At the Rainbow's End (26 page)

“I noticed.”

“I thought you might have.” He chuckled.

She nestled into his arms and stared up into the darkness. Soon she would have to dress, but she wanted to savor his naked body against hers as long as she could.

In a thoughtful tone, she murmured, “You're a very nice man, Joel Gilchrist.”

“I know that. You know that. But don't tell anyone else. I would hate to have my reputation ruined.”

“You've ruined mine,” she said pertly.

He tipped her chin up so he could see her face, so close to his. “Oh, no, my love. I've simply proven what everyone knows from the moment they met you. You're a loving woman who can make a man's dreams come true.”

“Just one man—you, Joel Gilchrist.” She savored the roughness of his unshaven face beneath her fingers; felt along her body tender spots where the bristles had reddened her skin. It was a delightful reminder of the ecstasy he had given her.

When an uncontrollable shiver raced along her, he laughed against her hair. “Cold, Sam?”

“Yes. After all, it's a two bowl night.”

“Two bowl?” he asked, bafflement filling his deep voice.

“Both the mercury and the whiskey are frozen, aren't they?”

He smiled, looking down into her face. His hand covered the pliant roundness of her breast, and she softened against him. “If you're chilly, my love, there is one, very fine way of keeping you warm.”

Her arms drew the blankets over his shoulders as his lips descended on hers. In this sweet cocoon, they would escape the deepening night cold, lost in the love binding them together.

The door creaked, and wind swept a snow-encrusted man into the cabin. Tightening her shawl over her shoulders, Samantha looked up with expectation. Joel had promised to hurry with the chores so they could have the evening to share the sweetness of their love. Through the day, as an early storm threatened the tiny cabin, they had ignored its winds, discovering anew the depth of the emotion growing between them. She longed to sleep by his side again tonight.

“Kevin!” she gasped. Then, fearing she had shown her disappointment, she urged, “Quickly! Get out of those frozen clothes and warm yourself. We didn't expect you to beat the storm home.”

Putting his fogged glasses on the splintered tabletop, he regarded her myopically. His dark eyes were so lifeless in comparison with Joel's fiery ones. He shrugged off his heavy parka and threw it into a pile by the door.

“Samantha, you sure do look beautiful.”

“We were worried when we saw the snow clouds building on the horizon.” She added, “I'm glad you're safe,” knowing it was the truth. She did wish, though, that she could have another night alone with Joel. She wondered when they would have the chance to meld into love again.

He smiled as he pulled off his boots and dropped them next to his coat. The snow melted into a cold fog around them. Crossing the narrow room, he put his icy hands on her arms and bent to kiss her cheek. His mustache dripped with miniature icicles.

“Joel should have known I'd try to outrun the storm. It's too expensive to stay long in Dawson. I left as soon as I saw the doctor. It's taken me most of the day to get here. So, you were worried?”

“Yes, of course!” She wondered if her vehemence was to convince him or herself. Guilt heated her cheeks as she thought of how seldom this man had been in her mind since he left the cabin. “What did the doctor say?”

He chuckled. “Avoid drafts. Rest. He hinted at a recurrence of the pneumonia if I overdo.”

“Pneumonia?” Her cheeks became gray. “Is that what you had? Oh, Kevin, you could have died!”

“It's very nice to hear you being so concerned about me, darling.”

She tried to speak, but he pressed his mouth violently against hers, and she struggled to breathe. She could not halt him when his fingers loosened the buttons of her blouse. When he placed his cold hands on the lace of her chemise, she moaned in terror. Kevin was too strong. She could not break his hold on her.

A blast of frigid air announced the opening of the door.

As she whirled away from Kevin, Joel said, “Welcome home. I'm glad to see you made it back safely before the storm settled in.”

Picking up Kevin's coat from the floor, he tossed it to his silent partner.

“Let's finish the chores, if you're up to it.”

Kevin paused as he followed Joel out the door and gave her a broad wink. She wrapped her arms around her chest, realizing he meant to continue with this later. As she watched the two men go out into the white-coated outdoors, she shook with more than the cold.

