“TRUST ME,”

Colin said.

“Trust you? How can I? I saw the way you looked at that newspaper. You have some crazy idea of solving your grandfather’s murder. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t bother to deny it.” Della met his gaze squarely as she moved out of his arms. “I recognize a man with a purpose when I see one.”

“I have to know what kind of man Shawn Delaney was. Why he was murdered. If I understand, perhaps I can lay some demons to rest.”

“Or be killed yourself.”

He gave a dismissing wave of his hand. “Not possible. I didn’t live in my great-grandfather’s day.”

With a tremor in her voice, she corrected him. “You do now.”

Dear Reader,

I am delighted that Twist in Time has been chosen for the Timetwist reissue program. I have always loved the magic of time travel, and I especially love the added dimension it gives to love stories and mysteries.

I placed my characters in the exciting and rowdy past of old-time Denver, and my research led me to an authentic frontier hotel that provided the elements I needed to carry out my story of love and murder.

Writing this book was a pleasure, and my hope is that each reader will find it an exciting page-turner.

Happy reading,

A Twist in Time
Lee Karr

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 1

D ella Arnell crossed her arms and shivered as she looked out the window of the old hotel she’d recently bought for renovation. Despite an expensive new heating system, a chill remained in the high-ceilinged rooms and lobby of the historic building. In the darkness of rain and shadow, streetlights stood like lonely sentinels along the sidewalks of lower downtown Denver.

Staring out, she tried to focus beyond the streams of water assaulting the windowpane. She could barely make out a vacant lot and an old warehouse across the street. Most of the buildings on the famous “Row,” Denver’s 1880s red-light district, were being torn down or renovated. In the steady downpour of black rain, the street was without any sign of life. She was about to turn away, when a hand and face suddenly pressed against the glass at eye level. She cried out and jerked back.

The shadowy face disappeared and in the next moment there was pounding on the front door. “Let me in, Della.”

Above the noise of the rain, she recognized Colin Delaney’s voice. Relieved and angry at the same time, she opened the door to the dark-haired Irishman. “What on earth do you think you’re doing, scaring me like that?” she railed.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Thick black eyebrows and eyelashes dripped water as he squinted at her. “Sorry,” he said gruffly as he brushed back the hair waving darkly around his face.

She would have preferred that a smile accompany his apology, but in the few weeks she’d known Colin, his strong Celtic features rarely softened into casual smiles. His rugged good looks had intrigued her when they first met, but something about his guarded nature made her uneasy. She wondered why he was paying her a visit on such a stormy night.

A flash of lightning forked across the night sky, followed by a loud clap of vibrating thunder. All at once, the chilled air in the hotel snapped with electricity, as if Colin had brought the storm in with him. As he stood there, looming over her, his face in shadow, Della wished he hadn’t come. She was suddenly uneasy for the first time since she had moved into the empty three-story hotel. During the day, the place was filled with workmen doing the renovations, but at night she was alone—and vulnerable.

She gave herself a mental shake. Colin Delaney had sold her this hotel, which had been in his family for four generations, and she was satisfied that the investment would pay off now that the new Rockies baseball field was completed. All of her dealings with Colin had been straightforward and businesslike. Why was she uneasy about this visit?

“Did you walk from your office in this downpour?” she asked, trying to make some sense out of his showing up in the midst of lightning and thunder. As he took off his lightweight raincoat, she saw that the soft navy slacks and a light summer pullover damply accented his hard physique.

“I suppose I could have called, but I wanted to talk to you face-to-face,” he admitted.

She was puzzled. From the first time she’d met Colin Delaney, she’d felt peculiarly off stride around him and found his strong masculine energy disconcerting. She knew he was a bachelor with no immediate family, and as far as she knew, no serious relationships at the moment. But he gave every indication of knowing his way around women. As much as she may have been tempted, their business relationship had never edged toward anything personal. Any romantic entanglement with a man like Colin Delaney would create the kind of emotional waves that Della had been trying to avoid. She wasn’t prim or frigid, only cautious when it came to her love life. She’d always been able to control her emotions, and the few men who had briefly romanced her had never threatened the deep feelings she kept hidden and protected. She had to admit, however, that Colin challenged that protective detachment. She didn’t like the way he could engage her emotions without even seeming to realize he was doing it. She felt her defenses go up. “I don’t understand what could be so urgent to bring you out on a night like this.”

“It’s important,” he said flatly.

A lot of property in the area had come down through the Delaney family to Colin. She knew that his investment company was turning a couple of old warehouses into loft apartments just a couple of blocks away. But he’d been very tight-lipped about the reasons he’d decided not to renovate the historic Denver Railroad Hotel himself.

“All right. Come back to my apartment,” Della said. Their footsteps echoed on the wooden floor as she led the way down a short hall to the three rooms behind the hotel office, which she had turned into her private apartment. Blending the old with the new had been a challenge. She’d cleaned the brick fireplace, polished blackened copper fixtures to a bright glow, freshened the elaborate moldings adorning the walls and ceilings, and chosen wallpaper and window hangings that were harmonious with the ambience of the original building. She had filled the apartment with some nice pieces of old furniture from her aunt’s home and had added a few things she’d found in the shops on Larimer Street.

Much to her surprise, Colin nodded his approval as his measuring gaze went around the living room. “I like it.”

His open appreciation of what she’d accomplished in her apartment disarmed her. “Thank you,” she said as a spurt of pleasure rushed through her.

“I think you’ve made a good investment.”

She laughed. “I hope so. My Aunt Frances would be horrified to see what I’ve done with the inheritance she left me. She never gambled on anything speculative. Always put her money in solid investments. The idea of buying this place and spending so much money on renovations would have sent her into orbit. My aunt wasn’t sentimental about anything. She was a hard-nosed businesswoman.”

“Like you?” Was there a hint of a smile at the corner of those appealing masculine lips?

“I owe my aunt for whatever business sense I have,” she admitted. “She raised my sister and me from the time we were ten and twelve. My parents were killed by a drunken motorist who demolished our car. Somehow Brenda and I miraculously survived the crash.”

“I didn’t know you had a sister.”

An ache Della thought she’d conquered stabbed her. “I’m two years older. Brenda never adjusted to Aunt Frances’s strict upbringing and ran away from home when she was sixteen. She broke my heart and was a great disappointment to my aunt.”

“And you tried to make up for it?”

“I suppose so,” she said thoughtfully. “Yes. I guess I’ve always been what you’d call an over-achiever.” She gave a light dismissive laugh and fixed her gray-green eyes on him. She realized she was glad he’d come. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

He studied her for a moment as if debating whether or not to accept her gesture of hospitality. Then he nodded.

“Be back in a minute.” She quickly prepared a tray in the kitchenette, and when she returned he was sitting in a wing chair that had been her aunt’s favorite. His arms rested on the padded curves of the chair and soft cushions cradled his firm body as he leaned back. Even though he was in a relaxed position, she sensed in him a guarded inner shield. Flickering, leaping flames were reflected in his blue-black eyes as he stared pensively into the fire. As she stood beside him, she was aware of long legs, muscular arms and shapely hands that reeked of masculine sensuality.

She set the tray on the coffee table and handed him one of the steaming cups.

“Thank you.” His appraising gaze traveled boldly from her honey blond head to her scuffed shoes.

She stifled an impulse to tuck in the wispy strands of hair that had slipped out of her French braid. Her faded jeans, blue-checked short-sleeved blouse and dirty canvas shoes showed the wear and tear of a day spent in the middle of sawed boards and paint cans. The fact that she looked a mess upset her more than she was willing to admit. He could have called ahead and given her a little warning, she thought ruefully, and then silently laughed at herself. This unexpected visit was not a social call. He’d had plenty of chances to ask her out and hadn’t.

“Sugar? Cream?” she asked.

“Black.”

“I hope it’s strong enough,” she said as she sat down in the middle of a couch opposite his chair. Why had he come to see her tonight, in the middle of a storm? she wondered again. She studied him over the rim of her cup and felt a stab of awareness. Why did she have the feeling that his visit was going to affect her in some momentous way? Her stomach muscles suddenly tightened.

His long fingers curled around the cup. A soft brush of black hair showed darkly on his tanned wrists. When he leaned forward in his chair, she found she was holding her breath in anticipation.

“Tell me about it,” he ordered.

“What?” She looked blank.

