Twin of Fire

  Lee was standing a foot away from her, but the heat in his eyes was drawing her closer. “So I passed your tests, did I? Rather like Hercules and his tasks.”

  “It wasn’t quite that bad.”

  “No? People are still asking me if I’d like to go rowing. And, of course, there was that last-minute switch at the altar, and everyone wants to know if I know which twin I did marry.”

  “But there are no more snakes in your lunch pail,” she said solemnly.

  Leander put his wineglass, then hers, down on the edge of the sink and stepped toward her. “You have a lot to make up to me.”

  “I shall always keep your scalpels sharp,” she said, stepping back.

  Leander just stood there, not saying a word, as he watched her. It was nearly dark outside and very dim in the surgery of the hospital. With his eyes locked on hers, Lee began to remove his clothing, inch by inch exposing warm, dark skin, long muscles playing, moving.

  Blair stood transfixed where she was, her eyes hypnotized by him, watching his fingers on buttons, watching him as he exposed himself bit by delicious bit. His legs were long and thick-thighed, big muscles about his knees, calves strong and heavy. Her breath deepened and her throat dried as she saw him standing before her nude, his desire for her rampant.

  Still watching her, he sat down on a long, low bench, his legs apart, his body ready for her.

  “Come to me,” he whispered in a voice that came from somewhere inside him.

  Blair didn’t bother to remove any outer clothing but released the drawstring of her pantalets and stepped out of them as she walked. Her full cord skirt covered them as she straddled him, slipping down on his manhood easily. She wrapped her leather encased feet about his calves for a moment, pulling herself down, closer and closer to him, feeling him against her skin.

  Then, on tiptoe, she began to move up and down, slowly at first, watching. His face was expressionless, devoid of lines, angelic almost, as the pleasure began to dissolve over him. A moment later, she arched against him, bringing her knees up to the bench. Lee’s hands slid under the skirt, began to move up and down her thighs, clutching her, helping her to move.

  Lee’s eyes closed for a second, opened, then he leaned his head back and slid downward. Blair moved her hands from his shoulders to his neck and began to move harder and faster, her thighs straining, tightening, as Lee caught her buttocks in his hands and helped her move.

  She arched once, hard, backbreakingly hard, holding onto Lee as her body tightened and froze for a moment in a final ecstasy.

  Lee held her, even though she almost fought him, not allowing her to fall, himself shuddering with the grip of his passion.

  For a moment, Blair didn’t know where she was, as she came out of her powerful arch and clung to Lee.

  After a moment, he pulled back and smiled at her. “It’s nice to have mutual interests.”

  “Hello. Is anyone here?”

  “It’s your father,” Blair said in horror.

  Lee lifted her off him. “Go out there and stall him while I get dressed.”

  “But I can’t—,” she began, thinking that he’d know from the look of her what she’d been doing.

  “Go!” Lee commanded and gave her a small shove toward the doorway.

  “There you are,” Reed greeted her, then took one look at Blair’s flushed face and began to smile. “I guess Lee’s here, too.”

  “Yes,” she said, and her voice cracked. “He’ll…a, be out in a minute. Could I offer you some refreshment?” She stopped as she remembered that the only thing they had was champagne.

  Reed’s eyes sparkled. “Come outside. I have something I want to show you.”

  With a glance over her shoulder, she saw that Lee wasn’t ready yet, so she followed Reed outside. Standing in front of the clinic was a pretty little carriage, black exterior, black leather seats, a black box in the back to hold supplies. Blair touched the brass rail that held up the canopy. “It’s lovely.” She thought it was odd that Reed would buy such a carriage for himself, as it had a decidedly feminine air about it.

  “Look at the front of it,” Reed said, his ugly little bulldog face still beaming at her.

  She looked up to see Leander coming out of the door, and he seemed to be as puzzled by the carriage as she was.

  Blair bent over to see that there was a brass nameplate just under the single seat. Dr. Blair Chandler Westfield, it read.

  It took Blair a moment to understand. “For me? The carriage is for me?”

