Sweet Boundless (38 page)

The mine. The source of all Carina’s trouble. If he’d been there to oversee it as Alan had suggested, she wouldn’t have been involved at all. Hadn’t Makepeace known enough to keep her out of affairs that didn’t concern her?

“This late?”

“He has an office there. Hardly sleeps here since . . . well, that’s your best bet.”

Since what? Since Carina was hurt? Or since Quillan came home?

He went to the livery and took Jock without disturbing Alan. He rode through the darkness until a lighted window showed where Mr. Makepeace’s office must be. He pulled up outside the small log building. With the moonglow on the snow, he could make out the sizeable workings all around him. The New Boundless. He dismounted, tethered Jock, and rapped on the door. It opened, and Quillan tried to read Alex Makepeace’s face. Surprise, surely, or was it discomfort?

“Quillan. Come in.” He was motioned inside.

Quillan refrained. “I won’t stay. I . . . Carina mentioned a cave.”

Makepeace’s head jerked sideways. “She told you? I guess she would.”

Quillan narrowed his eyes, fighting back the jealous surge. What other secrets did she share with Alex Makepeace?

Makepeace turned from the door and walked to his desk. “Come in before all the heat escapes.”

Quillan stepped in, wondering why he felt as though he were treading on another man’s territory. This was his mine, his property, his wife. He closed the door behind him. Alex Makepeace gestured toward a chair and took the one behind his desk for himself. Quillan sat and waited for Makepeace to speak.

When he did, it was with a soft, throaty tone. “How is she?”

“Not well. Yet.”

Makepeace nodded. “Carina—that is, your wife and I—did find a cave. But she wanted it kept secret. I’ve honored that.”

As you honored her marriage to another man?

“It’s in your mine. Your other mine. The Rose Legacy.” Makepeace glanced up.

“She told me that. She said there’s a chamber.” Quillan saw the change in Makepeace’s face.

“Oh. The painted one, I suppose.”

“Painted?”

Makepeace stood and walked around the desk. He rubbed his fingers down the side of his beard. “It’s probably best you see it for yourself. I can meet you at first light, weather permitting.” He paused again, long enough for Quillan to feel uncomfortable. “She . . . wanted you to see it?”

A flicker of fury licked up like a flame. Who was Makepeace to protect Carina’s wishes? Did he dare suggest he cared more for Carina’s well-being than Quillan did? Quillan said, “First light, in front of the livery.”

Alex Makepeace nodded slowly. “All right.”

Quillan stood. He wanted to demand an accounting of the time this man had spent with Carina, to force him to confess his feelings for her. They were there. He could see it, though Makepeace tried hard to keep them hidden. Quillan didn’t extend his hand. He put the hat on his head and went outside.

Alex stared as the door closed behind Quillan Shepard. His feelings were a hornet’s nest inside, but his head told him to be grateful. If the man hadn’t come back now, what might he have done? Lured Carina into a wrongful relationship? Lured her with kindness, compassion for her loveless state, the tenderness she longed for?

Quillan was an enigma. But Alex sensed that was about to change. What would he make of the paintings his father had left on the walls of that chamber? Alex shook his head slightly. His own father was as conventional and stolid as the state of Maine. Alex had never once wondered how the man felt on anything. Whatever the moral position, whatever the just cause, Victor Makepeace held to it. What would he think of his son’s conscience?

Alex sighed. He wouldn’t have to find out now. Quillan Shepard loved his wife. It was in the fierceness of his eyes, the tension of his jaw. And Quillan Shepard was not a man Alex cared to thwart. Not when rectitude lay with Quillan. God had intervened.

TWENTY-ONE

Hope is a lighthouse on a rocky shore luring me in through treacherous waters, promising safety.

—Carina

THE ROOM WAS EMPTY when Carina woke from a deeply restful sleep. Had Quillan somehow charmed her with his soft injunction and the touch of his hand on her head? She’d dreamt again of the soothing arms, the rocking of that strong and gentle embrace. It had to have been real for it to remain so firmly in her mind. Who had held her? Alex Makepeace?

