Still Close to Heaven

by Maureen Child

  "I'm not asking you to believe anything, Rachel. I only answered your question."

  "Prove it."

  "Prove what?"

  "That you’re a ghost."

  "How'm I supposed to do that?"

  "I don't know…" She threw her hands up in the air. "Do something ghostly. Shake chains, howl, become a specter."

  Oh. Lord, his head hurt, and she wasn't doing a damn thing to help, either. Why hadn't Lesley told him how hard this was going to be?

  "I don't have a chain to shake. I'm too sober to howl." He frowned then and admitted, "And I'm not even sure what a specter is."

  "Then how can I believe you’re a ghost?" She shook her head and gave him a grim smile. "No. I'm sorry. I don’t believe you. I don't want you here. And I most certainly don't need you."

  He needed coffee. Gallons of it. Jesus, just to keep up with her, a man had to be cold sober and on his toes at all times. What had happened to her in the last fifteen years?

  Reaching back across the years, he recalled the child she had been. The wide-eyed, trusting little girl who had nearly driven him to distraction with her countless questions. He remembered her laughter and her sunny disposition. Shamefully, he also recalled the sound of her heartbreak when he had hurried away from her. At the time, he had been too interested in collecting his "reward" for an assignment completed satisfactorily to worry about it. Now, though, when faced with the woman his charge had be-

  Three sharp raps on the front door had Jackson wincing again and holding his forehead as if he expected his head to split in two.

  Disgusted, Rachel threw a quick look at the door and saw Tessa Horn through the glass. The older woman had her hand cupped around her sharp eyes as she peered into the store. Looking from her impatient customer to the man who still hadn’t explained his presence, Rachel didn’t know which of them frustrated her more.

  With Tessa in the store, she wouldn't be able to pry any more information out of Jackson Tate. And with Jackson in the store, Tessa would be like a hunting dog on the scent, as she sniffed out gossip.

  "Here is the perfect opportunity to prove to me you are what you claim to be," she whispered in a rush.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Disappear," she told him quietly.

  "Huh?"

  "Disappear," Rachel repeated and lifted one hand to wave at the woman rattling the doorknob.

  "I can't do that."

  She turned her head to stare at him. "What do you mean you can't? You said you were a ghost."

  "I am."

  "Well, if you can’t disappear, what kind of a ghost are you?"

  "A hungover one," Jackson said on a soft sigh.

  "I'm not interested in your well deserved penances," Rachel muttered and reached over to unnecessarily straighten a few items on the counter. "I just want you to fade away now. Dissolve or whatever it is ghosts do."

  He curled his fingers around the china cup, sighed, then admitted, "I don't know how."

  "You don't know how to disappear?"

  "That’s right."

  "Can you fade?" Her hands stilled as she looked up at him.

  "Don't know. Never tried."

  "Well, try."

  The older woman knocked again, an impatient burst of raps that demanded her attention.

  Once more, Rachel waved to her. "One minute, Tessa."

  "All right, but I don’t think it's going to work," Jackson said amiably. He straightened up, closed his eyes, and waited.

  Nothing.

  "You’re still here," Rachel prodded.

  His eyes opened, and he looked down at her with a smile. "Sorry."

  He didn’t look the least bit sorry.

  "I've never heard of a solid ghost. Or one who drinks coffee. Or gets drunk."

  One corner of his mouth lifted. "It's not like that all the time, believe me." His smile drained away as he told her. "Whenever Lesley sends me somewhere, I'm solid. That's all I know."

  "Leslie?" Unwillingly, a short, sharp stab of jealousy ripped at her. Fifteen years. She hadn’t seen him in fifteen years. For ten of those long, lonely years, she had waited for him, prayed for his return, dreamt about him, for goodness sake! And he had been spending his time with some woman named Leslie?

  Ghosts didn’t have lady friends, she told herself, then immediately discounted that statement, as well. There were no ghosts.

