Gold Dust (41 page)

Katy huddled in the quilts on her cot and stared into the darkness. A crude screen of blankets partitioned off the area of
the cabin that was the “ladies’ boudoir,” as Katy and Andy had jestingly called it after Jonah had moved into the cabin. For
the two nights since Andy had left, Katy had slept behind the blankets with only Hunter as company, and she was not enjoying
it. The screen blocked the heat from the stove, and the little cubicle was cold as ice. Andy’s presence in the other cot had
at least added some body heat, or maybe she had simply added the warmth of companionship. In any case, Katy was so cold she
might as well be sitting on the North Pole, and loneliness sapped whatever meager heat was left in her body.

Andy had rebelled at first when they had sprung Camilla’s offer upon her. But Katy’s assurances that she would still have
part of the claim, the enticement of learning how to read and do numbers, and the unspoken need that shone from Camilla’s
eyes had persuaded her. The next morning she and Camilla had left on the cart, Andy handling the broken-down livery nag much
more expertly than Camilla had.

Katy huddled deeper into the quilts and ached for Andy’s absence. She didn’t like being alone, Katy decided. All her life
she’d had loved ones around her—sister, father, mother, stepmother. She’d never thought of how loneliness would feel when
she had declared that she would forgo marriage and a family to be an independent woman. Now she was alone, and she didn’t
like it one bit.

Jonah was here, of course, but somehow his presence only made her loneliness worse, for soon he would go back to his world
and leave her to hers. That was the way it had to be. But the thought of it left an emptiness in her heart that was colder
than the air outside.

In the night quiet of the cabin, Katy could hear Jonah’s soft, relaxed breathing, punctuated every now and again with the
snap of burning pine and spruce in the camp stove. How good it would feel to have his arms around her in the dark. He would
warm her, make the darkness less oppressive. Would it be so wrong to seek his comfort while he was still here to give it?

It would be wrong,
her conscience told her.
It really would.

Katy was no ignorant child who didn’t know the risk of joining Jonah in his bed. But she wanted it just the same.

Maybe,
her conscience suggested,
you don’t mind the risk because conceiving a child will take the decision out of your cowardly hands.

Or maybe, Katy answered herself, she was simply a wicked woman. Wicked and lonely, and she loved a man she shouldn’t have.

The argument with herself was pointless. She had no energy to resist the compulsion of Jonah’s nearness. With a sigh of surrender,
she padded to his cot, nightgown gathered tightly around her, icy plank floor biting through the wool of her socks.

“Jonah?” She touched his shoulder.

He woke immediately. “Katy.” One hand reached out and took hers. The other lifted his blankets in invitation.

She crawled into the warm haven of his narrow cot and snuggled against him as his arms pulled her close. Through his long
johns she felt him hard and ready the moment their bodies touched. She sighed in bliss, kissed his bare chest, and wormed
her way upward on the cot to kiss his mouth, which welcomed her with eager passion. Too soon, though, he set
her back from him. His hand captured hers as it wandered downward over his chest.

“Katy, no.”

“No?”

He kissed the tousled top of her head, his breath warm and comforting in her hair. “No. This is wrong, Katy. You can’t decide
to accept one facet of love and reject the rest. This is wrong.”

“You don’t want me?” she asked incredulously.

“Oh, my beautiful Katydid. I want you so badly that I’m likely to burst right out of my skin. But I want all of you, not just
the little part you’re willing to give.”

For a moment she was merely stunned. Embarrassment brought her back to life. She tried to scramble from the cot, but his arms
held her prisoner.

“Don’t raise your hackles, Katy. Stay here and let me keep you warm.”

Indignation battled loneliness and need, and in the end she settled back against him. The hurt of his rejection was a lump
in her throat that made words impossible, but the solid strength of his arms around her and the warmth of his body dealt out
some comfort. Finally warm, if not satisfied, Katy surrendered to sleep.

