by Jill Barnett
His knee pushed a forbidden path between her upper thighs, shoving yards of fabric through her legs while his hands held her hips. His tight thigh nudged upward as she straddled it, saddlelike. She rode his parrying body movements, guided by his tutoring hands. The hard, bulging muscle of his thigh slid upward and against her.
Her body soared, as if the very spirit of her was dancing, round and round in a fast circle. At the same time her nether region drummed toward some lofty peak that hung right above her, almost within reach. Awe of what lay beyond kept her hovering near some unknown, frightening edge. And her body drove her movements—movements she couldn’t seem to control.
Surely she was going to die! She needed air! Inhaling deeply through her nose, she tried to fill that need.
It was her last conscious thought.
Hallie went limp. She sagged against Kit’s chest. The first thought in his passion-muddled mind was that she peaked, but he was wrong. Her breathing was slow and in no way resembled the urgent pant of repletion.
Kit grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back to see what was wrong. Her head lolled forward, rocking lightly like a cork at sea.
Alarm throbbed in his head. His sense moved from within his taut body back to his mind. He grasped her under the arms and lifted her off his leg. Bending, he picked her up and sat down on the stairs with her draped across his lap. Her head rested on his supporting arm, he stared at her pale face.
“Hallie?”
Nothing happened.
“Wake up, sweet.” He stroked her cheek.
Still nothing.
“Hallie!” Kit raised his voice, patting her cheek with rapid but gentle little slaps. “Wake up!”
Her head moved from side to side.
“Oh hell! Hallie, come on, wake up!” Kit shook her shoulders.
Her lips moved but he couldn’t make out the words. He rubbed her cheeks, hard. “What? I can’t hear you.”
With her eyes still closed, Hallie whispered, “I’m a pig.”
She thinks she’s a pig? What have I done? He uttered a vile curse and Hallie came around. She opened her eyes and blinked up at him.
“Do I still have my feet?” she asked.
Her feet? Kit leaned closer to examine her dazed eyes. He watched her expression clear and knew the moment she was fully conscious.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You fainted,” he answered, trying to see how much she remembered. He wondered about that pig business. Did she think she was soiled because their kiss exploded into touches more intimate? Good Lord, how was he going to explain? And what about her feet? Kit looked at them. He didn’t see anything wrong.
“Can you wiggle your toes?” he asked.
“Of course. Why?”
Kit sighed. “You asked me if you still had your feet.”
Hallie frowned for a second and then giggled. It was infectious, and he was relieved . . . vastly releived. He smiled, too, he couldn’t help himself. Those childlike dimples did strange things to the pit of his stomach.
“I was confused,” she explained. “You see I thought I was a pig—”
“Wait! Hold it right there. You are not a pig, Hallie. I need to explain some things to you.” He couldn’t look at her innocent face when he explained that what happened wasn’t her fault. “There are some things, some feelings, we can’t control. What happened was a . . . reaction. I’m older and more experienced. You did nothing wrong. I shouldn’t have let myself go like that.”
Hallie’s joyful face fell. She looked so disappointed, so abandoned. He felt like hell.
She looked down at her fidgeting fingers. “I guess you didn’t really mean it?” she quietly asked.
How was he supposed to answer that? What did he mean by what he had done?
“You don’t have to feel obligated to us. I can take care of the kids. I don’t need any help, really. I understand how you must have felt sorry for me and promised something that you can’t do. Don’t worry, I understand. You’re a busy man—”
“What are you talking about?”
“You promised to help, to take care of us. Earlier, before the . . .” Hallie colored slightly, “the little kiss.”
Little kiss? Any more little kisses like that and his blood would evaporate. Then her words registered. She jumped at his bark of laughter. She thought he was abandoning them. She didn’t feel soiled. Her eyes narrowed at his laughter, and he wanted to explain but he needed a moment to stop laughing.
“I don’t think it’s funny, Kit!”
