Jasper Mountain (34 page)

Isabella closed her eyes, and let the thoughts in, the ones making her sick to her soul. Not that she had one. What she did have were suspicions. The fire. The timing troubled her. She knew from experience anything coincidental usually was not. The destruction of her Boarding House might have come from anyone, but somehow she didn’t think so. If Victor was involved, and she suspected he was, Jasper was now a different world for her. Well, she’d rise to any task.

It was time she see if the Gypsy was worth her weight in crystal balls. Isabella headed for Milena. The Gypsy made her way across the room and leaned over the bed of Mr. Browsly, whose hair and eyebrows had been singed off. A homely man, his missing eyebrows actually improved his appearance. Milena administered salve to the man’s face. A natural healer. What a shame she hadn’t been born a man. She would have made a wonderful doctor.

Finally, Milena finished and stood.

“Milena, do you have a moment to join me on the porch for some air?”

“Yes, Proprietress.”

“Really, you don’t have to call me that anymore. I have nothing left to proprietor over.”

Glad to be away from the fluttering moans of ladies, Isabella felt herself relax once she crossed the threshold of the clinic. A cough exploded from her. She pulled out her lace hankie, as bedraggled as everything else, and she wondered if she’d ever get all the smoke out of her lungs.

Isabella continued, “I apologize for striking you. Most uncalled for and uncivilized.”

“You were upset.”

“Certainly I know you aren’t responsible for the future.”

Interesting, the slight flash of guilt across Milena’s features. “I did know something was coming,” the Gypsy said, almost apologizing. “I just did not see what. Or from where.”

“How terribly frustrating for you.” Isabella watched her sarcasm hit the mark. Milena’s guilt intensified. “At least you and Beth were not in residence, didn’t have to go through this.”

“Beth was not there?” Milena asked in complete surprise.

“Luke disclosed a most distressing subterfuge. Beth took a filthy, foulmouthed miner as a lover. I couldn’t very well have such a liaison going on beneath my nose. I sent her packing. But Victor couldn’t possibly know. You, my dear, smacked him right out of action, didn’t you?”

“He attacked me.”

“He didn’t realize you were gone, either.”

Milena’s expression turned thoughtful, widened into shock, and finally, disgust tinged with some disbelief. “Proprietress, do you believe he set the fire for revenge? On me, on Beth?”

“I have my suspicions. Milena, can you really see things? Can you see if he had anything to do with this?”

Milena shook her head. “He is evil, Proprietress.”

“Yes, well, you haven’t told me anything I don’t already know. I suppose I’m fortunate,” Isabella continued. “Victor called me to his bedside just as this happened. I would have tried to save my paintings. Very well might have been my undoing.”

Milena raised her eyebrows. “Victor Creely called you away before the fire?”

“Yes. Actually, my dear, it strikes me as very unusual. He rarely summons me out of the Boarding House. I suppose I have him to thank for my life, what’s left of it.” She looked at Milena intently. “Are you sure you can’t see anything? Do you need to look in your crystal ball or something?”

Again, Isabella’s acerbic wit was not lost. Milena had the grace to look embarrassed.

“Here is what I really wonder. Luke, my strong-arm man. He’s been with me for some time. The only way Victor would find out about Beth and her miner is if Luke told him.” She watched Milena closely. The Gypsy didn’t know a thing. No matter. She would figure out who was responsible. Who destroyed her world. And make him sorry forever.

“Heavens, I do hate men. They are so overt in their dealings, don’t you think? Their callous ways must come from their sex dangling in their pants. Must be awful for them.”

Isabella left Milena immersed in propriety’s shock. Really, these women crumpled too easily. She thought she’d taught them better.

Something was terribly wrong.

Jack sensed it, even in his sleep. He opened his eyes to morning light. He lay on his side, his back burning. Jesus, he was sick and tired of pain. He tried to move, but his joints had stiffened almost to beyond moving. Served him right for sleeping on the ground, but he wasn’t about to sleep on a bed with a woman on the floor, so he’d traded last night with Claire. He creaked up to a sitting position and saw Claire, sleeping soundly on the bed to one side of him. He turned to the other bed, Cassandra’s.