Jonah listened to Katy’s breathing as it settled into the quiet, steady rhythm of sleep. His body still screamed a protest,
and the painful hardness at his groin showed no indication of abating. In sleep, Katy pressed unwittingly against him in a
very graphic reminder of what he had so nobly declined.

He smiled wryly into the sweet tangle of her hair. This was certainly a new twist on an old game; usually it was the woman
who held back her favors until the man was brought to the altar. But then, Katy was a new twist unto herself—on womanhood,
on love, on life itself. None of the tried-and-true rules applied to her.

Tomorrow, he promised himself, they would have a talk. If he had to tie Katy to a chair while he pounded some reason into
her stubborn head, he would, by damn, and then they would let the rocker lie idle while they sealed their love in passion.

He woke with morning’s first pale light stealing through the window. The cot beside him was empty. From outside, the dull
thunk of a shovel told him Katy’s whereabouts. He lay for a while planning just what he would say to prove that she had nothing
to fear from marriage, or from him, until a shout derailed his train of thought.

He had just flung off the blankets when the cabin door banged open and Katy marched in, her face alight, a wide smile curving
her lips.

“Jonah, you lazy slugabed. Look at this!”

She dropped the black, cold mud she carried in her hands onto his bare chest. Freezing water ran into his navel and dripped
onto the cot where he lay, and within the black muck a thousand tiny flakes glittered like sequins.

“Gold!” Katy crowed. “We’ve found gold!”

When Katy celebrated, she celebrated with a passion. The lights that danced in her eyes were brighter by far than the oil
lamps that lit the dining room of the Great Northern Hotel. She was just tipsy enough to make her smile a bit lopsided, but
not tipsy enough to eschew dancing when the dining room pianist began to pound out a tune.

“Come on, Jonah!” she demanded. “Let’s dance!”

Jonah allowed her to pull him away from his steak and beans. She slipped into his arms and tilted her face up to his with
a smile that gave his heart a jolt.

“How does it feel to be rich woman?” he asked.

“Like I’m walking on air.”

What she was walking on was his feet. Katy still was not a good dancer. Graceful and quick, she couldn’t follow his lead,
a characteristic he had noted in other aspects of her life as well.

“How does it feel to be a rich man?” she asked, an impish twinkle in her eyes.

“You mean aside from the sore back and blistered hands and frostbitten toes?”

“You don’t have frostbitten toes!”

“They feel that way.”

“It’s worth it, though, isn’t it?”

Katy was worth it, Jonah acknowledged. The gold didn’t actually seem real yet, though they’d dug far enough into the pay zone
to determine the deposit wasn’t an isolated lens or pod, and the assayer in Dawson had confirmed the richness of the find.

“Well?” Katy demanded impatiently while mashing one of his toes. “What are you going to do with all the wealth that I made
for you?”

“You made for me?”

“I staked the claim.”

“With my money.”

“I decided where to dig.”

“And I did a good part of the digging.”

She grinned. “Just finding out if being rich has made you less ornery.”

“Me? Ornery? I was a very amiable fellow before I met a certain hell-raiser from Willow Bend, Montana.”

“You raise a fair amount of hell yourself,” she said, and Jonah imagined he heard a certain fondness in her voice. “Will you
buy a big house in Chicago?”

“My family already has a big house in Chicago.”

“A yacht to sail on that big lake you told me about?”

“Sorry. We have one.”

“Take a trip to Europe?”

“Been there.”

Katy’s lower lip thrust out in a playful pout. She was having more fun thinking up ways for him to spend a fortune than for
herself. Jonah wondered if she realized that, however he spent the money, she was going to be right by his side.

The small dance floor had gotten crowded. They bumped against Andy, who danced with Camilla. Camilla’s face glowed with maternal
pride, and Andy was scarcely recognizable in her blue polka-dotted dress and bouncy red curls. The lumberjack Johnson brothers
had also crowded onto the floor, Otar and Buck danced together like two lumbering
bears, and Sven danced with Dawson’s schoolmistress. Around the dining room, whooping and stomping to urge the dancers on,
sat clerks from the Alaska Commercial Company and North American Trading and Transportation Company, prospectors, and a couple
of newspaper reporters—one from Kansas City, another from San Francisco. Folks in Dawson believed in helping to celebrate
a golden success story, even if it wasn’t theirs.

