by Jillian Hart
“And this—” he tapped the envelope with his fingertips and knelt before her “—is this too much good coming your way?”
How did he know? She gasped at the pain it caused, this keen way he understood her. Hot liquid built behind her eyeballs and she blinked hard, willing those tears away. “I would rather not tempt fate.”
“What if this is your fate?” He gathered the envelope and pressed it into her hands. The sorrow in his eyes was like the storm outside, growing darker and despairing as the night deepened.
If only you could be my destiny. The wish came like the first powdery flakes of snow in a winter squall, falling gently, peacefully and true. Her soul squeezed with the rhythm of her heart, with the music of it. It was as if her entire being ached for this man.
For the impossible. Suddenly she realized that the pain within her was not only her pain, but it matched the storm of grief she saw in his hopeless eyes. In his spent heart. In his broken soul.
“I cannot take this ticket, Mac. It’s a lot of money.”
“It’s no great deal.”
“It is to me.” She laid the packet unopened on the cushion beside her. “Do you know how many hours I have to scrub floors to earn this?”
“No idea.” Nor had he ever heard of a woman refusing money. But then again, Carrie surprised him in all kinds of ways, the good kind of surprise, and it heartened a man who was in sore need of it. “How much money do you have on you?”
“Uh…” She bit her bottom lip as she thought. “Not enough. It’s upstairs—”
“I don’t want it. That’s not why I asked.” Couldn’t she see? Didn’t she know?
How could she, he realized, when people took for granted what they had every day. It was only human, he supposed, to not realize what you had until it was gone. “You have less in your reticule by far than I have in the bank, and yet you are the richest person in this room.”
Her eyes filled. And he could see she understood. She could comprehend now what he could not say. What he could never speak of for fear it would break him, and he would be nothing but shattered pieces.
“For your daughter’s sake.” It was all he could get out, for his voice cracked.
He strode from the room without stopping to read on her face what she thought of him. Without pausing for anything except to grab his coat and hat on the way out. He stood, teeth chattering, on the porch, struggling into his wraps rather than stay one second longer in that house.
To remain one second longer with her.
He gave thanks for the vicious winds that scoured him with the coldest of ice. It drove out the fire of feelings.
And the pain.
When he was as cold as the storm, as dark as the night, only then did he stride out into the gale. Half wishing the dangerous blizzard would knock him off course, leave him wandering the mountainside until he froze to death. Anything. Because he could not go back to that house and that woman.
Nor could he go to his house. There was only emptiness there lurking in the rooms, in his bed.
In his soul.
Carrie held the envelope for a long while. The weight of it, the reality of it was no reassurance. It felt wrong to accept so valuable a gift, and yet whatever loss Mac had endured made it clear why she had to: Ebea.
Inside the crisp white parchment were two third-class tickets to Seattle, an adult and child fare. Meal tickets. And a hundred-dollar bill.
She’d never been given such a valuable gift. The envelope became heavier in her hand, taking on weight as the fire in the grate burned down and the icy shadows took over the room. She didn’t know what to do. Finally she slipped the packet onto one of the branches of the Christmas tree.
The house echoed around her as she cleaned up the kitchen and banked both fires. Then, leaving the cold and darkness behind her, she carried the last set of warming irons and a small lamp up the stairs.
Mac’s gift of the tickets troubled her. Now everything felt wrong. Out of place. She didn’t know why or how to make it right as she eased open the bedroom door and shone the edges of light onto the double bed where Ebea lay on her side, her brown braid curled on the white pillow slip behind her.
My own sweet angel. Mac was right. She was rich. Ebea was everything that mattered.
Love so bright it blinded her nudged her to the edge of the bed. She resisted the need to brush a kiss against her daughter’s brow and to whisper more sweet-dream wishes. Ebea slept so soundly, without worry or cares. Her cherub’s face was relaxed in sleep and her rosebud mouth was drawn with a hint of a smile as if she was lost in a good dream.
Carrie set the lamp on the bedside table, slid one warming iron at Ebea’s feet to keep her toasty, and the other in the space on the mattress for her own feet. As she shivered out of her clothes and shook out her nightgown, she thought of Mac. He was out in the weather. Was he cold? Was he alone?
And then she realized what had been troubling her. It was the silence. The blizzard’s winds had stopped.
The storm was over.
Mac stood in silence at the edge of town. Starlight gleamed down on him, the softest, lightest bluish glow as the thick mantle of clouds broke apart, sweeping to the southeast, racing fast with the wind. Leaving him in a growing brightness he neither wanted nor needed.
The town stretched out before him, polished like a black pearl. The snow reflected darkly the black sky, and the shimmer of stardust iced the slopes of roofs and the crests of snowdrifts piled along the hitching posts. The power of the night made him feel mighty alone. The contact of his boot against the hard-packed snow reported like rifle fire and echoed along the far spread of street ribboning out before him.
Like the snow beneath his feet, like the frozen earth beneath the snow, he did not feel. Not even the gusts of wind skating along the snow and sifting up whirlwinds of powdered sugar. When he headed off Mountain Street and onto the lane where he lived, the silent guard of fir and cedar that marched down the road seemed to come alive.
