Gold Rush Bride

by Debra Lee Brown

  “But, the prices…how did you know what to—”

  “Mei Li!” Crockett waved at the Chinese girl Kate had seen earlier standing in the doorway of the store.

  The sprite ducked into the crowd, and Kate didn’t see her again until her head popped up on the other side of the counter. She wore a dazzling smile, and garments the likes of which Kate had never seen. “You wish me help?”

  “Yes.” Crockett yanked a list out from under the counter and handed it to the girl. A price list, Kate surmised, though she couldn’t read it.

  Both the girl and Crockett seemed to know more than Kate would have suspected about the operation of her father’s store. She’d remember to ask Mr. Vickery about it later.

  “Miss Dennington could use some help.” Crockett looked at her again with those probing eyes.

  She nodded, still wondering at the frontiersman’s motives but grateful for the assistance he’d provided her. In seconds, the Chinese girl filled the order of another miner and waved forward the next in line.

  Landerfelt scowled from the corner where he and Mr. Vickery had been shoved. He cast the stub of his cigar to the floor and pushed his way out of the crowd onto the muddy wagon trail the locals called Main Street.

  Crockett’s smile faded. His dark gaze followed Landerfelt out the door. Before Kate could thank him for his kindness, he pushed his way after him and was gone.

  “Who on earth was that man?”

  “That Will Crockett,” Mei Li said, and proceeded with the next transaction.

  Kate watched him out the window. He stood rigid, hands fisted at his sides, outside Landerfelt’s storefront, as if he were waiting for something, for Landerfelt, perhaps. She’d felt the tension between them. “A frontiersman, is he?”

  “Fur trader. Trapper.”

  Kate could well believe it from his garments. Still, there was an air about him that smacked of drawing rooms and Sunday teas. Not that she knew anything about such things. The two-room tenement in Dublin she’d shared with her father and four brothers was a far cry from such a life.

  “He lives here in Tinderbox?”

  “No. Will Crockett go north. To Alaska. For beaver. Fox. Good fur there. His boat leave few days.”

  “Really?” Perhaps he was a true frontiersman, after all.

  “You keep store, yes?”

  “W-what?” She hadn’t been listening. Her gaze was still fixed on Will Crockett. “Oh, the store. No, how can I? Mr. Vickery said it was the law. Single women can’t own a business.” Well, not any decent business, she recalled with a shudder. “No, I’ll have to sell it all. I’ll need the money to get home.”

  And to make certain Michael and Sean didn’t end up in debtors’ prison. She wouldn’t put it past her mother’s sister. The only reason Kate was able to convince her to lend the money at all was the promise of weighty interest from the fortune her father was supposed to have made in California.

  “No, you no sell,” Mei Li said. “No one buy for good price. They want gold, not store. You get cheated.”

  The girl was right, and Landerfelt’s ridiculous offer was proof. Kate scanned the faces of the miners fighting over the few items remaining in the store. She read desperation in their grim expressions, gold lust in their eyes.

  “You work store for money. Mei Li help.”

  Kate shook her head. “No, it’s impossible. Mr. Vickery said—”

  “I know, I know. No single women. No immigrants.” Mei Li rattled off something unintelligible under her breath—a Chinese curse, if Kate had to guess.

  “Then the only answer is—”

  “Easy answer.” Mei Li looked up from her work at the scales and smiled. “You marry.”

  “What?” She nearly dropped the last pound of butter in Dennington’s Grocery and Dry Goods on the floor.

  “Will Crockett good choice. He like you, too. I see it in eyes.”

  Kate plopped onto the stool behind her and pushed her unruly auburn hair out of her face. The clamor of the miners faded as her gaze traveled out the window, snaked across the street and lit on the formidable figure clothed in buckskin and fur. The sky grew dark around him, and he seemed not to notice the light drizzle as he stared into the window of Landerfelt’s Mercantile and Mining Supply.

  Will Crockett, indeed. Sweet Jesus, what an idea.

  Chapter Two

  It was a hell of an idea.

