She didn’t argue as he turned toward his building, but at the sight of the fire wagon on the street, he paused.
Rather than pumping water at Jessalyn’s building, the workers were dousing the telegraph office and apartment instead. The men with buckets of snow were doing much the same, slathering the side of the building that stood closest to Jessalyn’s blazing shop.
He didn’t need anyone to tell him why. His family might be safe, but Jessalyn was going to lose her shop and everything in it.
Chapter Fourteen
The rubble still smoldered. Even in the middle of the night, faint red embers glowed beneath the pile of blackened ash, while wisps of smoke rose into the calm, moonlit night. A night that seemed far too serene for such destruction.
Jessalyn stifled a cough and looked away from the window of Isaac’s apartment, which wasn’t really Isaac’s at the moment, since he’d packed a bag and left the rooms to her and Thomas until she had someplace else to take the girls.
A shiver traveled up her spine despite the warmth from the woodstove Thomas had stoked. Because she still stood in her soot-blackened nightgown, of course. Not because she was worried about what would happen now that the past five years of her life had been reduced to a pile of ashes.
Rebuild? It would take four years to earn back what she’d lost in a single night.
And if she did find some way to rebuild, should she do so here or in Chicago? Chicago made the most sense, but could she afford that after losing her building, sewing machine, fabric, and everything else? She couldn’t possibly finish the bridal partydresses now, not without more fabric, and there would be no more shipped to Eagle Harbor until spring. But without getting paid for that job alone…
She swallowed against her raw throat, wrapping her arms even tighter about herself as she looked back out the window to the rubble heap.
The drawings were gone too, every last idea she’d had.
A cough wracked her body with deep, harsh convulsions that shook the insides of her lungs. She’d hardly coughed at all when she’d been trapped during the fire, but the coughing was growing worse now, along with the nauseous sensation churning in her stomach. Dr. Harrington had said the smoke she’d inhaled needed to work its way out of her body, but did doing so have to make her sick?
“Jessalyn.” Thomas’s voice sounded from behind her, but she kept her gaze out the window, as if staring at the remnants of her building long enough might resurrect it.
“Angel.” A hand landed on her shoulder, and the scent of soap mixed with smoke twined around her. “Your bath’s waiting. Were you going to take one?”
She stifled another cough and looked down at her blackened nightdress and the dark soot smeared onto her hands and feet. It wasn’t as though she had much choice.
“In a…” She swallowed against her painful throat. “…minute.”
“Is your throat sore? Do you want me to make you some of Dr. Harrington’s tea?”
She shook her head and leaned her forehead against the cool window. She didn’t want tea. She didn’t want a bath. She didn’t want anything but her building back—and everything inside it.
She drew in a breath, but her lungs refused to cooperate, forcing the air she’d just inhaled back up with another harsh cough.
“Jess.” Thomas’s arm wrapped around her shoulders. “Come on.”
He turned her to face him, and she found herself staring up into a face scrubbed clean from ash and soot, even if a bit of gray still streaked Thomas’s wet hair.
She didn’t need to wonder if her own face was dark with ash. She’d shed enough tears for at least her cheeks to be clean, and she’d shed more as soon as she curled up in her bed and tried to sleep.
Except she didn’t have a bed anymore.
“We need to wash this filth off you.” He turned her toward the kitchen, but she shrugged his hands away.
“I don’t need…” Another cough claimed her, her stomach heaving along with the convulsions. She went down on her knees and wrapped her arms around her middle, but not quite quickly enough.
A bucket appeared in front of her a second before the blackened contents of her stomach erupted from inside her. Another wave of nausea swept her, then another.
At some point Thomas knelt beside her and held the hair back from her face, waiting until she quieted before asking, “How much smoke did you swallow tonight?”
She curled into a ball on the floor, which seemed easier than standing, given the way her stomach wasn’t done churning. “I didn’t know about not standing up, that there was better air on the floor.”
He rubbed her arm with long, soothing strokes. “I hope you’ll never need to use the information again, but in case you do, stay low to the ground during a fire. The smoke rises, which forces the cleaner air to the ground.”
“All right.” Her eyes drifted shut.