He did not release her hand as he bent to pick up the kerosene lantern. His eyes held hers while he led her to the second stall of the small barn. Placing the lantern on a hook over their heads, he spread a wool blanket on the bits of hay spilled on the floor. He dropped to his knees, bringing her with him. The thick odor of the horse increased as he leaned her back on the saddle blanket.
A smile settled on her lips as he kissed her cool cheek. His breath warmed her and started the conflagration deep in her soul. Wrapping her arms around him, she urged him closer. Coherent thoughts vanished when he placed his mouth against her throat. While his tongue seared a river of desire across her skin, the only thing in her mind was satisfying the ravenous longings within her. He reached for the buttons of her blouse. Joel suddenly paused. It could not be above zero in the barn. If he disrobed her as he wished, she could suffer chilblain despite the closeness of their loving bodies. He stifled a moan of frustration. Swearing under his breath, he wished Kevin had been caught by the blizzard and snowed in in Dawson for the entire winter.
When he bent to whisper in her ear, he felt her tremble beneath him. He smiled, for he knew it was not the cold which made her react like this. It was the scorching power of their love.
She did not comprehend what he was saying until he repeated his warning. Lost in the delights of being with the man she yearned for every waking hour and during arousing dreams which left her soaked with sweat, she barely heard him at first. Then, realizing he was saying they must wait a bit longer, she groaned. “No, Joel!”
Cupping her face in his hands, he murmured, “Sweetheart, I know how you feel, but I won’t risk you.”
“I want you to love me.” Her brown eyes entreated. “Please!”
“You don’t know how much I want to, Sam.”
With her hand against his face, she steered his mouth toward hers. Softly she whispered, “We may not be able to touch each other all over as we wish, but we can—” She blushed prettily, still too shy to ask for the loving she craved.
Instantly he understood. He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “We can, my love, but I didn’t know if you wished to make love in such a limited way.”
“Any way,” she breathed in the second before his mouth covered hers. Her words drove the last of his hesitation into oblivion.
Closing her eyes, she let the world vanish. She let her fingers explore the breadth of his back. His body pressed her deeper into the unyielding ground. When he lifted the hem of her dress to stroke the length of her flannel covered legs, she entwined them with his.
His fingers were reaching for the buttons to loosen the collar of her blouse when he felt her hand halting him. He started to ask what was wrong, then heard the same sound she had—Kevin’s footsteps.
“Damn!” he growled. “Why can’t he leave us alone?”
He looked down into her sad face and knew the truth. If he had told Kevin, the explosion would have past, and they could freely express their love. He had intended to tell his partner the truth, but he did not want to hurt his friend. Then Kevin had a relapse of the pneumonia in the first weeks of the new year and he had not wanted to interfere with Kevin’s recovery. Only in the past week had Samantha any break from the sickroom.
“Wait!” she gasped. “If—”
Gently he said, “Stay here, Sam.” He stroked her hair which had somehow loosened to fall across them in a silken river. “I will deal with Kevin.”
“Maybe we should tell him the truth. How much longer can we lie?” Her tear brightened eyes asked the same question.
“Later, honey.”
He rose to meet Kevin at the door. Redoing her jacket, Samantha pressed close to the concealing wall of the wooden stall. To her ears, Joel’s voice was huskier than normal when he answered his partner. She wondered if she could sound as calm.
“All done out here, Kev. How about a cup of coffee to ease the chill in our bones? I think it is going to be damned cold tonight.”
She bit her lip as she heard Kevin’s reply. “Have you seen Samantha? She went out over half an hour ago, and this is the time for—”
“For what?” asked Joel, instantly seizing the chance to gain the offensive to keep his friend from realizing the truth.
“Nothing. It’s not important now. She isn’t back yet.”
“She isn’t?” Joel’s astonishment seemed honest. “She may have gone up to the spring for water. I heard her say she wanted some clean water.”
“In the dark?”
