Lover in the Rough

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Smile at me,” he said, looking up from the rocks and twigs he was clearing out of the way before he put down a thick sleeping pad for her.

  “That’s not much,” she protested, smiling.

  “It is to me.”

  He looked up at her, a quick flash of silver-green in a dark, unsmiling face. She realized that he meant it, that a simple smile from her made a difference to him. She went to him as though pulled by an invisible leash, knelt by him as he worked, touched his cheek.

  “We’re so different,” she whispered. “I think that’s why I’m . . . afraid.” She sighed and felt better just having admitted her fear.

  “We can be in Los Angeles before midnight,” he said in a neutral voice.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  Chance looked up from his work. His eyes roamed hungrily over her honey hair and skin, her lips as pink as Pala tourmaline. “What did you mean?”

  “Us. You treated the whole thing this afternoon so casually, like having a fender-bender on the freeway. Maybe a little dangerous but no cause for particular excitement.”

  Chance waited but she said nothing more. “That’s not all that’s bothering you, is it?” he said quietly.

  Reba searched his eyes. “You didn’t need that shotgun, did you? You could have killed just as easily without it.”

  “Yes.”

  Chance stood in a single fluid motion and resumed setting up camp. She went to the fire and watched him over its flames, admiring his muscular grace and fearful of it at the same time. The difference between Chance Walker and the other men she had known was the difference between a jungle tiger and one in the L.A. Zoo. Same animal, different level of experience and reflexes entirely.

  She stared into the fire, trying to sort out her own tangled thoughts. It was very quiet, no sound but the muted crackle of flames and the whisper of wind in the chaparral. Suddenly she realized that the sun had truly set and she was alone.

  “Chance?”

  No deep drawl came back to Reba out of the gathering darkness.

  She stood up and looked around quickly. There was no one in sight. She walked to the China Queen’s entrance. The hole was utterly black.

  “Chance?” she called.

  Nothing answered, not even an echo.

  Reba went back to the fire, drawn by its silent companionship and changing patterns of light. Flames leaped and danced, greeting her. Firelight ran hotly down the barrel of the shotgun. She stared at the weapon for a long time.

  The silence beyond the fire was like a seamless black tide rising around her, threatening to overwhelm her. She crouched on her heels next to the fire and the shotgun. In her mind’s eye she went through the motions of clicking off the safety and working the pump until the shotgun was armed. Alone in the center of darkness, she suddenly saw the shotgun as more friend than enemy.

  She didn’t call out for Chance again. The sound of her voice in the emptiness was more frightening to her than silence.

  With an impatient motion she stood up. Sitting around brooding wasn’t her style. She’d done too much of it after her divorce. She went to the ice chest and examined its contents, using a flashlight that Chance had left by the firewood. He had stocked the ice chest with enough for several meals. She selected lamb chops, tomatoes, mushrooms and lettuce. She might not be an experienced camper but she had a barbecue at home. A campfire and a grate couldn’t be that different.

  She found rice and potatoes in another carton, along with flour, salt, sugar and other dry goods. Soap, towels and utensils were in a third carton. She hesitated, then decided that her skills might not be up to making decent rice over an uncertain fire. Boiling potatoes, however, was another matter. She rummaged in the utensil carton, found a small pan and managed to fill it with water from the heavy five-gallon can Chance had left near the ice chest.

  “Not as neat as he would have been,” she muttered, looking at the water splashed on her boots and jeans, “but I’m not as strong as he is.” She laughed shortly. “Understatement of the century.”

  She washed her hands in a basin of cool water and set to work on dinner. Soon water was boiling around chunks of potato, lettuce was washed and drained, tomatoes and mushrooms sliced. There was nothing as fancy as a salad bowl, of course. Another pan served almost as well, though. Best of all, she had found a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon in among the pots and pans. She hadn’t found a corkscrew yet but she hadn’t given up, either.

  She was head down in the third carton when she sensed someone behind her. Without thinking she lunged to the side, reaching for the shotgun. In the next instant she recognized Chance.

  “What am I doing?” Reba said, staring at the shotgun she had grabbed.

  “Just what you’re supposed to,” said Chance quietly. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he added. “Next time I’ll make more noise.”

