“Are you all right, Sabrina?”
“I’m fine. Do you want something to drink?” He began to shake his head and then changed his mind.
“I wouldn’t mind a little shot of something stiff to perk my backbone up again.” She smiled at the term and poured him a whiskey straight up, and then handed it to him.
“You should be asleep, instead of ‘perking up.’ ”
“There’s too much to do.” It was a familiar song to both of them.
“And who’ll do it if you drop in your tracks, you fool?”
He grinned at her. “You’re beginning to sound like me lecturing you.”
“I do, don’t I?” She grinned, and then sobered again, thinking of the men who had died. It was the worst disaster she had ever seen, but they had saved a remarkable number of them. “I wish we’d saved more of them, John.” She looked up at him, but he shook his head.
“It couldn’t be done, Sabrina. We tried … all of us did.…” But the conditions had been worse than any human could withstand, and with the gas fumes rampant in the mines, death had been quick. The explosions were incredible. “We’re lucky we didn’t lose more. I’m grateful for that.” But she was sorry for him anyway, and then suddenly she had a funny thought, and she turned to him.
“Hell, John, you’ve had your share of problems now, why not let me buy you out?” She was teasing him. It was the sort of thing he would have said to her a year before.
“I have a better idea.” He smiled strangely at her. “Why don’t you marry me?” Her heart stopped as she looked at him. He was teasing her. She knew that much, but it was odd that he said the words … and before she could say anything, he kissed her gently on the lips. No man had ever kissed her before, and she felt her whole body melt as he took her in his arms. It seemed a lifetime before he let her go, and she looked at him in total amazement as he smiled at her and kissed her again and this time she pushed him gently away so that she could come up for air, and stared at him.
“Did the gas fumes get to you?”
“Must have,” he laughed, and then kissed her again, but she leapt to her feet, the dressing gown showing off her pretty ankles and graceful feet.
“What are you doing, John Harte?” Was he out of his mind? He had an Indian mistress living with him and he was proposing to her. He had to be teasing her, but the look in his eyes said that he meant everything he had said to her, and as usual, Sabrina was direct with him. “What about Spring Moon?”
He seemed to hesitate briefly, but his eyes never wavered from hers. He had been thinking of this for days. Spring Moon knew him well. “I’m sorry you know as much about that as you do, Sabrina. It’s not something I would have wanted to discuss with you. But you have a right to know, I suppose. After I met you in San Francisco this spring, and I began to call on you”—Sabrina stared at him in astonishment. She hadn’t realized that he considered it that—“I asked Spring Moon to move out two months ago. She’s been living in a separate cabin near the mines, and she’s going home to her people in South Dakota at the end of this month. I was going to wait and ask you then … but I couldn’t stand it anymore, working for the past five days with you, all I wanted to do was hold you in my arms and keep you safe, and tonight … I can’t live without you anymore.” His eyes suddenly seemed damp, and she wondered if it was from the smoke. “I didn’t think I’d ever want to do this again. I never wanted to put my heart on the line again after Matilda died.” He looked at her, and the memory of the wife and children he had lost stood between both of them, but his voice was soft when he spoke. “That was twenty-three years ago, Sabrina … I can’t close my heart because of them, and Spring Moon has been good for me for all these years, but there’s more to life than something like that.” It was exactly what Jeremiah had discovered twenty-three years before when he met Camille and abandoned Mary Ellen Browne. But Sabrina had still not answered John. She was staring at him in disbelief. “She understands.” They had had a long sad, honest talk that night before he had ridden over to ask Sabrina to marry him. He honored the years he had shared with Spring Moon and he wanted to tell her first. They had both cried, but he knew that what he felt for Sabrina was right, and Spring Moon knew it too. She loved him enough to want the best for him, and to let go gracefully.
“Why would you want to marry me?” She seemed amazed, much more so than Spring Moon had been, and the thought of her mines had crossed Sabrina’s mind … now that his mine had been so badly burned … but she shook the thought from her head … “I don’t know what to say … how would I … would I … what if …” He could imagine all the questions running through her head, and he gently pulled her close to him.
“I could run your mines for you, or you could continue to run it all yourself, if that’s what you want to do. I won’t stand in your way, and I won’t take anything from you. The Thurston mines are yours until the day you die, just as you said they were. I will never try to change that again, what I want is something much more important than your mine, Sabrina.” He looked down at her from his great rugged height and held her close, the smell of fire still clung to them both but neither of them cared. “I want you, beloved girl … and that’s all I want, for the rest of your life. Maybe I’m too old for you, and I know you deserve much more than this, but everything I have is yours, Sabrina Thurston, my land, my heart, my mine, my soul … my life.…” He looked at her and tears filled her eyes, and suddenly she was kissing him again, and his beard tasted of smoke, but she didn’t give a damn, and then suddenly she began to laugh and he looked at her and she could barely speak as she explained.
“I used to think you were my enemy … and now … look at us.…” He kissed her again and swept her off her feet in her dressing gown just as Hannah walked in with cookies and tea. And she glared at John Harte and looked at Sabrina pointedly.
