Still Close to Heaven

by Maureen Child

  "I don't want it back," Jackson assured him. Hell, he’d only just gotten his hands on a bottle he'd waited fifteen years for. He wasn’t about to give it up. But he also couldn’t leave, knowing he'd given a coin, with who knew what kind of magic powers, to an unsuspecting drunk. How to warn him, though? "Look," he said slowly. "That gold piece is kind of a good luck coin."

  "Huh?"

  Jackson scowled into the other man's bleary eyes. Chances were, the man wouldn’t even remember this warning once he sobered up. But dammit, he had to try.

  "Kinda like magic, you know?"

  "Magic?"

  "Yeah." He glanced over his shoulder to make sure that the street was still deserted. Turning back to the prospector, he went on. "If you hold it in your hand and make a wish, it'll come true."

  A snort of laughter dissolved into a coughing fit that shook the drunk’s body like a broken doll in the hands of a vicious child.

  "All right," Jackson snapped. "You don't have to believe me. Just remember."

  The laughter faded, and red-rimmed eyes stared at him.

  "When you're holding that coin… be careful to only wish for good things."

  "Like finding the mother lode?" A dreamy expression settled on his worn features.

  Jackson shook his head and smiled briefly. "That'd do, mister. I guess that’d do." Pushing himself to his feet, he looked down at the man and said again, softer this time, "Remember."

  "Remember…" the slurred voice repeated dully.

  Bothered by the small curl of worry and guilt beginning to form in his belly, Jackson took another long drink to drown it. Fire leaped into his bloodstream as he turned his back on the prospector and walked down the boardwalk. All he needed was the time to finish his drink in peace. Then he would deal with Rachel.

  #

  She sat straight up in bed. Cocking her head to one side, Rachel listened, searching for the sound that had awakened her. But there was nothing. Her gaze moved around the small bedroom she’d inhabited since the day her angel had dropped her on the doorstep of Albert and Martha Heinz.

  Moonlight whispered between the folds of the curtains and stretched out across the polished floorboards like silver ribbons. The shadows and shapes surrounding her were familiar ones. Her wardrobe. The chair pulled up neatly to her dressing table and mirror. The dress form in the corner. The old hearth and the solitary easy chair in front of it.

  Everything was as it should be.

  She pulled in a deep breath and settled back against her pillows. Her eyes drifted closed as she deliberately tried to return to her dream.

  This time when the sound came, she was awake enough to identify it. Someone downstairs, pounding on the door. The soft tinkle of glass breaking told her that whoever it was, they'd already broken one of the leaded panes in the door panel. She'd have to hurry if she wanted to prevent any more destruction. Swinging her legs off the bed, she stood up, grabbed her wrapper from the foot of the mattress, stepped into calfskin slippers, and snatched the gnarled, heavy oak walking stick she kept close by the bed. Then she flew into the hall and down the stairs.

  Her slippered feet made a whisper of sound as she hurried across the plank floor. She didn’t need a light. She knew the store and its contents well enough to find her way blindfolded, let alone in the soft shimmer of moonlight.

  "Rachel!" Someone shouted before pounding an impatient fist against her back door.

  She blinked and skidded to a stop, her fingers curled tightly around the stick.

  A drunk.

  Scowling, she took a moment to tie the ribbon at the neck of her robe, then wrapped the belt tightly around her waist. If she had to deal with a drunken lumberjack, she wanted to be covered as decently as possible.

  "So bang the drum slowly…"

  Rachel flicked an impatient glare at the door. Whoever her visitor was, he had a terrible singing voice. She hurried across the room.

  "And play the fife lowly…"

  She closed her eyes and shook her head. Not only a drunk. A maudlin one. Kicking the largest jagged shards of glass to one side, she glared at her broken window pane.

  First thing in the morning, she promised herself, she would go to the lumber camps outside of town and have another talk with the timber bosses. A person would think that they would be able to control the men who worked for them!

  "I spied a poor cowboy all wrapped in white linen…"

  She frowned at the door again. He wasn’t even singing the song right.

