At the Rainbow's End (25 page)

“How did you and Kevin come to be partners? You are as opposite as two men can be. I don't know how you convinced me you were one person.”

“That's easily explained. When I wrote to you—”

“No,” she interrupted, “You wrote to me in the winter. I don't want to talk about those months. Tell me about something that happened when it was summer, about how you became partners.”

He laughed and squeezed her. “Winter has not yet started, sweetheart. But all right, you want to know how Kevin and I joined forces. It was simple. He arrived at Skagway the same day I did. We started north at the same time. It quickly became obvious to us that we couldn't walk treacherous, sloping Dead Horse Trail with all the supplies each of us carried. Others were partnering, so we did the same. It was fortunate, for his horse dropped dead on the trail. Once we reached Dawson, footsore and nearly broken in spirit, it seemed obvious that two men could find gold twice as fast as one. Then we were lucky enough to get Fifteen Above.” He snorted. “Lucky. Maybe not.”

When his voice lost its lightness on the last words, she turned to face him. “You'll find the big strike, Joel. I know you will.”

“I wish I had your faith.” He sighed, grateful for the sympathy in her sad smile. “Sometimes it seems I've been working all my life in that damn creek. I see others come in and walk away wealthy men. Some seem to just sink their shovels into the earth and come up with glitter.”

“You know it isn't that easy!”

“You truly believe we'll hit pay dirt, don't you?”

Her forehead creased with surprise, and she encouraged him with, “Of course! You don't think I'd team up with a pair of losers, do you? I've been working hard, and I'm anxious to see my third of the profits.”

“You talk as if you had a choice. You were forced to stay here. You had no place else to go.”

“No, Joel, that's not true,” she said slowly. Now that she had told him how she loved him, she wanted to be equally honest about other things. “I had somewhere else to go.”

It was his turn to be confused. “Somewhere else? What are you talking about?”

Quickly she explained the offer she had before she left the steamship
Merwyn
. It did not take her long to add that Mrs. Kellogg had made her another one. “You see, I didn't have to stay here. I wanted to.”

“From the beginning?”

“From the beginning!” She dimpled as she reached up to stroke the sharp angles of his face. “Of course, at first I wanted simply to make your life miserable.”

He laughed as he put his fingers over hers. “You did. But you stayed longer than that. Because you decided to fall in love with me?”

Samantha looked away, suddenly feeling awkward. Life had been so sweet all day. She did not want to change it with the desire which had kept her awake even more than the cold. She wanted Joel to take her in his arms, and to his bed. Although she had wondered how she would keep him away once Kevin left, she need not have worried. All day, he had been the epitome of a gentleman, laughing with her, talking, playing music after supper.

Joel asked her what was wrong, and she said nothing. Nothing should be wrong, when he had done exactly as she had wanted.

With regret, she rose to place her cup on the table. She would wash the dishes tomorrow, when the temperature in the cabin reached above freezing. Standing by the bench, she tried to force her feet to move away from the precious warmth of the fire, to her frigid bed.

Hearing a strange, scraping sound, she turned. Astonished, she saw Joel pushing the heavy bedframe, maneuvering it to within a foot of the stove. Standing, he wiped his brow.

With a sigh, she turned toward the ladder. She envied him his warm bed, and she said, “Good night,” while stepping past him.

He grabbed one of her hands from the front of her blanket, and she hastily clenched the drooping cover. Although her thick, flannel nightgown offered some modesty, she flushed at the thought of him seeing her so underdressed.

“Get in,” he urged, pointing to the bed.

“Joel, I don't think—”

His laughter drowned out the rest of her words. “It's your choice. You can go back to the loft, where you may freeze before morning. Or you can sleep here.”

“With you?” Her eyes widened.

“With me. I don't have any great desire to freeze to death, either.” He sat on the bed and drew the stiff covers over him. When he saw how disturbed she was, he stopped teasing her. Taking her fingers between his, he rubbed the cold from them. “Sam, don't be foolish. If I'd wanted to rape you, don't you think I could have done it before now? If you love me, you have to trust me, too.”

