Gold Rush Groom

chapter Sixteen





Jack woke to the aroma of frying bacon. For a moment he feared it was another hallucination, but when he opened his eyes he saw Lily by the stove in his little cabin.

It all came back to him in a rush: the collapse, realizing he was trapped and then Lily. Once again she was there when he needed her and she’d stayed through the night. He remembered waking long enough to weave a lovely thick strand of her hair through his fingers before dozing again.

“That smells like heaven,” he said, trying to sit up and being momentarily arrested by the pain that shot through his ribs and down his back.

Lily was at his side in an instant.

“Are you aching? The doctor left some laudanum.”

“That will just make me sleep again.” Jack pushed himself to a sitting position, wincing despite his efforts not to do so.

“Coffee?” she asked.

He nodded, his head spinning with the pain of sitting up. Her arm was around him now, gently supporting him as she held the bitter and sweet coffee to his lips.

The heat filled his stomach and bolstered his spirits. Lily had not forsaken him. If she had treated him as he had her, would he have come? Her actions proved to him again how dauntless she was.

“Jack, what happened?”

“Stupid. I didn’t consider the steam would not dissipate. It collected on the ceiling and then a section thawed. It all came down at once. The gravel hit me from behind, pinned my legs first and then my arms. When I came to, it had all frozen solid again, like a crypt. Just dumb luck it didn’t suffocate me.”

“It’s too dangerous, the steam.”

“No. It’s not, but I learned something. The ceiling has to be braced until it has a chance to freeze up again.”

“I don’t want you going down there anymore. You can come live with me in town.”

He frowned. Did she have so little faith in him? He’d learned a valuable lesson and knew the machine could be viable with just the addition of braces.

He shook his head. “I need to stay here and finish my testing.”

“Testing? You were nearly killed, Jack. It’s not worth your life, is it?”

He didn’t answer.

“I promised to help you, Jack. You can stay with me until you’re feeling better. No need to go back down in that tunnel.”

“But I will go back.”

Her eyes went wide and her expression fell. She started crying again and he wiped away the tears. It hurt like a son of a bitch to lift his arms, but he gritted his teeth and caressed her damp face.

“I was so frightened, Jack,” she admitted. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”

He rocked her gently back and forth, gritting his teeth against the ache in his ribs.

“Nothing happened. I’m all right now. When I got pinned down there, all I could think was that if I died your last memory would be of me hurting you again. Now, at least, I have a chance to ask your forgiveness.”

She recalled him asking her if she was with child without coming right out and saying so. Lily could not bear to revisit that topic, so she gathered up his empty coffee cup and threw the dregs out in the open front door. Nala rose to investigate this new addition to her yard and Lily returned to Jack, perching on the edge of his bed.

“We made a mistake, Jack. Both of us. You don’t have to worry about me. I understand the way things work and I’ll land on my feet. Besides, I’m here for an adventure. I just got more than I expected, is all. Plus, if I were with child and needed a man to help raise it, I wouldn’t have far to look, now would I? Dawson is crawling with candidates.”

Jack made an involuntary growling sound. Did the idea of her foisting his child off on some stranger fill him with fury or just catch him off guard? She’d never seen such a black expression on the man.

His breathing increased and he went pale again. He fell back to the pillow, his eyes still fixed on her.

Lily studied Jack from beneath her lowered lashes. His frown and glowering expression pleased her far more than it should have. If any of her pretty speech were true she’d be past caring what he thought or felt for her. So why did she keep coming back to the well, knowing it was dry?

Jack forced himself up on one elbow, exhaling sharply as the pain took the color from his cheeks. “I don’t want that.”

She nodded her acknowledgment.

“And I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

She gave a mirthless laugh. “That’s usually the way of it.”

“I’d take responsibility for a child, Lily.”

She pressed her lips together to keep from shouting that she didn’t want to be a responsibility to him. She didn’t want to be another obligation like his mother or his sister.

Instead she said, “I know, Jack.”

He wasn’t the sort to turn his back on her for he could have done that a hundred times along the journey.

His eyelids drooped.

She sighed. “Rest a bit.”

She pressed a hand against his shoulder and he eased back into the narrow bed.

He closed his eyes, taking shallow breaths. Lily could not resist brushing the soft locks of hair from his forehead. He lifted his hand and captured hers, lacing their fingers, before rubbing her knuckle over his soft, dry lips. He kissed her there and then lowered their hands to the bedding as if the intimacy was nothing more than a brief thank-you.

But the soft caress and brush of his mouth made her stiffen as the rippling excitement gripped her insides and set off a shiver of hopeless longing. She stared down at him in hungry anticipation to find his eyes closed and his expression at peace.

Damn the man!

She tried to tug her hand free, but he resisted, holding her fast.

“Stay a little.” He raised his lids as if bone-weary, looking up at her with his soulful whiskey-colored eyes, warm and welcoming as the autumn sun.

His eyes closed again. “Steamers are running. That means there’ll be goods. I can buy what I need to build more engines, just as soon as I scratch up the venture capital.”

Lily wondered who would be fool enough to invest in a machine that caused cave-ins, but kept her doubts to herself.

“The steamers brought something else,” said Lily. “A letter from my sister, Bridget. She gave me a rundown of all I’ve missed. They’re struggling, of course, but all hale and healthy, thank the Lord.”

“Younger sister?”

“They’re all younger, remember, Jack? I hope they’ve received my letters. Won’t they be surprised to hear what I’ve been up to?”

Jack grimaced as if ashamed of what they’d been up to.

