Gold Rush Bride

by Debra Lee Brown

  She stood there, openmouthed, gawking at him like a ninny, blinking her eyes in the dim light as if she were just now awakening from a bad dream.

  “Kate, you don’t understand.” Will pushed the blonde off his lap and she landed on her silk-clad rump in the dirt.

  “I understand plenty.” Before he could say more, she backed out of the tent, right into Jed Packett’s waiting arms.

  “Got an eyeful, didn’t ya?” Before she could stop him, he groped her. “Whatcha got here, missy?” He’d felt the heavy money bag secreted in the pocket of her skirt.

  Breaking free, Kate whirled on him. He grinned at her, his foul breath causing her nearly to retch. Without another thought, she slugged him, square on the nose with her fist.

  And then she fled. Weaving between the tents, pushing her way through the throng of men, fighting the rage of tears stinging her eyes.

  At last she broke free of the crowd and burst onto Main Street. The cold air away from the bonfire shocked her to her senses. She raced toward the store, her lungs burning, her breath frosting the air.

  The money bag in her pocket weighed her down and beat against her thigh as she ran. Bloody thing!

  Somewhere at the edge of her awareness she heard Will calling her name, the thud of his boots on the hard-packed dirt close behind her.

  She skidded around the corner of the storefront, fumbling in her pocket for the latch key. A second later she burst through the back door into the cabin and slammed it shut behind her.

  Will’s footfalls sounded on the back porch. Kate threw the bolt and backed quickly away from the door.

  “Open up Kate. Let me in.”

  “No.”

  The door to the potbellied stove was cracked just enough to cast a soft, flickering light across the floor. She raced to the bed, pulled the damnable money bag from her pocket and slapped it into a drawer in the night table, then hunted under the furs for her father’s revolver. “Blast!” It wasn’t there.

  “We have to talk, Kate.”

  “Go away!” The rifle was a better idea, anyway. She snatched it from its place against the wall and leveled it at the back door.

  “What I said in the trees, what you saw…”

  “I said go away!”

  “So help me God, Kate, if you don’t open this door, I’ll—”

  “Go on, then, you bleedin’ bastard, break it down!”

  Never in her life did she think he’d actually do it.

  The crash of the blow caused her thudding heart to stop. In shock, she jumped back as splintered wood and shards of metal flew across the room. The door crashed wide.

  Will stepped across the threshold, his fists balled at his sides, jaw hard, his broad chest heaving with each breath. All that, she could have dealt with. But it was his eyes that struck fear in her. They were black as the devil’s own heart, as murderous as she’d ever seen them.

  She cocked the rifle, glared back at him and waited.

  Chapter Sixteen

  She didn’t wait long.

  Will crossed the room in two strides and snatched the rifle from her hands. He’d known she wouldn’t use it. In a second he disarmed it and flung it aside. In the flickering glow of firelight she read his intent.

  A heartbeat later he grabbed her.

  “G-go back to your blond tart.”

  “No,” he said, and kissed her hard. All the breath went out of her as his tongue invaded her mouth and his arms tightened around her.

  She broke free of the kiss and whispered, “Stop it.”

  “Why?” He backed her to the bed, one hand gripping her waist, the other slipping the pins from her hair. “You’re my wife, aren’t you?” Her hair tumbled free in his hand and he raked it through with less than gentle fingers.

  Not yet she wasn’t. There was still time. She could have the marriage annulled. Aye, Father Flanagan had wed them proper, but without consummation, in the eyes of the Church…

  She realized she was shaking, that her heart was thudding, her breath coming in short gasps. And it wasn’t from the race up the street. “W-we haven’t yet—”

  “Why haven’t we, Kate?” He kissed her again, and this time she kissed him back, her arms snaking around him, her body molding to his as if all along it knew they were meant to be lovers.

  “God knows,” she breathed against his lips.

