by Nina Bruhns
Bong.
Just ahead, a door crashed open in the side of the building and a fireman leapt through the flames and ran toward them. Though dressed head to toe in soot-smudged yellow firemen's gear, his arrogant stride and powerful frame were unmistakable.
Bong.
Sully!
Tyree's own fateful words came back to him, bitter and haunting. I'll see you when the flames burn hottest, my friend.
Bong.
This time, Tyree did laugh. A desperate, ironic bark of defeat.
Damn his hide. Damn his bastard hide.
He'd done it.
Sully had gotten his ultimate revenge.
Bong.
His best friend and worst enemy bent over him, and Tyree howled with anguish as Clara's limp body was pried from his fingers. "Don't take her from me. For God's sake don't take her!"
"Let her go, man. It's over."
Bong.
Struggling to draw his last breath on earth, Tyree rasped, "Damn you, Sullivan Fouquet! Damn you for cursing me. Damn you for killing the only woman I ever loved! And damn you to live with a loved one's betrayal as wretched as that you dealt me."
There was a muffled shout and a huge crash, but without Clara in his arms, Tyree felt nothing.
Bong.
And so, with the final toll of the midnight bell, he closed his eyes and let the blackness roll over him forever.
* * *
Chapter 18
« ^
Flames licked at her shoulder, burning like acid. She whimpered. Where was he? She tried to remember who she was looking for. But couldn't…
Clara woke with a start and clawed her way out of her nightmare, taking big gulps of air. She looked around and realized she wasn't at Rose Cottage. She was in a hospital room. And her arm was in a sling.
What had happened?
Slowly it all came trickling back: the never-ending Pirate Festival, chancing upon that man sneaking out of the Moon and Palmetto with the stolen painting, the terrifying fire blazing all around, Tyree coming to her rescue. Jumping in front of the gun to save him…
She groaned. Oh, great. Tyree would never forgive her for—
Tyree!
Suddenly, she remembered.
Oh-God-oh-God-oh-God.
She bolted upright but was immediately engulfed in an avalanche of pain. She collapsed back on the bed, terror pushing aside the physical hurt.
That's who she'd been looking for.
"Mrs. Yates?" she called out, but could barely get the sound past her parched throat. Mrs. Yates would know what had become of him. She'd been there. She had to have seen.
"Back in the world of the living, I hear," said a chipper voice from the other side of a partition curtain. A second later, a steely gray head popped into view, followed by the rest of a stout, matronly nurse. "Don't try to move, it'll— Ah. I see I'm too late."
"Where's Mrs. Yates?" she asked. "I need to—"
"She's fine and dandy, don't you worry none. Kept her overnight, but she went home yesterday."
Yesterday? That meant— "Tyree," Clara whispered, tears filling her eyes.
"What's that?" the nurse asked. "Your family? They were called and are on their way in from Kansas. I don't mind saying your mother is very worried about you. Dr. Anderson tried to reassure her—"
The nurse droned on, fiddling with her IV and fussing with her pillows and blanket. But Clara didn't have the energy to listen. Even to news of her family. All she could think of was Tyree, and how she would never see him again.
Dr. Anderson came in and Clara stoically endured being poked, prodded and pronounced well on the road to recovery.
Right.
What did doctors know anyway?
"Do you feel like seeing a visitor?" the nurse asked when the doctor whisked out again. "From the fire department."
"Sully?" she asked, perking up. She had a vague memory of him being there, too. Though she couldn't quite place him…
"You mean Captain Sullivan? Oh, no, the poor man. I'm afraid he's quite beyond visiting at the moment. He was crushed by a falling wooden beam while pulling you out of that alley."
Clara gasped, horrified. "Pulling me out? Oh, my God is he…?"
The nurse tsked. "A pure miracle he survived. Broke half a dozen bones in a score of places, but no, he'll pull through. Physically, at least."
Dismay washed over Clara. "There was brain damage?"
"No apparent head injury, but he's surely been muttering some mighty odd things." The nurse tapped her graying temple. "Hallucinating. About being a pirate."
