by Pam Crooks
The palomino changed direction, heading away from the business district. “You mean you walk over a mile to the factory every day? And back again?”
His low voice sounded husky in her ear. Almost intimate. But then, there was no need for him to talk in a loud voice. Not with him sitting this close, his chin sometimes brushing her hair.
“It is not so far,” she lied proudly.
“Except when it rains. Or the wind blows cold. How about when you’re dog-tired from working all day?”
Gina said nothing. What could she say? He had already guessed the truth.
He fell silent. She got the impression he didn’t approve of her and Mama walking every day, but what business was it of his? He had a beautiful, strong horse. He wouldn’t know what it was like not to have one.
The blocks passed swiftly. With them, her hope increased that she would find her mother at home. When they approached her street, she instructed Creed to turn, and as the black shape of their tenement apartment building loomed, her gaze shot to the row of third-floor windows.
All of them were dark.
Her hope crashed.
Mama would have left a light on.
The despair, the worry, hurtled back again, and Gina struggled to breathe from the onslaught. Creed dismounted first, then took her blanket and tossed it over his shoulder before assisting her down. With both feet on the ground again, she struggled hard for composure.
“She is not there,” Gina said.
He dragged his gaze over the apartments. A moment passed. “No way to know for sure until you go inside.”
Impatience cut through her. Why didn’t he understand what Gina knew, deep in her heart? Mama wasn’t here, but she was somewhere, all alone, and Los Angeles was a very big city, and Gina didn’t know how to find her. Not anymore.
But she bit back the words. He spoke with a man’s logic, not a daughter’s worry. He was only being kind, encouraging her, and he had done far more than anyone would have expected.
“Thank you for bringing me home,” she said. “Thank you for—for everything.”
“I’m going in with you,” he said.
“What? Into the apartments?” This she had not expected.
“To make sure you get in all right. Here’s your blanket.”
She took it. “There is no need for you to go in. I can find my way.”
“The place is dark, and it’s late. Not safe for a woman alone.”
“I have done it many times.”
Well, not so many without Mama, maybe, but he didn’t need to know that.
“This is one time you’re not.” He tied the palomino to a hitching post. As if he didn’t think they’d be safe either, he took his saddlebags and hooked them over an arm. With the other, he made a sweeping gesture toward the apartment’s front door. “Lead the way, Gina.”
She couldn’t win over his bullheadedness, and she was too tired to keep trying. A wide sidewalk separated the dirt street from the steps. From the top one, she pushed the door open and went inside.
A long, narrow hall divided the front apartments from the rear ones. Mrs. Sortino, the landlady, kept only a single light burning near the wooden staircase which ran through the center of the building, more for her benefit than any of her boarders since her rooms were on this level. Gina took hold of the handrail as she always did—the higher they climbed, the darker the staircase would get.
It wasn’t long before she heard Creed swear behind her.
“Hold up,” he ordered. She recognized the sound of a match striking flint. Instantly, pale golden light fanned out around them. “Is it always this dark?”
She understood the annoyance in his tone. Many times, she felt the annoyance, too. “Mrs. Sortino says it is expensive to have a light burn on all five floors.”
“She does, does she?”
“So we must be careful at night. I know many who have fallen.”
He muttered something unintelligible, but Gina ignored him and kept climbing. At the third floor, she veered into the hallway lining the front of her apartment.
But at the door, she halted. Only now did she remember she had left her purse at the factory. Everything in it would be gone. Burned. She didn’t have a key.
Creed’s glance bounced from her to the knob and back up again.
“Can’t get in?” he asked.
She jiggled the knob.
“No.” She drew in a miserable breath.
Creed extinguished the match, plunging them into darkness, then lit another, giving them light again. “Here. Hold this.”
He handed her the matchstick, and she held it carefully between two fingers while he rummaged in his hip pocket. He removed a long, thin piece of metal, something like a nail, and inserted it into the keyhole. A few flicks of his wrist, and like magic, the door opened.
But Gina didn’t go inside.
Alarm held her frozen, her heart pounding. This skill of his—he was a thief, and he intended to rob her of what little she had, maybe even kill her, because thieves knew how to break into people’s homes. She had trusted him like a fool, and oh, holy Madonna, what else could go wrong tonight?
He went still, as if he could read the emotions tumbling through her like words on paper.
“Gina.” He shook his head slowly. “I learned to pick locks a long time ago. In the army. It was part of my job to—it’s not like you’re thinking. You can trust me, I swear it. I’m not going to hurt you or steal anything.” His mouth went hard. “Do you really think I would?”
Her throat worked. “Maybe. I do not know.”
“I’m not.”
From somewhere in the shadows, something skittered past them, and she whirled with a cry of fright. The match light shone on a pair of glittering eyes staring up at them.
Mrs. Sortino’s cat, on the prowl again. Recognition left her wobbly, giddy, precariously on the verge of tears.
Creed opened the door wider. “Let’s go in, Gina. We’re going to wake your neighbors if we don’t.”
She collected her flailing composure. “You cannot.”
“I can’t what? Go in with you?”