A chuckle filled the room. “Do you think Samantha Perry is afraid of the dark?” The light flickered as he motioned with the lamp. “Come on, Kevin. Let’s walk up the hill and see if she went that way.”
Giving them time to walk far enough so her furtive form would not be visible, Samantha raced to the cabin. Her chest heaved with the effort necessary to run through the wind, which cut into her on each breath. Tears burned in her eyes, and her throat felt raw with words she could not allow to escape—words of her love for the man whose face filled her dreams, whose hands and body turned her fantasies into reality.
She was still fumbling with her parka’s thick buttons when the men entered the room. Rage emanated from Kevin, so strong it dwarfed her own unhappiness.
“Where in hell have you been?” he shouted with rare fury.
Hating the need to lie, she tried to smile. “I’m sorry to worry you. I went out for a walk with Bear.”
“You should know better,” he snapped. “It’s too cold for a lark with the dogs. Stay close to the house. If you wandered away and got hurt, you might freeze to death before we could find you in the dark.”
“I understand.” She lowered her eyes and crossed the room to stand by the stove. When she heard the door close, she looked up in surprise.
Joel stood behind her. He put his hands on her trembling shoulders. “He has gone out for a minute.”
“You must tell him the truth!” she urged. “Or do you want me to do it? He is going to be hurt, Joel, but delaying won’t help. He—”
“He what?” When she did not answer, he gripped her arms and pulled her tight to him. “Dammit! Forget him!”
“Forget him? How? How much longer must we wait until I feel your arms around me again? Another two months?”
His eyes narrowing, he scrutinized her face. “Why this sudden urging to be honest with him. You’ve been so eager for a confrontation lately. Are you trying to gain something by forcing this issue? You and he were outside for quite a while yesterday. Could it be—?”
Her face paled as she gasped, “Joel!” He thought she shared with his partner the sweet love she wanted to give only to him! Sickened, she was more surprised than he was when she felt her hand strike his face. Instantly, she dissolved into tears. The days, weeks, months of waiting for the moment when they could be together had driven her to this.
Instead of reacting with angry frustration, he put his arms around her. He murmured, “Forgive me, Sam. I didn’t mean to suggest you … Never mind. I love you honey. I’ll tell him soon.”
“But when?”
“I don’t know,” he said, feeling her anguish. “Sam, I honestly don’t know.”
Joel did try. More than once while the two men were working by the river, heaping the piles of pay dirt to sluice as soon as they could break through the ice, he brought up the subject of Sam and the decision they had expected her to make. Each time, Kevin waved aside the words. Kevin seemed sure that Sam would choose to become Mrs. Houseman. No hints could change that opinion.
When his partner disappeared for an hour each afternoon, offering only a flimsy excuse, Joel’s curiosity was aroused. If he knew where Kevin went, he might be able to use the time to be with Sam. One afternoon, allowing the blond to get far enough ahead so he could follow easily, he crept after him.
Shocked when Kevin went directly to the cabin, Joel watched from a stand of trees, as Sam greeted him at the door. He could see her wiping her hands on her apron. The light sound
of her voice carried on the breeze, but the words were lost in the distance.
Leaning against a tree, he fought his jealousy. Sam had told him more than once her love belonged solely to him. He believed that, for her honesty blared from her pretty face. She was not like him.
He forced jealous thoughts from his head. Ignoring the slap of the wind against his face, he tried to puzzle out why Kevin had a rendezvous with Sam every afternoon. Then he smiled at his own foolishness and pushed away from the prickly bark. If he wanted to know the truth, all he had to do was walk in and see for himself.
Samantha was pointing out the passage she had selected for Kevin to read when the door opened. She felt him tense, but she was glad these lessons had been discovered. She was tired of the need for secrecy.
Joel came in chatting about some work he needed help with, tracking snow in his wake. In mid-word he paused to ask, “What’s this?”
“It’s a slate,” answered Kevin tersely.
“And chalk and books.” A broad smile lightened Joel’s face. Clapping his partner on the back, he crowed, “So this is what you’ve been doing? Going to school.”