  “More?” she said thinly, her voice rising. “You didn’t make one damn sound.” She set the shotgun aside and went back to rummaging in the carton, with hands that trembled. “Were you in the mine?”

  “No. Just checking around.”

  “And?”

  “There’s a spring opposite the mine, hidden in the chaparral. Racoon and bobcat tracks, rabbits rustling around. Deer are drifting out of cover to feed. Coyotes are moving on the ridgelines. Full moon coming on.”

  Reba put her head in her hands and began to laugh. Chance watched her, one black eyebrow raised in silent query.

  “I was alone in the dark and scared to death, imagining all sorts of awful things and then you come back and make it sound like a Disney movie.” She shook her head, laughing at herself despite the erratic flutter of her pulse.

  “I told you I’d be gone for a while.”

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  “I know. What were you thinking so hard about?”

  She turned and looked up at him, firelight shimmering in her cinnamon eyes. “A lot of things,” she whispered.

  Chance waited but all she said was, “I hope you like boiled potatoes with your lamb chops. I couldn’t find any salad dressing. Or a corkscrew.”

  He pulled a folding knife out of his pocket, opened the corkscrew arm and lifted the Cabernet Sauvignon out of the utensil carton. A few quick twists, a hard pull and the cork popped softly.

  “Hope you don’t mind drinking wine out of mugs,” he said.

  “I’d be happy to drink it any way I can get it. Somehow I hadn’t expected to find a lovely Cabernet on the menu.”

  “I’m not entirely uncivilized.”

  Something in Chance’s voice made Reba look up quickly. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Isn’t it?” he asked, setting the open bottle on the ground cloth. He looked down into her wide eyes. An indefinable sadness settled around his mouth, but the emotion didn’t soften the harsh lines and shadows of his face. “Bringing you here was a mistake. I thought if you saw me out here I wouldn’t seem like such a barbarian to you. I thought you would be less afraid of me. And then those damned dopers had to show me for what I was—not your kind of man at all.” Chance laughed abruptly, then swore with a soft violence that made Reba want to cry out in protest. “Never mind,” he said, reaching out to touch her and then letting his hand fall aside before he felt the silky warmth of her skin. “I’ll take you back to your city after dinner.”

  “Did you get used to Lightning Ridge in an afternoon?” she asked, her throat tight with emotions she fought to control.

  “No,” he said softly.

  “Then why do you expect me to?”

  “I don’t.”

  “But you’re going to take me back anyway.”

  Chance stared beyond the fire into the dense blackness of the hillside. Silver light shimmered along the ridge, hinting of moonrise to come. “I don’t really give a damn if other people look at me as though I were a wild animal. But to have you afraid of me . . .” He watched her with eyes that had seen too much of violence, not enough of love. “
My God, I’d cut off my hands rather than harm you.”

  Blindly, Reba came to her feet and into his arms. “I’m frightened, but not of you, not in the way you mean. Yes, you’re hard and quick and—and deadly. But you’re not a wild animal. You could have killed those men this afternoon. You didn’t. You’re strong enough not to kill. And you’re so gentle with me. Afraid of you?” she asked with an uncertain smile. “Chance, I’ve never felt so good as when you hold me.”

  “And I’ve never felt so good as when I hold you,” he whispered, lifting her high in his arms. He murmured her name over and over against her lips, her throat, her eyes. “You’re a miracle to me, chaton. You make me alive again.”

  She buried her face in his hard neck, wanting to comfort him and herself, to heal the raw scars life had left on both of them. She held him with all her strength, glorying in the feeling of his arms holding her. It was a long time before either of them moved or spoke. When he heard her long sigh, he set her gently on her feet, releasing her from his arms with a reluctance that said more than words.

  “You’re going to be tired soon,” he said.

  Reba started to protest, then realized that he was right. With relaxation had come a weariness that was unlike anything she had ever felt. It was as though strength were running out of her like sand through an hourglass.

  “Adrenaline will make you leap tall boulders in a single bound,” he said, smiling down at her, “but you pay for it later.”

  “Just so there is a ‘later,’ ” she said, stifling a yawn.

