Close to Heaven

  He exhaled, rubbed his face with his hands.

  Shit.

  There was no one like Rain, no woman who touched him the way she did.

  He shut the drawer, locked it, and left for home—after checking to make sure no one was hiding in the building. He drove home to a dark house, the emptiness of it pressing in on him in a way it never had before. He turned on the fireplace and the Christmas tree and poured himself a glass of scotch.

  Then he sat in the darkness, an image of Rain, naked, fixed in his mind.

  Chapter 10

  August 12, 1878

  I was forced to leave Boulder and my new hotel last evening after Mr. Craddock sent word that my miners defied me and voted in secret to join that accursed union. The ungrateful bastards are demanding that their workday be limited to eight hours with no decrease in pay and are threatening to cease work if the mine owners refuse to acquiesce to their demands. This is blackmail and an affront to the natural order of society. It ought to be the mine owners who set conditions for work, not the riffraff.

  I had hoped that by discharging known troublemakers, as I have repeatedly done, and decreasing my labor force with the use of mechanical drills, we might avoid the conflict that has plagued this mining elsewhere. I can see now that I was naïve. It is the very nature of these men to be belligerent, a trait passed on to their children, who scrap in the dust and mud like animals.

  I have dispatched telegrams to the other mine owners in this state to hear what they would do. I further sent word to Governor Routt, asking him to prepare the National Guard in the event of violence. For my part, I see no choice but to hire more men who are loyal only to me to act as my private guard at the mine.

  I will not let a rabble compel me into conducting business in any way that is not profitable for me. They grumbled when I required them to pay for their own candles. They complained when I brought in mechanical rock drills. I did not let their ill-mannered whining dissuade me. It shall not move me now.

  Upon reaching Scarlet Springs, I sent for Hawke, who arrived, filthy to his skin, and stood, coughing, in my office.

  “That drill kicks up an awful dust, so it does,” he said.

  I asked him whether he’d known of this secret vote, and he said that he had but that he, as underground foreman, had not been permitted to participate. Upon hearing this, I berated him, shouting in his face, demanding to know why he had not warned me or found some means to prevent the vote from taking place. I reminded him that he worked for me and not for the men.

  He was not in the least bit cowed but told me that the miners have a right by law to assemble peaceably and to form unions if they believe it necessary.

  When I asked him why I should not immediately replace him, he answered, “So you’re after more difficulty with the men, then, aye?”

  The arrogance! Still, I know he is right. The workers respect him in a way they do not respect me. I’ve seen him talk an angry crowd of miners into silence and get the men back to work after an accident when not one of them would listen to me.

  It is not right that someone in my employ should hold a greater sway over my workers than I. Yet I have not the patience to mingle with their type, to listen to them prattle, to pretend that they are not lesser men than I, whose coin feeds, clothes, and houses each man among them and their whores and brats.

  “Those men would be wise to thank me every day that I provide them with employment. Without me, there would be no town at Caribou, no schoolhouse. They would be working in some filthy coal mine or begging for work back in Cornwall.”

  Hawke glared at me, a hard glint in his eyes. “You ought to thank them that their back-breakin’ labor brings up the ore that makes you wealthy. Are you thinkin’ you could do it by your lonesome?”

  I told him that for the sake of his wife and eight children, he’d best watch his tongue. No man in my employ speaks in such a haughty tone to me. He laughed and said it was past time that someone put me in my place.

  I might have struck him right then had not Mr. Craddock burst in to tell us that a fire was sweeping down from the mountainside and headed straight for town. He said that we should gather those things most dear to us and flee before the fire caught us in the canyon. I ran outside and saw a conflagration moving toward us, carried by the wind.

  Hawke dashed off after his own family, our conversation unfinished, while I grabbed my ledgers and this journal and sent Mr. Craddock after the contents of my safe. Gundry, who is now in my employ, made a wagon ready.

  “Go, man, go!” I shouted when we were aboard.

  “Oughtn’t we to get your lady?” Gundry asked.