Empty.

Panic pushed him to his feet. Despite light pouring in the windows, most everyone in the room still slept. Taryn sat propped against the wall, dozing, and Milena curled around Mouse. His heartstrings pulled to see them together, but worry kept him focused.

No doctor. No Cassandra.

Carefully, Jack stepped over inert forms, making his way to the doctor’s private room. Victor being long gone, the doctor must have moved Cassandra there for her comfort and privacy. As Jack rounded the corner he first saw the long table with bottles, concoctions of who-knew-what, sparkling with different colors and sending up an antiseptic and pungent scent.

Next, the bed came into his view.

A sheet completely covered a body on the bed. The doctor leaned his elbows on the mattress, his head buried in his hands.

“Oh, God, no,” Jack whispered. Ambrose didn’t move. Jack pulled a chair up next to him. The doctor didn’t even look up.

Jack remembered the girl under the sheet, Cassandra. Quiet, unassuming, so young for the life of the Boarding House. Weren’t they mostly very young? Cassy was shy, too. She didn’t flirt or demand attention. A gentle girl living a lonely life the best way she knew how.

“Doc?” Jack asked softly, mindful he was in the presence of the dearly departed. Dear, indeed. “Ambrose? Can I help?” Ambrose raised his head. Sorrow haunted his eyes. “I loved her.” “I’m sure she knew,” Jack answered.

Ambrose shook his head, staring at the far wall. “No. She didn’t. I never told her.” His voice sharpened with shame. “One mustn’t admit to loving a whore.”

“Ambrose—”

“I knew I loved her. I’d never admit it, not to her, not to me. Let me tell you what else I knew. Cassy loved me.” His voice broke. “She was brave enough to tell me. Brave enough and honest enough.” He laughed, a sound so bitter it curled through Jack’s heart. “Me? I’m a coward. The worst kind.”

Jack had no answer, no words of comfort. There were none for this.

“There’s no excuse. Especially for me.” The doctor put his head back in his hands, muffling his words. “Go away. Please. Just go away.”

Jack knew how it felt, losing someone you love and the heaviness of regret. He thought of the mysterious, quirky woman sleeping in the other room, taking care of others, holding a little deaf boy through the night.

Did he need to admit something, to himself at least?

He sat beside Ambrose, trying to feel something and name it. The only thing in him was an empty place in his chest. He decided not to break into the doctor’s mourning, not to tell him he’d survive, he’d go on, that time would help. Really, there was nothing to do. No way around such pain, except to hit it straight on and push through it.

Taryn appeared in the doorway. At the sound of rustling, Ambrose looked up. “Reverend,” he said, and stood, walking to look out the window as if he searched for answers somewhere in the landscape of Jasper. Jack knew there were none.

“You did everything possible for her,” Taryn said.

“Did I?” The doctor whirled to face them. His hip bumped the table, and bottles clinked in a chorus. “I’m not sure of any such thing, Reverend.”

“She’s in a good place, Ambrose,” Jack managed to say.

Anger sparked, extinguishing the dull misery in the doctor’s eyes. “Surely she’s in hell. Ask the minister. Cassy was a whore.”

“She was a gentle soul who did no harm,” Taryn answered back without pause. “God is forgiving. She’s in a good place, Ambrose. I have no doubt.”

“And I have nothing but doubts!” Ambrose clenched his fist and pounded the table. Bottles knocked over and one fell to the floor and shattered. “I’m not even sure there is a God. Not after this.”

“There is. Especially when you need him.” Taryn moved close to the doctor and laid a hand on his shoulder. Jack stayed back. The minister should handle this, and Taryn, up to the task, continued. “I’m also sure of your skill and dedication and Cassy’s kind heart. She didn’t suffer, Ambrose. That’s what matters.”