  “I can’t have my new daughter running about the streets of Chandler on foot, and I know this son of mine won’t let that old buggy of his out of his sight, so I thought you’d better have one of your own. Do you like it?”

  Blair stood back for a moment and looked at the buggy. It seemed that this was what she needed to finish establishing that she was really a doctor. “Yes,” she cried. “Oh, yes!” And the next moment, she ran to hug Reed and kiss his cheek, and before he could get embarrassed, she was climbing into the carriage and looking at every nook and cranny. She opened the box in the back. “It’s not nearly as big as yours, Lee. Maybe we can have it enlarged. I’m sure that I’ll need to carry lots of things.”

  “Such as rifles, maybe? Look, if you think I’m going to allow you to run around the country all alone in your new carriage, you’re deeply mistaken. Dad, I wish you’d asked me about this. Giving her freedom is like letting a self-destructive tornado loose. She’ll run off on one case after another and end up getting herself killed.”

  “And I guess you’re so much better,” she said, looking down at him from the seat. “You walk into range wars. At least, I went into the thing not knowing what it was.”

  “That’s worse,” Lee said. “All someone has to say is that he needs help, and you’re off. You have no sense of taking care of yourself. Look at what happened with the gang that kidnapped you. You jumped on the horse with the man and didn’t even ask where he was taking you.”

  “Wait a minute,” Reed said, and there was laughter in his voice. “I guess I didn’t think of any of that. Maybe I learned with you, Lee, that I couldn’t stop you from doing whatever you wanted to do. Maybe Blair’s like you.”

  “She has no sense about what’s safe for her to do,” Lee said sullenly.

  “And you do?” Reed’s eyes bored into his son’s.

  Blair watched them, and she was further convinced that Lee was doing something dangerous, but she was sure that it was something that would eventually help other people.

  Reed glanced at the brown horse that was hitched to the buggy. “I’ve sent for an appaloosa like Lee’s, but the horse hasn’t come yet. I thought you’d want to be recognized like Lee is.”

  “They’re going to recognize her because I will be beside her,” Lee said with determination.

  Blair didn’t answer that, but merely gave him a little smile with lifted eyebrows that made her think he was going to jump into the seat with her—and she didn’t like to think what he was going to do to her.

  Reed let out a loud laugh and hit his son roughly on the shoulder. “I hope she leads you a chase as hard as the one you led your mother and me. Maybe you’ll understand some of what we went through.” He put his hand up to help Blair down. “Did I ever tell you about the time Lee exchanged the rat poison in the attic for bread crumbs? We had every rat in my wife’s hometown in our house before we found out what was going on.”

  “No, you didn’t,” she said, looking up at Lee’s back as they entered the clinic. “And I certainly would like to hear more.”

  Chapter 28

  Blair and Leander had been married only a couple of weeks when the Westfield Clinic was officially opened. Of course, she hadn’t finished her internship, but both she and Lee knew it was only a formality. Blair’d had years of practice in hospitals.

  The day the clinic opened, Blair was so nervous she spilled her coffee and dropped her corn muffin on the dining room floor. Guiltily, she grabbed the muff
in and glanced toward the door to the kitchen.

  Lee put his hand over hers. “She doesn’t bite, you know.”

  “Maybe she won’t bite you, but I’m not so sure about me.” Days ago, the housekeeper-cook Houston’d hired had come to their house and Blair found her to be a formidable woman: a tiny body with stiff steel-gray hair, hard black eyes, and a little slash of a mouth. Mrs. Shainess barely came up to Blair’s shoulder, but whenever she entered the room, Blair stiffened. The little woman made Blair feel clumsy and unsure of herself. The first day she’d arrived, she’d gone through Blair’s small wardrobe, saying tersely that she was looking for garments that needed repairing or cleaning. She’d sighed as she’d handled Blair’s few pieces of clothing, and for hours later, the house smelled of chemicals as the woman cleaned those clothes.