But it was only the wind stirring the snow-laden boughs and sending down soft chunks of flakes. Something cool brushed the side of his face, just above his muffler, and he saw a mist of white in his peripheral vision. A fan of blowing snow, nothing else was visible, but he felt a presence like moonlight, like wishes and dreams. Amelia. His heart was lost and he turned, staying his hand from reaching out to grasp what he knew could not be there.
Only thin air. The crisp icy snow swirled from the boughs to the earth. He kept on going. One foot before the other, while the night whispered through the trees. He passed homes on both sides of the street, their windows golden and curtains drawn, and inside families gathered.
He tried not to think of the husbands and wives, children and grandparents who lived in those homes. Were these families bursting with secrets of presents bought or made and hidden away? Were they celebrating tonight? As his parents had, snacking on the sweets made special every year for Christmastime and sharing them with Ebea and Carrie.
She’ll be gone tomorrow. That would to be an odd relief. She was the only woman to stir his soul since Amelia. When she was gone, there would be no more of this agony. No more of this remembering and feeling.
But it was no victory.
He walked deep into the shadows and did not feel alone, although there was no one else stirring, no creature or human, on this lonely night. Every step he took, it was as if the past he’d buried had come alive. It was whispering in the night air. Echoing in his footsteps. Moving in the sift of snow drifting in eerie white snow devils.
Or maybe it was her voice—Amelia’s voice—that lingered just beneath the tone of the wind. Words he could not let himself hear. She was a ghost he could not listen to, and the emptiness within him shattered like ice. It made no sense that something that no longer existed could break.
But it was as if the past was no longer silent. The first glancing beams of moonlight peered from behind the last of the retreating clouds like an accusing finger. Overhead, the
great white orb watched as if from the heavens, scouting out the shadows, driving out darkness from the frozen land.
The guilt that haunted him took him back to that night when there was no peace or hope. To that exact moment when Amelia’s screams ended at the abrupt blow of a rifle. His mind hadn’t accepted it. He could still hear the echo of her scream, as he’d willed it to continue, for if her scream continued, then she could not be dead. She would be waiting for him somewhere in the dark and storm, waiting for him to rescue her. To keep his promise to always protect and love her.
He stumbled and saw not the past, but the cold path to his steps. Snow obliterated the walkway. Drifts leaned lazily against the side of the porch, blocking the brunt of the wind. At first he didn’t see the footsteps trampling the more protected snow at his front doorway.
Someone was waiting for him. It was a woman huddling beneath a too-large coat. She tugged off her muffler when she spotted him and smiled.
Chapter Eight
Carrie clutched her coat around her, seeing Mac tense until he looked as harsh and unforgiving as the mountains spearing up into the sky behind him. He didn’t want her here. She’d made a mistake. I shouldn’t have come.
“You didn’t go inside? You just stood out here in the cold?”
“I wouldn’t invite myself into your home—”
“The door’s unlocked. You could have frozen to death. Good thing for you I didn’t take a longer walk. My mother. She told you where I lived, didn’t she?” Fury, that’s what he seemed to radiate like bitterness on the wind as he shouldered past her to push open the door. “Folks know to wait for me here. Build a fire or something.”
Not only was he furious with her, but he refused to meet her gaze. His back remained squarely turned to her as he knelt in the dark cave of his home. She heard the rattle of a stove door and the clank of a metal poker. Light flickered to life as he stirred the coals, and grew, while he added slivers of kindling and then thick chunks of wood.
She shivered, debating. Was it better to leave now? Or to try and explain and anger him more?
The envelope in her pocket felt too heavy to run off with. She simply could not take the coward’s route and leave. No matter how cranky his mood.
“Are you comin’ in?” He didn’t sound as if he wanted her to as he banged the stove door shut.
Well, it didn’t matter. She’d come here for a reason, and it would only take a moment to do what she had to. Somehow, she made her feet move forward and take her out of the frigid night and into the utter darkness. It was too dark to see anything. Not even Mac as his footsteps knelled away from her and more deeply into the house. She slipped the envelope from her pocket.
“Don’t you have a child you should be with?” A clank of a lantern hood punctuated his words like anger.
“She’s fast asleep and safe as can be in your parents’ home. I intended only to come for a moment.”
He struck a match and lit a battered lantern. Orange flame flickered to life and he adjusted the wick so it wouldn’t blow out. “Shut the door, would you?”
“Sure, on my way out.” Her words came crisp, not harsh or sharp or shrewish, and the only sign she was pissed at him was the knell of her shoes on the wood floor as she headed for the open doorway.
She meant to leave. Well, good riddance. He couldn’t tolerate this, seeing her alone like this. He had to hold on to his anger because without it he had no other shield to protect the places so broken within. She’d dismantled everything else, shattered them like the ice chunks beneath her feet. He grappled around in his mind for the right combination of hard words to send her from his sight forever.
Then he noticed the white envelope on the edge of the table. The envelope he’d left with her. Damn it, didn’t she know this was best for all of them? How much more did he have to explain? How much more of the past would he have to feel and in the feeling of it, tear himself apart? What good would come from that for either of them?