  In the next instant, though, she brushed those thoughts aside. They had nothing to do with anything. Jackson Tate didn’t matter to her anymore. She'd long since given up on the notion of him returning to rescue her again. She didn't need rescuing this time. What she needed was for him to go back where he came from and leave her to the life she’d made for herself.

  "If you can’t disappear, just go away."

  "Nope," he said softly. "Can't do it."

  "This is my store, and I don’t want you here."

  "You don't have a say in this." He frowned slightly. "Neither do I."

  "I can't have a man staying here. In my home. What would people say?"

  His frown disappeared, and a surprisingly wicked grin lifted one corner of his mouth. "You're safe enough, believe me. If I want a woman while I'm here, I'll find one not quite so prickly, thanks."

  A small slight that shouldn’t have bothered her, but it did.

  "What am I supposed to tell people about you?"

  He grinned again, and she wanted to kick him. Blast him anyway, she thought, and hurried across the store to the door. He was too big for her to throw out bodily. And even if he wasn't, she didn’t have time. Maybe, a wild voice in her brain said hopefully, he really is a ghost. If that were true, then perhaps she was the only one who could see him. In the next instant, she laughed at her own thoughts. A ghost, indeed.

  Oh, she didn't believe one word of his nonsense. He was no ghost. He was simply a man who had popped back into her life for some reason of his own. What that reason was, she would have to find out later.

  And if he didn't explain himself fully, she would have the sheriff arrest him. Fixing a welcoming smile on her face, Rachel turned the latch and opened the door to the first of the day's customers.

  "According to my clock," the woman said with a telling glance at the brooch pinned to her abundant bosom, "you’re five minutes late, Rachel."

  "I'm sorry, Tessa," she said. "But my morning has been a bit… unusual."

  The woman's sharp gaze slipped from the broken window to Jackson, who grinned and tipped his hat to her.

  "So I see," she muttered.

  Rachel threw a look at him and tried to see him as her customer did. Lord. Whisker stubble on his cheeks, clothes rumpled, his eyes looked as though he were still half asleep.

  In fact, he looked as though he had spent the night. Right there. With her.

  Great days! Her carefully earned reputation was about to be shattered.

  "And just who is this young man?" Tessa asked, already moving closer to her prey.

  They spoke together.

  "A carpenter," Jackson offered.

  "A cousin," Rachel said.

  Jackson grinned and stepped up to the two women. Laying one arm around Rachel's shoulders, he bent down and planted a quick kiss on her temple.

  She stiffened until she thought her spine would snap and still, he was too close.

  "It's a pleasure to meet you ma'am," Jackson said, charm oozing into the room. "Actually, I'm only Rachel’s third cousin-twice removed," he paused, gave her shoulders a squeeze and asked, "Or was that three times removed, cousin?" Without waiting for an answer, he sailed on, clearly enjoying the entire situation. "I've come to build my little cousin's house for her."

  Rachel gasped. She snapped her gaze up to his and only just remembered to close her mouth. How had he known about the new house?

  "Really?" Tessa looked from his face to Rachel's.

  Instinctively, Rachel forced a smile.

  "But Rachel dear," the woman said meaningfully, "you’re an orphan. How
in heaven did you happen to locate a member of your family?"

  Her mind went blank. Not a single idea presented itself. She hadn’t had time to consider the consequences of her lie. Of course everyone in town knew that she had been orphaned at ten.

  "Well now," her "relative" spoke up before the silence could stretch out any farther. "That was just a bit of luck, wasn't it cousin?" He looked down at her and smiled, daring her to contradict him.

  "Yes, indeed it was."

  "Tell me, do," Tessa urged unnecessarily.

  "Well, a man came by our place in Oregon several weeks back and happened to mention shopping in Rachel’s store. Talked her up a good bit," he winked at the woman. "Sounded like he was sweet on her, to me."

  Tessa simpered.

  "Anyhow, when he mentioned her name, why, the folks and I got real excited. So I came up here to see if Rachel was our long lost cousin." He hugged her tightly to him. "I'm pleased to say she is indeed our little Rachel. I can’t tell you how much this is going to mean to my folks."

