Desire's Golden Dreams (4 page)

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Hannah’s heart was beating fast as she approached the mine. At the entrance, her curiosity overcame the apprehension and she forged ahead. For the first several feet, the channel was straight and sunlight guided her. Then a sharp turn plunged her into darkness. She switched on the flashlight. After a few feet she encountered a fork and stopped. With Bolt, she hadn’t paid attention to the route. She’d let him lead. She closed her eyes, trying to visualize which path they’d taken. Nothing came to her, except when she opened her eyes again a faint glow appeared deep inside the left-hand fork. She went left, but the glow had disappeared.

A few steps more brought her to a boarded-up passageway and she had to turn. Dammit, she should be making a map. Hopefully, she’d remember and could make one when she got home. The mine opened up suddenly and she found a boulder to sit on, possibly the same one she’d sat on yesterday. She felt a twinge of guilt. Bolt had been texting her all morning and she’d ignored him. He’d only worry if she told him what she was doing and she could never lie to him. He always knew it when she tried.

The rock became uncomfortable after a few minutes. What was she doing this for? She’d heard about a ghost in the mine all her life and had never believed it. Maybe her imagination had conjured him up yesterday and he’d never been there at all. A few more minutes and then she’d leave. What had she hoped to learn from the guy anyhow?

That was a question easy to answer. Her namesake ancestor, the first Hannah Brown Tolliver, had always fascinated her. Her mother had been named for the woman. So had Hannah, although her last name wasn’t Tolliver as her mother’s maiden name was. The stories about the very first Hannah seemed so outrageous they couldn’t possibly all be true. Supposedly, the woman had had lovers too numerous to count. That was the hush-hush part of her great-great-great-granny’s life. The part for publication touted her humanitarian efforts, and the way she’d worked to clean up the Barbary Coast, and her efforts on the part of downtrodden women. They extolled her business acumen and the way she’d seen the prospects and built up a real-estate gold mine worth as much or more than what they’d pulled out of the actual mine.

“I hoped you’d return. It gets awfully dang lonesome for a cowboy down here.”

Hannah jumped and couldn’t still her racing heart or find her voice for several seconds. “So, you were actually here yesterday. Are you real?”

The spirit laughed a hearty laugh that echoed off the walls of the mine. “Real? I’m real as in human. I have substance when I wish to, but I haven’t been real in the sense of being alive for many years.”

“So, ghosts do exist.” Oddly, Hannah had no fear of the spirit. Arms folded in front of her, she circled him to view the apparition from all angles, as if choosing the prize bull at a state fair.

“Apparently, we ghosts do exist. At least I do. I don’t know of any others, though, and couldn’t swear to their existence. Never believed in the things, myself.”

“Who are you, or I mean, who were you?” Hannah sat on the rock again, ready to hear some stories. “Are you my grandfather many generations removed or are you one of Hannah Brown’s other lovers?” Hannah hoped he’d say yes and she could hear some juicy stories.

“Ah, so you know about Hannah’s penchant for taking lovers, or husbands as she always referred to them.” He walked around her this time and bent to examine her face at closer range. “I thought you were my Hannah yesterday. The resemblance is scary.”

“Can a ghost be scared? Do you have emotions? Can you see the past? The future? Do you ever leave the mine? Why are you here? Did you murder somebody? Did somebody murder you? Are we related? Who are you?”

His laughter bounced and echoed off the rock walls. “So many questions. I’ll tell you this much. We are not related in any way. I don’t wish to reveal my identity quite yet since I don’t wish to scare you away.” He walked away from her, stroking his chin.

He was a handsome cuss. His blacker-than-black hair with eyes to match should have been off-putting, but Hannah wasn’t a bit skittish around him. His wide shoulders and tall frame should have been intimidating to a woman only a bit over five seven who weighed at least a hundred pounds less than he did. Or did ghosts weigh anything? Hannah stopped her scrutiny when he turned to stare at her again.