“This afternoon on the phone, you said you’d made an interesting discovery about the hotel. What did you find?”

“Oh, that!” She gave a relieved wave of her hand. Is that why he’d come? She had called him on a business matter and on impulse had told him she’d show him something interesting the next time he came around. “I didn’t mean to sound all that mysterious.” She smiled. “We didn’t find a cache of buried gold under a floorboard, or anything like that.”

He didn’t return her smile. “What did you find?”

She took a moment to set down her coffee cup. Something in his manner was making her nervous. “A relic of the hotel’s shady past, that’s all.”

“What?”

“A couple of workmen were shoring up the floor in the basement corner of the building and found a tunnel.”

The chords in his neck tightened. “Are you sure?”

“At first, we thought it might be an old wine cellar, but it’s a tunnel, all right…a very old one. One of the men took a few steps inside and said it probably runs under the street.”

She waited for his response and when he remained silent, she prodded, “Did you know about it?”

A shadow passed over his eyes. “I thought it had been destroyed long ago,” he said tautly.

She didn’t like the look in his eyes or his tone of voice. Anger was there, and something else, some deep emotion she couldn’t quite identify. Hatred? Suppressed violence? She was taken back by the sudden lines around his mouth.

“I guess I should have known. Evil never stays buried,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand,” he told her. “Just fill the damn thing in!”

His sharp tone brought a flash of color to her cheeks. She’d already instructed the workmen to close up the passage when they had time but she wasn’t about to say so to him. His autocratic manner rankled. She looked him steadily in the face, her jaw set as rigid as his. “This is my property now. I’ll decide what to do with it.”

A black cloud crossed his face, then he swore, got to his feet and stared down at her. For a moment, she thought he was going to jerk her to her feet. Instead, he turned his back to her and put his hands on the mantel. Leaning against it, he stared into the fire.

She was bewildered by his dramatic reaction to the discovery of an old tunnel that had been closed off for years. What importance could it have after all this time?

He stood looking at the fire for a long while. The loud cracking of falling logs was the only sound in the room. Then he gave a deep sigh and turned around. “I suppose I’d better explain as best I can.”

The anguish in his tone touched her. She wanted to say something but no words would come. Tiny lines deepened around his eyes, and he surprised her by sitting beside her on the couch. His nearness only heightened the disturbing physical awareness pulsating through her. He leaned his dark head against the sofa cushion and stared at the ceiling.

“What is it? I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”

“The Delaney family has quite a sordid past. And that tunnel is a part of it.”

If he hadn’t been so intense, she would have chided him about family skeletons. The muscles in his hard cheeks flickered with suppressed anger, but there were other emotions in his eyes, hurt and sadness. She didn’t know what to make of him. When he began to speak, his voice was soft, as if the words came from far, far away.

“When this hotel was built in 1880 one of the vacant lots across the street had a brothel sitting on it. The infamous Maude Mullen’s Pleasure House. The tunnel you found connected this hotel to that whorehouse.” He stared at some unseen point in front of his haunted eyes. “That’s where my great-grandfather was murdered. Stabbed to death on its doorstep.”

She knew that her mouth had dropped open. No wonder the discovery of the tunnel had given him an emotional jolt, she thought. “I didn’t realize that the tunnel was tied in with any personal history. I haven’t read much about old-time Denver,” she confessed. She’d been raised in New Mexico and had only been in Denver for a few years, working as bookkeeper for an oil company until she bought the hotel. There must be more to the story, thought Della, more than he’s telling. Why should he be so emotional about a tragedy that happened over a hundred years ago? She waited for him to go on but he just stared with narrowed eyes as if watching a film roll by in his mind. She was uneasy with his silence. “Why don’t you tell me about it. I never heard of your great-grandfather or what happened to him.”

His mouth tightened in a hard line. “My illustrious forefathers debauched the Delaney name in great fashion. There’s speculation that my great-grandfather, Shawn Delaney, ran all the illegal activities in Denver’s early red-light strip and was murdered by someone who wanted to take over. Others claimed that a jealous lady of the night stabbed him to death.” There was a grim edge to his voice. “A true Delaney. And he passed along his legacy.”

“What legacy is that?”

“My mother called it the devil’s spawn.”

The devil’s spawn. She stared at his ashen face. “Do you believe in such things?”

“I only know that the Delaney men passed on their dark genes,” he said bitterly. “My grandfather, Shawn’s son, grew up to be a ruthless slumlord, heartless and selfish, exploiting the run-down Market Street properties without ever putting one cent back into them. Everything touched by the Delaneys had the smell of decay and decadence.”

“Were you close to him…your grandfather?”

“Hell, no. He wasn’t close to anyone. Everyone said he was Shawn Delaney all over again, but he didn’t get himself killed. He lived to be nearly ninety. His only son, my father, grew up to be a bastard in true Delaney fashion. He made life hell for my mother and drank himself to death before he was twenty-five.”

“And you inherited all the Market Street property from your grandfather?”

He nodded. “I decided to sell most of it. I thought I could lay an ugly past to rest—but it just won’t stay buried. Why did that blasted tunnel have to come to light? It’s as if the ghost of Shawn Delaney just won’t let go.”

His talk of ghosts gave her a creepy feeling. She could hear wind and rain pounding the old building, and the tempo of lightning and thunder had increased. Once again, she felt a harmony between Colin’s dark glower and the raging storm.

Maybe I shouldn’t have bought property in this part of Denver. Maybe no matter how she painted and remodeled, Della thought, the hotel would remain the same depraved place as when a tunnel had connected it to a fancy bordello. Maybe the area’s colored past would never be changed, either.

As if reading her thoughts, Colin said, “This was a wild part of Denver in the late 1880s. Variety halls, saloons, gambling houses, cribs, racy madams running houses of ill repute…you name it. Drugs. Gambling. Drinking. And hapless young women selling themselves.”

Della’s lips tightened. Young women plying their favors for money struck too close to home. As a runaway, her sister, Brenda, had taken up with men who paid her bills. In the end, she had thrown her life away on men and drugs.

Colin watched her face. “I should have torn down the blasted hotel instead of selling it to anybody.”

“Don’t be foolish.” Her practical nature overrode her fantasies. “I came to you, remember? Property in this part of town was attracting a lot of investors and I knew that if I didn’t buy it, somebody else would. What’s past is past!” she added more firmly than she felt at the moment.

“Not when it intrudes upon the present.”

“Don’t let it intrude,” she answered bluntly.

“I wish it were as simple as that. I sold the hotel to you because I thought that you were the one who could give it a new life…a different karma. But it’s no use. Some places are like sinkholes, no matter how you try to cover them up, they suck the innocent in.”

“I don’t believe that finding an old tunnel changes anything about my hotel and its future. Maybe its history is sordid and ugly, but what happened over a hundred years ago is only a curiosity as far as I’m concerned.”

A shaft of shadow crossed his face. “I hope to God you’re right. I wouldn’t want you to be drawn into any of the black machinations I’ve fought all my life.” A fearsome pain crossed his eyes and a dark strangeness put his whole face in shadows. She wasn’t afraid of him, but his presence completely unnerved her.

He must have felt her withdrawal. “I’m sorry. I can’t expect you to understand.” He turned away and said abruptly, “I’d better be going.”

“Wait.” She stood up and caught his arm. “I want to understand.”

“No, don’t try. I was wrong to come.” He walked toward the hall.

“I’ll see you out,” she said quickly.

When they reached the front door, the force of the storm was evident again through the windowpane. A quickening wind swept down the street and a fresh onslaught of rain beat against the windows.

“It’s raining harder than before,” Della said.

Colin looked out the door and nodded. Then he unexpectedly reached over and took her hand. His touch was surprisingly gentle and warm, and at the same time firm and engulfing. A spiral of heat radiated through her at the contact.

“I didn’t mean to involve you,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t thinking…or I wouldn’t have come.”

“It’s all right. I’m sorry I was so insensitive about the tunnel. I didn’t know anything about Shawn Delaney.”

His hand tightened on hers and his body grew rigid. “My mother always said she couldn’t tell our pictures apart…that I was his evil soul incarnate.”

Della was horrified. “When did she tell you that?”

“The day before she killed herself.”

He dropped her hand and turned swiftly toward the door. He jerked it open, and bent his head against the attack of wind and rain. The next minute he was gone, swallowed up in sheets of gray rain.

