Breathing quickly, shivering, Mariah knelt next to the small hole in the mountainside that had been dug by a man long dead. Inside, a vein of quartz gleamed. It was taller than she was, thicker, and running through it like sunlight through water was pure gold.
Slowly Mariah reached out. She couldn't feel the gold with her chilled fingers, but she knew it was there. With both hands she grabbed a piece of rocky debris and used it as a hammer. Despite her clumsiness, chunks of quartz fell away. Pure gold gleamed and winked as she gathered the shattered matrix in both hands. She shoved as much as she could in her oversize jacket pockets, then stood up. The weight of the rocks staggered her.
Very slowly Mariah worked her way back down the side ravine to the point where she had left her horse. It was waiting patiently, tail turned toward the wind that searched through the main ravine. Mariah tried to mount, fell, and pulled herself to her feet again. No matter how she concentrated, she couldn't get her foot through the stirrup before she lost her balance.
And her pocket was jeering at her again. It had jeered at her before, but she had ignored it.
Mariah realized that it was the cellular phone that was jeering. With numb fingers she groped through the pieces of rock and gold until she kept a grip on the phone long enough to pull it from her pocket and answer. The rings stopped, replaced by the hushed, expectant sound of an open line.
"Mariah? Mariah, it's Cash."
The phone slid through Mariah's fingers. She made a wild grab and caught the unit more by luck than skill.
"Mariah, talk to me. Where are you? Are you warm enough?"
"Clumsy. Sorry." Mariah's voice sounded odd to her own ear. Thick. Slow.
"Where are you?"
"Devil's Peak. But isn't hell warm? I'm warm, too. I think. I was cold after the rain. Now I'm tired."
The words were subtly slurred, as though she had been drinking.
"Are you on the north side of Devil's Peak?" Cash asked, his voice as hard and urgent as the wind.
Mariah frowned down at the phone as she struggled with the concept of direction. Slowly a memory of the map formed in her mind.
"And … west," she said finally.
"Northwest? Are you on the northwest side?"
Mariah made a sound that could have meant anything and leaned against her patient horse. The animal's warmth slowly seeped into her cold skin.
"Are you above timberline?" Cash asked.
"No."
"Are there trees around you?"
"Rocks, too. Gray. Looked like snow. But wasn't."
"Look up the mountains. Can you see me?"
Mariah shook her head. All she could see was the ravine. "Can't." She thought about trying to mount the horse again. "Tired. I need to rest."
"Mariah. Look up the mountain. You might be able to see me."
Grumbling, Mariah tried to climb out of the ravine. Her hands and feet kept surprising her. She persisted. After a while she could at least feel her feet again, and her hands. They hurt. She still couldn't claw her way out of the crumbling ravine, however.
"I can't," she said finally.
"You can't see me?"
"I can't climb out of the ravine." Mariah's voice was clearer. Moving around had revived her. "It's too steep here. And I'm cold."
"Start a fire."
She looked around. There wasn't enough debris in the bottom of the ravine for a fire. "No wood."
She shivered suddenly, violently, and for the first time became afraid.
"Talk to me, Mariah."
"Do you get lonely, too?" Then, before Cash could say anything, she added, "I wish … I wish you could have loved me just a little bit. But it will be all right. I found the mine and now it's yours and now you have to believe me … don't you?" Her voice faded, then came again. "It's so cold. You were so warm. I loved curling up against you. Better each time … love."
Cash tried to speak but couldn't for the pain choking him. He gripped the phone so hard that his fingers turned white. The next words he heard were so softly spoken that he had a hard time following them. And then he wished he hadn't been able to understand the ragged phrases pouring from Mariah.
"It will be all right … everything will be fine … it will be…"
But Mariah was crying. She no longer believed her own words.
A horse's lonesome whinny drifted up faintly from below. Cash's horse answered. He reined his mount toward the crease in the land where Mariah's tracks vanished. Balancing his weight in the stirrups, he sent his horse down the mountainside at a reckless pace. Minutes later the ravine closed around Cash, shutting out all but a slice of the cloudy sky.
"Mariah!" Cash called. "Mariah!"
There was no answer but that of her horse whinnying its delight into the increasing gloom.
Instants after Cash saw Mariah's horse, he saw the dark splotch of her jacket against the pale swath of granite. He dismounted in a rush and scrambled to Mariah. At the sound of his approach, she pushed herself upright and held out her hands. Quartz crystals and gold gleamed richly in the dying light.
