Jasper Mountain (33 page)

He didn’t want to leave. He was home, damn it, finally, home. Digging his arms into the earth, he held on. He refused to leave. “Help me, I got two here!”

Jack held tightly to the ground. The ranch melted around him and washed away in a downpour. His soul screamed out with loss and heartbreak as he jolted back to Jasper.

He sobbed, his arms wrapped around Isabella. More hands, pulling both of them out of the smothering dark.

He thought he might go blind. Tears streaming down his face, Jack tried to look up through them to see his savior. At first, a figure clothed in light towered over him. His vision cleared enough to see Cain, sneering down at him. A piece of cloth dropped into his lap.

“Here’s a hankie for your little-girl tears.” Jack tried to answer, but coughed up mud. Bands of steel wrapped around his chest, and they slowly shrank, squeezing the life right out of him. Coughing racked his body, and came from deep down, making him retch. He collapsed at Cain’s feet.

This was hell. Had to be.

“Isabella—” he managed to get out before another cough cut him off. Tears streaming, he gagged and coughed, a downright mess. He gave in, letting his body collapse.

They weren’t tears. They simply weren’t.

Isabella hugged her knees to her chest. Her eyes burned. Because of all the smoke. Not tears. Never tears.

The crackling fire groaned, and the heap that used to be her beautiful house sighed and sank even farther into the earth. Another blanket of smoke spewed into the night. Her world. Her entire world, the one she’d built for herself and her ladies. Their only safe place. Gone.

She heard him. God. Having his last laugh.

Divine retribution, some might say. Well, God damn every one of the sanctimonious faces surrounding her, coming closer and closer like predators closing in on weakened prey. She’d show them. She was far from finished.

Isabella searched for the figure of the pastor. Surely he would come to help her. She looked and found nothing around her except those hateful, horrid faces drifting in the acrid fog. Fine. She closed her eyes. Her house. Her world. Her paintings. All gone.

No matter.

“Diana,” she said, recalling the detail of her latest work in progress, her heart aching from the loss. “Forest in the Spring.” While painting that one, she discovered how to add detail to the leaves of the trees, rendering them much more lush, full of life. A world of exquisite colors and sensual textures. Her world. “Ariadne,” she whispered to herself. One of her favorites. A strong and beautiful woman on the cusp of destruction, a woman denying her fate with the fury of passion in her eyes.

“Proprietress?” The Gypsy kneeled down beside her. Isabella’s eyes snapped open and she drew back. The movement caused her to cough without control. So unbecoming, the cough. Not to mention the dirt. The lace of her gown was torn. She was filthy.

“You’re supposed to see the future.” She managed enough words to accuse. “Why didn’t you warn me of this? Or were you in too much a hurry to desert me?”

Milena shook her head. Her eyes must be stinging from smoke too. She looked to be on the verge of tears. And they were filled with—what? Pity?

How dare she? Isabella preferred a thousand smug faces to one look of pity. She drew her hand back and slapped the Gypsy across the face. Milena fell back, watching Isabella with those black eyes pretending to see all. She sat back up, and after such a slap, no anger on her face, not even pity. Compassion.

Something inside Isabella weakened, cracked. She felt it give way. Something she’d guarded and kept safe for so very long. “Proprietress?”

Isabella focused on the Gypsy’s face. Only kindness. Concern. The crack within her widened and broke. Isabella fell into Milena’s waiting arms. She sobbed. No, that was wrong. She wasn’t crying. Her eyes were simply stinging from the smoke. No tears. Never tears.

Broken or not, she was still Isabella St. Claire.

U
nbelievably, Jack forgot how badly burn wounds hurt. Until now. Pain crackled hot and cold over his skin. His arms and back screamed, not with memory, but fresh agony. Waves of hurt prickled over his arms and back, keeping him sharply awake.

“I don’t need a bed,” he insisted, although he certainly belonged in one. As one of the more severely injured, the doctor had immediately ordered Jack to one of the few beds in the clinic. For Jack, lying on the damned thing felt like surrender. He sat on the edge, fighting the temptation to lie down and sleep.

With his arms crossed, Mouse watched, leaning against the wall. Why the kid was dressed and tooting around, he didn’t know. But really, seeing him up and about bolstered Jack’s spirits. Nothing kept that kid down.

Moans and crying permeated the clinic, an undercurrent reminding him of the horrors of the night. At least the entire town didn’t burn to the ground, only the Boarding House. Jack looked across the room, makeshift beds and floor filled with former fancy ladies—now dirty, disheveled girls with fear and misery etched on their faces. Also present and under the doctor’s care were the officers of the mine and so-called gentlemen, at least the ones overcome with smoke and unable to run and hide. The main room of the clinic overflowed. People sat, stood, milled about anywhere and everywhere Ambrose managed to fit them.

Cassandra was the only silent patient, unconscious and on the bed next to Jack’s. Her face waned paler than usual. No matter where Ambrose worked, he checked on her every few minutes, not letting her out of his sight or, obviously, his mind.

Jack wanted to rise to his feet, free up a bed. If he could only stop shaking.

Milena sat beside him, bottle and glass in hand. “The doctor insists you take this.”

“I don’t need it.”

Mouse grimaced and shook his head. “See,” Jack said. “He agrees.”

“He is only pleased to see a kindred spirit, a child who will not do what he is told.”

“What I need is a shot of whiskey.”

“What do you think this is?” Milena asked. He took the shot and gulped it down, sour curling his gullet.