  But one that Will would never consider, not even to get back at Landerfelt. The notion of marrying Dennington’s daughter sheerly for profit reminded him too much of how he had ended up out West to begin with.

  He gazed at the out-of-place miniature propped against a pickax in the window of Landerfelt’s store and pushed the newly hatched thought out of his mind.

  Mary Kate Dennington’s clear blue eyes stared back at him.

  And all this time he’d thought the image was of Dennington’s wife. “Well, what do you know.” He’d seen the Irish merchant pull the keepsake out of his pocket and study it countless times over the past few months. “That’s my Mary Kate,” he’d say.

  Will studied the image. The artist who’d painted it was good. He’d captured that…what exactly was it about Kate Dennington that drew him in? She wasn’t pretty, at least not in that coquettish sort of way he’d been raised to admire. Yet there was a strength about her, a wholesome sort of courage in the way she’d stood up to Landerfelt that was damned attractive. Not that it mattered.

  The point was, Dennington had been a decent man. One of the few men in Tinderbox Will had respected. The least he could do before he left town was see to it Eldridge Landerfelt didn’t swindle his daughter out of what was rightfully hers.

  Landerfelt had done enough swindling for one week. Will stuffed a hand into the empty pocket where the bankroll he’d been building for months had been stashed. That cash was to buy his passage on the steamer leaving San Francisco for Sitka in three days’ time, and to set himself up in the fur trade once he arrived. Thanks to Landerfelt’s latest power play, it was gone. Along with his horse and his best rifle. All he had left to his name were the clothes on his back.

  He closed his eyes and tipped his face into the rain. When he opened them again there was Landerfelt, standing behind the counter grinning at him. Their gazes locked through the distorted glass of the storefront.

  How in hell had he gotten that miniature?

  Dennington had always kept it on him. He’d been sick with fever on and off for nearly a year. Will had made it a point to look in on him whenever he was in town. Surprisingly, over the last month the Irishman’s health had improved. So much so that Doc Mendenhall had predicted a complete recovery. But on Tuesday morning Liam Dennington was found dead in his bed. Just like that. And the miniature scribed with his daughter’s likeness was for sale in Landerfelt’s store.

  “It’s the spittin’ image of her, ain’t it?”

  Will turned at the sound of the familiar voice. It had been weeks since he’d seen Matt Robinson—his only friend, now that Dennington was gone. Although Matt was a year or two younger than Will, he’d grown up on the frontier and had taught Will everything he knew about how to survive. Trapping, trading, where and how to live.

  They’d worked the Rockies together, then had made their way west to California. But the beaver were all trapped out now, and Matt had succumbed to the same lust that had every butcher, baker and candlestick maker heading for California in droves.

  Gold fever. Will ground his teeth.

  Matt whistled as he eyed the miniature. “I saw her two days ago at Sutter’s Fort. Had no idea she was Dennington’s kin. She don’t look much like him, does she?”

  Will glanced toward Dennington’s just as a frazzledlooking Kate ducked out of the store to retrieve the traveling bag she’d left outside. It was a wonder no one had stolen it.

  For the hundredth time in the past hour, his gaze was drawn to her trim figure and the wisps of auburn hair framing her lightly freckled face. She stole a glance at h
im, and he felt a queasy sort of unrest.

  “I see ya’ve noticed.” Matt elbowed him, and Will snapped to attention.

  He’d been crazy to think of helping her. The last thing he needed was to get involved with another down-on-his-luck immigrant’s problems. He’d done enough on that count lately, and look where it had got him.

  It was time to change the subject.

  “What brings you all the way to town, Matt? How’s the claim?”

  “It’s a goin’. That’s why I’m here. I thought I’d take one more shot at convincin’ ya to go in with me. Whaddya say?”

  Will looked hard at him, and read in his eyes what his friend didn’t say. “You’ve heard, then.”

  “Heard what?”

  “You know what. The whole town’s talking about what a damn fool I am.”