  "How very nice for you, Rachel, dear," the woman reached out one hand to pat her arm. "To find family at this late stage of your life."

  "Yes, isn't it'?" Though she hated the lie he was spinning, one corner of Rachel's heart couldn’t help wishing it was all true. Wouldn’t it have been a miracle to discover that she actually did have family? A family who would love her?

  "So then," Tessa's voice interrupted her thoughts, "you'll be staying on to build Rachel’s new house?"

  "Oh yes," Jackson winked at the older woman. "Why, where I come from, family sticks together, ma'am."

  "Very commendable."

  Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Rachel repeated the instructions silently, over and over. Any hope she had had of getting him to leave was now dashed. By the middle of the afternoon, Tessa would have spread Jackson Tate’s story from one end of town to the other.

  "There’s no family resemblance at all," Tessa pointed out.

  "Lucky for Rachel, eh?" Again, he winked at the woman. "She comes from the pretty side of the family, that's for damn sure."

  Tessa blinked, not really shocked at the profanity, but after all, she couldn’t pretend she hadn't heard it. He seemed to understand.

  "My apologies for my loose tongue, ma'am," he said. "I've been living too long among heathens, I guess. But no doubt Rachel will straighten me right out."

  If he squeezed her shoulders one more time, she told herself, she would… what?

  "Pretty as a picture, isn’t she?" Jackson asked, tipping one finger under her chin until her face was tilted up to his.

  Rachel flushed. Ridiculous. The whole situation was ridiculous. And yet… she couldn’t quite deny the jolt of pleasure that she felt hearing herself described as "pretty."

  "Oh my, yes," Tessa agreed. "I've always thought so."

  "Now you take my side of the family?" Jackson said. "Mud fence homely, the best of them. And the rest… well, they’re not allowed out in daylight. Neighbors claim they frighten their cows dry."

  Rachel stared at him while Tessa twittered like a schoolgirl under his attentions. Idly, she listened to her supposedly ghostly visitor launch into a wild, sometimes lurid tale as to how exactly they were related. Uneasily, she noted that Tessa Horn, nobody’s fool, was completely captivated by the man.

  Whatever his real reason for being there, she told herself, she sensed big trouble coming.

  She hadn’t noticed when she was a girl. But this ghost of hers was a very good liar.

  Chapter Five

  The late afternoon sun did its best to poke through the layer of clouds that had drifted in off the ocean, only a few miles away. A damp chill in the air had Jackson wishing for his old sheepskin jacket. The few other assignments he had completed for Lesley over the years had been finished so quickly that he had barely had time to notice that he was solid — let alone, take an interest in the weather.

  He shivered again, then told himself it had been so long since he'd been either hot or cold, maybe he should just enjoy the sensations.

  Slowly, he bent over, picked up a milled two-by-four and turned it carefully in his hands as he straightened. It had been too long for this, too. The feel of the raw wood beneath his fingers brought a smile to his face. He inhaled the fresh, clean scent of it and admired its crisp, straight lines.

  His thumb moved over the wood as he shifted his gaze to encompass the rest of the unfinished house. Just a shell stood on the foundation. A wooden skeleton, stark and bare, marked the spaces where walls would be. Rooms, halls, and the beginnings of a staircase were laid out in what looked like a haphazard fashion.

  Frowning, he realized that the builder in him was offended by the obvious lack of knowledge Rachel's previous workmen had possessed. If she wasn't careful, she was going to end up owning a house that would fall down in the first good storm that passed.

  Although she did have a nice spot for the place, he thought, and stared out toward the road at the edge of the two-acre property at the tail end of town. The house sat at the back of the lot with more than two dozen trees between it and the road. Noise from Stillwater was muffled, and every breeze that shifted across the lot carried the sweet scent of pine. Somewhere close by, a bird called to its mate, and Jackson smiled.

  "Pretty place," he said, taking another quick look around at what would one day be her house.

  "Thank you," Rachel replied.

  His fingers smoothed over the raw timber in his hands, and his palms itched to pick up a hammer and go to work.

