“Because I mean it.”
His fingers were now on the ties of her camisole, and Maddie wasn’t sure if that was why her heart skipped several beats, or if it was because she believed him. “We really should unload the boat,” she said, feeling as if she should at least attempt to pretend she’d thought of little else but him since he’d rowed down river this morning. The idea of doing exactly what they were right now lived in her mind day and night.
“We can’t unload the boat,” Lucky answered, hoisting her into his arms. “What I bought is too heavy for me to lift alone. I’ll need one of the brothers to help me.”
“I can help.”
“It’s too heavy for you to help.”
Slightly miffed, Maddie pushed at his shoulders. “I can—”
“No, you can’t,” he insisted, and stopped any additional protest with a kiss.
His swirling tongue sent her senses reeling, yet indignation was still coiled in her stomach. She cut the kiss short to ask, “Why? What did you buy this time?”
A flash of frustration crossed his expression as he set her down next to their bed. “A stove.”
“A stove?” Maddie took a step back as her annoyance increased. “Why on earth would you buy a stove?”
He sat down on the bed—which now hosted a mattress he’d hauled from town a couple of weeks ago—and tugged off his boots. “Because the days are already getting shorter—in a month or so we’ll need the heat.”
She knew all that, yet a stove had to have cost a fortune. A fortune they didn’t have. “You’re right,” she said, “that we don’t need to unload it. You can take it back tomorrow. We’ll just dress warmer.”
“Dressing warmer won’t do, Maddie.” He stood and shrugged out of his shirt.
The sight was as terrifying as it was pleasurable. He knew it, too, how easily distracted such things made her. Afraid of losing steam, she insisted. “We don’t need a stove.” Putting space between them, she crossed the room. “What we need is gold. At the rate you’re spending it, we’ll be in Alaska for years.”
“No, we won’t,” he said. “I haven’t spent an ounce of the gold we’ve found, but while we are here, I want us to be as comfortable as possible.”
It was true, he hadn’t spent any of the gold they’d found. That bothered her more than if he had. From all Jack had told her, Lucky had enough money and really didn’t need any gold, which meant he didn’t need her, either. “Gold mining isn’t supposed to be comfortable,” she said.
He’d crossed the room and pulled a paper-wrapped package out of one of the packs he’d carried in. “Here, maybe this will make you smile.”
Maddie didn’t want to smile. She didn’t want a stove, either, or to be comfortable. Lately, she wasn’t overly sure what she did want. Maintaining a focus on finding gold had grown hard, and dreaming of a future had grown blurry, too. He was the reason. Having what they had right now was what she wanted. Just being together. But that wasn’t enough for him, and would never be. The way he kept buying stuff told her that.
Snapping the strings in two, he folded back the paper and then lifted out material, as yellow as sunshine, before her eyes. Her heart convulsed. It was a dress. The most beautiful one she might have ever seen. It had lace, too, thin and delicate, sewn in a V shape down the front and around the hem and cuffs. With smarting eyes, Maddie looked away.
“I don’t need a new dress, Lucky. Whenever would I wear something like that?”
“Whenever you want.”
“One trip to the river and the entire hem would be stained,” she said, “and it probably doesn’t wash well, either, and most likely needs to be ironed.”
“Then, I’ll buy you an iron.”
She walked away again, this time toward the bed. He’d turned her into a woman. That was what he’d done. At little more than a drop of a hat tears formed in her eyes, and she didn’t like that any more than she did everything else. A woman. A silly woman who thought about nothing more than fancy dresses and places to wear them.
“Why do you have to be so stubborn about everything?”
The despondency in his voice struck her in her most vulnerable spot. Her heart. Shaking her head, she admitted, “I’m not trying to be stubborn.”
He was behind her again and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Then, what is it?”
Even while mixed up and confused, his hands felt wonderful. Fighting tears, she admitted, “I don’t know how to iron.”
“I’ll iron it for you.” He spun her around and wiped the moisture off her cheeks with his thumbs. “I just want to make you happy, Maddie.”
She wanted to say she was happy. That he made her happy. But that scared her. She didn’t want a man to make her happy. Never had.
In the end, his kiss prevented her from speaking, and the tenderness of it played mayhem on her insides. Wanting him sparked anew and she gave in, wanting as well to forget her fears, her frustrations.
He made that happen in no time, with kisses and caresses that soon had her stretched out on the bed, in complete submission with arms open, waiting for him to shed the last of his clothing and join her.
The opportunities to indulge herself in actions for no other reason than pleasure had been few and far between in Maddie’s life, up until meeting Lucky. It was still inconceivable, yet absolutely gratifying.
Rather than climbing on the bed beside her, Lucky went to the foot and parted her legs by grasping both ankles. He kissed his way up her shins, over her knees and along her thigh. By the time he reached her juncture, she was wild with need. In tune to her in ways she’d never understand, Lucky took her with his mouth with a feral roughness that had her thinking of nothing but the pleasure he provided.