Clara stared in disbelief. Oh, no. "You're kidding."
The other woman leaned in conspiratorially. "Must have mixed up the festival with reality in his rattled brain. Thinks he's Sullivan Fouquet of all people." She chuckled heartily. "Must be the similar name. But not to worry. Doctor says the captain should snap out of it when he regains full consciousness."
Clara's stomach sank. For some reason, she had her doubts about that.
"Anyway, your visitor is Inspector Santee. He's being quite … persistent. So if you feel up to it, you'd be doing us all a big favor, if you know what I mean." The nurse gave her pillow a final fluff. "What do you say?"
The last thing Clara wanted was visitors. But at least Santee could tell her what happened at the fire.
"Why not."
Jake entered the room with a red face and a large bouquet of yellow daisies. "Hope you're feeling better, Miz Fergussen. The, uh, guys sent some flowers." He deposited the vase on the nightstand like it was a burning hot coal, wiping his hands on his jeans afterwards.
She managed a sincere smile. "How sweet. Thank them for me."
"Sure." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I just wanted to come and apologize in person for getting you into this mess."
"What?" She changed gears and took a good look at him. Self-recrimination was written all over his face.
"If I hadn't involved you—"
She cut him off. "Please don't say that." She recognized the guilt trip because she was feeling exactly the same way about Captain Sullivan. "It was my own choice to go into that alley," she assured him. "If I hadn't, maybe Captain Sullivan wouldn't be fighting for his life right now."
"The chief was doing his job," Santee countered emphatically. "You were doing mine. I should have been chasing Peel, not you."
She pushed out a breath. "Let's call it a wash, then, okay? At least we got him."
Santee looked at the floor. "I guess. Although that's one needless death in my book."
"Peel died in the fire?"
"We assume so. Haven't found the body yet, but there was no way he could have gotten through that inferno. He's in there somewhere."
"And the diaries?"
"I assume they're gone, too."
"What a shame. Why do you think he did them? The fires I mean."
Santee shrugged. "His family says he hasn't been the same since the mill went bankrupt. He's been obsessed with finding money to reopen it. Apparently, he ran across some old papers clearing out the mill office that made reference to pirate treasure and some kind of clue contained in one of the Scraggs diaries."
"If that is true, it really is too bad they were burned."
"Yeah. In any case, at least it's all over." His mouth thinned. "Well, I better get going. Just wanted to drop those flowers off."
He took his leave and she let out a heartfelt sigh. Poor man. He'd taken a heavy burden upon himself. She hoped he had someone who'd help him through it.
She wished she did, too.
But the only person in the universe who would understand what she was going through couldn't help her now. Could never help her again.
She might as well face up to it. Tyree was gone from her life. And somehow, she'd have to find the strength to go on.
Exhausted, she lay back on the bed and stopped fighting the overwhelming hurt, inside and out. She let it wash over her, sweeping her away in a sea of misery—heart an
d soul and body.
Tyree was gone.
How would she ever live without him?
* * *
Everything was muzzy. Muzzy and white.
White room. Bright white lights. White-clad people gliding noiselessly past.
No wings, he noted.
And his belly hurt like hell.
Which probably eliminated heaven as his present abode.
Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered any longer.
The distinctive smell of cleaning solution scrubbed the lingering cobwebs from Tyree's brain. He cracked an eyelid and peeked at the instruments beeping to one side of the bed. He'd never been in a hospital before, but he recognized his surroundings from countless daytime soap operas.
What the hell was going on?
He closed his eye again and lay there for a moment getting his bearings. A maneuver that had saved his life on many an occasion in his privateering days.
He started. He wasn't wearing his pirate togs! His upper chest was bare and some flimsy cloth covered his lower body. His abdomen was bound up in a bandage tight as a drum. Which probably accounted for the throbbing pain.
"Oh, Mr. Tyler!" a young feminine voice sang out, shocking him further. "Come on now, I can see you're awake."
