Angel in My Arms (37 page)

"I can't believe you've done it and then stuck to your guns," Sally
said as she poured Celeste a cup of tea from Kate's favorite china pot.

Kate's kitchen was quiet because it was only eleven in the morning
on Sunday, and the other girls were still abed. Celeste and Sally had
gone to church service together and then come back for tea.

"I just realized I couldn't live like that anymore, Sally. I've been
so afraid something would happen to him. That I'd lose him. It was
making me crazy."

Sally sat across from Celeste and reached for the sugar bowl. She wrinkled her nose. "But you have lost him."

Celeste shook her head. "It's not the same thing."

"It's not?" Sally added a third lump of brown sugar to her tea.

"No. It's not." Celeste stirred her tea, though there was nothing in it but tea to stir. "This is on my terms. If
I
give him up—if
I
send
him
away, it's different. It's my choice, and it's the right thing to do. I can live with that."

Sally licked her spoon. "Different, huh? So's you can live with your
conscience instead of the man you love." She sounded doubtful.

"Exactly."

Sally dipped her spoon in her tea again. "If you say so."

Celeste unpinned her hat and placed it on the table beside her. "If
he doesn't love me, he won't stay true to me. You know he won't. That's
the way men are. And if he loved me, he'd marry me. He'd make a home
for my son."

Sally poured thick cream into her teacup. "But he don't know you got a son."

"It doesn't matter," Celeste told her regretfully. "What matters is
that nothing could come of this relationship, so I might as well end it
here before I get hurt."

Sally poured tea into her saucer. "Looks to me like you're already hurt," she said to her teacup.

Celeste watched Sally slurp from her saucer. "I need you to help me
here, Sally," she said softly. "I need you to help me tell myself I've
done the right thing. Even if Adam doesn't come to live with me, I
can't continue to live in sin with men. I have to become respectable.
As respectable as… your grandmother."

Sally gave a snort of laughter. "My grammy? She sold my mama's virginity to a mule driver when Mama was only thirteen!"

Celeste rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean."

Sally laughed and tossed her blond ringlets. "I know. I'm just
teasin' you because I hate to see you hurting like this." She slid her
tiny hand across the table to take Celeste's. "You know I give you a
hard time, but I'd do anything for you. I love you as much as I love my
Noah. More, because it's different with women."

Celeste covered Sally's hand with hers and gave it a squeeze.
"Thanks, Now let's not talk about me. Fox has moved out and into one of
those new boardinghouses on the end of Cherry Street. I imagine he'll
be selling his part of the mine and moving on before Christmas. What's
done is done." She lowered her hands to her lap and glanced up at
Sally, forcing a smile. Her heart was crumbling inside, but she knew
she was doing the right thing, the safe thing. "Now tell me some more
about Noah. When are you going to get married?"

Sally giggled into her china teacup. "We was supposed to wait until
Christmas, but Noah says he can't wait for me that long, else his
you know what's
going to burst." She lifted her lashes. "So we're talking about getting hitched the first of December."

"Why that's right around the corner! I'm so glad to hear it. I want
you to get out of Carrington. I want you to have the life you deserve."

"Well, Noah says it's burning him up inside to think I'm still
rollin' men, so…" Sally toyed with her spoon. "I'm going to tell Kate
I'm done. If she wants to kick me out before Noah and I are married,
she can, but this girl has asked Jesus to forgive her and I ain't doin'
it anymore."

Celeste sipped her tea, truly delighted for Sally and only a little
envious of her happiness. "The man sounds like he's worth his weight in
silver. When do I get to meet him?"

Fox sat on the edge of the narrow cot and stared at the plain,
painted white wall. The boardinghouse had gone up a short time after
they struck silver at MacPhearson's Fortune, and the room still smelled
of freshly sawed lumber and whitewash paint. The room was small, but
clean, the walls thin, but it served his purpose. Fresh sheets and
towels were provided weekly, clean water for shaving and washing daily,
and the outhouse was only a short walk from the back of the building.
What more could a man ask for?