“Samantha thought I should hone my skills.”
Joel raised an irreverent eyebrow at the obvious exaggeration of the truth, but said only, “I think that’s great. How long has this been going on?”
“Since Kevin came home from Dawson,” Samantha said quietly, noticing Joel’s shock before he masked it. When he looked at her, she saw her simple answer had told him things Kevin would not understand. Things about guilt and compassion and friendship.
Joel slapped the table, making the chalk bounce. “Stay here, Kev, and finish up. I wouldn’t want to make Professor Perry angry by stealing her star pupil. How long’ll you be?”
“About an hour.” Kevin was clearly shocked by his partner’s reaction. A swell of pride coursed through him. Since they had partnered, he had admired Joel Gilchrist for his intelligence, and his ability to deal with people and this strange life in the Yukon. Now Joel seemed awed by his modest accomplishment. If Joel felt that way, surely Samantha must be impressed as well.
He glanced at her smiling face as she told his partner she would see him later. Yes, Samantha had told him over and over that she was proud of him. She often alluded to some of the letters she had written them. It had been one of his greatest regrets he could not read them.
A grin brightened his face. He could read them now. Tonight, with the truth known, he would ask Joel where he had put them. While the other two sat by the stove, he would read the precious letters in the privacy of the loft.
That thought warmed him all through the day. He waited patiently through the hours of working by the river and their convivial supper. When Samantha took the scraps out to give the dogs, he decided this was his opportunity. He had not wanted to ask for them in front of her, afraid of reminding her of things she had written so long before.
With a preamble, he asked, “Joel, can you get me the letters from Samantha?”
“I don’t have them,” Joel said without looking up from his task at the table. “I burned them.”
“You did what?”
Joel continued fitting a new handle into the shovel. “I burned the letters. Hey!” Kevin had reached past the tool to grab his shirt. “What in hell are you doing? Can’t you see I am trying to work?”
“Dammit!” Kevin wrenched the shovel away from the startled Joel and threw it to the floor. His face was contorted by his effort to control his temper. “You destroyed those letters without asking me?”
Standing, Joel motioned for his friend to calm himself. Studying the blond man’s twisted face, he knew he could only soothe him by explaining why he had done it. At the time he made the decision to destroy them, he had not foreseen Kevin being able to read the letters they had shared all last winter.
“Whoa, Kevin. After she arrived and things didn’t work as we’d hoped, I thought she might not want to be held to some of the things she had written. She spoke of love to a man who didn’t exist. If they were brought out, it might have caused her harm. So I threw them in the stove one night.”
“And you didn’t bother to ask me if I wanted them?”
“Why? You couldn’t read them, and I’d told you more than a dozen times what was in each letter.” He shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
“You should have asked me! I can read now. I wanted to see for myself what she wrote to us. I—” The door opened.
A gust of frigid air blew Samantha into the room. She smiled as she pulled off her coat and hung it on the peg by the door. “Brrr. I think we may even freeze the Pain-Killer tonight. I thought the winter was leaving us. If it gets much colder, perhaps we should bring the dogs in here. What do you think?”
When she did not get an answer, she looked up from her task of removing her boots. Her smile disappeared as she saw their strained expressions.
“What’s wrong?”
Kevin stamped to the ladder and climbed into the loft. She started to follow, but Joel caught her arm. “Leave him alone,” he ordered softly.
Putting her hand over his, she whispered, “You told him?”
“Yes,” he whispered with a short derisive laugh, “I told him, but not what you think. I told him I burned the letters you sent us.”
“Why did you tell him that?”
Releasing her arm, he sat on the bench, looked into her startled face, and repeated what he had told Kevin. Finished, he asked in a hushed tone, “Why are you staring at me like that?”
She dropped to her knees beside him. Her fingers, cramped with the cold, gripped his. “Because I love you,” she whispered. “To think that while I hated you so much, you were doing something nice like this.”