  “The whole territory, more like it.” Matt cracked a lopsided smile. “But you’re no fool. I’d a done the same for the old Chinaman if I’d had the money.”

  Will snorted.

  “Speakin’ o’ which…”

  Mei Li stepped out of Dennington’s store and turned up the street toward the Chinese camp on the outskirts of town. She shot Matt a tiny smile. He plucked his hat from his head and gawked at her like a schoolboy until she disappeared around the corner.

  “You’re sweet on her,” Will said.

  “Have been for months.”

  “You’re asking for trouble, you know.”

  “I know.”

  Will grinned. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.” He glanced at Landerfelt watching them through the window, and the smile slid from his face. “Seriously, Matt, if you intend to court that girl, you’d best watch your back.”

  Matt shook off his momentary stupor and slapped his hat back on his head. “I was hopin’ you’d do that for me.”

  “Oh no. Not me. I’ll be halfway to—”

  “It’s all gone, ain’t it? The cash, your horse, everything.”

  Will met his friend’s knowing gaze. “Yeah.”

  “Ya’ve got nothin’ to lose then. Work the claim with me and we’ll be filthy rich come the first snow.”

  Filthy rich was right.

  No, that was his father’s game, not his. Will had made a new life for himself here, had put his past behind him. But the gold fever and what it had done to this pristine place and the once-honest men who lived here brought it all back in spades.

  “Sorry, Matt. Not interested.”

  “Damned if I can understand your reasonin’.”

  His reasons were good ones, but none of Matt’s damned business. He shot another glance at the miniature in Landerfelt’s store window. “Each man has to make a life for himself, Matt. On his own, in his own way.”

  “You’re set on Alaska, then?”

  He studied the image of Mary Kate Dennington’s proud Irish features and bright blue eyes. “I am.”

  “But how ya gonna—”

  “I don’t know. All I know is, come hell or high water, I’ll be on that ship.”

  It was nearly dark, and cold as any day in Dublin she could remember. Kate stood in the rain at the foot of her father’s grave, her mind made up.

  She was cold and wet and she bloody well deserved to be. She’d been a fool to borrow that money on the promise of yet another of her father’s harebrained schemes. She knelt in the mud and placed a hand on his muddy grave.

  “What were you thinking, Da?”

  He hadn’t been thinking, and that was the problem. Liam Dennington had been a dreamer, a risk taker. Always after that next pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

  She smiled in the dark, remembering.

  A bit shaky on her feet, Kate rose as mud seeped into her boots. Exhaustion had finally caught up with her and gnawed bone deep against another familiar sensation. Desperation. She clenched her teeth and willed them both away.

  Her gaze swept across the forested hillside peppered with the dying light of miners’ campfires. The single street that made up the town of Tinderbox cut across it, dark and quiet.

  One campfire, in particular, drew her attention. But the man hunched beside it with an oiled buckskin pulled over his head against the downpour was no miner. She watched as Will Crockett stirred up the embers with a stick.

  Mei Li had been right. Vickery confirmed what the girl had said about Crockett being a trapper on his way north. He was the perfect choice for her plan. Now, if she could only muster the courage to ask him.

  The soft strain of a miner’s fiddle carried over the din of the rain and reminded Kate of home, though Tinderbox was certainly not like any place she’d ever seen in Ireland. It was a strange new world, and she was an outsider. That was made clear to her today by Mr. Landerfelt.

  The man was pompous and, on the surface, seemed to present no particular threat, but she’d read a dangerous sort of instability in his eyes when Crockett had crossed him. Who knew what the merchant might do to protect the monopoly he seemed determined to create?

  There were other dangers, too. All afternoon men had come down from the foothills where they worked their claims, just to get a look at her. It hadn’t taken long for Kate to realize she was one of the few white women here. In fact, since she’d left Sutter’s Fort two days ago, she hadn’t seen one other woman like herself—just Indians and a handful of Chinese.

  It was clear she didn’t belong here. Her place was at home with her brothers. They needed her, had relied on her to care for them all the years since their mother died.

