Still Close to Heaven

by Maureen Child

  He stopped short.

  There's a fine thing, he thought. Getting notions about a woman who would just as soon spit as say his name. Hell, getting notions about a woman, period. He was a dead man, he reminded himself. And it was high time he got used to it.

  A small, mousy woman scurried past him, eyes down, long black shawl drawn tight around her shoulders. He stepped aside to make room for her on the narrow walk, but he wasn't even sure if she noticed. Shaking his head, he continued on toward the store.

  Then behind him, a commotion rose up. A man's shout of laughter. A woman's shocked gasp. And the heavy thud of bodies smacking into the dirt. Jackson spun around in time to sec a giant of a man looming over the tiny woman laying in the street. Instinctively, he jumped off the boardwalk and went to help.

  "I’m sorry, Miss Hester," the huge man was saying. "I never saw you. Honest, I didn't." He reached out one big hand toward her, but she shrunk back, obviously terrified of the man's size.

  Jackson stepped up. "What happened?"

  The man shot him a grateful look, then turned a sheepish gaze on the woman. "I didn't see her. A couple of us was having a bit of a tussle, and Nels tossed me through the doorway. Ran right into her, I did, and knocked her flat."

  Jackson's eyes widened. He didn't even want to see the size of a man who could toss this one through a doorway.

  The big man, dressed in a lumberman's costume of red checked flannel shirt, worn Levis and knee-high leather boots, stood over the woman with a look of pure misery etched in his features.

  Instantly, a flood of information about the big man poured into Jackson's brain. He frowned as he tried to mentally sift through it all.

  "Miss Hester," the giant said and even his whisper rumbled loudly. "I'm sure sorry. Won’t you let me help you out of the street?"

  She shook her head slightly and didn’t look up.

  Jackson stared at the man for a moment and bit back a smile. Couldn’t be easy, trying not to scare someone so tiny when you’re the size of a draft horse. Still, the man's bone deep gentleness seemed to shimmer in the air around him.

  "I'll take care of her," Jackson said, suddenly sorry for the man who looked so damned helpless. "I'll see her home. You go on."

  The lumberman eyed him carefully from beneath heavy blond brows. A shock of his pale hair fell across his forehead, and he reached up to push it out of his way. After a long moment, he nodded slowly, but issued a whispered warning before leaving. "You take good care of her, or answer to me, Charlie Miller."

  Jackson's brows lifted high on his head at the threat, but he brushed it aside. After all, even a man of Charlie's size couldn't do much damage to a dead man.

  When the big man moved off, Jackson stretched out a hand and helped the woman to her feet. Immediately, she let go of him and stepped back.

  Skittish female, he thought.

  "You’re a friend of Rachel Morgan, aren't you?" he asked suddenly as the knowledge slipped into his brain.

  She glanced up at him before nodding.

  "Well then, you’re my friend too." He bent his head and looked into her pale blue eyes. "Jackson Tate. Rachel's cousin."

  Those eyes widened a bit.

  Deliberately, he took her hand and threaded it through the crook of his arm. "Why don’t I walk you on home?"

  She hesitated, clearly uncomfortable. But after a quick, covert look at the doorway where Charlie Miller had disappeared, she nodded and started walking, leading him down the street.

  Jackson glanced down at the tiny hand on his forearm and noticed that her fingernails were chewed down to the quick. Poor little thing. Miller probably scared the bejesus out of her. As they walked, he tried to tell her that the lumberman hadn't meant any harm.

  "Oh," she said in a hush of sound, "I know he wouldn't hurt me. He's a very kind man."

  "You know him?"

  Her head dipped again, and Jackson wanted to tell her to lift her chin, but he didn't.

  "I know of him," she said softly. "But tonight is the first time he’s spoken to me directly."

  "Ah…"

  "Of course, why would he speak to me?" she said, more to herself than to him. "A fine handsome man like that. Why would he look twice at a shy schoolteacher?"