Fox spent his long days at the mine and came here only to sleep, and
then not every night. Tonight he'd returned only because Titus had
insisted that if Fox didn't get some sleep, he was going to make a
serious mistake in the mine and kill himself or someone else. Fox had
reluctantly returned to his rented room, but he couldn't sleep. He
missed Celeste. He missed her dog that had somehow become his.

Fox ran his hands over his unshaven face. Where had he gone wrong?
What had he done? He had offered to take Celeste with him to
California, to care for her, to provide for her. Why did women always
want more than was offered?

She said she wanted him to love her. Of course she hadn't said anything about loving
him.
Women were like that… whores at least. They wanted to take, but they
didn't want to give. Fox had to keep reminding himself of that. At some
point in a man's life he had to stop laying his heart open. He had to
stop trusting women that he knew, from experience, couldn't be trusted.

But then, what reason had Celeste given him not to trust her? He
shared a house with her, a business, a bed, and not once in all these
months had she led him to question her word or deed even once. So was
he really afraid to trust Celeste because she had been a whore, or was
he using this as an excuse? Maybe he was just plain scared to love a
woman again, any woman.

Fox lifted his head from his hands and stared at the wall. Light
from the lamp on the table beside the bed cast a distorted shadow of
him against the vertical, painted boards.

Fox didn't honestly know anymore how he felt or what he thought. All he knew was that without Celeste, he was damned miserable.

He rose off the bed and began to pace. The room was exactly six
paces by five. He knew from experience. He walked to the wall, turned
and walked back, only to turn and go the other way again.

For two weeks he'd had no contact with Celeste except at the mine,
and there it was strictly business with her. She treated him as if he
were one of the damned workers. She smiled pleasantly, but coolly, and
went on talking figures as if they had never kissed, never touched,
never made love as they had that last night in her room.

Fox balled his hands at his side, so frustrated that he couldn't
think clearly. He needed her. He wanted her. Why couldn't he have her?

Fox knew he couldn't continue to live like this. He knew he should
just sell the mine, take his money, and go back to California. He'd
even contacted Trevor about the possibility of buying his share. In the
same conversation he'd threatened that if Trevor was stealing from him
and Celeste, he'd slit his throat. Oddly enough, no more silver had
come from the Trevor mine. It seemed as if he had hit a dry spot.

Going to California made sense. Fox would have enough money so that
if he was careful, he could buy land and start the vineyard he'd always
dreamed of. But for some reason the dream seemed to have turned as sour
as a bad batch of wine. Truth was, he didn't want the vineyard without
someone to share it with. He didn't want it without Celeste.

So why couldn't she be reasonable? Why couldn't she be content to
take what he offered? They would be happy together in California. He
knew they would.

But no. She didn't just want flesh, she wanted his heart.

Fox halted in the center of the room, squeezed his eyes tightly
shut, and pressed his arms to his sides. For a moment he was a boy
again. Alone. He remembered the ache in the pit of his stomach so
fierce that he felt it now. "Why'd you let her do it to me?" he
whispered to the lonely room. "Why… Papa?"

Fox's eyes flew open and he wiped at the moisture that had gathered
there. It would be so easy to love Celeste. But could he do it? Could
he take the risk again? He honestly didn't know.

Fox grabbed his woolen coat off the end of the rope bed and punched
his arms into the raglan sleeves. Celeste must have worn it sometime.
He smelled the scent of her on it.

Fox threw his new gray cloak over the coat because he knew how
bitterly cold it was tonight. Then he blew out the lamp and reached for
the new porcelain doorknob. It was late, almost midnight, but he had to
get some fresh air. He had to think.

Fox walked the length of Cherry Street. It was dark and only a pale
quarter moon shone. Its light reflected off the dirty snow and bounced
up to illuminate his way. Somewhere a dog barked and he thought of
Silver. Taking these midnight walks wasn't the same without the good
old hound.

Somewhere a baby cried and then was hushed, perhaps by his mother's
breast. The domestic thought made him smile to himself. He had always
thought he might like to have a child. He knew he could be a better
father than his had been. He'd just never known a woman he would want
to share his blood with in that way—until maybe now.

Fox turned at the darkened railway station and started up Peach
Street. There was still tinny music and drunken laughter coming from
the saloons. Two miners, half-drunk, passed him on the wooden sidewalk
and tipped their hats to him. Another man rode by in a wagon headed out
of town, the buckboard bed filled with sleeping or passed-out miners.

