Still Close to Heaven

by Maureen Child

  He had only spent the last few days here and already he felt… distanced from the dirty saloon that had been his only home for fifteen years. How could she ever understand?

  "Jackson?"

  He looked at her and his insides twisted. In the hazy, yellow glow of the lamp, her skin seemed to shimmer with golden light. She chewed at her bottom lip, and his gaze locked on the motion. His groin ached with a pulsing throb that kept time with each tug of her lip.

  Jackson swallowed a groan. His hair was still damp from the cold dip he’d taken in the creek, but he suddenly felt as though he was on fire. Apparently an icy bath wasn’t a strong enough cure for a fifteen-year fast.

  Grumbling to himself, he lowered his gaze to the less captivating, yet safer, depths of his coffee cup.

  "If you don’t want to talk about it —" she started.

  "No," he cut her off quickly, though it was a struggle to keep his voice steady. He had to talk. About anything. To keep his mind busy. Perhaps too, he told himself, talking about his existence as a ghost was just what he needed. A vivid reminder that his time with Rachel would be brief.

  He reached for the coffeepot in the center of the table and refilled her cup before pouring more of the brew into his own. Jackson took a long sip, then started talking. "It's not that I don’t want to tell you about it," he said. "It’s just that I'm not sure what to say."

  She toyed with the handle of her flower sprigged china cup. "You said you live in a saloon."

  "I know I didn’t say live," he corrected wryly.

  She flushed and the pink in her cheeks looked lovely in the lamplight. "I meant — you know what I meant."

  "Yeah. I do." His fingers tightened on the fragile cup handle that was much too small and dainty for a man's grip. "The name of the place is The Black Hound."

  Her eyebrows lifted.

  He snorted a laugh that held no humor. "Not much of a name for a man's eternal resting place, is it?"

  "No."

  "But," he went on, leaning back in his chair and feigning a casualness he didn't feel, "there hasn't been much rest for fifteen years, either."

  "What do you mean, rest? Sleep?"

  "No, although I will admit, it's been good to lay down at night and close my eyes again." He could have done without the occasional dream about her, though. "I meant the kind of rest the preachers are always going on about."

  "Oh."

  "You know, peace. Serenity."

  "There isn't any?"

  He glanced at her and read the worry in her eyes. Damn him for a fool, he told himself. No doubt, she was imagining that her adopted folks and maybe even the real family she’d lost so long ago were stranded somewhere between Heaven and Hell.

  Jackson sat up again and hunched over his coffee cup. Sparing her a quick glance, he shook his head. "I don't know about anybody else, Rachel. Just me." Memories teased at the edges of his mind, and he added, "But there’ve been others."

  "What others?"

  "Other folks who died in Pine Ridge, too." He swirled the coffee in his cup and watched the brown liquid slosh and dance with his movements. "They were stuck for a while too, then they left."

  "Left?" she repeated and leaned in closer to him. "Left for where?"

  He shrugged. "Don’t know. Just one day they were there, the next, they weren't. I hope they went somewhere better than where they died." A wry smile lifted one corner of his mouth. "'Course, wherever they went, it couldn’t have been much worse."

  "If others have died and gone on, Jackson," she asked, her voice hushed, as if afraid of the coming answer, "why haven’t you?"

  "Don't know." Shaking his head, he laughed shortly at his own ignorance. "Guess you asked the wrong ghost for information, Rachel. I'm just as stupid dead as I was alive."

  "You’re not stupid."

  The handle of the cup snapped off in his hand, and hot coffee splashed over the rim onto his fingers. "Damn it," he said and glared at the flimsy cup handle laying in his palm. "I’m sorry, I —"

  "It's just a cup, Jackson."

  "It's not just the cup. It's everything." He pushed himself back and up from the table, then stalked across the floor to the wide window overlooking the street.

  She didn't say anything, and he was grateful. It gave him an extra minute or two to gather up the thoughts splintering through his mind. After several long moments, he started talking, his voice a whisper, his gaze locked on the blackness hovering just beyond the pane of glass.

