TWICE A HERO By Susan Krinard

A much bigger part than she wanted. If only she could figure out how to go about putting history back on course, maybe she could relax and enjoy it…

“Your bag, miss.” Mr. Harvey thumbed the brim of his cap and set the carpetbag down on the deck.

It held all she owned in this time: her backpack, the spare set of Liam’s oversized clothes, a pair of boots Liam had bought for her, along with the bag itself, during a brief stop in Guatemala City. Her jeans already had holes in them, obtained during the trek amid endless jungles, over mountains and through wild and largely unpopulated country. They weren’t going to last much longer.

With any luck they wouldn’t have to.

“We’ve arrived, Mac,” Liam said, disconcertingly close to her ear. “Unless you prefer to stay on board.”

“I’m coming.” She swept up her bag and followed him down the gangplank to the bustling pier. The wood under her feet was anchored on landfill, packed down over the skeletons of Gold Rush vessels abandoned by gold-hungry crews; the pier was lined with rickety wooden offices and warehouses, signed with faded paint and crusted with salt spray.

Beyond the pier the wharf was thick with carriages and drays and wagons, sailors and passengers disembarking from vessels up and down the wharf. Pigs and dogs scurried between the legs of men shouting the names of hotels, boardinghouses, and restaurants eager for the business of new arrivals. Mac nearly tripped twice over the hem of her cloak as she tried to take it all in.

Liam caught her elbow. “One would think you hadn’t seen an American city before.”

“Not like this.” Not blessed with women in gowns that brushed the cobbles and pinched the waist to an impossible circumference, men in bowlers and top hats, steaming deposits of equine leavings, and a sky that reached much too close to the ground.

He tugged her toward a line of carriages waiting along the wharf like horse-drawn taxis. “Then pay attention,” he snapped. “And pull up your hood.”

“I’d like to see you in my city.”

He grunted something both impatient and unintelligible and signaled to the carriage first in line, a boxlike affair on large wheels. The dark-coated and bowler-hatted driver, perched on a seat above and behind his two horses, looked them over with an indifferent air that became considerably more alert when Liam showed him a handful of silver coins. He grinned and jumped down, took possession of Liam’s single trunk and Mac’s bag, and opened the carriage door with an ostentatious flourish.

Even with Liam’s assistance Mac’s cloak insisted on tangling up around her ankles. She twitched the material aside, giving the carriage driver a glimpse of jeans-clad leg as Liam half pushed, half lifted her into the carriage.

Liam settled onto the seat beside her and rattled off an address to the driver, whose curious gaze lingered until Liam firmly shut the door in his face. Liam’s features had taken on a grim cast, and there was a glint of expectation in his eyes and a tautness to his body that hinted that something significant was about to happen.

She ran her hand along the patched leather of the seat. “What kind of carriage is this?”

“A brougham. Surely you’ve ridden in a carriage before?”

“Only the horseless kind.”

Interest sparked in his eyes, though his set expression didn’t crack by so much as a hairline. “And when will these… ‘horseless carriages’ be invented?”

“Oh, the next year or so, if I remember correctly.”

He adjusted his hat low over his nose. “Perhaps I should set you up as a fortune-teller.”

“I can think of worse professions.” She leaned forward to get a better view out the window. “Where should I put up shop? The Barbary Coast?”

He looked at her sharply. “What do you know of the Coast?”

“What I’ve read in books. Colorful place. Wasn’t it supposed to be the biggest den of iniquity on the—”

His hand shot out to close around her wrist. “I didn’t bring you this far to see you throw yourself into ruin, or worse.”

She was momentarily subdued by his vehement response. It almost did seem that he cared what became of her, which was more or less what he’d claimed on the ship. And that was something Mac still couldn’t figure, though the possibility did something warm and fuzzy and unsettling to her insides.

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