Della locked the door behind him and hugged herself as she stared out into the watery bedlam. Her thoughts reeled. What had Colin done to make his mother treat her son so horribly?

He radiated a hot, compelling passion that she feared could be devastating if he chose to unleash it upon a woman. Fervent, driven, obsessed, he attracted her on levels that went beyond common sense. She knew she was in danger of giving way to a physical, emotional and sexual attraction that could make her a stranger to herself. If she had any sense, she would keep a wide distance between herself and the handsome, brooding Colin Delaney.

She turned away from the front door and had taken only a few steps when she stopped short.

“What—”

She jerked her eyes upward. A high chandelier began to glow above her. The shadowy darkness disappeared before her startled gaze. She looked around the lobby in disbelief. A second earlier, the hotel had been dark and empty. Now the glitter of brass and dark red Victorian furnishings assaulted her vision.

Two young women stood at the bottom of the carpeted stairs. Dressed in low-cut satin gowns with draped bustles and ruffled swags, the painted ladies boldly lifted their satin skirts to mount the stairs. The harlots tossed their feathered, high-piled hair and disappeared into the shadows of the second-floor landing.

Della stared after them, unable to move. I’m hallucinating. I have to be!

Chapter 2

D ella’s breath was short and her heartbeat rapid. She was frightened and yet curious. She’d never closed her mind to new experiences and even as a warning went off in her head, she moved slowly to the bottom of the stairs. Putting a shaky hand on the newel post, she stared up the old staircase. There was no sign of the ghostly figures that had been there a moment before. Cautiously, she mounted one step, then another until she reached the first landing. After turning on a wall light, she looked down the hall in both directions.

Empty. Workmen’s clutter was everywhere—lumber, sawhorses, boxes, sacks of plaster, cans of paint. Everywhere was the same mess she’d left earlier in the day.

She walked to the steps leading to the third floor and stared upward. She couldn’t hear anything in the echoing darkness except the clatter of rain upon the roof. She swallowed a hard lump in her throat. The hotel was as it had always been.

She turned around and slowly went downstairs to the lobby. A wash of relief swept over her when she saw it was again in shadow, except for the night-light at the hotel entrance. The old chandelier was once again lost in the darkness of the vaulted ceiling. Everything was exactly as it had been before the weird impression of light and ghostly women.

Della’s forehead beaded with nervous sweat as she looked around the lobby and up the empty staircase. How could her senses have fooled her so completely? She brushed a hand across her eyes and suddenly a swish of cold air hit her face, blowing her blond hair back from her face.

She cried out and turned to flee. For an instant, she saw the silhouette of a man reflected in the windowpane. Colin? In the next instant, the impression was gone. A bleak light from a streetlamp illuminated the deserted street outside.

She fled down the hall to her apartment. Her fingers trembled as she shut the door on the rest of the unoccupied hotel and leaned against it. Her heart hammered in her chest. Her breath caught. Her eyes went to the wing chair, which still held the impression of Colin’s body. Could his obsession with the past have affected her more than she realized. Yes, that must be it. His emotional reaction to the discovery of the tunnel and his talk about Shawn Delaney’s murder must have planted subliminal images in her mind. He had made the hotel’s past come alive and she had momentarily lost touch with reality.

Angry with him and herself, she was tempted to call him and tell him what had happened. The impulse died quickly. She knew she wouldn’t tell him. She wouldn’t tell anybody. The whole thing was too bizarre.

She was tired. The problems of renovating the hotel were getting to her, and Colin’s visit had unsettled her. She wasn’t sure how she felt about him. He fascinated her, in a strange way. When he held her hand, she felt drawn to him in a way that mocked her usual cool demeanor toward attractive men. And when he’d talked about his mother, she’d been jolted by the force of raw emotion emanating from him. The hatred in his eyes when he’d talked about his great-grandfather had been so intense that even now she felt herself recoil from it. Surely he didn’t believe anyone who had been dead over a hundred years could be responsible for tainting the heredity of all the Delaney men?

As she prepared for bed, Della was determined not to think about the odd experience in the lobby. Her vivid imagination had played a trick on her, that was all.

A few minutes later, on the edge of sleep, the vision came back so sharply and clearly, she could have described the old-fashioned gowns in detail: velvet green and red satin peplum overskirts pulled back into ruffled bustles that trailed down to the floor; low-cut necklines edged in silk flowers and gathered ecru lace; scalloped streamers and velvet-ribbon bows dotting full skirts and puffed sleeves. Even the lace gloves and glittering fans were clear in her memory. I must have seen an old picture like that at some time, she told herself. That was the only explanation that made sense.

The next couple of days were hectic and Della had little time or energy to think about anything but the renovation of the hotel. She solved one crisis only to be faced with another. The work proceeded at a snail’s pace and the estimates of time and money were way off. She raised hell with the construction foreman and then called her banker who confirmed what she feared—her cash flow was edging toward the danger point.

“You better get those cost overruns under control,” he told her.

She checked every invoice to make sure she wasn’t being ripped off. Her investment was turning into a fiasco and confidence in her business judgment was waning. Della let the phone ring three times before she grabbed it impatiently and barked, “Hello.”

“No need to ask you how your day’s going,” Colin said in his deep resonant voice. “You sound ready to eat bear.”

“Bears, snails, rattlesnakes. Anything that moves.”

“I guess this is a bad time to remind you about the civic development dinner. I was going to suggest that I stop by and we walk over to the restaurant together.”

She ran an agitated hand through her mussed blond hair. “I’d forgotten about it. I don’t think I’ll be going.”

“It’s important that everyone pull together to make the area a financial success,” he said in a reasonable tone that added to her irritation.

“I know that,” she snapped. “Save your chamber of commerce speech for someone else.” Then she instantly felt ashamed. She leaned back in her chair and threw down her pencil. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…well, I wouldn’t be very good company.”

“You have to eat,” he answered reasonably. “And I could round up a snail or two to put on your plate if that will make you happy.”

She was surprised at his light tone. She could picture a slight smile on the edge of his lips. Well, why not, she thought. Maybe she just needed to share her problems with someone who would understand. Besides, she really wanted to see him again. He’d been in her thoughts more than she was willing to admit.

“Forget the snails, bears and rattlesnakes,” she said. “Roast beef will do fine.”

“Good. I’ll pick you up about seven-thirty. The restaurant’s only a few blocks away. If you don’t mind walking…?”

“I don’t mind. See you then.” She hung up, surprised to find that their brief conversation had somehow restored her equilibrium. With new energy, she cleared off her desk and then left the office. She walked all over the hotel, checking on the work.

She was on the third floor talking to a painter, when a brush of cold air hit her face and she broke off in midsentence. At the same instant, she heard the sound of running water, and a woman’s soft laugh came from a nearby room that had originally been a shared bath. When Della jerked open the door, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

A voluptuous naked woman with red hair piled high on her head was taking a bath in the old claw-footed tub. She hummed contentedly and poured water over her face with cupped fleshy hands.

Della gave a choked cry.

“What’s the matter, miss?” asked the small wizened man who was filling his paint tray a few steps away. Della pointed.

He walked over, looked into the bathroom and shrugged. “Just an old tub. Don’t see nothing to get excited about.”

“That’s all you see? An old tub?” An arctic chill crept up her spine.

“Yep.” He gave her a queer look and returned to his painting.

Della looked again. The old tub was empty and dry. And yet she was positive she could still hear humming and splashing water. Like someone caught in a nightmare, she turned and walked away. When she reached the stairwell, she looked back down the hall. The shadow of a man stood watching her, his stance frighteningly familiar. Colin?

She pressed her hands against her temples. I’ve lost my mind. Crazy people couldn’t distinguish between reality and fantasy. And neither can I. The woman in the bathtub, the old-fashioned ladies wandering through the hall, the man in the shadows, they were all in her mind. No one else was aware of the invaders. No one else seemed to notice whiffs of cheap perfume overriding the paint smells. She was the only one aware of the ghosts who had taken over her hotel.

When Colin came to pick her up, he eyed the strained lines around her mouth and the dull glaze in her gray-green eyes. She was like a tight spring ready to pop, every muscle tense and rigid. Her soft appealing lips were taut. Her nervous hands smoothed the skirt of her simple white dress and tugged at a soft pink scarf looped in a puff at her neck. “You weren’t kidding about having a bad day, were you?”