"See? I've p-proved it. Now will you b-believe me?" she whispered.
"All you've proved is that you're a fool," Cash said, picking Mariah up in a rush, ignoring the gold that fell from her hands. "It will be dark in ten minutes – I'm damned lucky I found you at all!"
Mariah tried to say something but couldn't force herself to speak past the defeat that numbed her more deeply than any cold.
Her gift of the gold mine had meant nothing to Cash. He still didn't believe in her. She had risked it all and had nothing to show for it but the contempt of the man she loved.
He was right. She was a fool.
~ 16 ~
Broodingly Cash watched Mariah. In the silence and firelight of the old line shack she looked comfortable despite the stillness of her body. Wearing dry clothes and his down sleeping bag, sitting propped up against the wall, coffee steaming from the cup held between her hands, Mariah was no longer cold. No shivers shook her body. Nor was she clumsy anymore. The pockets bulging with gold-shot rock had been as much to blame for her lack of coordination as the cold.
She's fine, Cash told himself. Any fool could see that. Even this fool. So why do I feel like I should call her on the cellular phone right now?
That's easy, fool. She's never been farther away from you than right now. Your stupidity nearly killed her. You expect her to thank you for that?
Flames burnished Mariah, turning her eyes to incandescent gold, heightening the color that warmth had returned to her skin.
"More soup?" Cash asked, his voice neutral.
"No, thank you."
Her voice, like her words, was polite. Mariah had been very polite since they had come to the line shack. She had protested only once – when he stripped her out of her damp clothes and dressed her in the extra pair of thermal underclothes he had brought in the backpack. When he had ignored her protest, she had fallen silent. She had stayed that way, except when he asked a direct question. Then she replied with excruciating politeness.
Not once had she met his eyes. It was as though she literally could not bear the sight of him. He didn't really blame her. He would break a mirror right now rather than look at himself in it.
"Warm enough?" Cash asked, his voice too rough. It must have been the tenth time he had asked that question in as many minutes, but Mariah showed no impatience.
"Yes, thank you."
Cash hesitated, then asked bluntly, "Any cramps?" That question was new. He heard the soft, ripping sound her breath made as it rushed out.
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I'm fine. Everything is…" The unwitting echo of Mariah's past assurances to herself went into her like a knife. Without finishing the sentence, Mariah took a sip of coffee, swallowed and regained her voice. "Just fine, thank you."
But her eyelids flinched and the hands holding the coffee tightened suddenly, sending a ripple of hot liquid over the side. A few
drops fell to the sleeping bag.
"I'm sorry," she said immediately, blotting at the drops with the sleeve of her discarded shirt. "I hope it won't stain."
"Pour the whole cup on it. I don't give a damn about the sleeping bag."
"That's very kind of you."
"Kind? Good God, Mariah. This is me, Cash McQueen, the fool you wanted to marry, not some stranger who just wandered in off the mountain!"
"No," she said in a low voice, blotting at the spilled coffee.
"What?"
There was no answer.
Fear condensed into certainty inside Cash. With a harsh curse he put aside his own coffee cup and sat on his heels next to Mariah.
"Look at me."
She kept dabbing at the bag, refusing to look at him.
Cash's big hand fitted itself to her chin. Gently, inexorably, he tilted her face until she was forced to meet his eyes. Then his breath came out in a low sound, as though he had been struck. Beneath the brilliant dance of reflected flames, Mariah's eyes were old, emotionless, bleak.
He looked into Mariah's golden eyes, searching for her, feeling her slipping away, nothing but emptiness in all the places she had once filled. The cold tendrils of fear that had been growing in Cash blossomed in a silent black rush, and each heartbeat told him the same cruel truth: she no longer loved the man whose lack of trust had nearly killed her. She couldn't even stand the sight of him.
Cash had thought he could feel no greater pain than he had when Mariah told him she was pregnant. He had been wrong.
"Are you sure you feel all right?" he asked, forcing the words past the pain constricting his body. "You're not acting like the same girl who went tearing up a stormy mountain looking for gold."
"I'm not," she whispered.
"What?"
"I'm not the same. I've finally learned something my stepfather spent fifteen years trying to teach me."
Cash waited.
Mariah said nothing more.
"What did you learn?" he asked when he could no longer bear the silence.
"You can't make someone love you. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try … you can't. I thought my stepfather would love me if I got good grades and made no demands and did everything he wanted me to do." Mariah closed her eyes, shutting out the indigo bleakness of Cash's glance. "It didn't work. After a while I didn't care very much.