Jonah guided Katy back to their table. “You’ve broken every one of my toes,” he complained. “I can’t dance anymore. I think
I’ll use part of my fortune to buy you dancing lessons.”

“I thought gentlemen were supposed to suffer in silence rather than mention a lady’s shortcomings.”

Jonah grinned. “I’ve learned better than to try to be a gentleman around you, Katydid.”

“Shame on you, Jonah Armstrong,” Camilla joined in as she and Andy took their seats. “If you don’t act the gentleman, how
do you expect Katy to act the lady?”

“Thank you, Camilla,” Katy said, looking down her nose at Jonah in attempted hauteur.

Katy was happy all right. Jonah watched her dance, eat, and dance again, her manner innocently flirtatious and brightly vivacious
as she spread her wings in happy triumph. It seemed as if every prospector in Dawson had crowded into the Great Northern Hotel
to join the party, and Katy danced with every one of them. Despite the ache in his toes, Jonah envied every man she partnered.
Finally she sank into the chair next to him.

“They
don’t think I’m a bad dancer,” Katy shot at Jonah with a grin.

“All of them have been dancing with other prospectors who wear size twelve boots. What do you expect?”

“You’re mean when you’re rich.”

A grizzled old man grabbed Katy’s shoulder from behind. Katy whipped around in protest, then her eyes widened with delight.
“Stewpot!”

“Yup! In the flesh, Katy girl. Hear you made a strike.”

“Jonahy you remember Stewpot Sanders, who brought me and Andy down the river.”

The two men shook hands, and Stewpot pulled up a chair. “Where be the young’un?” Stewpot asked.

Across the table, Andy’s face turned beet red. Stewpot glanced her way, then stared. “Well, I’ll be.”

“Meet Alexandra,” Katy said apologetically.

“Well, I’ll be,” the old man repeated.

“Did you make a strike yet?” Katy asked, hastening to change the subject.

“Yup. Up Bonanza Creek. Good color fifteen feet down. I’m headed out on the steamer to spend the winter where it’s warm and
the sun shines. Be back next spring.”

“Has the steamer made it in yet?” Jonah asked.

“Nope. But she will. Some boys hiked down the river to get her free of the ice. It’ll be her last trip till spring, though,
and she’s gonna be full to the gills.”

Jonah’s mood lifted as possibilities suddenly blossomed in his mind.

Midnight had come and gone by the time Jonah handed Katy through the door of her hotel room. She pulled him in behind her,
grasped his hands, and whirled them both in a circle of joy. Hunter jumped from the bed and danced around them, joining the
silliness.

“We’re rich! Do you believe it?” Katy threw her arms around Jonah’s neck and grinned at him. “Now aren’t you glad I convinced
you to look for gold instead of just writing about people who look for gold?”

“I guess I am.”

She kissed him, quick and hard, giving him a jolt worthy of lightning, then released him and bounced away in a very Indian-like
dance of triumph. Finally she collapsed on the bed with a happy sigh. “My grandmother taught me that victory dance. Her name
was Squirrel Woman. Did I ever tell you about her?”

“Yes.” He didn’t know how long he could resist Katy sitting on that bed, half-child, half-siren. He retreated toward the door.
“Good-night.”

“Wait!” She sprang from the bed and pulled him back. He smelled the hint of wine on her breath, and the warm scent of roses
she had dabbed on mingled with her natural fragrance that Jonah knew so well. “Jonah. Thank you.”

“You did it, Katydid.”

“Not without you.”

She pulled him down for another kiss, and the leash Jonah had kept upon himself snapped. He cupped her head between loving
hands and adjusted her to give him better access to her mouth. Her lips opened beneath his; her tongue teased his with playful
forays, until he captured it and made it his. She breathed a tiny groan into his mouth as his hands slid down her body and
clamped her forcefully against him.