  “That’s always the bottom line. Survival. How do you like your lamb chops? Well done?”

  She blinked, then couldn’t help smiling. “Rare, I’m afraid. Very rare. I’m not as civilized as I look. Just inexperienced.”

  Chance gave Reba a sideways glance. A quick smile flashed beneath his moustache. “Touché, I think.”

  Reba sat cross-legged on the ground cloth, watching Chance finish preparing dinner. He did it as he did everything else, cleanly, no wasted motions. She was fascinated by his masculine grace and by the fact that he lifted the heavy can of water with as little fuss as he lifted the pan of potatoes.

  “I couldn’t find any salad dressing,” she said.

  “I’ll tell you where it is,” he said, “if you’ll pour me a mug of that wine.”

  The marvelous fragrance of the Cabernet Sauvignon drifted up as she poured the wine. She was tempted to find out if the wine tasted as good as it smelled.

  “Go ahead and sneak a sip,” Chance said, not looking up from the lamb chops.

  “Do you really have eyes in the back of your head?” she demanded, startled and exasperated.

  “Come over here and find out.”

  Reba walked over, crouched next to Chance and handed him the mug of wine. As he sipped the wine, she took his hat, tossed it next to the dinner plates and ran her fingers over every bit of his scalp.

  “No extra eyes?” he said, laughing silently, looking at her.

  “Not a one. There goes that theory.”

  He sipped the wine again, smiling. “Do you like the Cabernet?”

  “You caught me before I could taste it,” she admitted.

  Chance took a quick sip, set down the mug and reached for her. He held her gently behind her neck, rubbing his lips over hers. “Taste,” he said, his voice husky.

  A shiver went through Reba as she saw the sensual sheen of wine over his sculpted lips. Tentatively she traced the line of his mouth with the tip of her tongue. His lips parted, inviting her to explore further. As the taste of wine spread through her, she touched him more deeply, lured by the velvet warmth of his mouth. Her hands came up to his face, caressing his cheeks, then sliding deep into his hair as the kiss passed from exploration into passion. She felt him change, felt hunger tighten his body, felt the unwavering gentleness of his fingers stroking her neck. The combination of his hunger and his steel restraint was more heady than the drops of wine she had stolen from his mouth.

  Fat sputtered and smoked in the fire, warning of lamb chops cooking. Slowly, Reba lifted her lips. For an instant Chance’s hand tightened on her neck. Then he let her go.

  “Well,” he said quietly, “do we keep the bottle or tell the waiter to send it back?”

  “Keep it,” she whispered. “It’s a fine Cabernet,” she added, running her fingertip over his mouth, “robust yet restrained, complex, with a delicate finish that’s unexpected in such a full-bodied wine.”

  He said her name softly, kissed her as gently as moonlight glimmering down the ridge. Lamb fat crackled in the flames, followed by a visible leap of fire. With a soft curse Chance looked away from Reba’s mouth. Deftly he turned over the chops.

  “There’s a plastic bottle in the ice chest,” he said.

  Reba went to the ice chest and pulled out a small yellow squeeze bottle. “This one?”

  “It’s the only one in there. Salad dressing,” he added without looking up.

  “Says mustard on the outside.”

  “It’s like a Venezuelan diamond,” said Chance, shifting the chops on the grate. “You can’t tell what’s inside until you take off the cover.”

  Reba unscrewed the cover, sniffed and said, “Salad dressing.” She took a drop from the inside of the cap. “Mmmm, lemon and dill.” She replaced the cover and looked at the firelight and shadows shifting over Chance’s face. “What did you mean about the Venezuelan diamonds?”

  “You don’t find them like African or Australian diamonds. Some Venezuelan diamonds are covered in a greenish coating. Most of the ones which are coated like that are inferior. But some of them”—his hand paused and he stared beyond the flames—“some of them are clean and bright inside, shining like a lifetime of dreams condensed into a single crystal.”

  Chance slid the chops onto one of the metal plates he had warmed by the fire. “It’s not surprising that men will do anything to find and keep such a treasure, even kill. Especially in South America. In the open-pit gold mines and at the bombas—diamond strikes—men swarm over the land and each other like maggots. Human life is cheaper than a handful of water there—and it rains every day.”