"But I didn't learn very much, either. I thought you would love me if only I could prove that I loved you, but all I proved was what a fool I was. You see, I had it all wrong from the start. I thought if you believed me, you would love me. Now I know that if you loved me, then you would believe me. So we both had a long, cold ride for nothing."
"Not for nothing," Cash said, stroking Mariah's cheek, wanting to hold her but afraid she would refuse him. "You're safe. That's something, honey. Hell, that's everything."
"Don't. I don't need pity. I'm warm, dry and healthy, thanks to you. I did thank you, didn't I?"
"Too many times. I didn't come up here for your thanks."
"I know, but you deserve thanks just the same. If my stepfather had had a chance to get rid of me, he wouldn't have walked across the street to avoid it, much less climbed a mountain in a hailstorm."
Cash's breath hissed in with shock as he realized what Mariah was implying.
"I appreciate your decency," she continued, opening her eyes at last. "You don't need to worry about losing your home with Luke and Carla because of my foolishness. Before I leave, I'll be sure they understand that none of this was your fault."
Too quickly for Cash to prevent it, Mariah pulled free of his hand, set her coffee cup aside and unzipped the sleeping bag. His hand shot out, spread flat over her abdomen and pinned her gently in place.
"What are you saying?" Cash asked, his voice dangerously soft.
Mariah tried to prevent the tremor of awareness that went through her at his touch. She failed. Somehow she had always failed when it came to love.
"I'm leaving the Rocking M. You don't have to marry me just to ensure your welcome with Luke and Carla," Mariah said, her voice careful. "You'll always have a home with them."
"So will you." Cash's eyes searched hers, looking for the emotions that he had always found in her before, praying that he hadn't raced up the mountain only to lose her after all. "You'll have a home. Always. I'll make sure of it."
Mariah closed her eyes again and fought against the emotions that were just beneath her frozen surface.
"That's very generous of you," Mariah said, her voice husky with restraint. "But it's not necessary." She tried to get up, but Cash's big hand still held her captive. "May I get up now?" she asked politely.
"Not yet."
Cash's big hand moved subtly, almost caressingly. He couldn't free Mariah. Not yet. If he let her go he would never see her again. He clenched his jaw against the pain of an understanding that had come too late. He tried to speak, found it impossible, and fought in silence to control his emotions. When he could speak again, his voice was a harsh rasp.
"Look at me, Mariah."
She shook her head, refusing him.
"Do you hate me so much?" he asked in a low, constrained voice.
Shocked, Mariah opened her eyes.
"You have every right," Cash continued. "I damn near killed you. But if you think I'm going to let you go, you're as big a fool as I was. You loved me once. You can learn to love me again." He shifted his weight onto his knees as he bent down to her. "Forgive me, Mariah," he whispered against her lips. "Love me again. I need you so much it terrifies me."
Mariah would have spoken then, but he had taken her breath. Trembling, she opened her lips beneath his, inviting his kiss. She sensed the tremor that ripped through him, felt the sudden iron power of his arms, tasted the heat and hunger of his mouth. The world shifted until she was lying down and he was with her, surrounding her with a vital warmth that was so glorious she wept silently with the sheer beauty of it.
Suddenly Cash's arms tightened and he went very still.
"Cash? What's wrong?"
"Didn't you feel it?" he asked, his voice strained.
"What?"
"Our baby." Cash closed his eyes but could not entirely conceal the glitter of his tears. "My God," he breathed. "I felt our baby move."
"Are you certain?"
His eyes opened. He smiled down at Mariah, sensing the question she hadn't asked. He kissed her gently once, twice, then again and again, whispering between each kiss.
"I'm very certain."
"Cash?" she whispered, her eyes blazing with hope.
"I love you, Mariah," he said, kissing her hand, holding it against his heart. "I love you so damned much."
Laughing, crying, holding on to Cash, Mariah absorbed his whispered words and his warmth, his trust and his love, and gave her own in return. He held her, loving her with his hands and his voice and his body, until finally they lay at peace in each other's arms, so close that they breathed the same scents, shared the same warmth … and felt the butterfly wings of new life fluttering softly in Mariah's womb.
Cash's big hand rested lightly over Mariah's womb.
"Go to sleep, little baby. Mom and Dad are right here. Everything is all right."
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GRANITE MAN Page 16