  Jackson smiled to himself. So. She hadn't been terrified of the lumberman. She‘d just been too tongue-tied to speak. Well, hell. He wasn't having much luck with Rachel's love life. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to get in a little practice with somebody else.

  "You know, Hester… you don’t mind if I call you Hester?"

  "No."

  "Well Hester, sometimes I think females expect too much of us men."

  "What do you mean?"

  Interested, she was actually looking up at him now. "You take Charlie Miller, for instance," he said thoughtfully. "Big man like that, folks wouldn't guess that he was shy."

  "He is?"

  Jackson looked into those hope-filled eyes and nodded solemnly. He now knew more about Charlie than anybody had a right to know. The man’s awkwardness and innate gentleness were at odds with his big body and made him even more shy around women. And Jackson hadn’t needed the flood of information to see the look in Charlie's careful gaze. If he was any judge, the lumberman had a soft spot in his heart for the little schoolteacher.

  "Yes ma'am," Jackson went on. "Why, he probably has no idea of how to talk to a fine, educated woman like yourself."

  Her spine straightened a bit, and he noted that she was at least two inches taller than he had at first thought. "Probably scared to death he'll make some mistake in his grammar, and you'll think him a fool."

  "I wouldn't, though," she assured him. "I know that, Hester. But Charlie doesn’t. It's a terrible thing to be so afraid to make a mistake that you don’t say anything."

  "It must be," she said and lifted her chin.

  He knew she understood all too well. Even Rachel had said that her friend was a bit shy. Hell, if not for him, Hester and Charlie might never get around to talking to each other.

  "You might want to be extra kind to him, Hester," Jackson told her as they came to a stop in front of a tiny, well kept cottage. "Take pity on the man."

  She lifted her face to his, and Jackson noted a new shine in her eyes. A small smile curved her mouth as she told him, "I will, Jackson. And thank you for telling me."

  "That’s what friends are for, Hester."

  Chapter Seven

  Two days later, Rachel straightened a stack of fabric bolts until they looked as though they had been aligned with a ruler. Only when they were perfect did she move on to the counter, where a small mountain of stiff, new Levi’s waited for her.

  Outside the store, rain fell in torrents, smacking into the already waterlogged ground and creating a river of mud and water running the length of the street. No one was out. Everyone in town was, no doubt, huddled next to a stove or fireplace, waiting for a break in the weather to do any shopping.

  Rain pelted onto the roof, slashed against the window panes, and seeped beneath the front door to puddle on the hardwood floor.

  Keep busy, she told herself. Busy enough to avoid thoughts of Jackson and his humiliating intention to get her married.

  Her hands smoothed and folded the jeans, then stacked them neatly on the shelf she'd prepared for them. As she went about the familiar task, her mind, unfortunately, was free to wander.

  Naturally, it wandered straight to the man whose very presence was threatening to drive her around the bend.

  Married. Couldn’t he see how demeaning this all was? Didn't he understand that by his very presence, he was telling her that she was incapable of finding a man?

  Blast it, why did it matter to anyone if she was married or not? As that thought careened through her mind, it was followed by another. He hadn’t told her why she was supposed to be married. If her marrying was important enough that someone had sent a ghost to see that it happened, there had to be a compelling reason for it.

  A ghost.
r />   Great heavens, she had a ghost living with her. And there was no getting rid of him. Her lips twisted wryly. Lord knew, she'd tried. She had locked him out of the store the night he had made his grand announcement. Determined to keep him as well as his plans for her future at bay, she'd barred the door, hoping to let him know in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t welcome.

  When she'd come downstairs in the morning, he was inside. Drinking coffee he had made. Waiting for her.

  Apparently, locked doors were no challenge for ghosts. He claimed to not be able to disappear, but obviously he had no trouble passing through solid wood.

  The front door rattled, then swung open. Rachel glanced up to watch a woman step into the store, then struggle to close the door against a gust of wind-driven rain.

