“I didn’t expect that.” Samantha regarded him seriously. “If you’ll let me have that shirt and anything else you need cleaned, I can wash them tomorrow.”
“How generous of you!”
Before she could snap out an answer, Kevin growled, “Enough, Joel. She’s trying to be nice.”
“Is she?” He snorted as he served himself another serving of the roast venison and vegetables. “She’s just doing what she promised to. That’s nothing to get excited about.”
“And what do you get excited about?” she demanded.
His sudden smile told her she had asked the question the wrong way, but he did not answer with the obscene response she expected. “What makes me excited, Samantha? One word will tell you. Gold! A river of gold! The same thing every man within fifty miles wants. Wealth enough never to have to cater to the demands of another man as long as I live.”
She stared at him, seeing deep honest emotion on his face. Tearing her gaze from him, she looked at Kevin.
As Kevin nodded agreement, she understood these men who controlled her life. Nothing mattered to them as much as the glittering prize which could buy them power, and all the material possessions they wanted—not the cabin, not their partnership, certainly not her.
At Fifteen Above for one day, Samantha had learned how she would fit in the men’s lives. More than ever, she was determined to regain her dreams before she did something foolish. Like forgiving one of them.
Chapter Five
The short chunk of wood tipped over on top of the stump just as Samantha was about to swing the small axe into it. She needed more wood for the fire. If she wanted kindling for cooking, she had to chop it herself. Once she had waited for Joel and Kevin to help. In the past week, she had received reminders that she wanted to be a full partner. She must work at the cabin while they labored at the river.
Setting the wood upright, she raised the axe again. She swore vehemently as the limb dropped on to its side once more. As she was about to try a third time, she heard laughter. Slowly glancing over her shoulder, she saw a smile nearly as bright as the glittering sun.
“Hello, Kevin,” she said, embarrassed that this pleasant man had seen the fierce temper she fought to keep banked. It had not been easy. Each day she had to bite her tongue to keep from retorting to Joel’s sarcasm.
Kevin continued to be gentle and caring. He made no secret that he longed to have her as his bride, and tried to win her heart with small kindnesses. Every evening he paused on the twilight walk home from the river to gather a handful of the blossoms growing along the hillsides. The colorful flowers sat prominently in the center of the table while they ate a late supper in the growing dark.
It was not easy to treat Joel as nicely as she did Kevin. Joel had been kind to her once in a while. He had taken half a day from his work at the river to make her loft more comfortable. Now she had some privacy, behind a cloth cutting off most of the view from the hole leading down to the main room.
Most of the time, though, he was far less helpful, challenging her with sharp words. She did not react. She was determined to prove he could not ruffle her perfectly polite front.
With a smile, she lowered the axe to the stump. She turned to Kevin, thinking she might be tempted to do something else with the sharp blade if Joel had come to bother her.
“I thought you might like to see the sluice, Samantha,” Kevin said, endearingly shy.
Wiping sweaty hands on her apron, she winced, feeling blisters along her right palm. Taking her hand, Kevin turned it to see the angry bubbles in her skin. He slowly raised her fingers to his lips, then kissed the ravaged palm lightly. She gasped.
“Does that feel better?” he asked.
She did not know what to say. Looking into Kevin’s earth brown eyes, she found all words had vanished from her mind.
“My mother often healed my small wounds with such a simple treatment.”
Samantha nodded. “Mine, too.”
His smile broadened as he said, “See? We have something in common. Mothers who love us.”
Drawing her hand from his, she refused to let her sharp pain show again. She did not want to risk his touching her again with such barely hidden desire. Eyes lowered, she said, “My mother is dead, Kevin.”
“I know. That saddens you still?”
“Very much.” Realizing how little she truly knew of the man beside her, she asked, “And your family?”
“My father is dead,” he said grimly. “My mother lives at home.”
“In Pennsylvania, right?” He had told her that on the trail.