She opened her mouth as if to say something but then closed it and only nodded.

He was puzzled by her behavior. She’d always shown extreme self-direction and competence while handling the business end of buying the hotel and arranging for its renovation. More than once, he’d admired her direct, unemotional approach to problems. She was a rare combination of strength and feminine softness. From the first moment he’d met her, she’d intrigued him. Intelligent. Fascinating. And beautiful. The direct unblinking beauty of her large eyes haunted him. The proud lift of her chin made him want to cup her face in his hands and taste her sweet lips. He wanted her.

But he knew better than to bring any woman into his life. His mother had warned him that Delaney men brought only destruction to those foolish enough to fall in love with them. His heart constricted when he thought about Elena, his first love, who had drowned before his very eyes. God forgive him if he’d already betrayed Della Arnell by selling the hotel to her.

“If you really don’t want to go…?” I should have stayed away from her, he thought when he saw her ashen face.

“No, it’s all right. I have to get out of this place.” She turned away abruptly and preceded him out the front door.

He silently swore. It was the hotel. The blasted hotel. The past was like a cancerous growth that would not go away.

They walked in silence. After a couple of blocks, Della was aware that Colin was striding beside her with a ferocity that did little to ease the tightness in her chest and stomach. Why had she agreed to go with him? Her lips quivered. Desperation, that’s why. She hadn’t wanted to be alone in the hotel—alone with ghosts of the past.

He stopped abruptly when they reached the restaurant. “I don’t feel like going to any meeting.” He put a hand on her elbow and guided her past the café. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” She was relieved that he’d been perceptive enough to know that sitting in a room full of businesspeople, making polite remarks and trying to listen to a dinner speaker were more than she could handle.

She glanced at his profile and saw tight muscles flickering in his taut cheeks. Had her mood affected him so much that he was willing to forgo his civic duty? What was going on behind those deep-set eyes of his? His dedication to upgrading Market and Larimer streets was almost a religious passion, as if he felt compelled to single-handedly eradicate all evidence of the town’s early red-light district. Once again she wondered if his obsession with the past could somehow be responsible for her terrifying fantasies. Had he mesmerized her in some way, so that she was seeing the hotel through a historical haze?

He caught her apprehensive look and pulled her to a stop. “What’s the matter? You’re looking at me as if I have horns sprouting from my forehead. Tell me what’s going on.”

She moistened her lips. I’m going crazy. Old-fashioned ladies of the night are wandering around my hotel. I even found one taking a bath upstairs. For a horrid moment, she wasn’t sure whether or not she had spoken her thoughts aloud. When his expression remained the same, she knew that he was still waiting for an answer.

“I…I’ve been having bad dreams,” she stammered. That was close enough. Dreams were accepted as a sane phenomenon and she couldn’t tell him the truth. She couldn’t tell anyone. She kept her eyes focused slightly to the right of his face so she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes.

“What kind of dreams?”

“I…I don’t remember,” she lied.

His dark eyebrows narrowed over the bridge of his nose. “You don’t remember?”

She pointed to an outdoor café across the street. “I need a drink.”

They were waiting for the light to change when the sidewalk suddenly dipped beneath her feet. She gasped, wavered and grabbed Colin to steady herself.

What was happening?

She could see Colin’s lips moving but couldn’t hear what he was saying. Everything around her was in flux. Panic-stricken, her eyes darted in every direction. The buildings, the people, the smells, the noise. Her ears roared with the sound of horses neighing and carriage wheels clattering over rough streets. She cried out and covered her ears with her hands.

“What’s wrong?” she heard Colin ask.

She tried to jerk away from him as he pulled her against him, caught in a panicked impulse to flee, to hide, to escape from the assaulting sounds and sights that had no reality. “Let me go,” she sobbed against his chest.

“It’s all right, it’s all right.” He stroked her hair and put his lips against her moist forehead.

After a moment, the ground stabilized under her feet. With terror caught in her throat, Della gingerly raised her head from his chest. No horses, no wagons, no unfamiliar buildings. Cars roared by and the whirling blades of a helicopter sounded overhead. The stores, the people and the shops were just as they had been. Her strangled breath came in short gasps.

“Let’s get that drink,” he said. He kept a firm arm around her waist as he guided her across the street to the outdoor café, and eased her onto one of the chairs. “Scotch and water,” he barked to a hovering waiter and held up two fingers. Then he sat down opposite her. “All right. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I guess I had some kind of…of a spell,” she said lamely. She wanted to tell him what was happening to her but she couldn’t reveal the unbelievable truth. I see and hear things that aren’t there. I think I’m going crazy.

He frowned. “Your eyes were round with terror. Something frightened you.” His intense blue eyes suddenly darkened to almost black. “Don’t lie to me.”

“Why should I lie to you?” she said with some of her normal spirit. “Please don’t ask me to explain. I need time to sort things out. And I don’t want to talk about it, all right?” How could she tell him what was happening to her when she didn’t know, herself?

The waiter arrived with the drinks. She held her glass with trembling hands and gratefully let the fiery liquid ease down her throat. She kept her eyes lowered.

Colin’s troubled gaze appraised her over the rim of his menu. “I recommend the black bean soup and Monte Carlo sandwich.” She nodded and he ordered another drink with their food.

The surrounding laughter and easy chatter of other diners was reassuring. An early-evening crowd sauntered along the sidewalk in front of the café, and slowly the weird illusion of horses and wagons faded as if it had never happened. She began to relax.

When their order came, and she had eaten what little she could, Della glanced anxiously at Colin. What must he think of her? “I’m really sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“I want to know what happened.” He leaned forward, offering his hand, but she didn’t take it. Instead, she drew back in her chair. His mouth tightened and a muscle quivered in his cheek.

She could see that her rejection had offended him. But how could she explain that she was entertaining dangerous feelings about him that were too strong to deny. He was engaging her emotions on levels she had never felt before. If the truth were known, he scared her.

“I know about dreams…nightmares…unexplained visions,” he said as if trying to encourage her confidence. “Don’t be afraid. You can share them with me.” The blue in his eyes deepened to a strange feathery black. “I’ll understand.”

She stared at him and suddenly her mouth went dry. I’ll understand. The shadowy figure at the end of the hall and the outline at the rain-streaked door…both times the impressions had made her think of Colin. And now, on the street, he had been with her when the bizarre illusion had assaulted her. Her pulse began to pound in her temples. Her thoughts whirled. Get hold of yourself. She really was losing it. Trying to tie Colin in with the aberrations of her mind was utterly ridiculous. She felt herself coloring under his measuring stare.

“I knew…I knew I was too tired to go out tonight,” she stammered. “You should have gone to the dinner without me. It’s still early. You can still make the meeting…”

“Damn the meeting,” he said gruffly. He quickly paid the bill and they left.

Silence built a wall between them on the way back to her hotel. When they reached the front door, he took the key from her trembling hands. Ignoring her pointed “Thanks…goodbye,” he followed her into the lobby.

Della sent a frantic look at the staircase. Empty. No painted ladies. No bright lights. Nothing. If she took him upstairs, there would be nothing to show him there, either. No harlots parading in and out of rooms in their gaudy satin dresses, no voluptuous redhead taking a bath in an old tub.

He stood behind her and she could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck. A sob caught in her throat and hot tears spilled into the corners of her eyes. He put his hands on her arms. Gently he eased her against his strong firm body. “Tell me. Whatever it is, we need to share it.”

The last fiber of her resistance melted away. She took a tremulous deep breath. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. Tonight on the street…everything changed,” she said in a strangled voice. “The buildings. The people. I heard horses and carriages.” She turned to face him. “And in the hotel, I see women. Old-fashioned harlots. Painted faces, low-cut gaudy dresses, hair piled high on their heads. Wandering up and down the stairs. In the halls. Taking baths.”

“Good God.” His voice cracked.

“Nobody else sees them…only me. I don’t know—” She broke off. Like an explosion, a raucous noise vibrating down the halls and ricocheting off the high ceilings shattered the silence of the empty hotel. A cacophony of laughter, tinny music and clinking glasses rose and fell in waves and vibrated through the echoing building.

“What the hell—” Colin swore.

“You hear it, too?” Suddenly, she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. The bewildering onslaught of noise wasn’t just in her mind. She wasn’t alone.