She tightened her grip on her blanket. If she laid down beside him, she doubted if they could curb the desires which raced through them each time their eyes touched. Her tongue moistened the suddenly arid surface of her lips. This might be the end of yet another dream. So often she had imagined how heavenly it would be for him to hold her when she wore the chiffon peignoir still packed in the case beneath her bed. Her fingers could feel the heavy flannel of her ugly nightgown.

“Well?” he demanded with a smile. Holding out his hand for hers, he added, “If you want to stay there all night, you will have to excuse me. I have a full day of digging pay dirt tomorrow. I need to get some sleep tonight.”

Walking to the far side of the bed, she leaned on the headboard. His shockingly blue eyes met her gaze evenly. They dropped to follow the blanket as she let it slide from her shoulders. When they rose to hers again, she could see amusement in them. She knew how hideous her high-necked gown was, but it had the distinction of being warm.

“Push over,” she ordered quietly.

“Over? Why?”

“Oh, Joel, be a gentleman just once,” she admonished as she loosened her hair. She wanted its thickness around her to shut out the cold. “Let me have the side closer to the stove tonight.”

He took her hand and lifted the covers to welcome her into his arms, adding her blanket over them. As she felt the warmth where his body had been resting, she sighed with soft delight. He settled her into the pillows and rested on one elbow to look down into her face. His fingers itched to touch the dark velvet of her hair cascading along the muslin pillowcase, but he did not put out his hand to stroke it.

Samantha tried to think of something to say, but all coherent thought had vanished. The open neckline of his long underwear revealed the dark matting across his chest. She wondered if it felt as silken as the strands on his head, or as spiky as his mustache.

“Good night,” she whispered. “And thank you, Joel.” She turned away from him. Placing her hand under her cheek, she closed her eyes and willed herself to forget he was so close to her. That was impossible.

She felt the bed shift slightly. “A kiss good night?” came a soft question against her ear.

Silent, taut with desire and excitement, she dared not move. His lips burning into hers snatched her breath away, sweeping aside everything else. As her arms rose to encircle his shoulders beneath the covers, she knew she had been waiting all day, all her life, for this moment.

He lifted his mouth from hers to whisper, “Sam?”

“Love me, Joel.”

“I do.” Placing his lips against her ear, he smiled as she reacted with a quiver all along her body. “And I will.”

She closed her eyes as his tongue teased the lobe of her ear before tracing its uneven ridges. All hesitation disappeared as he brushed her hair aside so he could place a fiery line of kisses along her neck. Her hand moved up to feel the warmth of his back.

When his mouth found hers, he delved deep for hidden pleasures, luxuriating in the slippery texture he found within. More eager for treasure now than when he searched for gold flakes in the river, he undid the buttons on the front of her nightgown. He was astonished to touch silken skin beneath it.

“Where is your long underwear?” he asked, watching her eyes open with dazed pleasure.

A throaty chuckle drifted from her lips. “I couldn't put it back on after I washed the clothes.”

“It didn't dry?”

She smiled shyly as she began to unbutton the front of his shirt in the dim light. He hungrily pressed his lips to the skin revealed by her loosened clothes. “No,” she said, “and I'm glad.”

Her eyes revealed how much she wanted him to be her lover. All his yearning for her love dissolved into the single, mind-sapping need to feel her without the thickness of their clothes between them.

When his mouth moved to the gentle slope of her breast, she moaned in rapture. She had never imagined anything could feel as luscious as the warm wetness of his tongue creating spirals across her skin. Her own lips, at the perfect angle to taste the rough unevenness of his ear, formed a smile when she heard his half-drawn breath of delight.

She chuckled softly when he realized her nightgown would not slide down her shoulders. Rising to her knees, she pulled it up.

She leaned over him, teasing, “If I take this off, I will be chilly. Will you keep me warm?”

His whisper seared her soul. “Always, Sam.” He stared, entranced, as she lifted the nightgown over her head. Even in the sparse glow of the stove, he could see the outline of her body through the thin material of her chemise.