  I had forgotten about Jenny. I’ve grown so weary of her company. Since losing her second daughter, a sickly little thing that lived only a few days, she seems to have lost her spirit, insisting that she is unwell and taking to her bed each day with laudanum. I would have long since set her aside for another were it not for a lingering fondness I feel.

  Mr. Craddock dashed upstairs, dragged her from her bed, and carried her to the wagon. We made our way with most of the town down the canyon toward Boulder as if fleeing the scene of some terrible battle. As we left, I saw O’Hara dousing his inn with buckets of water.

  Postscript: I was told that Scarlet has burned to the ground. Only a few buildings remain. One of those is O’Hara’s inn—the clever bastard. The rest of us shall have to rebuild before the winter snows arrive.

  Twenty-three days till Christmas

  Rain woke to a bright blue sky, her arms and chest muscles sore from yesterday’s workout, her life in pieces. She read a little from Silas’ journal, then went to work cleaning the six guestrooms, which were split between the two upper floors of the inn—four on the second floor and two large suites on the third. The guests had been snowed in, too, and had checked out all at once when they’d heard the canyon was open.

  As Rain went from room to room, she found herself wondering what the place had looked like back in Silas’ day. He’d stayed here, eaten here, put up his guests here. Which room had been his?

  Not that she liked the man. She was just curious.

  She ran her fingertips over the woodwork on the oak handrail at the top of the stairs on the third floor, noticing the detail in a way she hadn’t before.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Kendra came up from below. “As much as I say I hate this place, I love every square inch of it.”

  “It’s lucky that the inn didn’t burn down in 1878 along with everything else. Do you have photos from that time?”

  Kendra stopped in the middle of the stairway and shouted at the top of her lungs, “Hey, Bob! What happened to the old photos of the inn? Rain wants to see them!”

  Rain soon found herself sitting in the living room with Bob, looking at carefully preserved photos from Scarlet’s earliest days. The inn. Main Street with its saloons. Lexi and Britta’s ancestors. Belle’s brothel. “Is that Belle herself?”

  “Yeah, that’s her—the sexual energy worker.” There was more than a hint of sarcasm in Bob’s voice.

  Rain studied the image. Belle had a little cupid’s bow mouth and dark curly hair and was quite pretty, but didn’t look like Rain’s idea of a prostitute in the Old West. The high collar of her black gown was buttoned almost to her chin, her cleavage covered, her expression stern. “She looks like a school teacher.”

  “As far as the young men in this town were concerned, she was.” Bob chuckled at his own joke. “The inn belonged to my first wife Emily’s family, you know. I’m hoping to pass it to Lexi. So far, she’s showing no sign that she wants to take over.”

  “That’s sad.” Rain couldn’t stop the next question. “Do you have any photos of Silas Moffat, Joe’s great-great-whatever-grandfather?”

  “I think so.” He turned a few pages, pointed. “There. That’s him, standing next to the bank. Emily’s old man said he was a real asshole.”

  “It’s true.” Rain studied the image, surprised to see not a big
man like Joe, but a small, slight man. His features were hatchet-like, sharp and hard, his eyes cold, his bushy sideburns looking ridiculous. A woman stood beside him, sadness in her gaze, her young face heavy with sorrow despite the smile on her lips.

  Jenny.

  Rain didn’t have to ask to know it was true. The woman in the image resembled her grandmother from her cheekbones to her nose to the shape of her mouth. “That’s Jenny Minear. My great-great-great-grand aunt. I’m not sure about the number of greats.”

  “Really?” Bob stared at Rain. “I had no idea you were such a history buff. I’ve got other things around here, some antiques, some old newspapers.”

  Rain was about to say she’d like very much to see it all when her phone buzzed. A text message from Rico.

  You okay? We’re open.

  She hadn’t had time to reply when she got another message and another, the staff at Knockers checking up on her, wanting to know where she was, worried that something had happened to her because she hadn’t shown up. There was nothing from Joe.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat, typed a message back to Rico.

  I quit yesterday. Thanks for everything. I loved working with you. XO.

  Rico’s reply was almost instantaneous.

