Chapter 1

Chapter

One

Los Angeles, 1884. The year the rain would not stop.

What’s going on out there? Nicolo Stark-James asked himself, sitting up and rubbing sleepily at his eyes. The rainfall made a racket, but Nico was sure he had heard a strange thud against his bedroom window.

It was around midnight, and the torrential rain had made a mess of the property outside their ranch-style home. The usually mild California weather had suddenly turned nasty, and rain had been falling constantly for two solid weeks. The deluge created a muddy quagmire that was nearly impossible to navigate where they lived, but in other parts of Los Angeles, the flood was submerging orchards and carrying houses away. At least two hundred houses had been swept away along with outbuildings and fences, causing hundreds of residents to seek shelter.

Nico went to the window and shoved the curtain out of the way. Rain cascaded down the glass, but through the distortion, he could make out the shape of his best friend, hunched over in an odd position, boots sunk deep into the mud just beneath Nico’s window.

Immediately, Nico raised the pane—he never bothered to lock the window—and snapped at Matty, “Why are you waiting out there? Climb on in like you always do!”

“Can’t. Need help.” Matty’s voice was weak and shook with emotion and apparent agony that set Nico’s senses on alert. He clutched his belly and wasn’t raising his face to look at Nico.

Oh no. It happened again.

Not wanting to take time for an explanation, Nico asked, “Can you give me your hand and let me pull you in?”

Matty groaned and shook his head stiffly.

“Then meet me at the front door. Can you make it that far?” Matty was swaying. “I’ll get one of my fathers to help!”

“No! You promised. I don’t want more trouble with...” At that, Matty puked up something that looked an awful lot like blood and collapsed in a heap, landing in the mud with a splat.

Sometimes, it’s prudent to break a promise, even if it’s to your best friend in the whole world. Matty was as important to Nico as his own family. He loved him—not like a brother. Of course, he loved his brothers Bay and Warren as well as his sisters Ondine and Martha, but he loved Matty with a depth of affection he had never tried to analyze. He just knew he had to take care of Matty and had to do it now . Leaving the window open, allowing the rain to soak the curtains and the floor, he dashed out of his room and down the hall.

Originally built for three married adults, five children—four of whom were now married and gone—frequent houseguests, and a good-sized household staff, the estate was a huge, rambling one-story design built in the Mexican-inspired Hacienda style popular in the southern part of California. Thick stucco-covered adobe walls made the house cool in the summer. The property was surrounded by a high wall covered with a splendid display of brilliantly hued bougainvillea. The gate was generally left open for their frequent guests who came for a concert or a meal.

Nico’s two fathers Walter and Isaac owned half of a successful building firm with their best friends Jasper Langley and Royal Dawson, and they’d learned to adapt their architectural style to suit the area rather than trying to replicate the grand wooden houses they’d built in the north. They’d all been living in San Francisco for several years but emigrated south when they decided it was time for new challenges and adventures.

The move south had been good for them. Originally, they’d made their fortunes as the earliest, hardest-working miners in the 1849 California Gold Rush, then as successful hotel and casino owners, and ultimately as a topnotch building company they called Roja Wais. Their pioneering spirit prompted them to finally move south to seek new opportunities. In doing so, they increased their fortune even more with their current business, which they had named New West Builders. Their closest friends and best workers made the southern trek with them with the exception of Séamus Flynn and Timothy Duffy who remained in San Francisco and continued to run The Discovery Hotel and Casino with several of their Irish relatives.

Nico’s bedroom was quite a distance from his three parents’ room, so by the time he got there after running full tilt—and gripped with terror—he was gasping for breath. Not thinking, but desperately needing help, he shoved the heavy arched door open, rushed in, and gaped at the strangest sight.

As the thick door swung inward with a creak and Nico charged in, the three occupants’ startled faces turned to their son in shock. They had not been sleeping. Nico’s mother Suzette was as naked as her two husbands, and they were doing things Nico had not ever imagined. Still, no matter what his parents were getting up to—and frankly it looked pretty interesting—he had to help Matty now .

“I need your help!” he nearly sobbed. “Matty’s outside and he’s sick or hurt something bad . Please hurry!”

Isaac pulled away from Walter, and Nico tried not to look as his pa’s rigid cock lost its stiffness. Isaac reached for a pair of trousers and yanked them on. “Show me where he is, son,” he ordered. Isaac didn’t bother with a shirt or boots. Nico’s terror was apparently enough to convince him that this matter was dire.

As Isaac hastily did up his trousers, Walter and Suzette disengaged a bit more slowly. Walter tossed a dressing gown to her and found something to put on, saying, “This is precisely why we need to have a telephone installed. I’ll go get Doc Louis. Get that poor boy inside and out of the elements.”

Nico dashed outside and swam through the rain, not even feeling it as he directed his father to just outside his bedroom window. They discovered Matty looking very, very bad. He hadn’t moved a muscle since he collapsed.