Sitting, he put his hands on the narrow straps at her shoulders and lowered them along her arms, following the drooping neckline with his lips. He gently licked the downy valley between her breasts, before moving down to the flat plane of her abdomen. Swaying against him, she gasped as he returned to fascinate her lips with his own.

Against her bare skin, the roughness of his winter wear accented her awareness of every inch of him. She did not need his urging to continue opening the front of his shirt.

A single sigh escaped her lips when she felt the furred breadth of his chest over her. She pulled him to her, wanting to be so close she could feel the beat of his heart with her own.

“Just a moment,” he whispered.

Enthralled, she watched as he rose, and pushed his one piece Union suit downward, along the lean line of his hips and legs. Her eyes widened as she dared to explore him eagerly. His naked form deepened her yearning to find a way to fill the demanding void within her. She traced the darkness warm against his chest to where it narrowed near his hips.

Although she had touched him in the past, she was not prepared for the vigor of his reaction. With a muttered cry, he pressed her to the bed, almost smothering her with lightning fast kisses. She clutched his shoulders tightly as he bent to tease the tip of her breast with his tongue. A pulse beat louder than her heart. It came from far inside her where a maelstrom of desire ripped away her last shreds of reason.

Her fingers twisted in his hair as he sought to find the source of that tempo moving her. She succumbed to the bewitchment of his touch and began to sway in rhythm to his pattern, sharing with the man she loved. Moaning, she reached to pull his face to hers.

Looking down into her face, softened by her surrender to his love, he knew he could not wait any longer for what he had wanted since the moment he saw her bright eyes gazing at him from a wrinkled photograph from Ohio. He placed his mouth over hers, and brought them to oneness in the love they shared. All his fantasies came to fruition as he felt her velvet softness welcoming him.

All else forgotten, she floated on crystal clouds in a spiraling storm of passion until, with a glorious inner explosion, she was consumed by passion's golden power. She faded into it, taking his love with her, knowing they would be a part of each other for all time.

The icy fingers of the cabin's cold wind tore Samantha from sweet languid dreams of love. Shivering, she heard a gentle laugh and opened her eyes to see Joel's smile, bright in the twilight.

“I'm so cold.”

“You weren't a few minutes ago,” he said, placing his lips against the still uneven pulsebeat in her neck.

Gripped by the passion which would never lie quiet again when this man was near, she whispered, “I love you. I dreamed of being with you like this, but I didn't know how beautiful it would be.”

“I did.” He laughed again. “I imagined it over and over, until I swore I would go mad with longing. To watch you with all the men who called here to see the most beautiful woman in the Yukon, and stand by—I was afraid I might do something horrible.”

“Horrible?”

He framed her face with his broad, work rough hands. “Yes, my love, like finding a chance to be alone with you and seducing you, without waiting for you to choose between Kevin and me.”

“But I made the decision to love you long ago. I just didn't want to admit it.”

Drawing her close, steeped in the fading glow of sated passion, he looked confused. “I thought you loved only the man in your imagination. Do you know how hard it was to compete with his perfection? He doesn't exist. A man who never becomes angry at your stubborn insistence to have things your way, who understands every nuance of your feelings and always says the right thing. A man who could give you all you want.”

Careful to keep the warm blanket around her bare shoulders she leaned over him. She outlined the shadow of his lips, fighting the urge to feel them against hers again. “That man was you. Oh, he looked like Kevin, for you sent me his picture, but all the sentiments in the letters were yours. I know Kevin cannot read or write. He would not have been able to compose such lovely missives.”

Joel did not bother to apologize as he basked in the loveswept glow of her eyes. “He thought he was helping.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

With a shrug, he smiled. “Guilt, perhaps. After all, Kevin did pay half your fare to Dawson. I thought he should have a chance to woo you, too. Not that it was easy. I wanted you, for I'd fallen in love with the woman who wrote so openly of her dreams of distant vistas. Then you arrived, prettier than any photograph could show. That made it even more difficult. My frustration with the situation came out too often in anger.”