Haunting Ellie (23 page)

His hands began to shake, and he shoved them into his pockets. “It was my wedding day,” he began. “I had a room here in Phoebe’s boarding-house. Upstairs.” He looked toward the ceiling, and Elizabeth knew he was talking about that room where she’d heard the crying, the desolation. “I’d just finished dressing, and I’d put Amanda’s ring on my finger so I wouldn’t have to dig it out of my pocket when I got to the church. I remember looking out my window and seeing her walking down the street. She looked so pretty in her wedding dress, her long blond hair hanging in ringlets over her shoulder. Every time I looked at Amanda
, she took my breath away.”

Alex took his hands out of his pockets and pulled a shiny silver watch from his vest. With his head tilted down, he opened the cover and stared at the inside for nearly a minute, then held it out for Elizabeth to see. “I loved her. I never loved anyone but Amanda.”

Elizabeth looked at the black and white photo. It wasn’t faded with age, as she’d expected, but looked as if it had just been placed inside the watch. A delicate face with a loving smile peered up at her. “She’s pretty.”

“Beautiful.” Alex snapped the watch cover closed and returned it to the place it had been for one hundred years.

“The doctor was holding Amanda’s arm as they went into the church,” Alex said. “Her father passed away suddenly, just a few weeks before the
wedding, and the doctor was his friend. Amanda had asked him to give her away, and we’d invited the entire town. I remember it all so vividly. The streets were empty. Everyone was in the church waiting, and it was time for me to go.”

Again he stopped his story and went to the window, pulling aside the curtains and looking down on the darkened town. “Something hard and heavy hit me on the back of the head. I remember the pain, and feeling sick to my stomach.”

Alex turned around and gazed directly into Elizabeth’s eyes. Tears streaked her cheeks. She couldn’t keep them from falling, not when she heard his anguished words, not when she felt his pain. “I’m so sorry, Alex.” She wiped them away, thinking of the man standing at that window upstairs, longing for the moment he would say “I do.” And then losing everything.

“Do you know who hit you?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes, I know.” Bitterness took away the hurt in his eyes. “I didn’t die from the crack on my head. No, my killer was much more cruel than that. I remember waking up with bile rising in my throat. The back of my head felt like someone had driven an ax through my skull, and when I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by darkness. Then something heavy fell on my legs and chest. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t see much of anything, either, but I could hear a shovel digging into dirt. And then I felt it falling down on me, a few grains of soil hitting my chin and my face. I could see a little light glinting off the shovel. And then I saw his face. He was smiling.” Alex stared straight across the room, and when he turned again to face
Elizabeth, she saw his pain and fear. “I opened my mouth to scream at him, and he tossed another shovelful of dirt right into my face, into my mouth. I tried spitting it out, but I couldn’t. It was coming down faster and faster, and I could hear him laughing. I tried to breathe, but I couldn’t. I tried to move, but...”

Alex turned away again, and Elizabeth climbed from the bed. She went to his side to give him solace. She knew that fear of being buried alive. If the rain hadn’t been falling so heavily
after the earthquake, after her house slid off its perch on the cliff, she, too, might have suffocated with a mouth full of dirt and debris. But the rain had washed it away. Alex hadn’t been so fortunate.

She reached out slowly to put a comforting hand on his arm, but even though he looked solid and real, her hand sliced right through.

He looked down at her and smiled. “You can’t touch me, Elizabeth. No one can touch me.” He put his hand over his heart. “I can feel your sympathy inside, though. It’s been a long time since anyone’s cared enough to cry for me.”

Alex went to the window. He parted the lace curtains and stared out. “That last minute, before my life faded away, I thought about Amanda, about how much I loved her. I swore I’d be with her again, and I swore revenge against the man who’d taken me away from her.”

“Who was it?” Elizabeth whispered, but deep inside she knew the answer—at least part of it.

“A Winchester, of course.” He laughed. “Luke Winchester, the thieving, lying bastard buried me alive, tarnished my reputation, and worst of all, stole my Amanda.”