  Six

  Chance handed Reba a plate of lamb chops and boiled potatoes. “Do you mind if we share the salad bowl?” he asked.

  She shook her head, more interested in listening to him than in eating. She sensed that he didn’t talk about his past very often. He sat next to her and began to eat. She was about to ask a question when he resumed talking quietly.

  “We found enough to stay alive at the bombas, but never more than that. Dad and Luck didn’t care. Glory did. She wanted more out of life than a dirty campsite on the wrong side of nowhere. I was too young to know how Mother felt about it. She went with Dad until it killed her. I guess that’s the only answer that matters.”

  Chance sipped wine in silence for a moment. “I didn’t like South America much. Not then. Not now. I haven’t been back to Venezuela since Luck died. Australia’s Outback is different. Good country. Hard. Bloody unforgiving, sometimes. But clean and fine and wild. You can measure yourself against a land like that. Some men do, and come up short. Others find they’re bigger than they thought.”

  Reba ate quietly, listening, watching the shifting shadows of fire and night across Chance’s face, hungry to know the places and circumstances that had helped to shape the man who sat next to her.

  “The basin and range country of the U.S. is like the Outback,” continued Chance. “More land than people, more possibilities than rules.” He smiled slightly to himself. “No black opals, though. I’d like to take you to Lightning Ridge. It’s easier now than it was twenty years ago. Then it took twenty-six hours by train from Sydney. All you saw was an occasional village, herds of kangaroos, flocks of emus, and flat red desert land. The tracks stopped about ninety kilometers short of Lightning Ridge. For the rest of the way you either hitched a ride on the mail truck or found a friendly rancher heading out to his station.”
/>   Chance was quiet for a moment, remembering. “Glory had her hands full on that first trip out of the jungle with me. She was up to it, though. That’s one good woman. She did what had to be done and never whined.”

  Silently, he stared into the darkness beyond the fire. After a time he looked at the entrance to the China Queen, invisible beneath the seamless black of night. “At least you don’t have to haul water in to the Queen. And I won’t have to be lowered by a rickety winch into a shaft barely wider than my body. At Lightning Ridge you spend your time clawing and crawling like moles through the earth, sniffing out dark treasures. Moles . . . except that we were always armed, always awake, because the men who weren’t, died.”

  “It sounds as bad as the jungle,” said Reba.

  “No. In the jungle, a ‘partner’ was a man who hadn’t turned on you yet. Two ‘partners’ would go into the jungle and find a handful of diamonds. One man would come back, saying his partner had drowned or been killed by a snake or eaten by cannibals or piranhas.” Chance shrugged. “Any of those things could have happened. Funny how they only happened after a find, though. In the Outback, gougers only kill ratters, not partners.”

  “Ratters?”

  “The men who sneak into someone else’s claim when honest gougers are asleep. If a gouger catches a ratter, he usually belts him around a bit and puts him on the next train to Sydney. But sometimes the gouger just fills in the shaft—ratter, opals and all.”

  Reba’s fork clattered against her plate. Chance looked at her over the rim of his mug, took a sip, and set aside both the mug and his plate.

  “The gougers risk their lives every day going down into the earth in narrow, unshored tunnels. There are no surface signs that say, ‘Dig here. Opal below.’ Anywhere is as good as anywhere else. You’re either lucky or you aren’t. Your tunnel either caves in or it doesn’t. Thinking about it won’t help, so you believe the gouger’s myth that cave-ins only happen between midnight and one A.M. and you stay out of the shafts for that hour.

  “The rest of the time you swing your pick in an area half again as wide as your shoulders, you eat dirt and hold your breath, listening for a gritty sound. When you hear that, you know you’ve found a ‘nobby,’ a nodule that may or may not be opal bearing. You scrape dirt away from the nobby with your fingernail or a small knife. And you do it slowly, gently, even if your hands are shaking with excitement. When the dirt is gone you nip off a corner of the rock with pliers. If your light picks up a flash of color, you keep the nobby. You won’t know what you have until later, when you put it on the cleaning table. Most of the time it’s nothing. Once in a lifetime it’s a chunk of black fire as big as your fist.”