“I’d thank you both to behave yourself in this house. Sabrina,” she sniffed and wagged a finger at her, “I don’t care if you do run a mine and five hundred men, in this house you’ll behave ladylike, and with a little dignity.”
“Yes, ma’am. Does that apply after I’m married too?” She looked angelically at her old nurse and the old woman went right on.
“After you’re married you can do anything you damn well please, that is if—” And suddenly she stopped and looked at them. “What?” She stared at John as he nodded happily at her, and with that Hannah gave a long, loud, ear-piercing scream, as Sabrina threw her arms around her and John Harte hugged them both. And then Hannah suddenly backed off and glared at him again. “Now wait a minute here.” She put her hands on her hips and looked at him. “What about that Indian girl?” John blushed and laughed as he answered her.
“I’m so glad that we’re all so terribly discreet.”
“Discreet my foot. If you think you’re going to keep her around and marry my girl …” Sabrina was touched by the term and laughed at her as she answered for John.
“She’s leaving for South Dakota next week.”
“And not a moment too soon. Ten years too late if you ask me.” And then, hands on hips, she smiled at them. “I never thought I’d see this day, I gave up hope when you started running that damn mine of yours.”
“She’s going to run mine for me now.” John grinned and Sabrina laughed as Hannah shrieked.
“She’ll do no such thing! She’s going to stay home with me and bring up your children, John Harte. There’ll be no more of that mine nonsense around here!”
“What do you say to that?” he whispered to his future wife and she smiled at him and whispered back.
“We’ll see. Maybe you could run the mines for me.” It was an amazing turnaround for her, and she wasn’t yet completely sure of it. “It would give me more time to deal with the vines.” But she liked Hannah’s idea best of all so far … to stay home and raise his sons … what an intriguing thought that was. He saw the look in her eyes and bent to kiss her lips.
“All in good time, my love �
� all in good time.”
25
There was no one for John to ask for her hand, and after he left, she and Hannah talked for hours, almost like sisters, and the old woman cried and hugged her tight. Jeremiah would have been pleased to see them. And even more so with John Harte.
“I’d given up hope, little girl … I never thought I’d see this day.” Sabrina smiled at her.
“I didn’t think you would either.” She looked happy, but she could still feel a ripple of fear run up her spine. She hoped she was doing the right thing. She was sure she was … but it was such an enormous step, and there were so many things to decide now, about her mines. There was of course the possibility of merging the two companies, but she didn’t want to do that. She wanted to keep all of his business separate from hers. She was marrying him, but not intertwining her holdings with his. One of the best things about it though was that if he ran her mines for her, as he had said he might, it would leave her more free time to work with her vineyards and her wines, and she had wanted more time for that for a long, long time.
“Don’t you suppose you could just stay home and sew?” he teased her once as they sat on her front porch. He had been waiting for her when she got home, galloping up the road on her old horse.
“Where are we going to live?” She had thought of that before, and she wasn’t anxious to live in the house where his wife and children had died, and where he had lived with Spring Moon for more than a decade. She was leaving for South Dakota in a few days, and Sabrina was careful not to mention her. She didn’t want to be indelicate with him, it was bad enough that she knew. But they hadn’t as yet solved the problem of where they would live, and she wasn’t sure how he would feel about living in her house. “What about living here?”
He thought about it for a time, stroking his beard, and then he looked at her. “I’m a little old to be living in another man’s house, Sabrina. Somehow this would always feel like your daddy’s house to me.” She nodded, she understood, but it was a difficult dilemma to resolve. And John looked at Sabrina now, with a boyish smile. He looked far younger than his years to her, and it seemed remarkable that he was twenty-eight years older than she. “What about living at Thurston House. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?” He looked like a mischievous child, and she laughed. It was her house, but no one had lived there in so long, it was almost like common ground.
“That would be fun. But what about the mines?” Not to mention the vineyards.
“We could manage something, I suppose. We don’t have to live in town all the time. But it might be a nice change for both of us,” he smiled at her, “once I get those mines of yours shaped up. Lord only knows how badly you’ve run them into the ground.”
She swatted her hand at him and he laughed at her. He had already seen some of the logs she kept, and he was amazed at how impeccably her business was run. He wondered how she had managed to learn it all, and there were even some pointers he could learn from her, although after twenty-seven years of running his own mine, he could almost do it in his sleep, but he was mightily impressed with her. “You’re not exactly the run-of-the-mill bride, little one.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, took her hand in his so much larger one, and she leaned against him in the night air. She had never dreamed of loving him in all these years, and suddenly there he was, and she felt as though she had been born for him.
It was over dinner later that night that she brought up the subject of Dan at the Harte mines.
“I’d already thought about that the other day.” John knitted his brows and frowned at her. “I won’t deny you the fact that he’s good at what he does. But I don’t want him anywhere near you.” John looked unhappily at her.
“How important is he to you, John?”