Because rage was safest, he wallowed in it. Snatched the envelope and struggled down the need to toss it at her. “I thought you agreed to take this.”
“Not take, no.” That chin of hers hiked up, determination and steel. “I’m returning the hundred-dollar bill. I don’t feel right about that. I know you mean it in the nicest way, but I refused to accept payment from your parents for my work in their shop, so how can I take money from you?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like?”
Couldn’t she understand? He needed to get her away from him before he shattered and not even anger could protect him. He’d been in that place before, holding Amelia’s lifeless body, and he did not want to feel that killing sorrow again. He could not let her close, let her in. For he had no heart left to give. Even the places where it had once been ached with torment.
“Just leave.” It was what he needed. The moonlight was magical this night, and if he believed in miracles and happily-ever-afters, then he would give credence to the way the light painted her with a platinum glow. Rare and beautiful and everything precious in this world. Everything that was tearing him apart.
“Not until you know this, too.” She stood like a priestess of old, draped in light and honor. “I can accept the train passage only because I intend to pay you back.”
“No!”
She was unbowed by his thundering outburst. “It will take time, but I will do this.”
“I won’t accept your money.” His fists bunched. “I won’t.”
“Fine. But if you do not, then I will send the payments to your parents to hold for you.” Calm, she refused to be swayed. “It’s the right thing.”
He wavered inside, for the anger was not enough to protect him from this. From her goodness. From a woman who would do the right thing no matter what, the same as he. He felt the moonlight shift in the room, infinitesimally, but a shift all the same.
When he looked down the edge of the shaft was nudging his boot, as if reaching out to him, as if inviting him. He felt the darkness within him crack apart like deep drifts on a mountainside. The rumbling reverberated through him, shaking his soul. He could feel the last wall begin to crumble apart. He did not want it. Could not survive it.
And then there was darkness and she was there, her fingertips cool against his face. “What’s wrong? You need to sit down.”
“I need to stay far away from you before I give in to this.” He fisted his hands so tight, the bones burned, stretched to the limit.
“Into what?” She gazed up at him with guileless eyes, unaware.
How would she not know the torture she put in him? His last defense was crumbling now—there was no more anger. And like the thick layers of snow giving way down a mountain, he felt it fall. Felt the sheer down to his soul.
He was exposed, with no way to hold back his soul. The sorrow he’d never been able to face, the loss that haunted him so on this night broke way and tumbled, too.
She was speaking; he could not make out the words, only the tenderness of her alto voice. Her hands were on his shoulders nudging him backward.
He only knew he was sitting when he felt the edge of the chair digging into the backs of his knees. Her fresh female scent, her rose shampoo and the rustle of her flannel petticoats filled his senses until his head echoed with those sounds, with her. Only with her.
Her kiss brushed his cheek, and it was a touch of heaven. A touch he had no defenses against. With a turn of his chin, their lips met in a tentative caress that made every exposed piece of him yearn. Her mouth was warm satin. Her taste like sweet cream and temptation.
How could he resist? His hands unfisted and he plunged his fingers deep into her chestnut hair, cradling her nape as he tipped her head back. It was no polite kiss, but rather a thorough kiss that he gave her. The way a man kissed the woman he desired more than anything.
She responded with a helpless moan, the kind that said she desired him, too, and wanted him in the same way. That was not wha
t he expected. He tore away, breathless, his blood burning. His gaze had adjusted to the darkness so he could see the deep pools of her eyes. The shadows of her face.
But he could see more of her, into her, to her secret wishes.
“I cannot make promises.” He choked out the words. Longing raged within him. He had to be smart. He had to do the right thing. “I have nothing to offer you but tonight.”
She pressed a kiss to his cheek and did not answer. The seconds stretched like minutes. Her hand splayed against his chest, as if to feel the rise and fall of his breathing and the crazy speed of his pulse.
“I have been so lonely for so very long.” Need shone in her words like a small, forgotten light. “I have been lonely for you all of my life.”
She didn’t care if he could not give her forever. She could feel the wound within him that pulled and tugged at her with its darkness and torment. Carrie didn’t know how it was that she could feel his heart like her own. She only knew that she could. What a rare connection they had.
When she found his mouth with hers, it was her answer. She would love him no matter what. For this night only.
“I want you,” he choked out, his hands at her shoulders tender. “No one else. No one has ever done this to me.”
“Or to me.” Whatever this force was rolling through her, it could not be true love, could it? Real love was something nurtured over time, grown like a seedling to a flower; not created suddenly out of circumstance and need.
But it was true love that spilled through her. And wonder that left her breathless as she surrendered to his hands tugging at the buttons of her coat. To the weight of his big granite body easing her back onto the pile of their coats. To the nudge of his knee between her thighs, so he could move between them.
How amazing it was to hold him like this. To cradle his jaw in her hands and truly kiss him. To be lost not only in need, but in rare affection. She’d been lonely for so long that it did not feel wrong to let this happen. To accept the cool air on her skin and the heat of his mouth on her breasts. Or the weight of him over her and then, wonderfully, inside her. He joined their bodies, and more, on this night of darkness.