He blushed. Any memory of their trip here and the bargain which had backfired brought deep red to his suntinted skin. He nodded, linking his arm with hers, and led her toward the river. As they walked, the whisper of rushing water which accompanied her daily chores became a rumble.
Samantha did not speak. Something about his parents caused Kevin pain. She could understand that all too well. After their parents died, all familial feeling seemed to leave her brother. After their mother’s funeral he began to act as if he despised her. He used every opportunity to show he considered her useless. She wondered sometimes if he had been bewitched by some dark spirit.
Sighing, she told herself not to think of past troubles. She had enough in her present to worry about. The crowded Ohio farmhouse and its critical residents would not be part of her life again.
“How did you get here so quickly from Pennsylvania?” she asked. “It took me months to come from Ohio. You said you and Joel arrived early, to get a claim close to the original site.”
“I was working on a tramp steamer along the Alaskan coast. When the news of the strike came, I jumped ship in Skagway and started north before word could reach the states. Joel had also been working along the coast, and made the decision at about the same time I did. We met along the Skagway Trail, decided to be partners, and hurried north to take this spot.”
The river was fettered by a parade of man made blockades. Once, this land had been free. She longed again to have seen it in the days before gold madness sent men careening northward in a desperate race for wealth—to have seen it when the hillsides had not been denuded of their trees and raped by men searching for gold, when moose and caribou ruled the land and shared it with the few who dared its icy hardships.
Shaking off her dreary thoughts, she said softly, “Skagway is far from Pennsylvania.”
“I left Nanticoke years ago. After my father died, I never felt at home there. Soon as I was able, I left.”
“I’m sorry.”
He smiled at her honest sympathy. With his usual gentleness, he touched her soft rounded shoulder. “Don’t be,” he said. “It was many years ago. The anguish of that time is behind me.”
“I don’t know how you can say that.” In a moment of instant communion, she stepped closer to him and put her hand on his arm. “I don’t think I will ever forget the pain of my father’s death. I wanted to be strong for my mother, when I really needed someone to help me.”
“What was he like?”
“Wonderful. Kind, loving, hardworking. But he always had time to spend a few minutes with me. When he died, I thought the world had ended.” She felt tears threaten.
His arm slipped around her, and he turned her to face him. Suddenly longing for comfort, she did not protest as he lifted her chin and tilted her mouth to his. Sensing he longed to press her tightly to him, she was glad he only kissed her gently.
When she moved, Kevin released her hastily. He did not pressure for more, although it was clear he wanted her love. Gazing at her lowered eyes, he wondered if she was as pleased with the kiss as he was.
Samantha tried to hide her emotions. Kevin kissed very well, but there had been no surge of desire when she pressed her lips to his. Thinking that the pleasant comfort of his strong arms should be enough, she stared at the ground. From the way his fingers stroked her arms, she knew he had felt something far more potent.
“I’m
sorry, Samantha.”
“Sorry?” She looked up at him in surprise, then saw his smile. “For what?”
“That I didn’t kiss you before now.” He pulled her back to him. With a soft chuckle, he held her.
Her body craving something she did not quite understand, she ran her hand along his arm. The bookish, myopic gaze from behind his glasses belied the tightly-coiled strength beneath his coarse shirt. When her fingers reached the hair curling over the edge of his collar, he turned her deeper into his embrace, his smile melting into her lips.
His mouth left hers to explore the line of her neck. He reached for the buttons on the back of her shirt.
With a gasp, Samantha pushed him away and straightened her disheveled blouse. Her need for comfort and her curiosity vanished. Realizing he had pushed her too far, Kevin moved so he could see her face.
“Samantha, I’m truly sorry.” No humor lightened his voice. “Forgive me. It’s simply that you are so lovely. I feel I have waited centuries to have you here with me.”
“Perhaps, but you should not be in such a hurry now!”
Confused by her rage, fighting his desire to soothe the sharp lines from her face with soft kisses, he did not touch her. Meekly, he said, “All I can do is hope you can forgive me for wanting you so much.”
