Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) (46 page)

Navarre frowned at her. “Not another word out of you,” he warned,
“or instead of beginning life anew someplace far from here, you’ll be feeding
the fishes.”

He turned back to Abe. “Now, what say you? Will you take what I
offer? Or does the lovely Miss Dawes travel alone?”

Abe hesitated while Reagan held her breath, praying he would think
the better of it and walk away. In a moment her hopes were dashed. “I’ll take
the offer, but I won’t forget this, Navarre.” Reaching inside the barouche, he
seized Reagan by the arm. “C’mon, L’il Sister. It’s time to go.”

Reagan resisted, dragging her heels, twisting this way and that in
an effort to break his hold, but his fingers only dug deeper into her tender
flesh. “Abe, please, let me go!”

Abe grunted in reply, propelling her across Front Street and onto
the sloping mound of grassy earth that comprised the levee. A score of the
monstrous ships that plied the river were moored at the water’s edge, their
lightless windows and tall smokestacks ghostly in the fog.

She still had the necklace Jackson had given her, and it was worth
a small fortune. If she could just break free, if she could manage to scramble
aboard one of the ships, she might be able to bribe one of the crew members
into helping her.

“Jackson won’t let this go,” she said, more to bolster her courage
than to unsettle Abe. “He’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, if need be.
And when he finds you, he’ll kill you.”

They reached the breast of the levee and started down the slope
that led to the water’s edge. Twenty feet away, the crew of the
Mirabelle
was
putting down the gangplank.

Reagan’s heart bumped painfully against her ribs. They were almost
to the water’s edge, so close that she could see the curiosity on the boatmen’s
faces. Oh, how she longed for a weapon! A stick, a stone, anything that would
give her the few precious seconds she needed! Frantic now, she scoured the
ground near her feet, her gaze coming to rest on her dainty high-heeled
slippers.

They weren’t as reassuring as a frying pan, but they were all she
possessed, and she seized the opportunity, gasping aloud, bending at the waist,
as if in pain. “A moment, please, I beg of you! I’ve twisted my ankle!”

As she’d hoped, Abe halted in midstride, turning slightly toward
her. At the same time, Reagan lifted her foot and forcefully ground the heel
of her slipper into the big man’s instep.

Abe howled, jerking back onto the gangplank. At the same time,
Reagan lunged, planting her hands on his chest, shoving with all her might.

Thrown off balance, the big man toppled, landing in the shallows
with a gargantuan splash.

Reagan picked up her skirts and flew along the levee. Behind her,
Abe’s splashing mingled with Navarre’s furious shouts. “Stop her, damn you!
Don’t let her get away!”

Abe’s noisy pursuit spurred Reagan on, but the ground was uneven,
her skirts weighty and awkward. She stepped on a small piece of driftwood,
stumbled, and nearly fell. Her breath a desperate sob in her throat, she made
for a boat just drawing up its gangplank. Lights ablaze, it teemed with
passengers. “Wait!” Reagan cried. “Oh, please, God, wait!”

The boatman manning the walkway paused to stare at her. Reagan
felt a surge of hope. And then a beringed hand snaked out, grabbing her arm,
jerking her roughly back.

Navarre glowered down at her, a very real threat. “Did you think I
would let you escape me, knowing you would fly back to Belle Riviere and my
son?”

“You murderous skunk!” Reagan cried, uncaring if she provoked him
to violence. Far better to die fighting than to meekly accept a life with Abe
McFarland and risk the slow death of her spirit. “I won’t go with him! You
can’t make me!”

“You can either walk, little bitch, or I swear I shall drag you
every inch of the way!” Reagan struck at him, but he only caught her hand, twisting
it cruelly, forcing it up behind her back.

At the same instant a familiar figure emerged from the fog,
blocking their path.

Jackson’s long raven hair streamed water onto the lapels of his
black broadcloth coat. With the fog swirling in thready fingers all around him,
and the butt of his pistols protruding from his belt, he looked hard and
unforgiving, and Reagan’s heart swelled painfully in her breast at the sight of
him. “Navarre,” he said quietly. “Let her go.”

Navarre’s features showed his regret, yet whether it was feigned
for Jackson’s benefit or genuine was debatable. “I wish that I could honor your
request, Jackson. Truly I do. Unfortunately, this whole thing has gone too far,
and I fear there is no turning back, not for me, nor, regrettably, for you. I
must send her away, and you must allow it, for the good of the family.”

“Is that why you killed Clay?” Jackson said, taking a step closer.
“For the good of the family?” Another step. “Was it?”

“Yes!” Navarre all but shouted. “For family! Mine and Miralee’s!”

Jackson’s grim facade cracked, revealing his hurt, his hatred, his
bitterness, his fury, and Reagan could have wept for him in that moment.

Navarre must have seen it, too, for he loosened his hold on Reagan
and reached a hand toward the son he’d known but never claimed. There was
supplication in the gesture, a bid for forgiveness. “Boy, please. You must try
to understand.
”

Another step. Jackson stalked Navarre purposefully. “I
understand,” Jackson said harshly. “I understand that you cuckolded your own
brother and got a bastard child on his impressionable young wife! A son you
never saw fit to claim! I understand that you murdered Clay, and while Emil was
stricken, you fed him laudanum so that you could embezzle millions from the
company! And, as if that is not enough, you would scheme to destroy my life by
taking away the one scrap of goodness that I have found!”

“I loved your mother!” Navarre said. “Do you understand? I
loved
her, and Emil took her from
me, just as he has taken everything!”

“He did not take your bastard son,” Jackson said, his mouth
twisting at the irony of it all. “You gave me to him.”

