A Light For My Love (36 page)

Jake crossed his arms over his chest. His
voice was low, bitter. "No. I'm finished, ruined. Insurance will
cover this loss, but—" he shrugged "—any respect I gained from
these people is going up in smoke with her. They'll think I'm just
a wharf rat after all, irresponsible, unlucky."

"I don't believe that, Jake," she argued. "No
one can blame you for this. Besides, a lot of those businessmen are
opposed to shanghaiing. They even gave us money for Harbor
House."

He shook his head, having none of it. "It's
one thing to give a few dollars to a charity. It makes people look
good and feel good. But business—that's different. After this kind
of trouble, they wouldn't want to leave their cargo in the
warehouse where it could be destroyed if the crimps decide to come
back."

Jake pushed away from the crates and lifted a
hand to touch her cheek. He let his eyes look upon her face one
more time, just as he'd looked upon the
Katherine
.

He could blame China, or Dalton Williams, or
the crimps for what had happened here this morning. He could tip
his face up to scream at heaven, curse fate, and wonder why he'd
been singled out for disaster.

Yet, when he came right down to it, the fault
lay with him. It grated on his soul to admit that Pop had been
right, but there it was in front of him. Jake knew now he'd been a
fool to think he could rise above the life he'd been born to. To
earn respectability and the hand of a lady. And his punishment for
trying was the death of his dream.

He didn't expect to see China again, except
perhaps to pass her on the street. Where he was headed, she would
never find herself.

"I'll come by the house later to get my
gear," he said, dropping his hand.

"Why? Where are you going?" China asked, sick
with foreboding. His mask of aloofness slipped for a moment,
showing her a man who was lost and defeated. She'd never realized
until this moment how much of his dauntless self-confidence had
been merely a front.

A humorless smile touched the corners of his
mouth. "I'm going back where I belong. Back to my father's house on
Tenth Street."

*~*~*

China dragged uphill toward home, alone. The
sun was higher now, but the sky remained gloomy, appropriate to the
events of the morning.

She'd watched Jake walk away from her on the
dock, resignation stooping his wide shoulders. The years of her
life had been riddled with losses: her parents, Ryan, and what she
now recognized as Quinn's desertion. But none of them had touched
her with this razor-edged heartache.

Because no matter how good her reasons had
been for working with Dalton, she knew she bore the responsibility
for the destruction of Jake's ship. No, she hadn't lit the match.
But she'd put him in the position of being perceived as a league
sympathizer, and that had made him a target for revenge. And now
she also bore the responsibility of somehow making it right for
him.

She passed a yard with a perimeter of still
dormant rosebushes. Into her mind crept the memory of a rowdy,
complex blond youth. He'd gotten into fights, cast insolent looks
at her, and honored her with a poetic tribute and armloads of
roses. She and Jake could never be together; she knew he wouldn't
be able to forgive her for what had happened to his ship. Their one
night of sweet tenderness was all they'd ever have.

When she reached the house, she let herself
in the side door and crept upstairs. Thank God the rest of the
house had slept through the earlier racket. At least she didn't
have to make any explanations about where she'd been. She simply
wasn't up to talking about it.

She stopped in the doorway of Jake's room and
looked at the big bed, with its sheets and blankets flung back. His
towel was still on the floor. Oh, the fires he'd summoned in her
last night in that bed. It brought a flush to her cheeks to think
about it, and an overwhelming sadness.

She walked in and sat on the mattress, gently
pressing her hand to the indentation in his pillow. If he'd merely
sailed away, she would have felt the same longing, but they might
have parted on better terms. She drew a deep, jerky breath, and
scalding tears blurred her vision. There might have been hope . .
.

She couldn't bear to see him so defeated. But
how could she fix it? She couldn't snap her fingers and make
another ship materialize to transport that cargo.