  He bore her back on the fur-covered bed, and she felt the solid weight of him settle on top of her. A whirlwind of unrelated thoughts tore through her mind as his hands worked to strip her of her clothes.

  Short work was made of the buttons of her new dress. One skittered across the floor as Will tugged her bodice down around her shoulders. He didn’t ask her consent, but neither did she try to stop him. In a haze of passion, she closed her eyes as he laved her neck with his tongue, tasting his way lower, groping at her breasts, grinding his hips into hers.

  He was hungry, desperate. And so was she. She read it in his eyes, gone fire and chestnut in the span of a moment. Felt it in the frenzy of his kisses, the quivering of his hands as they freed her breasts from the corset.

  He stripped her to the waist and paused to look at her in the firelight. The angry red slashes healing to scars where the bear had mauled her didn’t escape his attention.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said. Then, without warning, he dipped his head and teased her erect nipple with his tongue.

  She gasped as he began to suckle. The whole world slipped out from under her and seemed to spin. She closed her eyes and reveled in the pleasure of it.

  Her hands, of their own accord, slid downward across the rough flannel of his shirt. She grasped it and tugged it free from his buckskin trousers. His back was hot as a fire iron. Slowly she ran her hands across his smooth skin, feeling his hard muscles working underneath.

  They kissed and fondled, and he suckled some more—this time cupping her other breast, pointing it toward his hungry mouth. All the while he rolled his hips with purpose against her body, which now ached in places she’d only begun to discover since the first time he kissed her.

  The feel of his erection pressing into her, his beard stubble burning her skin, his powerful hands and hot mouth, the musky scent of him—all fed an overwhelming desire blazing up inside her that conquered rational thought.

  “We shouldn’t,” he whispered against her lips. “Tomorrow we’re—”

  “I don’t care.” And God help her, she didn’t. She kissed him hard and groped his muscular backside.

  He didn’t need any more encouragement than that.

  A moment later he was stripped of his shirt and suspenders. She wrestled with her own clothes bunched at her waist and tangled between her legs as he rolled off her to dispense with his boots and trousers.

  When he returned to her she was ready for him. More than ready. Her dress lay in a heap on the floor, along with her corset and shift. As he pulled off her boots and stockings, his gaze traveled the length of her pantalet-clad legs upward to where the garment split, his eyes fixing on the fire-bright tuft of hair shielding her sex.

  She read the hesitation in his eyes, but she would have none of it.

  “Ní fuaireamar,” she whispered, and pulled him down on top of her.

  In a tangle of limbs, they resumed their lovemaking. In seconds he’d relieved her of the rest of what little she wore. Their bare skin connected, and she opened her legs to him, his powerful thighs forcing them wide.

  Their gazes locked in the firelight, his eyes slits. His heart beat strong against her breast, as her own raced out of control. Truly there was no going back.

  He was pure heat and power. She melted into him, burning like the molten gold she’d seen assayers shape into ingots. The velvet tip of his manhood pressed into her, and she gasped.

  “Kate,” he breathed.

  “Don’t stop.”

  He covered her mouth with his and kissed her with a possessiveness that fueled her own feral desire. Wrapping her legs around his hips, she cl
osed her eyes. “Ní fuaireamar,” she whispered again.

  He groaned and drove himself inside her.

  The shock of it sent the breath rushing from her. She nearly came off the bed. Gently but firmly, he pressed her back down with his body, whispering soothing words, peppering her face with small, violent kisses.

  His breathing grew labored, his brow damp with tiny beads of perspiration that reflected the light of the fire. “Wait,” he breathed as she moved with him inside her.

  “For what?”

  Shifting his weight onto one powerful arm, he slipped a hand between their bodies to the place where she burned for his touch. “For this,” he said, and willed her hold his gaze as his fingers began to work some unknown magic.

  She bucked in response, and he drove into her again, his jaw tight, every muscle taut, his dark eyes searching her face for signs of fear and pain. She felt none of those things. Only pleasure beyond bearing as his fingers moved faster, his thrusts pushed deeper.