Colin strode to the bottom of the stairs, listened and then shook his head. “It must be coming from somewhere at the back of the building.” He grabbed her hand. “Come on. Let’s find out what the hell is going on.”

The racket grew louder as they reached a back entrance and the stone stairs descending into the basement.

“Oh, no!” Della shot an apprehensive look at Colin. She knew where their search would end. “The tunnel.”

“Didn’t you close the damn thing up?” He strode angrily down the stairs.

The basement was dank and drafty with a bare electric light hanging from the open-beam ceiling. At one end of the room, a crude opening yawned in the rock wall. Cold air swept out of the passage and Della hugged herself against the chill. The loud thumping of piano, laughter and singing created a deafening din.

“It’s coming from the tunnel, all right,” Colin said.

“But how can that be? There’s only a vacant lot across the street.”

Colin’s eyes burned into hers. “Then none of this is happening. We’re both hallucinating.” His voice lowered to a growl. “Maybe you buy that but I don’t. All my life, I’ve been shackled to the past. This is my great-grandfather’s mean spirit calling to me.”

In one frightening second Della knew that he was going to rush into the black tunnel.

“Go back upstairs,” he ordered.

“No,” she screamed, grabbing his hand and trying to pull him back.

He gave her a shove and turned toward the tunnel. In the next instant, he was gone. Della had not intended to follow him, but before she could move back from the opening, a blast of cold air sucked her forward.

“Colin!” she cried out, twisting and turning, unable to free herself from the propelling force driving her into the tunnel.

In the darkness of the passage, he reached out and grabbed her hand. A gale like the intense sucking force in a wind tunnel swept them both forward. Caught in a whipping, swirling hurricane, they clung to each other as they traveled through the passage.

A split second? An eternity? Della never knew. Flashes of bright lights. The brilliant hues of rampant flowers. Almost imperceptibly, the dank smell of the tunnel was replaced by a sweet floral perfume. A kaleidoscope of colors blinded her with stabbing intensity. The wind died and Della felt the ground beneath them level out.

They clung to each other. When they regained their balance and could see again, they were standing in the foyer of Maude’s Pleasure House on Market Street, dressed in the fashions of the 1880s.

Chapter 3

T he bordello blazed with lights. Fiddle and piano music, crescendos of laughter and the din of high-pitched voices floated out into a center hall from several arched doorways. Della’s throat tightened and the palms of her hands beaded with hot sweat. The same kind of women she had seen wandering around her hotel paraded up and down the staircase on the arms of purposeful-looking men. They were not vague and shadowy figures but horribly real.

Even as Della fought against the reality that bombarded her senses, a plump woman in her forties with a homely face, sharp nose and double chins paused at the top of a center staircase. She rested one bejeweled hand on the polished banister and looked down at Colin and Della as if she could reduce them to dust with one wave of her gnarled hand.

Della stared in disbelief. Rounded hips and full breasts stretched the fabric of her low-cut gown. An elaborate twist of false red hair held in place on top of her head by feathers and jeweled pins added to her height. Her complexion was sallow even with rouge and powder and there was a hawklike sharpness to her gray eyes, cold and impaling. She had nostrils that flared and a mouth that showed large ugly teeth. Della wanted to turn and run but her legs wouldn’t move.

The woman lifted the train of her deep blue taffeta gown, came down the steps and crossed a wide entrance hall to the foyer where they stood. The reek of cheap perfume touched Della’s nostrils with familiarity.

“I’m Maude Mullen,” she said in a guttural voice. “It’s about time somebody answered my ad.” She eyed Colin up and down like someone judging horse-flesh. “The job is part-time handyman and bouncer. Pay is a dollar a day. Be on the job by ten in the morning and at the bar by seven in the evening, except on Sunday. You keep your hands off the merchandise. Got it? Well, do you want the job or not?”

Colin hesitated for a moment and then nodded. He didn’t know what else to do. The woman had obviously mistaken him for someone else. He could use the precious time to figure out what in the hell was going on.

Maude turned her sharp calculating eyes on Della. “As for you. Not much to look at…too thin. But that don’t matter. Vinetta Gray was with me for twenty years. Best damn bookkeeper I ever saw. Kept the cleanest set of books on Market Street. You do the same…or else—got me? Any juggling with the numbers, I’ll know it. I don’t tolerate liars or cheats.” Her nostrils quivered and she set her painted lips in an ugly line. “If I find you’ve been less than honest with me, you’ll wish you never set foot in this place.”

Della opened her mouth but Colin put his hand on her elbow and gave it a warning squeeze. Don’t say anything.

She wanted to argue with him. They were making a mistake, she was certain of it. Surely it would be better to tell this madam that they weren’t the people she thought they were. Every minute they carried on the horrible charade, they could be sinking deeper and deeper into some incomprehensible horror. Della’s chest was so tight, she couldn’t breathe.

“Names?” Maude demanded.

“Colin…and Della,” he answered evenly. His composed expression sent a prickling of fear down Della’s back. Why was he acting as if this were some normal introduction instead of a hideous nightmare?

“You got last names?”

“It’s Miss Arnell and Mr. Colin,” he lied.

“All right, I’ll give you two a try.” The woman’s stabbing glare shot from Colin to Della. “If you’ve got something to say, spill it now. I run the best house this side of St. Louis. Three drawing rooms, an evening buffet, beer at a dollar a draw and five dollars for a split of champagne. Eighteen rooms, and my share is half the take. The last two years, 1886 and ’87, were pretty good. Too early to tell what ’88 will be. The damn self-righteous citizens of Denver are on the warpath.” Her sharp eyes went from Della to Colin. “You two sharing the sheets?”

“No,” said Colin evenly. “We just…arrived together.”

“All right. You can have Vinetta’s old room,” she told Della. “And, Mr. Colin, get yourself a room at the boardinghouse next door. Just remember, if you two want to stay, you follow the rules of the house just like everybody else.”

Della didn’t want to stay. She wanted the bizarre illusion to end. Every ounce of her common sense rejected the unbelievable situation. They couldn’t really be here…caught in a malicious time warp that had sent them back over a hundred years. In a minute, the spell would be over. Everything would be back to normal.

Colin was saying something to the woman but Della didn’t hear the words. Her mind refused to work. Immobilized from shock, she stared at the madam who was treating her like a newly hired bookkeeper. She wanted to laugh and had to clamp her mouth shut to keep the hysterical laughter at bay. She closed her eyes for a moment and prayed that when she opened them, everything would have returned to normal.

“You look puny to me, Della. I don’t want some sickly gal on my hands.” Maude glared at her. “I got a house to run. I need to know exactly how much money’s coming in and going out on a nightly basis. I got plenty of expenses. The girls pay room and board but my grocery bill looks like I’m running the Brown Palace. I need a good bookkeeper.” She scowled. “I’m not handing out any charity. You’ll either do the job or you’ll be out in the street on your scrawny behind. Understand?”

Della managed to nod.

Maude snorted. “Well, I’ll know soon enough if you can add two and two.” She gave a jerk of her head. “Come on back to my office, both of you. You can start work tomorrow.”

Della held back. Her eyes widened in panic. We can’t stay here.

Colin bent his dark head close to hers. “We have to play along until this whole thing makes some sense.”

“And what if it never makes sense?” she protested in a desperate whisper. Was it possible? Transported back in time to the turn of the century? Set down in the middle of Denver’s red-light district? “We have to go…before we get trapped.”

His face shadowed. “We’re already trapped.”

The cold finality of his words shattered something deep within her. He was a stranger, dressed in a black double-breasted waistcoat and trousers, white shirt with a stiff white collar, a soft gray tie looped at the neck and even a gold pocket-watch chain stretched across his waist. It disarmed her to see that his dark handsome looks were in harmony with their surroundings as if born to them.

“We have to find the tunnel!” A new edge of panic made her voice sharp. She stared at him with a horrible feeling that he had become someone else. Someone she didn’t know at all. Had he somehow engineered the time warp? Had he bolted back into the past because he belonged there? “How are we going to get out of this?”

“I don’t know.” Her safety weighed heavily on him. Desperation had drawn him into the tunnel, a desperation to be free of the past, but she was an innocent victim in these bizarre happenings. He had to protect her but he would be damned if he knew how. “You’ll have to trust me.”

Trust him?