“Don’t get all riled up. I meant what I said about helping you. That wasn’t what I was talking about.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No, Hallie-girl. I’ll do anything I can for you and the children. Your father left some documents naming a guardian.”
“Who?”
“Me,” Kit answered with a spark of pride.
She appeared horrified. “You’re our guardian?”
“It’s mostly for financial reasons. I’ll handle the last consignments and transfer the funds, pay any bills, handle the sale of the Sea Haven, you understand, the business end of things.”
“Sell the ship?” Hallie sat erect. “You’re going to sell Da’s ship?”
“He left it to me. I have my own business to run.”
“You are truly going to sell the Sea Haven,” she said flatly.
“What would I do with a ship?” Up went his defenses. He’d just gone through this with Lee. “There isn’t a big market for whaleships. Look at the bay.”
“Sell it to who?”
How would she react if he told her the truth? The Sea Haven would be made into land fill. The collar on Kit’s shirt suddenly shrunk, a good inch. “No one you would know,” he evaded. “Now let’s decide what to do about the children.”
“I asked you a question. To whom are you selling the ship?”
His jaw ached from clenching it. “Dickson and Hay.”
“They’re land agents. What would they want a ship for?” Hallie was thinking, and Kit could almost smell the smoke. “They’re selling water lots, right?”
“What do you know about that?”
“I can read, Kit Howland! What is happening in the bay was on the front page of the Alta. I know those men are making a lot of money selling water acreage. All they have to do is fill the shallow lots and—” Hallie clamped her mouth shut and her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
Her look made Kit want to disappear.
“You wouldn’t,” she denied, shaking her head and glaring at the same time. She stood up so fast he was dizzy.
“Fill! You’re going to sell the ship for fill! And you call yourself my father’s friend? He loved that ship. There is no way I will let you destroy the Sea Haven!”
“Selling the ship is in your best interests.” Kit stood up. “You’re too young to understand, but you’ll thank you in time, Hallie-girl.”
“You weren’t treating me like a girl a few moments ago.” Her words were syrup. “You . . . you heartless bastard!”
“You’re upset. I’ll talk to you later.” He left her standing there, unwilling to argue with her and feeling uneasy. He rounded the corner and headed into the street.
Hallie’s last words followed him. “How much will you get for it, thirty pieces of silver?”
Four hours later Hallie was still so mad she felt like kicking the stove barefoot. Instead, she pulled out the fire box under the black range and shoveled out the coal ash. Dumping the chalky powder into a tin pail, she stopped now and then to rescue a salvageable chunk of fuel. Clouds of soot puffed around her while she worked with a vengeance.
The frenzy of cleaning felt good and helped to her vent. Her latest chore finished, she disposed of the ashes and cleaned up
the dirty floor. Exhausted, Hallie sank back against the welcome support of the stove, pressing her sore shoulders against its water reserve. Still half full of hot water, the metal tank radiated soothing warmth right through her tired muscles. She stretched out her long legs.
She was exhausted, and deep within her, completely disillusioned. When God handed out judgment, she must have been in line for a second helping of stupidity. How could both she and Da have been so wrong about Kit’s character, or lack thereof?
Obviously, she thought with her heart instead of her head, but Da, well, he always knew exactly what he was doing. He seldom made mistakes. There was no way she would let Kit Howland, her father’s traitorous ex-friend, sell that ship for fill.
The Sea Haven would be broken into masses of splintered wood and bent metal. Then it would be buried under piles of garbage, dirt, and sand. Hallie wasn’t sure what she’d do about the ship, but she’d darn well do something. She snuggled closer to the comforting warmth of the water reservoir, and her heavy eyelids drifted closed.
She awoke with a start. Her nose twitched at a charred smell, and her first thought was that she’d gotten coal ashes up her nose. Wiping at it with one finger, she sniffed, but the odor was too strong, too fumey.
Hallie smelled smoke.
