The Snowflake (8 page)

Well, I wouldn’t want to stay with her anyway.

“Quite so,” Kate muttered, and I realized I must have said it aloud. “Do you want to say anything to your friends?”

Buck was surrounded by townspeople and speaking to them. His face appeared ashen with exhaustion. I wanted to shout at them to leave him alone but didn’t have the strength. “No, just some water, a warm fire, and a real bed.” How did I get so lucky to have such a beautiful guardian angel to help me?

“Of course.” She waved toward a group of men who disengaged from the crowd and walked over to us. “This here is Ben Roseland. Ben, could you or one of your associates carry my new friend here? I don’t think she will make it another step without some help.”

I was about to protest when strong arms scooped me up, making my head spin anew. The man had cheery, hazel eyes and a broad chest and shoulders. I decided to stay put. He seemed more than capable of the task and ready to do anything Kate asked of him.

I peered back over Ben’s shoulder as Buck looked up. Our gazes locked for a long moment. I waved, my arm feeling like a well-cooked noodle. He frowned but was unable to do anything to get to me. I could find him later. Maybe he would be staying with Mrs. Lawrence. A bubble of hysterical laughter escaped my throat.

Ben looked down and grinned at me. “Nice ride?”

“Oh yes. Very comfortable, thank you,” I managed to choke out, wanting to laugh again. Maybe I was just so happy to be alive. I don’t think I really believed we would make it to Dawson, but we had, and it felt wonderful to know these people, these larger-than-life, glittering strangers, were more than willing to take care of me.

I closed my eyes and sighed. Dawson was a very nice place indeed.

Chapter Six

I awoke to the quiet ticking of a clock. My eyelids were as heavy as sodden blankets. I tried to lift them, felt a wave of exhaustion overwhelm me, and then drifted back into the darkness.

I don’t know how much longer it was until I had the next coherent thought, but it came stronger, brighter. The sun was loud against my eyes.

I blinked and then blinked again. Where was I?

The first thing I saw was a flowing, silken canopy draped above the bed. It was white, translucent, and fluttered with the soft air moving in the room. I turned my head toward a white marble fireplace ablaze with warm heat. The mantel held a vase of what appeared to be real flowers, but how that could be in the dead of winter in a town so far from anywhere was puzzling and a little frightening. I sniffed the air and smelled an odd mix of roses and . . . metal.

My brow furrowed. Metal? I had never smelled metal. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. A memory surged forward. Jonah holding a gold nugget in his palm. He pressed it to my nose, forcing my head toward his hand, as he told me of our next plan, our next city, our next escape from reality. The name, the vision of him—my dark, glorious, insane brother—brought back the truth. He’d died on the trail. I had let him die.

I’d wanted him to die.

As the thoughts connected around my sleep-clouded brain, a sob rushed from my rib cage. What had I done? I’d failed in everything my mother had charged me with. I had not kept him safe. I had not protected him from the harsh realities of the world. I had not been nailed to my cross to the bitter end. No. I’d done what Christ had not. I had plucked out the nails as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Yes, I had spilled out the last five years for Jonah, but I had not gone the full distance.

I’d chosen my life before his.

The thought made me want to sink back into the blackness of sleep and stay there forever, but my body rebelled. It fought toward full consciousness and embraced the bright light seeping through the window.

The door creaked open. I turned my head to see a woman holding a tray with something steaming atop it. She had a smile I recognized in a vague way. And her hair. It was so very red.

“Hello again, Ellen.”

My gaze followed her as she set the tray on the bedside table.

“You’ve finally rejoined the land of the living. And about time too. I was getting weary of spooning broth into your mouth.” She laughed then, a tinkling of bells in the room. I blinked at her, still trying to wake up.

She busied herself by propping me up with a strong arm and plumping my pillows so I could sit up. A few seconds later I heard tea being poured into a delicate cup. She pressed it toward me, helping my hand reach for the handle. The steam drifted toward my nose and smelled like heaven.

“How long have I been here?” I croaked out, taking a tiny sip.

“Three days now. You roused every few hours, and we spooned nourishment into you when we could.” Kate looked down toward my feet. “We were afraid frostbite had taken your toes, but I am glad to say they are as pretty as ever thanks to Doc Maynard. He’s a friend and it’s a good thing. The other doctor in town—” She shivered and I understood that Doc Maynard had saved my feet.

The sugary tea slid down my throat and warmed my stomach. Kate lifted a bowl from the tray, handed it to me, and took the empty cup, holding it loosely in her lap. “The color is coming back into your cheeks,” she commented as I took a long swallow of the brown broth.

Nothing had ever tasted so good. I nodded above the bowl. “Thank you.” It was all I could say. I didn’t know how to tell her she wasn’t real to me yet.

She was like some fairy queen come to life in her bright yellow dress with a wide green sash tied into a giant bow at her back. From her ears dangled what appeared like yellow diamonds and a matching three-stranded choker wrapped around her neck. Who was she?

I realized, in a sudden yet slow way, that I was ensconced in the finest satin bedding. I gazed about the room as I sipped my broth, each glance a new revelation. The silken wall coverings, paintings that could have belonged in a renowned museum, glittering golden molding around windows and encircling the ceiling. Above my head a huge chandelier hung suspended. It glittered with cut crystal, the beams of sunlight from the window catching and splitting into dots of colored light that danced around the room. It was a fairy place . . . but we were in Dawson City. A tent city from all accounts. A place where the newly rich rubbed elbows with the down-and-out. Kate was definitely not one of the down-and-out.