  That night, when Blair and Lee returned from the hospital, Mrs. Shainess drew him aside for a private discussion. Afterward, with a smile, Lee told Blair that Mrs. Shainess did not think she had a wardrobe befitting a lady and that Blair was to see Houston’s dressmaker tomorrow.

  Blair tried to protest, but Lee would not listen. She was worried enough as it was that Lee was in debt without her adding to his expenses. So, the next day, when she went to the dressmaker’s, she planned to order very, very little, but she found that Lee had already called and ordered twice as much as Blair thought she’d ever need. Still, she couldn’t help being pleased by the beautiful clothing, and she drove home quickly in her new carriage, planning to thank him in the best way she knew how.

  But when she entered the drawing room, Lee was engrossed in a letter he held—and when Blair came into the room, he crumpled it, struck a match to it and burned it in the fireplace.

  Blair didn’t ask him about the letter because she didn’t want to hear him tell her again that she wouldn’t understand. All her enthusiasm about the new clothes left her, and she spent the evening trying to come up with rational explanations for Lee’s actions: he was helping someone; he needed money; he was a criminal; he was a Pinkerton agent.

  At night, they made love slowly and Blair clung to Lee. She was getting to the point that she didn’t care what he was doing. He could secretly own all the gambling houses on River Street and she wasn’t sure it would matter to her.

  On the first day that the Westfield Clinic was officially open, Lee was called away to help at the Windlass Mine, where the end of a tunnel had collapsed. Blair wanted to go with him, but he sent her off to the clinic to help the needy patients.

  When she opened the door at eight that morning, Lee’s nurse, Mrs. Krebbs, and three patients were already waiting. Mrs. Krebbs, as cool as ever, nodded slightly to Blair and went to the surgery to check the supplies and instruments.

  “This way,” Blair said, guiding her first patient into the examining room.

  “Where’s the doctor?” the woman asked, clutching her handbag to her bosom, as if someone meant to steal it.

  “I am a doctor. Now, if you’ll have a seat and tell me what’s wrong, I’ll—.”

  “I want a real doctor,” the woman said, backing against the door.

  “I assure you that I am a certified doctor. If you’ll just tell me—.”

  “I ain’t stayin’ here. I thought this was gonna be a real hospital with real doctors.”

  Before Blair could say another word, the woman was out of the door and hurrying toward the street. Blair kept her anger under control as she ushered in the next patient.

  The second woman flatly said that Blair couldn’t possibly know what was wrong with her because her illness wasn’t pregnancy. Blair had difficulty understanding this until she realized the woman thought Blair was a midwife. The woman left before Blair could explain. The third woman left after she found out that the handsome Dr. Westfield, who she’d met last summer in Denver, wasn’t going to examine her.

  For hours after the third patient left, no one came to the clinic, and Blair had visions of the telephone catching fire from all the scorching gossip that was passing across its wires. At four o’clock, a salesman touting a pink liquid made for “female problems” came by. Blair was polite but ushered him out quickly. She went back to straightening towels that were already straight.

  “They want a man,” Mrs. Krebbs said. “They want a trained doctor like Dr. Leander.”

  “I am a trained doctor,” Blair said through her teeth.

  Mrs. Krebbs sniffed, put her nose in the air and went into another room.

  Blair locked the door at six o’clock and went home.

  At home, she didn’t tell Lee about her lack of patients. He’d gone to so much trouble and expense to start the clinic that she didn’t want to bother him. Besides, he was worried enough as it was.

  She filled the tub for him, then prepared to leave as he undressed.

  “Don’t go. Stay and talk to me.”

  She felt a little shy at first as he stripped and got into the tub. Somehow, this was more intimate than making love.

  Lee leaned back in the tub, a faraway look in his eyes, and began to tell her of what he’d been through that day. He told of pulling two bodies out of the mine rubble, of having to amputate a man’s foot while in the pit. She didn’t interrupt him and he went on to describe the feeling of being inside the mine: the weight of the surrounding walls, the lack of fresh air, the total darkness, no room to stand, no room to move.

