“I didn’t know you used tobacco,” she said stiffly.
He leaned forward to coax the twigs and pine needles to burn. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, as I’m sure you’re beginning to realize. I wasn’t raised like you were, with pretty stories and prayers filling my head. Until I met you, I didn’t even believe in God.”
Cassandra couldn’t bear to look at him, so instead, she stared at the flames that licked feebly to life, hissing and sputtering in slender tongues over the wet wood. Luke had located bits of pitch, she realized. Otherwise, even God and all his angels probably couldn’t have gotten those drenched lengths of wood to burn.
“Never having learned a moral code,” Luke went on, “I grew up not knowing any limits. If it felt good, I did it. If I wanted it, I took it.”
She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek.
“I drank. I smoked. I chewed snuff. I gambled.” His voice trailed away as he waved out the match. “If I started to lose, I cheated to get the odds back in my favor.”
Cassandra thought to herself that he’d left out two of his most important transgressions: fornicating and lying. But she held her tongue.
“You name it, I’ve done it,” he said softly. “And until you came into my life, I was damned proud of it. I used to say, ‘I’ll try anything once.’ It never occurred to me that was wrong. Because no one ever taught me it was wrong. Don’t misunderstand; I’m not making excuses for myself. But at least try to understand how I came to this pass, and believe that I never meant to hurt anyone.”
Silence…a long, horrible silence, during which she dug her fingernails into her palms, cutting crescents in the tender flesh.
“Cassandra, are you even listening to me?”
“No, I’m ignoring you.”
He snorted with disgust. “Another thing you seem determined to ignore is that I’m damned sorry about all of this.”
Damned sorry? She stared across the feeble beginnings of a fire at his darkly burnished face. Her father lay hovering at death’s door, and Luke was “damned sorry about all of this.”
“Sometimes being sorry isn’t enough, is it?”
He straightened from blowing at the flames. “What will be enough, Cassandra?”
She felt the tug of his gaze, wanted to throw herself into his arms. But then she remembered her papa—how he’d looked the one time Doctor Mosley had allowed her to see him, like a corpse that was still breathing. It was disloyal of her to even think about forgiving this man.
“Go away, Luke. Please.”
“I’ll do anything,” he whispered. “How about a mine for your papa and brother? A rich one. I’ve got several. I’ll sign one over to them. I’ll even hire the men to work it for them. They’ll be set for life.”
Cassandra felt as if a hand were squeezing her throat. “Is that the new price you’re willing to pay me to be your whore, Luke? A mine for my papa and brother?”
His jaw began to twitch. He glanced toward Khristos. “Watch what you say in front of the boy.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “Trust me, he knows what whore means now. Both of us learned it in our vocabulary lesson today.”
His amber gaze took on glittering depths. “How could you think I ever intended to make you my whore?”
Straining to speak around the shame that had crawled up her throat, she said, “I believe I read it somewhere.” She scratched her temple, pretending to ponder. “Let me see…where was it I read that? Oh, that’s right. In the contract you had drawn up! Only, of course, the wording was a bit more polite. ‘Paid companion’ was the term I believe you used.”
“Forget the damned contract,” he retorted. “I admit my intentions were less than honorable at first.”
“Less than honorable?”
“Cassandra, please—”
“Go away,” she cried vehemently. “Just, please, go away! And stay away! I can’t bear to look at you.”
“Forgive me, please,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. Tell me how to prove it to you. Please.”
She stared at him through blinding tears. “By going away,” she said in a hoarse voice. “By leaving me alone.”
He rose to his feet. After gazing down at her for a long moment, he turned and walked away, disappearing into the blackness that lay beyond the nimbus of light and warmth he had created for them.
Believing him gone, Cassandra remained hunkered down by the fire, her head pressed to her knees, her arms looped around her shins. Then she heard Lycodomes’s tail thumping. She glanced up to see that the dog was gazing out at the darkness beyond the tunnel. She turned to study the night as well.