  Rachel's fingers tightened around the stick even as she firmly hoped she wouldn’t have to use it. Fixing a stern expression on her face, she flipped the latch, turned the brass knob, and yanked the door open.

  Obviously, he'd been sitting down, leaning against the door. Without its support, he fell into the store, smacking his head on the floor.

  She winced in sympathy.

  Flat on his back, he lay there, arms outstretched, staring up at her.

  The stench of whiskey hung between them like a thick cloud. A lopsided grin flashed across his familiar features. The stick in her hand fell from suddenly nerveless fingers and clattered noisily onto the floor.

  He hiccupped.

  Rachel gasped. "Mister Angel?"

  Chapter Four

  "Shhh…" Jackson waved his index finger in front of his pursed lips and only vaguely wondered why he couldn’t seem to bring it any closer. Then he dismissed the idea altogether and allowed his hand to slap down onto the surprisingly comfortable floor. "I told you before, kid. I'm no angel."

  "You're drunk."

  "Jus' a little." He shook his head briefly, then thought better of it as the store began to swirl around him in wild patterns of color and motion.

  "It’s really you." She pushed his legs out of the way of the door and when he was clear, closed and locked it. Sinking to the floor herself, she braced her back against the wall and stared at him blankly. "And you're really here."

  He hiccupped. "Came to tell you somethin'…" His voice faded off as he desperately tried to make his mind work.

  "What?"

  His eyes screwed up as he tried to gather his scattered thoughts. "Somethin' impord… imporn… big," he finished on a different word since his tongue didn't seem to be cooperating.

  "What?"

  Her voice came as if from far away. His brain snatched at it and missed, like a child grabbing at a balloon's dancing string.

  "Somethin' about a kid?" he wondered aloud. He blinked, then narrowed his gaze, trying to bring her into focus. Grinning, he hiccupped again and said, "Nope. Can’t be it. You’re not a kid anymore." He admired the fall of her long, blond hair as it lay about her shoulders. He watched as she impatiently pushed it behind her ears and wanted to tell her not to do that — that it looked prettier the other way. But he couldn't make the words come.

  Didn't matter, he told himself as a warm, fuzzy feeling crept over him.

  "What did you have to tell me?" she repeated. When he didn’t answer right away, she started muttering to herself.

  He glared at her through tired, aching eyes. "You still ask too many questions."

  Rachel pinched herself, winced at the pain, then did it again. But it was no use. He really was lying there, in her store, drunk as a lord.

  Moonlight streamed through the windows and washed across him. He chuckled softly, whispered something she couldn't quite catch, then actually started snoring.

  Slowly, carefully, she pushed herself to her feet and looked down at him. Fear, disbelief, and anger warred within her. He looked exactly the same as he had the first time she'd seen him. Fifteen years, she'd carried the memory of his face. Each night before falling asleep, she'd make herself remember everything about him, from the timbre of his voice to the tiny wrinkles at the comers of his eyes. She'd waited so long, sure that he would come back — believing the promise he'd given her all those years ago.

  At least she had believed until about five years ago, when she'd at last given up on him.
Or rather, she thought, she’d given up on her dreams. Because she had convinced herself that that's all he really had been. A dream man she’d concocted to bring her comfort, much as fairy tales of handsome princes had done for other little girls.

  Now that he was actually here, though, what was she to think?

  As she watched him, he shifted, muttered something in his sleep, then rolled onto his side, cradling his head on his drawn up forearm.

  Shouldn’t she be frightened? Shouldn't she be at least a bit concerned for her sanity? No. She wasn't scared. She wasn't crazy. What she was, was furious.

  "Why did you come back now?" she demanded and got only another snore for an answer. "Why now, when my life is just the way I want it?"

  Taking her slipper off, she pulled one bare foot back and kicked his booted ankle. He felt nothing, but shimmers of pain swirled up from her injured toes. Unwanted tears flooded her eyes briefly, but she blinked them back.

  "I won't cry. Not over you." She shook her head firmly. "Not again." Rachel took three steps away, then whirled around and came right back.

