White Mountain (42 page)

“I think so,” she said, and then glanced back behind them as Jack pulled her out.

He grabbed her by the shoulders, making her look him in the eye.

“You can’t think so.
 
You have to do it.”

She moaned with fright.

“Do you love me?” he yelled.

Her eyes welled.
 
“Yes.”

“Well that’s damned good, because I love you more than life, and if you don’t run, we’re both going to die.”

He pulled as he ran, almost yanking her off her feet, and then the reality of what he’d just said sank in.
 
He loved her!
 
Dear God, he loved her!
 
And there was a time bomb ticking at their heels.

Ignoring the pain in her head and the fear in her heart, she lengthened her stride to match his and ran with everything she had.

One minute passed, and then another.
 
No matter how hard or how far they ran, all she could see was more lights and more tunnel.

“Jack?”

He heard the fear in her voice, but there was no time to reassure her.

“Don’t talk,” he said, as her shoes pounded the floor.
 
“Run.”

Once she stumbled and fell flat, momentarily knocking the breath from her body.
 
Jack jerked her up and slid his arm around her waist, all but dragging her until she could maneuver on her own.

One precious minute passed, and then another and another, until Isabella’s muscles were burning and her lungs tortured and heaving from lack of air.
 
She had no sense of anything but the pain.

Suddenly they turned a corner and saw the end in sight.

“We’re almost there,” Jack yelled.
 
“Just a few more yards.”

Isabella choked back a sob as her legs gave way.

Jack picked her up again and slid an arm beneath her shoulders, carrying her the rest of the way.

Within seconds they had reached the elevator car.
 
Jack shoved her inside, then closed the door and punched the button.
 
Immediately, the car began to rise.
 
He glanced at this watch.
 
Thirteen minutes had passed.
 
They were almost home.

The car shuddered, then stopped.
 
But the door didn’t open.

“What?” Isabella cried.
 
“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said, as he frantically punched the emergency button.

As suddenly as it had stopped, the car began to move, only it wasn’t going up, it was going back down.

“No!” Isabella screamed.
 
“What’s happening?”

Jack drew his gun, expecting the worst.

Seconds later the car stopped and the door opened.
 
There was no one in sight.

Jack punched the up button again.
 
Once again the door closed and the car started up.

Isabella grabbed Jack by the shoulders.
 
Her cheekbone was bloody and swollen, her face streaked with dust.
 
Her clothes were bloodstained and filthy, and Jack thought she’d never been more beautiful.

“I love you madly, Jack Dolan.
 
Make this damn thing work.”

He wanted to cry at the waste of it all and made himself laugh instead.

“Tinkerbell, I’ve done everything I know how to do.
 
The rest is up to God.”
 
Then he kissed her hard and fast.

Just as suddenly as it had stopped before, they were at the top.
 
The door slid open, and they found themselves staring at the inside of David’s closet.

Jack grabbed her by the hand and out they went.
 
As he passed the shelf, he pressed down hard.
 
The wall of the closet slid back into place.

Isabella shook her head in disbelief.

“I can’t believe I lived in this house all this time and never knew this was here.”

But Jack wasn’t convinced that they’d gotten far enough away.
 
Something told him that the bomb the old men had set off wasn’t going to just cave in a lab.
 
They must have had the failsafe in place from the start.
 
They’d been willing to die for what they’d believed in once and were not the type to leave anything to chance.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said.

“But I thought—“

“Are there any guests in the hotel?”

“My God!
 
Are you saying that this might—“

“I don’t know what to expect,” Jack said.
 
“But I promised your Uncle David I would make sure you lived, and I intend to keep my word.”

“I don’t think so,” she said.
 
“We’ll have to check the register.”

Seconds later they were out of the room and running down the stairs, then across the lobby to the registration desk.

“Everyone’s gone,” she said.
 
“Including the Silvias.
 
They checked out at six.”

Jack grabbed her again, this time pulling her through the dining room to the terrace beyond.

“Look!” Jack said, pointing in the distance at the row of bobbing lights moving their way.
 
“It’s the search tem.
 
They’re off the mountain, and none too soon.”

Before Isabella could answer, the earth beneath her feet began to shake.

“Jack!
 
What—“

Then they heard it coming, ripping through rock and metal, tearing through the earth.

“No,” Isabella moaned.
 
“Oh no.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.
 
As sorry as I can be.”

She lifted her face to the mountain, as if by watching she could somehow pay homage to five passing souls.

And then Isabella suddenly gasped and pointed.

“Jack!
 
Look!”

He turned just as the top of the mountain split apart at the seams.
 
Fire blew up and out, spitting rock and smoke into the air and spilling it out onto the snow.

“That wasn’t a bomb,” he muttered.
 
It was a holocaust.”

“Are we all right?” she asked, thinking of radioactive fallout.