“Are you two coming?” Maude asked impatiently as she turned around and saw them still standing in the foyer.

Colin searched Della’s face and waited for her reluctant nod before he answered, “Yes, we’re coming.” He murmured to Della, “Try to pretend that everything’s normal.”

She wanted to laugh hysterically at the word normal. How could any situation be further from normal than this one? If they tried to convince the horrible Maude Mullen who they really were, she would probably have them hauled off to the nearest asylum. Della shuddered just thinking about the possibility. Asylums in the nineteenth century were hellholes. A whorehouse might not be a desirable choice for a roof over their heads, but at the moment it was the better option. Maybe Colin was right. Their situation was too precarious for them to admit anything about their true identities. She took a deep breath and murmured, “All right. I’ll try to act…normal.”

At that moment, two young women dressed in satin and rose-trimmed ballgowns went up the stairs in the company of two attentive middle-aged men. Della had the sensation that she had seen the women before…going up the staircase of her own hotel…but there was one difference. These women were flesh and blood. She could have reached out and touched their warm and breathing bodies. If they were only specters, then so was she, Della thought with new horror.

She touched the ecru lace collar at her neck and fingered the small bone buttons that ran down the front of her dark brown dress. Strange undergarments cinched her waist and lifted her breasts. Her brown shoes had narrow heels and laces like the old-fashioned look that had come back into style, and her hair was no longer loose but caught in a bun at the back of her head. If she was fantasizing, no detail in her dress had been overlooked by her imagination.

Colin kept a firm grip on her elbow as they walked down the hall. His mind raced. The tunnel led from the hotel, under the street to this brothel and somehow they had ended up on Maude’s doorstep. If he located the opening of the tunnel, was there some way to reverse what had happened? Could he send Della back through the passage? God forgive him if he had somehow dragged her into the dark quagmire of his heritage.

As they walked down a center hall, Della glimpsed Victorian drawing rooms with ornate furniture covered in silk and damask. Richly dressed young women sat on ottomans or stood beside fashionably dressed men of all ages. A gaudy opulence radiated from gilded plaster designs embellishing the ceilings and walls of the rooms. In one of the rooms, couples were dancing to piano music. The men were all drinking and eating as if they were guests at an elaborate party. The combined sound of music, laughter and talking was deafening. Well, we found out where the noise was coming from, she thought with bitter irony.

“Let me do the talking,” Colin cautioned as they followed Maude into her office. He gave Della a reassuring smile that didn’t reach his eyes, but she was more than willing to let him take the lead, at least for now.

Maude’s office was a spacious room that originally might have been intended to be a library, Della guessed. Bookcases lining two walls contained only a smattering of books, but the room was crowded with furniture, lamps, knickknacks, a huge horsehair sofa and matching chairs covered in leather. An elegant desk made of black walnut dominated the center of the room. A collector’s dream, thought Della.

Maude motioned to a small, plain desk stacked with heavy ledgers that was placed against the back wall. “That’s your desk, Della. Be at it by eight o’clock every morning but Sunday. I’ll come downstairs between ten and eleven to go over the previous night’s receipts.”

Della wanted to sit down. Her legs felt too weak to hold her. Her knees threatened to buckle at any moment.

Maude waddled across the room and opened a door leading to a back hall. “Your room is past the kitchen, second door. The cook and housemaid have the other two rooms. I haven’t moved Vinetta’s things. We just buried her a week ago. You’ll find things just as she left them.”

Della’s stomach took a sickening plunge. She didn’t want to have anything to do with a dead woman’s room, didn’t want to be surrounded by Vinetta’s personal belongings. She sent an anxious look at Colin, pleading with her eyes for him to say something.

“The back wing of the house is off limits to males,” Maude snapped, having apparently intercepted the look they’d exchanged. “No danger of any of our gentlemen guests mistaking you for one of our ‘boarders.’ Not that you’d have to worry,” she added quickly as she gave Della’s slenderness a frank dismissal. “No man wants just a bag of bones in bed with him.”

Della was too dumbfound to respond, but Maude went on as if she was used to people holding their tongue in her presence. “You can make use of anything that’s in Vinnie’s room. She didn’t have much. Sent most of her earnings back to Chicago.” Maude pursed her broad red lips. “Told her she was a fool. You got family, Della?”

“No.” What would her sensible Aunt Frances have made of all of this?

“Nobody?” the madam demanded in a doubtful tone. “Your parents?”

Della swallowed back They were killed in an automobile accident. “They’ve passed away.”

“Anybody else? Brothers…sisters?”

“My sister died a couple of years ago. And the aunt who raised me passed away last summer.” She moistened her lips. “I’m alone.”

Maude nodded, looking satisfied. Obviously she liked her employees unattached, thought Della. She had goose bumps just thinking about working for this woman. No, she couldn’t do it. The whole idea of keeping track of johns and tricks turned her stomach.

Colin sent her another warning look. Stay calm. Don’t panic.

She drew in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. All right, she’d keep her promise to play along. Taking orders from this hard-nosed businesswoman would not be easy. She’d have to watch herself. How long would she be able to pretend to be something that she wasn’t? A subservient attitude was not part of her makeup.

Maude spent five minutes warning her about checking invoices and bills. “Damn grocers will cheat you at every turn. Charge you double if they get the chance. Check everything. You foul up…and it comes out of your wages.”

Della bit back a sharp retort and glanced at Colin. He was standing rigidly in front of Maude’s desk staring down at a newspaper. He pointed to a headline. “City Councilman Delaney Buying Market Street Property,” he read aloud.

“Your—” His pointed glare stopped her from saying “great-grandfather.”

Maude took the newspaper out of his hand. She snorted when she saw what he had been reading. “Shawn Delaney. Damn politician. Trying to get his hands on every business on the Row. Made a ridiculous offer for my place. I dealt with the likes of him in Chicago. Mob bosses, we called ’em, trying to move in.”

Colin’s expression was as dark as a mine pit. “Is that what he’s trying to do…move in?”

“Hell, yes,” she swore. “But he’ll find out soon enough that we know how to deal with his kind. More than one of them politicians have learned the hard way not to mess with people’s livelihoods.”

Colin’s great-grandfather had been killed on Market Street…on the doorstep of this very house. There had been no record of who had buried a knife in Shawn Delaney’s back. Della’s stomach tightened with apprehension. If the freak time warp continued, Colin might be on the spot to find out exactly who had murdered his great-grandfather. Did his dark brooding expression mean that he was thinking the same thing?

Maude eased her bulk into a huge chair behind her desk. “Now listen up, Colin. Tomorrow night, I want you walking around and keeping your eyes open. I want you to stop any fracas before it gets started. The girls get a cut on the drinks, so we don’t mind customers getting drunk as long as they don’t try to tear up the place. It’ll be your job to get a boozer out the front door before he causes any trouble.” She gave Colin’s strong Celtic features and muscular frame the once-over. She pursed her thick lips. “I don’t put up with anyone hassling my girls. And that means you, too. Got it?”

He nodded.

“Report to me in the morning. There’s produce to be picked up and furniture to be moved for the night’s entertainment.” She went on listing all the jobs she expected him to do that ran the gamut from daytime handyman and deliveryman, to nighttime bouncer and bartender.

“For a dollar a day?” He asked in disbelief.

“You want the job or not?”

Della watched the cords in Colin’s neck tighten. Being subservient was not in his nature, either. How long would he last under Maude’s callused thumb?

“I’ll take the job…for now.”

“Good.” Maude’s smile showed her satisfaction. “Gertrude Katz runs the boardinghouse next door. Tell Trudie to give you a room. Most people on Market Street do my bidding…police included. They don’t call me Queenie for nothing.”

“I can see that,” said Colin with an edge of sarcasm to his tone.

Maude didn’t seem to notice. “As for you, Della, you’d better get yourself some sleep and act lively tomorrow. The girls haven’t been paid for nearly a week. Usually, each night’s receipts is figured and pay envelopes slipped under their doors the next morning. Got it? I expect you to get the books in shape in quick order. I’ve got bills to settle. We’ll go over everything in the morning.”

Della clasped her hands so tightly that her nails bit into her flesh. She welcomed the pain. It was real. More real than anything in the room.

