by Deb Stover
No, foolish definitely wasn't the word to describe this woman. In fact, she exuded self-assurance. "I'll bet you had men falling at your feet. Bet you kicked them in the balls when they got out of line, too."
The woman's hair was as red as Jackie's, certainly not natural. Henna, probably. Though beautiful, she was fat by today's standards. Rubenesque.
And except for a feather boa draped across her breasts and pelvic area, the woman was as naked as Jackie had been while modeling for Blade. "Who talked you out of your clothes, lady? One of Blade's ancestors, no doubt."
Buxom didn't begin to describe the woman's bustline. Jackie looked at her own medium-sized assets beneath her damp, clinging T-shirt. Blade hadn't seemed to mind.
He'd said he loved her. Asked her to marry him. Wanted her to have his babies. Her eyes burned and she blinked rapidly. No tears, Clarke. No tears.
"To hell with Blade."
She looked up at the woman in the portrait again. A strange but powerful sense of déjà vu suddenly swept through her. She couldn't shake it.
A gold plate on the frame drew her gaze. She rubbed her thumb across it until the words became legible through the grime.
Lolita Belle, 1891.
"Yeah, right." She snickered and shook her head. Lolita Belle had obviously been a stage name. Jackie looked up at the woman's face again, wondering exactly what type of performances had been her specialty.
"Lolita, were you a...lady of the evening?" Jackie waggled her eyebrows suggestively. "Aunt Pearl would've been in her element trying to convince you to mend your wicked ways." She laughed at her own foolishness.
"Instead, she just had pitiful me to work on." She sighed and turned away from the portrait. Standing around talking to an antique painting wasn't doing her a bit of good.
A particularly fierce blast of wind rattled the shutters, prompting Jackie to go to the window and peer through the louvered slats. The wind whipped the snow around in a furious pattern. She couldn't even see beyond the porch.
"Oh, boy. What am I going to do up here with no food?"
Shivering, she moved away from the window. "And no heat?" She could go longer without food than she could without heat. Water would be no problem with all the snow outside, but how would she melt it?
"I can't win for losing."
Her stomach rumbled, reminding her she hadn't eaten anything since her cold breakfast. At least it was dry inside, though definitely not warm. In fact, the temperature was dropping steadily. When night came she'd freeze.
Tears pricked her eyes, but she blinked them into submission. She couldn't–wouldn't–allow Blade to get away with this.
When she turned toward the back of the room, hope spiraled through her. Hidden in the shadows, an archway opened to another room at the back. To the right, a winding staircase led to the second floor.
"You dummy," she muttered.
With any luck, the back room might be a kitchen. What treasures besides the whiskey had the movie crew left behind? Food? Heat?
She quickened her pace to match her pulse, walking through a cobweb stretched across the doorway. "Yuck." Peeling the sticky threads away from her hair, she stepped into the room.
A kitchen. On the table in the center of the room sat a cardboard box. She rushed over and looked inside. A half dozen cans with poptops greeted her. Retrieving one, she read the label.
"Vienna sausages." She hadn't eaten anything that heavily laced with cholesterol in over a decade, but right now she didn't care. A slightly shortened lifespan was better than a severely shortened one. Besides, she had to stay alive long enough to exact vengeance.
She examined the cans closely. One of them was badly dented, so she set it aside, not wanting to tempt fate that much. There were no expiration dates on the labels, so she'd have to trust her eyes and sense of smell to steer her clear of food poisoning.
"Oh, gee, that gives me a not-so-warm fuzzy." Grimacing, she popped up the metal ring on one can and peeled back the lid. When she looked inside, all she saw were vienna sausages, nothing furry. She took a tentative sniff and sighed in relief. Carefully, she pulled a sausage from the can and turned it over several times. She could either die of food poisoning or starvation.
Her stomach growled angrily.
"All right." She pulled one out and took a bite. The little fat-laden thing tasted fabulous. She finished one and dug for another. Then another.