Alex looked straight into Elizabeth’s eyes, and she shuddered at what she saw. Hatred had changed the bright blue pools into dark, fathomless pits. “Living here for one hundred years has been a miserable existence. But I won’t leave, and I won’t be happy until my good name’s restored and every last Winchester is dead and buried, or run out of this town.”

Elizabeth didn’t see him leave her side, but she felt the icy
whoosh
of air blow through the room and heard the thunder of his anger. Suddenly, all was quiet.

And then it began again, high above, in the attic. The lonely, plaintive cry reached through her chest and gripped her heart.

She didn’t bother grabbing her robe or shoving her feet into slippers; there wasn’t time. Alex needed her. She ran from the room, the blanket dragging on the floor behind her. She rushed into Alexander’s attic and even though she couldn’t see him, she felt his presence.

Cold air stirred about her and the curtains ruffled. She could hear an occasional creak of a floor-board. He was pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Elizabeth sat down on top of an ancient leather trunk and waited for his frustration and anger to ebb, listening, watching, somehow knowing it wasn’t yet time to speak.

“Leave me. Please,” he begged.

“I’m not leaving, Alex. I’m staying put right here until you’re ready to talk.”

Seconds passed. Minutes. All was silent, and Elizabeth continued to wait. Finally, the curtains
parted and the shadow of a man appeared. “She married Luke Winchester three weeks later,” he said, the hazy vision slowly turning into a man. “I’ve never blamed her for hating me, and I’ve never blamed her for getting married. But I never understood how she could fall in love with that murderer and marry him so quickly after my disappearance.”

“She must have had a reason,
” Elizabeth said. Maybe Amanda hadn’t loved Alexander enough. Maybe she’d been so hurt she married the first man to walk into her life. The possibilities were endless.

“Luke Winchester owned one of the saloons in town,” Alex said. “He was a gambler, a ladies’ man. He talked big and he had hopes of one day being the richest man in town. He wasn’t the kind of man Amanda would have fallen in love with.”

“It’s called rebound, Alex. Someone hurts you, you reach out to the first person to come along, whether that person is right for you or not.”

“He was all wrong for Amanda. But she was just what he needed. With me out of the picture, Luke Winchester stepped in, put a ring on her finger, and suddenly all the riches he’d ever wanted were in his control.”

“That must have been what he’d planned all along.”

Alex nodded his agreement and turned back to the window. “I would have given him everything. All I wanted was Amanda.”

Elizabeth contemplated his words.
I would have given him everything.
They didn’t make sense, but she was too tired to think about them now. She put
her fingers to her mouth to stifle a yawn.

“You’re tired. Go to bed, Elizabeth, we’ll talk again tomorrow.”

“There’s too much I want to know. Too much I need to know if I’m going to help you.”

Alex smiled and she felt the light touch of his fingers wrapping around her hand. “Come. I’ll take you downstairs.”

Again she yawned. Her eyelids had grown heavy, and she allowed him to pull her to her feet. She turned her hand over to weave her fingers through his, but when she squeezed, she felt only her own fingers touching her palm. Looking down, she saw just the transparent outline of his fingers interlocked with hers, and she looked back into his face with even more questions in her eyes. Why, she wondered, could she feel his touch, and yet she couldn’t touch him in return?

As if reading her mind, he answered her question: “I’m dead, Elizabeth, but I have powers I
can’t even begin to understand. I can move furniture. I can twiddle my thumbs. I can speak and fly around this hotel, and I can touch you and make you feel me when I do. But I feel nothing in return, only the pain in my heart, and anger, and the longing to be with Amanda again.”

Once more he squeezed her fingers. “Tomorrow we’ll talk more. Now, though, you should get some sleep.”

Elizabeth allowed him to lead her down the stairs and into her bedroom. She climbed into bed, and Alex removed the sheet from the bedpost, smoothing it over the top of her, along with the comforter. There were so many questions she
wanted to ask, so many things that made no sense. Tomorrow, though, she would ask her questions and learn the answers. And tomorrow she would try to help, try to find a way to release Alex from the bonds holding him here on earth.

oOo

Sitting on the end of the bed, Alex watched Elizabeth sleep. Her lips parted slightly. She breathed deeply, and her eyes fluttered beneath the nearly transparent skin of her eyelids.

