Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) (37 page)

Reagan pressed her knuckles into one eye, certain she was
hallucinating. Then the small hatch fell back and Whiskey Joe, looking rather
frazzled and minus his beaver hat, gestured to them from the opening. “Hurry,
Jack Broussar’,” he said as the sparks rained down around them.

Making a motion with his hand, he turned, disappearing beneath the
floorboards of the shack once again. Jackson pushed Reagan toward the opening.
She crawled on her hands and knees for several yards, her lungs crying out for
air, her strength rapidly waning. Then, as the roof overhead burst into flames,
her trembling limbs gave way and she fell to the floor.

She was going to die. She could feel it in her bones, sense it
deep in her soul, and she would never see the green hills of Kentucky, or
Jackson, or Josephine ever again. Just when she had given up, Jackson was
there, dragging her into his arms, lurching through the gaping black maw in the
floorboards with Reagan in his arms.

Their wizened guide led the way through a labyrinth of underground
tunnels, the pierced tin lantern he carried a feeble beacon in the blackness.
The caverns were a miracle of nature, proof that at times perseverance won out
over formidable strength. Dripping, running, coursing water, gentle and unobtrusive,
had insinuated its way into the natural crevices in the impenetrable limestone
through countless millennia, carving the passages they now traversed into the
rock on its relentless push to the sea.

Joe turned long enough to beckon them onward. “This way, Jack
Broussar’. This way. Bad men no find now.”

They emerged on the banks of a creek, a few hundred yards into the
woods. Their horses were tied to a low-hanging branch. Jackson found them
readily; Whiskey Joe was another matter altogether. Having saved them from a
fiery death, the Peoria had done what he seemingly did best, and simply
disappeared. As a result, Jackson once again found himself facing myriad
questions for which he had no answers. Only this time, he thought as he turned
to face Reagan, he was not alone. She was crouched at the water’s edge, bathing
the soot from her face. “Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded jerkily. “I’m a little shaky, but it’ll pass.”

“Good. Now, perhaps you would care to explain what the hell you
are doing abroad in the night, garbed in those dreaded rags and mounted on my
father’s favorite mare?”

“They aren’t rags,” she said with an indignant sniff. “They’re my
travelin’ clothes.”

It was said with a touch of defiance; Jackson felt his temper
flare. “Precisely where were you traveling to?” he demanded, then just as
quickly raised a hand to stem her swift response. “Never mind. This is neither
the time nor the place to discuss it, and I’ve little doubt it will keep until
I get you safely home.”

They made their way back to
Belle Riviere
in stilted
silence, Reagan withdrawn, distant, Jackson seething. Questions bounced around
in his aching brain, flinging themselves against his skull like frenzied birds
trying to escape through a windowpane.

Where had Joe gotten to?

Why had he fled?

Who had been there in the cabin when he arrived?

Why in hell had the intruder tried to kill him?

Was it all some macabre coincidence, or was there a connection
between the incident and Clay’s murder?

And even more important, why had Reagan tried to run away?

There was no mistaking her actions.

He’d turned his back, and she’d taken flight. The only question
was why, and he could wait no longer for her answer. Reining Euripides in
before the manse, he dismounted and helped Reagan down, looping the stallion’s
reins around the post ring outside the wrought-iron gate, tying off the mare.
Josephine, impatient to prowl the garden, streaked past him as he opened the
gate. The feline’s mistress did not escape him so handily, however, for he laid
a hand upon her arm as she made to move past him.

Her gray eyes were huge in a face liberally streaked with water
and soot, and all Jackson could think of was how close he had come to losing
her. The knowledge made him desperate, drove him beyond the boundaries of his
control, far beyond all semblance of wisdom.

The danger was past, and his mood considerably darker.

“Mother of God, what were you thinking?” he demanded, when in
reality he had no right to demand anything from her at all. “Stealing off in
the dead of night, risking life and limb, your virtue, your all—”

Her reply was soft, but he could sense her underlying fury. “If
it’s all the same to you, I would rather not talk about my virtue. It’s
something of a sore subject with me at present.”

“You might have been killed,” Jackson pressed on, unwilling,
unable, just to let it go.

She flinched from his grasp, straightening her spine, lifting her
chin in an unmistakable show of defiance. “What was
I
thinking? I wasn’t
the one out nosin’ around where I ought not to be, gettin’ set on by some
miscreant.
I’m
the one with a right to be angry. If not for you I might have
made a clean break.” The words cut him like a whip. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d
like to wash up. It’s been a long damn day.”

Reaching out, Jackson closed his hands over her shoulders, holding
her immobile when she would have fled. “You must be desperate indeed to make
such a gamble... desperate to escape me. Why, Kaintuck?”

In that instant, her tightly kept composure slipped a notch, then
crumbled completely. “Because I had no choice!” she shot back, her voice an
angry snarl. “Because I could not stay and keep my self-respect!”

“I offered you the world,” he said.
"My
world! Why is it not
enough?”

She wrenched free from his grasp and stood, rubbing one shoulder.
“Your world, yes... and I finally realized I’ve got no place in it. It just
can’t work, Jackson. I’ve tried, but I don’t fit into your life, any more than
you could fit into mine. It’s more than time to admit defeat. It’s time to let
it go... to let
me
go.”

“I cannot,” Jackson said, and the words sounded strangled, forced
as they were from his throat. “Not like this.”

