"I'll be fine." She smiled reassuringly as she tapped her thigh. "See you up above. Come on, boy. Come on, Silver."
Nearly two hours later, Celeste stood in the equipment room and watched Fox drink another cup of cold water. He was so exhausted he could barely stand.
"You all right?"
He leaned against her desk, covered his mouth, and coughed. "Better than poor Danny boy. The bone broke clean through. Doc says he's lucky it didn't break through the skin."
From a pitcher, she refilled the cup he set on her desk and added another splash of water to Silver's crock bowl on the floor at Fox's feet.
In the last two hours the tunnel with the cave-in had been closed off, the other areas checked, and the men were now back to work. The emergency had passed, but Celeste still felt edgy. She was upset that a man had been injured in her mine, more upset that it could have easily been Fox. He had been right there when the wall had caved in.
"So what caused the cave-in? Could you tell?"
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing dirt. "It's the strangest thing. I checked the square set yesterday; it was solid. Today it caves in."
"Will rebuilding the square set eliminate the danger?"
He looked away, his face etched with worry. "I don't know, because I don't know why it didn't hold. Was the lumber weak? Was it notched incorrectly?" His gaze met hers. "Did someone purposely sabotage the supports?"
"Who would do something like that? Certainly not any of the men in the mine. Any one of them could have been killed."
"I know." He crossed his arms over his chest, moving slowly, as if he barely had the energy. "I'm just skittish about cave-ins. I feel like a damned rat when I'm down there."
"So what do we do about the new tunnel?"
"Keep it closed off. It's close to the north line of our property anyway. We'll just dig in other directions. There are so many veins we could easily fan off another way. We might lose some money but—"
"It's not worth someone getting killed over."
He nodded. "I knew you would feel the same way."
Celeste walked up beside him and slipped her arm around his waist. "I was proud of you today. I don't know any other owner who would have stayed down there with that man."
He didn't say anything.
She gave him a squeeze. "I say we've had quite enough excitement for today. Why don't we go home, eat, and try out that bathtub again?"
He glanced at her sideways, that boyish smile she loved turning up the corners of his mouth. "I've been waiting all day for a proposition like that, ma'am."
She lifted up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his lips. "Race you home."
Filth. Nothing but filth and stench. You can smell it. Hear it. Taste it in the air in Carrington these days. Sin is what brings it. Gambling. Swearing. Drinking. Whoring. The filth is everywhere, seeping into every crack of man's existence.
It has to be stopped. Silenced. Here. Now.
There is only one way. Only the blade can wipe the sin clean. Only blood can wash it from the sinner's hands and face.
Blood. Blood. Blood.
The metallic smell of it. The stickiness of it on my hands. The warmth that flows with it . . . It is an elixir.
Celeste's hands shook as she lit the gas lamp and sat down on the corner of her bed. She'd left the door open for Fox, hoping he would join her. Most nights he did. Since his confession to her about Amber, he had been sleeping much better. He rarely wandered the streets at night with the dog. He said it was because he slept with Celeste in his arms, but she knew that he was finally beginning to forgive himself for Amber's death.
Celeste stared at her hands in her lap. She'd bathed alone tonight and changed into a flannel sleeping gown and robe. A cold wind tore at the window shutters outside, and a branch scraped eerily against the window.
Another murder.
The killer had struck again. This time it was one of Sal's new girls. Her name had been Emma. Fox had just been to Sal's. He hadn't told her what happened. He'd just passed her in the hallway. He said he'd be up, after he bathed the day's sweat and dirt from the mine from his body.
She threaded her fingers together and waited, trying not to think. Not to feel.
Four women. Dead. Butchered. In less than five months. The idea terrified her. Rosy had been smart to get out while she could. She wished Sally would do the same, but the girl was still trying to save money. She intended to leave by Christmas; that was her plan.