“He’s still out there, ain’t he?” Khristos whispered. “Sittin’ in the rain and watchin’ over us.”
TWENTY-SIX
When Cassandra and Khristos returned to the doctor’s office the next morning, Milo had been moved from the surgery into a back room. He lay on a narrow cot, his gaunt face nearly as white as the pillowcase upon which his head rested. Holding her little brother’s hand, Cassandra knelt beside the bed and rested her other palm on the gray, coarse wool blanket that covered her father from the chest down.
His dark lashes fluttered, and his eyes slowly opened, as though he were fighting to waken. Finally, apparently with great difficulty, his unfocused gaze settled on her face. After staring at her for a long moment, recognition flitted across his pallid features, and he moved his parched lips.
“Don’t try to talk, Papa,” she whispered, moving her hand lightly over the blanket to clasp his limp fingers. “Save your strength and concentrate on getting well.”
“Yes, Papa. You gotta get well,” Khristos seconded in a quavery voice.
Cassandra could feel her younger brother trembling, and she tightened her hold on his small hand, wondering if she should have forbidden him to see their papa just yet. This wasn’t a pretty sight, and it was difficult, even for her. Ambrose, who stood behind her, seemed to sense her tension and moved closer to rest a comforting hand on her shoulder.
Milo closed his eyes. “Don’t worry…about me,” he rasped out. “It’s the three…of you I’m concerned about. Ambrose says…” He fell quiet for a moment, as if the effort of speaking had completely drained him. “He says you and Khristos slept at the…digs. Did you…stay warm, lass?”
“Sure we did!” Khristos piped up. “Luke built us a great fire and gathered us lots of wood besides. We was warm as bugs in a rug.”
Milo’s eyes flew open. He fixed a suddenly alert and unmistakably accusing gaze on Cassandra.
“Luke?” he grated weakly. The name fell from his lips like a curse and seemed to sap the little remaining strength he had. In that moment, Cassandra knew that her papa, who’d spent his whole life abiding by Christian codes and turning the other cheek, had finally been sinned against so gravely he would never be able to forgive it. The hatred he felt for Luke burned in his eyes like banked embers. “No, lass. Tell me you didn’t.”
Cassandra squeezed her father’s hand more tightly, acutely conscious that it was Luke Taggart’s fault her papa lay there, fighting for his life. If she had anything to do with her husband now, Milo Zerek would see it as the worst kind of betrayal.
In a twinkling, Cassandra saw scenes from her life flitting through her mind. As a young child, being scooped up in her papa’s strong arms and giggling when he tickled her neck with his whiskers. At twelve, being held against his broad chest and weeping because she’d already gotten big bubbies, and none of the other girls her age had any. At fourteen, watching him drag in from an eighteen-hour day at the mine and realizing for the first time how terribly hard he worked for the meager wage that fed his family. At fifteen, seeing him walk through the door carrying a puppy that he could ill afford to feed, a father’s birthday gift to his only daughter.
Tears stung her eyes. To her knowledge, her papa had never lied to her or deceived her, unless she counted the times he’d told her how pretty she was, and those little fibs didn’t count be
cause he’d only told them to spare her pain. He’d been her rock, this man, for as long as she could remember. He’d taught her all the necessary lessons of her life, how to love, how to laugh, how to hold her head high. But most importantly, he’d taught her how vital it was to be loyal. She could no more betray him than she could herself.
“I sent Luke away, Papa,” she whispered. “He followed us up to the mine without my realizing it.”
Milo lifted his gaze. “Ambrose, take Khristos out of…here, please. I want…a moment alone with your…sister.”
Khristos tugged his hand from Cassandra’s grasp. “I love you, Papa! Get well quick, please!”
Milo smiled slightly. “I know you…love me, Khristos. Never a doubt. Now go…with your brother.”
