At the Rainbow's End (23 page)

The tip of her finger traced the full line of his lower lip until he took her hand in his. Teasing her, too, he used his tongue on her skin to create glowing tingles which swept all through her. She leaned against him, not wanting to miss this opportunity to feel his intriguingly masculine form.

“I love you, Joel Gilchrist.”

He twirled a strand of her hair around his finger. Using it to bring her face close to his, he whispered, “And I love you, Sam.” He wrapped his arms around her and whirled her about the room in wild abandon. Her dress ballooned around them as they tried to keep their laughter soft and not awaken Kevin.

Gently he set her on her feet. As his lips lowered to hers, he added, “I'm glad you chose to marry me.”

“Marry?” She wrenched herself out of his arms and stared into his incredulous face. “I didn't say I would marry you, Joel.”

“If you love me—”

“Don't!” she cried, pressing her hands over her ears. “Don't argue with me, and spoil this moment!”

“Spoil it?” He forced her arms down to her side. His brow furrowed as he regarded her face, once more closed to hide her emotion. “Sam, you tell me you love me, but you won't talk of marriage?”

“Why are you in such a hurry? We've only discovered this love. Can't we savor it as it is?”

His mouth possessed hers, urging her to surrender. She longed to succumb, but she knew she must do what she thought best. Pushing herself out of his arms, she smoothed her dress.

“Joel, I must check on Kevin.”

“You just want to escape from this conversation.”

She paused midstep to glare over her shoulder at him. “If you must know the truth, the answer is yes. I don't want to debate this with you. While I tend to Kevin, I suggest you think about why I might be indecisive about marrying you. Why don't you start the list with your overbearing assumption that you can tell me how to run my life?”

“Go to bed,” he ordered. “You are exhausted.”

“You can't resist bossing me, can you? Don't you listen to anything I say?” she cried, too frustrated to realize her voice was waking the man at the far end of the room.

“I listen to
everything
you say.” He moved closer to her. His dusky silhouette swallowed hers. Tender fingers traced the aching muscles of her back. “Sam, we can finish this fight tomorrow, but I want you to go to sleep tonight. You look nearly as peaked as Kevin.”

She closed her eyes and sagged against him. As his arms went around her, she whispered, “I don't understand why I love you.”

“Because I'm irresistible?”

“Hardly.” When he chuckled against her hair, she nestled closer to him. “Maybe because I'm a glutton for heartache.” She looked up when he did not respond lightly to her teasing. Even in the shadows, she could see the old tilt of his eyebrows in a sorrowful expression. “Joel, what—”

He yawned broadly. “Sorry, I'm tired, too. But I have slept some, at least. Go to bed. I will wake you if I need your help.” The odd glitter returned to his eyes as he added, “I love you, Sam. Whatever happens, remember that I love you.”

“I don't understand you. What do you mean, ‘whatever happens'?”

“Don't worry about it.” He tweaked her nose in a playful manner. “All I want you to do is dream of me holding you.”

Samantha considered delving deeper to determine what bothered him. Everything should be perfect. Then she paused. She was worn out from tending to Kevin. He was exhausted from trying to do both of their chores. Her questions would only bring angry recriminations. After the house was back to normal, she would try to find out why he was asking her forgiveness for some crime he had not committed.

“How's Kevin doing, Sam?”

Samantha stopped at the edge of the riverbank, smiling. Piles of dirt nearly covered the ground. Joel and Kevin certainly had weeks of hard work ahead in the spring.

“He ate a good breakfast, and he's sleeping now,” she said cheerfully. “I don't think it was mountain fever. Whatever it was should be gone in a few days, if he continues to rest. As soon as he's better, I want you to help me convince him to go into Dawson to see the doctor at Good Samaritan Hospital. If it can recur, he should be prepared.” Her eyes roved over Joel's wet clothes as her face grew serious. “You've been pushing yourselves too much all year.”