“Run back in and tell your mother to get some hot water and blankets for him, Nicolo. I’ll try to carry him in without hurting him.” Isaac was a large bear of a man, strong and fearless, but as gentle as a lamb when he needed to be.

Nico watched nervously as Isaac bent to scoop Matty up into his arms, cradling him to his broad chest, and then Nico tore off again, running as quickly as possible through the slimy mud to fetch his mother. He nearly collided with Walter at the front door.

“Did Isaac find him, son?”

“Yessir, Papa. Pa’s carrying him in now. Matty isn’t moving though,” he added with a hitch in his voice. He was scared to death that Matty wasn’t breathing.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can rouse Doc Louis. I just have to navigate through this mess somehow. This must be one of those hundred-year storms I’ve read about. Oh, I hope Doc Louis hasn’t been called away somewhere else…” Walter was still talking nonstop as he streaked out the door toward the street. He carried an umbrella—not that it did much good in sideways rain. Before he made it a hundred feet, the umbrella blew inside out and flew away to join the downed trees and general detritus caused by the flood.

Nico missed most of Walter’s ramblings as he ran in to alert his mother.

Suzette was already in the kitchen with the cook, and they were heating water and setting out clean rags and towels. Isaac met them with the seemingly lifeless body in his arms, and he carefully lay Matty down on the large worktable as Nico turned on the combination gas and electric lights and lit some candles around the room for extra illumination. The women began to remove Matty’s filthy boots and sodden clothing. He was streaked with mud—and blood—and dripping rainwater everywhere.

Isaac lay his head on Matty’s chest and pronounced, “He has a good, strong heartbeat, Nicolo. Don’t worry. Doc Louis will help him. He’s the best there is on fixing people up. He’s getting on in years, but he’s done a great job on me a time or two.”

Nico was aware of the story that caused the scar over his pa’s eyebrow. It had faded a lot over the years, but he agreed with his mother that the scar made Isaac look rugged and a little dangerous. Isaac stood back and went about cleaning as much of the mud as he could off of himself.

Matty’s face was terribly beaten up, but when they opened Matty’s shirt, Suzette gave a gasp and said some choice words in French. Everyone knew immediately she was furious—especially Nico who’d been raised speaking French as well as English. “Look at this poor child!” She pointed to a blossoming bruise at the base of the young man’s ribcage that looked suspiciously like Matty had been kicked—probably multiple times. Suzette wiped an angry tear from her face.

“He was vomiting blood, Maman,” Nico said in an unsteady voice. “Do you really think he’ll get well?”

“As long as he stays away from that dreadful father of his, yes.”

“You know about Matty’s father?”

Isaac spoke up, “We all do, son. We’ve just been unable to do much about it. We’ve tried talking to him, but… no luck. However, this time… the man has gone too far, and I plan to speak to the police. I’m guessing they’ll be too busy right now to do much, considering the looting and property destruction going on during this storm. But that awful man could have killed his own son. He’s a nasty old drunk and as mean as a snake. I’m so sorry Matty’s mother isn’t around to care for him anymore.”

Feeling powerless to help his friend, Nico fought back angry tears and decided to do the one thing he felt would please Matty. He prayed the way he’d been taught by the Vincentian fathers at the school where he and Matty were day students. He prayed for Matty to wake up and not be in terrible pain. He prayed for Papa to get Doc Louis to the house soon. He prayed Matty would make a full recovery and be able to enjoy life, and he prayed for Matty’s father to burn in hell for his sins. Nico wasn’t sure one ought to pray for that, but he couldn’t help himself, and if the God whom Matty loved so much had any sense, he would understand.

Matty would know the value of such a prayer. He was always the faithful one. Where Nico—a fairly non-religious person—generally breezed through life looking for ways to be amused, Matty looked at the world as God’s beautiful creation and considered how best to live his life as a good, faithful Catholic. Matty’s devotion had deepened after his mother died, and Nico figured his friend needed his faith to sustain him through his grief of losing her. Nico had been baptized and once in a while attended mass and took holy communion, but he just went through the motions of being faithful—sometimes to please his mother, but even more often to please Matty.

Unfortunately, Matty’s father, who lived off his considerable inheritance, sought his solace for losing his wife in the bottom of a whiskey bottle. His idle lifestyle and drinking turned him cantankerous, and if Matty—his only child—happened to be handy, he became the target of the man’s wrath. Usually, it was just words—horrible, cutting words—that often included blaming Matty for making his mother sick and causing her to die. It was irrational, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. Worse still, when the man’s mental anguish got to be too bad, his belligerence turned physical.

There was no doubt in Nico’s mind that Matty needed to get away from his father before he joined his mother prematurely. But any time Nico brought it up, tender-hearted Matty shook his head. His father needed him, Matty explained.