Tyler? Could she be talking to him? Nay. He squeezed them tighter.
A duo of giggles sounded from a nearby doorway. "Maybe he's shy," one of them suggested to another round of giggles.
That's when he realized someone was running a warm, wet sponge over his naked chest. He froze. A second later, the sponge made another pass.
That's it.
He grabbed the young woman's wrist. "I'll thank you to stop that," he said in his most authoritative voice, opening his eyes into a ferocious scowl.
She gasped, along with the other candy-stripe-clad young ladies at the door.
He hadn't intended to scare them, but he was a bit rattled. He'd been expecting angels with harps or possibly imps with pitchforks. But giggling candy canes with sponges … nay. Not on his list of possible afterlife scenarios.
"Kindly tell me where I am," he commanded ill-temperedly. He didn't like surprises. Not one bit.
"W-why, the Old Fort Mystic Medical Center, Mr. Tyler. Is there a p-problem?" she stammered.
Old Fort Mystic— Impossible. That was the big city near Magnolia Cove. Not heaven or hell.
And why did she keep calling him Mr. Tyler?
"Why am I here?" he demanded in confusion, releasing her.
"The fire, Mr. Tyler. Don't you remember? You were stabbed." She pointed to the bandage on his belly.
He ground his jaw. Of course he remembered. Grotesque images had danced in his mind like a macabre light show behind his every waking thought. The fire, finding Clara, the helpless agony of holding her in his arms as she died. He would never forget those ghastly, horrific minutes as long as he—
Sweet Jesus!
"God's Bones," he breathed, "I'm alive!"
The girl with the sponge let out a soft chuckle and looked at him with sympathetic amusement. "As you see, Mr. Tyler, you are very much alive and kicking. Now, about your sponge bath…"
He didn't know whether to laugh hysterically or find a knife and finish the job Peel had started.
"Nay," he choked out, warding her off. "No bath." He slapped a hand over his eyes so she wouldn't see the sudden despair in them.
He was alive.
And Clara was dead.
His worst nightmare had come to pass. She had sacrificed her life for him, putting herself in the path of a bullet that would have sailed right through his ghostly body with no ill effect.
Ah, Clara, Clara! Why did she do it?
As Sully promised, the curse had been lifted; miraculously, he'd been granted a new chance at a real life.
But now he had no reason to live.
"We'll let you rest, then, Mr. Tyler," the girl said, and quietly gathered her bowl and sponge.
He couldn't bear to ask about Clara's funeral, but when she reached the door, he pulled himself together enough to ask, "Mrs. Yates, the old lady at the fire. Is she all right?"
"She's good," the girl said, turning. "Released yesterday. Oh, and your Miss Fergussen, she'll be fine, too."
For a second he couldn't breathe.
"Miss Fergussen?" Paralyzed, he stared at the girl. "Clara … she's alive?" he burst out.
The girl nodded, smiling. "Inspector Santee said you'd be asking about her." She turned out the light and said, "Get some rest now."
But Tyree barely heard her.
Clara was alive! Alive!
Insensible to the pain that gouged his midsection, he leapt out of bed. Or tried to leap. It ended up more like a desperate crawl. Which resulted in a hopeless tangle of wires and tubes that held him prisoner to a bank of beeping devices, a tall pole and bag of liquid.
He ripped off the taped wires and yanked the plastic tube from his forearm. Oblivious to the resulting bloody runnel on his arm, he lurched to the door, grabbing at the pole for support and dragging it along with him as a wheeled walking stick. Once outside his room, he spotted the sponge girl at a circular desk along with a group of nurses.
"Where is she?" he croaked, absurdly light-headed, panting with the simple effort of standing. His lungs stung from dragging in air; his eyes smarted from the bright lights. Smells assaulted him from every direction. But he had to get to her. "Clara, tell me where she is!"
"Mr. Tyler! You need to get back to—"
"Tell me or I'll look through every damned room in this whole place!" he boomed.