"Don't be a pig, Clarke." She set down the can, knowing the contents wouldn't spoil, since room temperature rivaled any refrigerator she'd ever owned. She placed a full can on top of the open one to protect its contents.
There, she felt stronger now. Having food in her stomach made her feel warmer, too. At least she wouldn't starve to death for a while.
She explored the rest of the ground floor, but the steps were too rickety for her taste, so she skipped a tour of the second floor.
Angry and bored, she opened the whiskey and took a tentative sip. She swallowed and waved her hand in front of her mouth.
Unaccustomed to whiskey, she was surprised by the sudden warmth that surged through her cold body. Saint Bernards supposedly carried brandy to freezing people. Right? She furrowed her brow, trying to remember whether medical science still endorsed that practice.
Looking at the bottle's amber contents and black label, she shrugged. "What the hell?" It made her feel warmer. She took another drink. It went down much smoother this time. In fact, it wasn't half bad.
Bottle clutched in her hand, she turned to look at Lolita again. "Who were you?" She looked at the woman's bright red hair. "Only your hairdresser knows for sure." Jackie winked and raised the bottle toward Lolita. "Here's to helping Mother Nature. I'm all for it," she touched her own hair and grimaced, "as you can see."
She lifted the bottle to her lips again and took a mouthful, swaying to one side with the effort.
"Steady as she goes, Clarke." She raised the bottle and admired its sparkling contents through the dim light coming through the louvered shutters. Tipping the bottle again, she gulped a huge swallow, then gave a very unladylike belch. "Oops. Hic. 'Scuse me." She saluted Lolita.
"I bet you knew how to pick men." Jackie rolled her eyes, noticing the mirror off to one side for the first time. She staggered over a few steps and stared at herself.
"Yuck, Clarke." She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head back, but the image looking back at her didn't improve. "You're a–hic–mess." There were bags under her eyes, and the dark green T-shirt just wasn't her color.
Her hair looked even worse now, if that was possible. Plastered to one side of her head wasn't exactly the style she would've chosen for herself. She closed her eyes tightly, then reopened them to study her appropriately warped reflection. Her wild, shoulder-length hair was still red. Really red.
Lolita red.
Looking back at Lolita, she sighed. "I need something to do. I'll bet the newest Anne Stuart romance is out by now."
Of course, she'd thought Blade would keep her much too busy for reading. And he had...for a while.
"Bastard."
She placed her fanny pack and the whiskey bottle on the bar while she searched for her compact and a less warped mirror. "Aha. There you are."
Blade had practically begged her to go red, but she'd resisted for a while. Narrowing her eyes, she peered at herself in the small mirror. She should've resisted a lot harder. Furiously, she powdered her shiny nose and looked again. Nothing helped.
Red hair and Jackie Clarke just didn't complement each other. She looked back at Lolita. Adrenalin rushed through her veins as she studied the portrait. "Hey, my hair is pretty close to your shade.
"What do you think? Of course, this is only temporary. I make a foxy brunette. Could even give you a run for your money." She lifted one corner of her mouth and snarled. "Even if you did get in line twice when they were handing out boobs." She shot Lolita's feather-draped breasts a caustic look. "Make that three times."
With her bottle of whisk
ey in tow, she marched out to the kitchen in search of...something. She positioned her open compact on the table and shivered. "I'm freezing my ass off in the middle of nowhere, drinking alone, and talking to a dead woman. Aunt Pearl'd have a cow. What do you think?"
The mirror didn't answer.
"So, tell me, Jackie," she said solemnly. "What is it with you and men?" Rolling her eyes, she shook her head. "Gee, I wish I knew."
Oh, maybe she did know, just a little. She wanted to love and be loved. She wanted a family like the one she would have if she hadn't miscarried. Of course, that marriage was doomed from the start, as Aunt Pearl had claimed.
Knock it off, Clarke.
Enough reminiscing–she was freezing. There had to be a way to start a fire. Surely there'd been a few smokers on the movie crew. What better place to keep matches than in the kitchen for cooking?