Chapter Ten
Jolting upright, Hallie ran to the back door. As she jerked it open, clamorous shouts rumbled up from the street. Thick smoke sat like fog in the cool night air. Wind mixed with the fumes, shooting a wave of hot air and cinders right at her. She slammed the door and, clinging to the knob, paused to wipe the ash from her eyes. The knob suddenly heated, burning her fingers. She turned to a small window where an eerie orange glow swelled from the west. Once again, San Francisco was on fire.
Racing upstairs, Hallie flung open her bedroom door. Its loud crash awakened both Liv and Dagny. As soon as Hallie yelled “Fire!” both girls scurried through the room, randomly grabbing possessions.
“There’s no time for that!” Hallie shouted. “Just grab your shoes—you’ll need them.” Hallie turned to get the boys just as flames exploded through the roof like an incandescent tornado. Red flames and blasting, undulant heat tore through the crumbling roof, buffeting her face as she charged across the small hall toward the twins’ bedroom.
Inside the room, one wall was on fire and the flames spread upward, devouring the thin wall as if it were paper. Smoke spewed forth and wrapped its choking fumes around the small, squealing bundles huddled together in one bed. The boys’ cries sounded hoarse and were almost instantly deafened by the rumble of flames and the shattering of window glass.
With a strength fed by fear, Hallie lifted a twin in each arm and fled the fiery room. Roof beams had crashed through the upper floor, leaving a gaping crater in the path to the other bedroom. The remaining floorboards splintered and the paint finish blistered and bubbled like a caldron’s liquid. Hallie screamed toward the girls’ room, calling her sisters’ names and praying that they’d had the sense to get out of the house. There was no way she could get to them now.
The boys’ fingers pinched her neck, and their small heads were wedged up to her chin. Hallie could barely see around them. She smashed her right hip along the stair railing, using it to help guide and support her. Tossing the sobbing boys slightly, she repositioned her numb arms under the twins’ bottoms, holding them as close to her sides as possible.
While she descended the smoke-filled stairway, Hallie prayed the rail wouldn’t give out. Cinder-filled smoke rushed up at her through the open front doorway. Hot embers singed her skin and brought cries of hurt and panic from the small boys. The banister held, and a thankful Hallie was just thinking that her prayers were answered when something seared her left leg. The pain sent her staggering through the door. She could feel flames licking an agonizing path up her leg, so she locked her arms around the boys and fell forward with them, rolling down into the street. As she tumbled, she pressed her hands to the ground, pushing her weight upward to keep from crushing the small, sobbing boys who clung to her.
She rammed into a hard wagon wheel, but she held the boys to her ribs, unwilling to let go even though the searing burn continued to cremate the skin on her leg. Someone tried to pull the boys from her arms but she held on, screaming, “No! Oh God, Nooo!”
Someone beat at her petticoats, and each swat crushed torturous wads of hot, scratchy fabric against her tender leg.
She looked up. It was Dagny who knelt over her, beating the flames from her smoldering skirts. Her leg felt on fire, as if it were blistering like the paint on the floorboards. She couldn’t hold back her sobs, and she heard Duggie’s pleading voice. “Put it out! Please, you’ve got to put it out!”
The wooden wheel vibrated against her temple. Oh no, the wagon! It’s going to run over us! She let go of the boys, but before Hallie could order her own body to move, the vibration increased. Suddenly, her legs and torso were doused with a powerful spray of water.
Relief was instantaneous; relief from the hot pain, from the horrid fear of the crushing wagon wheel, and from the worry for her sisters’ safety. If Dagny was here, helping her, then Liv had to be all right, too. Dagny would not have left Liv.
But just to be sure, Hallie forced herself to sit up despite the pain.
Before her, the house was unrecognizable, completely engulfed in fire, something that happened all too often.
She turned to see the blond giant, Duncan, clad in the leathern cape that proclaimed him a volunteer fireman. In his hand was the limp hose of the fire wagon—the one with the death-crushing wheel—and Duggie still gripped his forearm. Liv stood alongside, holding Gunnar and Knut by their small hands. They were okay, but all three were crying.