Fox continued along the street, past Kate's Dance Hall, past Sal's
Saloon. He thought about stopping for a drink at Sal's. Sal said it
wasn't natural, a man who didn't drink. But Fox didn't want anything to
interfere with his thinking. He was having a hard enough time making
any sense to himself as it was.

Past the dance halls and saloons, Peach Street grew darker and
quiet. The piano music and the laughter faded. Fox felt so alone in the
cold silence.

The sound of pounding footsteps in an alley caught his attention,
and he glanced over just in time to see someone running down the alley
between a bank and a stable, away from him. Fox halted, took a step
back, and squinted into the darkness. The shadow disappeared into the
night.

Fox hesitated in the entry to the alleyway, the hair rising on the
back of his neck. He smelled something odd, familiar, and yet not
familiar. The scent was warm and metallic in the frosty air. Then his
gaze fell to the ground and a crumpled shadow. A streak of light cast
from the moon behind him illuminated a green fold of material. It was a
cloak, perhaps. Celeste had just bought a new green cloak the very same
color. He remembered how it had matched her eyes and made them sparkle
when she'd modeled it for him.

"No," Fox whispered. It couldn't be…

He stood frozen for only an instant and then ran into the alley. He
stooped to touch her, praying she lived and that he'd scared the killer
off in time. She was still warm, but his hand was instantly wet and he
knew that she was covered in blood. "No, no, Celeste," he muttered
under his breath as a chant. "Not Celeste. Not my angel."

He went down on one knee, oblivious of the muddy slush left by the
last snow and men's boots, and lifted her in his arms. Her hair was
long and dark, like Celeste's, but he couldn't tell what color. Her
head fell back limply as he lifted her and pushed back the lumps of
bloody hair that covered her face.

"No, no," he whispered, his heart pounding. He tipped her head so that the moonlight shone on her face. "Please, please…"

Then he heaved a great sigh of relief, mortified at the same time that he could be so callus. It wasn't Celeste.
Oh, God, thank you, thank you, it wasn't Celeste…

Fox touched the young woman's bloody throat, hoping to find a pulse.
None. She was dead. He eased her back onto the cold ground and stood,
heaving in great cold breaths of air, exhaling white frost. He had to
get Sheriff Tate.

He stepped out onto the street. His hands were wet with blood and
shaking. He looked down. His cloak was covered with blood. He couldn't
go to Tate looking like this! The man would hang him without a trial.
But he had to find the sheriff before the killer got too far.

Fox walked back up Peach Street as casually as he could, and stopped
at the first rain barrel. He glanced up and down the street to be sure
no one was about, and then broke the ice on the top of the barrel. He
sank his hands into the frigid water.

His hands clean, he pulled off his cloak and balled it up. In the
alley beside Simon's Boardinghouse was a trash barrel. It reeked of
rotten vegetables. Fox dug with a stick under some of the refuse, threw
in his cloak, and then covered it. He felt guilty for cleaning up like
this, but he'd be damned if he'd let Tate get him lynched for a crime
he didn't commit.

Back on the street, as chilled by the sight of the dead girl as his
fear that it had been Celeste, Fox stood for a moment to get his
bearings. He was only a little surprised to discover that his hands
were still shaking. He stuffed them into his pocket and stood in
indecision. Should he go to the sheriff's office where Tate slept in an
upstairs room, or did he try looking for him in Sal's first? It was
only midnight, and early for Tate.

Turning grimly on his heels, he decided to check Sal's first.

It was nearly three in the morning by the time the woman's body was
carried off by the undertaker, and Sheriff Tate had released Fox on his
own recognizance.

After an hour of questioning that sounded more like badgering, Fox
was relieved he'd washed his hands and disposed of his bloody cloak.
Sheriff Tate was so hell-bent on finding a killer, that Fox had no
doubt the man would have locked him up, had there been one smear of
blood on his person. Tate was so obsessed with nailing someone for the
crimes that Fox feared it was more important to the sheriff that he pin
the murders on someone, than it was to actually catch the real killer.