At the Rainbow's End (7 page)

With a gasp to ease the fire etching its way to her middle, she struck out at the hand holding the glass. It flew across the room to crash into the wall and fall to the floor in a rain of sharp shards.

“Damn!” snarled a male voice. “Look what she did. That was our last glass one.”

“Not now. It doesn't matter.”

Gentle fingers guided her chin up to gaze at a distorted image of the face she had seen so often in a photograph. She fought her rebellious stomach. In a voice scratchy from the whiskey, she whispered, “Why?”

The one named Joel Gilchrist sat next to her and took her fingers in his. Shocked by his audacity, she tried to pull them out of his grip, but he refused to release her. “You must listen to the truth, Samantha.”

“We are not friends. You may not use my given name,” she said stiffly.

“Friends?” He laughed as he looked past her to the other man. “You promised to marry me. I think that makes us more than friends.”

“No!” she cried. She wanted to stand. With the men on either side of her, she was imprisoned. She felt she would suffocate any moment. “I didn't promise to marry you, Mr. Gilchrist.”

“Then who?” he asked reasonably. “Kevin?”

The other man interrupted. “Enough. Let her get settled in. We've had a long trip. She must be exhausted.” He helped an astonished Samantha to her feet. “We thought until this was all worked out, you'd like to sleep in the loft in the addition.”

She ignored them, longing to escape from this madness, hurting from loss of the love she had thought would bring such joy into her life.

“Kevin, why don't you unload the horse?” Joel suggested smoothly. “You have had a chance to get to know our Samantha during your journey here. Grant me the same opportunity.”

“Don't I have anything to say about this?” she demanded.

Joel turned to her and smiled. The effect startled her. His wind-burnished face smoothed to display his handsome features. With one hand resting on the tabletop, he asked, “What do you want to say?”

“I-I—” She could think of nothing. He grinned at her in easy amusement. His eyes slipped from hers and moved along her body again. She wished she had her long cloak to pull around her, block his admiring gaze.

“That's settled, then.” He smacked his hand on the table. “Go on, Kevin. I'll show Samantha the loft while you bring in her things.”

There was no alternative. She went with him to a ladder at one side of the room. Wrapping her skirts tightly around her, bunching the excess material in her hand, she cautiously climbed the ladder. Made of saplings bound together with coarse twine, it creaked ominously as she stepped on each rung. She sighed with relief when she put her foot on the uneven floorboards of the attic. Joel followed, carrying her small bag.

“This is it?” she gasped as he joined her. Dirt huddled in the corners, stirred by the wind which surged like hot breath through cracks in the walls. A bed frame leaned drunkenly against the only wall high enough. The other walls ended in the low gables of the roof. She could stand upright only in the middle of the room.

Joel shrugged. “It's private. We'll bunk together downstairs. We thought you might like this.”

She crossed the room. There was a stained ticking on the bed. She feared it was infested with unwanted companions. Touching the iron bedstead, her fingers came away filthy with a thick coating of dust.

“I need a changing screen,” she said, not looking at him.

“You have plenty of privacy. There's not even a window here.”

As if he had not spoken, she said, “I can use a piece of cloth on a rope. If you string it between here and there,” she instructed, pointing, “it should be fine. If you don't have a washstand, I must have at least a pitcher and a bowl for cleansing. I'll need also blankets for the bed, and some pegs hammered in the wall for hanging clothes.”

“How about a maidservant and a private bath?”

Samantha regarded him without expression. Her voice cold, she said, “Mr. Gilchrist, I don't think my demands are unreasonable. I should be allowed some creature comforts.”

Resignedly, he nodded. “Tomorrow. We've missed too much work as it is.”

Taking her bag, she snapped, “Sorry to put you out so horribly.”

“So, you do have some spirit!” He put his arm on one of the slanting rafters and watched her unpack. “I was beginning to wonder if you were the same Samantha Perry who wrote to us. You nearly swooned outside.”