  First off, he would rip out the support beams and reset them at the proper angle. Then, he’d…

  Odd, he thought with a wry smile, he didn't remember being so fond of carpentry when he was alive. Oh, he had been good at it. Damn good. But the truth was, in those days, he had been much more interested in finding a good saloon at the end of the day than actually putting in a full day’s work.

  And just look where that had gotten him.

  "Are you really a carpenter?"

  He slanted Rachel a glance. "Used to be."

  She nodded, met his gaze, and asked, "Back at the store? You told Tessa you were here to build my house."

  "Yeah?"

  "How did you know I was building one?"

  Jackson smiled, looked away from her, and stared out toward the road again. Shrugging, he said, "I just knew. I don't know how. All of a sudden, it was there. In my mind." After a moment, he asked, "Why'd you tell her I was your cousin?"

  She walked toward the front wall, leaned her palms on what would one day be a window sill, and admitted. "I couldn't think of anything else."

  "Well, it worked out fine," he said and tossed the timber to the littered floor before joining her. "Now I can stay at your place and the neighbors won’t talk."

  "Nothing' s changed. Mister Tate."

  He cocked his head at her. "Call me Jackson, will ya? I never could answer to ’mister’ real easy."

  She inhaled slowly, deeply, and seemed to think it over for a long minute. Then she started talking again."Fine. Jackson," she corrected. "I still don’t want you here."

  "You still don’t have a say in it."

  "I most certainly have a say in who stays at my house or not."

  "Suppose so," he agreed and turned around. Perching on the edge of the sill, he stretched his jean clad legs in front of him and crossed his feet at the ankles. "But, you might ask yourself what those neighbors are going to think of a woman who'd turn her own cousin out into the street."

  She scowled at him, but Jackson wasn’t worried. She could get as mad as she wanted to. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not for a while, yet.

  "Blast it," she snapped. "Who are you? What do you want from me?"

  "I told you, I'm a—"

  "Don’t try to tell me you’re a ghost again," she interrupted. "Not unless you can prove it."

  "Now how the hell does a man prove a thing like that?"

  "A man can't. A ghost could."

  "
Woman," he said, "you are not making this any easier for me."

  "That is not my concern," she told him and turned her back on him. "My problem is getting this house built so my friends and I can move in."

  Straightening up, he walked across the floor until he stood beside her. "Now why would a bunch of females want to share a house? More than one woman in any place is bound to cause trouble. Why don't you just find yourselves some men?"

  Rachel looked up at him briefly. "Believe it or not, Jackson, some women are quite happy not being married."

  He didn't know about that, but he was damn sure that most men would prefer living their lives unshackled. But somehow, the poor fools always seemed to wind up hogtied to a woman who spent the rest of her life trying to change the man she claimed to love just the way he was.

  "Rachel," he tried a smile on her and saw right away that she wasn't impressed. That was a bit worrying. In the good old days, his charm had been well known for keeping him from being lonely. A shame indeed, he thought. Not only couldn't he handle his liquor any more, apparently, he couldn't dazzle the ladies, either.

  So, he told himself, he'd have to try to reach her tender heart. All women had tender hearts. Especially for babies.

  "Don’t all women want to be mothers?" he asked.

  Her features softened slightly before taking on that stubborn look with which he was becoming far too well acquainted.

  "Most of us do, I think," she said quietly, but firmly."Unfortunately, you don’t always get what you want."

  "You could though, Rachel," he insisted and bent his head. Whispering in her ear, he went on. "And that’s the pure truth. You’re a fine looking woman. You'd be a great mother. Probably have smart kids, too. Maybe even turn out a doctor or two."

  Her eyes took on a faraway shine as if she were drawing up a mental image of his words. Her lips softened, and her breathing slowed. Maybe, he thought with an inward smile, this wouldn't be so hard after all. Clearly, she had a real strong bent toward motherhood. All she really needed was a push in the right direction. Point out to her how good it would be. Maybe show her the possibilities.

  Quickly, he began drawing her word pictures of a possible future.