The idyll had ended. Too soon. Soon she and Joel must face the consequences of their love.

Chapter Fourteen

Samantha placed a flat slab and a long piece of chalk on the table in front of Kevin. He glanced at her in shock. There was no humor in her face. In fact, there had been few smiles for any of them since he returned from Dawson. The winter had settled into the valley as if it intended to exact a revenge for the mild summer.

He looked past the stove to the bed, where Samantha slept each night. He and Joel now shared the one in the loft. The sense of that was clear. Two bodies could keep each other warm and alive up there.

He thought of how he had come downstairs this morning before Samantha woke. Her image remained in his mind: her dark hair tangled across his pillow, her fingers innocently folded under her cheek, and her red flannel-covered leg, revealed nearly to her knee. It taunted him. He thought of waiting until Joel slept tonight, then coming downstairs to let her take the cold from his bones.

He studied her in her prim outfit. She wore a heavy sweater over her blouse. Beneath her skirts, a half dozen petticoats and the long underwear thickened her waist and slowed her movements, but he did not notice. As he played again through his fantasies, she was unaware that her every movement was an invitation to join her in the bedstead near the stove.

With the greatest effort he forced his gaze from her to the stone she had placed in front of him. “What is this, Samantha?”

“Write your name,” she ordered.

“Why?”

“Because I asked you to.” Her voice remained gentle, but her dark eyes told him she would not allow him to disobey her command.

Uneasy, he picked up the chalk and balanced it in his hand. Looking from her to the stone and back again, he shifted on the bench. He remembered other times of staring at blank slates, trying to devise excuses to avoid what she intended to coerce him into doing.

“Just do the best you can,” she urged. She leaned forward to place her hands on the end of the table top. But she jumped back when he snarled a curse.

He threw the chalk to the table. It cracked sharply into several pieces. When she started to speak, he grasped the largest. In the center of the flat rock, he laboriously made an X. He turned it so she could see what he had written.

“There! Are you satisfied?”

A pang went through her at his obvious pain, but she knew she could not relent. Someone had given up on Kevin years ago. She would not let him convince her to do the same.

“No,” she answered softly. “If you and Joel make the big strike here, Kevin, you are going to be wealthy men. There'll be many who will be glad to cheat you out of what you've broken your back to earn. You have to be able to read and write, to protect yourself.”

“I can hire lawyers and accountants to handle my business.”

She came around the table to sit next to him. Earnestly she asked, “And if they're dishonest? Who'll tell you the truth if you can't read the forms they bring you to sign? The money may move from your accounts to theirs without you being the wiser, until it's too late.”

Refusing to meet her eyes, he glowered at the slate, fists clenched. He wanted to strike something to relieve his frustration, shocked and embarrassed that this woman he wanted had discovered his inadequacy. All his life, he had hidden this secret, felt a stigma which made him less than those raised beyond his coal mining town in Pennsylvania.

He wondered what else she might have sensed. If she had discovered facts which must remain hidden … He shook his head. She could not have guessed. Thinking of his secret being revealed to her gentle heart sickened him.

“I
could
have learned,” he grumbled. “When a boy works twelve hours below the ground six days a week, he doesn't have energy to spend on booklearning.”

Samantha put her hand over his and smiled. “I want to help.”

“No!” He stood and swung his leg over the bench. Going to the pail, he reached for the dipper. He snarled when he saw the water was frozen solid. “Damn!”

Rising, she poured a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove. “Here, Kevin.” She held it out to him, asking softly, “Won't you let me teach you to read and write?”

“It's too late,” he said, taking the cup.

“Why? I'll help you.” She did want to. Also, if she could do this for him, she would feel better about hiding her feelings for Joel. She did not regret one moment of the joy they had shared, but she wanted to keep from hurting this man. She felt he had been wounded by life.

He put his broad hand on her shoulder and stroked it gently. Suddenly a slow smile spread across his bearded face. He would be a fool to pass up this chance to have Samantha's complete attention. Since he returned he had seen the change in her. Her steps lightened when she neared Joel, and her voice soared with joy. He wanted her eyes to sparkle for him as they did when she looked at Joel. He would win out. She would be his.

