In the Land of Gold

by Angela Christina Archer

“Cora?” Flynn’s voice mirrored the desperation of my breaking heart.

  I ducked into the teepee and let the flap fall closed.

  Drat.

  He had seen me standing there, watching him.

  “Cora?” He opened the flap and ducked into the tent.

  I faced him.

  While I couldn’t lie to him, I could deflect his attention. I marched toward him with my finger pointed at his chest.

  “Where have you been?”

  His eyes widened with a slight jerk of his head at my demanding tone.

  “Trying to get here.” He chuckled. “Didn’t know you’d be so bloody worried.”

  “Well I . . . well I was.” I backed away from him, straightened my shoulders, and inhaled a deep breath as my eyes danced around the teepee.

  “I see that. Do yeh feel better?”

  I nodded, hoping to hide my embarrassment. “I’ve been feeling better for a couple days now.”

  “Good.” He stepped toward me, but I retreated.

  “You should return to the celebration, and to your . . . friend.”

  If the ground opened up and engulfed me at this moment I would be eternally grateful.

  I turned away from him and picked up a few blankets, unfolding and refolding them in the silence. Flynn just stood behind me, not moving and not saying a word.

  “Aren’t you going to go celebrate?” I hid my jealousy under a façade of consideration for his needs.

  “No.”

  “I’m sure Payuk and Dika would like to spend some time with you, and, so would whoever that other . . . friend was.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Why? She likes you. You might as well go enjoy her company.” My own words made my body shudder.

  His boot heels scuffed the hard-packed earthen floor of the teepee, and now stood just inches behind me.

  His breath whispered on the back of my neck making my heart race. I scrunched my eyes, petrified and barely able to breathe.

  His hands grabbed my shoulders, wandering down my crossed arms until his fingers found and intertwined with mine. His lips softy grazed my neck up to my ear.

  “It’s not her company I desire.”

  I wiggled my fingers from his.

  He grasped my arm, before I could walk away and turned me back, face to face. “Did I say something I shouldn’t have?”

  I shook my head and met his gaze, then looked away.

  He stepped closer once more, and with one hand brushed my chin, lifting my face to gaze into my eyes.

  My heart fluttered, then dropped to the pit of my stomach.

  “Lord, how I missed yeh. I hated watching yeh leave without me. I even sold most of the supplies because I didn’t want to waste time packing them up the stairs.” His voice softened to a husky murmur against my ear.

  “That’s probably not the smartest thing to do,” I whispered.

  He chuckled. “Probably not.” His hands slid up my neck, and then he kissed me. Soft at first, the passion intensified as his hands wandered down my neck to the front of my shirt.

  His fingers toyed with each button. Flip!

  My heart raced as he stared into my eyes.

  Flip! Flip!

  I held my breath as he reached the last button.

  Flip!

  The material tucked into my pants gave way to his wandering hands. His fingers brushed my skin, and I shuddered from the ice-cold touch.

  The confusion on his face caught my breath and triggered remorse. “Your hands are cold,” I whispered.

  He cocked his head in wonder. “So yeh don’t wish for me to stop?”

  Ignoring my shaking nerves, I began unbuttoning his shirt, opened the material, and slid it off his body.

  I closed my eyes and traced my fingers along the outline of each perfect muscle.

  He traced my lips with his fingers, the rough texture of his skin induced a shiver deep within my core. His arms tightened around me, and his lips dropped to mine. His kiss was intense, a consuming lust, and his touch ignited a fierce, all-consuming fire I’d never known.

  I didn’t want the feelings to end.

  Of their own will, my fingers traveled his waist toward his hips, and the thump noise was his pants hitting the ground.

  My heat pounded, my stomach flipped, and my nerves stole my ability to breathe. I opened my eyes as he scooped me into his arms, then laid me on my bed.

  He unbuttoned my pants and slid them down my legs, kissing my thighs as he pulled my ankles from the pant legs. Lying down next to me, he rolled onto his side and his hand brushed the hair away from my face.

  “Yeh’re incredibly beautiful. Did yeh know that?”

  “I do now.” My voice a nervous whisper.

  He covered us both with a blanket, and his hands tickled my waist as he tucked us in. I giggled, louder than I expected, spurring a playful look in his eyes. He kissed me, distracting my thoughts until his hand slid from my waist to the inside of my thigh.

  His tease had me begging for more, for him, for all of him, and he more than happily obliged.

  Beneath the blanket and warmed by his hands, no one else existed. Just the two of us in a world where I finally knew where I belonged—and with whom.

  Chapter 19

  The village disappeared from my line of sight—the once bustling place now just smoke in the air and a few teepee tops peaking through the trees.

  “I didn’t think you’d want to leave so soon.” Flynn halted along the trail and swigged water from his canteen. The Indian ponies Flynn had bartered from the villagers snorted at the delay. He secured the canteen and grinned. “I kind of liked having a few relaxing days, holed up, just the two of us.

  Seduction twinkled in his eyes.