  All at once she felt the centering, a union of heat and tension so powerful she grew suddenly afraid. She pushed against him and cried out, but he would not relent.

  “Close your eyes,” he said, and kissed her with trembling lips.

  She obeyed and her world became him, and him alone. His scent possessed her, his power infused her as he drove her to the edge of a madness from which she feared she’d find no release.

  And then it happened.

  Her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes opened to find his fixed intently on her face, his expression a tight fusion of emotions she could not fathom.

  Raw waves of pleasure radiated from her as her hips moved of their own accord beneath him. “Will,” she breathed.

  He thrust harder, faster, and as fulfillment spread from her center he focused on his own mounting need. He shifted his weight to both hands and drove deeper. A moment later he cried her name.

  Bathed in firelight, his face was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen in all her life. Closing her eyes, she drew him down close, her legs ringing his waist, her arms wrapped tight about him.

  “Ní fuaireamar,” he whispered, repeating her words. “What does it mean?”

  Her eyes guarded the truth as her lips spun a lie.

  The fire in the stove had gone out, and the cabin was cold as a tomb. Will slid from the warmth of the bed, grabbed a handful of kindling and a log from the wood box, and started it up again.

  It was late, well past midnight if he had to guess. He snatched back the drape from the window, and moonlight spilled into the room, illuminating the peaceful countenance of the woman sleeping naked beneath the furs a few steps from where he stood.

  He paused for a moment to look at her before slipping into his buckskin trousers and boots. Her breathing was slow and steady, her face luminous in the pearly light.

  Easing onto the bed, taking care not to wake her, he brushed a kiss across her forehead, stroking the silken softness of her hair, which spilled across the pillow in seductive disarray.

  Why had he done it?

  He closed his eyes and silently cursed himself.

  He’d been out of his head, desperate for her. Angry at himself for wanting her, for running after her like that, but unable to live with her thinking he wanted anything to do with the whore she’d caught him with.

  She stirred in her sleep, and he quieted her with whispered words.

  He hadn’t been with many women. His first wife and a handful of others. Whores mostly—Sherrilyn included. He reminded himself that she’d been bought and paid for just like the others, but with his father’s money.

  Kate was nothing like those women. And he was nothing like himself—the man he thought he was—when he was with her. Nothing in his experience with any of them had prepared him for the raw emotion he’d felt making love to Kate. Or the way he felt now, looking down at her in the moonlight.

  He inched closer and heard the rustle of paper in his trouser pocket. Frowning, he slipped a hand inside and retrieved a forgotten San Francisco letter sheet Mustart had given him at the party before Kate had arrived.

  Not bothering to reread it, he crumpled it in his fist and pitched it toward the open door of the stove, where a bright little fire now blazed. He missed, and it skipped across the floor. He cursed under his breath.

  He needed to think, and he couldn’t do it here beside her. The temptation to take her into his arms and make love to her all over again was too strong.

  Slipping his suspenders over his shoulders, he rose and moved toward what was left of the door. Kate didn’t stir. He eased outside and closed it behind him.

  The frigid air was bracing. Just what he needed. He sucked in a breath and settled onto the porch. A million stars blinked back at him as he studied the night sky, a question on his mind.

  What if he simply didn’t go?

  Or what if he did, and he asked her to go with him?

  All that he’d read in her eyes when they’d made love, and afterward, when he held her in his arms until she drifted off to sleep, told him that she would.

  If he asked.

  Kate padded to the stove, gooseflesh rising on her bare skin. Lord, it was cold! She knelt and retrieved the crumpled paper Will had meant to toss into the fire.

  With Mei Li’s help, her reading had improved greatly. Still, after smoothing out the letter sheet, she could make out only some of the words staring back at her in the soft firelight. One word in particular, printed below the drawing of a ship.

  Sitka.

