Read Online Ashes and Ice by Tracie Peterson - Free Book Online Page A

He ignored the aproned matron who plunked down two steaming bowls of dumplings.
    “What are you drinking?” she asked in a tone that suggested she had little time for dallying.
    “Leave us alone!” Peter demanded. “And take this away.”
    “Well, if you’re gonna sit in this restaurant, you’re gonna have to pay.”
    Peter dug into his pocket and threw several coins onto the table. “There. Leave the food and take your money.”
    The woman smiled, displaying her lack of front teeth. “Sure now, luv. You just stake your claim here and let me know when you strike it rich.” She laughed as if terribly amused with herself, then grabbed the coins, worth three times the price of the dumplings, and tucked them down her blouse.
    Karen threw her an irritated glare, hoping the woman would speed up her retreat, but her action only made the woman laugh all the more.
    “Where is Paxton now?” Peter asked, ignoring the woman.
    “I don’t know. I presume back in Skagway. Peter, I know this may sound ridiculous. After all, I have no proof. But I feel confident that he’s guilty. You don’t know him like I do. You know him from your father’s stories of Paxton as a boy. I know him from the torment he put upon Grace.”
    “Grace would have me forgive him,” Peter said angrily. “As if that animal deserved anything but the end of a gun.”
    “Grace is only trying to be a good Christian,” Karen said with a shrug. “But even good Christians have their limits. Martin Paxton is evil. Plain and simple. He has caused us more problems than I can even begin to name. I have no desire to let this go unpunished.”
    “What about the law? Did anyone see anything?”
    “Apparently not. Adrik thinks a lantern was thrown through the front window, for we found a lantern in the debris.”
    “But no one heard that happen? No one heard the glass shatter?”
    Karen thought of the noisy nights in the small town. Gold fever combined with cabin fever made for a brand of rowdiness that could only be called chaotic, at best. Windows were often broken, in spite of the cost to replace them. Wars were waged on a nightly basis between those who felt they’d been cheated out of something they’d brought to the shores of Alaska and those who sought to relieve them of their possessions.
    “I’m afraid many folks might well have heard the glass break, but they would have given it no further thought. Arson is such an unthinkable act that I’m sure no one would ever have suspected such a thing.”
    “But such a thing happened and it destroyed my livelihood with it. Not to mention it took the life of your aunt.” Peter’s face contorted in rage. “This is what Grace cannot understand. Her religious notions matter very little to men like Paxton. She believes the world to be a place of love and second chances.”
    “In all truth, I believe that, too,” Karen murmured softly. “At least I used to.”
    Peter stared at her for a moment. “It doesn’t take much to open your eyes if you’re willing to see things for what they are. I find that religion clouds a man’s judgment of what’s real and what’s illusion.”
    “And what is real?” Karen questioned, feeling a desperate need to understand. “Just when I think I have a clear understanding of that, it somehow seems to elude me.”
    “What’s real is the ugliness and evil of some men. They will stop at nothing.” His voice lowered in a menacing manner, chilling Karen with the hatred that rang clear in his next statement. “Death is the only way to keep them from causing more harm.”
    Karen shivered. “What are you suggesting?”
    “Retribution,” Peter stated flatly. “I suggest we find Paxton and exact our revenge.”
    “But what if he isn’t guilty?”
    “He’s guilty. If not of the fire, then of much else.”
    Karen saw a blatant hatred in Peter’s eyes that gave her reason to fear. He was serious. He meant every word. He had no qualms about seeing Paxton dead. There