The low-voiced challenge lingered in the air between them. Clearly, he thought nothing of the impropriety. Again, that odd sense of intimacy curled through her from being with him, carrying with it a growing awareness of this American, his power, his mystery, but mostly how vulnerable he made her feel.
“You are—are very nice to bring me up to my apartment, but now I am here, and you must leave,” she said.
A muscle moved in his cheek. He returned the pick to his pocket. “Not yet.”
She bit her lip at his persistence. The walls were paperthin; her neighbors might come out any minute and find her here, standing in the hall at a scandalous hour, arguing with this handsome stranger.
If he had any intentions of hurting her, he would have done so by now, she knew. Yet she dreaded the prospect of finding the apartment cold and empty, and did she really want to be alone anyway? “Then you cannot stay with me for more than a few minutes.”
He grunted. She went in. He followed, dropped his saddlebags to the floor and locked the door. Before his match went out, he lit a third and bent over Mama’s kerosene lamp. Soon, light spilled bright around them.
Immediately, Gina’s gaze searched the tiny front room, the bedroom and the bed still made from yesterday morning, the kitchen where coffee cups sat on the table, ready for filling.
Without taking a step away from the door, Gina accepted the truth, and her heart broke from it.
Hot tears burned her eyes. “She does not come here after the fire.”
Creed dragged his glance to her.
“No,” he said.
A sob welled into her throat. It was the last of her hope, another frightening disappointment on a night full of them. The wool blanket slipped from her grasp; her knees buckled from the faint that threatened to pull her under.
In an instant, Creed was beside her. He hooked h
is arm around her waist and half carried her into the nearest chair, a plain wooden one at the kitchen table.
“You’re exhausted.” He released her and headed for the cupboard. “You have anything strong to drink?”
He found a bottle of wine, a gift from Sebastian on her last birthday. Without waiting for her response, he uncorked it, sloshed some into one of the coffee cups and held the porcelain to her lips with a firm order to swallow.
She did, until every drop was gone. The warmth flowing down her throat and into her belly melted her weariness, gave her some strength. She wished she would’ve fainted after all to escape the terrible worry about Mama.
“Have some more.” He refilled her cup and took the liberty of pouring himself one, too. He pulled out the remaining chair and sat across from her, then drained his wine in a few good gulps. He set the empty cup down. Silent, assessing, he watched her.
She drank the second round more slowly, aware of how the wine seeped into her blood, soothing her, leaving her numb. She dared to meet the intensity of his perusal, let herself not think about her mother for a little while but become intrigued by the deep amber color of his eyes, so different than the men of her country.
Besides Sebastian, no man had sat at her table before. Creed filled the tiny kitchen with a bewildering kind of aura no one at Premier possessed, not even the most respected of highly paid cutters, like Sebastian. Or her boss, Mr. Silverstein. Something in Creed’s life had given him a hard edge. She suspected it made him fearless, too. And why should she find that fascinating?
“You save my life in the factory,” she said quietly.
He nodded once, the vaguest of gestures. She might have missed it if she hadn’t been concentrating on him so much.
“You carry me down the stairs?” She thought of the explosion, the fury of it, and shuddered.
“Couldn’t leave you on them, could I?”
“All eight floors.” Oh, she would have been heavy.
“Every one.”
Her glance touched on the breadth of his shoulders, the bulge of his arms inside the sleeves of his shirt. She wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t been so strong. “Thank you.”
He seemed unaffected by her gratitude or what he had done, the dangers of going with her to the top of the factory when the fire was so hot, so wild. Perhaps he had done this before? Saved innocent people when they didn’t know how to save themselves?
He leaned forward. “What happened up there, Gina? Do you know?”
She blinked. Her thoughts on him jolted to a stop.
“How does the fire start?” she asked.
“Yes. All the victims—if the owner of the factory is at fault in any way, then he needs to be held accountable.”
Her blood turned cold. She set the cup on the table with a thunk.
“No,” she managed. “Not Mr. Silverstein.”
“Your boss?”
“Yes.” For all his faults, he would never have done anything so horrible.
“What then?” Creed’s voice sounded rough, determined. “Faulty sewing machines? Cutting equipment? Wiring?”
“No.”
She had not had time to think of it. She had been too frantic, too desperate to find her mother and save them both from the fire.
But now, the truth came. Vivid and ugly.
With it, the first stirrings of rage.
“Gina. Tell me what you know.”
The rage bubbled inside her until it welled in her throat. Until she could barely breathe.
“The fire, it is set,” she ground out. “On purpose.”
He breathed a stunned oath.
“I see it happen. They smoke, even when they know they must not.”
“Who was? You know their names?”
Her lip curled. Never would she forget.
“Yes. I know the names. Nikolai and Alex Sokolov. They are angry at Mr. Silverstein. And so they start the fire in a bin of scraps.”
Creed stared. “You’re sure about this?”
Irrational tears stung the back of her eyes. “You think I will lie?”
“No.” A muscle in his jaw moved. “No, but you can’t be wrong, Gina.”
She swiped at a stubborn tear. “I am not wrong.”
