The Scandalous Mrs. Wilson Page 13

  Chapter 20

  Owen was halfway to Wilson’s when he heard a man ranting, followed by breaking glass. By the time he ran to Doc Stryker’s bar, it was already awash in flames. A small, twisted figure danced by the inferno, still wearing his good suit. His dark eyes were bright with the reflection of the flames, and his hair was standing up wildly.

  Rusty.

  “You devils want some fire? Here’s some fire for ye. Hope it chokes you right to hell.” He laughed, waving his arms in a bizarre dance. “Fornicators and wicked women do love the devil, so they can go straight to hell to dance with him!”

  “Jo’s in there!” Nils shouted. The big man was barreling towards the bar at a dead run. “So’s Doc Stryker.” He lowered his shoulder and plowed into Rusty just before Owen could reach him. The two men rolled head over heels into the gravel.

  Owen could feel the searing heat from yards away. The paint on the boardwalk bubbled. “Grab some buckets,” he shouted at the crowd that was assembling.

  Doc Stryker’s entire facade was engulfed. There was no way in. Owen ran into Wilson’s woodshed and grabbed the axe propped against the door. If he couldn’t go through the front door, he would make his own.

  Just then, he heard a scream from the back of the building. Doc’s bar was built half on land and half on pilings driven into the water. Owen ran to the edge of the lake then shimmied his way up the post. Bits of burning ash and debris showered down on him. Undeterred, he wrapped his legs around the top post and used his upper body to hoist himself, still carrying the axe, up onto the decking that supported the back half of the building.

  The heat of the blaze nearly knocked him back, but he regained his footing and squinted through the smoke and the fumes rolling off the alcohol-soaked wood. Above him, something cracked, and he ducked just in time to miss a fiery beam crashing into the hot springs.

  Owen heard another scream. “Jo! Doc! I’m coming!” he yelled. “Head towards my voice!”

  The wind had picked up, and a tongue of fire jutted skyward. Underneath the fire’s crackling, Owen heard splintering. The whole rickety structure was about to go down.

  Owen heaved his axe and chopped at the back wall of the building. That didn’t go fast enough, so he dropped the axe and kicked at the planks with all his strength. Finally, he made just enough of an opening in the splintered planks and ragged plaster to enter.

  “Jo!” he yelled. “Doc!”

  No answer. The smoke was so thick that he could only make out the hazy shapes. None of them seemed to be human.

  “Jo!” He dropped to his knees and crawled farther into the blaze. His heart was thrumming and the smoke seared his nose and throat, but Owen felt strangely calm. He had a single purpose now, and he would rather die than fail at it. His entire existence had been narrowed down to this moment, to the single-minded search for the outline of a human shape. Jo was inside somewhere, and she needed him, and he would find her.

  • • •

  She could no longer hear the roar of the fire. Her ears were filled with the wheeze of her own breathing as she struggled for air. Beside her, Doc slumped lifelessly. Someone called her name, but she couldn’t be sure who it was. Her father or Albert, maybe, welcoming her home. She could vaguely make out their bodies as they came towards her in the smoke. A sense of peace filled her. They had come for her. They wouldn’t let her die alone.

  And suddenly, cool air. A voice. Someone was calling her name. She tried to cry out, but her voice was smothered by the smoke.

  “Jo!” someone yelled. She could no longer remember where she was. Was she in the grotto? The walls did not feel smooth enough. Why was she so tired? With as much energy as she could muster, she forced herself to her knees and crawled towards the oxygen. And then someone grabbed her.

  “Owen?” she croaked.

  “We’re getting you out of here,” he said.

  “Oh,” she gasped. “Yes.” And then, somehow, she was out in the open air.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked her.

  Her head was muddled, her ears ringing so that she could barely hear Owen’s question. She tried to focus. “No,” she said. “Get Doc!” It felt as if her throat were swelling shut. “Against the wall,” she rasped. “At the back.” Coughing racked her entire body and took away her ability to speak.