  "I’ve messed up nearly everything I ever tried to do, " he said and shook his head. "Not just since I died," he quickly pointed out. "Even when I was alive. I’ve been getting into scrapes ever since I can remember."

  "Jackson…"

  "First it was with my pa." He snorted. "Then teachers and finally, the law."

  "You were a criminal?"

  This time his short laugh sounded harsh, even to himself. "No. I never worked hard enough at anything to be a real outlaw. Knew a few of them, though." He nodded to himself, lost in memories he hadn't dredged up in years. "Those boys knew what they were doing. Hell, if they'd worked as hard at real jobs as they did at being outlaws, they'd have all been rich old men dying in their beds instead of dying broke and too damned young at the end of ropes."

  He glanced at her and saw her shiver. Shame rippled through him, but now that he'd started, he was determined to finish. She had a right to know just what kind of a ghost she was dealing with.

  Before he could change his mind, he started talking again. "My problems with the law were usually for fighting and drinking," he admitted and felt that shame inside him blossom until it threatened to choke him. Lordy, this wasn’t as easy as he'd thought it would be. "I was a good carpenter once."

  "You still are," she said quickly.

  "Thanks," he replied, smiling at her, then returning his gaze to the night. "But when I had the chance to do something with my skill, I didn't. Worked enough to eat, played cards enough to lose anything I had left…"

  "Jackson."

  He heard her get up and started talking faster, wanting to get it all said before she could stop him.

  "I wasn't much good, Rachel," he said as she walked up to him. "Heck, my own mother died when I was eight, just to get the hell away from me." Surprising that that still hurt. He pulled in a long, shuddering breath. "I let people down. Even you." He shoved one hand through his hair. "Moved on whenever I started getting close to somebody. Fouled things up, then pulled up stakes so I wouldn’t have to clean up my own messes."

  "Jackson, stop it," she begged and laid one hand on his arm.

  Rushing now, he told her the rest of it. "You wanted to know what being a ghost is like? What it is to be trapped in a filthy saloon watching other fools like yourself throw their lives away?"

  "I’m so sorry," she said softly.

  "Don't be. I don’t deserve your sympathy," he assured her. Spinning around to face her, he looked into her blue eyes and said, "I made my own Hell, Rachel. Built it fine and strong, all by myself. Stone by stone. Brick by brick."

  "Jackson…"

  "Maybe I was never a real bad man. But I sure as shooting could have been a better one." He inhaled deeply. "You wanted to know what it's like? Being a ghost?"

  She didn't say anything, so he plunged ahead.

  "It’s nothingness, Rachel." His throat ached with the agony of forcing the words out. "It's day after day of nothing followed by long nights where the only thing to do is sit in the dark and curse yourself for wasting everything you were given. It's watching others do the same things you did and being unable to warn them. To tell them that they still have time to change."

  He dragged in a deep breath, let his head fall back on his neck, and stared unseeing at the ceiling. "It's listening to the wind and not feeling it. It's standing in the rain and not getting wet. It's hunger that can’t be fed and thirst that won’t be quenched."

  She choked back a sob, and Jackson moved to look down at her. So close to him and
yet so damned far away she might as well have been on the other side of the world. Tears spilled from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. But he didn't want her crying for him. He didn’t want her tears. He was too far beyond any help her pity might generate.

  He grabbed her upper arms, feeling her, holding her, and accepting the pain that followed as his due. Pain far sharper than anything he’d felt since the night he'd been killed.

  "It's touching and not feeling." His thumbs moved over the sunny yellow fabric covering her flesh. "It's talking and not being heard. It's being more tired than you ever thought possible and yet being unable to sleep." His voice broke, caught, then went on in a strained whisper that rose up straight from his soul. "It's an eternity of loneliness."

  Her features twisted in grief, and stabbing into whatever was left of his heart.

