Follow the Sun (49 page)

He laughed hoarsely. “I didn’t notice.”

“Sorry.”

“I
like
the taste of topsoil.”

“Here, let me wipe it off.” Embarrassed, Kat licked her fingers in preparation, and got dirt on her tongue. “Yaaah!” She covered her mouth and turned away from Nathan, spitting and trying to be delicate about it.

If his roaring laughter was any indication, he’d just seen the funniest sight of his life. Kat reached back and flailed at him. When she finally looked up again, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, he was smoothing tears from the corners of his eyes.

Well, at least she’d changed the awkward, heated mood.

“Dig, gopher,” she ordered, her mouth quirking with humor.

He smiled. “Scratch, hen.”

B
Y EARLY AFTERNOON
they’d assembled a small pile of nails, three door hinges, something that looked like the handle of a cooking pot, and various pieces of iron that had been part of implements they couldn’t identify.

Nathan watched Kat work and marveled at her tenacity. Her T-shirt clung to her like a wet rag—which gave him an even better reason to watch. She had sweaty streaks of grime on her arms and legs, loose strands of inky-black hair clung to her face, and her hands were covered in dirt.

But she was smiling.

He thrust his shovel into the soil and ripped out another piece of Blue Song land. The symbolism of what he was doing stabbed him with anger and frustration. The scars he made in her land today were a faint scratch compared to what he planned to do later.

Again he thrust the shovel downward, feeling disgusted and letting the aggression leap into his work. With a dull clang the blade hit something large and very solid.

“Kat!”

She limped over quickly. “What?”

They both knelt down. Nathan dug his hands into the soil and grunted with the effort of dislodging the heavy piece. “What the hell?”

“It looks like a big bar of iron.”

“Not a bar—a, ummmph, rod.” The thick, rusty object came loose and Nathan lifted it up. “Must be fifteen, twenty pounds.”

They both looked at it curiously. The corrosion had left its surface pitted and lumpy. It was about a foot and a half long and nearly as thick as a man’s wrist.

“Something to fight with?” Kat asked. “Look, there’s a hanger on one end.”

Nathan turned the rod upright and studied the crude eyelet forged to it. Understanding dawned quickly. “It’s a window sash weight!”

Kat touched the strange device curiously. “You mean to make a window stay open when you raise it?”

“Yeah. There were two for each window—four if you wanted both halves of the window to move. Do you know what this means?”

“No.” She gazed up at him with wide green eyes.

“It means the Blue Songs had a really nice house. A house with expensive glass-paned windows that only people with money could afford.”

He studied the sash weight intensely. “When the Cherokees were kicked out of north Georgia there wasn’t much more here than crude gold mines and one-mule farms. The Blue Songs may have owned one of the nicest places around, Cherokee or white.”

Kat grabbed his arm. The yearning look in her eyes nearly tore him apart. “Do you think we could find the foundation of the house?”

Nathan nodded.
If she asked him with that childlike eagerness, he’d search for ice water in hell
“And if we find most of these sash weights, we can get an idea of how many windows there were.” He angled his head toward the forest beyond. “I bet we can even get some idea of where the outbuildings were—barns, smokehouse, stuff like that.”

She sank down and gave him a teary smile. “Thank you, sweetcakes, thank you. I would never have found this place if you hadn’t been here.”

His heart thudding with pleasure, he told her, “We need help with this. Somebody trustworthy, somebody who won’t go over to Gold Ridge and talk. The last thing we want are souvenir hunters coming out here from town.”

He paused, thinking. “Got it. I’ll call a friend who works for … with me.”

She didn’t notice his slip of the tongue, and she stroked his arm with her small, gentle hand. “Na
than,” she asked softly, “why are you doing all this for me?”

Because I want you to have something from this old homeplace to remember. Because I don’t want you to feel so hurt later. Because I’m crazy about you
.

Nathan offered her a jaunty grin. “I told you, finding rusty metal is exciting.”

S
HE WAS BLISSFULLY
exhausted, and so happy she didn’t care if she looked like a dirt dauber. Riding in the plush comfort of Nathan’s truck, listening to a tape of music made by Cujimo Indians in some little South American country called Surador, she watched mountainside farms give way to the small-town charm of Gold Ridge.