  “I don’t know how they do it, how they can walk into that day after day. At any moment, a roof may fall on them. Each day, they face a thousand ways to die.”

  She had his foot out of the water and was washing it. “Houston says that for the men to join together in a union is the only way they’ll accomplish anything.”

  “And how would Houston know that?” Lee snapped.

  “She lives here,” Blair said, surprised. “She hears things. She said that someone is bringing union activists into the camps, and there’s going to be a revolution before long. And—.”

  Lee snatched the cloth from her. “I hope you don’t listen to gossip like that. Nobody—neither the miners nor the owners —wants a war on his hands. I’m sure things can be handled peacefully.”

  “I hope so. I had no idea you cared so much for the miners.”

  “If you’d seen what I saw today, you’d care, too.”

  “I wanted to go with you. Maybe next time…”

  Lee leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “I don’t mean to snap. I wouldn’t want you up there and, besides, you have all your many patients in the clinic to heal. I wonder what our pretty little housekeeper has for supper tonight?”

  Blair smiled at him. “I hope you don’t think I had courage enough to ask. I’ll go down in the deepest mine with you and face falling roofs, but deliver me from Mrs. Shainess’s kitchen.”

  “Falling roofs—that reminds me. How are you and Mrs. Krebbs doing?”

  Blair groaned, and as Lee dressed, she launched into a soliloquy about Mrs. Krebbs. “She may be an angel in the operating room, but elsewhere she is a witch.”

  By the time Lee was ready to go downstairs to dinner, he was smiling again and gently arguing about whether Mrs. Krebbs’s good qualities outweighed her bad.

  That night, they snuggled against each other and fell asleep together.

  The second day the clinic was open was worse: no one came. And when Blair got home, Lee received one of his cryptic phone calls and was out the door and didn’t return until midnight. He crawled into bed beside her, dirty, exhausted, and she experienced male snoring for the first time. She gently touched his shoulder a couple of times and had no effect on him, so, with one big shove, she pushed him onto his stomach and he quietened.

  On the third day, as Blair sat at her too-neat desk, she heard the outside doorbell jangle, and when she went into the waiting room, she saw her childhood friend, Tia Mankin. Tia was suffering from a persistent dry cough.

  Blair listened to her complaints, prescribed a mild cough syrup, and was smiling broadly when the ne
xt patient arrived, another childhood friend. As the day wore on, and one friend after another came in with a vague complaint, she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. She was glad that these young women still considered themselves her friends, but part of her was feeling frustrated at the lack of real patients.

  In the late afternoon, Houston drove up to the clinic in her pretty little carriage and told Blair she thought she was expecting, and would Blair please examine her to see if she was? Houston wasn’t pregnant, and after the exam, Blair showed her around the clinic. Mrs. Krebbs had already gone home and the twins were alone.

  “Blair, I’ve always admired you so much. You’re so brave.”

  “Me? Brave? I’m not brave in the least.”

  “But, look at all this. It’s happened because you knew what you wanted and then went out and got it. You wanted to be a doctor, and you let nothing stand in your way. I used to have dreams, too, but I was too cowardly to pursue them.”

  “What dreams? I mean, besides Leander?”

  Houston waved her hand. “I think I chose Lee because he was such a respectable dream. Mother and Mr. Gates approved so heartily of him, and in turn I got their approval.” She stopped and smiled. “I think there was a part of me that enjoyed all those tricks you played on Lee.”

  “You knew about them?”

  “Most of them. After a while, I began watching for them. I was the one who suggested to Lee that John Lechner was the culprit.”

  “John was always a bully, and I’m sure he deserved whatever he got from Lee. Houston, I had no idea you thought of yourself as a coward. I so badly wanted to be perfect like you.”

  “Perfect! No, I was just frightened, afraid of disappointing Mother, of enraging Mr. Gates, of not living up to what the town expected of a Chandler.”

  “While I seemed to make everyone angry without even trying. You have so many friends, so many people love you.”