  “Owen,” she tried to say, but she was lifted off the platform away from the heat and into the arms of a dozen townspeople. Then the world swung crazily and went black. The next thing she knew, a female voice was repeating, “It’s okay, it’s okay, we’ve got you.” Through her soot-crusted eyes, she tried to peer at the scene in front of her. What was the SS Minto doing at Doc’s? And where was Owen? Why couldn’t she stop coughing?

  Jo knew she must be hallucinating, because Mrs. McSheen was kneeling over her, wiping her eyes and mouth with a lacy handkerchief. “It’s going to be okay.” And that was when she fainted again.

  Chapter 21

  When his hand found Jo’s boot through the smoke, Owen’s body coursed with relief and adrenaline. It was all he could do to not stop where they were and kiss her. As he lifted her into his arms and began staggering to the hole in the back wall, he wondered how he could get her to safety. She was practically unconscious, obviously too weak to climb or swim far.

  He burst free into the sunlight.

  “Are you hurt?” Owen asked Jo as he gasped for breath.

  She shook her head. “No. Get Doc!” She began coughing and gestured vaguely towards the direction she’d come from. “Against the wall,” she managed. “At the back.”

  The SS Minto had braved the flames and almost run itself aground to get close to the burning structure and offer assistance. Men with buckets tried to douse the blaze, though it seemed clear that the building was a complete loss. Owen swung Jo over the railing into the arms of six men waiting on the boat, took a gulp of good air, and headed back into the inferno. On the boat, people shouted for him to not be stupid. “I have to get Doc!” he shouted back. He wouldn’t let Jo down.

  The interior of the bar was black with smoke. Owen dropped again to his knees and crawled in the direction Jo had told him. Doc was there, curled on his side with his face buried in his arms.

  “Doc!” He tried to shake the man awake, but he didn’t move.

  Using the dregs of the strength left in his body, Owen grabbed both of Doc’s arms and dragged him towards safety.... Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.

  With a last burst of desperate energy, he pulled Doc through the hole in the wall and out into the daylight. It took several people to get Doc’s limp body over the railing and onto the deck. Owen hopped over after him, and the SS Minto began churning away towards the center of the lake. Moments later, the fire must have reached Doc’s carefully hidden still, because the fire surged with a roar. The explosion was enough to send the whole structure toppling sideways into the water.

  He knelt by Doc Stryker’s body. The old man’s face was grey, his lips blue beneath a film of black soot. Still, his pulse fluttered faintly beneath Owen’s fingertips. The man was alive but barely. He wiped the crusted soot from Doc’s nose and mouth.

  “We need to flip him over,” he called, and a few men helped to roll Doc over onto his stomach so that his head was resting on Owen’s knees.

  Owen began compressing Doc’s chest, then raising the man’s elbows up and down to open his lungs. “Out with the bad air, in with the good air,” he mumbled. “Out with the bad air, in with the good air.”

  Doc didn’t stir.

  “Come on, old man!” He kept trying, imagining that Doc’s arms were bellows stoking the breath back into his lungs.

  “You’re too tough to go this way. Come on.”

  Finally, the old man gasped raggedly. Owen rolled him over onto his back. Slowly, his eyes fluttered open and colour came back into his cheeks. He coughed and spat black soot on to the deck, then gulped for air.

  “Thank God,” Owen murmured.

  Doc�
�s hair was singed, and his lips were parched. Someone brought him a glass of water.

  “You gave us a scare, Doc,” Owen said.

  Doc coughed several times and spat up more black phlegm. “Takes more ... than fire ... to ... kill me.” He tried to smile. Suddenly, panic flashed across his face.

  “She’s fine,” Owen assured him. “Got her out before you.” Owen looked over to where Jo was sitting, propped against the railing. Maybe it was because he had almost lost her, but even though her face was streaked with soot and her hair was falling down, she looked more beautiful than ever.

  She saw him looking at her and smiled wanly. He left Doc’s side and sat down beside her, resting his hand against hers. It felt natural, as if their hands had many years of practice resting beside one another.

  “Well, that’s about all the excitement I can take for today,” he said. “What about you?”