  WHAT. THE. FUCK!

  “Ha!” Bob sat there, peering over Rain’s shoulder. “Rose must be off her game. I’d figure everyone in town would know by now. Joe hasn’t told the staff you quit. He must be hoping you’ll come back. He must really value you as an employee if he’d rather have you work for him than have you in his bed.”

  Rain’s head snapped up, and she glared at Bob, pain lancing through her chest at his words. She opened her mouth to say something—then realized Bob was right. That was precisely the problem. Joe valued her as an employee, but he didn’t feel for her the way that she felt for him.

  “I can’t go back.”

  Not now. Not ever.

  Knockers was busy from the moment Joe unlocked the front entrance. People who’d been cooped up in their own homes wanted to get out, hear the news, talk with friends they hadn’t seen for the past few days. But it was surreal to go through the workday without Rain. She had always been the heart of this place. He tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, that nothing had happened.

  But he wasn’t fooling anyone.

  Joe knew the moment the staff got word that Rain had quit. Marcia quit speaking to him. Cheyenne openly glared at him. Libby told him she was too busy to talk when he came in to discuss art options for the labels of the new brew.

  “Just pick whatever,” she said, her voice cold.

  Shit.

  Hank reappeared just after noon, asked Marcia for a whiskey. He shook his head when he saw Joe. “What’s wrong with you, Joe? Rain is a special woman. I thought you were smarter than that.”

  So now he was being lectured by Hank?

  But it was Bear who was the last straw. He came in just before the lunch rush, asking for Rain, clearly hoping for a hot meal.

  “She quit, Bear,” Cheyenne said with no tact. “She won’t be coming in again.”

  The tears in the big man’s eyes felt like an indictment.

  Joe threw the towel he’d been holding onto the bar. “See to it that Bear gets a good meal on the house. I’ll be in my office.”

  He stomped to the back, sat at his desk, checked his email. Lots of messages, but nothing from Rain.

  It was just after the lunch rush when Rico appeared in Joe’s doorway, hairnet on his beard, chef’s knife in one hand, sharpening rod in the other. He scraped the blade slowly over the steel, his gaze meeting Joe’s, his lips pressed into a thin, angry line. “Well, you really blew it, didn’t you?”

  Not Rico, too.

  Steel scraped steel.

  “Come in, shut the door, and say your piece.”

  Rico nudged the door shut with his shoe. “Rain quit because of you.”

  Joe had had it. “I didn’t want her to quit. It would be bad for business. Whatever goes on between Rain and me is no one’s business.”

  “Don’t give me that.” Rico slid the blade over the steel once more, the sound grating on Joe’s nerves. “I’ve worked alongside the two of you almost since the beginning. That girl has been crazy in love with you for twenty years, and you’re too damned stupid to see it.”

  “What?” Had everyone gone insane?

  “You’re in love with her, too.” Rico’s words hit Joe in the face.

  He stammered out the first thing that came to him. “I’m her employer—or I was. She quit because of her own stubborn pride because I wouldn’t sleep with her.”

  Joe couldn’t believe he’d just told Rico this.

  Rico passed the blade over the steel again. “That wasn’t pride. She quit so that you’d have the freedom to choose.”

  Joe’s pulse throbbed in his ears. “What? What are you saying?”

  Rico rolled his eyes. “She chose you over her job, and what did you do? You let her walk away. Now she’s talking about leaving Scarlet, maybe going to San Diego to live with Britta.”

  Jesus! Could that be true? “Leaving Scarlet?”

  He couldn’t let her do that. He couldn’t imagine this town without her.

  Then it hit him.

  Wait just a damned minute…

  “How do you know all of this? Did Rain call and vent or something?”

  “You know Rain would never do that, but Rose … I guess she was at Bob and Kendra’s when you dropped Rain off. Rain was crying, and, well, word has gotten around. Kendra told Lexi. Lexi told Victoria.”

  Rain had been crying? Ouch.

  If Rose knew, that meant everyone in Scarlet had the details by now.

  Fuck.

  “You know what I think?” Rico ran the knife over the sharpening steel once more.