“All right, Samantha,” he answered almost gleefully. “If you want to work with a very slow student, I'll be glad to try to learn what you can teach me. You're right. This is something I'll need to know.”

“Wonderful!” She led him back to where the improvised slate sat on the table, lifted a piece of chalk and said, “First we'll begin with the alphabet. Once you learn that, we can go on to reading.”

He slipped his arm around her slender waist and leaned forward to watch as she slowly drew an “A” on the stone. Busy chattering about the lesson, she did not notice his fingers moving along her arm. He was careful not to touch her as passionately as he longed to. He did not want to scare her while he had this chance to hold her close.

When she looked at him, he refrained from kissing her parted lips. He forced his eyes back to what she had written and tried to concentrate on what she was saying instead of her soft curves, so temptingly close.

An hour later, she put the schoolwork away, pleased with his progress. Kevin had remembered bits of his sparse mining town education.

“Tomorrow, again,” she vowed.

“You're going to be a stern taskmaster.” He grinned, but the expression faded when he heard the banging of boots against the side of the house.

Samantha allowed herself no more than a welcoming smile as Joel was thrust into the cabin, propelled by the everpresent icy wind. Although she wanted to fling her arms around him and kiss the cold from his lips, she contented herself with a simple greeting and pouring them all cups of coffee.

The dark-haired man shrugged off his heavy coat. Holding a packet under his arm, he awkwardly untied his boots and padded in stocking feet across the room. “Damn, it's frigid out there. I wouldn't have attempted the trip into Grand Forks if I'd realized the wind would be blowing directly from the North Pole. Thanks,” he added taking the coffee and using its steam to melt the layer of ice on his mustache and skin.

“Did you get what you wanted?” asked Samantha. Her breath caught in her throat as he turned his gaze on her. It was the one thing that the winter could not cool. Surely a century had passed since the luscious night he held her in love.

“Can't get what I want in Grand Forks.” When he saw the tint of rose rising in her face, he knew she had understood.

He glanced at Kevin. More than once, since the blizzard which had held them cabin-bound for three days and ended their work in the river, he had tried to reveal Samantha's decision to be his lover to his partner. Each time, Kevin changed the subject rapidly, as if he wanted to ignore anything which might destroy his dream of having Sam for his own.

Joel shook off his doldrums. If Kevin chose to be obtuse, he would learn in a far less gentle way. Perhaps he knew already. Sam was finding it difficult to hide her love. Smiling, Joel dropped the package in front of her.

“Here,” he said grandly. “Open it.”

“For me?”

He laughed at the childish delight on her face. If Sam only knew how he longed to shower her with gifts—lovely things which would flatter her beauty!

“Of course. Aren't you going to open it?”

Not needing a second urging, Samantha pulled off the coarse twine and unfolded the paper. Her soft gasp of pleasure fired his blood as he remembered a sweeter gasp near his ear, when he held her in bed. He stifled his yearning as he watched her lift out the items in the packet.

Excited, she slipped into the bear pelt parka. She pulled the dark fur hood around her face. It accented her eyes, which were nearly the same shade. She buttoned the front. The parka reached nearly to her knees. Savoring warmth she had thought she would not feel until spring, she smoothed the lush fur.

Her eyes widened as she saw other items on the brown paper sitting on the table. First, there were lovely suede gloves, beaded with a pattern she did not recognize. When she pulled them over her fingers, she found they fit almost perfectly. That did not astonish her. Joel would be a good judge of her size. His keen eyes missed little.

She giggled as she removed her boots and slipped on the fur lined moccasins. The off-white rabbit fur welcomed her toes into its plushness. She wiggled her feet and laughed again. Standing, she spun slowly.

“You look wonderful,” said Kevin quickly, wanting to be the first to compliment her. He wondered where Joel had found gold to pay for these garments. All the gold in the box had been spent in Dawson. If either Joel or Samantha wondered at the amount the doctor charged, they did not ask. Kevin offered no explanation where it had gone.