Gold Rush Groom

by Jenna Kernan

  Ahead lay Dyea, a large tent city with stripped logs for street posts and only a few timber structures. Cold, dark mud turned the streets to quagmire and crept up the canvas that passed for buildings here. Some of the tents were large enough to hold a circus, but instead of sawdust and prancing white ponies, they held rows of rough-hewn tables with hungry men eating in makeshift restaurants. They passed Brackett’s Trading Post, singular for its two stories and five glass windows, though no one had yet painted the exterior, which had already weathered to a dark gray. A steady stream of stampeders picked their way along with horses and mules. He wished he could trade places with any one of them.

  Each of the tents had a stovepipe poking from the roof like the stem of an apple. He was glad he had one himself, a very light efficient stove that burned nearly five hours on just two split logs. Lily turned down this road and up the next until he was thoroughly lost in the maze of identical canvases.

  She stopped before an unremarkable tent that looked hardly big enough for one, let alone two.

  “This is it,” she said.

  He frowned.

  “You’re not much of a poker player, I imagine,” she said.

  He glanced at her, trying to understand the cryptic comment but she only laughed and patted him amiably on the shoulder, then began unloading his gear. She was so petit. How would she endure the journey? In a few moments they had his belongings stacked beside the tent flap.

  “You have clothes in here?” She indicated the pile.

  He stared in mute astonishment as he realized his duffel with all his personal belongings lay back with the unknown lad. He could not fathom the oversight. Jack needed to do better if he was to succeed. The Yukon would be no more forgiving than the banks back home had been. He gritted his clattering teeth. There was no way to recapture what was lost. His only choice was to start again.

  His mother disagreed. This expedition terrified her. She had told him that having lost her husband she could not bear the thought of losing her only son, as well. It pained him to worry her and he did fear what would become of them should he not return. Were it up to his mother, he’d be safe at home looking for a wife with a fortune. The thought turned his stomach. He would be his own man, despite the risks. Her latest telegram had reached him in Seattle, begging him to reconsider. He’d written that he was pressing on. He’d earn his fortune and return to have his pick of the New York debutants. He’d have his old life back or return like a whipped dog.

  He looked up to find her staring at him.

  She shook her head in dismay. “Go on in and strip out of those things. Take a blanket off my bed and heat the coffee. It’s in the pot. You do know how to rake coals and start a fire?”

  “Of course.”

  She made a harrumphing sound as if she did not believe it. It occurred to him suddenly that he might not be her ideal partner, either, though he could not see her objection. She turned the dog cart and stopped. “Leave the flap open or your crates will likely walk away on you. You have a pistol?”

  “Not on me.”

  “I find they do more good when they are carried in plain sight.” She patted the handle of her Colt. “You’re not at Yale now, college boy. There are thieves everywhere here.”

  With that she set the cart in motion, as he wondered if she were among the thieves. Was this even her tent?

  “Princeton, actually.”

  She shrugged and continued on.

  He shouted after her. “And how do you know I went to college?”

  She called back without stopping. “Only an educated man would be fool enough to carry a crate of books to the Yukon. Might make good tinder, I suppose.”

  He looked at the broken crate, lid askew. On top lay his copy of The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, edited by Jean Paul Richter. The woman acted as if it were a box of dumbbells or some other useless fodder.

  Eventually his shivering forced him into retreat, but he kept the tent flap up. The woman was shrewd with the kind of knowledge that did not come from a classroom, he’d give her that.

  The inside of her tent was much more spartan than he had anticipated. In his experience, women shared a pack rat’s propensity for dragging home bits of glitter and fluff. Lily Delacy Shanahan’s tent looked as if it belonged to a new cadet. Her bed was made with sharp corners. Her wood supply was ample and well away from the stove. She had a small, neat kitchen area all set up, including the coffeepot. He sloshed the contents and found it still half-full. Jack stoked the coals and added kindling, sighing in relief as the flames lapped around the slender branches. She had one crate beside the bed and a sack, sewn from a piece of canvas, hanging from a tent post. He shrugged at the oddness of her private quarters. His shivering made it difficult to unbutton his sodden coat. Jack’s trembling fingers looked ghostly white from lack of blood as he wrestled with his sweater and flannel shirt. Then he peeled out of his union suit, bringing it down to his waist. Only when he was holding his soaked garments did he notice the clothesline stretched tight over the stove. He added organized to her list of attributes as he threw his things over the line and then held his hands out to the stove. It was no good. The shaking was worse and his skin was as puckered-up as a plucked chicken’s. A glance at his nail beds startled him. The blue tinge had him doing as she had instructed, removing the red Hudson’s Bay blanket from her bed and wrapping it over his shoulders. The coarse wool grazed his damp skin as her scent reached him and he paused to inhale—cinnamon. The shivering brought him close to the stove. He set the coffeepot on the top and then jumped up and down until his numb feet began to tingle.

