Something knocked over with a thud, and a cloud of dust puffed into the air. Tears filled my eyes and the dirt tickled my nose. Covering my mouth, I fought the urge to sneeze. A picture frame now lay face down in the layer of dust.
My fingertips clutched one of the silver buckles that clasped four pieces of wood together to form the frame. I turned it over.
March 23, 1897 – Bear Creek Claim Owners
Staring back at me in black and white, was my father shaking hands with Ethan Sullivan. Both men wore suits, bowler hats, and were even wearing neckties.
I set the frame back on the dresser and backed away.
“Clothes go in the cabin. I’ll take them, I gotta get the stove going, anyway,” Ethan bellowed again.
My heart pounded. Sudden terror crept across my skin, sending chills down my spine and robbing my lungs of the ability to breathe.
My eyes darted all around the little cabin, returning to the door every other second before finally finding a glint of hope when they fell upon my pack lying in the corner.
Please let Flynn’s revolver still be in it.
I emptied the pack, pulling the ice-cold steel from the shirt I had wrapped around it before shoving into the very depths of the bag.
I lunged across the room and jammed one end of a long piece of firewood beneath the doorknob and the other end wedged against the rough floorboards, bolting the door shut.
Boots thumped across the porch on the other side of the wall. Mind numbing fear closed in on me, surrounding me in dark clouds. The doorknob turned and sudden pressure hit the bolt, making the doorframe creak and moan.
Fists pummeled the door. “Miss Colton?” Ethan shouted. “Open the door.”
Darting to the first window, and making my way around the cabin, one after another, I slammed each shutter closed.
The doorknob twisted again. “Open the door, damn it,” Ethan shouted. He stopped pounding, then his body slammed into door.
The bolt lurched, bending from the pressure, and the steel nails jiggled in the hinges. The makeshift firewood brace held, but the whole cabin shook. Dust puffed like smoke from the walls and ceiling. Utterly terrified, I stood frozen, pointing the gun at the door—unable to breath.
“Go around to the back of the house and check the windows,” Ethan shouted.
I spun in circles, looking from the door to each of the four unprotected windows. While the shutters were closed, their makeshift bolts lay beside them, taunting me with the notion that I’d foolishly forgotten about them.
A gun fired—the sound vibrated through my chest, pounded in my ears, and echoed all around the cabin. I dropped to my knees and crouched in absolute terror.
A figure crashed through the back window, knocking over a small table as he hit the ground. I screamed and pointed the gun.
“Cora?” Flynn shouted as he stood, peering through the billowing dust. “Are yeh all right?”
Before I could answer, Ethan’s long rifle stuck through the broken window and he fired a shot, nearly hitting us both. Flynn threw me to the ground and fired back, but Ethan was no longer at the window. Growls and snarls snapped from outside, and Ethan’s terrified scream filled the air.
Snow.
“Stay in here,” Flynn shouted. He lunged for the door, kicked the brace free, and slammed the door shut behind him. Gunshots fired, each one vibrating and pounding like the ones before—through my ears and down deep into my chest.
I crawled along the floor toward the door. The buttons on my shirt scraped along the floorboards and a few snapped off.
The cabin walls shook as men fought hand-to-hand, slamming against the porch. Endless dust drifted from the ceiling.
Heeled boots stomped and scuffed, thrashing in all directions. Deep, heavy growls rumbled through the walls.
A gun fired twice, and as sudden as the violence erupted, everything fell silent.
I stood—my knees weak and shaking. Footsteps slid across the wood outside and my heart pounded. The door flung open, I jumped, and Flynn’s magnificent body filled the doorway.
With sweat dripping from his forehead, he strode over and wrapped his arms around me.
“I’m sorry. I had to do that,” he whispered.
I buried my face in his chest. Trembling, tears gushed uncontrollably.
His arms tightened. “Are yeh all right?”
“Where have you been?”
“Lookin’ for yeh.”
I looked up at him and wiggled free from his grip. “Looking for me? You left me in the hotel, alone. You vanished, and I didn’t know where you were or what had happened.”
“Ethan and his partner jumped me as I left the hotel, beat me up pretty bad.” He pointed to the bruises on his face and neck and the deep cuts on his forehead that were now covered in dried blood. “I’d hoped he hadn’t seen me when we entered the saloon, but—”
“But, he did,” I interrupted. “You told me nothing was wrong. You told me I wasn’t in danger and I shouldn’t worry.”