Celeste felt guilty for feeling so relieved that she hadn't been the victim. After all, she'd not lain with a customer in almost a year. When John had fallen sick, she'd left Kate's to care for him. She wasn't a whore any longer. True, she slept with a man who wasn't her husband, but that wasn't the same thing. The killer only murdered women who slept with many men. That excluded Celeste—it made her safe. She told herself that at least once a day.
A sound in the doorway startled Celeste. She jumped up. "Oh—it's you. You scared me."
"I'm sorry." Fox walked into her bedroom, a white cotton towel tied around his middle. He'd just bathed, and his hair was wet and sucked back over his head. He'd shaved and smelled of fresh soap and clean skin. "I didn't mean to startle you."
She sat back down on the bed. "It's all right. I was just daydreaming."
Silver wandered into the bedroom and stretched out in front of the coal stove that burned warmly in the far corner of the room.
Fox sat on the edge of the bed beside her and ran an extra towel over his wet hair. "Long day. It's hard with it being so cold above ground and so hot below."
She rested her hand on his bare knee. "We could hire another foreman so you wouldn't have to work so many hours."
"No." He laid back on the bed. "I need to be there. It's only right."
She stretched out beside him and propped her head on one elbow. "I wish I could say that I didn't understand." She smoothed his wet hair with her hand. "But I do."
She adored this time of evening, when they were close and talked about the day. She wondered if this was what it felt like to have a husband who loved you. Was this what husbands and wives did in the evenings?
He turned his head to stare into her eyes. They were so close that their noses nearly touched. Apparently, by silent agreement, they weren't going to discuss the murder tonight. They were both too physically tired, too mentally exhausted. Here, safe in the cocoon of John's house, they could find a moment's respite and just be together.
"I miss you when I'm down there," Fox said thoughtfully. "I think about you. I wonder what you're doing."
She smiled as a lump rose in her throat. He was so kind to her. So caring. If only he could accept her past . . .
"Ready for bed?" she asked, turning away so that he didn't see the tears that gathered in her eye.
"Yes, I'm ready for bed." He tossed the towels onto the floor and crawled beneath her down quilt. "Just not to sleep."
She blew out the gaslight and padded barefoot across the floor, her laughter mingling with his.
Running, running, running. Celeste was running, but she wasn't going anywhere. She could hear the footsteps behind her. She could feel the murderer pressing closer. Yet, when she turned around, she couldn't see him. When she turned around she saw nothing but the streets of Carrington. She heard nothing but the wind.
Celeste was out of breath, near exhaustion, and yet she couldn't stop running. If she stopped he would kill her. Her precious Adam would be an orphan. She couldn't let that happen. She wouldn't.
Peach Street seemed to go on forever. She kept on the same street, and yet she never reached the end.
She had to get to the train station. Celeste lifted her skirt to her knees and ran faster.
She could feel the killer growing closer. Her terrified heartbeat pounded to the rhythm of the killer's footsteps. She had almost reached the end of the street!
Then she felt the cold hard steel of the blade. She screamed as her knees buckled and she fe
ll, white hot pain radiating from her back. She heard the killer's voice and she knew she knew him.
Fox shook Celeste harder. "Celeste, wake up. Celeste."
She sat upright, panting. The quilt fell away, uncovering her bare breasts. Her heart was beating so hard that she felt as if it was going to explode from her chest. "Oh," she sighed. "Oh."
"You awake?" came Fox's voice out of the darkness. He rubbed her arm.
"Yes."
"Good. Now why don't you tell me who Gerald is?"
Chapter Twenty
Celeste's mouth was so dry that her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. "Gerald?" she whispered. It was as if he had spoken the name of a ghost or goblin.
"Gerald."
She could feel Fox's piercing gaze through the shadowed darkness of the bedroom. He was so close to her that she could touch him, yet he seemed as distant as the stars in the night.
"Yeah, Gerald," he repeated. "You called his name."
"Gerald . . ." she murmured numbly.