  "Mavis !" Thank heavens, she thought. A visitor. Someone to take her mind off Jackson for a while. Rachel hurried around the end of the counter and crossed the room to her friend. Together, the two of them slammed the front door, then leaned against it, dripping wet and grinning at each other.

  "What brings you out in this mess?" Rachel asked as she stepped away from the doorway.

  Mavis pulled her dark green rain slicker off and watched the water sluice down the material to the floor. "I'm dripping all over everything," she said softly."Don't worry, it'll dry."

  Rachel took the slicker from her friend's cold, wet hands and hung it on a hook beside the entry. "Come on, you’re freezing. I'll get you some coffee."

  "That does sound good," the shorter, plump woman agreed.

  At the stove, Rachel poured two cups of coffee, then added a generous helping of sugar into her friend’s cup before handing it to her. Waving her into one of the chairs pulled close to the fire, Rachel sat in the other one and asked, "Why on earth did you come out in such a storm?"

  Mavis plucked at the damp fabric stretched across her ample bosom and took a sip of coffee before answering. "In this weather, I don’t have any customers, so I thought it would be a good time to recheck your measurements. You know, for the dress you wanted."

  Rachel’s coffee cup halted a few inches from her mouth. Looking at her friend, she asked, "Which dress is that?"

  "The one you asked your cousin to order for you," Mavis said and sank gratefully onto a nearby stool. She plucked a soaking wet strand of wavy, dark brown hair off her face and pushed her rain spattered spectacles higher on her nose. "My," she said and leaned in close, "he is a handsome man, your cousin. And so charming.

  Charming. That was certainly one word to describe her "cousin." Others were liar or promise breaker. Ghost. But she could hardly say so to Mavis. The woman would think her completely mad.

  "What kind of dress did cousin Jackson order?"

  "Oh." Mavis sighed into her cup, and steam from the coffee fogged her spectacles. "It's lovely, Rachel." She reached up and wiped the fog away with her index finger. "I'm sure it will be just the thing for the town social."

  The social? Rachel stood up abruptly. She never attended the socials. Instead, she kept her Mercantile open longer hours to accommodate the extra customers who came in from outlying ranches for the day. The one useful thing she had learned from her foster father had been how to run a successful business.

  And closing up the store on a day when dozens more people than usual were in town was not the way to do it.

  "Rachel?" Mavis asked, clearly perplexed. "What is it? Is something wrong?"

  Wrong? Everything was wrong. Jackson was insinuating himself with her friends. Sneaking around behind her back. And there didn't see m to be anything she could do about it.

  "No," she lied, since she couldn't really talk about any of this, either. "Not a thing. It's just that…" She reached for something-anything to say. "I made a batch of your favorite cookies yesterday, Mavis," Rachel finally said. "I just thought I would run upstairs to the kitchen and get some to go with our coffee."

  "Oh, that would be lovely." The plump woman leaned back in her chair and brushed at the water spots on her bodice.

  "I'll be just a minute," Rachel told her and hurried to the staircase. She wanted — no needed — a moment or two alone to get control of her raging emotions. Jackson Tate had his nerve, she thought as she practically ran up the steps. Going behind her back and enlisting her friends into helping him with his plans.

  Didn’t her wishes matter to him at all? Couldn’t he see that he was ruining her life with all of his meddling?

  At the top of the stairs, she paused and leaned one hand on the newel post. She stared blankly at the wall opposite her and saw not the clean white paint of her sitting room, but Jackson's face. How could he be so different from the way she had remembered him? For more years than she liked to think about, she'd hugged his memory to her like a shield against loneliness. She'd remembered every little thing he'd said to her.

  Could she have been so wrong about him? Had it been wishful thinking by a frightened child that had built him into such a stalwart hero?

  She inhaled sharply and banished the mental image of Jackson. This train of thought served no purpose at all. What she had to concentrate on now was the man attempting to dismantle her life.

  And how to get rid of him.

  #

  "You ought to think about settling down," Jackson said as he and Sam trudged through the muddy swamp that was Main Street.

  "I don't see any brands on you," Sam countered with a laugh.