He’d sat on Amanda’s bed the night her father had died. All he’d wanted to do was console her, to hold her in his arms and let her weep. Her tears had made him ache, increasing his own grief. He’d loved the man nearly as much as Amanda had.

Alex sighed, thinking back to the day Jedediah Dalton had taken him in. The richest man in town had shown up at his parents’ funeral, paying homage to them and all the others who’d died of influenza. Alex was thirteen at the time, nearly a man. But Alex was just what Jed Dalton wanted—a son—and Jedediah took him under his wing. Alex protested, he was stubborn and proud. He’d told Mr. Dalton he’d rather work at the Dalton copper smelter, or hire on as a cowboy at one of the ranches, rather than become a pampered brat. But Mr. Dalton didn’t want that, and Mr. Dalton had always gotten what he wanted.

Figures came easy, Alex remembered. Mr. Dalton pored over his ledgers and accounts with Alex at his side. He took him to meetings with the state’s other copper kings, and when Alex was old enough, he sent him to New York to get a taste of big-city life. New York might have been fine for
Mr. Dalton’s wife and daughter, but not for Alex. He made it only as far as Saint Louis. That was big city enough for him. And once he got his fill, he worked his way back to Montana and told Mr. Dalton he didn’t plan to leave ever again.

Ten years later Mr. Dalton had sent for his daughter. Alexander was twenty-nine, Amanda had just turned nineteen, and Mr. Dalton felt it was time for her to marry. He wanted her union to be with the young man he’d fostered and nurtured, the young man who would take his place at the head of the Dalton empire when he died. He’d already signed everything over to Alex. The deeds were in a vault at the bank, because Mr. Dalton didn’t believe in waiting until the last minute to make plans for the future.

Alex had protested again, but he knew Mr. Dalton wouldn’t change his mind. “What’s done is done,” Jedediah said. “I’ll announce my plans at your wedding.”

Wedding.
That word had frightened the hell out of Alex. He liked freedom; he liked the ladies. He wasn’t ready to settle down. But that was before….

Alex smiled when he remembered the day Amanda stepped off the train in Helena, her ruffled, lacy pink-and-white-striped parasol extended over a jaunty little hat to keep the sun off her peaches-and-cream skin. “Pretty” didn’t even come close to describing her. They ate dinner and spent the night in the governor’s mansion, then caught a train early the next morning. He’d left his horses and wagon at the livery, and once he had the rig ready to go and Amanda’s trunks loaded, they began the last leg of their trip.

On a hill overlooking Sapphire, he proposed to the woman he’d met just the day before. He would have done it whether Mr. Dalton had wanted him to or not. She was the sweetest little thing he’d ever met, and he had no intention of letting her out of his sight—not that day, not ever. Amanda didn’t hesitate a moment when he popped the question. She slapped his face and told him to take her home.

It took an entire year to woo her. He bought flowers and candy and sarsaparilla. He escorted her to church. He even tried his hand at breaking wild broncs, catching the biggest fish, and lassoing the biggest and meanest bull—all to impress Amanda. And he’d failed miserably at each of those things.

But somehow, he didn’t fail at making her fall in love.

When he proposed the second time, she was sitting in a swing on the porch at Dalton House, and he was down on bended knee in front of her, pledging his love and devotion. She rewarded him with their very first kiss, and Alex thought for sure he’d died and gone to heaven.

But waiting was hell. Immediately after their engagement, he moved to Phoebe Carruthers’ boardinghouse. He didn’t trust himself being too close to Amanda. If she could wait till their wedding night to catch another glimpse of heaven, so could he.

Six months later Mr. Dalton was dead. After the funeral, after the mourners and well-wishers had left the mansion, Alex had carried Amanda to her room. She’d pulled him into her arms, comforting him just as he’d comforted her. And they made love, hesitantly at first, then sweetly, then passionately.
Alex found heaven again that night, with archangels and cherubs and harps, and he’d remembered and relived that night again and again—for one hundred very long years.