“What do you have to say, Mr. Parrish?” asked Officer Rigney, giving Hallie a severe stare that was meant to silence her.
It didn’t work. “He has nothing to say. He’s in a state of shock, poor man. You would be, too, if you’d been shot by a maniac and then had to endure agonizing surgery without the benefit of chloroform.”
The policeman paled visibly at her words, “Ur—I hadn’t realized—”
“Obviously.” Hallie narrowed her eyes at the now squirming policeman. “Tell me, Officer Rigney, do you have children?”
“Five.”
“Then as a father you can understand how distressing it is for a man to have a sickly child. Why, Mr. Parrish walked the floor with the poor darling all night long, refusing to let anyone relieve him of his duty. And now the babe is motherless.”
Such a dramatic little liar! thought Jake, yawning. Why she practically had that hard-boiled policeman in tears as she continued spinning her yarns about his sickly daughter and his own devotion to the virtues of fatherhood. He would have to remind his Mission Lady that lying was a sin. He yawned again and could feel his eyes rolling. Damn it! Things were just getting entertaining and here he was, barely able to keep awake.
“Is this true, Mr. Parrish?” Officer Rigney looked at Jake Parrish with a respect that had absolutely nothing to do with the immense size of his monthly donations to the policemen’s fund.
“Sure.”
“Good.” The man scratched at his notes once more and then frowned. “Ur—excuse me, sir. But how did Mr. Tyler happen to be with you when you found your wife? When he summoned us, he mentioned that he could vouch for your—ur—innocence.”
“Mr. Tyler?” Hallie gave Jake an accusatory stare. So Seth had been with Jake, and it appeared that he had been the one to send for the police. That was why he was downstairs pacing a hole in the parlor carpet. Oh, Lord! Why hadn’t Jake told her about Seth Tyler’s part in all of this?
Jake fixed his bleary green eyes on Officer Rigney for a moment, and Hallie held her breath. God only knew what he would say, given his besotted state.
“Seth Tyler loves children,” he finally replied, closing his eyes and rubbing at them wearily. “You see, Mr. Tyler is my business partner and it is customary for us to meet early in the morning to plan our day’s agenda. It’s not unusual for Seth to accompany my daughter and me for a walk. The babe is rather taken with him, like all the ladies, though she’s only two months old.”
“Good. Very good!” The man smartly snapped his tablet closed and stuffed it back into his pocket. “I don’t see any reason to pursue this—ur—interview any further. Your word and that of Mr. Tyler are enough for me.” With that, he rose to his feet. “Ur—about Cyrus King. Would you like to press charges?”
Jake heaved a weary sigh. “No. Just hold him overnight. That should give him enough time to come to his senses.”
“As you wish.” The officer shook Jake’s hand politely. “I’ll leave you to your rest now, sir. Sorry to have to question you. It’s—ur—standard procedure, you see.”
“I see. Thank you, Officer Rigney. You will keep me informed on any findings regarding this matter?”
“Of course.” After nodding his head in Hallie’s direction, the man left. There was the sound of heavy booted feet echoing down the hallway, and then silence.
Hallie glared down at Jake’s drowsy face. “You had an alibi?”
“Yes. Seth and I competed in a rowing contest this morning. Against Judge Dorner and Police Chief Devlin, no less. Hell of an alibi, wouldn’t you agree?” Jake grinned like a half-crocked idiot. “Oh. We won the race.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t ask. Besides, I was hardly in any condition to mention it while you were probing at my wound.”
She let out a snort of exasperation. Those snorts were becoming quite a habit with her these days. “You could have stopped me before I’d become so entrenched in my lies.”
“True.” He yawned and poked at the poultice on his side. The damn thing hurt. “But I didn’t want you to stop.”
“Enjoyed making a Mission Lady lie, did you?” Hallie gently lifted his hand away from his wound and folded it in her warm clasp. “I know it hurts, Jake. But it will feel worse if you keep prodding it.”