Her head came up suddenly as an idea occurred
to her. No, she couldn't make a ship materialize, but she knew one
man who might be able to rescue them from this crisis. But would
he? Yes, if he knew Jake was in trouble. She dashed a hand across
her eyes and sat a little straighter. Elements of a plan began to
form in her mind. This just might work.

She jumped up and went to her own room,
straight to the desk where she'd put Quinn's address. Finding it,
she glanced at Jake's handwriting on the paper and pressed the note
to her bosom.

She'd help Jake if she could—even if it meant
helping him right out of her life.

*~*~*

China stood at the counter in the Western
Union office composing the wire to Quinn. She'd been working on it
for a half hour but still struggled with the words. She had to
deliver a lot of information in a couple of persuasive lines to a
man she didn't even know anymore. It wasn't easy. Surrounded by the
litter of false starts, she crumpled another page she'd been
writing on. She glanced up at the clerk, who raised his brow
slightly at the wads of paper around her. Finally, she decided on
the direct approach.

jake chastaine needs a ship n astoria for
cargo transport. situation dire. wire back response. china
sullivan

She supposed she didn't need to add her
last

name. But it had been so many years since
she'd had any contact with Quinn, she felt as though she might need
to prod his memory.

After she paid the clerk and the message was
sent, China walked to Harbor House. In contrast with the evening
before, the street was quiet, but evidence of the conflict
remained. The road was a muddy bog, churned and rutted, probably
from the fire engine and horses' hooves. Pieces of wood, old
handkerchiefs, buttons, broken bottles, even a single shoe, were
scattered and ground into the mud.

Rounding the corner, she saw that the yard's
jungle of shrubbery and tall grass was flattened in some places,
scorched in others. Then she realized that what had been the dining
room window was now a gaping, blackened hole. On the front porch
Dalton Williams was pulling off charred siding with a claw
hammer.

When he saw China, he lowered the hammer and
came forward to hand her up the steps. He looked exhausted,
unshaven and grubby, which oddly served to make his cobalt gaze
even more piercing.

"Dalton, I'm so glad you're safe." Through
the broken window she saw a couple of men she didn't recognize
working inside.

"The scurvy bast—they tried to burn us out,
but we're still here. And after the fire department got here, the
rioters started drifting away." He tipped his head to look into her
eyes. "You look like you didn't get much more rest than I did," he
remarked, but not unkindly.

China glanced quickly at the planking under
her feet, self-conscious. If her lack of sleep showed on her face,
was the reason for it also written there?

But Dalton went on, apparently unsuspecting.
He gestured at the burned corner of the house. "I know you're
worried, but try not to lose any more sleep over this. It's a hell
of a mess in there—we've got water soaking into the flooring and I
think your table is a loss. But we can fix this." He hooked the
hammer under another ruined board.

The smell of wet, incinerated wood was strong
out here. What must it be like inside? And had anything else in
town burned last night?

This thought brought her back to the main
reason for her visit. She looked at Dalton's dirty, tired face,
trying to guess what his reaction might be to her request.

"Dalton, I need to ask a favor of you."

He lowered the hammer again and dragged his
forearm across his smudged, sweating brow. "You know I'll help if I
can. What is it?"

She laced her gloved fingers together. "Early
this morning the crimps set fire to Jake's ship."

The faintest of smiles touched the corners of
his mouth. But she'd seen that expression before, and she knew it
didn't stem from amusement or joy. He'd told her once that
sometimes, when really bad things happened, the only way to talk
about them was to smile. It hurt too much otherwise.

"Jesus God," he muttered. "Was that the red
glow toward the west?"

China nodded. "There's nothing left. I
watched it myself. She burned to the waterline and broke up
downriver."

He winced and shook his head, then began
plying his hammer again. "I feel bad for that barkentine. I saw
her—she looked like a good sailer. It's a wasteful loss of a good
ship."

"Yes, well, it's just about ruined Jake.
Everything important to him was tied up in that ship," she
swallowed before going on, "and—and I feel like we should do
something for him."

