Oblivious to everything around him, Jackson held onto the reins tightly and let his fury race free. His head pounded in time with the drum of the horse's hoof beats.
A red haze of anger clouded his vision as the first heavy drops of rain pelted him. When the row of pines behind the school came into view, he narrowed his eyes against the rain, straining to find the woman who meant everything to him.
He spotted them as they hurried across the open field toward town. Jackson spurred the stallion on, finally drawing it to a rearing stop directly in front of them.
Jumping down from the saddle, he smacked the horse’s rump, sending it running for town. Then Jackson went to Rachel.
"Are you all right?" he shouted, letting his gaze sweep over her.
"I'm fine, Jackson," she cried and pushed wet strands of hair back from her face. "What are you doing here?"
"That's what I want to know from you."
Noble grabbed Rachel's elbow and pulled her close to his side. "Keep your hands off my fiancée."
"What?" Jackson’s voice, raw with pain, carried over a clap of thunder, and he didn't wait for her answer before demanding, "What are you doing? Why? Why, Rachel?"
Her eyes stung with tears she refused to shed.
"Get back," Noble snarled.
"I’ll see to you in a minute," Jackson snapped and grabbed Rachel, pulling her to him, away from the gambler.
"What happened to you? What happened to all your fine talk about not marrying unless you were in love?"
"I am in love," she retorted, pushing her hair out of her eyes to look directly into his.
"With him?" Sneering laughter colored his voice.
"No." Wind tore at her voice, but still he heard the words that slashed at him. "I'm in love with you. So I'm going to marry Noble."
"That's enough," Lynch shouted and pulled Rachel to his side; at the same time, he gave Jackson a strong shove.
Jackson staggered, tore his wounded gaze from Rachel's face, and lunged at the gambler. Knocking the elegantly dressed man to the dirt, Jackson slammed his fist into the other man's jaw just before the gambler shifted, braced himself, and heaved Jackson off into the grassy dirt.
Gaining his feet quickly, Jackson circled the other man warily, ready for anything. "You’re not going to marry her, Lynch. I'll kill you first and send you straight to Hell!"
"Jackson, no !" Rachel yelled at him. "Let me marry him. It will all be over, then."
"You’re doing this for me?" He threw her a quick look, then turned back to his opponent.
"Of course," she screamed over a peal of thunder. "Blast you, Jackson, I won't have you spend eternity in misery!"
Dumbfounded, he stopped and stared at her. She had been willing to sacrifice herself for his sake. Rain slapped at him. Jagged spears of lightning shot across the sky, and the resulting roll of thunder shook the ground.
"No, Rachel. I won’t let you do it." Tearing his gaze from hers, he looked at Noble Lynch, who was staring at the two of them as though they were insane. "You’re not going to marry her."
"You can't stop me," the gambler shouted back.
"We settle this between you and me, here. Now."
The gambler jerked him a nod. "Fine with me." His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "You're like a bad tooth, cousin. The only way to cure the ache is to pull the tooth and be done with it."
"Jackson." Rachel rushed to him, looked up into his eyes, and pleaded, "Don’t. Don’t risk this."
He set her to one side and took a step toward Lynch. "I'll need a gun. Or a knife."
Lynch’s eyebrows lifted; he laughed out loud. "Either one, eh? This should be diverting." He pointed to a small rise just twenty feet or so away. "Over there. Away from the lady." He gave her a deep bow, then turned and started walking.
"Stay here."
"Jackson —"
"Dammit Rachel," he growled at her. "Stay put. Please."
She nodded stiffly. Fear glittered in her blue eyes. Fear for him. But he couldn't let that stop him. He bent, pressed a quick kiss to her lips, then followed Lynch.
"If it's all right with you, I'll flip a coin to decide which weapons we use." The gambler dug into his pants pocket and drew out a handful of change.
"Why should I trust you? It's probably a two-headed coin."
Noble laughed at him and pushed his wind-blown, soaking wet hair back from his forehead. "All right then, how about if I use one of yours?" he asked and held up the golden coin he'd stolen.
