Things just got worse as Herman drove the wagon on through town to the waterfront. The streets were paved now, but with cobblestones instead of asphalt. Annabel saw a few cars—black, ugly-looking things with wire wheels and motors that spit and sputtered. Model A's, she thought. The only cars on the streets of Oakland were Ford Model A's. Most of the vehicles were still horse-drawn.
Worst of all, when she looked where the Bay Bridge should have been, there was nothing, only the choppy expanse of San Francisco Bay. And when she peered across the bay to San Francisco, she searched in vain for the Transamerica Tower and all the other downtown skyscrapers. The general outlines of the city were the same; she had no trouble spotting Telegraph Hill, Russian Hill, and Nob Hill, but everything else was different.
She really was crazy, or . . .
"Herman," she managed to say thickly as he brought the wagon to a stop near a dock where a ferry was berthed, "what's the date today?"
"The date? Lemme see. . .. It's, uh . . . March sixth, I think."
"Of what year?"
"Why, 1906, of course."
With a groan, Annabel did something she'd sworn she'd never do.
She fainted.
Chapter 3
Cole Brady made an effort not to tap his foot impatiently as he stood on the dock and watched the ferry chug its way across the waters of San Francisco Bay. He took his pocket watch from his vest and flipped it open, checking the time. Almost three o'clock. Knowing that just made him more impatient, he realized as he stowed the watch back in his vest pocket. His meeting over here in Oakland had run late, and he would have to hurry to be at the station in time for his shift.
He stretched and then stifled a yawn. He had been on duty last night, of course, and then had come over here on the ferry after only a couple of hours of sleep. It was a good thing he was a relatively young man, he thought, or he wouldn't have been able to stand up to all the demands on his time.
You could give some of it up, Cole told himself. But he knew, even as the thought went through his head, that it would mean giving up what he liked best in his life. The San Francisco Fire Department could get along without him; Brady Enterprises couldn't.
He thumbed back the derby he wore on his thick brown hair. It would be good to get out of this tweed suit and into his uniform. Of course, the blue woolen uniform wasn't any cooler or more comfortable than the suit; Cole just felt more at home in it. When he got duded up like this, he always felt a little like a boy dressing in his father's clothes and pretending to be something he wasn't. In some ways, he thought, that was exactly the case. Thomas Brady was the businessman who had built a small company into something that could almost be called an empire. Cole had inherited that business, but he wondered sometimes if he would ever feel that it was truly his.
A harsh shout broke into Cole's reverie. He wheeled around and saw a burly man in a flannel shirt standing next to a wagon full of logs. The man was yelling, "Hey, I need some help over here! Somebody fetch a doc!"
Cole wasn't a doctor, but he started striding toward the man anyway. The man was cradling a figure in his arms. The sight had caught Cole's attention right away.
The person being held by the man was an unconscious woman.
A crowd was beginning to gather, so Cole caught only glimpses of the woman through gaps between the hurrying people. He saw the long brown hair that hung down her back, the pale, finely featured face, and the strange-looking garment she wore. It was like a pair of long-sleeved overalls, and it was bright yellow. The legs of it were tucked into high-topped, laced-up brown boots. Cole had never seen a getup like that before, and certainly not on a woman.
He shouldered his way through the crowd until he reached the side of the man who had called for help. "What's going on here?" he asked.
"Your guess is as good as mine, mister," the man replied. "I was just talkin' to this lady, and she up and swooned. Fell right off my wagon, she did."
"Who is she?"
"Told me her name was Annabel, but I never saw her before today. I run into her over in the Diablos, while I was haulin' out this load of logs."
Cole whipped off his coat, looked around for a fairly clean spot, then bunched up the garment so it could serve as a pillow of sorts. "Let's lay her down," he suggested as he took hold of the woman's right arm.
Carefully, the two men stretched the woman out on the pavement. Cole tucked the folded-up coat under her head. She had black smudges on her face and hands, he saw, and if he had been in a different line of work, he might have mistaken them for streaks of dirt.
But those marks weren't dirt. They were smudges of ash. This woman had been around a fire, and recently, too.
Several members of the crowd were debating about the woman's odd clothing and the question of whether they ought to send for a doctor. Cole looked at them impatiently and snapped, "Give her some air! That's what she needs." He hoped he was right. He picked up her limp right arm and began massaging the wrist.
Suddenly, the woman stirred. Her eyes opened, and Cole found himself looking down into one of the most luminous sets of brown eyes he had ever seen. Even surrounded by that pale, ash-streaked face, there was so much beauty in those eyes that Cole felt himself catching his breath.