He glared at her, and the look was so intense
she took a step back. "Do something for him! What the hell for? If
he had his way, the league would be as dead as his ship."

Dalton Williams could be very intimidating
when provoked, but China stiffened her back and scraped up the
courage to face him. "You know that isn't true, Dalton. He just
isn't as . . . earnest about it as we are. Now he's in trouble. I
only want you to ask two or three of the men here to stand watch at
the warehouse for a few nights. In case the crimps come back before
I can get this sorted out."

Dalton yanked viciously on the blackened
window frame. "I can't believe you're asking for this. I told you
weeks ago, if Chastaine doesn't support us, he's an enemy. He's
used shanghaied crews before, and as long as he sails under wind
power, he'll use them again." He pushed on, forestalling her next
comment. "Yeah, I know he claimed he paid them well and saw to
their welfare. I may not keep him out of the water, but I'll be
damned if I'm going to help put him back in."

China's forbearance began to fray. The last
twenty-four hours had been fraught with emotionally charged
events—the riot and the boardinghouse fire, her sweet, brief
interlude with Jake, and the scene on the dock. "Dalton, you owe
this to Jake," she insisted, her voice low. "Didn't he help you
control this fire last night?"

He turned to look at her and raised his
brows, apparently surprised by her attitude. "He just happened to
be here because he was looking for you."

"What difference does it make? He stayed to
help. And because of that, the crimps believe he's involved with
the league too. Not only that, but when you come down to it, if it
hadn't been for Jake's business dinner, we might not have had
enough money to open Harbor House."

Dalton hooked a thumb in his pocket and
rested his weight on one hip. Clearly, he was mulling this over
with no great enthusiasm.

"Damn it, China . . . "
He pushed a hand through his sooty hair.

"You owe this to me, too, Dalton. I've never
asked for anything, and I've carried my share of this load. Now I
could talk to these men myself, but it would mean more coming from
you. Jake did the right thing for the league. I think you're a big
enough person to put aside your personal feelings to do the right
thing for Jake."

He sighed, then harpooned her with a
speculative gaze that suddenly made her feel transparent. It was as
though he'd detected the difference between the innocent she'd been
yesterday and the woman she'd become during the night. And the
reason for that difference.

His voice dropped to a confidential tone that
would reach no other ears. "For Jake, huh? China, have you given
any thought to what we talked about the other day? About going to
Portland, I mean?"

She wandered to the end of the porch. It was
strewn with chunks of blackened cinder that crunched beneath her
shoes. She turned to look at him. "The league means a lot to you,
doesn't it?"

An ardent gleam lit his eyes. "Sure it does.
People are really beginning to listen to us. After last night,
they're going to start demanding that something be done about
shanghaiing in Astoria. Nothing else is as important to me." He
paused here, then stumbled, "Well, of course, you—we—"

China shook her head, smiling slightly. "No,
Dalton, not me, or even we. You're married to the league. It's your
passion, your darling, I suppose. It will always come first in your
heart, and that's good. The work is crucial and it needs someone
with single-minded dedication. But . . . I know I'd need to be more
to my husband than just his assistant."

She wondered why she had no trouble being
candid with Dalton, yet couldn't voice her feelings to Jake.
Perhaps it was because with Jake, she stood to lose so much more by
revealing her heart.

Dalton approached her and started to reach
for her arm, then let his hand drop. "China, China! That isn't how
I see you. We're equals, a good team. I need your courage and your
ideas." He lowered his eyes for an instant. "I know our backgrounds
are miles apart—"

She almost laughed. Backgrounds. They'd once
been so very important. She knew he didn't understand what she
meant.

History was dotted with restless, fire-eyed
men like Dalton. They spearheaded revolutions, willing to sacrifice
everything for their convictions, moving through the shadows to
expose corruption and oppression. They led righteous, ragtag armies
to victory, they died on battlefields and had songs sung about
them.

Dalton Williams was a martyr to his cause,
and nowhere in his life did the role of husband fit.