"A liar, a murderer, and a thief."
Noble inclined his head with a smile. "What do you say? If it's a moon, we use guns. Stars, knives?" Without waiting for a reply, he flipped the coin high into the wind- tossed air.
Jackson followed the shining, spinning golden piece until the gambler snatched at it, then slapped it down onto his other hand. He glanced down at it before looking at Jackson. "It's a star, boy! We use knives."
"How do I know it's a star?" Jackson hollered back over the moaning wind. "Maybe you’re just better with a knife than a gun."
The gambler threw his head back and laughed. "You can trust me! May lightning strike me dead if I'm lying!"
A white hot streak of lightning pierced the clouds overhead. Brilliant light exploded all around them. Then the jagged bolt stabbed Noble Lynch, slamming him into the earth.
Rachel screamed over the roar of thunder. And Jackson disappeared.
#
The Black Hound saloon looked the same as it had the day he had left it for Stillwater.
Stunned by the abrupt shift in his surroundings, Jackson rubbed the back of his neck. His hair was dry. As were his clothes. Only a moment ago, he had been in a storm like none he'd ever seen. Facing his enemy, he had watched the man die, killed by his own black nature. Now, he did a slow turn, noting the same old faces, the same falling down chairs and tables. He was back, in his own private little Hell.
His gaze swept the rest of the room and stopped when he spotted Lesley.
"If you‘ve come to preach at me, don’t bother," he said and walked through the rickety wall to the porch outside. He didn't care what happened to him now. The important thing to remember was, Rachel was safe from Noble Lynch.
And she would live her life the way she wanted to. Maybe, someday, she’d even be happy again.
Lesley floated through the wall and drifted to his side. Annoying, Jackson thought, that he hadn’t been able to figure out how to float in the last fifteen years. But then, he told himself grimly, he had the rest of eternity to work on it.
He flicked a quick glance at the small man beside him. No doubt, there was big trouble headed his way.
"Before you say anything," Jackson started, "if this is about Noble Lynch, I didn’t kill him. He killed himself by stealing that coin in the first place."
Lesley scowled thoughtfully. "We know all about Mister Lynch. He has been taken care of."
"What happened to him?"
The strange little man cocked his head at him as if to ask, "Do you really want to know?"
No, he didn't. He didn't care enough one way or the other anymore. It was enough to know that the bastard wouldn't be killing anybody else.
"Never mind," he said.
"I’ve been sent —" Lesley began.
"Let me guess. It's not about Lynch, so you’re probably here to show me the road to Hell." Jackson laughed shortly. "Don’t worry about it. Left to myself, I'm sure I'll find it."
"If you wouldn't mind allowing me to speak," Lesley replied with a delicate sniff. "I was about to say that the Powers That Be have decided to surrender."
"What do you mean, surrender?"
"Only that They have despaired of your ever learning a lesson while trapped in this world of neither life nor death."
A flash of hope shimmered through him.
"It has been decided that you are to return to a life on Earth." He reached up and adjusted the fit of his wig. "It is to be hoped that you will do a better job at life this time."
Life.
Stunned, he stared at the other man for several long moments, then walked out into the middle of the street. A weary looking cowhand trotted his horse right through him. Jackson didn't care.
He was going to live again.
This time, he swore it would be different.
He could go back to Rachel. Live out his life with her, making love and babies and building houses with Sam and going to town socials and…
"I'm afraid not," Lesley interrupted his thoughts sternly. Jackson swiveled his head to look at him."The life we are offering you cannot be spent with Rachel Morgan."
"Why not?" His voice scratched past his tightly closed throat.
"Because she knows who you are. " Lesley shrugged his narrow shoulders. "This is to be a new life. Starting fresh. You can't do that in Stillwater."
His dreams and hopes died in an instant. Pain, sharper and more all consuming than he had ever known, crushed him. These people were good at making troublesome souls suffer. Hold out a carrot in front of a starving man, then yank it back just before he can touch it. Taste it.