  “Could you sit and put down that damned knife?”

  Rico sat, laid the knife on Joe’s desk. “I think some part of you is punishing yourself because you’ve wanted her since she came to work for you.”

  Joe couldn’t deny that last part, guilt sliding through him, dark and jagged. There was more to it than Rico knew. Not only had Rain been seventeen, but she was also a Minear, while Joe was Silas’ great-great-grandson. Joe would have cut off his own dick before he’d followed in Silas’ footsteps.

  Rico wasn’t finished. “You knew it was wrong for a twenty-seven-year-old guy to hook up with a seventeen-year-old. She was vulnerable, alone with a new baby. Wanting her made you feel like you were as much of a scumbag as the guy who’d abandoned her. Wasn’t he about your age?”

  He had been exactly Joe’s age.

  Rico didn’t wait for an answer. “You tried to bury those emotions, shut off your feelings. You set her aside in your mind as the girl you could never touch. But I’ve got news for you, Joe, buddy. Rain hasn’t been a child for a long time. She’s not the girl you hired. She’s a sexy adult woman, and she loves you, man.”

  “She and I have always been close, but—”

  “Close?” Rico laughed. “Do you know why she’s still single? She’s been waiting—for you.”

  Joe stared at Rico, dumbfounded. “She … she told you that?”

  Rico went on. “Do you know why no man from Scarlet hits on her? They’re all afraid you’ll kill them.”

  Joe opened his mouth to object, but had nothing.

  “Yeah. Don’t try to deny that one.” Rico stood, picked up the knife and the sharpening steel. “If you’re not careful, man, you’re going to lose more than a valued employee. You’ll lose her. Got that? If you can’t figure out what to do from here, you’re dumber than you look.”

  He opened the door and walked away, leaving Joe to stare after him.

  October 7, 1880

  Today has been a most rewarding day. Late last night, Sheriff Taylor arrived with the shocking news that striking miners had attacked the guards I set to protect the replacement workers and that one man was shot and later died. Immediately,
a witness among my guards stepped forward to tell Sheriff Taylor that the man who’d pulled the trigger was none other than Cadan Hawke.

  Taylor found the bastard at home with his wife and children and asked where he’d been. Hawke told Taylor that he’d been summoned to my office just after supper but hadn’t found anyone. He claimed that he didn’t even own a pistol.

  Taylor returned to question me, asking whether Mr. Craddock or I had called for Hawke. I told the good sheriff that we had not and informed him that we had been at the inn dining at the time. Taylor returned to Hawke’s home, where one of Taylor’s deputies then discovered a Colt Peacemaker hidden in the rafters of Hawke’s chicken coop, proving him a liar. Taylor had no choice but to take him into custody.

  His wife, I am told, wept inconsolably as they led Hawke away.

  Mr. Craddock was amazed by this turn of events. “How fortuitous it is that the man responsible for these recent misfortunes is about to meet his end.”

  I then admitted to Mr. Craddock that I had orchestrated the entire affair—the attack, the shooting, summoning Hawke to my office, and hiding the pistol in Hawke’s chicken coop. I hadn’t intended for the guard to die, but I shall compensate his widow.

  It is not an exaggeration to say that Mr. Craddock was awed by my actions, the smile on his face that of a man who has just had a great revelation.

  “Great men make the world as they wish it to be,” I told him. “When the miners see Hawke swinging in the wind, it will break their spirit—and end this strike.”

  Hawke is behind these agitators. I know it. They look to him as their leader, do as he bids them. He claims that he did not press for the strike, that the changing times and my refusal to meet the miners’ demands is the cause. But he has always put their needs ahead of mine.

  Well, now he shall pay the price. Taylor tells me it will be a month before the judge is next in town. There will be a jury trial, but I do not see how Hawke could be found innocent, not with the Colt and a witness—a well-paid witness, I might add. In the meantime, I wait for the National Guardsmen the governor promised me should there be an outbreak of violence at the mine. The troops will break the back of this strike and restore order. Without Hawke to rally them, the miners will fall into line.