  She laughed weakly. From a distance, he could see that the whole town had a bucket brigade out and was digging a wide firebreak through the stretch of brush between the inferno of Doc’s bar and the dry timbers of Wilson’s. Funny how the people who wanted to send Jo packing were now, mere hours later, putting out the fire that threatened to burn Wilson’s to the ground.

  “Looks like they’re saving your business,” he said.

  “Well, that’s a change.” She brushed her thumb against his wrist. He gave her hand a squeeze. With his free hand, he brushed a fleck of ash from her cheek.

  “There,” he said. “That’s better.”

  • • •

  With Owen beside her and the fire reflecting brilliantly off the gentle ripples of the lake, Jo felt almost peaceful. The waves lapped against the boat in a gentle cadence that threatened to lull her into sleep. It was the lingering effects of the smoke inhalation, she suspected. Everything moved at such a dream-like pace, maybe she had, in fact, perished in the fire.

  Strangest of all was Mrs. McSheen, who seemed to have traded her crusade against Jo for a new career as a quartermaster. As the boat docked, Mrs. McSheen bustled off to direct the ladies’ efforts in a hundred helpful directions.

  “Lucy, be a dear and run back to my house and cut the cake that’s on the counter into pieces, then wrap the slices in waxed paper. Maude, take Ann and get the big coffee urn from the church basement and the coffee from the tin next to it. And while you’re there, ask the reverend what the meeting hall’s availability is. It’s going to take a lot of fundraising to set this right, and there’s no time to waste.”

  Even without her management, the firefighting efforts were being conducted with remarkable efficiency and even good cheer. A bucket brigade was throwing water on the last stubborn embers of Doc’s bar. Another group of men shoveled dirt and sand onto the wreckage. Ilsa and the rest of Jo’s girls had turned the bathhouse kitchen into a dinner assembly line, churning out ham sandwiches to feed all the volunteers.

  All that was left of Doc Stryker’s was the big pot-bellied stove, which stoically stood guard over the smoldering ruins. By some miracle, however, Wilson’s Bathhouse suffered only smoke stains up the side of the facade and a few windows blown out from the heat.

  Doc stood unsteadily on the gangplank, surveying the scene with smoke-reddened eyes. Everything he had built over the past thirty years had been reduced to smoke and ash. He was propped upright by two of his loyal patrons, one on either side.

  “We’ll rebuild it, Doc,” Jo said. “We’ll set it right.”

  He simply nodded, dazed. He hardly seemed to be listening.

  She motioned to the two men. “Take him to my place and put him in the upstairs bedroom.”

  Somewhere down the boardwalk, a man suddenly began shouting, angry and wild. Two other figures tussled with him.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Looks like Rusty lost his fool mind,” said an old miner taking a rest from the bucket brigade. “Smashed in and lit the place on fire, ranting about perdition and the devil. They got him hog-tied, but he’s still giving them fits.” He scowled in Rusty’s direction. “Let all of us deal with him, that’s what I say, but that new mayor’s gonna put him on the boat and send him to the RCMP down in Vancouver. He’s already telegraphed into Nelson to get a constable to come deal with him on the boat ride over.”

  The miner spat on the ground. “Crazy old coot. Hope he rots in jail.”

  Seemingly out of nowhere, Ilsa ran up and threw her arms around Jo. “Oh, Miz Jo,” she sobbed.

  Jo rubbed the woman’s back. “I’m fine, Ilsa. But Doc isn’t. Can you get him cleaned up and make sure he has everything he needs?”

  Ilsa brushed a tear away with the back of her thumb. “Right away, Miz Jo.”

  “Put Annie in charge of doling out the food.”

  “Yes, Miz Jo.”

  “And if you need more coffee, there should be four new tins in the pantry on the top shelf.”

  “Yes, Miz Jo.”

  “And cut it with chicory to stretch it. Perhaps set out the big basins for the men to wash up in?”

  Ilsa put her hands on Jo’s shoulders. “We’ve got it all sorted,” she said, gently. “Now go get some rest.”

  “I just need to make sure that—”

  Ilsa motioned Owen over. He’d been lingering around at the edge of the conversation, unwilling to leave Jo’s side. “Miz Jo is simply not able to take a day off, even on days when she almost dies in a fire,” she said. “Could you escort her upstairs and make sure that she stays in her bed?”