She knew he was the one to gather her up when the attackers fled. And first she had been so sure it was his arms, his beard on her forehead, his chest that rocked her. But he hadn’t come even once since then to see her. Because Quillan came home? Of course. Alex wouldn’t come if Quillan were there.

Yet it didn’t feel right. Something didn’t fit in that picture. She hadn’t actually seen who held her, only sensed a tenderness, a love that she could only ascribe to Alex Makepeace. He’d never admitted such, but she knew it. Why now did the thought leave her feeling bleak?

Because she wished it was Quillan who had held her? His arms that had brought her such comfort in the darkest point of her sorrow? His mourning joining hers? Looking about the silent room, she felt his absence even as she felt the emptiness of her womb.

Was he gone? Would she learn today or tomorrow that he had slipped away, left again for someplace he found more tenable than her home? Carina looked at the empty space where the rocking chair had stood so briefly. She wished now she’d kept it. She would have crawled aboard and rocked, recalling the strong chest, the embracing arms. Whose? Did Mae know? Could she ask?

As though summoned by the thought, Mae tapped the door and came in. “Ah, you’re awake. Sleep well?”

“Like a baby.” Then a pang of sorrow swept her. Where did her baby sleep? In heaven? With the angels? With Rose’s lost child?

Mae bent and stoked the coals in her stove, then added wood that lay in piles of kindling along the wall. Someone had been busy. Quillan?

“Mae.” Carina pushed herself up farther in spite of the dull ache in her back. She wanted to ask but was afraid of the answer.

“If it’s the restaurant you’re worried about, don’t. Between Èmie, Lucia, me, and the twins, we’re opening the doors tonight.”

Carina stared. “But, Mae . . .”

“We all like to feel indispensable. But the truth is, we’re mostly not.”

Carina shook her head. “What have you found to serve?” They’d been scrambling to put together anything remotely like the meals she’d started with.

“Oh, I’m not sure. Èmie’s figured out the menu. Some of the recipes you’ve shown her before.”

“But that would take ingredients we don’t have. And . . . you can do it without me?”

“I’m not laying claim to anything. It’s Quillan’s doing.”

“Quillan!” Carina bolted up and winced.

“He brought a wagonload of things that look and smell like what you’re used to.”

Carina sank back with a huff. So. More gifts to bribe her. At least he had the good sense not to tell her.

“And he’s got us all doing our parts. He’s hard to ignore.”

Bene. Let him try to run her business for just one night. He’d see. He’d . . . but what if he did it? Oh! The man was impossible! She folded her arms across her chest.

“Now, there’s a look.”

Carina didn’t care how petulant her face was. She was not about to let Quillan take charge of her or her restaurant.

“You may as well face it, Carina. Quillan’s here to stay.”

“Hah. Where is he now?”

“On his way to the Rose Legacy with Mr. Makepeace.”

Carina’s eyes darted to the window. To the cave? With Alex? She bit her lip.
Signore, did I do right?
What if it was more than he could stand? It had hurt her to see the scenes. How would it be if it were her own papa? She pressed a hand to her breast.
Be with him,
Signore. Make him strong . . . and wise . . . and compassionate. Help
him understand
.

Tears stung her eyes as she prayed. Oh, Dio, she loved him. Furious as she was, she loved him!

Quillan reined in outside the Rose Legacy and dismounted as Alex Makepeace did the same. The air was crisp with the smell of snow. The foundation was hidden under snow already. But the mouth of the Rose Legacy yawned before him. As Quillan stood, a single snowflake touched his cheek and melted like a tear.

He looked up to the sky. It was partly clear, but tiny flakes darted about like fireflies. A snow shower, probably. Not a blizzard. He turned to Alex Makepeace. “We’ll tether the horses inside.”

Makepeace nodded. When the animals were secure, he took the thick coil of rope and attached it to the top of the shaft, using the spikes Quillan had driven into the timber to rescue Carina. Quillan remembered the exultation he’d felt when he realized she was alive. Had God directed him into that shaft? Did He direct him now?