“Your company amuses me and I have so little to look forward to. But I’ll tell you this much, I have been in love with one of the many Hannahs that have come and gone from this earth.”

“Oh, dear, my family has had a Hannah in every generation. I had hoped you knew the first Hannah and could tell me the truth about her life. If you were with one of the later Hannahs, you are a big disappointment to me.”

“I promise not to be a disappointment. I can tell you anything you want to know about Miss Hannah Brown of Plantsville, California.”

“So, you were one of her original lovers. You can’t be Wade if you’re not related to me. Were you, I mean, are you Rocco Ponti? Or are you Brady?” Her mind went back to last evening. Had she really called for Brady when Bolt was making love to her?

“You are jumping to conclusions, darlin’, and I did not say I loved the first Hannah. She was a very public character and, though probably lost by now, stories about her abounded in the press and on the grapevines in her time. The reason I can tell you intimate details about her life is one of the perks of being a spirit. I can show myself or not, and I can visit the past. I, too, was always curious about the first Hannah Tolliver. I’ve been an unseen voyeur in her bedrooms from the time she married Wade and Brady. Did you know she married both men on the same day?” His laughter rang out again.

“I see by your stunned look that you did not. Yes, from the beginning, Hannah considered herself married to two men and though Wade deflowered her, she fucked both men on her wedding night.”

“You were there? Is that the era when you were alive?”

“I did not say that. I said I could revisit the past. And though I’ve actually seen the woman in the flesh, I could be of another generation than your granny. If you recall, she lived a very long life, into her eighties, at a time when most people counted themselves lucky if they lived to seventy.”

“Please tell me about her. I want to know all the stories about the original owners of the mine. I want to know about Wade and Brady and Rocco and Sam and Gus. What happened to them once they became filthy rich? Were they happy? Did they do good things with the money? I know my granny did and Rocco must have since he has so many buildings named for him. Tell me everything.”

The mine spirit ran both hands through his hair sending sparks of gold dust swirling through the air. “That’s a tall order, darlin’, and it calls for more comfortable surroundings. Come with me.” He took her hand and led her further into the mine.

After a few minutes of brisk walking, Hannah worried she’d never find her way out. The route he took had more twists and turns than a Slinky. “Hey, this mine is bigger than I thought.”

“This was a rich vein. The cave has hundreds of miles of tunnels. After all, it was worked until sometime in the nineteen hundreds.”

“Nineteen fifty to be exact.” Odd that Hannah wasn’t frightened of the man, ghost, whatever. “Hey, may I know your name? I can’t call you Mr. Ghost.”

His laugh reverberated off the walls. “No, you can’t. Call me Slim. It’s a nickname I had as a kid and it kinda fits me again.” He made one last turn and swept his arm out to indicate a lovely, spacious room. “Welcome to Chez Slim. Have a seat.”

Hannah settled into a huge cushy armchair with her feet on an ottoman. “Oh, my, this is the softest material I’ve ever seen. I feel like I’m floating on a cloud.”

“That’s because it’s not real. Nothing here is real, at least not in the sense that everyone can see it and use it. It’s a complicated concept, but don’t worry your head about it.” He took a matching chair and also put his feet up. “Now, you wish to know about Hannah One.” He closed his eyes as if being transported back in time.

After a few silent moments Hannah thought he’d gone to sleep. Then he spoke again, still keeping his eyes closed.

“Hannah Brown the schoolmarm was quite innocent in the ways of the flesh, yet she had a good head on her shoulders for seeing things in perspective and was destined to become an astute businesswoman once she was on her own. Even if she hadn’t met Rocco Ponti and succumbed to his golden touch, she would have prospered.”

Slim opened his eyes and examined Hannah’s face as if memorizing it. “You are so like her. But don’t get me off topic.” Again he closed his eyes. “We’ll take a trip together. I’ll be your eyes and ears.” He paused briefly and his form faded into a silhouette.