“I did not!” she snapped, her pride bruised by his condescending tone.

“I had to help you into the house!”

She recalled his tender hands easing her onto the bench, surprised he had been so consoling.

“I had good reason to be lightheaded,” she said coolly.

A thump from below halted Joel's answer, and he walked to the hole and lifted up her two large satchels as Kevin handed them up to him. Flinging them to the middle of the floor, he started to climb down the ladder.

“Make yourself at home, Samantha!” he called jauntily as his head disappeared from view.

Her fists clenched at her side in impotent fury. She wanted to wipe that superior smile from his face, somehow. To think, she had expected life in the Klondike to center on a kind, loving man!

Samantha sat on the bed and heard its protesting squeak. With a sigh, she looked at the slanted line of the ceiling. Alone in the half light of the loft, she could not escape the truth. Leaving her world behind, she had come here to be with a man to whom she had vowed eternal love and devotion—and he did not exist.

Now she was supposed to accept this situation.

But she could not.

Once she devised a way to repay them, the two men would not be pleased. Of that she was sure. The only question remaining was how she would make them rue their deception.

Chapter Four

The main room of the cabin was vacant when Samantha climbed down the ladder. Her nose wrinkled in distaste at the odor of unwashed dishes reeking with grease. The coffee pot was still warm. Searching, she found a cup which appeared clean and filled it with the thick, black brew. Sipping, she grimaced and placed the cup on the table. Perhaps the coffee had been palatable once, but it was no longer.

With a sigh, she picked up the filthy plates and piled them in the middle of the table. While she lived here, she did not intend to share the sloppy ways of her hosts. She found the washtub in a cupboard with a warped door. Water waited in a pail by the door. She put it on the stove to warm.

Gazing around the plain room with its few pieces of primitive furniture, Samantha wondered how she could have involved herself in this mess …

When the first letter came from the man calling himself Joel Houseman, it seemed the answer to a prayer. She had been living with her brother and his family for nearly eight years, since her mother's death. They had not wanted her, but she had no place to go. The financial depression settling on the country made it difficult for her brother to provide for one more. She soon learned she must repay him by acting as a slave for his wife and in-laws.

She grew tired of her extended family's attempts to marry her off to any man who expressed interest, and to several who did not. That she had not been attracted to any of the men had not lessened their efforts. Those who made offers soon discovered she would not let her family's desires overrule her own.

On the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday, her brother asked her when she intended to marry. Her flippant answer angered him, and he told her she had one year to find a husband or a new home.

Several weeks later, a member of their church had offered her the chance to write to a “brave, but lonely” man in the Yukon. She had taken his picture and his well-penned, wrinkled letter, sure nothing would come of a harmless correspondence. As the months passed, though, and she discovered how eagerly she waited for the mailman's visits to the farm, she learned how much she had come to care for the man she knew as Joel Houseman.

She poured the warm water into the tub and began to scrub the dishes with a rag and a chunk of harsh soap she found on the washstand by the bed the two men must now share. Having taken one of their beds gave her pleasure. Their discomfort offered some sense of revenge for the terrible trick they had played on her.

As she washed the dishes she had sweet memories of the courtship she had thought would end so differently. She had written, and read the replies with pleasure. When the offer of matrimony and free passage to the Yukon came to the crowded farmhouse along the Ohio River, her sister-in-law convinced Samantha's brother to urge her to agree. This time Samantha was less reluctant to accept a proposal, and before she quite knew what was happening, she was on a train heading for Seattle and a ship to take her north.

How they would laugh if they saw what she had found here!

At the sound of footsteps on the planks outside the door, she looked up to meet the tentative smile of the man she must now call Kevin.

“Are you unpacked?”

“Yes.” Her eyes went to the man standing behind him, the real Joel. He nodded and pushed past her to dunk his arms into the tub. She stepped back with a gasp as water sprayed everywhere. “What are you doing?”