Maude lifted her ponderous body to her feet. “Have to keep a check on my guests. I keep a short rein on my boarders…and my help.” She added the last with a pointed look at Colin. “Remember, no men beyond this room. If you’re thinking about putting your shoes under her bed, you’ve got the wrong floor. I never allow pleasure to be mixed with business. Better hie yourself over to Trudie’s and get a room.”

“I will…in a minute,” Colin answered firmly. “I have a few things I want to say to Della.”

Something in his tone made Maude’s hard eyes swing from him to Della and back again. The bridge of her nose narrowed and her ugly nostrils flared. “Keep the rules or out you both go. Nobody plays free and easy with me. You try and fox me and you’ll be like a dog with his tail cut off behind his ears. Five minutes and then you git!”

With a swish of her taffeta skirt and hidden petticoats, the madam rolled out of the room like a frigate and disappeared down the hall. They could hear her raised voice ordering more food trays from the kitchen.

Colin turned to Della. “Are you all right?”

Her answer was a shudder that racked her slender body. He reached out and drew her against his solid chest. With a sob, she melted against him. He could feel her pulse beating wildly, and through the layers of clothing, the supple curves and lines of her body brought a fierce heat radiating through him. “It’s going to be all right, I promise,” he said in a husky voice.

“How could this have happened?” Hot tears spilled from her eyes. “What are we going to do?”

He touched her wet cheek. His embrace tightened. He had to get her out of this. He stroked her soft hair and allowed himself a fleeting fantasy of claiming every inch of her utterly feminine body. Then he gave himself a curt rebuke. Della Arnell wasn’t for the likes of him. Look what had happened because he had brought her into his life. It didn’t matter what happened to him, but he had to protect her at all costs. “The way things are set up we’ve got a good cover for as long as we want.”

“As long as we want,” she repeated. She lifted her face and stared at him. Fear, disbelief and anger formed a hard lump in her throat. “We have to find a way back now.”

“That may not be possible…for a little while.”

A moment ago she had felt safe in his arms, now she felt trapped. She drew away, glaring at him with frightened eyes. Her voice trembled. “Why did you rush into that tunnel like a crazed man?”

His dark eyes burned into hers. “I didn’t have a choice then, and I don’t have one now. But I didn’t mean for this to happen. Hell, I would send you back in a minute if I knew how.”

“What about you?” Her voice rose. “You’re not going back, are you?” She recoiled from the steel hardness that turned the blue of his eyes into obsidian. “You wouldn’t leave if you could,” she said in horror.

“You have to understand. I can’t leave until I find some answers.”

“Answers to what?”

“The kind of experiences you’ve been having are not new to me,” he said patiently. “All my life, I’ve had these…spells. My mother said I was possessed, that the devil was trying to claim me through the spirit of my great-grandfather. I know it doesn’t make sense, but for some reason I’ve been drawn back into his lifetime. I’ve never hated anyone as much as I’ve hated Shawn Delaney and the heredity he gave me.”

“Well, I’m not staying. Do you hear me? I’m not going to wait for you to dig up your family’s skeletons. I’ll find the tunnel. Somebody will believe me…”

He grabbed her as she tried to jerk away. This time, his hands on her shoulders were not soft and reassuring but bit harshly into her flesh. “You can’t start blabbing about a tunnel. You can’t draw attention to yourself. They’ll never believe the truth and there’s no telling what Maude would do.”

“I can’t stay here. I can’t!”

“I promise you, I’ll look around tonight…then we can decide what to do. Trust me,” he said again.

“Trust you? How can I? I saw the way you looked at that newspaper. You have some crazy idea of solving your great-grandfather’s murder. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t bother to deny it.” She met his gaze squarely as she moved out of his arms. “I recognize a man with a purpose when I see one.”

The cleft in his chin deepened. “I have to know what kind of man Shawn Delaney was…why he was murdered. If I understand, perhaps I can lay some demons to rest—”

“Or be killed yourself,” she interrupted.

He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “Not possible. I didn’t live in my great-grandfather’s day.”

With a tremor in her voice, she corrected him. “You do now.”

Chapter 4

W hen Della awoke the next morning, she kept her eyes closed, praying that when she opened them, she would find herself back in her hotel apartment. Her heartbeat quickened as she slowly lifted her eyelids. Disappointment laced with anxiety instantly surged through her. Nothing had changed since last night. She was still wearing a cotton shift for a nightgown, still sleeping in a room that had belonged to the deceased bookkeeper, Vinetta Gray, and still caught in the weird time warp that had swept her back to the turn of the century.

Last night, Colin had promised to come for her if he was successful in his search for the tunnel. She had lain awake for hours, waiting, but he hadn’t come. Had he failed to find the tunnel? Or had he lied to her about looking for it? Her feelings for him were in a hopeless tangle. When he held her close, she wanted to lose herself in his embrace. Her pulse leapt when his resonant voice softened to liquid. His intensity, dark passion and compelling personality were mesmerizing. She wondered if she’d be able to leave him behind as she had threatened.

Sitting up in bed, she looked around the room. Everything was just as Vinetta had left it, she recalled with a slight prickling chill. An ugly bowed dresser stood against one wall next to a scarred clothespress whose warped door was slightly open, revealing a collection of clothes. Positioned on one side of a small fireplace was an overstuffed chair with ecru doilies over the headrest and arms. A worn floral rug lay on a wide-planked wooden floor, and faded wallpaper in a pink cabbage-rose pattern covered the walls.

Della had a queasy feeling as she took in the dead woman’s personal items. A brush and comb with strands of brown hair still clinging to it lay beside a hand mirror and a box of large hairpins. A porcelain tea set, a leather-bound book and a pair of reading glasses lay on a round drop-leaf table covered with an embroidered fringed cloth. Vinetta Gray was dead but everything was neat and orderly, as if she would return any moment.

Abruptly, Della felt a swish of cold air upon her cheek. You don’t belong here, a voice whispered. She raised her hands to protect herself from the angry words and cried out as a vile wind of hostility whipped around the room, tossing the lacy curtains with wild frenzy. The sweet smell of lilac perfume was suddenly suffocating and overwhelming. Go back where you belong!

Gasping for air, Della leapt from the bed, ran to the door and jerked it open. She leaned weakly against the wall in the hallway, waiting for her legs to regain some strength and her head to quit spinning.

“You ain’t coming to breakfast in your shift, are you?” A large Swedish-looking woman with thick blond braids wrapped around her head stood in the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on her apron. “Miss Vinetta never poked her nose out the door without every hair in place and her dress crinkling with fresh starch.”

Della tried to find her voice but couldn’t.

The woman gave a disgusted snort. “So you’re the new bookkeeper. You looked mighty peaked to me. Too much to drink, I’ll wager.” The cook’s expression showed her disapproval. “If you’re looking for the bathroom, it’s last door on the right. I guess Miss Maude told you that you’re sharing the bathroom. I’m Inga and Lolly’s the housemaid. We don’t run around half-dressed the way the girls do upstairs. You’d better find a wrapper to cover yerself.”

But I don’t have any clothes. Della bit back the excuse. The cook’s scowl told her she was in enemy territory. Be careful. Don’t give yourself away. Any kind of scene would arouse suspicions. A hundred questions stabbed at her, but Inga had a closed expression which discouraged any explanations or confidences about insidious perfume and threatening spirits.

“I don’t hold breakfast. If it’s cold, it’s cold,” Inga snapped at Della. “Better get a move on. Maude doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Della’s breath slowly came back and the suffocating feeling faded. She looked down at the thin cotton shift that barely covered her. When she had undressed the night before, she’d draped the unfamiliar clothes over a chair. She couldn’t go anywhere the way she was.

“Well, what you waiting for?” the cook demanded ungraciously.

Della straightened and glanced through the open door into the loathsome bedroom. She had no choice but to go in and get some clothes on. Cautiously, she took a step inside the door, stopped and waited. She braced herself for the malevolent whirlwind that had sent her rushing out into the hall. Nothing. No scent of lilacs. No vindictive accusations. No hint of hostility. Nothing to indicate that the horrible experience had been anything but her imagination. She brushed her hand across her forehead and found it moist with sweat.

She walked across the room and with trembling hands, gathered up the dark brown dress, full petticoat, knee-length drawers and thick white stockings. She looked warily at the ribbed corset and left it lying on the chair. There was no way she was going to wear such a torturous atrocity. The dress with its long sleeves and high neck was uncomfortable enough.