Maddie was immediately swept into the throes of a promising journey. The hours of waiting for him, and her greed, played against her. His expertise brought her to the brink swiftly, and a matter of moments later she reached her breaking point. As the eruption sent her reeling over the edge, she bit her lips together to keep from shouting his name.
She was still in her downward spiral when Lucky eased on top of her. His entrance was divine, and she wrapped her arms around him. Every act of loving him thrilled her, but this was the most wonderful of all: when they became one. Pure, undiluted ecstasy. Two souls spiraling upward as a single unit.
This was what she wished would last forever. It confirmed she wasn’t alone. That was what worried her like it never had before, and she wasn’t sure why, expect for the fact Lucky had never promised he’d stay at her side. That they’d be together beyond Alaska.
A sense of despair gripped her, and Maddie wrapped her legs around Lucky’s, rising faster and harder against each of his thrusts. Their union grew more frantic, a pairing of wills as well as bodies, and it went on for a long time, reaching pinnacles and plateaus that sent her as close to delirium as anything ever could.
She fought her surrender, holding on until it was no longer possible. Her jubilation, coupled with wave after wave of fulfillment rushing over her body, was so stunning tears once more stung her eyes.
Lucky let out a low and lusty groan as their bodies swiftly separated, and Maddie held on to him with all the strength she could muster as his body shuddered a final time.
Shortly afterward, when he attempted to roll off her, she squeezed him again.
“Don’t,” she pleaded. “Please don’t move.”
“I’m too heavy,” he answered. “I’ll crush you.”
“No, you won’t.”
He tucked his hands beneath her and held her tight. “Are you still mad I bought a stove?” he asked a few quiet moments later.
“Yes,” she answered truthfully. “We don’t need a stove.”
His gruff laugh filled the air, and grew louder when she squealed at the way he rolled off
her, pulling her with him until he was on his back and she was lying atop him. “Next month,” he said, “you’ll thank me for that stove.”
* * *
Weeks later, long after the stove had been installed and used several times, Maddie was still mad, and Cole was wrought with frustration. He’d never let a woman put him in such a state before, and wasn’t pleased it was happening this time. It was all a bittersweet situation. Maddie’s anger seemed to increase her passion. Their almost nightly unions were heated and phenomenal, which left Cole as dangerous as a forest of dry timber. A mere spark, like a twinkle in her eyes or a playful giggle, ignited a wildfire of need to have her, possess her.
There was more, though. He couldn’t help but admit he had it all—a beautiful, wonderful woman everyone thought was his. But she wasn’t. Not really. And there wasn’t much he could do about that.
He wasn’t the only one fixated on Maddie. Every man for miles around smashed their fingers on purpose, just to have the chance for her to examine their injury. The older ones looked upon her like a long-lost daughter, doting on her endlessly, and the younger ones wanted to be him. They watched closely, hoping he’d make a blunder so they could step in. With the way they hovered, he couldn’t let it slip they weren’t married.
Cole was kicking himself for how he’d insisted Maddie be neighborly with the other miners. She’d taken it to heart, was now interacting with the others regularly, and with charm. He, too, acted hospitably, but mainly because it was the best way to keep an eye on the others, especially those who thought they might have a chance to gain her trust, or more—his place in her bed.
He should have asked her to marry him when he’d had the chance, but she didn’t want that. All of her talk of life after Alaska, the big house she spoke of, complete with servants, never included him. He’d never wanted that in the past, and still didn’t, but he did want Maddie. However, other worries were setting in.
Gold mining wasn’t working out so well. They’d found a good amount, but when divided, his portion would barely put a dent in rebuilding DuMont Shipping, and his reserves were running thin. The amount of money he continuously spent in Bittersweet was part of what kept men trekking up the river, thinking he must be hitting it big. He hadn’t, and going home broke was not an option. Never in his life had he worried about running out of money, but he’d put all his reserves in this investment. In making Maddie comfortable while finding a way to help his family.
That was the other part that kept men trekking past their camp. Word of the female miner—a beautiful one—had spread quickly. Truman said barely a miner entered town who wasn’t talking about Maddie.
“We have to move,” she was pointing out once again. “That’s all there is to it.”
They’d had this same conversation the past few days, but this morning, she was more adamant. Stomping around inside the tent while rain pelted against the canvas as it had for the past three days, she resembled a caged critter. He could relate. Everything was wet, damp and shrouded with an oppressing gloom left by gray skies.
“It’s getting too late in the year to move camp,” he answered, searching for a dry pair of socks. Not that it mattered; as soon as he tugged on his boots they’d be damp, too.
“No one’s found anything for days. Weeks. Folks are heading farther upriver. That’s what we need to do, too.”
She was flapping her hands as she talked, and her animated actions had a grin tugging at his lips. Smiling might just set her off like a blasting cap, so he averted his gaze and moved to where his coat hung near the stove.
“We’d have to file on new claims. By the time we did that and moved all this,” he waved a hand around the tent, “it’d be winter.”
“If you hadn’t bought all this stuff, moving wouldn’t be any more work than coming here had been.” She stopped near the stove and held her hands over the heat.