"He the man you see in Denver?" Fox's tone was cool.
She shook her head, feeling numb from her toes to her hair. It had been a long time since she thought about Gerald. Handsome, blue-eyed Gerald.
"Then who is he? You can't expect me not to ask. To not need to know."
Celeste lifted the quilt to cover her breasts. She was suddenly cold to the bone. "He . . ." Her voice sounded strange in her ears. "He . . . um . . . he was my fiancé."
"Fiancé?"
She felt as if she was floating half in the present, half in the past. Images flashed in her head. She heard her own girlish laughter and Gerald's deep, charming voice.
"Was? You were engaged to be married?" he asked sharply.
She clutched the quilt to her breasts as if she could protect herself from those events long past. "A long time ago."
She heard him sigh and then felt his hand on her shoulder. "You want to tell me about it?"
"No." Her lower lip trembled. "Yes."
He was silent.
Celeste had never told anyone about Gerald, not even Sally. Sally knew about Adam, but not Gerald. Celeste had never intended telling anyone again, but somehow it seemed right that Fox should know.
"He was my father's business partner," she said so quietly that he leaned closer to hear her. "I was seventeen." She smiled bittersweetly at the memory. She remembered her mother's rose garden, and Gerald kissing her beneath a trellis. "He was older. So charming. So handsome. So well mannered. Everyone liked him. I loved him."
She thought she heard Fox inhale sharply. "He asked you to marry him, and your parents wouldn't allow it?"
"Oh, no." She turned to him. In the darkness she could only see the outline of his face. "My parents adored him as well. They gave me permission to wed. There was a great engagement party at our home. Everyone in Denver came."
"What happened?"
"We danced and drank champagne. Gerald took me into my father's dark office and kissed me and told me he loved me more than the moon loves the stars." She brushed her lips with her fingertips, remembering how much she had enjoyed that kiss. "Then he tried to touch me. He said he loved me too much to wait."
"Oh, Celeste," Fox said softly, as if he knew what she would say next.
"I said no. We could wait. We were marrying in six months. Surely a man and woman who loved each other as much as we did could show some restraint and wait six months."
A tear trickled down her cheek. "But he got angry. He said I'd gotten what I wanted, and now he was getting what he wanted." She cried silently, too ashamed even now to cry aloud. "He . . . he did it anyway. He raped me."
"Celeste." Fox tried to put his arm around her shoulder, but she shrugged him off. Just talking about it made her feel the shame. The anger. She should have fought harder. She should have hollered and brought the guests into the office. She should never have let him take what was only hers to give.
"What happened?" Fox asked.
She lifted one shoulder. "I told my father. He called me a liar. He brought Gerald into the office where the bastard raped me. The two of them stood there and smoked a cigar and drank brandy. Gerald said he didn't do it. He said it was someone else, but that he'd take me soiled just the same."
"Son of a bitch," Fox said quietly. "So what did you do?"
"I refused. I wouldn't marry a rapist. My father put me out of the house. It was raining. I had no place to go. Kate took me in. First I cleaned, but I couldn't make enough money to keep myself."
"So you took to the profession."
She nodded; hot tears ran down her cheeks. "I vowed the night my father put me on the street that no man would force me like that again. I would make the decision. It would be on my terms. I became the whore my father accused me of being."
"Ah, Celeste."
This time she allowed him to cradle her in his arms. She couldn't bring herself to tell him about Adam, but even a partial confession felt good inside. Now maybe he wouldn't think she was such a bad person. Maybe now he would understand why she had chosen to have sex with men for money, or at least not hate her for it.
"Celeste, Celeste." Fox stroked her forehead and she rested her cheek on his chest. "I'm so sorry. So sorry. If I'd been your father, I'd have killed the bastard right there."
"But he didn't believe me." She took a deep, gulping breath. "He called me a whore. And then . . . then I showed him he was right."