“Hallie, don’t move. Your leg’s burned,” Dagny warned when Hallie started to rise. But Hallie stood slowly, with Duncan’s strong hand helping her up.
She hugged him and repeated her thanks over and over. He stood in awkward stiffness, as if he didn’t know how to respond to her hug of gratitude. Then she stood back, wobbling a bit on her bad leg, and she smiled, but a shout shattered the moment.
“Hey, you!” Someone called out. “Get that engine pumping on those flames!”
Duncan turned to Hallie. “I have to get back. Can you make it on that leg, miss?”
“She’s burned,” Dagny cried. “Can’t you help her?”
“It’s all right, Duggie, I’ll be okay. Let him get back to work.” Hallie waved him off before ordering, “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Dagny looked skeptical, but she nodded as Duncan and his wagon pulled away. Hallie looked up and down the street, trying to see which way looked the safest. Although the flames appeared less intense toward the north end, that area was overflowing with people rushing down the long blocks toward the waterline. Hallie knew that if she couldn’t get them near the bay, then her best bet was to seek high, barren ground. Telegraph Hill was the closest, but they’d have to travel south, where the fire still blazed. “Duggie, you’ll have to carry Gunnar, I’ll carry Knut. I couldn’t get to their shoes. Liv, you hold my hand tight and don’t let go no matter what.”
Dagny picked up Gunnar. “But Hallie, what about your leg?”
“Don’t worry. It’s not that bad.” Her leg hurt like the dickens, but she refused to slough off her responsibility on her younger sister. If she was going to head this family, then she’d start now. Besides, if her leg looked anything like it felt, the sight of it wouldn’t ease the panic in the younger ones. She settled Knut on the flare of her hip and grabbed Liv’s hand. “Stay as close as you can, Duggie, and hold Liv’s other hand. If we get separated, we’ll meet at the semaphore wall on Telegraph Hill. Okay?”
Dagny nodded, and they started up the grade. The farther they walked, the more crowded their path became. Wagons filled with store goods and carriages strewn with belongings were ja
mmed together in the hazy street. At the crossroads, packs of people flooded into any open street space. Horses, spooked by the smell of fire and the milling of the crowd, jostled and reared, one carriage overturning onto innocent prey trapped by the immobile mob.
The bone-chilling sound of screams raked the raucous air, and in the distance, explosions reverberated like thunder as the incendiary path of the fire met some combustible matter. They threaded through the mass, sometimes able to travel a few yards, and at other times the small group was smashed and pitched in the middle of a frenzied crush. Most of the victims had fled their homes with little or nothing, and were clad in only their
flimsy nightclothes. Others, with their hoarded belongings piled nearby, were digging shallow holes with their bare hands, creating dirt vaults for their precious possessions.
Hallie couldn’t count the number of times the raw skin of her injured leg was battered and scraped. The fire grew more intense at the crest of the hill. The sight below them was awful.
Flames fanned into the night sky, appearing to coronate some of the majestic three-story buildings with a devastating crown of red-orange. Almost a third of the city was ablaze, dominated by the reign of despotic fire, and the entire business district, lay smoky and snuffed out, while people fled, heading to the safety of the wet or barren town borders.
When Hallie and the children finally reached the semaphore wall, volunteers were there to hand out blankets and help the injured find aid. A section of the hill was roped off to serve as a temporary hospital, and Dagny insisted that Hallie have her leg checked.
The twins had small burn blisters smattered across their exposed cheeks. Both Liv and Dagny had ash and black cinders covering them, and Hallie, like the twins, was beginning to swell with blistered burns where her fragile skin had been exposed. She stood with Dagny, Liv and the boys, clustered together in line, waiting for treatment. When they reached the tent opening, their angel of mercy appeared in the form of Agnes Treadwell.
“Landsakes, look at all of you!” Agnes hustled them just inside the crowded shelter to a small table near the canvas flap. Two lanterns swung from a roof pole, pouring their swaying streams of light onto the small area. The medicinal smell of antiseptic tainted the air, and volunteers nursed the disabled all around.