He was watching her intently, and he saw her shoulders slump the
smallest bit, as if she had just waged and lost a fierce inward battle.
Reaching out again, he touched her cheek, wanting so much more, wanting to tell
her what was in his heart. But the words stuck in his throat, lodging just
beneath his Adam’s apple.

What if it wasn’t enough? he thought wildly.

What if the love he felt for her was not the most enduring kind?

What if he faltered, or could not convince her of his sincerity?
She refused to accept the diamonds he had bestowed upon her; could she not
reject the offer of his heart as well?

And if that happened, how would he weather her rejection, accept
it?

How would he ever survive it?

How ridiculous he felt, how helpless! A womanizing rake with
nerves of steel when it came to facing down an adversary, and he trembled like
a child at the thought of telling her what was in his heart.

“Time,” he murmured. “I need time to work this out, time to clear
my throbbing head.” An hour or two, he thought, a day, perhaps a week, and the
words would leap forth of their own accord.

But Reagan was already shaking her head. “Delaying won’t solve
anything! I can’t change, and you won’t. You’ll still be bent on killin’
yourself a month from now, and I’m of no mind to hang around and watch.”

Before Jackson could answer, Bessie stuck her head out the front
door and peered in their direction. “Miz Reagan? Is that you?”

Jackson grabbed her hand, commandingly, beseechingly. “Say
nothing. We need to talk about this—about us!”

Reagan glanced from his shadowed face to that of the kindly old
woman. It was dangerous, so dangerous, to linger in his presence. Especially
when she was feeling so vulnerable. Another moment, and she might forget her
determination to leave, might abandon her resolve to begin her life anew
without him. Another glance at his handsome features, so taut with emotion, and
she would fall into his arms, into his bed, under his dark, hypnotic spell....

She wet her lips and answered quickly, “Yes’m, it’s me.”

Bessie frowned. “Girl, what are you doin’ out there all alone in
the dark?”

Her ploy had worked; the spell was broken, the tension that had
sizzled dangerously between them lessened, yet it never died away completely,
and Reagan knew that it would be there, lying dormant just beneath the surface,
ready to leap to life the next time they were alone together, a circumstance
she must steadfastly avoid. “I’m not alone,” Reagan called out as Jackson
softly swore. “Mr. Jackson is with me, and he’s been hurt. Would you send Kevin
Murphy for the doctor? I think he may be leakin’ brains or somethin’.”

“Murphy is to remain where he is!” Jackson shouted. “There will be
no physician! Now leave us!”

Bessie closed the door, muttering to herself.

Fixing him with a look, Reagan tried to snatch free of his grasp,
but Jackson would not allow it. “This discussion is not over yet.”

“It’s not a discussion,” she countered. “It’s an argument upon
which we can never agree!” She sighed, breathing deeply, deliberately forcing
herself to be calm, to distance herself from her roiling emotions, from him.
“Lord, Jackson, I’m so tired of fighting.”

The tic worked furiously in his scarred cheek. His aspect was
fierce, his voice taut with strain. “Three days. It’s all I ask. Three days and
three nights in which to convince you that you belong here with me, in which to
change your mind. Unless, of course, you are afraid to risk it... afraid that
you will no longer wish to go.”

Reagan closed her eyes, fighting against the impulse to leap upon
his challenge. It was a way to save face, to stay with him a little while
longer, but would it solve anything in the long run?

She could never reconcile herself to the idea of being his
mistress, not in a hundred lifetimes. And he would never willingly make a commitment.

She wasn’t even sure he had it in him.

A dull throb blossomed behind her eyes. She’d told the truth. She
was weary of struggling. She didn’t want to argue; she could not give in. More
than anything she wanted to wash the soot from her skin and her hair, and she
wanted to sleep. Jackson just wanted his way.

He was so hardheaded, so focused, so determined to have his head
in everything. She could not change his mind or soften his stance. She knew
that from experience, but she
could
change the subject. “We should talk about tonight, about Whiskey
Joe’s place.”

“I would rather talk about us,” he said softly.

“You nearly died, Jackson. We both did. I have a right to know
what is going on.”

‘‘I remembered something,” he admitted with a sigh, ‘‘about the night
Clay was killed. A sound—a rustling sound back between the bales, a sound like
someone settling down to sleep. It led me to believe that someone else was
there that night, that someone had witnessed the argument, and perhaps, just
perhaps, what came after.”

“And that someone was Whiskey Joe.”

He frowned, massaging the back of his neck with the fingers of his
right hand, giving an openhanded Gallic flourish with his left. “The pieces
fit. He often slept there when sodden with drink. I let him in myself countless
times, rather than have him stumble all the way out to his cabin. Yet the last
time I took him to the warehouse, he refused to go near the place.”

“When was that?”

“The night Malcolm Heath was killed. I was chasing Heath down the
waterfront and stumbled into Joe. By the time I got my bearings again, Heath
was gone, and Joe was acting strangely. He said it was a bad place, and
scurried off into the fog.”

“So you went there tonight intending to question him?”

“I was close, so damnably close to finding out what happened that
night! I could feel it. But as soon as I stepped over the threshold, I knew
that I was not alone. And there was something else,” he said, struggling to
recall what had occurred. “An odd smell—like smoking tallow and bear grease. As
I turned toward the shadows by the door, I was grabbed from behind, and that’s
all that I remember. I must have lost consciousness and hit my head when I
fell.”