“If that’s whiskey, it’s the worst I’ve ever tasted.” “Lie down. You need rest.”

“No, what I need is to get home. Next I have a mine president to see.”

Milena shook her head. “You must rest or your body will stop for you. Even I see your exhaustion,” she said in her soft voice. Her fingertips brushed his leg, one of the few places that didn’t hurt. Although featherlight, her touch shot through him. “At least stay until you stop shaking.”

“I don’t think that will be any time soon,” he admitted. His shakes were growing progressively worse. He trembled like a hundred-year-old man.

Jasper took everything from him and everybody else. He surveyed the myriad of people and wondered who else might be here. He thought of people beyond his seeing, not sure if he believed Milena and her visions of the dead. But damn, she’d seen Jo.

“Milena, I have to ask …”

“She is with us, yes.”

He turned from her sympathy and looked around. Ladies crying, men injured while helping, gentlemen caught off guard. The doctor and Taryn moved among them, giving whatever aid they could. No shadows lurked in any corners, no matter how hard Jack tried to see.

“Really? You see her?”

“She stands beside Mouse.” Milena’s voice sounded hesitant, like she wanted to hide something. “What is it?”

She shook her head and would not look up at him. “Someone else is here, aren’t they?”

Her eyes returned to him, boring deeply. “There is another who is intent upon keeping track of you.”

Although Jack thought such a thing impossible, he shook harder and gulped air to steady himself. His throat dried up. He swallowed and managed to croak out a question.

“Who?”

“I have never seen him before.” Jack trembled to his core. “Describe him.” “Kind eyes. Sad. They are very large. Brown, like his hair, which he wears long, to his collar. It curls.” Might be anybody, Jack thought.

Milena continued. “He wears the hat with the candle, like the one you wore when we met in the chamber.”

Jack’s blood ran cold. A miner. Tom?

“His face is long, sad.” She stopped, smiled wistfully, and took Jack’s hand. “With his long face and curling hair, he reminds me of a sheep.” Her voice deepened into melancholy. “A gentle, kind sheep. One who follows and is happy to do so.”

The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees. “Where is he? I mean, is he on the bed? Across the room?”

“Standing to the other side of Mouse.”

Jack studied the space on the wall. Nothing. Not even a hint of any sort of image or movement. Logic denied her words, yet how could he not believe her? She described Tom as if he stood right in front of them.

His entire existence shifted. Changed. Life beyond death, the future, seen. Magic. The impossible. All real. All truth.

His voice came out a reverent whisper. “Tom, I’m sorry. I’ve let you down. I promise I’ll figure all this out.”

Mouse followed Jack’s gaze and looked at the space next to him. He squinted.

Jack turned back to Milena and spoke softly. “Can they speak? These ghosts?”

“No. This is not the way those in the spirit realm communicate. And not all spirits see us. Some do. This man, Tom, he watches you as though he wants you to understand something.”

“Yeah. I’m the one who let him down.” Jack’s teeth started clacking. “Oh, Christ, I’m chattering.”

Milena wrapped her arms around him and he leaned into her, finally giving in. He closed his eyes and felt her brush his hair with her lips.

“Now I might be able to stop shaking.”

He didn’t know if he had spoken aloud, or if he held the thought of her deeply in his heart.

Or both.

Isabella abhorred this lack of privacy, but she really didn’t have much choice. At least the doctor allowed her and the ladies into his clinic. Took them in without hesitation. Most people refused to have anything to do with them, not even the “gentlemen” she’d known for years. She’d seen such disdain in the people standing around, watching her home burn to the ground, the gleam in their eyes proclaiming Isabella St. Claire got what she deserved.

Not the doctor. He’d jumped in, working diligently, and brought them all to his clinic. When she rebuilt, she’d have to give him more attention. Perhaps even personally.

Ah, but she must be in a weakened state to entertain such a thought.

Isabella had a fairly good vantage point. She could see almost everyone in the large, depressing room. The good Reverend McShane also clucked about, tending to her wayward ladies. He would receive nothing but trouble from his pious and pathetic parishioners, yet it didn’t stop him. He ministered to everyone, no matter his or her station. She’d love to repay him for his kindness. As if he sensed her longing, he glanced up at her, his gorgeously soulful eyes questioning.

Oh, and she had an answer. One he’d never believe.

Isabella decided to busy herself and encourage her continued welcome at the clinic for herself and for her ladies. Mindful not to step on anyone, she moved to stand behind the doctor.

“Ambrose?” she asked softly. “Is there anything I can help with? Anything I can do?”

The doctor straightened from his table of concoctions and looked at her, seeming not to see her, then his eyes focused. “Oh, Isabella. Thank you, no. Just rest, my dear.”

“I believe you need some of your own medicine, Doctor. She touched his arm, lowered her head, and lifted her eyes, sorrowfully, she hoped. “I am worried about Cassandra. Do you think …?”

His expression hardened and he shook his head. “Reverend McShane and I are doing all we can. If you will excuse me, I have injured to attend.” He gestured to the room of sick and moaning. Suzanne cried out as if proving the doctor correct. Ambrose brushed past Isabella to rush to her aid. Silly girl. She didn’t have a scratch on her.

Isabella thought about sitting for a bit with Cassandra. She changed her mind the moment the thought surfaced. Cassandra’s already pale face blanched whiter than the sheets, not a good commentary on the girl’s complexion or the doctor’s laundering abilities.

Across the room, Milena helped Jack to the floor when he gave up his bed to Claire. The chivalrous Jack surrendered it the first chance he got. The man was so predictable.