Forster straightened. "I can't account for it, Mr. O'Shea, except that it looks like someone sawed halfway through the front axle. A few good runs and it was
bound to give way." He clucked his tongue. "It's a miracle the horses weren't hurt."

  "Yes." Liam remembered how he'd raced the surrey not once but twice, how Mac had been in the carriage only minutes before.

  She could have been badly hurt.

  She… could have died.

  This had been no accident. No accident that Caroline had been safe with Perry in the gig.

  He unbuttoned the collar of his shirt and ripped off his tie. "See to the horses, Forster. The veterinarian's on his way—have him examine them carefully, and give them an extra measure of grain tonight. The poor beasts have earned it."

  "I'll do that, Mr. O'Shea. Are you all right?"

  "Perfectly."

  Forster gave him a dubious glance and went to calm the horses, unbuckling their harness. "There, now," he soothed. "You'll be fine, my beauties. No one will hurt you again."

  Liam stood by the surrey as Forster led the team away. No, no one would hurt the horses or Bummer or anyone else again. His bitter thoughts turned toward the center of town, toward Market and a certain suite of boardinghouse rooms.

  This time I'll kill you, Perry.

  * * *

  The room was heavy with the scent of incense, a scent that didn't quite cover the more acrid smell of opium from the adjoining chamber. Perry was grateful for the low light and heavy shadows; he'd been careful to wear a hat that gave him some anonymity so that the man he was to meet would have trouble identifying him later.

  When everything was finished.

  While he waited under the impassive scrutiny of the tong guards, he thought back to the news he'd had from Forster a few days before. The news that had led him here to this alien place, to ally himself to men with whom he had nothing in common. Men who would probably see a sawed-through carriage axle as a warning rather than a murder attempt.

  An attempt which had not succeeded.

  Perry smoothed his mustache. It had been quite a shock at first, but he'd gotten over it quickly enough. He hadn't even waited to discover Liam's reaction. He knew he'd operate more smoothly without having to contend with Liam's rather violent mistrust.

  The contrary Irishman had no doubt already fixed the blame for his "accident." But if he'd gone in pursuit of Perry, he wouldn't have found him.