“I know what I said.” He rubbed his forehead, scraping off some of the dried blood. “I just wanted to fix everything, fix it all.”
“Ethan murdered my father, didn’t he?”
“I’m certain he did.” Flynn crumbled to the floor and tugged me down next to him.
“Did you know Ethan well?”
“Yes, and I never liked him. I told your father so, but who was I? Just some young kid who didn’t know the ways of the gold business.”
Sadness crept over me, and my fingers played with loose threads where a button used to be.
“After your father’s death, I visited the claim office. That’s when I learned he had been smart enough to leave Ethan’s name off the deed and had left it to his daughter should he die.”
Flynn paused for a moment and the crinkle in his eyebrows deepened. “I never expected to meet you that night in that bar. After getting a good look at yeh, I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to come up here all by yourself.” He looked at me and laughed. “Guess I was wrong.”
“I do have a knack for trouble, don’t I?”
Truth shadowed my flaws, but no amount of teasing could obliterate my foolish mistakes. A button gleamed in the filtered light, taunting me. My fingers traveled from the frayed threads to his shoulder, and I caressed the nape of his neck.
“Please don’t keep anything from me, ever again.”
“I swear, Cora, I never will.” He knelt in front of me. “It’s a promise . . . it’s a deal that I will swear to yeh on my life.”
“A deal in the Klondike? Are yeh bloody serious?” I laughed, mimicking his accent.
Chapter 23
As the spring temperatures brought the thaw, Flynn and I spent more days outside constructing a barn, green house, and wood shed, along with learning how to pan for gold.
“Is this how you do it?” I glanced at Flynn, repeating the tipping hand movement, from left to right to left to right, on the large pan. The water sloshed from my too fast pace and spilled over the side, sending bits of rock falling to the ground.
“Not quite,” Flynn laughed and continued to pound the nails into the new sluice box. “Unless of course yeh wish for the gold to remain in the river.”
I scooped up another chunk of earth and water, repeating the movement with a little more caution. The tiny rocks and dirt moved and separated, and golden stones began to glitter in the sunlight.
I plucked them from the water and threw them into the other pan next to me. In just under a month, Flynn and I had a bag full, and with a trip planned next week to Dawson for supplies, we wanted to collect as much as we could before we left.
“How many did you find?” Flynn said, kneeling down beside me.
“Another ten.”
He collected the stones and jingled them in his closed hand. “Well, Mrs. O’Neill, I do believe we have a pretty hefty chunk of money to collect in town.”
“Good, I wanted to wire Anne some money for the house repairs she wrote about.” I rose to my feet, stretching my tired back and legs. “I’m going to get lunch ready. Do you want anything special?”
Still kneeling in front of me, he turned to face me. The seductive smile on his face amused me as he crinkled his nose and cleared his throat.
“Food to eat, I mean.” I playfully slapped his shoulder and turned to enter the cabin. Within a few steps, he caught up to me, wrapping his arms around me and leaning in to whisper in my ear.
“Please don’t make your biscuits.”
“What was wrong with my biscuits?” I turned to face him, half annoyed and half amused.
“They were a little too thick last time.”
“They were not.”
“Cora, they nearly broke the table.”
Although, I wanted to be angry by his words, his smile and the laughing twinkle in his perfect eyes melted any and all anger. Not to mention, his complaint held complete validity.
“All right, I won’t make them.”
Striding across the newly constructed porch, a couple of wolves howled in the distance.
Just months ago, the lonely, hollow sound symbolized a certain death—rumbling into my chest and into the depths of my most hidden fears.
However, the meaning of the sound had changed.
I once believed I’d simply grown accustomed to the haunting, forest echoes, but I now know the coldness behind the sound doesn’t mean fear at all.
It means the freedom of life.
I sauntered to the edge of the porch. Leaning against the railing, I wrapped my arms around the tall post holding up the overhang.
Growing up in Seattle, so much of my life had been a limited existence. Incomplete, unfinished, and suffocating, and yet, I’d stupidly thought it to be exactly what I wanted.
How foolish I had been.
Flynn spun me around to face him and pressed me up against the outside wall of the cabin. The intense passion behind his movement weakened my knees. His hands slid up my neck to my cheeks, and then he kissed me.
I’d found the life destined for me to live, the love destined for me to return, and the man to marry and hold onto.
And, I found it all in the land of gold.
In the Land of Gold Page 20