  "Well, it's different with me."

  "Yeah? How?"

  Caught off guard for a moment, Jackson muttered, "It just is, that's all."

  Sam laughed and the sound was swallowed up by the rain. We’ll see who's laughing soon enough, Jackson thought with calm determination. He had it all figured out.

  On a rainy day like this, the store would be empty but for Rachel. It was the perfect opportunity to use one of his coins to see her settled.

  Sam seemed like a nice enough fella. He was a good carpenter and didn't drink much, which Jackson had a hard time understanding, but then, people are different, aren't they? All the man needed was a little help from him to see that Rachel would be the perfect wife.

  He stuffed his right hand into his pants pocket and pulled out one of the golden coins. Closing it tightly in one fist, he told himself that this was for the best. Rachel would understand once she saw how much Sam loved her. She'd be happy, and he could leave.

  His thumb smoothed across the star etching on the coin as he told himself again that this was his job. His mission.

  It was none of his business who she married — his only concern was getting her married, and he’d do well to keep that in mind.

  "You might as well forget it, Jackson," Sam said and gave him a friendly shove. "You’re not gonna marry me off to that cousin of yours, so you can quit trying so damned hard."

  Jackson’s head snapped around, and he looked Sam dead in the eye. A lightning-like flash of anger shot through him. "You saying Rachel's not good enough for you?"

  "No, 'course not." Sam sighed heavily. "I got no problem with Rachel, the problem’s with me."

  "How's that?"

  He shrugged. "Guess I just like all women too much to fall in love with any one of them."

  "Oh." That was different. Of course, if the idiot had tried to say that Rachel wasn’t worthy somehow… Jackson looked ahead at the store on their right. Inside, Rachel would be warm and dry and pretty. She'd be going about her business with no idea at all that her very life was about to change forever.

  "Well," he said as they climbed the step to the boardwalk. "You know what they say. When it comes, love hits you like a rock between the eyes."

  Sam ran the flat of his hand down his rain slicker, pushing most of the water off onto the walkway outside the Mercantile. He glanced up at Jackson with a grin on his face.

  "I’ve always been able to dodge that particular rock."

  Until now, Jackson thought. Concentrating, he squeezed the coin in his hand even tighter. This was for Rachel's ow
n good, he told himself.

  Aloud, he said, "I'll be willing to bet that you’re so ready for the love of a good woman, Sam, that you'll fall smack in love with the very next woman you see."

  The other man laughed and turned the brass knob. Pushing the door wide, he looked at Jackson over his shoulder and said, "I'll take that bet!"

  Then he stepped into the room and stopped dead. Jackson watched the man stiffen, then gulp in a breath like a drowning man coming up for air. Shifting his gaze from the thunderstruck man, he looked down at the gold coin in his hand and watched its luster slowly dim until, at last, the coin faded completely away.

  It was done.

  He smiled slightly. The coin had worked its magic, and Sam had fallen deeply in love with the woman waiting inside that store.

  He'd actually done it, Jackson thought. He'd completed his assignment successfully. He knew Rachel. Though she claimed to not be interested in marriage, she wouldn’t be able to say no to a man so desperately in love with her. In no time at all, Rachel and Sam would he marching down the aisle together. She would have Sam's babies. Live with him. Love with him. And in time, forget all about the ghost who had visited her one spring.

  A small twinge of regret nipped at him. When he had died, there had been no one to mourn his passing. No one to remember him fondly. He should have been used to being a forgotten man. The regret bit deeper. Uncomfortable with the feeling, he shrugged it aside.

  He'd done his job.

  Everything was as it should be, he told himself.

  Sam stepped out of the doorway and moved off to his left. His footsteps sounded out on the floorboards and when they stopped, Jackson followed him inside. Smiling, he turned to see for himself Rachel's reaction to Sam's sudden devotion.

  A noise on the stairs caught his attention, though, and he shot a quick look in that direction. As Rachel marched down the flight of stairs glaring at him, a sinking sensation crawled through Jackson.