  One corner of his mouth lifted, and he smiled at something in his sleep. Apparently, their "reunion " hadn't upset him in the slightest.

  She inhaled sharply, then blew it out again.

  "Fifteen years," she said as she looked down on her rumpled, drunken knight in shining armor. "Fifteen years of questions with no answers."

  He snorted, sighed, and shifted to make himself more comfortable.

  "And now that you've finally come back, I'm still waiting for those answers."

  Disgusted, she turned her back on him and angrily crossed the floor toward the stairs and her room. She left him where he was and only glanced back once at her fallen hero, passed out in a puddle of moonlight.

  #

  A woodpecker.

  Jackson winced, screwed his eyes tighter shut against the growing light, and wished that blasted bird straight to hell.

  Tap-tap-tap-tap.

  On and on it went, like spikes being driven through his forehead. Couldn’t somebody shoot that damned bird so he could have some peace?

  "Wake up."

  He groaned.

  "Wake up," the voice came again and carried right over the tapping that still beat at his already aching head.

  Cautiously, he opened one eye. Sun light stabbed through that eye into his brain, and pain rocketed throughout his body. Jesus! He didn’t remember a hangover being this damned painful. Blearily, he forced his vision to focus and the first thing he saw was a woman’s shiny black shoe, just inches from his face, the toe slapping furiously against the floorboards.

  Not a bird, then.

  "Awake?"

  That one word carried enough venom to force an immediate reaction. With both eyes opened, he rolled over onto his back to face his torturer.

  A tall, well-built blond with murder in her eye glared at him.

  "What the hell do you want?" he muttered thickly around the cotton in his mouth.

  "Answers, Mister Angel," she countered quickly.

  At the ridiculous title, memories flooded him. Squeezing his eyes closed again, he licked dry lips and said, "Quit calling me that, will you? Shit, I thought we had that name thing settled fifteen years ago. The name’s Tate. Jackson Tate."

  "Fine, Mister Tate."

  "Jackson."

  "Mister Tate."

  He groaned again. Nothing worse than a hardheaded woman when a man had a hangover.

  "I want to know what you're doing here. Now."

  "It's a long story."

  "I'm sure."

  He pushed himself to a sitting position. Ignoring for a moment the hideous pain lancing through his brain, he braced himself up with his palms flat on the floor. Tilting his head to look at her, he dismissed the pounding behind his eyes. "You got any coffee?"

  For a moment, she looked as though she might refuse him. Then apparently, she decided that she'd get more out of him if he were conscious, thank God. Without another word, she marched across the store to a shining black potbellied stove in the corner.

  Every step she took hammered at his head. Her heels clicked against the wood in an angry dance that seemed determined to punish him. Damned if she wasn't succeeding.

  By the time she returned, he'd pushed himself to his feet.

  When he survived standing, Jackson was pretty sure he was going to make it. But to be on the safe side, he took the blue china cup she offered him and gulped down his first taste of coffee in far too long.

  Hot, black, and strong enough to jump out of its own pot and climb into a cup by itself, the coffee was perfect. Just like he remembered it. He allowed himself a small, satisfied smile and a moment to inhale the familiar, comforting scent.

  Then the tapping started up again, and Jackson swiveled his head for a good, long look at his assignment. In her starched, sunshine yellow dress, with buttons neatly done up to her neck, she looked more formidable than she had the night before. At least, he thought so. His memory was hazy, due, of course, to the bottle of whiskey. But he seemed to recall flowing white fabric, lots of wavy hair, and a softness in her eyes that wasn’t there now.

  Just as well, he told himself. Those adoring gazes she'd directed at him when she was a child had been hard to deal with. Coming from a woman full grown, it'd be downright impossible.

  "It's been fifteen years," she demanded. "Why didn't you come back before?"

  "Wasn’t any need." He shrugged and took another sip, hoping the coffee would smooth away the last of the cobwebs stuffed in his mind.

  "No need?" She folded her arms across her chest defensively. "You promised you would come back."