“Less important than you, my love.” He looked down at her. It was strange how deep his feelings ran for her. It had come upon him all at once, after all these years. And he had been so certain that he would never feel that way again. “I’m going to let him go.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Yes.” His voice was firm. “I don’t have to explain why to him. And he hasn’t been with me for all that long.” It was only three years since he had left the Thurston mines, and he had worked hard for John, but he couldn’t stay on with him now. John was sure about it as he thought it out. “I’ll give him notice next week.”
Sabrina frowned and looked at John. “That’s going to be hard on him.”
“He should have thought of that a long time ago, when he gave you such a hard time.”
Suddenly she laughed. “The funny thing is it all started over his wanting me to sell out to you, and here I am marrying you instead.” Which they both knew was not the same thing. “All he ever wanted was to run Daddy’s mines, without Daddy hanging around, or me.” She smiled.
“I haven’t given him as much free rein as he wanted either. I’m just not that kind of man. I’ve run that mine for too long myself.”
She understood perfectly. She felt the same way about her own and it had only been three years. She liked doing everything herself, in her own way, and it would be difficult to turn the reins over to John now. She was well aware of that, but she trusted him, and in time she would trust him more. They had already agreed that for the first six months she would stay on, and work part-time, and show John the systems she used, introduce him to the men. She wasn’t going to drop everything at once. She couldn’t do that. And he was going to rotate between her mines and his own. He insisted that it would work. “And in the midst of all that, you want to stay at Thurston House?” She didn’t see how they’d find time to leave Napa at all, but he insisted that they would. And when he kissed her as they left the porch that night, she was sure that he could do anything.
The damage from the fire at his mines took several weeks to repair with every man at the mine working overtime to help out, and even Spring Moon changed her plans, and decided to stay for a few more weeks. She kept to herself now, and she seemed to accept her fate, knowing that the affair with John Harte had come to an end. She never spoke to Sabrina when they met, but her eyes would reach out to her and seem to hold her fast, and Sabrina didn’t feel any hostility from her. There was a kind of fascination, and each of them would fight not to stare, and then suddenly John would come along and take Sabrina away. It made him uncomfortable to see them anywhere near each other on his land.
“I want you to stay away from her,” John scolded Sabrina first, and Sabrina’s voice was shy when she spoke.
“She’s so beautiful. I always thought she was.” And then, “I think my father did too.”
John started at her words. “Did he say anything to you?”
She laughed and shook her head. “No. I tried to ask him about it once, but he wouldn’t talk about it, he said it was not something he would discuss with me.”
“I should hope not.” John flushed to the roots of his hair, and looked at her. And then he said something he knew he shouldn’t say. He didn’t want to discuss Spring Moon at all, and certainly not with her. “You’re much more beautiful than she is, little one.”
“How can you say that?” She looked shocked. “She’s the loveliest woman I’ve ever seen.”
He shook his head and took a step closer to her. “No, my love, you are.” She was even lovelier than his first wife. With her black hair, and big blue eyes, she looked up at him now and he felt his insides melt. Side by side, with his broad shoulders, still dark hair, sparkling eyes, and jutting beard, they made a handsome pair, and he looked down at her with pride. He could hardly wait until their wedding day. They had begun to tell their friends in the past few days, and Hannah had spread the word all over town. And the news had finally reached his men, and after his, then hers, and there was talk of nothing else in the mines, particularly at the Thurston mines, where they wondered what kind of impact it would have on them. But there was one other man who wondered the same thing when he heard, and he was furious at
the hand Fate had dealt him again when John told him that he couldn’t stay on. John didn’t tell him why he was letting him go, but there was no doubt in Dan Richfield’s mind. She had done him in again. And he was going to get her this time. John Harte had given him two weeks to organize himself and pack up his things, and he knew he would have to be leaving town, because there were no other mines nearby except hers and his. The silver mines in Napa were long since defunct, and had been since Jeremiah’s time, and there was nothing left now except what Sabrina and John controlled. There was nowhere left for Dan to go. He was thirty-seven years old, and most of his children were half grown or damn close. He didn’t even want to take them with him, and was talking about leaving them in St. Helena with some friends. But it wasn’t the children he thought of now, as he sat around and drank, wandered in and out of bars, and told the other miners whatever rumors he had heard. “She’s been sleeping around with him … hell, they even go at it with that Indian squaw of his, you notice she ain’t left yet” … and by the end of the week, he had both mines all abuzz with the filth he spread.
“You’ve been talking about my future wife?” John Harte grabbed him by the collar one day as he left the Harte mines. Sabrina was still buried in work at her own. More so now, because in two more months she’d be married and starting to turn the reins over to John. She had to get everything in order for him. And because of that, he hardly even saw her now. But Dan Richfield stared at him now, the stench of whiskey was on his breath as he looked at the bigger, broader man, but he looked unafraid.
“It’s nothing you ain’t heard before, Mr. Harte. She’s not been real kind to me.”
“That isn’t quite what I’d heard.”
“Or what you’d believe.” Dan Richfield was bold, and for an instant it was unsure what John Harte would do to him, and then with a sudden gesture, he let Dan go.
“Get the hell out of here, Dan. As I remember it, you’ve only two days left.”
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