  Kate had made enough just from the sale of the remaining goods in her father’s store to pay for the traveling expense back to San Francisco. Selling the horse and the mule would pay for lodging and food. What then?

  She supposed she could work in a laundry or at some other decent employment until she raised enough to pay the debt owed her mother’s sister, and her ship passage home. But that could take months, and she’d experienced firsthand the tawdry San Francisco rooming houses built of green timbers and canvas walls. Walls that did nothing to muffle the sounds of what Kate could only imagine was going on in the next room between transient men and enterprising women.

  No, she was better off in Tinderbox for now, where the memory of her father had garnered her one or two allies. She had a plan, and she’d stick to it.

  A branch snapped behind her, yanking her out of her thoughts. Kate spun toward the sound.

  “What are you doing out here in the rain? Christ, you’re soaked through.”

  Will Crockett stood not two paces from her. How on earth had he crept up on her like that? Why, just a moment ago he’d been…

  In the failing light, he took in her muddied garments and dripping hair. “Get back inside. It’s not safe out here.”

  She ignored his command, wrapped her sopping shawl tight around her and started for his dying fire. She might as well get this over with.

  “You should be at Vickery’s.” He offered her his oiled buckskin, as if it were a nuisance to do so. She took it and met his gaze.

  “He gave you a bed for the night, didn’t he?”

  “Aye, he did.”

  Mr. Vickery had been more than gracious. He hadn’t felt it was safe for her to stay alone in her father’s cabin, and though his wife was away for a fortnight, he didn’t think it improper for Kate to stay under his roof for one night. After all, he was her father’s solicitor, a man Liam Dennington had trusted. Kate would trust him, too. What choice did she have?

  “Go back to Ireland, Miss Dennington. Tinderbox is no place for a woman alone. A woman like you.”

  Like her? Just what did he think she was like? She agreed with his advice, but for reasons she was certain were different from his. In any case, Will Crockett was in for a surprise.

  “I intend to go back, as soon as I might.”

  “Good.”

  “But there is something you must do for me, first.”

  “Me?” He looked at her, his dark eyes shining in the firelight. They were browne
r than she remembered. That afternoon in the store they’d seemed black as coal.

  She made herself hold his gaze.

  “Your father was my friend. I’ll do what I can, but I’m leaving town tomorrow and don’t plan on ever coming back.”

  As if of their own accord, his eyes washed over her body. He looked away abruptly, embarrassed, it seemed. It was the third time that day she’d caught him looking at her that way.

  She pulled the buckskin tighter, conscious of her wet dress clinging to her, outlining her hips and legs. “That’s exactly why it must be you, Mr. Crockett. You and no other.”

  He turned toward her, then, and narrowed his eyes. They were black again. Black as a Dublin night in Liffey Quay. “What exactly is it you want, Miss Dennington?”

  She’d likely burn in hell for what she was about to propose, but she mustered her courage and did it anyway.

  “I want you to marry me.”

  Chapter Three

  He was the only man in Tinderbox who would have refused her. But refuse her he did, and sent Kate Dennington off to Vickery’s for the night.

  A few hours’ restless sleep under a dead oak in a driving rain hadn’t made Will feel any better about his decision. And now, in the light of day, it seemed damned stupid of him.

  He’d had the exact same idea, hadn’t he? To marry her for profit—his and hers. So when she’d proposed the deal, why hadn’t he just said yes? He knew why. Because her doing the asking had rubbed him the wrong way.

  The moment the offer had left her lips, she’d transformed herself in his mind from a hardworking Irishman’s daughter in need of help to one Sherrilyn Rogers Browning, conniving Philadelphia socialite. Kate had cast him an honest, hopeful smile, but all he’d seen was Sherrilyn’s mercenary little smirk.

  “Crockett, you’re an idiot.” He shook out his oiled buckskin and rolled it into a bundle.

  This wasn’t Philadelphia, and Dennington’s daughter wasn’t a compliant pawn in one of his father’s latest business deals. That chapter in his life was over. Finished.