  "I watch each sunrise. Each sunset." He shook his head sadly and gave her a smile meant to dry her tears. "It's a marvel, Rachel. A miracle. Two miracles, every day. And I never noticed until it was too late." His gaze swept her up and down, and a deep, unfathomable sadness seeped into him. "There are so many things I notice now. When it's too late for any of them."

  A sob tore from her throat, and she launched herself at him. He caught her and held her tightly within the circle of his arms. Her breasts flattened against his chest, she tucked her face into the bend of his neck and shoulder. He felt her tears, hot and damp on his skin, and the brush of her breath like a salve to a long open wound.

  "It's not too late, Jackson," she whispered and her breath brushed across his throat like a prayer. His arms tightened around her, crushing her to him with an intensity that terrified him. But he was more terrified of letting go. He wanted to believe that she was right. That it wasn't too late. That there still might be a chance, however slight, for him to find a bit of the happiness he'd been denied for too long.

  She drew her head back and cupped his jaw with one hand, turning his face to hers until their gazes met and locked. Her blue eyes swam with tears, and it felt as though a giant fist squeezed his chest.

  Rachel pulled his head down to hers. When her lips were just a breath away from his, he stopped, listening to the one last, rational thought screaming in the back of his mind. That voice yelled at him to go no further. To walk away from the comfort she offered because it was the right thing to do.

  Because he had never done what he should have and now would be a good time to start.

  Then she rose up onto her toes and pressed her mouth to his, and the voice was silenced by the thundering of desire pulsing through him.

  His lips came down on hers, drawing her sweetness inside him. He tasted her, glorying in the feel of her. The soft, yielding pressure of her mouth, the strength of her hands about his neck. Parting her lips with his tongue, he swept into her warmth, a gentle invasion that stole breath and rocked souls.

  She gasped and tightened her hold on him. Her tongue moved along his, inexpertly, yet eagerly. She pressed closer to him until he felt the pebbly hard tips of her nipples as brands searing into his chest.

  His hands moved up and down her spine, drawing her tight against him even as his mouth claimed her and his tongue stroked her passions into a fiery blaze.

  He tore his lips from hers and raked long, damp kisses along the length of her slender throat. She moaned and tipped her head to one side, silently inviting him to take more of her.

  "Jackson," she whispered brokenly, and he felt her pulse point beneath his lips. He lingered there, reveling in the rapid beat of her heart, the hot taste of her skin. He inhaled the faint, flowery scent of her, drawing it deep into his lungs and capturing the memory forever. She shivered in his arms and curled her fingers into his shoulders, holding onto him as if he were the last stable force on earth.

  One hand smoothed up her back and around until he cupped one small, perfect breast in his palm. His thumb stroked across the fabric hiding her rigid nipple and she tensed, instinctively arching toward him. The pain in his groin tripled and tore at him until he wanted nothing more but to bury himself deep inside her and feel her hot, slick body hold him tightly. At that mental image, he groaned her name and returned to claim her mouth once more.

  His tongue darted in and out of her heat, in an imitation of the ancient dance he so wanted to share with her. Her hands cupped his face, holding him to her, caressing him until he wanted to shout with the joy of touching and being touched in return.

  Rachel gasped again. Lightning-like flashes of something she couldn’t name shot through her body. Her toes curled in her shoes, her stomach swarmed with what seemed millions of butterflies, and in one very private place, dampness pooled along with a throbbing, driving ache like she’d never known. She met his tongue stroke for stroke and knew in her heart that this was just the prelude. The beginnings of something more powerful than she'd ever imagined.

  Her knees wobbly, she sagged against him, and he caught her up with one strong arm around her back. With his other hand, he continued to stroke her breast with light, gentle touches that only served to make her want a stronger, firmer caress.

  Craving air desperately, she pulled her head back from him, shivering in his embrace as need continued to race in her blood.

  "Rachel," he groaned her name softly. "Jesus, God, Rachel. You’re so sweet. So tempting."