“You have had several visitors, Ellen.”

I wiped my chin on the cloth she handed me. “Who?”

“Buck was here yesterday.” She smiled a little when she said his name, and a thought, unbidden, came to mind that they would make a perfect couple. “He tried to move you,” she waved a delicate hand in the air as if brushing away an annoying fly, “to some boardinghouse he’d found for you. But I convinced him you were in no shape to be moved just yet and that it should be your decision where you stay, now that your horrid trek is over, don’t you agree?”

I didn’t know what to say to that. “I guess so.” I hadn’t really thought much about what I would do after reaching Dawson City, but the thought of not seeing Buck . . . What if he had already left Dawson? “Is Buck still in town?” The man he was tracking might not even be in this town any longer. Panic washed over me as I rose from the pillow and tried to swing my legs over the side of the bed.

Kate stopped me with a touch on my arm, her eyes soft and kind. “Shh. It’s all right. I told him to come back in a few days. You need to rest.”

I leaned back against the pillow with a long sigh. I was so tired, more tired than I ever remembered being. “Thank you,” I said again, not knowing how else to tell her how grateful I was.

“No need for that. You’ll be as good as new in a few more days. And then you have to tell me—”

“Tell you?”

“Your story, of course.” She patted the blanket and then fixed it around me. “I will know everything. And I will tell you everything I know. And then we will be the best of friends.” Her face turned wistful. “I know it.”

For a second, just a tiny moment of time, her face lost its facade, softened, and surprise flooded me as I glimpsed the smallest peek into her soul. The queen of Dawson, a woman who appeared to have everything . . . was lonely.

“Yes. We will be friends.” I agreed and then wondered if I should have.

What
was
that strange noise?

I gave up trying to sleep, swung my legs over the side of the enormous bed, and let my toes dangle above the frosty floor. I cocked my head, heard it again, and furrowed my brow. It sounded like the deep tones of male laughter combined with feminine gasping, and it was coming from the room next door.

I stepped into the slippers Kate had so thoughtfully loaned me, then shuffled toward the door, turned the knob, and peeked out. The hallway was dark and quiet, but light shone from the crack underneath each and every closed door, six counting the room I had been given. I paused, a sense of unease coming over me, and vacillated between discovering the truth or heading back to bed and burying my head beneath my comfortable, downy pillow.

Taking a logical approach, I ticked off the facts before me on my fingers:

One: The house was very large, much larger than I had realized when that young man carried me here.

Two: Kate was wealthy. The house was more palatial than anything I had ever seen in more civilized country, and it would require a great deal of wealth and connections to have such fine things so far from anywhere.

Three: Kate may or may not own this house—of that I wasn’t sure. If she didn’t, who did it belong to and how was Kate connected to them?

Four: The sounds, quieter here in the hall, had a ring of something . . . well, pleasurable, and while I knew I should mind my own business, something told me this might influence my future. And then . . .

Five: Kate’s words on the icy street the day we’d arrived niggled at the back of my mind. Hadn’t she said something like, “I will take you home but don’t hate me for it later”? What did that mean?

The feeling in the pit of my stomach grew, and I began to feel nauseated. I tiptoed to the door next to my room and pressed my ear against the wood.

As soon as my weight shifted against the door, it swung open and then bumped with a loud bang against the far wall. I fell forward from the lack of expected support and landed, sprawling, on my stomach on a very nice, soft rug.

The sounds in the room came to an abrupt stop. There was some rustling of covers and then Kate’s familiar voice. “Ellen? Good heavens, what are you doing?”

I looked up, heat rising to my face. My gaze swung to the man in the bed with her and then darted away. It was Randy Olsen from our group and . . . and . . . he was sitting up in the bed—shirtless! His mouth dropped open as he recognized me. My gaze swung away from his white face.

I heard Kate slip into a dressing gown and come around the bed. “Here, let me help you up.” She reached for my arm.

I shook my head and scurried to stand, turning away from the scene. My voice came out in a mortified squeak. “I am so sorry, Kate.” I kept my gaze locked to the floor as I fled the room.

Kate followed me a little ways. “Was there something you needed? Are you all right?”

I shook my head. I was not all right but couldn’t begin to put into words my shock. How had I not known? How, with everything so obvious, had I not guessed?

I was being housed in a brothel!

And a very successful one at that.

I shut the door and leaned back against it, my breathing coming in gasps. I had to get out of here. The townspeople . . . Mrs. Lawrence’s disapproving look . . . Buck’s surprised look! It all came back to me. That I had agreed, and so readily, to go home with Kate put me square in the category of a prostitute in their eyes. Well, Buck would know the truth, wouldn’t he? He would know I would never stoop to such a thing.

I took a calming breath. Hadn’t Kate said all the men of our little expedition had come to visit me? Randy’s face and thin white chest rose in my mind’s view. Visit her, more likely. Revulsion filled me. Men! Barely on their feet and the first place they go—

My eyes widened. What if Buck had been here to see Kate or one of the other girls who must live and do business here? What if checking on me was a side thought too? No. I couldn’t let myself think like that. Buck was better than that. Never mind that he was hunting his wife’s killer. He would turn him over to the law when he found him, right? But what if he took revenge himself? What might happen to him then? I pushed away from the door as the turmoil of my thoughts swirled through my mind.