Cassandra heard her brothers’ receding footsteps. Then the door behind her opened and closed. Still on her knees, she resisted the urge to avert her gaze from her father’s. All her life, he’d looked at her with tenderness in his eyes, as if she were a little angel who had dropped in from heaven to bless him with a visit.
Cherished, that was how he’d always made her feel.
A woman now, who’d been intimate with a man, she understood so many things she hadn’t before, particularly the innumerable ways in which her papa had protected her from the depravity of men, as if her innocence had been some sacred sort of trust bestowed upon him by God.
The tenderness was no longer in his eyes…in its stead, there was pain. When she’d seen it yesterday, she’d believed he was ashamed of her. Now she realized how wrong she’d been. The reason he looked at her thus was because his heart was breaking for her.
He disengaged his hand from hers and reached up to touch her cheek, his fingertips as cold as death—a jarring reminder to her of how close they’d come to losing him and that they still could lose him yet. “Do you know, Cassie girl, how very…much I love you? More even than my boys. You…have always been my…special one. The one…I love the most.”
Cassandra smiled through blinding tears. She’d never tell her papa, but she and Ambrose had compared notes, and their father had told both of them this exact same thing, many a time. Oddly enough, Cassandra knew it wasn’t really a lie. Her papa truly did love her most of all…in one special corner of his heart.
Her papa reached down to squeeze her hand, his frigid fingers trembling with weakness. A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “I’m…so sorry, little girl,” he whispered raggedly.
“For what, Papa?”
“For…” His voice trailed away, and he closed his eyes for a brief moment. When he looked at her again, his gaze was once more dark with pain. “For letting you down. Thought I was doing…the right thing, protecting you like I did…never letting you see the ugliness in…people.”
“Oh, Papa, don’t!” Cassandra cried, lightly touching her fingertips to his mouth. “Please, don’t. None of what happened was your fault.”
“Yes.” That single word held a world of regret. “Didn’t…teach you. Never let you…see how bad people can…be to each other. It was…like sendin’ you into a…den of lions without a gun.”
The lump of tears in Cassandra’s throat made it impossible for her to speak.
“Luke Taggart…he’s one of the bad ones,” Milo croaked. “Silver-tongued and evil-hearted. You can’t trust him, honey. I know you…care for him. Can see it in your…eyes. But you gotta be strong and harden yourself. Promise me, lass.”
A cold hand seemed to grab at her heart. How could she promise to rip her feelings for Luke from her very soul? And yet, how could she refuse to honor her papa’s plea? A plea made when he might still be dying?
Please, God, make me strong! she prayed with a desperate anguish.
“I promise, Papa,” she managed to whisper. “Please, don’t upset yourself like this. I promise! I promise.” Her father’s increasing pallor, which now held a tinge of gray, terrified her.
He squeezed her hand again, his once-powerful grip now without strength. “You’re too sweet inside, Cassie, love. Too sweet for your…own good. It’d break my heart to watch him take you…down with him. Swear to me…you’ll have nothing…to do with him. Swear it!”
A picture of Luke’s eyes, pleading with her for forgiveness, flashed through her head. “I swear it, Papa,” she said in a shaky voice.
Over the next few days, while her father teetered precariously on a narrow ledge between life and death, delirious with fever, his body raging against infection, Cassandra remembered his last words to her more than once, usually when she glimpsed Luke—either at the doctor’s office, where he stopped daily to check on her father’s condition, or out on the street, where he seemed to be walking, always aimlessly, his broad shoulders slumped as though he carried the weight of the world.
Even from a distance, Cassandra could feel the pull of his amber eyes, always delving deeply into her, always voicing a silent plea. At those times, she felt that same cold, brutal fist squeezing her heart. One of the bad ones, her papa had called him. Cassandra knew her father had never been harsh in his judgment of anyone. Milo Zerek was a kindly man with a big heart and limitless patience; he’d always taught her to believe the best of others until they proved her wrong.
Luke had done just that. She’d believed in him with all her heart, and he’d ground her trust under the heel of his boot.