For a second, there was absolute silence. Then the girl indicated the hall to his left. "Four twenty-one. Right down the—"
He didn't wait for her to finish, but staggered down the corridor as fast as he could hobble, snarling at anyone who got in the way. Nothing was going to keep him from reaching Clara.
He was seeing spots by the time he found room 421. Somehow, his free hand found the door lever and jerked it down. With his last ounce of strength he pushed, and the door opened wide.
There, lying on the bed, was the most beautiful sight in the world.
"Clara," he sighed, his heart taking wing. "Sweeting, I'm here."
* * *
Clara looked up at the commotion at her door. "What's go—"
And all at once, time stood still.
She gazed at the man standing in the doorway and couldn't believe her eyes. Was she dreaming again? Or had she wished so hard she'd conjured up Tyree's beloved image even while awake?
She swallowed, not wanting to speak, not wanting to move, in case he vanished.
"Clara, it's me," he said, his voice weak and raspy. His lips were cracked and trembling.
The rest of him looked terrible, too. His broad chest was livid with a violently purple bruise and his stomach was wrapped in a huge white bandage. Blood oozed down his arm. His feet were bare, and he clung to an IV pole as if he'd fall over in a heap without its tenuous support.
Her heart stalled. "Tyree?" she whispered. "Is it really you?"
A broad smile broke out across his pallid face. "Aye. Back to haunt you."
A laugh escaped her throat. She'd take it. She'd take him any way she could have him. Dead or alive, spirit or Looney Tune. She'd follow him to the ends of the earth or stay at Rose Cottage until the end of her days. Whatever would keep her with him.
Her eyes widened as the doctor marched up and grasped his arm. "Mr. Tyler, I don't know what you think you're doing, but you'd better get horizontal and double-quick!"
"Nay, I—"
Nurses bustled in to do the doctor's bidding.
"Wait!" Clara cried. "Don't take him away. Here." She scooted to the edge of her bed. "Let him stay with me. Please?"
The doctor looked from one to the other and pursed her lips to hide a smile. "Very well. Five minutes. But if he pulls out his IV again, there will be serious consequences."
Tyree limped over to the bed and eased in beside
her, reaching for her hand. She squeezed it tight as the doctor replaced his IV, felt his forehead and inspected his bandage.
When the others finally left and they were alone, she whispered, "You look terrible. Are you all right?"
He raised her fingers to his lips. "Just don't make me laugh."
She smiled. If he could crack jokes, he was okay. "The doctor, the nurses, they can all see you," she ventured carefully.
"Aye," he said, kissing each knuckle in turn. "That they can." With each kiss her heart soared higher and higher.
"That means … you must be…" Did she dare say it? Did she even dare hope?
He turned his head and met her gaze. The glow of happiness in his eyes told her without words it was true.
"No longer a lost soul," he confirmed softly. "Thanks to you, the curse is lifted."
"But how? I'm still alive."
"I don't quite understand it myself," he said, shaking his head. "When I realized I was really alive I was frantic, knowing what must have happened to you. And yet, here you are." He gave her a long kiss.
She sighed happily. "Thank God."
"It must have been the wording of the curse. 'Until you find a woman willing to die in your place.' Willing to die. Not actually die. I'd never thought about the distinction before." He glanced at her patched-up shoulder and a frown darkened his joyful expression. "But what possessed you to step in front of that gun?"
She smiled weakly. "I couldn't help it. I love you."
Tenderly, he reached over and put his arms around her. "Oh, Clara. I love you, too, sweeting. More than you'll ever know. But if you ever put yourself in danger like that again, I'll … I'll…"
"Make me walk the plank?"
He chuckled and brushed his lips over hers. "I'd like to think I could get a little more creative than that."
She snuggled in a little closer, mindful of his injury. "In that case, no promises."
"I knew you were a troublemaker the first time I saw you."
"You ain't seen nothin' yet."
"Bring it on, darlin'." He tipped her chin up with his fingers. "Everything you've got. I want it all."
Her heart filled with joy. "Good. Because I like it in Magnolia Cove. I think I'll stay for a while."