For less than a minute, Rachel and all they could have had together had been within his grasp. But it had been like grabbing at smoke.
Now there was nothing. He was back where he had started, staring at an eternity of loneliness.
"You will finally be able to leave this place," Lesley said quietly.
No. Even this was preferable to being alive and not with Rachel.
"Forget it, Les," he said wearily. "Life without Rachel isn't life. I don’t want your damned offer. I'll stay right here, in this piss poor excuse for a town."
His gaze swept over the old, weathered buildings, the uneven boardwalks, and the sun-baked, dusty street. Turning to Lesley again, he said tightly, "Better yet, send me to Hell. But don’t expect me to live without Rachel."
Thoughtfully, Lesley watched him as Jackson stomped past him into The Black Hound.
#
Rachel pulled her hem out of the mud and raced up the slight incline. Noble Lynch lay where he had fallen, staring up at the sky through surprised, sightless eyes. She turned away quickly, letting her gaze sweep across the area.
Jackson was gone. As if he had never been there. As if the last few weeks had been a strange dream from which she was only now waking.
Tilting her head back, she glared up at the churning black clouds and squinted against the driving rain.
"This isn't finished," she swore under her breath, then turned and headed for town.
On Main Street, she hurried blindly past the people scurrying for shelter from the storm. Rain slashed at her. Thick mud grabbed at her feet, making each step an effort. The wind pushed at her as if deliberately trying to slow her down.
Outside the Mercantile, she slipped in the muck, going to her knees. A sob tore from her throat. She dragged herself free, crawled up the three steps to the boardwalk, then staggered to the door.
Once inside, she paused only long enough to close and lock the front door behind her. A heartbeat later, she raced across the floor to a certain shelf behind the counter. Dropping to her knees, she pushed the neatly stacked cans out of her way, sending them tumbling to the floor. Grabbing the small tin box from its hiding place, she tore it open and snatched up the golden coin Jackson had given her and smiled down at it. Its tingling warmth spread up the length of her arm, bringing strength to her limbs and hope into her heart.
Closing her fist around the coin, Rachel stood up and walked to the very center of the store. Her sodden skirt clung to her legs, making each step a trial. She reached up to push lank, muddy hair out of her eyes, then squeezed the gold piece in her other hand tightly. Tight enough that she felt the engraved images on the coin pressing into her flesh.
Taking a long, deep breath, Rachel cleared her throat and in a quiet but firm voice announced plainly, "I want Jackson Tate here. Alive. He is the man I choose as my husband."
She waited. One moment. Two.
But nothing happened.
Rachel choked back a rising tide of fear, opened her palm and looked at the coin she still held. It hadn't disappeared as the others had after creating magic.
The dull gleam of gold taunted her silently.
"I’m afraid," a familiar male voice said softly, "it doesn't work that way."
Chapter Twenty-one
Her heart in her throat. Rachel spun around, coming face to face with Lesley. Immediately, she looked past the fussy little ghost, her gaze scanning the empty store, futilely searching for Jackson.
But he wasn't there.
"Where is he?" she demanded.
Lesley tugged at the ends of his sleeves. His fingertips fluffed the fall of lace draping across his small, dainty hands. "Jackson has returned from whence he came."
"The saloon?" Rachel shouted and took a step closer.
Lesley floated backward in response.
"He's back at The Black Hound?" she asked.
"He told you?" The little man shook his head slowly and clucked his tongue in disapproval. "Really, the man simply has no regard whatever for the rules."
Rachel didn't care about rules either. All she cared about was Jackson. "Send him back to me," she said.
"I can't, my dear. It is not in my power."
She saw the sympathy in his eyes, but it brought no comfort. Rachel doubted very much if anything would comfort her again. Glancing down at the gold piece in her hand, she whispered, "But the coin. I said what I wanted…"
"That coin cannot be used to wish a dead man back to life."
"Then what can I do?" she asked.
"Nothing, I'm afraid."
" He's gone?" Rachel whispered. " Forever?"