  Owen smiled. “My pleasure,” he said, taking Jo gently by the arm and leading her towards Wilson’s.

  “I’m not an invalid! I’m perfectly capable of—”

  Owen just smiled at her. “You certainly are. But right now, your staff is even more capable. And you smell like a campfire. At least come inside and get cleaned up.”

  She couldn’t help but return his smile. Together, they headed up the stairs.

  Chapter 22

  At the door to Jo’s bedroom, Owen hesitated. There was no chapter in the Manual of Proper Gentleman’s Conduct on what to do when a lady has just escaped from certain death in a burning building and a gentleman has been deputized to put her to bed. Jo gave him a tentative smile, then frowned at his arm.

  “You’re hurt,” she said.

  Now that she mentioned it, his arm was, indeed, throbbing. A ragged welt of burned skin blistered across his forearm. He shrugged. “I’m fine.”

  She took him by the hand and led him into her bedroom. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “I’m fine,” he repeated. “I don’t even remember when it happened.” Her bedroom smelled of her perfume and of lavender; the bed seemed to take up his entire field of vision, all soft quilts and embroidered pillowcases. He tore his eyes away from it with a determined effort.

  Jo was already rummaging around in her vanity table drawer, and she quickly found whatever it was she was looking for. “You can run into a burning building, but you’re scared of a little salve and a bandage?”

  He grimaced as she pried the lid from a small tin. “I ran into a burning building twice, thank you. And I can smell that stuff from here. Bet it strips the flesh right off.” The tin’s contents smelled frighteningly medicinal—some strange combination of pine sap and cheap whiskey. Did all the cures in Fraser Springs involve alcohol?

  “Sit,” she ordered, gesturing to the little vanity stool.

  Owen shook his head at her determination. “I have very clear orders to be taking care of you, not the other way round.”

  Jo didn’t answer. Instead, she brought an enamel basin of water over from its stand near the room’s single window, set it on the vanity, and glared at him expectantly. Resigned to his fate, he sat. Carefully, since the little stool seemed too dainty for actual use. She knelt beside him, wet a washcloth, wrung it out, and began gently daubing at the soot and blood covering his forearm. Clearly not a squeamish woman—no missish airs for Jo Wilson.

  When the burn was c
leaned to her satisfaction, she applied the salve. Even though her fingertips brushed his skin as tenderly as a caress, the stuff stung like hell. Just as he’d suspected. He tried not to wince, and at least she worked quickly. Jo wrapped his forearm with a strip of soft cotton and tucked in the ends.

  “And we’re done,” she said. She ran her fingers from the edge of the bandage down to his wrist. Despite the pain in his arm, the lingering brush of her fingers sent a thrilling pulse through him. “That wasn’t so bad now, was it?”

  “Speak for yourself.” Owen leaned over and took the washcloth from the basin, squeezing the water out with one hand. “You’re a mess,” he said tenderly, running the damp rag against her cheek. Was she smiling or grimacing? Her expression was difficult to read. Slowly, the cloth restored the creamy whiteness of her cheeks, her neck, her collarbone.

  He placed the washcloth back in the basin and ran his hands over her hair, brushing away the clinging flecks of powdery ash. The motion released more of that mint and talc fragrance so native to her that even fire couldn’t burn it out. He traced the curving edges of her ears with his thumbs, his fingers sweeping loosely along the nape of her lovely, pale neck.

  But just as he leaned in to kiss her, her eyes were suddenly bright with welling tears.

  “Aw, honey,” he said and pulled her up to his lap, enfolding her in his arms. She collapsed against him, her head buried in his neck. “You’re okay,” he murmured into her hair. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

  She sobbed against him, her ribs and shoulders heaving. She was so small, really. Her toughness made her seem much larger, like a cat puffing itself up in self-defense.

  “You’re okay,” he repeated. And suddenly the enormity of what had happened swept over him as well. Swarming images of the fire, of Doc’s slumped body, of Jo’s hand reaching out through the smoke, caught his breath and clamped down around his throat. No more talking, then.