Navarre seemed frantic now, frantic to explain, frantic for
Jackson to understand. “When I learned that Miralee had conceived, I begged
her to leave him! But she was fearful of what the resulting scandal would do to
you. And so she stayed and earned a heart full of sorrow—and an early grave.”
He gave a humorless laugh. “Can you imagine my agony? Being forced to watch as my
son grew to manhood in my brother’s household, where he was treated as if he
were inferior to that pious wretch he called his firstborn?”

“And so you harbored your hatred all of those years, and when the
opportunity presented itself, you murdered him.”

“I was protecting you!” Navarre shouted. Then, passing a hand over
his face, he calmed. “I did not go there intending to take his life. I but
overheard your argument, and as you went out the front entrance, I came in the
back. I tried to talk him out of the challenge, but he would hear nothing of
it. He was bent upon teaching you a lesson—a lesson I could not allow. I
stopped him from hurting you.”

“You have a very strange way of protecting your offspring,
Father,
” Jackson
said with a sneer. “In striving to protect me, you smeared me with his blood,
you let me take the blow born from Emil’s wrath, you listened as the gossips
maligned my character. Just how far would you have gone, I wonder, in your zeal
to keep me safe? Would you have looked silently on through a lengthy trial had
they decided to charge me with Clay’s death? Would you have held your lying
tongue while they hanged me?”

The sound of Jackson’s angry shout carried out over the water,
reverberating off the low bluffs before it slowly died away. His
fury
was spent, and all he
wanted was to leave this place, this man, and the ruin of his past behind him.
“You have been a constant in my life,” he said in a voice that was deadly
quiet, full of dark intent. “My good and kindly uncle. I would hate to become
the instrument of your departure from this world.” He held out his left hand,
his right coming to rest on the butt of his pistol. “Yet if you do not give her
into my keeping now, I will kill you.”

Navarre seemed to consider; then, with a shrug, he let her go.

Reagan started toward Jackson just as a huge fist came arcing out
of the mist. Jackson caught the blow—strong enough to fell an ox—on the point
of his chin. The mist turned dark and seemed to swirl around him. He had the
crazy notion that if he but closed his eyes it would swallow him up, and only
the sight of Abe McFarland advancing upon him kept him on his feet.

“You ain’t takin’ L’il Sister,” Abe warned low. “Ain’t nobody
takin’ what’s rightfully mine!”

With the last syllable, Abe lowered his head and charged. Jackson
held his breath, waiting until Abe was almost upon him; then he stepped aside
and with a well-placed kick sent Abe headfirst onto the sandy soil. “She was
never yours in the first place.”

The big man lay near the water’s edge, seemingly stunned. Yet as
Jackson started to turn away he jumped to his feet, and, with a loud whoop, he
lunged, locking his massive arms around Jackson’s waist, carrying them both
down into the murky depths of the river.

Jackson swallowed water as he grappled to break the bigger man’s
bone-crushing hold, but Abe was too large, too strong, and the water prevented
him from landing an effective blow. He somehow managed to get his feet firmly
under him, pushing to the surface, sucking a lungful of air. But just as quickly,
Abe dragged him down again.

On shore, Reagan saw Abe lunge for Jackson, saw them disappear
under the water. Abe surfaced long enough to grab Jackson’s hair and force him
under again. Mindless of Navarre, she screamed Jackson’s name, dashing into the
water. “Let
him
go,” she cried. “I’ll go with you! Oh, God, I’ll do anything!
Only, please, Abe, don’t kill him!”

Abe looked up, and his lips curled back in a semblance of a smile.
“You don’t understand, L’il Sister. I owe Seek-Um, here, an’ I always pay
my—”

Boom!

The bark of Navarre’s pistol seemingly caught the big man
unawares, for a look of surprise came over his bearded face. He looked down at
the bright stain spreading over the breast of his greasy buckskin shirt,
wavering slightly. Then he staggered and fell back into the river.

“Jackson!” Reagan cried frantically. She fought her way toward the
spot where he’d gone under, while the current tugged at her cumbersome skirts.
“Jackson!”

Just when she thought her heart would burst, he surfaced and, half-drowned
but alive, shook his streaming hair out of his eyes. She staggered toward him,
her knees weak with relief. “Oh, thank God. I thought that I’d lost you.”

Cold and wet and covered in mud, Jackson opened his arms, and she
ran to him, uttering a small, soft sob as he enfolded her in his embrace. “I’m
here,” he whispered, “and it’s over now. There is no one to keep us apart.
Here, let me look at you.”

He held her at arm’s length, frowning as he examined the wreckage
their disastrous evening had wrought. The gown had cost him a king’s ransom,
and now it was ruined beyond all repair. Somehow it didn’t matter. Nothing
mattered except that he’d found her, that she was alive and well, and they were
together.

“I’m afraid I’ve made a mess of things: the party, this beautiful
dress,” she said. “Are you terribly angry?”

“I could never be angry with you,” he replied. “I’ll buy you a
hundred just like it, plan a thousand balls in your honor, if only you’ll
promise to stay by my side.”

“I love you, ” she replied through her gathering tears.

For a moment Jackson simply held her, savoring the warmth and the
love emanating from her bright presence. Then slowly, resignedly, he turned her
toward the shore where Navarre waited.

He faced Jackson squarely, proudly. “I suppose there is no sense
in asking your forgiveness for all that I’ve done, yet as your father, I will
beg you to remember one thing: there is nothing I would not do to keep you
safe, Jackson, to see you happy... and that includes making a timely exit from
your life. No, do not speak. I know as well as you that you will not attempt to
detain me.” He smiled his old raffish smile, as if at some secret joke. “A life
for a life, eh? You have what you wanted most. Leave me to my memories. You owe
me that much, I think.”