“You hated me?” His voice low, he stroked her cheek and watched her eyes close with pleasure. He was sure if she had been a kitten, with fur soft as her skin, she would have purred at his touch. “When?”
“Until I loved you.” She stroked the strong line of his thigh, discovering his trousers were stiff with the cold. Even in the cabin, it was below zero. Oblivious, they regarded each other with love.
“And when was that?”
“When you helped me into the cabin, that first day. I knew from your touch. A man with such tenderness couldn’t be the ass you were trying to portray.”
He chuckled low, and whispered, “An ass? Is that what you thought me?”
“Still do, sometimes,” she teased. Then, jumping to her feet, she lost her happy expression. “Joel, I’m going to talk to Kevin. Let me soothe him.”
Putting his hand on her arm again, he said softly, “Sam, he’s pretty mad. He might—”
“Kevin?” She laughed with a lightness she did not feel, aware of the revelation they must make to their partner. She could not think of that now. She must help him realize the letters were of little importance. “Kevin would never do anything to hurt me, or anyone. He’s the gentlest man I know.”
Joel frowned, wondering. He had found Kevin punishing one of the dogs for breaking into their makeshift meat locker, where they had stored a dressed caribou for fresh meat during the winter. They had traded their rifle and all the ammunition for it. It had cost them dearly, but there was no time for hunting. They certainly did not want the dogs eating their reserved food.
The animal Kevin had been beating whimpered and cowered. Sled dogs did not daunt easily, so Joel wondered what he had not seen. When he suggested the dog had been punished enough, a stranger had stared at him out of Kevin’s dark eyes. Joel had recoiled at the hint of madness, but when it faded he wondered if he had really seen it.
He recalled that incident now as Sam climbed the ladder, thinking that Kevin was surely more angry at him than he had been at the dog. Joel moved from the stove to sit near the ladder. Sam must not be made to suffer. With a shiver, he wrapped his arms around his chest. He hoped she would not be long.
Samantha knocked on the floor. Her eyes widened as
she saw the mess the men had made of her small room. Clothes hung haphazardly over the line which once had held her hastily arranged changing screen. The blanket she had put there was crumpled at the foot of the bed.
“Kevin?” she asked softly.
He appeared from the shadows past the bed. “Samantha, what are you doing up here?”
She forced a smile. “May I come up? I’d like to talk to you.”
“All right.”
She hoisted herself into the room and resettled her layers of skirts around her. Sometimes it felt as if she was wearing a hundredweight of clothes, all hanging from her middle.
“Kevin, it doesn’t matter,” she said bluntly.
“Doesn’t matter?” He scowled, but it did not hide his pain. “I wanted to read those letters, Samantha. They were important to me, to us.”
“They are in the past.” His blustering faded at her calm words. “That woman who wrote to you and Joel doesn’t exist now. No one can live in the Yukon, and be unchanged. Forget about the past, Kevin. Remember the dream which brought you here. The dream of a future.”
Walking across the room, he put his hands on her shoulders and she tensed involuntarily. He felt this. She could tell by the way his eyes narrowed. She wondered if he understood the truth of her words. She was very different from the child-woman who came to Dawson almost a year ago. Since then, she had matured and found a real love to replace her fantasy one.
“Forgive Joel,” she continued. “He didn’t mean to hurt you. He only wanted to spare me from embarrassment.”
“And you appreciate that?”
“Of course.” She tried to ignore his intense stare, but it was impossible. Knowing what he might ask soon if she did not end this, she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s cold, Kevin. Let’s go back downstairs.”
For a moment, she did not think he would take his hands from her. Then he stepped away and motioned for her to precede him. She flashed him an unsure smile and carefully climbed down the ladder, remembering to be careful at each crosspiece.
At the stove, allowing the men privacy to settle their differences, she felt her heart pound with love when Joel apologized sincerely to his partner. She was not the only one who had changed since her arrival at Fifteen Above.
At the Rainbow's End Page 22
