Memory's Embrace by Linda Lael Miller

this Adam Corbin man was seeking?
    Derora unfolded the newspaper again, turned to the advertisement, and studied it. Then, on a hunch, she searched through the Portland paper, too. The advertisement was there, but it gave no further information, for it was an exact duplicate. In The San Francisco Chronicle , however, she found a slight variation in copy. The blurb above the sketch read:
    Missing. Keith Corbin. Likeness Below.
    And under the image—Lord, but he did look like Joel Shiloh—was the same offer of a reward.
    Derora sat down at her dressing table, staring at her own image in the mirror but not seeing it. Five thousand dollars, she thought. Five thousand beautiful dollars.
    The decision was made. She would wire Port Hastings, that very night. If she was wrong, if this peddler was not Keith Corbin, well, anyone could make amistake. She would have lost nothing but the cost of sending a single wire. Time was of the essence—how long would it be before someone else noticed the similarities between the drawing and Joel Shiloh? Suppose someone beat her to that reward?
    Yes, indeed, time was of the essence.

Chapter Four
    E MMA LOOKED VERY PLEASED . “T ESS , P APA HAS ALREADY developed your photographs,” she said, scurrying along beside her friend as she wheeled her bicycle into the little stable behind Derora’s house. “I have them right here, in my bag!”
    Tess leaned the bicycle against an inside wall and tossed her head, so that her hair flew back over her shoulders. After eating lunch, she had taken the photographic plates to Mr. Hamilton, Emma’s father, and ’ asked him to process them. Then, because she couldn’t bear to sit still, she had pedaled off into the countryside. Knowing where Joel Shiloh was camped, she had, of course, ridden in quite the opposite direction.
    “Let’s see them,” she said casually, walking back out of the rarely used stable—Derora did not own a horse or carriage—and into the late afternoon sunshine.
    Emma was eager to hand the four-by-five-inch photographs over and obviously disappointed in the idle manner in which Tess flipped through them. There was a lilac bush, just blooming. There was a riverboat, passing blurrily by on the Columbia. There was Mrs. Swendhagen’s hopelessly ugly baby. There was Tess, herself, standing in front of the peddler’s wagon, his hat on her head, an idiotic smile on her lips.
    And there was Joel. Only one of the two plates she had used had turned out, but the likeness was a good one, clear and fairly pulsing with the distinct personality of that difficult, audacious, and completely wonderful man.
    “Tess?” Emma whispered. “Is something wrong?”
    Tess could not raise her head, but she did manage to shake it. “No. No, nothing is wrong.”
    Emma was instantly mollified, for once. “I’ve got a surprise for you, Tess,” she said, with proper mystery and relish. “Guess what it is!”
    Tess tucked the photographs carefully into her skirt pocket and lifted her head, meeting Emma’s eyes, praying that her friend would not notice the shimmering mist in her own. “You know I hate to guess,” she answered. “Tell me!”
    Emma beamed. “Tickets! Tess, I have tickets to the show on the riverboat—Mr. Roderick Waltam gave them to me himself!” She paused, considering, her eyes shining. “I think he likes me,” she added, at last, in a shy voice.
    Tess linked her arm through Emma’s and ushered hertoward the kitchen door, failing to mention that Mr. Roderick Waltam had spent the night with Derora.
    “Let’s have some teacakes—there are some left from last night, I thi’nk. When is this show, anyway?”
    “Why, it’s tonight!” cried Emma, all ashiver at the very prospect. “It’s going to be spectacular, Tess! You will go with me, won’t you? Please?”
    For once, Juniper was not in the kitchen. Tess put on a pot of coffee and, as Emma settled herself at the round table with its checkered cloth, took the remaining