A man like him had little chance to meet decent girls. Up to now, those encounters had been limited to exchanging a few words with a girl working in a store or serving food in an eating house. And he’d never slept with a woman before. His only experience of closeness had been a few tumbles in a whore’s bed. And now a girl lay beside him. A beautiful girl, with milky-white skin and hair as black as midnight and sleeker than an otter’s pelt.
If he reached out, he could touch her. And he wanted to, so much it hurt. If nothing else, he wanted to simply rest his fingertips on her shoulder, to prove that she really existed, that there really was a lovely girl sleeping right beside him.
The willpower Clay had to exert to resist the longing told him what he had to do: he must take the girl back to the railroad. As soon as he could, he had to find some means to help her continue on her journey.
If he let her stay, not only would there be trouble when Mr. Hicks found out, but a month was long enough to start caring about another person. He didn’t want to let her crack his emotions wide open and wriggle her way into his heart, only to rip it out and take it with her when she left.
It had been bad enough when Lee and Billy died. If he became attached to this girl, it would be a thousand times worse when he found himself alone again. There was only one solution. The scrawny kid who was a girl had to go.
* * *
Despite the bright morning sun, Annabel woke up shivering with cold. Beneath her hat her coiled hair covered her scalp like a damp cap. Next time, she would have to wash her hair in the morning, to allow it time to dry. At least the blisters on her palms no longer hurt and her muscles ached only when she made a sudden move.
She looked around the cavern. The men and animals were gone. She lifted her arms in a lazy stretch, then stilled as the world outside exploded into a cacophony of noises—crashing and grating and the clanking of iron chains.
Startled, even a little frightened, Annabel lowered her arms. Making haste, she pulled on her boots and went outside, driven by curiosity and alarm as much as by hunger and thirst and other physical needs.
On the far side of the clearing, she could see the mule, harnessed to the arrastre, plodding round and round in a slow circle. The pair of huge rocks hanging from the spokes of the arrastre smashed against the smaller rocks in the confines of the stone pit, grinding up the ore.
The noise boomed in her ears. A cloud of dust floated over the arrastre pit. On the other side of the arrastre, Clay was walking up the path, carrying a bucket of water. When he noticed her, his gaze lingered on her with an intensity that banished the last of the early-morning chills.
Halting in her approach, Annabel watched Clay as he set the bucket on the ground and then ran around the arrastre pit to catch up with the mule. Taking hold of the harness, he brought the animal to a stop beside the water bucket.
The grinding noises ceased, leaving a sudden silence. The mule buried its long nose in the bucket and drank, with eager blowing and splashing that filled the quiet. Clay stroked the animal’s lathered flank and tugged at the harness, inspecting the hide to make sure the leather straps were not causing sores.
Annabel loitered over. She could tell Clay’s touch on the mule was gentle, just as it had been when he bandaged her hands. A rebellion stirred in her mind. It seemed to her that kindness and warmth simmered behind Clay’s cool facade, but he hoarded those emotions like a miser might hoard a bag of coins.
Something in her demanded that she force him to reveal those emotions, like her own emotions always flowed freely for others to see. She wanted to strike against the hard surface he presented to the world and make it crack, for no man could be made of stone the way he pretended to be.
She ambled closer. “You’re very kind to that mule. You must love the creature.”
Clay shot her a surly glance from beneath the brim of his hat. “No love to it. An injured animal is no good. It was the same with your blistered skin. You’ll be no good as a laborer if you can’t use your hands.”
“Are you comparing me with the mule?”
“The mule is a darn sight more valuable than a scrawny kid.”
His voice was deadpan, but Annabel could see a shadow of a smile tugging at his mouth. She edged closer and peeked into the circle of stones. “How can I convince you of my value?” she asked, glancing at him over her shoulder. “Will you teach me how to separate the gold from the gravel?”
She could feel Clay’s attention on her, saw him shift uneasily on his feet. Again, Annabel could sense his sudden withdrawal. “No,” he said curtly. “Not today. I need to crush the ore. There’s another cartful waiting at the mine. You can work in the kitchen. See what you can put together for a noonday meal.”
His rebuff ought to have offended her, but instead it triggered a frisson of excitement. She had little experience of young men, apart from the footmen and grooms at Merlin’s Leap, and they had treated her with a formal respect. She had never had a chance to banter with a young man, and now the challenge filled her with a heady fascination.
Leaving Clay to tend to the mule, Annabel went into the kitchen. A pot of coffee, still warm, stood on the table, with a plate of biscuits. And next to them, a jar of honey! She sat down, poured coffee into a cup and spread honey on two biscuits and devoured them, not touching the rest, in case they were intended as a midmorning snack for the men.
Finished, she dusted the crumbs from her fingers and examined the skin on her palms. There was no sign of infection, just some ragged edges of burst blisters that were beginning to harden into calluses.
Satisfied with the signs of healing, Annabel got up to survey the kitchen contents, starting with the row of grain bins beneath the work counter. Flour. Evaporated vegetables. Rice. Beans. More beans. Jerked meat, perhaps venison.