Lesley gave her a tired, patient smile. "My dear, one day you'll see that —"
"No."
He blinked at her interruption.
"Don’t tell me that one day the pain will pass. Don’t expect me to stop loving him."
"I knew it was a mistake to send him here," Lesley muttered.
"No," Rachel countered quickly. "The mistake was in taking him away."
"He was never supposed to stay."
The cold of her sopping wet dress seeped into her bones. She shivered and wrapped her arms tight about her waist. The truth only deepened the cold, shrouding her heart and soul in ice.
"My dear," Lesley said quietly as he hesitantly moved a bit closer, "I understand the upset you’ve experienced."
"Upset?" She lifted her head to glare at him. Her life lay in splinters around her. Jackson was out of her reach, and the long, lonely years ahead of her suddenly seemed no more than a prison sentence from which there was no escape.
Hope had died as surely as Noble Lynch. For too long, she had deluded herself into the belief that there was a chance for Jackson and her to find a lifetime together. Now there was nothing left. Not even the contentment she had found before Jackson’s arrival in Stillwater.
Rage, fear, and emptiness swamped her soul. "Upset?" she repeated, advancing on the horrified ghost.
Lesley scuttled back a safe distance again.
"The man I love has been torn from me without so much as a goodbye! Every dream I ever had ended in a flash of lightning. Jackson is trapped in some dingy saloon for eternity, and all I can do is wait to die so maybe I'll see him again. And you think that I'm upset?"
Lesley cleared his throat and nervously ran one finger around the inside of his collar.
She looked away from him, her mind suddenly racing with ideas. "I’ll go to him," she murmured, more to herself than the ghost. "I'll go to Pine Ridge. To that saloon. Even if I can't see him, at least I can be near him."
"Don’t do that," Lesley advised quietly.
"You can’t stop me."
"Perhaps not," he agreed, then went on. "You say you love Jackson Tate?"
"Yes."
"Then don't go to The Black Hound. Your presence there would only torture him further."
She swallowed he
avily and looked at the short man. Again, she noted the sympathy in his eyes, but this time she saw something else as well. Concern.
"To see you." Lesley went on, "to have you close by and not be able to touch you would, to Jackson, be more of a Hell than any sulphur and brimstone nightmare."
"You care about him too?" she asked as the first sting of tears welled up in her eyes.
"Surprisingly enough," Lesley said with a soft smile, "yes, I do."
He was right. She knew it. Rachel had hoped to spare Jackson’s soul any pain by marrying Noble Lynch. She couldn’t now do something that would only serve to make his private Hell a worse one.
Her shoulders slumped, and she accepted defeat. She had so many questions. How had this happened? How had she and Jackson come to such a pass? And how would she go on without him?
"You realize," she said softly, "your plans for me are finished. I won’t marry anyone else."
He sighed heavily. "Yes, my dear. I had suspected that would be your reaction."
She glanced at him. "What will happen to Jackson now? I mean, since I'm not going to marry and have those children I was supposed to?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "Perhaps nothing."
And perhaps something. Rachel shivered at the possibilities. "Should I…"
"I will do what I can for him," Lesley told her as he began to fade. "Be well, Rachel."
"Wait !" she shouted, even as he disappeared. "Tell Jackson I love him!"
A soft voice, filled with regret, swirled around her. "He knows that, my dear."
#
FIVE MONTHS LATER
"Rachel," Mavis huffed as she tugged the edges of her friend's carpetbag together, "this is foolishness."
"She's right," Sally said as she picked up Rachel's coat and draped it over her arm.
"This is no time to be taking a train trip for heaven's sake."
Rachel ignored both of them and concentrated instead on situating her hat properly. Once finished, she gave her mirror image a satisfied nod, then glanced at Hester. "Do you think I'm foolish, too?"
The others stared at her, waiting for the schoolteacher to agree with them. Hester, though, surprised them all. Stepping up close to Rachel, she laid one hand on her friend's arm and shook her head. "No, I don't."
Still Close to Heaven Page 26