  If she’d known him when he had been alive, she'd have had less faith in his promises. Lord knows, he'd never made his mark as a dependable man. But he didn't say so out loud. Instead, he said only, "I'm here now."

  "Yes," she snapped and let her arms fall to her sides. Turning her back on him, she walked to the stove again, poured herself a cup of coffee, and looked at him from across the room. "And I want to know why. Why now?"

  "I was sent here."

  "By who?"

  He shrugged again. "Nobody you’d know."

  "You'll have to do better than that, Mister Tate."

  He choked and spit a mouthful of coffee onto the floor. When the coughing spasm passed, he wiped his sleeve across his lips and shot her a wicked glare. "Jesus, you’ve got a razor for a tongue! No wonder you’re a spinster!"

  She snatched up a towel off a nearby shelf, then marched across the floor to stop beside him. Dropping the towel onto the coffee spill, she looked at him. "Has it occurred to you that I am a spinster because I prefer it that way?"

  "Nope."

  Standing up, Rachel inhaled sharply and set both hands at her hips.

  "You grew up into a fine looking woman, Rachel," he admitted, letting his gaze rake her up and down. "But with a tongue like that, you'll never catch a man."

  "I am not trying to catch—"

  "Probably got half the men in town scared to death of you."

  "They are not."

  He smirked knowingly at her.

  Clearly exasperated, she bent down, wiped the mess dry, picked up the towel, and clutched it tightly in both hands. "You look exactly the same as you did fifteen years ago. How is that possible? Just who… or what are you?"

  He opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

  "Why haven't you aged? Why are you wearing the same clothes?"

  "Jesus, woman." He lifted one hand to rub his eyes. "Can't you let a man wake up before yammering away at him like that?"

  She sniffed, and her well shaped lips thinned into a line sharp enough to draw blood. Those eyes of hers were snapping with anger looking for a target, and he figured that he was going to be it.

  "Fine," she said and looked as though it was anything but. "One question then. What are you?"

  That was better. Throw these things at him one at a time, and he would do al
l right. Now if she just wouldn't talk so loud.

  "That's easy," he said quickly. "I'm a ghost."

  Her face paled. Jackson hid a smile behind another sip of coffee. Well, now he knew how to shut her up.

  She took a step back, her gaze fixed on him. She looked him up and down, raised one hand to her throat, and repeated, "A ghost?"

  "Yeah."

  He had to hand it to her, he thought. All in all, she was taking it mighty well. Even as he thought it though, she shook her head, stepped up closer to him, and laid one hand on his arm. Her fingers clenched around his forearm, squeezing, testing.

  She shot him a sideways glance, and he caught the triumphant gleam shining in her eyes.

  "There are no such things as ghosts," she whispered. "And even if there were, you're much too solid to be one."

  He snorted a laugh. "Should have seen me yesterday. And the day before that."

  "I did see you yesterday," she said and both eyebrows lifted. "Last night as a matter of fact. When you fell into my store and passed out at my feet."

  He frowned. "I was tired."

  "Drunk."

  Now that was the honest truth. And a shameful one at that. When he was alive, one bottle never would have knocked him end over end. It seemed, though, that once a man was out of practice, he lost his touch.

  Horrified suddenly, he wondered if it were the same for other things as well. He had hoped to find himself a woman while he was solid.

  "I'm not a little girl any longer, Mister Tate," she said and took a step back from him. "I don’t believe in angels, or ghosts, or heroic princes riding to the rescue."

  "Huh?"

  "There is a rational explanation for your appearance," she continued. "And I want to hear it."

  "I already told you."

  "Don't bother repeating it."

  "Fine. " He shrugged and drained the last of his coffee.

  "Tell me the truth, or leave my store."

  "I did tell you the truth," he countered and looked in to the empty cup dolefully. "And I'm not going anywhere. At least, not yet."

  "This is ridiculous." She whirled around and paced a bit before turning back and retracing her steps. "It's 1880! I'm an adult. You can’t expect me to believe in silly stories that you would tell a child at bedtime."