“You needn’t worry, Jack. I mentioned you only by your first name. Far as they know you’re just another one of the men, out of work and desperate enough to come and try your luck.”

He flushed and she knew she’d hit the nail on the head. Was it so humiliating to be associated with her?

“I didn’t tell you not to mention me.”

She pressed her lips together to keep from telling him that he didn’t have to. His expression said it all.

Jack reached for her hand, there beside his on the bedding, but she lifted it and clasped hers together in her lap.

He changed course and lifted himself up, with a groan, leaning back against the wall behind his head. The pain squeezed through him and then was gone. He’d been lucky—very lucky.

“My sister, Cassie, will be ten in March. She should be in school now.” A public school, he imagined. Quite a shock after attending a fine private school. She’d been on track to attend Wells College, like Mother, when their fortunes turned. “My mother’s family owned a pharmacy in Rochester. It’s how she met father. My grandfather wanted him to learn the ropes, so he sent him off on the road. When he brought mother home there was a row, but they came around. My mother is beautiful and accomplished and it wasn’t as if she came from nothing. Her father owned his business, after all. The funny part was that her family did not approve of dad. Can you imagine? They wanted a professional man, not a salesman, and had no idea who he really was. Well, that turned the matter and my grandparents went to see Mother’s parents. After that it was all smooth sailing.”

He finished his story and smiled at her. His smile faded by slow degrees as he realized too late that he’d insulted her again. He cleared his throat and fell silent.

Lily picked at her fingernail, head lowered. “It’s a pity you lost your pa, Jack. It’s a hard thing.”

He clenched his jaw. His father didn’t deserve Lily’s concern. His father had abandoned them in every sense of the word, and Jack was tired of keeping up appearances.

That half-truth, told by instinct to protect the family name, now became intolerable. It didn’t sit right to lie to Lily. He wanted her to know everything, even something this dark, for it was as much a part of him as his skin. So he straightened, preparing himself to tell her that his perfect little world was as cracked as an eggshell dropped on a stone floor.

“He wasn’t lost, Lil.”

Lily’s eyes fixed on him, cautious now, for she knew him well enough to recognize his change in mood. Lily folded her arms protectively about her middle and lowered her chin before speaking. “He wasn’t?”

“He left in the most cowardly way possible.”

Jack wondered what she’d think after he told her. At home the news had spread like a breaking tidal wave, washing through the community. Jack had learned during that dark time that there was nothing so unforgivable as losing one’s money, unless, perhaps, it was losing one’s fortune and then putting a bullet in one’s forehead.

In the end, the only visitors were the creditors who appeared with a speed of buzzards smelling a corpse.

“Jack?”

He lifted his chin from his chest and met her worried gaze.

“When my father learned we were ruined, that he’d lost everything, he…he killed himself, Lil.”

She gasped, holding her hands over her mouth in shock, but he forged on, needing to get it all in before he watched her walk away like the others.

“He went into his study, used a revolver. I heard the shot and found his body.”

Lily pressed her fists to her cheeks. “Oh, Jack, that’s a terrible thing.”

“Yes. Terrible.” He looked up at her, holding her gaze. “Do you know what was worse? No one came to the house to pay their respects. Not one of my mother’s close friends or a single member of any of the societies to which she belonged. It was as if we were contagious. I wonder if he knew what would happen, if he understood just what his actions would bring. He was a coward, taking the easy way out and leaving us to face the consequences.”

He waited for her condemnation at speaking so frankly about his father or for her to remind him that his father burned in hell. She did neither. Instead, Lily slid her hand along the blanket until it rested on his.

“What about your friends?”

“I left school without telling them. Too ashamed to face them.” He drew a breath, steadying himself to tell her the rest. “I was engaged back then, Lil. She was the daughter of one of my father’s business associates. I went to see her just after I returned from college to tell her the news. She cried, of course. So I tried to reassure her, comfort her. It wasn’t until later that I realized she wasn’t crying for me but for what she had lost. She waited until after the funeral to return the ring.”

Lily blew out a long breath. After a moment she said, “She’s a fool.”

“She knew enough not to wed a penniless man.”

Lily’s smile seemed sad and wise all at once. “There’s worse things. Like not having the decency to give your sympathies when a man has lost his father.”

She was right again. He shouldn’t care what they thought. He was lucky to learn so early just what kind of people they were. Unlike his poor mother who was still devastated by their swift rejection.

It was on her account, mainly, that he plotted his revenge.

“I still want to prove to them that my family doesn’t need them. If I can make this work, my mother and sister won’t have to suffer for something that was none of their doing.”

“I would think there would still be talk.”

“Don’t fool yourself. Money is all that’s needed for them to reenter society and those bastards will pretend that Mother was just in Newport for the season, instead of returning from exile.”

The thirst for a triumphant homecoming still burned his throat. But now it was tempered by the knowledge that he didn’t like them. He’d be well rid of the lot.

She squeezed his hand. “If you’re needing to spit in their eye, Jack, well then, I’ll help you all I can.”

He should have expected it from her. She didn’t turn her back on trouble, wouldn’t judge him or think less of him for his need to set things right. Jack wondered if Lily had any idea how precious she was becoming to him.

Jack thought of his mother’s telegram and frowned. When he’d come north, he had wanted to make good so they could reenter Society. He’d fought and struggled, determined not to give up. Now he didn’t even know if he wanted to go back to New York. But he had to, because he’d not abandon his sister and mother as his father had done.

Now he dreamed of Lily at his side. But each time he tried to imagine her there, presiding over his household, overseeing dinner parties with business partners, he felt queasy. There must be a way to have her.