Several discarded boxes littered the room. She kicked them over with the toe of her boot, fearing she might disturb a hibernating rat or something. One of the boxes clattered as it fell over, making her leap back and stop breathing.
After a moment, she inched forward and nudged the box around with her toe until she could see inside. "Oh, my God," she whispered.
In the middle of several layers of crumpled newspaper was a kerosene lamp, a box of matches, and a bottle of kerosene. Let there be light. Her luck was definitely improving.
She retrieved the contents of the box and placed the objects on the table. Carefully, she removed the top of the lamp and filled the reservoir with oil. After replacing the top, she turned up the wick and fished a match out of the box.
Then she remembered how much warmer it was in the other room. She went back, placed her newfound treasures on the bar in front of Lolita, and lit the lamp.
After a moment, a nice golden glow surrounded her. Now all she needed was some heat and a miracle. There was enough broken furniture in here to make a nice fire.
She gulped. What if she burned the place down? "Oh, hell, Clarke." Chewing her lower lip, she gathered a few of the smaller pieces of wood and stuffed them into the stove. Then she tore the last few pages out of the script and crumpled them, placing the paper beneath the wood.
Muttering a prayer, she struck a match and tossed it in, watching eagerly as the greedy flames devoured the paper, then went after the dry wood. She studied the stovepipe. So far, so good.
She shot Lolita a questioning glance. "Well, what do you think? I could've been an Eagle Scout. So, now what am I supposed to do with myself?"
It was getting dark outside. Hoping the darkness simply meant dusk instead of more snow, Jackie went to the shutters and peered outside. The snow had stopped and patches of sky showed through the clouds, but she wouldn't be going anywhere in the dark. The sun slowly disappeared behind the highest mountain peak, bathing the small valley in shadow.
A dark shape ran by, contrasting against the snow. Was it a deer? She wiped the glass and looked, but whatever it was had disappeared around the side of the building.
It grew darker by the second and Jackie shivered from more than merely cold. She was alone in the mountains, stranded.
"Thank goodness I found the lamp." She turned around and noticed the script she'd left on the bar. With a shrug, she dragged a battered chair to the stove and wiped some of the dust from the seat. "Please, don't let it be a horror story." Her imagination was fertile enough without feeding it any Stephen King-like fodder.
It promised to be a long, cold night. After placing a few more splintered pieces of furniture on the fire, she settled into the chair with the script in her lap, scooting the lamp closer.
"Cast of characters," she read. "Lolita Belle? Hmm. So somebody wrote the bimbo's life story." Relishing the fire's radiant heat, she allowed herself to be sucked into the story. It was an old-fashioned romantic adventure, but when she reached the end she groaned.
She'd used the last few pages to light the fire. Now she would never learn what happened to Lolita Belle. "Shoot."
An odd, crackling sound came from overhead. Frowning, Jackie looked up at the ceiling, bewildered at first by the bright orange fingers spreading across the cracked surface.
Reality finally registered and she dropped the script, jumping to her feet so fast the chair crashed to the floor. The building was on fire. She had to get out fast. The crackling became a roar as the greedy flames lapped up the old structure. She was surrounded.
Jackie dropped to her knees–the heat became unbearable. Coughing, she crawled toward the bar, remembering a window along that wall. Her skin stung from the intense heat and her throat burned. Tears streamed down her face as the same prayer played through her head again and again.
God, help me. Please help me. All she'd wanted was some heat and a miracle.
Behind the bar, the air was somewhat cooler and the smoke less suffocating. She drew several deep breaths before she rose.
Blazing timbers collapsed into the center of the room and she screamed. Regaining some control, she felt along the wall for the window she'd seen earlier. Somewhere...
Another crash–the building was falling down around her. She was going to burn. Freezing out in the wilderness would have been better than this.
"Where's that frigging window?" Tears and smoke blinded her as she felt along the wall, ducking lower to escape the intense heat. She felt something and straightened. A frame, but not the window.
Something large plummeted to the bar, struck her shoulder and slammed her against the wall. Both she and Lolita slid to the floor together.