Jack frowned for a moment, considering what she’d asked, and then finally nodded.

“If I were a betting man, I would say yes.
 
Despite everything, they cared too much about life to set off anything that would harm it.”

Her eyes were welling, her mind shuttered against everything but the flames on White Mountain.

“We’ll never know the whole truth, will we, Jack?”

He looked down, marking the reflection of the fire in her eyes and the silhouette of her face against the night.
 
He inhaled slowly, thinking as he touched her that now he knew what it meant to be willing to die for love.

“No, baby, I guess we won’t
 
Does it matter to you?”

She sighed and leaned against him.

“As long as I have you, nothing matters anymore.”

Isabella laid the keys on the desk and looked back one last time across the lobby.
 
Everything was polished and ready for the new owners of Abbott House.

Jack watched without speaking as she walked to the middle of the lobby and then looked up at the painting on the wall.
 
She looked so lost, he couldn’t bear for her to be there alone.
 
He walked up behind her and then took her by the hand.

“We can still take it if you want to.”

She looked at it for a moment, then shook her head.

“No. It belongs here, I think.”

“The new owners agree,” Jack said.
 
“They seemed quite taken with it.”

Isabella looked at him then and smiled.

“Maybe they’ll see ghosts, too.”

Jack put his hand against her face, loving the feel of her skin against his palm.

“No, I don’t think her spirit wanders restlessly.
 
I think she’s all right.”

“Yes, of course.
 
Now she’s with Daddy again.”

Jack searched the features of her face, looking for someone who felt out of place.
 
But all he could see was the peace in her eyes and the joy on her face.

“Yes, I’m sure she’s with the man she loves.”

She turned to him and smiled.

“just like me.”

“Yes, sweetheart, just like you.”

Queens, New York—Eleven Months Later

Maria Silvia stood at the altar, wearing a soft gray dress and a Madonna-like smile as Leonardo held their son in his arms.
 
The priest was talking to the godparents, admonishing them about their duties, but she already knew all that by heart.
 
Her focus was on the baby…on the perfect, angelic expression on his face.

You hear my prayer, Oh Lord…and now I hear You.

“And what is the name to be give this child?” the priest asked.

Leonardo’s heart was in his throat as he looked down at his son.

“David Bartholomew Silvia,” he said.
 
“For the doctor who helped us have him, and for my grandfather who never knew the joy of living in a country that was free.”

Maria slipped her hand beneath Leonardo’s arm as the priest dipped his hand in holy water and then made the sign of the cross on David’s forehead.

“I christen thee David Bartholomew Silvia, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

Maria’s pulse leaped, drowning out the sounds of everything except the small squeak her son made as the water touched his face.

“Shh,” she whispered, and kissed the place where the holy water had been.

The baby smile at the sound of his mother’s voice and quickly settle.

All too soon the ceremony was over and the guests were moving toward the exit to attend the celebration of food and wine Maria had prepared at their home.

Leonardo suddenly stopped, then handed Maria the baby.

“I forgot to give Father Joseph his money,” he said, and headed back to the altar before the priest left.

Maria cradled the baby as she waited.
 
A friend came up and they began to talk.

The baby’s gaze was focused on the sound of his mother’s voice when, outside, a cloud that had been covering the sun began to pass.
 
As it did, bright light spilled through the stained glass windows—rolling through the colors and painting them on the columns and the walls and even in Maria’s hair.

When it happened, the baby’s focus shifted from his mother’s mouth to the window.
 
He looked and blinked, then stilled.
 
His pupils dilated; his tiny mouth went slack.
 
The light grew, firing the colors until they appeared to be burning.
 
And it was as if he was listening to something that only he could hear.

Suddenly the woman beside Maria cried.
 
“Look!
 
Look at little David.
 
See how he stares at God’s windows?”

Maria looked down at her son and the rapt expression on his face.

“It is as it should be,” she said softly.

“What do you mean?” the woman said.

“See his face?
 
He sees the angels.”

“What angels?” her friend asked.

“The ones who will watch over him as he becomes a man of God.”

“What?”

“I promised, you see,” Maria said.

“Promised what?”

“The baby.
 
God gave me a child to raise, and when it’s time, I will give the man to God.”

The woman laughed, a little shocked by what Maria had said.

“Well, sure, every mother would be proud to have a priest in the family, but what if David has other plans?”

Maria looked at her son, so tiny and helpless, then at the rapt expression in his eyes.

“Don’t you see?’ she said softly.
 
“He already knows.”

Dinah McCall
finally realized that the daydreams she’d been having all her life were a gift, a talent she could no longer ignore.
 
“It hit me that I was destined to be a storyteller.”
 
Dinah made the decision to write tales of substance.
 
These stories have capture the hearts of
 
many readers and have earned bestseller placements.
 
Dinah lives in her native Oklahoma, where she also writes as Sharon Sala.