Matty studied hard at school each day, but when classes were finished, he ran home to see if his father was getting into trouble. The staff he’d had was dwindling—moving off to find better employment with a more reasonable boss—and there was not much Matty could do to get them to stay. So he took to watching his father to make sure the man didn’t either drink himself to death or starve. He routinely watered down the liquor bottles and tried to force his father to eat solid food, but he had rather poor luck with both ventures.

Often after his father passed out for the night, Matty would walk over to the house where Nico lived. He would climb in through Nico’s bedroom window and the two of them would talk for hours. More than once, he’d fallen asleep in Nico’s bed with him. Nico was his solace. Matty adored his friend and often wished he could live there with Nico’s unconventional, loving family. But even if they’d invited him, Matty knew he couldn’t abandon his sick father. Still, now that school was on a break because of the flood, he’d been spending more time with Nico, and he loved that too.

By the time Walter and Doc Louis made it back to the house, Matty was cleaned up and starting to come around. His nose was still bleeding, though, and he once again puked up a bloody mess and writhed in agony. Doc Louis took one look at his patient and started swearing crudely in French. Methodically, he began the process of evaluating Matty’s injuries.

“It appears he has a broken nose, and the blood he is vomiting up probably has to do with all he has swallowed from that. I do not believe the abdominal injuries are severe enough to have caused internal bleeding, but he does have what looks like a couple of busted ribs. That is going to be terribly painful for a while, and he will need to remain quiet for a couple of weeks before he can walk around freely. Can you keep him here? We cannot allow him to be reinjured.” The implication was strong that Doc Louis was also aware Matty was the victim of his father’s wrath.

“Yes, of course,” Suzette replied. “We can put him in Bay’s old room now that he’s moved out.”

“No!” Nico interrupted. “Please put him in my room. I’ll be there to take care of him and watch over him. He needs me.”

“That’s fine, Nicolo,” Isaac said. “He’ll be happy to be with you.”

Looking at Doc Louis, Nico implored, “Please, can you give him something for the pain, sir? ”

“Oui, I shall. However, I do not wish to upset his stomach. Each time he retches, it will cause him tremendous pain. So we will need to treat him somewhat conservatively. I will give him something now so he will sleep, and I can set his broken nose. He will probably sleep for a few hours, but you will need to administer this when he wakes and every few hours throughout the next days.” He handed Nico a packet, saying, “This will diminish his pain. We will only use a small amount for a short time, and then we will switch to this.” They had a conversation about how to handle the drugs and how to best help Matty move around eventually.

Doc Louis noticed Nico’s close attention to everything he said and listened to Nico’s detailed questions which finally prompted him to ask, “Nicolo, would you consider studying with me? I’ve been thinking for a while that you may have the makings of a future doctor. You could try medicine out as an apprentice and then enter medical school if the subject suits you.”

Nico’s chin dropped. He was flattered Doc Louis held him in such high regard. In truth, he’d always been curious about how the body worked, and the few times he’d seen Doc Louis’ office at the clinic, he was fascinated. “Uh… yes sir,” he answered somewhat breathlessly. He looked at each of his three parents and saw expressions of pride on their faces.

Up to now, Nico had always felt like an oddity in his family. His siblings were considerably older than him, and each of them played a variety of instruments beautifully and with great passion. His pa Isaac and his mother were extraordinary violinists, and their close friend Adeline Dawson-Langley was a fabulous pianist who collaborated and taught with them. For some reason, however, Nicolo, inaptly named for Nicolo Paganini, demonstrated no musical talent whatsoever. It was the one thing about himself that made him believe his actual father was Walter, the only other non-musician in the family. He didn’t particularly care whether he was the son of Isaac or Walter; they both loved him fiercely, he knew, just as he loved them. But it was lonely for him when his siblings congregated and put on fabulous concerts with his mother and Isaac. They all enjoyed it so much, while he just couldn’t find any music within himself. The irony of his namesake was not lost on him, so he always introduced himself as Nico rather than Nicolo, fearing the more formal version of his name might prompt questions he was too embarrassed to address.

But now! Could it be that he had his own personal calling? He looked at Doc Louis and said, “Thank you, sir!”

“How are your marks at school?” the old man asked.

“Good sir, but I can do better, I promise!”

“You must keep that promise, Nicolo. Learn as much as you can from the good priests. But we shall also see how you care for Matty here, and when he is better, you will come to the clinic and work with me after school—as long as your parents agree, of course. It will not be terribly interesting at first and a considerable amount of hard work. I also have many books you will want to read, and I can prepare you for medical school this way.”

“Well,” exclaimed Walter as he beamed at his son. “Isn’t that grand?” Walter was in favor of anything that involved learning and books. “Thank you, Doc Louis.”

Nico couldn’t help but think tonight had been one of the worst in his life because he’d been tremendously worried about Matty and furious on his behalf for what Mr. Remington had done. Now, as the dawn was breaking, the night turned into something far more promising. He couldn’t wait to tell Matty when his friend was conscious again.