  In her head she counted off the number of days between now and what could only be the sailing date printed next to the word. A week from today—or tomorrow rather. Not long.

  Quiet as a church mouse, she crept to the window and peeked out at Will sitting there on the porch, staring up at the sky as if he were having a sobering chat with the stars.

  He was sorry they’d made love. She’d felt it in his touch when he sat beside her on the bed moments ago, certain she was asleep. But why was he sorry? That was the question burning in her mind, twisting her insides into knots as she watched him.

  Was it simply because he was an honorable man and had never meant to take advantage of their situation? Oh, he’d wanted her, that was clear. And she him.

  Her body burned where the stubble of his beard had raked her skin. She felt her lips, swollen from his kisses, and ached again for his touch.

  Just for the one night.

  His words played over and over in her mind. Regardless, a man like Will Crockett didn’t seduce virgins for sport. She knew him well enough to know that what had happened between them had not been intended.

  Countless times he’d made it plain to her that he didn’t want a wife, and she understood his reasons. Sherrilyn had meant the world to him, and he grieved her still. Her and the lost babe.

  Besides, had he wanted for love, why on earth would he choose a poor Irish immigrant, plain of face and with not a penny to her name, as a replacement?

  Love was what she longed to see reflected in his eyes as he gazed skyward and ran a hand through his tousled hair. But all she saw was remorse. She knew him, knew he felt responsible for her. And now that they’d…

  She closed her eyes and recalled their heated coupling.

  Oh, Kate, you selfish fool! After what had happened between them he would never leave her. Whether he wanted her or not, he’d stay with her. And that she could not bear.

  It was her fault—all of it. Aye, he’d come after her, had battered in the door to get to her, but she’d allowed it. She’d wanted it, burned for it. One word from her and he would have stopped. On his own he’d considered it. Twice. But she hadn’t wanted him to stop.

  Not then, not now, not ever.

  A sound pricked her ears. She opened her eyes and—Lord, he was coming back!

  Like a shot she raced for the bed. The letter sheet slipped from her hand, but there was no time to retrieve it. As the door swung open on rusted hinges, she dived under the f
urs and went still as a stone.

  The rustling of clothes sharpened her ears, and a few moments later Will slid naked into bed beside her. The night was wicked cold and his body warm, and it took all of her will to stop herself from reaching for him.

  He lay there on his back, and she on hers, as the seconds ticked away in her racing mind, the space between their bodies almost painful. A dozen times she started to speak, and each time held her tongue.

  What was there to say? There was only one thing to do now, and she intended to do it.

  Dawn came at long last, and with it a fog so thick Kate could hardly see as she made her way to Father Flanagan’s small tent on the hillside just above the Vickerys’ cottage.

  The town was quiet as death. Last night’s revelry likely had gone on into the wee hours of the morning. Squinting into the mist, she walked down Main Street, avoiding the broken bottles and other trash littering the way. The party evidently had been quite a success.

  As she passed the livery she shook her head. Floyd Canter lay facedown in the dirt, an empty whiskey bottle in hand. “Saints preserve us.” The gate was open on the corral beside Mustart’s shed. Luckily the horses and pair of oxen housed there seemed in no mood to make an escape.

  Kate continued on, turning up the hillside just before reaching the clearing. She was in no mood to view the aftermath of last night’s festivities.

  The trees dripped with moisture. Wet branches cracked under her boots as she made the steep climb. The smell of burnt wood from last night’s bonfire was thick on the air.

  After Will had come back to bed last night she hadn’t slept at all. He hadn’t either, from what she could tell. While it was still dark he’d dressed and gone out, her father’s rifle in hand.

  That was not unusual. He often hunted at first light, and she knew he meant to leave the Chengs with game in payment for all their help, in addition to a cut of their profits for Mei Li’s hard work.

  Profits.

  Kate stopped dead on the wooded hillside and felt for the leather pouch housing their coins and gold. It wasn’t there! Her mind raced to recall what had—