“The weather is changing. Winter will be here any day. If we don't get this done now, it will have to wait until next April. Once the water freezes during the day, we won't be able to work.” He lifted his shovel to drop another water soaked load in the sluice. “It's rough to do by myself, because it's a two man job.”

“Two man or two person?”

With a laugh, he said, “I know you are a full partner, Sam, and you work damn hard. This just isn't work for a lady.”

“No?”

Before he could speak Samantha slipped past him and down the bank into the river. She stifled a groan as her feet went numb. She had not known water could be this icy and still run. Without looking at him, she pulled off her gloves and shoved up the sleeves of her coat. She went to the far side of the sluice and began spreading the dirt, as she had seen the men do.

“Get out of here!”

She looked up to see Joel's angry face. His rage did not frighten her, for she knew it was because he cared for her. “You need help. I can help.”

Dropping the shovel onto the bank, he rounded the end of the sluice and grabbed her arm. He swung her toward him. “You can help best by getting out of this river before you freeze, too!”

“Let me help you, Joel. You can't do this all alone. I don't want you to sicken, too.”

“How about you?” He frowned, facing a stubborn glare from her dark eyes. “Those cotton petticoats are not protection from the cold. You aren't immune to whatever made Kevin ill.”

“I'm fine. I want to help. Let me?”

His eyes eased along her to where the water smoothed her skirts to the outlines of her slender legs. Releasing her arm, he put his own around her. She gasped when he jerked her to him, holding her slender form close.

“How in hell do you expect me to let you work when you look so desirable drenched, Sam?” His fingers, stiff with his hours of work, stroked her face. “When I see the lovely, virtuous Samantha Perry with her dress plastered to her limbs, all I can think of is how much I want to touch her.”

“Not the gold?” she teased, wide-eyed with mock awe.

He laughed. “Always looking for compliments, aren't you, my dear?”

“The truth.” Her eyes lost their mirthful glow.

“The truth? It seems we've been damnably short of that around here for some time.”

“You aren't jealous of Kevin still, are you?”

Gently, he cupped her chin in his stiff fingers. “No, for I know the truth now. I was thinking more of our plans for the future. Marriage.”

She sighed. He was so insistent. As she gazed at the stern line of his jaw, shadowed by unshaven stubble, ache grew in her. Discovering the pain he had hidden about Camilla, she had wondered how long it had been secreted behind his facade of cockiness. How many heated words had they exchanged needlessly, because neither of them could admit what would make them happy? She wondered if she had been denying the inevitable since she arrived at Fifteen Above.

Softly she answered with new sincerity, “I don't know if I can marry you, Joel. Maybe if I'd known the truth before I came here … You're so different from the man I expected to love. I must get used to that. And to you.”

“At least you're being honest.” His fingers tilted her face upward. “You are, aren't you?”

“Yes.” Suddenly she dimpled. “I'm also being honest when I say my legs are freezing. If I don't get to work soon, I swear they will turn to sticks of ice.”

With a smile, his lips descended to seduce her into surrender. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, close once more to being swept away on currents of passion which flowed faster than the water swirling around her legs.

Suddenly he pushed away from her and cursed. Then she saw him chase his hat down the current of the creek, and laughed until tears ran along her cheeks. As if it had decided to prevent him from recapturing the felt hat, the water twisted it out of his reach again and again. When he finally caught it, just before it entered the rapids between Fifteen Above and Fourteen Above, she cheered and clapped her hands.

He held it over his head in a victorious pose that lasted until water spilled out onto his head. Splashing back to her, he pressed it back on his soaked hair, then bent and kissed her lightly.

“Dammit, woman, why do I love you so much?”

“I don't know, but I know you leave me weak with laughter at your foolishness.”

His left eyebrow arched like a burlesque villain's. “You might be right about that, my dear, but I can think of other things I would rather do to strip you of your strength.”

“We have to work now,” she said softly, daunted by the eager passion in his voice. “Joel, I'm freezing. At least let me help you, instead of making your day longer. Perhaps tonight you can play some music for us.”