  “Well, of course, that part was nice.” Nothing more than a mess of animal hide, mud, and strangers. The only calm in a world of chaos was Flynn. “But, why stay when it’s not our home?”

  “I though yeh liked it there.” He glanced over his shoulder at me.

  I shrugged at him and stuck out my tongue, letting my old, evil self, surface once more. “If a certain young woman hadn’t been so disapproving, perhaps I would have enjoyed my time there a bit more.”

  My presence had angered the young woman from the bonfire. Jaded by Flynn’s dismissal, for the likes of a white woman no less, she was bent on making our few days of interlude hellish rather than blissful.

  The anger she expressed daily worked to lessen the sense of home I’d experienced in the village when I’d first arrived.

  “I’ll inform her of your umbrage when I return after getting yeh to Dawson City.”

  Flynn’s words swirled in my head and twisted in the pit of my stomach. He was going back?

  Tears welled in my eyes. Did I mean nothing to him?

  I am nothing more than an utter dimwit.

  Embarrassment shifted into anger—a lot of anger. He’d taken advantage of me in the sincerest despicable manner, evil beyond compare, and without remorse.

  Of course, why should he have remorse? He got exactly what he desired without making any promises. Wasn’t that the Klondike way? I’d left proper at the boat dock in Tacoma. No wonder men flocked to the land of gold where they could live a life devoid of honesty and integrity.

  Flynn glanced back at me, hesitating for a moment, and then continued along the narrow trail above the riverbank.

  “Cora, don’t walk so close to the bank.”

  I’ll walk wherever I want.

  “Cora, don’t walk so close to the bank,” he repeated.

  After what he’s done, how dare he think I would listen—

  My shoe caught on a rock and the earth dropped from beneath my feet. My back
side hit the ground with a thud and I slid downhill toward the icy river rapids.

  I clawed at the ground, digging my nails into the snow and frozen mud. The more I tried, the more my fingers slipped. Tree roots, rocks, anything I could grasp proved worthless as they ripped my skin.

  Flynn bellowed. In the one blinding second when he came into view, I realized my mistake as he descended the hillside after me. His frantic expression told me more than I wanted to know.

  The momentum from the fall pushed me across a patch of frozen river ice. It sliced my cheek just before my feet plunged into the water, followed by the rest of my body.

  Ten times colder then the river bath, the bitter, freezing water filled my lungs as I gasped for breath. Knives, not needles, stabbed my body, stealing every ounce of warmth from the depths of my soul.

  I reached for Flynn’s outstretched hand, but he was too far away, and in seconds, the river’s current swept me away. Blinded and deafened by water, I kicked my legs and flailed my arms—all while trying to keep my head above the rapids and breathe.

  My body slammed into a boulder, and with a sudden jolt of pain, my arm and shoulder numbed. Water muted my screams as the river tossed me through the swirling current.

  My world threatened to blur. My lungs gasped for air, but only water, endless water, rushed and swirled all around me. It held me in its depths with a tight grip, and exhaustion reigned.

  The more I jerked and kicked, the more air my body needed and without it, the more clouded my head became.

  With a last sudden jerk, my hand finally found something to grab hold of, a rope. It looped around my outstretched wrist, then tightened, digging in as the fibers pinched, then broke the skin.

  After several tugs through the raging water and over another sheet of frozen ice, Flynn’s fingers intertwined with mine. In one swift move, he yanked me onto a frozen sandy bank.

  His hands wrapped around my body and rolled me onto my side. I coughed up water with each gasping breath. Bits of sand blew into my mouth, grinding against my teeth, and then washing out as more water sputtered from my lungs.

  I rolled onto my back, laying there awhile before attempting to sit up. Kneeling in the sand beside me, Flynn helped me—supporting my lower back and giving me an arm to pull myself up.

  “I told yeh . . . not to walk . . . so close . . . to the river bank.” Exertion paced his words.

  He scooped me into his arms and carried me toward the narrow trail, doubling back to where he had tied the sled.

  My wet clothes crinkled with my every move as the cold air crystallized the fabric. Trembling until my vision blurred and my lungs refused to work, freezing to death was now a very real possibility.

  Flynn ran off, working faster than I’d ever seen. He threw a blanket over my shoulders, then started a fire. Flames soon popped and sparked, and I hovered closer. The warmth helped, although if I could have stood on the blaze, I would have.

  One by one, Flynn threw more blankets on top of me until the weight of them forced me to my knees—my trembling stopped, though, I wasn’t quite warm.

  I need dry clothes.

  I struggled to my feet and shuffled toward the sled.

  “Get back to the fire,” Flynn ordered behind me.

  Grabbing any rope I could find, I began untying the packs, trying to get to a fresh set of dry clothes.

  “I need dry clothes.”

  “I’ll get yeh clothes, get back to the fire.” His hands jerked the line from my fingers—the rope fibers lacerated my skin. “Don’t do that. You’ll ruin how I have everything packed.”

  “Ouch,” I stepped back from the sled and he barged between me and the sled, his back to me. “That hurt.”