  A few minutes later the coffeepot steamed and he poured himself a hot mug. He inhaled the aroma and hummed in pleasure.

  “Take off your boots!” Lily harped from the street.

  Jack nearly dropped his coffee. He glanced down at the ground and saw it was hard-packed earth, making her request totally illogical.

  “You can’t track dirt onto dirt,” he said, thinking that reasoning with a woman was as productive as explaining physics to a cocker spaniel.

  “Your feet are wet. You have to warm them or you’ll get frostbite.”

  She was correct again, though he wouldn’t say so aloud. She knelt before him, muttering as her agile fingers worked the laces from the eyelets. Then she slapped his calf as if he were a horse needing his hooves picked clean. He shifted his weight, giving her his foot and trying very hard not to drop the hot coffee on her head. She pulled and the boot came away.

  “I was about to get to those,” he muttered. Just as soon as I can feel my fingers again.

  She cast him a displeased glance. “And leave a toe or two here in Dyea? Now that I’ve got you, I’ll be damned if I’ll let your toes turn black.”

  “It’s barely below freezing.”

  She ignored that and returned her attention to his feet. He’d only wanted to warm his hands a moment first and then she’d blown in like a March wind. His jaws now tapped like the signal key of a telegraph.

  “The other,” she ordered and repeated the process.

  But this time the blanket slipped to the floor. He placed the cup on the top of the stove and then stooped to recover it, just as she did the same.

  They nearly banged heads and came up standing face-to-face with the blanket stretched between them. It was only then that he realized she was staring wide-eyed at his naked torso. His impulse was to grab the blanket and cover himself, but something about her startled expression stayed him. Her cheeks flushed and her lips separated as she inhaled. He recognized the look of carnal desire and couldn’t move now if he tried, for she had arrested him. His entire body tensed. Her azure eyes lifted from his chest to stare up at him. She inched closer.

  The cold that had gripped him like an icy fist melted in the heat of her gaze, warming him inside and out.

  She lifted her free hand and reached for him. His heart galloped into a wild pulsing rhythm, sending fountains of
blood to his groin. Dear Lord in heaven, she managed to arouse him without so much as a touch. The touch came an instant later when she used her index finger to stroke his chest, as if skimming cream from a bowl.

  “You’re cold,” she whispered, her voice a second caress.

  His mind filled with all the ways she could warm him and he took an aggressive step in her direction, lifting his hands to capture her shoulders, needing to bring her against him. But she resisted and he let go. She stumbled back, now gripping the blanket with both hands. Her expression had changed in that instant, going from an open invitation to one of ill-concealed horror. Her fists clenched, holding the coarse wool before her as if it were some kind of magic shield that would protect her from him.

  It wouldn’t.

  “We’re not that kind of partners,” she said.

  His brain knew it, but his body was still beating the order to advance. He listened to his body, stepping forward, reaching again in an effort to recapture what was already lost, that heat she had given him with her flashing eyes and that one single touch.

  She stepped back. “No.”

  Even with his blood pounding through his ears like hoofbeats, he was gentleman enough to understand that. He halted. His current befuddlement had nothing whatsoever to do with the cold. No, this was all to do with this woman. He wanted her.

  She shook out the blanket and then held it up.

  He turned and she wrapped the red wool about his shoulders, her arms encircling his neck for just an instant before she retreated again.

  Jack turned, now cloaked in his cape. She blew out a breath as one does after a narrow escape. But she had not escaped yet. Why had she done it? Had his nakedness precipitated her rash action? It gave him a sense of power he’d never felt before and filled his mind with possibilities.

  “Lily?” He had no idea what to say beyond that. How did a man express such a physical desire to a woman he had met scarcely two hours earlier? He couldn’t. His heartbeat returned to a more normal pace and the erection, which had sprung to action like a soldier to the signal to charge, now returned to at-ease. He began to shiver again.

  “Drink your coffee,” she instructed.

  He didn’t. Instead he held her gaze.

  “Why did you touch me like that?”

  Chapter Three

  Why had she touched him like that? Lily was at a loss to explain herself. Clearly she’d lost her damned mind. The bold action brought to mind her mother’s warning. If you need a man, then take one, but don’t give him your heart, Lily, for he’ll only break it with his leaving. Lily had decided that she’d not be needing a man in that way. Men propositioned her, of course, one or two had even tried to take what they wanted. But she had been unaffected, until now. In all her years she had never reached out and stroked a man as if he were her pet cat.

  Seeing all that muscle did something to her thinking. She’d known on the beach that she was attracted to him, but she had told herself she could control her desire. Now the demons of doubt plagued her. What if the only difference between her and her ma was that, until today, she had not yet met the right sort of temptation?