“She never woke up.” He put both hands on the table and leaned over it, his middle caving like someone punched him.

“Sometimes we don’t know why things happen. God has a divine plan, and Cassy is part of it. She’s with him and, finally, has peace.”

“And the Boarding House fire? Someone started it. That’s what they’re saying. Someone threw a flaming bottle through a downstairs window. People heard it. Saw it. Was that part of God’s plan?”

“Ambrose—”

“And what kind of God stands by and watches this happen? Watches a young girl die?”

“I won’t deny the evil in this world, Ambrose. In our line of work, you and I both face mankind’s dark side every day, but there is good, too, great good. Cassy was human; she had her failings, her frailties. We all do.” He stopped for a second, gathering his thoughts. “Ambrose, do you remember your trip on the stagecoach?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Humor me.”

“Of course I remember.”

“And the stations, each with its own laws? Different flavors, completely different ways of living?” Ambrose nodded.

“This life is like one of those stops at a coach station. It has its own rules and laws and ways. We feel isolated and are afraid this is all there is, but this life isn’t the end. There is so much more beyond. If one is brave enough to go.”

Ambrose blinked.

“Cassy was brave enough to board the coach, move forward,” Taryn said. “Her journey is just beginning, Doctor. Not ending.

Not at all.”

The doctor turned away. Taryn placed a hand on his back.

Damn the minister. Jack found himself comforted by his words. Almost back to believing in something again. Thanks to the woman in the other room, he knew something existed beyond this world, things he didn’t see or sense. Just when he’d thought this miserable life was not worth living, Milena came. With her came complications he never asked for, but somehow, knew he couldn’t live without. He needed her. Plain and simple.

Jack thought of Jo, Tom, Stoop. The dead walked through Jasper, searching, but Jack hoped God existed, too, and would gather the ghosts at some point, end their helpless wandering.

He prayed the master of the stagecoach stop believed in forgiving.

J
ack limped, but by God, he was on his feet. Walking hurt like hell, but it was a damned sight better than lying around feeling sorry for himself. And he’d come straight to the lion’s den. Of course Victor made him wait. Jack cleared his throat and Edmund once again looked up from his desk, along with the entire room of pinched-nosed officers.

Jack was in a terribly uncharitable mood. Funny how a raging fire, death, and destruction did that to a man.

“Are you sure I can’t get you anything, Jack? Do you need to sit?” Edmund asked.

“No, thanks. Victor knows I’m here?”

Turtle sniffed. “He has quite important matters to attend to since he’s been absent for some days.”

“You docking him?” Beyond giving a damn what any of the officers or Victor thought of him, Jack didn’t care how bad the question sounded. He knew the mine president left him waiting on purpose.

“No, however I have notated it’s afternoon and you haven’t clocked in yet.” He returned to his ledger. Cretin. Yep, bad mood for sure.

A bell tinkled from behind the closed door of Victor’s office.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Jack grumbled.

Edmund jumped to his feet. “One moment, Jack.” He slipped into the office and closed the door behind him. A few seconds later, he came out. “Victor will see you.”

Jack summoned up all his courage, his anger, and his frustration, and entered into the upper-crust world of Victor Creely.

The mine president sat behind his expansive mahogany desk, nothing about him friendly or welcoming. The bruising on his face had changed to a sickly yellow color, and his skin looked waxy. His eyes burned.

“Jack.”

He came farther in, his footsteps muffled by plush carpet. “Victor. How are you?”

“Never better. You?”

“I kinda hurt some. Quite a fire down at the Boarding House.”

“I’ve heard all the accounts and actually, I’m very busy.” Victor returned his attention to the ledger before him.

“Everyone’s trying to figure out who’s responsible. They say someone tossed a torch through the window. Who would want to burn the place down?”

“Every woman in Jasper. As I said, I’m very busy.” Jack flopped his packet on the desk and Victor stared at it. “I’m a mite busy myself.” He nodded to the papers, bound together by twine. “This includes everything.”