Grinning at how she enjoyed the stove while insisting they didn’t need it, he kissed her cheek as he walked past. “There’s still gold here, darling. Plenty more to go with the bags you’ve hidden beneath the floor of the outhouse.” The outhouse was another thing she seemed to appreciate, though she never admitted that, either.
“No, there’s not.”
Cole shrugged into his coat. There had to still be gold here. Whiskey Jack was still finding color, and they would, too. He didn’t regret spending almost every dime he had, but he was starting to worry. If he didn’t find gold, lots of it soon, they’d barely have enough money to sail south before winter, and staying here was not an option.
“Where are you going?” she asked. “It’s too wet to mine.”
“I’m going to feed the animals, they—”
“The animals,” she grumbled.
“You don’t seem to mind eating the eggs,” he retorted.
She rolled her eyes as if he was shooting blarney, and a chill of fury swept up his spine. “And you hover over that stove more often than I do. You don’t seem to mind the fact we aren’t standing in a foot of mud right now, either, like every other miner out here.”
“If not for this wood floor, we’d be a mile upriver, finding gold,” she shot back. “Like every other miner out here.”
“We’re not moving upriver, Maddie,” he stated firmly.
She huffed and glared and huffed again. “Fine, don’t move upriver. I’ll go by myself.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Yes, I will, and you can’t stop me.”
He crossed the room and took her shoulders. “Yes, I can, and I will.”
She twisted from his hold. “No, you can’t. No man will ever stop me from doing what I want. Not even you.”
Anger was blistering his insides, mainly because he knew her. Maddie didn’t make idle threats.
For a split second he saw his grandmother in Maddie. Her fierce determination. When you love someone, you find a way for both of you to be happy, she’d once told him. Gran had done that. Found a way. She’d built warehouses to sell all the treasures his grandfather found on his sailing adventures. Though his grandfather had died long ago, his grandmother had never stopped buying and selling wares. Her ingenuity had built his family’s dynasty.
Cole spun around. He was damn close to failing at finding the money to rebuild the family business, and he didn’t like it.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he growled.
Hands on her hips and cheeks flushed, she held a defiant glare on him. “Just because we’ve—” Her gaze flashed to the bed and she started over. “I told you before I won’t have a man telling me what to do.”
Drawing in a deep breath through his nose to keep his temper intact, Cole smiled. “Fine.”
Clearly stricken, the color in her cheeks heightened. “Fine?” she asked.
“Yes, fine,” he repeated and pulled open the door.
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
Cole turned, and after eyeing her from head to toe, which darkened the color of her cheeks a bit more, he tipped his hat with a finger and thumb. “You don’t want a man telling you what to do any more than I want a woman telling me what I’ll do.” With that thought screaming in his mind, he left. He didn’t want a woman telling him what to do. That hadn’t changed and never would.
* * *
Maddie flinched at the slamming of the door and swallowed hard, trying to dissolve the pain burning the back of her throat. Fine. She certainly didn’t need him.
Anguish, stronger than ever, welled inside her, and so did anger, and she stomped one foot. A useless, silly action, but she couldn’t come up with anything better. Damn him. All his talk about adventures, things he’d seen, made her want to see things she’d never even known about. She wanted things, too.
Like beds. Before meeting him, she’d never wanted a huge, soft bed, complete with pillows and
sheets. She’d gotten used to them, though, and didn’t want to go back to living without them. Floors, either, or outhouses or food that actually tasted good.
Maddie pressed a hand to her forehead. In truth, none of those things mattered. She’d lived without such luxuries before and could do so again. It was living without Lucky that had her insides feeling as if someone had just gutted her like a fish.
She could do it—live without him—she just didn’t want to. The truth of that filled her with a burning intensity and left her afraid to swallow. If she did, she’d start crying, and that she would not do.
Her hands, balled into fists, began to quiver as the pain in the pit of her stomach swelled. Refusing to be overcome, Maddie spun around, but then paused. It was only midday, but her chores were all done, and rain still battered against the canvas roof. Lucky would be soaked, could likely catch his death of cold.
“Good for him,” she muttered in an attempt to battle with herself. It didn’t work very well. Worry now joined everything else swirling around inside her. As did regret. She should never have said all she had. In actuality, she didn’t want to move. Leastwise, not without him.
Chapter Ten
Hours later, Maddie froze in her pacing upon hearing Homer’s screech. Heart tumbling at how the bird always signaled Lucky returning home, she rushed to the door.
Her shoulders drooped as Jack, holding Homer inside his dripping wet coat, hurried forward. Digging up a smile, she held the door open, silently inviting them in.
“I was hoping the rain would let up come nightfall,” Jack said, putting the bird down before shedding his canvas coat.
Homer squawked and flapped his wings, ridding them of water.
“It’s coming down harder now than before,” Maddie pointed out.
“Nice and warm in here, though,” Jack said, leaving muddy footprints as he meandered closer to the stove. “Cole knew what he was doing when he hauled this stove home. Everyone else is shivering and sopping wet.”
A Fortune for the Outlaw's Daughter Page 14