  The air she needed refused to come. Her lungs trembled as she fought for breath. His thumb flicked across her nipple, and she groaned aloud, arching her body into his until she felt his rigid body pressing into her abdomen. The damp heat in her center multiplied; her mouth went dry.

  She looked into his green eyes and saw that desire had obliterated the pain she'd sought to ease. Everything he’d said, the haunting word pictures he'd painted, had struck a chord inside her. He'd reached her with his pain. His agony of loneliness.

  That was something she understood far too well. Something she'd fought against. Something she'd tried to fix by founding her Spinster Society and drawing together friends who suffered the same way. She'd thought she could bury loneliness by creating the family she'd always wanted.

  Now, though, she knew that it wouldn't have been enough. There was still Jackson. Without him, she would always be lonely. It was as if he were the other half of her soul. They were interlocking pieces of the same puzzle. Just as her real mother had promised so long ago, he was the man she was meant for.

  Unless they were together, she knew they would each forever be incomplete.

  "Jackson," she managed to whisper and wasn't surprised to hear her voice come low and raw. "I feel so…"

  "I know, Rachel," he murmured and lifted his hand from her breast to smooth his fingertips along the line of her cheek. "I know."

  "I want to feel more. I want to know what it is to be loved."

  He ground his teeth together, and the look on his face told her that her words had struck home with the impact of a double-edged knife.

  "Rachel," he groaned and eased his hold on her. "We can’t. I can't."

  "Yes you can," she urged him, already afraid she was losing him to cool, reasonable thought. "This was meant, Jackson. From the very beginning, it was meant. All it needed was for me to grow up and be ready."

  He smiled at her, but the desire in his eyes had faded to embers. "It was too late for us long ago. Rachel. When we first met, it was too late. When you were a child, I had already been dead for months."

  "No," she said, her voice deep with denial. "There was a reason you were sent to me. A reason we met."

  His thumb moved gently over her temple. His breathing had slowed, and she sensed the difference in him. With every moment that passed, he became more in control. And moved farther away from her.

  She should never have broken their kiss. She shouldn’t have given him time to think.

  "Ah, honey, don’t start wishing for things that can't be. You'll only be hurt again." His arm dropped from around her waist and she felt its absence keenly. "I don’t want to hurt you again, Rachel. N
ot again."

  "Then don't do this," she pleaded and reached up to link her arms around his neck again in a desperate effort to regain what she had already lost. "Don't pull away from me, Jackson. I love you."

  He stiffened as if she’d slapped him.

  Slowly, gently, he reached up and pulled her arms free. Holding her wrists tenderly, he shook his head. "Don't. Don't love me. Don't want me to stay. Because I won’t. And there's nothing either of us can do to change that."

  A yawning, black emptiness opened inside her and began to spread. She felt the cold darkness ease into her limbs, crawl through her chest, and blanket her heart with a chill she would never be rid of.

  It can’t be, she told herself. There had to be a reason they were brought together.

  As if he could read her mind, he said, "I'm not the man for you, Rachel." He swallowed heavily, and she felt as well as heard the sorrow in his words. "As much as I might like things to be different, they aren't. I'm only here long enough to see you married."

  "You can't still want me to marry someone else?"

  His jaw tightened, and a tiny twitch developed at the corner of his eye. "It has nothing to do with what I want."

  "Or what I want, apparently."

  "It’s better this way, Rachel."

  "How can this be better?" Her voice broke, a sob rose up in her throat.

  Weary resignation filled his eyes as he shook his head. "I know you don’t want to hear this."

  No. No, she did not want to. She wanted to go back. Just five minutes back in time. She would change all of this. She would kiss him hard enough to make him forget their differences. Hard enough to make him believe that he was alive again. That he belonged to her.

  "But it's true, nonetheless." He stroked her cheek one last time with the tips of his fingers, then let his hand fall to his side. "If, by some miracle, we could stay together, I'd only end up breaking your heart."