Be strong and harden yourself, her papa had whispered to her. Cassandra fought desperately to follow his advice. Every time she remembered something sweet Luke had done, every time she thought of the tenderness in his touch when he’d made love to her, every time she recalled the husky affection in his voice when he’d said her name, she chided herself for having been a fool—a stupid, gullible fool who’d worn her heart on her sleeve and believed in fairy tales instead of facing reality. His whore, that was all she’d been. A plaything he’d purchased to entertain him for a year.
Well, maybe she was a poor girl from the mining district, but she also had her pride. She wasn’t a thing to be bought and used by any man, no matter how rich he was. In short, she wasn’t for sale.
What she was, she soon realized, was pregnant.
She realized it the day her father’s fever finally broke, and Doctor Mosley came out to the waiting room to tell them Milo was going to live. After their initial rejoicing, Ambrose had stepped over to the calendar hanging by the surgery door. According to the doctor, it would take their papa at least six weeks to completely recover from the gunshot wound, which was going to take them into late November.
“We’ll have to stay the winter,” Ambrose said solemnly. “The passes will be knee-deep with snow by then. Even if we could save enough out of what wages I can earn, we could never travel anywhere under those conditions.”
Cassandra was about to say that their papa would not be happy about staying in Black Jack until spring when a cold dread skipped down her spine. She stared at the calendar, remembering the one that had hung on the wall of their little house down in the mining district and how she’d always marked off the days of her “curse” with little xs. She hadn’t done that in the last part of September or the first of October when she’d been staying with Luke. She’d never even thought about it—because her curse had never come.
For an awful moment, Cassandra was afraid she might faint. All she could think about was the clause in the contract Luke had gotten her to sign—the one in which she’d relinquished all rights to any issue that arose from their relationship.
“Cassandra? What is it?” Ambrose asked softly, his gaze moving over her face. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
More like the devil himself, she thought a little hysterically. And she’d sold more than her soul to him. She pressed a hand over her waist, not entirely sure her legs would hold her up.
A baby…her baby. And if Luke ever found out about it, he’d take it away from her.
Suddenly Ambrose’s prediction that they would have to stay in Black Jack until spring took on new significance and
filled her with rising panic. She couldn’t stay here that long. She’d grow large with child before spring, and Luke would know the instant he clapped eyes on her.
“Cassie?”
She jerked her gaze to her older brother. The question in his eyes made her look quickly away again. “It’s nothing, Ambrose,” she whispered, not wanting to add to his burden of worry, which was already mountain-high. The responsibility of having to feed their family rested entirely on his shoulders now, and she knew he felt overwhelmed by the prospect. “I was just thinking how unhappy Papa will be when we tell him.”
“Well, unhappy or no, I don’t see a way around it,” Ambrose said absently.
No way around it, no way around it, no way around it. Cassandra crossed the room and sank weakly onto a chair. Maybe she’d just miscalculated, she told herself. Or perhaps her curse was just late.
Even as the thoughts crossed her mind, she knew she was lying to herself. She’d never been late. Her female affliction came as regularly as clockwork, every twenty-eight days.
“Let’s look on the bright side,” Ambrose said with determined cheerfulness. “In three days, we can take Papa home. We’ll make him a nice bed, and you can wait on him and fuss over him to your heart’s content.”
Cassandra nodded, trying her best to feel joyful. They’d nearly lost Papa, and she should be on her knees thanking God that he’d been spared. It was just so terribly hard to be grateful when she was suddenly faced with the possibility of losing another loved one—her very own baby.
The day Milo Zerek was released from Doctor Mosley’s clinic, Luke Taggart showed up at the mine carrying a pick and shovel in one hand, a wedge and sledge in the other. Cassandra glanced up from where she knelt beside her father’s makeshift pallet, scarcely able to believe her eyes when she saw that it was Luke standing there in the sunlight just beyond the mouth of the tunnel. Indeed, if not for his face, she might not have recognized him.