A shiver running along her spine, she wondered if she were capable of loving any man. Each one who had ever held her had brought the same reaction. Caresses which should have been sweetly soul-sapping had always brought only distaste. Although Kevin’s kisses were not as horrid as some, she was in no hurry to sample them again.
An unwelcome thought forced its way into her mind. One man had caused her to yearn for him with a simple touch. He had made no effort to charm her, and she wanted to feel nothing but contempt for him. In spite of that, Joel Gilchrist had seared her heart with one stroke of his hand.
Wanting to escape this truth, she said, “I thought we were going to the sluice. When? I have work to do which won’t wait.”
“Of course, Samantha,” Kevin said, thoroughly chastised. He did not take her arm. Such an action would be rewarded with another cold answer. If he wanted to win this dark-eyed temptress, he had to let her make the rules of the game, play at the speed she set. He hoped he could recall that when he was alone with her.
Joel looked up from his work as they came down the hill. He placed his shovel in the pile of pay dirt they had collected by hard hours of digging into the frozen ground during the long winter. With the waters running high and fast now, they could run the soil and stones through the sluice to check it for longed-for gold.
“I wondered where you went,” he said tersely. “You’ve been gone nearly an hour.” Fatigue disfigured his bearded face. He dismissed Samantha with a swift glance.
“She’s a partner, Joel. I thought she should see what we are doing.”
Joel grumbled something and lifted another shovelful of muck. When Samantha stepped closer, he ignored her, although her soft scent reached out to tease him. She was silent as she watched him lift the heavy dirt into the foot-wide sluice. The sides were approximately ten inches high, but the water was just deep enough to wash over the earth he dumped in it.
Kevin put his hand on her arm, urging her to lean over to look inside the fifty-feet long, wooden waterway. He pointed out the series of riffles designed to catch the gold. Small pegs were connected by slats to sift the dirt from the heavier gravel. Others with narrower slats waited near the far end. The dirt would be stripped away by the water. What remained would be panned for the chance of gold.
“It seems such hard work,” she murmured.
Joel snorted. Without pausing in the steady rhythm of his shovel, he asked, “What did you expect? To see gold lying in fist-sized nuggets, just waiting for you to scoop them up? That’s what some fools hoped for, but they gave up and went home.”
Turning to face him, she snapped, “So would I, if I could!”
“Honey, you don’t know how much I wish I had the fare to pay for your journey back to that hick farm of yours in Ohio!” He propelled his shovel into the dirt and added, “Now, why don’t you get the hell out of our way and let us find enough gold to rid ourselves of you?”
Fists clenched against her waist, she glared at him. Every day, while Kevin became increasingly charming, Joel was more impossible to tolerate. She did not understand why he was angry with her. Certainly she had done as he had wanted, coming to the Yukon to be trapped in this ridiculous situation.
He looked at her in amusement, and she wanted to scream out her hatred of his patronizing attitude. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing her lose her closely guarded temper, she walked a short distance along the shore. Rage ate through her. Instead of shouting as she wished, she picked up a rock and flung it furiously into water. Its splash did not ease her frustration. She bent to select another.
Wide fingers settled around her wrist. She could not shake off the painful grip. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Joel’s brilliant blue eyes, heated with a fury which dimmed hers. She demanded, “Release me!”
“You stupid woman!” Joel drew her to her feet, still holding her hand. “Do you know how long Kevin and I worked in the inhuman Klondike winter to scrape this pay dirt from the hillside? Now you toss away what may be what we’ve slaved to find.”
“How was I to know?” To anyone but Joel Gilchrist she would have apologized, but his continual condescension brought out her basest emotions. “Don’t shout at me! There’s no reason to believe that one rock out of thousands would contain gold. All you want is a scapegoat for your ill-fortune!”
He tried to daunt her with his fierce glare, but she refused to cower before him. She peeled his hand from her right arm and stepped away from him. Then she left them both, running back toward the rustic cabin clinging to the side of the hill.