  “And, yeh more than deserved that.”

  “Well, that is a completely rude thing to say.”

  “Rude? Yeh want to talk about what is rude while you’re acting like nothing more than a bad-mannered, spoiled child?” He threw my clothes at me and began repacking the sled. “Now get those clothes off and the dry ones on before yeh freeze.”

  The violent trembling made dressing nearly impossible. My fingers and toes numbed and slowly began turning a light shade of blue. Frostbite threatened.

  I returned to the fire and peeled the wet clothes from my glacial skin. My dry shirt fell to the ground a few times before I got it over my head and wrapped myself back up with several of the blankets. Tears welled in my eyes, then spilled over the pent-up dam, unrestrained.

  “What the bloody hell is wrong with yeh?” Flynn stomped toward me.

  My stare pinned him with the pain in my heart. “When I return to the village after taking yeh to Dawson City,” I mocked in a voice I shouldn’t have used, but I didn’t care. “Did you ever have plans to stay with me? Or was I just a . . . a mindless reaction to . . . I don’t even know, to what we’ve been through.”

  “Wait, you’re mad because I said I wasn’t stayin’ with yeh in Dawson City?”

  “Yes.”

  Flynn clutched his sides, chuckling.

  “Why are you laughing?” I stomped my feet. My sudden burst of anger only amused him more, and his delight only angered me more.

  He strode toward me and I backed away from him—until my back slammed into a tree as his hands grasped my waist.

  “Let go of me.”

  “Cora, I only said what I did to see if yeh wanted me to stay with yeh.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to return to the village.”

  “Then why did you say—”

  “Because, I don’t really know how yeh feel about our last few days—and about me. Yeh aren’t a very easy person to read. Yeh run hot and cold, sometimes pulling people in and then pushing them away seconds later. It’s like yeh don’t know what yeh want. How can yeh expect me to know?”

  Drat.

  Nothing like finding out your tightly held emotions are an open book.

  “Why didn’t you just ask me how I felt?”

  He bit his lip for a second. “Sometimes people lie to themselves about what they want in life, deluding themselves into believing they want what they do, when in fact, they really don’t. And, sometimes they don’t consider their options before deciding which path to take.”

  “What an utterly absurd way to think.”

  “Perhaps,” he shrugged his shoulders. “But, I’ve seen the rash decisions you’ve made, and I don’t want to be another.”

  The look in his eyes punched straight to my heart. He knew me better than I thought he did.

  “Even if at one time your presumption was true, the last few days have meant more to me than . . . well any day I’ve spent on this earth. I’ve never been so happy in all my life.”

  He flashed a seductive smile that reached the corners of his eyes, wrapped his arms around me, and dragged me into a tight hug, kissing me softly.

  “I love yeh, Cora”

  Chapter 20

  I rolled over and in my half asleep haze, stretched out my hand, searching for Flynn’s warm body. It wasn’t anywhere to be found. I opened my eyes, looking all around the empty tent. The sun had risen, bringing daylight along with the dread of another day on the trail.

  As I pulled the blanket higher to cover my shoulders, something cold pressed against the back of my neck. I jolted upright and glanced at the blanket behind me.

  One single small snowball lay next to where my neck had been, slowly melting into a pool of water. Above the ball lay a piece of tattered and torn parchment with words etched in awful handwriting.

  I would’ve left flowers, but I couldn’t find any.

  It’s winter, don’t yeh know.

  Utterly amused, by not only his chicken scratch letters, but by the effort, I picked up the tiny ball and held it in
the palm of my hand. It rolled around before melting into a puddle from the heat of my skin.

  I pulled the blankets off. The ice-cold air chilled my bare skin, and I quickly dressed—wrapping a blanket around my shoulders and over my coat for extra warmth.

  Sunlight blinded me as I stepped out of the tent. Newly fallen snow, several inches deep, crunched under my boots. With each passing day, I’d grown to hate the pure white powder. Not only, did it bring a bitter cold that could freeze us to death, but caused a slower pace up the trail.

  Rocks wrecked the sled more and more—chipping away at the wood and steel. Muddy marshes were now brittle, frozen mud terrains, uneven from other stampeeders and full of deep holes that tripped the horses, often bringing them to their knees.

  This morning’s fresh layer of white covered everything from the supplies to the piled rocks of the fire pit Flynn had built last night.

  Tied together, the horses grazed on what little grass they could find. Ice coated their manes.

  To help protect them from wounds, Flynn had wrapped each of their legs with old, ripped shirts, but now the frozen cotton stuck to their fur.

  I brushed the snow from a fallen log and sat down, wrapping my arms tightly around me. Flynn appeared from the trees with an arm full of wood and threw them down next to the fire pit.

  “I was hoping I’d be back before yeh woke.”

  “I got cold because someone thought it would be romantic to put a snowball in my bed.”

  He laughed, swept the snow from the pit, stacked the logs, and after several suffered minutes a fire finally popped and crackled in front of me.

  “I’m thinking of pancakes and bacon this morning. Sound good?”