  She shivered. If Jack Snow was her weakness, she should break the deal that he so clearly wanted broken and send him off this very minute. She weighed the risk of being hurt against the possibility of ever again finding a partner as strong as this one.

  What terrible luck to find a man who made her belly flutter like a flag in a windstorm. It would lead her to a bad end. But wasn’t this exactly how her mother described it—the irresistible pull of one to the other. Carrie Delacy had been unable to resist big, handsome charmers who had not a penny in their pockets or the least inclination to work. Lily stared at her partner and stilled at her realization. Was Jack just like them? Would he leave her, too?

  “Lily?” he asked, waiting for her to say something.

  Her stomach no longer trembled. Now it tightened with that sick feeling that she would not be able to control this desire that stood between them like a living thing. Why was he so handsome? Even with his whiskers coming in and his hair falling over his eyes, she had the devil’s own time not to take what he offered. She didn’t want to be hurt, used like her mother and then abandoned by careless men.

  Her mother wanted more for her daughter than this. One child, then another and before Lily knew it, she’d be leaning over the same washboard wondering where her life had gone wrong. Right here was where. It was exactly what her mother had not wanted for her.

  That realization struck her hard. Yield to him and she’d be just like her mother, stuck in these mudflats forever, hauling freight and darning socks, while Jack waltzed away to have the adventure she coveted.

  “No, thank you,” she said aloud. “I’m heading out, so get your things off my cart.”

  He had to abandon the blanket and pull up his wet union suit, but he did as she asked, unloading his gear and stacking it with the rest. She did not look back as she hurried Nala away.

  On the beach she paid another hauler to take the rest of his gear to her tent. She earned several more fares, staying longer than customary to stay clear of him. Soon that would be an impossibility.

  Late in the day, she came upon a man struggling with his crates and suitcases. He was thin, dark-haired and wore a small white fringed apron beneath his gray vest. She offered her cart, but he had nothing with which to pay her.

  “I’ll pay you twice that in gold when I reach Dawson.”

  Lily smiled at his pluck. There was a good chance he’d never reach his destination. Many turned back after seeing the Chilkoot Pass and many more drowned in the rivers. Even if he survived, he might not be one of the lucky ones that staked a profitable claim.

  “Cash.”

  “I can’t pay it, missus.” His face grew pink with shame that Lily understood from personal experience.

  Lily sighed. It was not the first time she’d hauled a load for nothing but a man’s gratitude. Still she had enough to fill her pot, so where was the harm?

  “All right. Load it on,” she said.

  He did so and soon they were on their way up the beach.

  “I’m Amos Luritz.”

  Lily introduced herself and her dog.

  “I was a tailor in Brooklyn.”

  Lily smiled.

  “I made this coat.”

  “Very nice.”

  “Men’s clothing, repairs and alterations, but I do make all my daughters’ dresses. I have two beautiful daughters, Sasha and Cora. They’re with my in-laws until I can make my fortune.”

  “Then we’d best get you to town.”

  “I could make you a dress when we get to Dawson, in exchange for your trouble.”

  “Oh, that’s not necessary, Mr. Luritz.”

  “You can’t make a living giving away your work.”

  “True. But I did quite well today.”

  “I’ll make you the most beautiful dress in Dawson.”

  “I fear you’ll be too busy digging for gold.”

  He nodded at this. “Would you take one of my nuggets?”

  “That would be lovely, Mr. Luritz. But I’ll likely have so many of my own, I’ll not need yours.” She winked at him and he chuckled.

  “You’re a good lady, missus.”

  She compared this greenhorn to Jack. Two men, both without means, only this one had a clear and useful profession instead of several hundred pounds of baggage. If she had come across Amos first, would he now be her partner? She wished he was, for she felt no inclination toward him. What was so different between this man and the one she had chosen?

  She pondered that mystery as Amos trudged along beside her on the half-mile trip to Dyea, yammering all the way about the nuggets he would find and the money he needed to open his own tailor shop in Brooklyn. She stopped him from showing her a photo of his wife and daughters. Lily didn’t want to have their images in her mind should something happen to this brave lit
tle tailor.

  She worked until the sun hung low in the sky and all the arrivals had made their way to Dyea. Days were growing short now, adding to her anxiousness to be gone from this place.

  She stopped at the log home of Yaahl, the Chilkat Indian whose wife, Diinaan, fed Nala in exchange for Lily’s accounting work. The couple and their family carried loads over the pass to the upper end of Lake Lindeman. Diinaan carried only seventy-five pounds a trip, a white man’s load, she called it, but her husband could carry two hundred pounds at twenty-six cents a pound. It was Lily who had encouraged them to increase the asking fee from eighteen cents as the stampeders rushed in to Dyea.