Dizziness gripped her and she held her head as she turned to look at the painting one more time. "This is it," she whispered, knowing she would die tonight. There was no escape.
The flames bathed the portrait in a red-orange glow, and Lolita's face faded before Jackie's eyes. Barely conscious, Jackie reached toward the portrait as a face reappeared.
Not Lolita's.
The face staring back from the canvas now was a mirrored image. Dazed, Jackie touched her likeness just as something seized her. God, help me.
Powerful and swift, the force delivered her from the flames. Darkness bathed her in blessed coolness. No longer frightened, Jackie closed her eyes.
And prepared to face death.
Chapter 2
Voices–loud ones–ganged up on Jackie. Then she remembered the fire! Her heart bolted and her stomach lurched upward to press against it.
I'm alive. Under the circumstances, that was a miracle in itself. Maybe the voices belonged to paramedics coming to her rescue. She struggled to open her eyes, but they declined to cooperate. Considering the entire Sahara Desert must've filtered in beneath her lids during the night, she could understand their reluctance.
"She shore don't look like I reckoned she would," a man said.
Jackie managed to open one gritty eye, but quickly closed it to regroup. She must be dreaming. For a second, she'd thought she was at a wild west amusement park.
But this was far from amusing.
"Scrawny thing, but who else could she be?" This time, a woman's voice intruded.
I'm asleep and this is a dream. Jackie would simply ignore the voices until she could wake herself. Though that seemed her wisest course of action, wisdom and patience had never been her strengths. She couldn't resist peeking once more. Partly opening both eyes, she peered through a sticky veil of smudged mascara, confirming that she was still in the saloon.
Gray beard stubble covered the man's face; a dark stain shaded one side of his chin. Yuck. Why couldn't she dream about attractive men?
Yeah, like Blade? On second thought, maybe ugly was safer. Even Aunt Pearl might approve of ugly.
"Well, I reckon it must be her." The unattractive owner of the gruff voice stood less than a foot away, peering down at Jackie as if she were a side of beef.
I'm not asleep. But she had to be. God, please let me be asleep. Allowing her eyes a few minutes to tear and refocus, she blinked several times and forced them open compl
etely.
"Well, it's about time," the woman said, coming closer to stare down at Jackie. "Don't just stand there–help her up, Zeb."
Grumbling, the filthy man–apparently the Zeb in question–reached down and grabbed Jackie's hand. A moment later, she found herself being hauled to her feet, which seemed less than capable of supporting her weight this morning.
She wavered and the man grabbed her arm to steady her. His stench was unbelievable, and up close, his gap-toothed appearance did even less to restore her faith in a benevolent god. "Who–"
"What are you wearin'?" The woman shooed Zeb away and gripped Jackie's other arm. "You're a mess. We'd better get you cleaned up real quick-like, before Rupert gets a look at what he paid for."
"Rupert who?" Jackie blinked again, trying to determine what sort of bizarre rescue team had found her, but after examining the woman's clothing, she realized the magnitude of her error.
The middle-aged woman wore a bright red dress, adorned with gold braid at its single shoulder and at the hem. Her impressive cleavage left almost nothing to speculation, but the feathers protruding from the back of her blond hairdo had exactly the opposite effect, sending Jackie's speculative nature into warp speed. "What–who–"
"C'mon, let's get you upstairs before Rupert gets here and sees you. We weren't expectin' you for weeks yet."
"You were expecting me?" Had Blade contacted these people? Fat chance. Besides, how could Blade have known Jackie'd end up here? Wherever here was.
The woman shook her head and clicked her tongue as if scolding a small child. "Now tell me, where in tarnation did you get them clothes? Mercy sakes alive!"
Jackie glanced down at her Levis. "What's wrong with my clothes?" They were perfectly ordinary, though filthy, clothes, especially in comparison to the woman's Miss Kitty get-up.
"Well, if you don't know, I reckon there ain't no point in discussin' it right now."
Zeb laughed along with two other men leaning against the bar. Jackie hadn't noticed them earlier, but they stared at her now with lechery written plainly across their grungy faces.
