Page 91 of I Do, I Do, I Do
He stared at her with a flicker of bewilderment and loss. Then his shoulders pulled back, his expression hardened, and he nodded his head in a half-bow. “Good-bye, Mrs. Villette. We have nothing further to say.”
Without a backward glance he walked out of the kitchen, out of the cabin, and out of her life.
Juliette crumpled to the floor like a broken doll. Blindly, she stared at the table legs and wished Horvath had shot her. A bullet would have been a thousand times less painful than what she was suffering now.
At another time Clara would have looked at Bear’s sling and her own and would have teased about them being two wounded birds. But the ease of teasing had ended for them and wouldn’t come again.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I should have told you about Jean Jacques.”
“I don’t want to hear about some son of a bitch that you’ve been in bed with! But you sure as hell should have told me that you were married!”
“I don’t know if I am. All three marriages can’t be legal.”
Bear paced to the ice-block window and glared out at the gathering darkness. “Damn it, Clara!” He struck the wall with his fist and the whole cabin shook. “I thought you were respectable. And I was so proud that a respectable woman wantedme! I kept telling you who I am, and it didn’t scare you off.” He pounded his chest. “And damned if something inside didn’t start to feel better, something I can’t name, but I’ve carried it all my life.”
“Oh, Bear.” She could name the weight in his chest. Shame. Of all the things he might have said, this would hurt the worst when she remembered it later. She had taken away the shame of his upbringing, and now she had flung it back on him.
“And don’t tell me you’re not married. You said the vows. You aren’t divorced, and you aren’t widowed. You have a living husband out there, and you came up here looking for him. Yet you went right on ahead and let me love you.”
There was no way to deflect his words, nothing to say.
“Do you know why I’ve never married?” he asked suddenly.
“I can guess,” she said in a whisper.
“A respectable woman wouldn’t want a man with my background, and I don’t want the other kind.” For a minute his voice went soft. “Honey girl, I thought the sun rose and set on you. I thought you were the finest thing that ever came into my life.”
Now the tears started, rolling silently down her cheeks.
“But you’re no better than me.”
“I was no better than you or anyone else even when you had me up on that pedestal, Bear.” She raised her good arm and then let it fall back to her lap. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ve never pretended to be what I’m not. I would have bet my life that you were the same way. I guessed from the first that the three of you had a secret. But I thought it was something like maybe you’d run off from your families seeking adventure. Or maybe you were all older or younger than you look. That kind of thing. If your secret was substantial, I figured you would have confided in me when I was confiding in you.”
“I wanted to. You don’t know how much I wish I had.” The tears came faster. She detested it that his last memory would be of her crying, with her eyes red and puffy and her nose running.
“We might have worked this out, Clara, if you’d trusted me and if you’d been truthful. I don’t know. Right now I’m mad, and I’m feeling like I’ve been had. I think you were correct up there on the mountainside when you said you were lucky. All Villette took was your money. I wish that’s all you’d taken from me.”
When she looked up again, he was gone. And her agony began.
No one slept that night. Eventually they sought the small comfort of warmth and company and gathered together before the fireplace. They wept until their eyes swelled and ached. Until their handkerchiefs soaked through and their bodies felt dry and boneless.
There was nothing compelling enough to rouse them until Tom returned near what passed for dawn in a Yukon winter. Then Clara and Juliette silently rose to offer Tom and Zoe privacy.
“There’s no cause to go. Stay seated,” Tom said gruffly. He directed his next remarks to a spot directly above Zoe’s head. “When Villette returned to Dyea, he left his outfit at Chilkoot. My Indians decided it was more of a priority to pack our customers over the pass than to cause them delay by bringing back the outfit of someone giving up. Before Villette boarded theAnnasettfor Seattle, he directed me to ship his outfit to Loma Grande, California, on the next steamer out. Which I did.”
“California,” Juliette murmured with a sigh.
“How ill was he?” Clara inquired.
“I’ve seen men a whole lot sicker climb Chilkoot and go on to Dawson,” Tom said in a flat voice. “But Doc Popov did diagnose consumption, and Doc did advise Villette to be on the next steamer out.” He shrugged and pushed his hands into his coat pockets. “Frankly I don’t care if Villette had a foot in the grave or if he exaggerated a cough as an excuse to go home.”
Zoe turned her head toward the fire. Juliette touched her temples as if she had a headache. Clara cradled her sling next to her body.
“How soon do you want to leave?”
They all stiffened and stared at him with startled expressions.