Her inspection progressed to the shelves. Canned goods. Tins of evaporated milk. Another jar of honey. A crock of cooking oil. Kerosene for lamps. Matches in a waterproof tin. A bag of salt and small pouches of spices, not imported ones, such as saffron or pepper, but some kind of native herbs.
There was plenty of flour, and Liza had taught her how to bake bread. Dinner would be beans and rice, with bread and honey for dessert. Annabel rolled up her sleeves and set to work.
The mule had resumed its plodding circle. The grinding noise boomed over the clearing. Dust floated in the air. Annabel stirred dough in a bowl, gripping the wooden spoon with her fingertips to ease the pressure on her blisters.
She took to singing a sea shanty, altering the words to suit the occasion. After a few verses, she raised her voice to compete with the crashing and banging and the clatter of the mule’s hooves.
They say, old Clay, your mule will bolt,
Oh, poor old Clay, your mule will bolt,
Oh, poor old Clay!
For thirty days you’ve ridden him,
And when he bolts I’ll tan his skin,
Oh, poor old Clay!
And if he stays you’ll ride him again,
You’ll ride him with a tighter rein,
Oh, poor old Clay!
When she got to the end, she started again, increasing the volume until she was bellowing out the words. So engrossed was she in the competition to produce the most noise that when the mule stopped, she went on, her voice preventing her from hearing the sound of footsteps as they thudded over.
“There you go again, scaring every living creature in the forest.”
Instead of pausing in the middle of a verse, Annabel put extra force in the final “poor old Clay” before she turned to face him.
The bowl nearly slipped from her fingers. He’d taken off his shirt! Standing on the edge of the kitchen, one arm lazily dangling from a timber post, Clay leaned forward and studied the evidence of her efforts.
“What are you making?” he asked.
&nbs
p; Annabel tried to look away, but her eyes refused to obey. A strange new sensation clenched low in her belly. Her head spun, as if she’d been holding her breath for too long.
She gave up the attempt to avert her eyes and let her gaze roam over him. She could not recall ever seeing a man’s naked chest before, not even Papa’s, for a gentleman did not remove his shirt in the presence of his daughters.
Clay’s body was lean, his arms roped with muscle, and beneath the sheen of perspiration Annabel could see a ridged pattern on his abdomen. Higher up, his torso broadened, and hidden in the sprinkling of dark hair on his chest, Annabel noticed two flat brown nipples, different from the pink tips of her own breasts and yet somehow the same.
“What are you staring at?” Clay stepped closer. “Your eyes are like dinner plates. Haven’t you ever seen a man peeled to his belt before?” Reaching out, he pinched a dollop of dough from the bowl and popped it into his mouth.
Lips pursed, cheeks hollowed, he considered the flavor. Annabel studied the rugged features, now clean-shaven instead of covered with a thick coat of beard stubble.
Her attention settled on his mouth, and all of a sudden a wave of heat rolled over her. She knew she was blushing scarlet. Clay stiffened. The change she was learning to recognize in him came over again, as if a storm cloud had rolled in from the ocean, obliterating the sun.
“Better get back to work.” His voice was gruff.
Annabel watched him go. And something tempted her to go after him. Curiosity. Devilment. Playfulness. The strange new tugging in the pit of her belly. Perhaps even the challenge she had set for herself earlier, to jolt him out of his carefully constructed coolness and indifference.
Quickly, she finished her kitchen chores. When the bread was baking in the oven and a pot of beans simmering on the stovetop, she left the shelter of the kitchen canopy and strolled over to the arrastre. The mule was going round and round again, the stones crashing and grinding, dust rising in the air.
Clay was bent over a bucket to splash water over his face and arms. When he straightened, their eyes met. For a moment, they looked upon each other. Annabel held her breath. She could feel all those pent-up emotions seething within Clay, creating pressure, a force as powerful as the head of steam that drove the engine on the train.
Like a door closing, Clay’s features hardened. Using the flat of his palm, he flicked away the droplets from his face, and then he turned to look the other way. Pointedly ignoring her, he went to coax the mule to a greater speed.
Bolder now, not even trying to hide her interest, Annabel watched him. She could feel his irritation rising, as if the storm clouds in his mind were about to burst into thunder and lightning.
When the mule needed a break, the noise ceased. At first, the world appeared silent in contrast, but an instant later Annabel could pick out the mocking call of a blue jay and the rustling in the trees as a squirrel leaped from branch to branch.
“Your skin is nicely bronzed,” she called out to Clay. “You ought to always stay clean-shaven. Otherwise the top half of your face will tan but the lower half will remain pale. It will look funny. Girls won’t like it.”
“Girls?” Clay drawled. “What might you know about it?”
“Plenty. I have two older sisters.”
“How old?” Clay stole a glance toward his shirt hanging on a juniper on the edge of the clearing, but he made no move to retrieve the garment.
“Twenty-four and twenty-two.”
His shoulders shifted in a careless shrug. “Just right for me, then.”
The jolt of jealousy at the imaginary prospect took Annabel by surprise. She brushed the feeling aside and went on with her probing. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Twenty-three?” Her voice rose in surprise. “I thought you were older. Close to thirty.”