“Ah here we are. Once Hannah had money, nothing could stop her. We’ll begin the tale there, two years after the mine was regularly belching out gold. Hannah had her mansion. It would burn down twice over the years and each time it was rebuilt it became larger and more opulent. This day, she and Wade were in the original home finishing breakfast….”

San Francisco, 1852

Hannah set down her teacup on the linen-covered dining-room table to give her time to rein in her temper. Wade never could see far into the future. She’d have to go over the whole idea again and again before he understood. “Darling, you see how capital intensive this mine is. Hoisting the ore out of the tunnels, paying to have it crushed at a stamp mill, chemical processing.”

“Of course I see. It’s why I don’t want to invest in more real estate. We simply haven’t got the money.”

“We have credit. That’s better than money. What I’m saying is, we need to expand our horizons and not have all our eggs in one basket. We don’t yet know the extent of the vein of ore. If it plays out too quickly, we’ll be invested in other things for our livelihood and won’t have to depend on the mine alone.”

“You already talked me into building this mansion,”—he spread his arms out to include the parlor and all the rooms beyond the walls as well as the dining room where they sat—“then forming the mining corporation and now this new project. Where does it all end?”

“It ends wherever fate takes us. You know we needed a big house to accommodate all of us and a separate wing for the nursery for Hannah and whatever other children we’re blessed with in the future. You also know how profitable the corporation is becoming. If you don’t want to go in with me on the real estate, I’ll do it myself.”

“Did you consult Brady and Rocco?”

“Brady thinks everything I do is brilliant and Rocco doesn’t care. I think he’s going to go off on his own soon.”

“They’ll be home tonight. Let’s talk about your building spree with all of us here.”

“Certainly.” Hannah stood and rounded the table on her way to the door. “I’m going up to see how the new nanny and Hannah are getting along.”

“Give Princess a kiss for me. I’m going to supervise at the mine.” Wade came to her and put an arm around her waist as they walked into the hall.

“Brady is there at the mine. I’m sure you’re not needed.”

“I want to be needed.”

“I always need you.” She kissed him long and hard.

He stepped back when the kiss broke and tucked a strand of hair back into her bun. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw you. The day your daddy hired me on at the ranch. You stood on the porch petting a scruffy old dog.”

“I didn’t think you noticed me.”

“Oh, I noticed. You were tall even then. What were you, sixteen? Your hair was loose and you ran down the porch steps to give your dad the hat with the wide brim because your mother said it might rain.”

“I made it up because I wanted to get a closer look at you. Oh, the many times I drooled over you as you lifted bales on bare shoulders. The way your muscles rippled in the sunlight. You should read the things I wrote in my diary.”

“Did you have impure thoughts about me even then?”

“They were mostly romantic nonsense I’d read in books. I knew nothing about sex as you found out when you and Brady took me to bed the first night we were married.”

They laughed as she helped him into his jacket. “Don’t go.” She untied the collar of her bodice and exposed her breasts.

Wade ran a thumb over one taut nipple. “We made love all last night. I need to go to work for a rest.” He reached for the doorknob, but turned back to her instead. “Another day that sticks in my memory from long ago is the day you went off to teacher’s school. I was sullen and impossible to get along with until you came home two years later. You were a woman when you returned and I was afraid to speak to you. After all your eastern education, I knew I’d be exposed for the rube I was every time I opened my mouth. From that day on, I listened and learned to use proper grammar—at least somewhat.”

“When I saw you again, you were more delicious looking than in my dreams. And I’d had lots of erotic dreams about you those lonely nights in a girl’s dormitory. I never once thought about how you spoke.”

“That’s when we began meeting in dark places to kiss and feel each other up.” He squeezed both her breasts.

“Those were fun days, but not as much fun as the days after we got married. Are you sure you want to go to the mine?”

“I’ll be home by six.” He pulled her to him. “I’m looking forward to tonight when we’ll all be in bed together. It’s been too long since Rocco and Andre joined us.”