“Fine. I won’t prod. But I also won’t apologize for making you he. I’ve stood up for others all my life, and I’ve always tried to help those who needed me. But this is the first time anyone has ever done it for me. And with such flair, I might add.” He yawned and then closed his eyes. His last words were barely audible. “It was wonderful. You were wonderful.”
“Jake?”
His only response was a soft snore.
With loving hands, Hallie tucked the blankets around his shoulders and smoothed the hair off his face. She watched him for a few moments, filling her heart with every detail of his handsome face. He looked almost childlike as he slept, with his long eyelashes resting in inky crescents on his cheeks and his lips slightly parted. Trembling, she traced the beautiful shape of his mouth with her thumb. When he didn’t stir, she bent down and gently kissed him, savoring the feel of his lips against hers.
“I love you, Jake,” she whispered fervently. “I love you.”
And when she finally tiptoed from the room, Jake Parrish smiled.
Chapter 11
Jake awoke with a start as a burning log gave a sharp crackle and then tumbled within the glowing confines of the fireplace.
Gunshot. He panicked for a moment, fighting through the last vestiges of the sleep misting his mind. Guns and fire. Terror. Pain.
Jesus! He was suffocating from the smoke-blackened air, air thick with gunpowder from the reports of a thousand rifles. The screams of men as they lay dying among the heaps of human carnage deafened him. It was like a scene from Dante’s Inferno when the fiery canopy of tree branches collapsed, igniting the bed of dry grass upon which they lay. As the flames fed on the tortured bodies of the fallen soldiers, the smell of burning flesh permeated Jake’s nostrils, and he felt himself choke on his own vomit.
He had to run … had to get away. Jake tried to take a step forward, but as if he were a fly trapped on flypaper, his feet stuck firmly to the ground. His legs felt like forged iron, stiff and impossibly heavy, and his arms hung paralyzed at his sides. Death was everywhere, stalking him. Yet he couldn’t escape.
Jake sobbed as he felt the leather of his favorite chair give pliantly beneath his hands. Only a dream. He had been dreaming of Virginia again. Hellish inferno. The Wilderness.
Shivering violently, he ground his fists hard against his eyes, desperately trying to chase the lingering apparitions from his mind. Would these nightmares never cease?
Nightmares? But the pictures always seemed so real! And such was their power that they often haunted him well into the daylight hours, their dark memory casting a pall of shadow and a midnight chill over the cheerful warmth of the morning sun.
Go away, damn it! he commanded the visions. Leave me in peace. Mercifully, they obeyed.
Yet he felt no peace.
Tipping his head back against his chair, Jake at last lowered his hands and stared into the fire. He wondered vaguely, without any real interest, who had lit it. Whoever it was must have crept into the room as quietly as the falling night, for he couldn’t remember being disturbed from his slumbers. Of course, he always slept deeply when he was in the gut-wrenching clutches of one of his nightmares.
There was a soft knock, followed by a low creaking as the door eased open.
“Jake?”
He glanced across the library to see Hallie framed in the doorway, her slender figure silhouetted in the light from the gas lamps flickering in the hallway. As she paused to steady the heavily laden tray in her hands, Jake could see she was gnawing at her bottom hp. Even in the dimness of the roo
m and at a distance, he could read the anxiety on her face.
Remaining politely by the door, Hallie waited for some signal or gesture of encouragement from Jake. When it didn’t come, she slowly advanced toward him. Like a blind person she moved in a cautiously halting shuffle as she tried to accustom her eyes to the darkness. She could see Jake’s slightly averted profile outlined against the glow of the fire, and when he didn’t turn at her approach, she wondered if he slept.
Jake listened to the crisp whispers of Hallie’s silk skirts as she closed the gap between them. He knew she had reached his side when the soft hissing was abruptly silenced.
“Is it over?” he asked quietly, not looking up from the fire.
“Yes. The last of the guests have left.”
“Good.”
“Everyone said it was a wonderful funeral.”