What had once been a bawdy gold boomtown full of saloons, brothels, and gambling houses had become in modern times a cozy place of bed-and-breakfast inns, shops, and restaurants. There was a picturesque college campus right off a courthouse square crowded with big oak trees, and places a short walk from the main street where tourists paid five dollars an hour to pan for gold dust. Mountains rose like an exquisitely hand-painted backdrop in the distance.

“I could really be happy in a little place like this,” Kat noted.

Nathan turned the tape player off and tapped the steering wheel rhythmically, thinking. “I’ve got a great idea. Let’s get a couple of rooms at one of the inns and celebrate by staying in town tonight.”

“We couldn’t get service at a drive-through window, the way we look.”

“We’ll go shopping. We’ll get the rooms and take a bath … baths.”

Kat squirmed inwardly. She had no money for such things. “Nah.”

“You shouldn’t go back to the campsite today. You’ve already been on your bad foot too long.”

“I’m okay.”

“I’ll pay.”

“Nope.”

Nathan slipped a hand under the seat and withdrew a sturdy plastic box. He handed it to her. “Open it.”

Inside Kat found a half dozen major credit cards and a wad of money as big as her fist. The top bill was a fifty. Were all the others fifties?

“Nathan, is it too late for me to learn geology? I want to be rich, too.”

He smiled. “Then you’ll let me pay.”

“No—”

“You wouldn’t be out of work right now if you hadn’t rescued me from Lady Savage. You’re losing money, and I’m responsible. I owe ya, kid, I owe ya.”

She was still staring at the money and cards. What did he do—carry his life savings around with him? Maybe it wasn’t all he had, but it was undoubtedly a lot more than
her
life savings.

“Okay. But nothing fancy.”

She didn’t trust the mischievous sound of his laughter.

N
ATHAN SLID BACK
into the truck with a big smile on his face. “All set. A great place. I see why you and your cousins liked it.”

Kat peered around him at the Kirkland Inn, a noble old house with an upper gallery, lots of rocking chairs, and a yard filled with azaleas and dogwoods under an umbrella of stately beech trees.

“Well, we only stayed here a little while when we came to see Dove’s lawyer about the will. But Tess said it has the
ambience
of an English farmhouse, and Erica said it has strong floor joists.”

Nathan pursed his mouth and looked away, smiling. “You and your cousins have got to be an interesting trio.”

She punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Now what?”

He cranked the truck. “Clothes.”

Fifteen minutes later she stood in the aisle of a boutique, being eyed by a saleswoman who obviously thought she was an ethnic hobo of some sort. Kat went to Nathan, who sat on a wooden bench by the door, looking as happy as a clam—a dirt-covered clam in grimy buckskins, hiking boots, and a sweaty, stained T-shirt.

Kat bent over and whispered. “That walrus acts like we’re scum. She’s afraid I’m gonna steal something. Let’s leave.”

He flipped the stem of his empty pipe into his mouth and grinned rakishly around it. “Whatd’ya care? She’ll jump when she sees money.”

Kat frowned at him. “I hate it when salespeople look at me this way. Circus people aren’t trusted, especially in little towns. I grew up with women like that making me feel like a thief.”

His smile faded and he pressed her hand gently. “You know, if you’d stop checking all the price tags she might relax.”

Kat lowered her voice even more. “Stuff here costs too much, Nathan.”

“We’re not leaving until you buy everything you need. No more looking at price tags. Hurry up. I’ve got to get some clean clothes too, you know. And a bath. And I’m hungry. And I want to smoke my pipe.”

“All right!”

He counted on his fingers. “A dress, shoes, underwear, and whatever else females need. I want to see it all on the counter. Don’t hold back.”

She smiled at him with clenched teeth. “The only thing I’m holding back is my fist.”

Kat felt a mixture of horror and victorious thrill fifteen minutes later when Nathan calmly handed the saleswoman two hundred dollars plus change. With two hundred dollars Kat could have bought a whole year’s wardrobe.

The woman’s eyes bugged a little and her attitude became a great deal more pleasant. Kat gripped the
counter. She’d never spent that much money on one outfit before.