“All right, Sam.” He grinned and ruffled her hair. “Get to work, honey.”

Samantha partly regretted her offer to help in the creek, but she would not quit. The quicker they finished the day's tasks, the quicker they could get out of this water.

For the rest of the hours of sunlight, that thought repeated in her head like the endless tolling of a churchbell. Her legs cramped if she stood in any position too long. She continually rocked back and forth from one foot to the other to seek some brief comfort. More than once the wet dirt splashed out of the sluice to strike her in the face. She waved aside Joel's apologies and wiped her face on her filthy sleeve.

After an hour, her movements became automatic. She no longer thought about what her hands and legs did. With her eyes on the sluice, she concentrated only on the dirt. Black sifted through her fingers over and over, but no sign of glitter emerged to make her labors worthwhile.

She did not notice when Joel stopped shoveling and went to the far end of the sluice to check what had washed down to the heaviest particles. His shoulders sagged when he saw no sign of gold. At the beginning of the spring thaw, he and Kevin had found enough to allow them to continue. They had not sluiced a sparkle since Samantha arrived.

Joel looked at her. She was working with the same slow sense of pain he had suffered his first days of walking the trail north with a fifty pound pack on his back. It was an anguish that defied definition, an ache in the middle of the legs which rose to the center of the back and settled most heavily in the shoulders. He had overcome that through constant labor and building up those muscles, but he would never forget what he suffered.

“Sam?”

He was not surprised that she did not respond. All of her strength was being expended to keep her from admitting defeat. He put his arm around her to assist her out of the water. “Come on, honey. It's time to quit.”

“Oh, I'm so glad.” She looked up at him with touching expectation. “Did we find gold?”

“Don't worry about that. Let's get you home where you can warm up.”

Unashamed of her fatigue, she leaned against him. The wind whipped her clammy skirts tighter against her legs. She shivered as she stumbled along the path. It would take all night for her wool skirt to dry before the stove.

“You did well,” came the whisper in her ear.

“I'm exhausted.”

Joel laughed softly. “You should be. You kept pace with me all day. We worked for six hours.”

“Thank goodness the sun sets earlier, now. I never could have managed to put in a day like you and Kevin did when I first got here.”

“You did well,” he repeated. He stopped and turned her to face him. When she put her head against his chest, he stroked her back.

Samantha did not want to move. The gentle massage of his hands eased her pain in muscles she had not known she had before today. Every step added to her agony. She wanted nothing more than simply to fall asleep cradled in his strong arms.

At the thought, she started. Pulling out of his arms, she forced her abused body to move toward the cabin, but he caught her and whirled her around to face him again.

“Sam?” Although she could barely see his face in the deep Yukon twilight, she could hear confusion in his voice.

“Let me go. Please, just let me go.”

At the near hysteria in her cry, he tightened his grip on her. “Sam, what is it?”

“I'm scared,” she murmured. “So very scared, Joel.”

His brow creased with bafflement. “Scared? Of what?”

She sagged, fatigue intensifying her feelings, tears burning in her eyes. “Of you. And the way you make me feel.”

“How do I make you feel?” He enfolded her in his arms again, savoring the lustrous glow of her eyes in the deepening purple of the evening. He kissed her.

“Scared and …”

“And?” he prompted when she did not continue.

When she spoke, he could barely hear her words, warm against his wind-lashed skin. “Wonderful.”

He took her face in his hands. Bending so he could meet her eyes, he tried to show her his own turbulent feelings. His words repeated what his eyes told her. “Scared. And wonderful. That's no different from the conflict in me, sweetheart.” He placed his lips against her forehead, adding, “And I think it's thrilling.”

“Thrilling?” She pulled away to look at him from arm's length, surprised. The confusion putting her center into spasms was not thrilling.

“Undoubtedly,” he said, scooping her off her feet and up to rest against his chest. Although his body was weary from the long hours of work, all that was now forgotten. “I can imagine carrying you to some secluded, greenwood bower and loving you all through the night.”