With her arms filled with the clothes and the pair of old-fashioned shoes she’d worn yesterday, she opened the bedroom door again and peered out. No sign of Inga. She could hear pans and dishes rattling. A low murmur of voices floated through the kitchen doorway. She hurried down the hall in bare feet and cotton shift.

Much to Della’s surprise, the bathroom was as large as Vinetta’s room. A beautiful marble cabinet contained a small sink and a huge claw-footed tub was raised on a small platform. A smile crossed her lips as she viewed the toilet with its wooden box overhead, a long chain dangling beside it.

Someone had set out sweet-smelling towels and she decided that a quick bath in the deep tub might restore her frayed nerves. She filled it with enough water to touch her chin. The water was only tepid, but running water of any temperature must be a luxury, she mused as she scrubbed with a bar of coal tar soap. Thank heavens, electricity had come into use by the 1880s. The thought startled her. Was she beginning to accept the impossible? Was she really going to be living a hundred years in the past? She reached for one of the large towels and shivered as she stepped out of the tub.

She hated putting on the same undergarments and dress but she had no choice. Using a large-toothed ivory comb lying on the marble counter, she smoothed her fair hair into a French roll and fastened it with several large hairpins from a glass jar that stood beside a bottle of lime juice and glycerin lotion.

A round mirror above the sink had lost some of its silver and gave back a distorted reflection, which made her feel more off-balance than ever. A sob caught in her throat. How could she hold on to her real identity when everything and everyone around her denied it? Where was Colin? She needed his enveloping presence to keep herself sane.

She left the bathroom, walked down the hall past her room and felt a quiver of uneasiness as she entered a large kitchen. Her breath caught when she saw the mess left by last night’s activities. Dirty glasses, soiled plates, trays of party food, spotted table linens and crusted silverware covered work counters and one long table that stretched the length of the room.

A dark-skinned girl about sixteen years of age was bending over a big sink. Her chubby arms were buried up to her elbows in soapy water as she washed dirty pots and pans. She didn’t look up or give any indication she was aware of Della’s presence.

Inga, the cook, came out of the pantry, dangling a duck carcass in each hand. Without acknowledging Della’s presence, she plopped down on a stool, dunked one of the fowl into a pan of hot water and started plucking. The smell of wet feathers filled the kitchen.

Della was about to cover her nose with her hand, when Inga stopped a moment and nodded toward a tray sitting at the end of the long table. “Miss Vinetta always took her breakfast at her desk.”

I can see why, thought Della, her empty stomach churning from the obnoxious kitchen smells.

“The tea’s probably cold by now,” the cook said with an edge of satisfaction in her voice.

Della swallowed back a request for a hot cup of coffee. She’d never liked tea, iced or otherwise, but she reminded herself that cold tea was a small price to pay to avoid a confrontation with the formidable cook.

Ignoring the woman’s pointed scrutiny, Della picked up the tray and left the kitchen. She walked down a center hall, peering into dark, shuttered rooms as she passed. The somber silent atmosphere in the house was oppressive, a sharp contrast to the bawdy noise and laughter that had filled it the evening before.

When she came to Maude’s shadowy office, she put the breakfast tray down on the small desk the madam had pointed out to her. A musty smell permeated the room. Della knew that she would have a headache in short order if she spent any time in the gloomy office. The room was like a closed box with no movement of air.

Going over to a pair of tall windows, she pulled back heavy green draperies, which allowed muted sunlight through floor-length ecru lace curtains. She broke two fingernails trying in vain to open a window to get some fresh air. The thick wooden frames looked as if they had remained shut since the house was built.

She looked out the window at a two-story clapboard house on the other side of a small alley running between the two houses. Gertrude Katz’s boardinghouse? Is that where Colin had spent the night?

A spurt of anxiety made Della bite her lip. He had told her to stay put until he found out what was going on, but what if he had disappeared and left her here? She’d always prided herself on her ability to solve her own problems, in any situation, but this was beyond anything she could have imagined.

Turning away from the window, she fought back an impulse to go running out of the house in an effort to find him. He was her anchor, her only hold on reality. She needed to tell him about the hostile presence in Vinetta’s room. Last night, he had handled an impossible situation with a deftness that was almost frightening. She had felt an intense pulsating energy radiating from him that both attracted and repelled her. Remembering how his dark looks had been enhanced by the old-fashioned clothes, a new sense of uneasiness brought a dryness to her throat.

She sat down at the small desk and lifted the damask napkin on the breakfast tray which held a small two-cup teapot, a matching cup and one slice of buttered toast on a plate. Nothing else. Either Miss Vinetta had been laced too tightly to eat anything more for breakfast, or she’d had the appetite of a bird, thought Della, her stomach rumbling with emptiness. She was tempted to take the tray back to the kitchen and demand a decent breakfast, but the impulse was short-lived. She wasn’t up to another exchange with Inga.

The day had just begun and already she felt bone weary. She sipped the lukewarm tea and had just taken the last bite of toast when a big rough-looking man sporting a full black beard strode into the room.

“I’ll be damned,” he swore with thick moist lips when he saw Della. He wore a gray-striped suit stretched out at the knees and slightly worn at the wrists. “What the hell we got here?” He strode over to the desk and leered down at her.

Della’s mouth went dry as he stood over her, his breath smelling of stale beer. She swallowed the last piece of toast, which seemed to grow in size as it went down her throat.

“Bet my britches you’re the new bookkeeper. Well, I’ll be damned.” His dark eyes took on a lustful sheen as he looked her over. “I haven’t seen corn-silk hair any prettier than that. A step up from that dried prune, Vinetta, aren’t you, sweetheart?”

“And just who are you?” Della asked coolly.

He fingered the gold chain of his pocket watch and stuck out his beer belly. “Maude’s ever-lovin’, Jack Gilly.”

“Her husband?”

“Husband?” He snorted. “Hell, no. If I’d married Maudie, she’d have hog-tied me long ago for sure. As it is, she has to keep me happy to keep me around. Gives me plenty of room to roam, you know.” He plopped a fat buttock on the corner of her desk.

His smirking smile was repulsive and his sour beer breath turned her stomach. She wanted to give him a shove that would send him tumbling off his perch. Everything about him was offensive, his looks, his crude manner, his thick wet lips and roving eyes. “I have work to do,” she said ungraciously and leveled her drop-dead look on him.

“We all have work to do, sweetheart.” He laughed at some private joke. “I guess you might say my job is keeping the old gal thinking she’s still a spring chicken. Been doing it for years…off and on. Oh, hell, I take off now and again, but always come back to dear old Maudie.”

For a second, Della’s curiosity won out over her repulsion. “You’ve known her for a long time?”

“Hell, yes. Ever since she had her place in Chicago…about seventeen years ago, I guess. Maude wasn’t bad-looking back then. Hell, I might even have married her, but she up and left her business and moved West. I guess she thought it was all over between us.” He gave a satisfied grunt. “A couple of years later, I surprised her and showed up in good old Denver. Been parking my carcass under her roof ever since.”

Della was even more repulsed than ever. He had verified her instinctive dislike. The smirking, foul-smelling Jack Gilly had opened his big ugly mouth and told her exactly what he was…a disgusting, sordid leech!

“’Course, I keep the boarders company. You know what I mean?” he bragged as if her silence meant approval. “Part of my duties as man of the house.” He reached out and pinched her cheek. “You stick with good old Jack and you can have the run of this place. Know what I mean? How about a little kiss—”

“Keep your hands off her!”

At the sound of Colin’s angry voice, Jack swung off the desk. He planted his stocky legs on the floor and balled his fists as Colin strode into the room.

“Leave her alone.”

Jack’s mouth spread in a smile above his dark beard as if a good fight was the perfect way to start the day. “Sez who?” He bounced on the balls of his feet, clenched fists ready to meet Colin head-on. Colin’s face was dark with rage.

“No…don’t!” Della cried. “No, Colin, he’ll—” She never got the next word out.

Without slowing his stride, Colin plowed right into Jack’s prizefighter stance. Apparently surprised by the rush that resembled a charging buffalo, Jack didn’t move fast enough. He staggered backward and Colin landed two hard blows to his stomach.

Jack’s eyes bulged and he gasped for air. While he was still off-balance, Colin gave him a shove that propelled him over a footstool and landed him flat on his broad back. Then Colin stood over him, his fists clenched, waiting for the burly man to get up.

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