“I’m sorry, Nathan,” she said fervently, as they walked to the truck. “Lord, I’m so sorry. I should have looked at the prices.”

“Kat, quit yowling.” He tossed her shopping bags into the back of the truck. “It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not right for you to spend this much money.”

“Think I expect something in return?” he asked coolly, one dark brow arched in warning.

“If you do, I sure feel obligated!”

The color drained out of his face. “I didn’t realize that you trade sex for clothes. I should have bought you more.”

She shook her head angrily. “You know what I mean!”

He gripped her shoulders hard and looked down at her with eyes gone the cold pewter color that meant he was angry. He said softly, “If I want anything from you, I’ll just ask. I won’t bribe you for it.”

She was so flustered that she almost said.
So ask
. Instead, she nodded numbly. “Sorry. I’m not used to gentlemen.”

“Well,
get
used.”

I’d love to, Nathan. Especially a gentleman with a cute tattooed behind and a sexy pierced ear
. Kat limped to her side of the truck but didn’t get a chance to touch the door. Nathan leaped in front of her, pulled it open, and bowed, his expression droll but still a little angry.

“Hah,” she said imperiously, and got inside.

S
HE HAD A
lovely room full of antiques. It opened on to the inn’s back gallery, and when she walked to the railing she could touch the limb of a beech tree close by.

The beech tree was the only thing close by. Nathan had asked for a room on the other side of the house.

Why did he make it clear that he liked her, wanted
her as a woman, but intended to avoid her? Kat stood in the shower and scrubbed her hair fiercely, trying to wash him out of it, as the old song said.

Okay, so she was a nobody, a nomad with no immediate future outside of the weird show biz world of wrestling. She wasn’t cut out to get an ordinary job. It would drive her nuts, seeing the same office or store every day, sitting still most of the time.

Nathan had a good job, not a normal job, but an entirely respectable, even sort of glamorous one. He had money. He certainly had no trouble attracting women—she’d watched a salesgirl nearly drool over him. And he even had a regular family back in Arkansas, had grown up on the homeplace Nathaniel Chatham had acquired before the Civil War. He had
roots
.

In short, Nathan didn’t need a female wrestler with no education, no decent clothes, a credit rating that made loan officers laugh, and a personal history that included rape plus a failed marriage.

She could just imagine how his family would freak if he brought home an ex-circus performer who was also a Gallatin. They’d be conjuring up General Custer inside of twenty-four hours.

Nathan liked her, he was her friend, and he even wanted to make love to her. But he wasn’t going to do it, because he was a gentleman, and he knew she’d be hurt when he left.

And on that point he was very, very right.

N
ATHAN STOOD ON
the back balcony, waiting anxiously. He hadn’t seen her in an hour. He rocked in a rocking chair. He walked. Finally he shoved his hands through his hair and muttered oaths. Would this get worse? Would he get to the point where he couldn’t stand to be away from her for thirty minutes, then fifteen, then five, until eventually he’d become her constant shadow?

At the other end of the gallery her door opened. Nathan glanced at his scrubbed hiking boots, brushed
a tiny piece of tobacco off the tan trousers he’d purchased, fiddled with his suspenders, and checked the rolled-up sleeves of a striped shirt that still smelled like a menswear shop despite all the pipe smoke he’d blown on it.

God, he hadn’t been this antsy the night he’d had to explain to a Zambinawee chief that he didn’t want to get married, even if it meant he’d own all four of the chief’s daughters.

Kat stepped onto the gallery, fluffing her hair as if it weren’t quite dry. Nathan gripped the gallery railing and stared at her.

She’d chosen a white dress of some crinkly white material. The short-sleeved bodice knew what to do over her curves and the full skirt knew how to swirl gracefully around her legs.

The white material heightened the honey of her skin and made her hair look blue-black. The dress’s neckline was decorated with white fringe and brightly colored beads, giving it a boutique-native look that would have been too cute on anyone but a real native. With the dress she wore plain white sandals and absolutely no jewelry or makeup. Nathan wanted to eat her alive. In Cherokee love formulas, that was the ultimate compliment.

She saw him and abruptly stopped stroking her hair. Her hands framed her face, making a lovely picture which imprinted itself forever in Nathan’s mind.