“What can you tell me about them?”
“They are brothers. They work on the eighth floor. I am on the ninth, and so I do not know them as well as Sebastian would.”
And now, because of what they had done, so many had died, so many were hurt. Mama was gone, and Gina could not find her, and oh, she hated them for what they had done.
Frustration and grief and worry all rolled into one choking sob, and she covered her face with her hands. She had to stay strong, because if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t be able to think on how to find her mother. Or how to go on if she didn’t.
Gathering her will, she straightened from the table and stood. “You must go now.”
An eye narrowed. “I think I’ll stay.”
“You cannot.”
“I’m not leaving you alone.”
“Mrs. Sortino will evict me. She does not approve of men staying with unmarried women.”
“You going to tell her? I’m not.” Creed rose, too. “You need someone with you. Under the circumstances.”
His stubbornness, his hardheaded kindness, was her undoing, and the tears rushed back to stream freely down her cheeks.
The great, ravaging grief she hadn’t allowed herself to feel.
Until now.
Creed reached a hand toward her. “Gina.”
She didn’t want him to see. To know how much she hurt. Always, she took pride in being strong, and now, she wasn’t.
She turned from him, went to her bedroom and shut the door.
Chapter Seven
Creed swore at the closed door.
He had a need to barge through it to give her some comfort. Hell of an ordeal she was going through. Daughters tended to be close to their mothers. Real hard for Gina to be apart from hers, not knowing if she was dead or alive.
He raked a hand through his hair and grimaced. Most likely his own mother felt that way often enough over the years. She would’ve worried plenty—about where he was, who he was with, and yeah, if he was dead or alive.
He shifted under an onslaught of guilt. Now, she was gone. Forever. He’d never get the chance to tell her about the soldier he’d been and what he’d done for his country. How he’d learned to survive when the odds were against him. How he’d been victorious over the enemy—or managed to escape one by the skin of his sorry hide. Mostly, the thrill of it all, driven by a patriotism Ma would’ve been proud of.
She’d never know. Maybe that was why it’d become important to him to help Gina find her mother. Until they had proof Louisa Briganti was dead, Creed was going to go on believing she was alive.
It was understandable that Gina was scared. She didn’t know him well enough to take the comfort he was willing to give. She just needed to have time and privacy to work through the grief on her own.
He slid a somber gaze around the apartment. The place was small. Barely enough space for one person to live, let alone two, though tenements were notorious for squeezing entire families into flats this size. The front room contained a single window, a small table and a pair of worn chairs. Behind it, the kitchen with a fireplace and coal-burning stove; off that, the only bedroom which, he presumed, Gina shared with her mother.
The apartment was clean, tidy, but sparsely furnished. Easy to tell the women had little money to spend on luxuries, and now with the factory burned, Gina would have no job. How would she pay the overpriced rent the landlady was sure to charge?
He released a troubled sigh, picked up the wool blanket Gina had dropped by the door and spread it over the thread-bare carpet. Her world had been knocked upside down, for sure. She was going to need some help to get it right again.
He blew out the lamp and lowered himself onto the blanket. Using his saddlebags as a pillow, he laced hi
s fingers behind his head and stared up at the dark ceiling.
His mind turned from her into a jumble of thoughts about Pa and Mary Catherine. Markie. The disturbing intelligence report he received about President McKinley.
The wire to the War Department, most of all.
Gina’s situation had kept him from acting on it, but he’d send the message first chance he got. He was leaving America, no question about it. He just had a few matters to attend to before he did.
Might be Graham could help him dig up some information about the Sokolovs. Sebastian would, for sure, considering he worked with the men.
If the Sokolovs were guilty, they’d have to pay the price. Creed intended to see that they did. In full. He’d delay his plans to leave the continent if that’s what it took to avenge the scores of innocent factory workers the brothers’ actions had hurt.
But especially, he’d stay to avenge the beautiful Italian woman weeping softly in her room.
It’d been a short night. Seemed Creed had no sooner closed his eyes before sunshine poked through the thin curtains to wake him again.
At least he couldn’t hear any more crying from Gina’s room. Sometime before dawn, she must’ve fallen asleep from pure exhaustion. He frowned at the thought, but he knew the rest would help her feel better. A new day tended to improve one’s outlook on life.
She’d need to eat, too. Same as he did. Neither of them had had supper last night, and the growl in Creed’s belly told him breakfast was a need he couldn’t ignore.
He rose, found some water in a pitcher, soap in his saddlebags, and gave himself a good wash. After donning a set of clean clothes, he headed straight to the kitchen to see what he could find to eat.
Which wasn’t much.
A little coffee, a half loaf of bread, a few eggs. One large potato. But his interest caught on a pair of sausage links, wrapped in paper.
He set to work cooking it all up without feeling the least bit contrite for taking the liberty. It was plain to see Gina and her mother ate like birds. Maybe that was the only way they could afford to eat, but Creed intended to change that with a trip to the grocer to give their shelves a good restocking. He’d make sure to heap Gina’s plate this morning, too, and see that she ate every bite.