“There’s a subterranean well directly beneath. The rope falls just to the right of it. When you land, watch your footing.”

Quillan nodded.

“Here.” Makepeace gave him a tin candle holder and three candles.

Quillan stashed them in the deep pockets of his buckskin coat. Then he took the rope and let himself down over the side of the shaft. He remembered how fatigued his muscles had been after fighting the flood, every movement a strain. Now his arms were strong.

He remembered the dream. Carrying Carina, climbing the shaft that wouldn’t end, his arms throbbing, cramping and shaking, and all the while Mrs. Shepard laughing.
“You’ ll never be anything but a
savage like your father.”
And the laugh. The diabolical laugh.

Her laugh had lost its power to horrify him. He knew now the illness from which it sprang. So why did he feel such a sense of foreboding letting himself down the rope into the darkness of his father’s mine? No, not his mine—this cave, this natural orifice Wolf had opened up.

Down, down, Quillan descended hand over hand until his feet struck bottom. He landed, signaled with the rope, and stared into total darkness. A chill settled in his spine. This was hell, this total void, this depravation of senses, as terrifying a hell, as everlasting flames. He felt the rope jump as Alex Makepeace started down it.

Quillan stepped away carefully to the right. He dug into his pocket, found the candle holder, and jammed a candle into the socket. Holding both the candle and the matchbox in his left hand, he struck a match and lit the wick. The relief from that little glow was enormous.

Makepeace dropped beside him and lit his own candle while Quillan raised his light and circled slowly. Alex Makepeace held his up as well, motioning toward the ceiling. He spoke softly. “Bats. If we’re careful we won’t disturb them.” He lowered the candle. “Floor’s slippery as well.”

Quillan nodded. He had never been deep inside the earth before. Not even into the New Boundless more than the span of the short drift that Cain had driven. He felt the immensity of the stone around him like a giant tomb. He studied the size and shape of the spikes on floor and ceiling, some connecting like pillars.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Alex Makepeace’s voice held both awe and appreciation.

“It is.”

“The chamber’s this way.” Alex swung his arm and started across the cavern floor. “First time we came down, the bats showed us which direction to go.”

We. Makepeace and Carina in this dark place together. Quillan tightened his jaw. A low moan started and wailed over them. Stopped dead and clutching his candle firmly, Quillan shuddered.

“It’s the wind through an orifice in the painted chamber.”

But it wasn’t. Quillan’s feet felt frozen to the floor. It was a sound that had haunted his dreams from his earliest years. He knew it, but how? He forced one foot to lift and then the next, thankful for the dimness that kept his terror from being apparent to Alex Makepeace.

“Mrs. Shepard wasn’t wild about it either.”

Quillan stared ahead as they walked. Carina had gone this way, seen what he would see, felt what he felt now.

“Probably nerves. I shouldn’t have left her alone there. She wanted to study the pictures, so I went exploring.” Makepeace tried to seem casual, but to Quillan he sounded overly familiar with his wife.
He
shouldn’t have left her alone? He shouldn’t have been there at all.

“How many times did you come?”

“Twice.” Alex ducked between two spikes that nearly met and continued on. “Found the chamber the first time when the bats made their exit. Mrs. Shepard did not enjoy the bats.”

Quillan heard the humor in his voice and seethed. What right had this man to be alone with Carina in a treacherous place? Was she frightened? Had he soothed her? Quillan remembered her reaction to the rattlesnake. Had she clung to Makepeace when the bats startled her?

The cavern narrowed and lowered into a passage. Quillan followed, hoping Alex Makepeace wasn’t leading him down some dark tunnel where he’d lose him and have Carina for himself. Where were these thoughts coming from? Some animal fear conjured by the darkness, the sense of being swallowed alive?

Makepeace stopped in front of him. “It’s just ahead here. Quillan . . .” He glanced back over his shoulder. “Well, I’ll let you see for yourself.” He stepped aside.