Jake let out a harsh bark of laughter and stared up at her incredulously. “Wonderful? Somehow, I fail to see anything wonderful about death, or anything even remotely related to the event.”
“They’re your friends, Jake. They meant well.” Hallie fidgeted with the tray, feeling increasingly uncomfortable beneath his brooding stare. She hadn’t expected him to be in a pleasant mood, and he wasn’t.
“Friends? Hell! I didn’t even recognize half the people here today,” he exclaimed with disgust. “Most were gossipmongers and curiosity seekers, I suspect. After all, there’s nothing people love more than to see the mighty fall.” His mouth twisted ironically. “The others? Acquaintances, at best. Only a handful can be counted as real friends. Of course, there were those who came for the free food.”
“Of which you need to eat.” Hallie held out the tray for his inspection. When he didn’t even glance at the food, she coaxed, “Celine said these are all your favorite dishes. Look, she even baked you one of her special rhubarb pies.” She moved the tray beneath Jake’s nose temptingly, sending the delicious scents wafting in all directions.
But he merely sighed and returned his gaze to the fire.
Hallie frowned as she studied his face in the dim light. Lord! The man looked dreadful. His eyes were like darkly shadowed pools in the pallor of his face, the smoky green orbs providing the only hint of color on an otherwise white canvas. And though Jake’s clothing was immaculate, as always, the unrelieved black of the mourning suit served only to further emphasize his unhealthy appearance. Every now and then he would tremble violently, and when he shifted in his chair, a spasm of pain exploded across his features.
But what disturbed Hallie most was the weariness that sat heavily on every line of his face. It wasn’t the kind of weariness that came simply from lack of sleep or from a hard day’s work. It was the soul-sickening kind, the kind that came from utter defeat. It was an expression usually reserved for those who had been crushed and beaten by life—a life which Jake Parrish, at thirty-three, had only just begun to sample.
Hallie set the tray on the tea table next to his chair, grimacing with distaste as she pushed the almost empty whiskey decanter as far from him as possible. Even at this distance she could smell the overpowering scent of liquor that clung to him. Though Hallie suspected he’d been drinking heavily since the night before, she couldn’t find it in her heart to condemn him for his indulgence. Not after all he’d been through.
Only hours after being wounded, Jake had insisted on dressing and greeting the hordes of mourners himself. Stubbornly, he had ignored Hallie’s pleas that he rest, wincing as she bound his midsection tightly. By the time Hop Yung arrived to help him dress, Jake was shaking with weakness and Hallie was certain he was on the verge of collapse.
Yet, as each of the callers had expressed condolences, Jake had risen politely, never once revealing the agony she knew him to be suffering. Like the devoted husband, he remained by the side of his wife’s casket, nodding somberly as everyone commented on how lovely Serena looked. When the last of the visitors departed, Jake disappeared into his library, not reemerging until the following morning.
It was nothing short of miraculous that he’d been able to endure the long funeral service and had made the tedious trek to the cemetery afterward. More amazing yet was the fact that he wasn’t now in bed delirious with fever from his exertions.
Kneeling in front of him with her hands clasped in a manner reminiscent of a sinner praying for forgiveness, Hallie murmured, “You’re going to make yourself ill if you don’t rest. Why don’t I have Hop help you to bed?”
“I’m all right.”
“Half-drunk, maybe,” she snapped as he reached for the whiskey and poured himself a healthy measure. “But not all right. Look at yourself! You’re shaking so badly, I doubt you could walk even if the house was on fire. You need to put something in your stomach besides liquor, and you should be in bed with a hot brick at your feet.”
He merely snorted and drained the entire contents of his glass in one gulp.
“Jake, I understand how much it hurts to lose someone you love.” Hallie gently pried the empty tumbler from his hand and set it aside. Clasping both his trembling hands in her steady ones, she said, “After my mother died, I found it helped to talk about the pain. You can talk to me if you want.”