With a curse, he turned to his work. Gritting his teeth, he stepped again into the bone-gnawing cold of the water. He did not look up when his partner called his name softly.
“Joel, why are you treating her like this? You were so anxious for Samantha to get here.” Kevin kept his eyes on the sluice as he worked the dirt in hopes it would reveal the gold bearing gravel. “Give her a chance.”
“It’s been a week.”
“A week?” Kevin laughed without humor. “That’s not much time to adjust. What she expected to find waiting for her here didn’t exist.”
Joel dropped another shovelful into the sluice. The trough shivered as he struck the spade on the side of it to loosen the dirt clumped to the metal. “And whose fault was that? If you had told her the truth in Dawson—”
“She would never have come out here.” Hiding a smile, he remembered the way he had held her moments ago. Although he was honest with Joel, he wanted to keep this one thing to himself. “Look, Joel, I like her. She likes me. If you aren’t interested in her—”
“Who says I’m not?” He glared as fiercely as he had at Samantha, but with better results.
Kevin swallowed nervously. “You don’t act as if you like her.”
He snorted. “Like? I can’t imagine feeling anything that tame for Miss Samantha Perry. To tell you the truth, I don’t like her. But she is a pretty thing, and would be warm when winter nights grow cold.”
“Don’t talk about her as if she’s a whore.” Kevin leapt around the top end of the sluice, gripping the front of his partner’s shirt. “She’s a lady.”
Shoving away the slighter man, Joel regarded him thoughtfully. Kevin must be far more smitten with this Samantha Perry than he had guessed. He had been panting around her like a lad in the midst of his first infatuation, that should have been warning enough.
For some reason he did not understand, this bothered him. He had been honest when he said he did not like Samantha. She was a woman who would nag and boss and make a man give her a conventional life. That did not appeal to him. What appealed to him were her curves, accented by the plain clothes she wore. She need
ed no ruffles and deep decólletage to draw a man’s eyes.
“A lady?” He laughed to the sound of water running over the stones. “What makes you think that? Because she hasn’t invited you to sleep with her yet?”
Joel should have been prepared for his partner’s rage, but he had failed to reckon with the strength of Kevin’s adoration of Samantha. He fell before the smaller man. His astonished shout ended in a gurgle as his head went beneath the icy waters. Exploding out of the water, he stepped away from the sluice. If they were going to fight, he did not want to risk that precious piece of equipment.
Kevin raced after him, his eyes narrowing as he measured the distance between them, his mouth a grim straight line. Leaping forward, he raised his fist. Joel caught it easily and flipped him. His body slapped the water with a dull sound. Frigid drops sprayed Joel.
“Are you finished?” he demanded.
Kevin rose slowly, shaking his head to remove the water from his eyes. “No, dammit!”
This time Joel did not step aside until the last minute. Kevin slipped on the stones beneath his feet and slid into his partner’s grasp. He fought to escape, but he was no match for Joel’s muscular arm.
“Enough?” growled Joel.
Hearing a gurgle which he took for assent, he cursed and shoved the man away from him. Kevin leaned forward with his hands on his thighs, struggling to regain his breath.
Watching him, Joel said, “Ask yourself why any woman would want to come here, unless she was running from something in her past.”
“She-she t-t-told us about—” Kevin worked to get the words through his aching throat.
“I know. The brother and the nasty in-laws. Sounds a little bit like Cinderella to me. She didn’t need to come out here just to bag herself a man. There must have been someone in Ohio willing to take her.” He shrugged. “That leads me to believe your paragon might have been lying to us as much as we lied to her.” Picking up his shovel, he said, “Let’s get back to work.”
Sure the fight was over, Joel dug his wet spade deep into the hillside. He should have guessed she would cause trouble. They should have sent her packing. He frowned. He did not want to think of the reasons which made him hesitate that first day.
At the Rainbow's End Page 7