“Everyone grows older at the same rate but some grow up faster.”
“Mr. Hicks says you have been with him for five years. That means you were eighteen when he employed you. Are you an orphan as he says?”
“Yes.”
“How old were you when your parents died?”
Clay took down his hat, raked one hand through his thick brown curls and replaced the hat on his head. For a moment, Annabel thought he might not reply. When he spoke, his tone indicated his patience was wearing thin.
“Six.”
Six years old. So, he hadn’t been abandoned at birth. He’d have memories. He’d have suffered the grief of loss, something they had in common. “Do you remember your parents?” she asked softly.
“I remember a woman’s voice singing.” He gave her a sly look from beneath the brim of his hat. “And a man’s voice telling her to shut up.”
For an instant, the cutting reply silenced Annabel. Then she launched into another attempt to get a peek into his mind. “What happened to you when they died?”
“Aren’t you full of questions today?” Clay glanced up into the clear blue dome of the sky. “Could it be that the sun is frying up your brain?”
Annabel gave him an innocent smile. “Just passing the time.”
Clay walked over to the mule, squatted on his heels to inspect the hooves and spoke without looking up. “Someone took me to the nuns. The nuns only looked after girl orphans, so they sent me to an orphanage that was little more than a workhouse. Boys as young as three were hired out to chimney sweeps and farmers and storekeepers—anyone who would pay.”
Annabel could see the tension in Clay’s naked back and shoulders, could hear the bitter note in his voice. Pity welled up inside her. They were both orphans, but the similarity ended there. Unlike her, Clay had no happy memories of loving parents to draw upon. He’d grown up with cruelty and neglect.
Had he ever felt love? Did he even understand such emotion? Did those hidden feelings of kindness and caring she had credited him with really exist, or had she merely imagined them, fooled by her own sentimental nature?
“How old were you when you left the orphanage?” she asked, aware that any moment now he might decide she was pushing too hard and react with anger.
Clay rose to his feet. Although his voice remained calm, there was no mistaking the warning in his manner. “I was fourteen, and I was not a scrawny kid like you. I was capable of doing a man’s job, instead of loafing about in the sun and bothering other people who have better things to do.”
Annabel eased back a step, then another. “I think the beans are boiling,” she said and pivoted on her big leather boots. As she hurried away, her heart was pounding, her mind in turmoil. She’d been prodding at Clay, trying to stir his emotions, but it was her own emotions that had become stirred.
Poor, poor Clay, growing up without the comfort of a loving home. Up to now, it might have been his good looks and his masculine strength and the air of self-sufficiency about him that had triggered such a strong response in her.
Now it was more.
Her tender nature reacted to suffering and pain, and she longed to heal some of the past hurt that had caused Clay to form such a hard shell around him. But could past hurts ever be healed? Could a barrier a man had put up around his emotions ever be knocked down? And what might it cost a woman if she tried and failed?
Chapter Seven
For the rest of the morning, Annabel kept out of Clay’s way and concentrated on preparing a meal. She wanted it to be a success, wanted to prove she was a valuable addition to the team. At Merlin’s Leap, she’d sometimes felt overshadowed by her older sisters. Now she wouldn’t be compared with them but would only be judged on her own efforts. She found the idea strangely liberating.
While she bustled about in the kitchen, Annabel kept an eye on the position of the sun. The day before, she’d noted that when the noonday meal was called the sun had lined up between the pair of ta
ll pines to the left of the arrastre. The observation helped her to have the meal ready when she heard Mr. Hicks lumbering over from the mine.
His nose twitched. “I smell cooking.”
“Beans and rice. And a loaf of bread with honey for after.” Annabel gestured at the table she’d already laid out with plates and spoons. “Please, sir, sit down.”
“Blimey—what is this, the Palace Hotel?”
Annabel smiled. “The Waldorf Astoria.”
She heard Clay stroll over. He’d put on his shirt but had left the buttons undone, and the open edges of the shirt drew her attention even more to his naked chest, the way a frame might enhance a painting.
In silence, Annabel dished out the food. The men tucked in. She’d already noticed the way Clay ate, his focus totally on the meal, as if someone might snatch the plate away from him anytime. It made her suspect that at some point in his life Clay might have suffered from starvation. Another wave of compassion welled up in her at the thought.
“There’s plenty more,” she said quietly.
Clay glanced up at her, his eyes guarded. He made no reply.
Mr. Hicks nodded. “This is a fine stew. What did you put in it?”
“Just beans and rice. And salt, and a spoonful of honey to sweeten the beans while they were boiling.”
“Go easy on the salt.” Mr. Hicks adjusted his bulk on the log stump. “Too much salt makes a man thirsty in this heat.”
“The heat also makes you sweat, which loses salt from your body,” Annabel pointed out. “It is better to put salt in your food and drink plenty of water.”
Mr. Hicks looked up from his stew. “How come you know such things?”
“My father was a seaman. Sailors are careful about nutrition, to avoid scurvy.”
“Nutrition?” Clay lifted his brows. “Ain’t you full of fancy words? Does it mean the food they eat?”
From Runaway to Pregnant Bride Page 6