“Damn mosquitoes,” he muttered, looking up at her from where he bent over the water. A boyish grin eased the lines cut into his face. “Warm water eases the itching.”

She turned away, not wanting him to see she was tempted to smile. At least Kevin pretended to feel remorse at bringing her into this odd household. Joel continued to act as if this all was a charming prank.

“We want to explain,” said Kevin as he sat down on the bench.

“That might be nice,” she said coolly.

When Joel did not speak, Kevin sighed. He had lost this coin toss, although he had won the one which decided who would go into Dawson to meet Samantha. Clearing his throat, he began uneasily, “It's lonely up here. Oh, there are plenty of miners, but few women.”

“I noticed that.”

“I'm sure you did.” Joel met her glare evenly as he added, “And I bet they noticed you, too.”

“Will you be quiet, so I can explain?” demanded his partner. The dark-haired man gave a soft chuckle, which earned him a venomous stare from Samantha. Kevin tried to keep his voice calm as he continued, “We'd heard of other men who arranged through the mail for a bride, so we decided to attempt that ourselves.” The blond man looked at her earnestly. “Unfortunately for us, we didn't have the money to pay for the fares for two brides. Being partners, we thought we'd pool our money and—”

Samantha's face grew pale. “You can't be serious!” She backed away from the table, bumping into the wall of the small cabin. She remembered the horrid story Constable French had told of the dance hall girls who had auctioned themselves for the winter. This proposition was far worse. “How immoral! That is—”

“Whoa!” ordered Joel. He put his hand on her arm and drew her back to the table. “Sit down before you faint dead away. We don't plan to force you to sleep with both of us.” Kevin hissed a reprimand, but he waved it aside. “She'd better get used to rough talk. It's all she'll hear out here. Listen, Samantha, from the beginning, we decided we'd write the letters together. And both appreciated the sentiments you returned to us.”

Kevin added, “Your words were very welcome on the long winter nights, when the wind howled through the walls. Both of us decided we could love you very easily. That's when we sent the passage to you. We thought we'd offer you a choice.”

“A choice?” she blurted, looking from Joel's scintillating smile to Kevin's eager features.

Biting her lip, she did not speak the truth she had known since she discovered their plot. She would not marry either of them. A marriage based on lies had no hope of succeeding.

“Take your time,” Kevin urged. “We don't want to hurry you. The claim is sure to prove fruitful, so you don't have to worry about either of us being unable to provide for you.”

Tears burned in her eyes, and she spat, “I didn't come here to marry a wealthy man! I came because—because …”

“Because you love Joel Houseman?” Strong hands settled on her shoulders. She looked up at Joel. He was regarding her oddly.

“Yes,” she whispered, “I came because I love Joel Houseman. Only he doesn't exist.”

“But he does,” he argued gently. “You'll discover that. It's simply that he is two men instead of one. Right, Kevin?”

The blond scowled, then forced his smile back onto his face. “We only want for you to be happy, Miss Perry.”

“Samantha,” she corrected with a deep sigh. Such false gentility would serve no purpose now. She did not have to ask them if they would give her money to return home. They had admitted already that funds were slim.

She stared at the two men watching her fury returning. They had ruined her dreams. She would not let them strip her of anything she could salvage from this disaster.

Entwining her fingers on the table, she said quietly, “You say you want me to be happy. It seems to me you have chosen an odd way to bring that about.” She continued before they could respond. “As it's too late to change what has happened, I think we should discuss our future relationship.”

Kevin smiled. “But we said that would be your decision, Miss—Samantha.”

“I wasn't speaking of that. We have some business to discuss.”

“Such as?”

She looked at Joel, no longer surprised that all demands came from him and more gentlemanly behavior from Kevin. “Such as how much I will be paid, and when my quarters will be fixed as they should be. Things like that.”

“What do you mean?” Joel looked at Kevin in confusion. His softhearted partner could not have made her any promises. He had not even told her the true situation at Claim Fifteen Above.