Jake stared at her through narrowed eyes for a moment before growling, “Fine. Then let’s talk about how your jabbering is making my head throb. Or would you rather hear about my side? It feels as if someone is stabbing it with a red-hot poker. Ah, yes. And my leg does rather ache, now that you mention it. There. We’ve discussed my pain. Are you happy now?”
“You know that’s not what I meant.” Hallie dropped his hand and sat back on her heels, sighing with exasperation. He really was a difficult man!
“Sorry to disappoint you, Mission Lady. But those are the only pains I’m feeling at this moment. What did you expect? Tearful confessions from the grieving widower?”
“I expected you to-feel something.” How could he sit there looking so remote? Had she been wrong in thinking Jake Parrish a good man? Was she as foolish as her mother had been, becoming enamored of a handsome face and endowing its owner with all kinds of noble attributes that in reality didn’t exist? The uneasy thought made Hallie’s heart give a sudden flip-flop.
Looking away from his rigid features, she choked out, “I realize things weren’t right between you and Serena, but by your own admission you loved her once. I thought you might still have cared a little bit. I thought you might even have found it in your heart to mourn her.”
In a lightning-quick motion, Jake shot forward and roughly grasped Hallie’s shoulders. Muttering a foul oath at the burning sensation that lanced through his side, he hauled her close until their faces were only inches apart.
“Damn it, Hallie! Do you think I would have endured the company of that pack of vultures today if I didn’t care?” His hands trembled badly as they tightened on her flesh. “Do you?”
She shook her head mutely. The expression in his eyes was as frigid and mercurial as a storm-swept sea. With a shudder, she looked away, frightened by the intensity of that gaze.
“Look at me, damn it!” Jake seized Hallie’s chin and jerked her face toward his, ignoring her struggles to escape. “You think I’m a cold, heartless bastard, don’t you? Ah, well, perhaps you’re right. But before you condemn me in that self-righteous little mind of yours, hear this: I left my bed to play the grieving husband, not because I care what society thinks of me but because it was the last thing I could do to honor Serena’s memory.”
He smiled grimly as Hallie stilled in the punishing bonds of his grasp. “Oh, and don’t think I haven’t mourned, either,” he ground out. “I have—deeper than you’ll ever know. You see, Mission Lady, because of her all-consuming hatred of me and her subsequent alienation, Serena has been dead to me for years. Given her feelings, what choice did I have but to learn to live with the loss of the woman I loved? And I accepted that loss long ago. So don’t expect
tears now, for I have none left to shed!”
Jake released Hallie abruptly, his face twisted with bitterness. Rubbing at her abused shoulders, she watched, without comment, as he poured another drink and tossed it down his throat. Then, with a growl that seemed to give voice to his raw emotions, he hurled his glass forcefully against the marble surface of the fireplace, and as the tinkle of shattered glass echoed in the silence of the room, he buried his face in his hands. He sat like that for a long moment, his shoulders shaking convulsively.
“Jake?” Hallie whispered, wondering if he was weeping. “I’m sorry. I-I didn’t understand.” When he lifted his head to meet her gaze, his face was filled with such terrible bleakness that her heart ached for him.
“And you still don’t. How could you, a spinster, ever understand what it’s like to lose someone with whom you’ve been intimate?” Jake’s lips tightened into a harsh line.
“Oh, I’m not talking merely about the carnal intimacies,” he continued in a raspy voice, “although those in themselves are nothing short of miraculous when shared with someone you love. No, I’m talking about the freedom to share your innermost thoughts, no matter how silly or frivolous they might sound, and know that the other person will understand exactly what you mean. It’s having someone to whom you can express your fears, pain, and disappointments and know you’ll still be loved despite your failings. It’s caring for someone more than you care for yourself and knowing she feels the same. When you lose all that, it’s like losing a piece of your soul.”
He was right. She didn’t fully understood the nature of his grief, though she could see it in every line of his face and hear it in the emotional texture of his words. Hallie slipped her hands into his to give them a reassuring squeeze. But Jake’s fingers didn’t close around hers, and there was no answering pressure. He simply stared at her impassively for a moment before firmly disengaging himself.
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