"No. No. You can't blame yourself. Women are forced into these things. I know that. I never blamed you for what you've done."
She gazed into his eyes. In the darkness they glimmered. "But you never asked me why I sold my body. Not in all this time."
"I knew you had your reasons." He squeezed her tightly.
"But a whore is still a whore, and you could never love a whore." There. She'd said it.
When he didn't respond, she closed her eyes. Of course she couldn't expect him to just forget about the eight years she had sold her body to men. He could care for her and still not forget. It was more than any woman could ask of a man.
After a long sigh, he said, "It's complicated, Celeste. And it's not you; it's me. I don't know how to explain it, because I don't understand it myself."
"Amber did you wrong," she said softly. "You loved her and she did you wrong. No one could blame you for being wary."
"Celeste, it wasn't just Amber, it was—"
Celeste realized he had been about to say something very revealing, but then he cut himself off.
"Who?"
He set his jaw and shook his head. "Never mind," he said sharply.
She felt a wall lower between them. She knew it was as thick as any stone wall in the mine, so she let his comment go.
For a long time Fox held her. He didn't say anything, he just hugged her and stroked her hair. Finally she began to drift, and sleep came to them both.
Celeste clutched the leather handles of her valise as she stood on the train station platform, her face to the wind. Emma's death had scared her. She needed comfort. She needed to feel Adam in her arms. Nothing was working out as she thought it would. She was beginning to care about Fox too much, depend on him too much. The more she thought about him leaving to return to California and the vineyard he dreamed of, the more fearful she became. If she let him get any closer to her, if she fell in love with him, God forbid, she'd never survive his leaving. She'd crumble.
"I have to go," Celeste said.
"You don't have to do anything but pay taxes and die." Fox stood behind her in the same long overcoat he had worn the day he arrived in Carrington. On his head perched a new wool hat she'd bought him at one of the general stores in town.
The wind was cold on her face. It gave her the stamina she desperately needed. "I have to go to Denver," she repeated firmly. "I need to."
"You going to see him?"
"Him who?"
"Gerald," he said softly.
She turned around, grimacing. "Certainly not. If I see him at the gates
of hell it will be too soon."
He glanced away. "You're not going to hell, Celeste," he said dryly. "He is, but you're not."
She turned her face back into the wind, saying matter-of-factly, "Whores go to hell."
"Damn it, Celeste," he swore behind her. "Tell me who you're going to see."
She shook her head. "Can't."
"I could find out myself. I could follow you or have you followed."
"You won't."
"No?"
"No. Because you respect my privacy."
He frowned. "You put me in a tight spot here."
Her gaze met his. "I know. I'm sorry," she whispered. She touched the arm of his wool coat with her gloved hand. "I can't tell you. I just can't. I'll be back in a few days. This changes nothing between us."
"And just what is between us?" he asked under his breath, more to himself than to her.
She barely caught the words on the wind. "You tell me."
He shook his head and stared broodingly out over the small station that was under construction. "Never mind."
Celeste wanted to ask him again what he had meant by that. Did he mean it was more than she thought . . . or less. But she knew better than to try to get him to talk when he was in such a foul mood. She didn't blame him for his temper either. If their roles were reversed at this moment, she'd be angry, too.
Although neither seemed to be sure these days what their relationship was, both knew by silent agreement that one didn't go somewhere without telling the other. It had started out innocently enough. Fox would often leave for the mine before she was up and would call up the stairs to let her know he was leaving. She would go the store, or to visit Sally, and tell him, just out of common courtesy for someone else in the house. Now they checked with each other before making plans. They were beginning to behave the way Celeste guessed a married couple would. He picked up food stuffs she needed at the general store on his way home from the mine. She starched his Sunday shirt without him asking. She warmed his side of the bedclothes with a warmer before he climbed into bed; he always started her water for tea before she came down in the morning.
The sound of the train whistle brought Celeste out of her reverie. "I'll be back in three days."
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