Back at the clearing, she ducked beneath the ropes she had hung between the cabin and the horse barn. By the end of the morning, many shirts would be flapping in the breeze from those lines.
She placed the heavy bucket on the ground and silenced her moan of fatigue. In Dawson, everything had closed on the Sabbath, and Mrs. Kellogg’s laundry followed the lead of the saloons and dance halls. Samantha did not have the same luxury here on Fifteen Above. The men worked every day, and expected the same from her.
Rubbing her aching shoulder, she regarded the serpentine sojourn of the Bonanza from horizon to horizon. Even this far from the shore, she could hear the sounds of the men working in it. Curses and orders drifted in incomprehensible fragments to her. She smiled as she noted a cheerful whistle. The sound was angel song, relief from the discouraged, driven voices along this stretch of the river.
Realizing the music came from behind her, Samantha turned. Her eyes met Kevin’s dark ones. Jaunty as the tune he created, he flung out his arms to embrace her.
“How’re you this morning, pretty Samantha?”
She put up her hands to avoid him, but he simply laughed and took them between his large ones and pressed them to his lips. When he saw their angry red roughness, his smile faded.
“You’re working too much.”
“I told the men I’d do their laundry. I can’t tell them no, now.”
He scowled. “I can. We didn’t invite you to come all the way up here so you could work for those others.”
“No, you invited me here so I could work for you and Joel.”
“Samantha,” he called as she turned away. When she did not answer, he spun her around to face him. His arm swept around her, as intimately as when they had danced. “Samantha, my dear Samantha, you know that isn’t true.”
She could not halt him as he pressed his mouth to hers. His tongue teased her lips, urging them to open to admit him to the secret pleasures within. Pushing at him, Samantha tried to avoid his persistent lips. His hand captured her head, twisting the loosened hair between his fingers. When she attempted to move away, the strands pulled painfully, and she moaned.
Her moan became a gasp as he took advantage of the parting of her lips to invade her mouth. In shock, she felt his tongue stroking its silky inner recesses. No man had ever kissed her like this. Not sure if she liked it, she had no time to decide. He moved to explore the length of her neck. Her hands clenching on his shoulders, she realized she could not escape his force. A sliver of cold fear cut through her.
At the muted sound of two rocks scraping against each other she gazed over Kevin’s shoulder. Joel stood watching them. She froze as Kevin continued to murmur endearments against her skin. Seeing Joel gave her the strength to do what she could not before, and she managed to break his hold on her. Trembling, she continued to stare past him.
Seeing her startled gaze and looking behind him, Kevin fought to keep a victorious smile from his lips. Now it would not be a secret that Samantha allowed him to kiss her. She had refused his partner almost every opportunity to be near her, he knew. He had kept close surveillance on this woman he intended to win.
“I need your help at the sluice,” said Joel without emotion.
“Of course.” Kevin caressed Samantha’s shoulders once more before moving to lead the way down to the river.
When Joel turned to follow, she said desperately, “Joel, wait!”
“Yes?” His cold eyes showed that he believed she had been an eager participant in what he had seen.
Samantha hesitated. If she spoke the truth, he might laugh with cruel distrust. She could not bear that. The sobs close to her lips might rush out, betraying her. Even if he did not laugh, her words might create new trouble with Kevin.
“Samantha, if you have something to say, kindly do so. I have work to do. I cannot spend my time on flirtations.”
His unfeeling words filled her with rage. “I have nothing to say to you! Get out of here! Take your superior attitude and leave. I don’t want anything to do with you!”
The sound of his footfalls fading in the distance told her she was in no danger of having her tears seen. As the hot tears fell, she wept for something she wanted. What it was, and why it hurt so badly to be denied it, she was not sure.
Chapter Seven
Samantha brushed away the perspiration on her forehead. Everyone had warned her of the severity of the Klondike winters, but no one prepared her for the summer’s heat, scorching insects, and dirt, the stripped hills arid in the sun.
Leaving the washtub for a moment, she went into the cabin. She lifted the mosquito netting from her face and took a deep breath of insect-free air. The mesh helped immensely to keep the insects from leaving angry white welts on her face, but each intake of breath seemed staler than the previous one. Moisture formed on the inside of the veil and clung to her skin, adding to her discomfort.
She checked the bread. It was rising satisfactorily. At least one thing was going well today. She was beginning to wonder if Joel would ever be civil to her again. The night when they shared the music, she had been convinced he honestly wanted a truce. Now that was all changed.
She sighed. She was so tired of having to defend herself. She had done nothing wrong. He refused to believe that.
More miserable than she had ever imagined she could be, she returned to her task in the yard, her steps heavy. Plunging her arms into the laundry tub, she grabbed a shirt and rubbed it vigorously against the washboard.
Scraping a knuckle on the rough edge of the ridges, she cursed. She popped the bloody finger into her mouth and glowered at the soapy water. She hated it—the endless piles of dirty clothes, the primitive house, the men who thought she would be a willing pawn in their games.
Broad hands suddenly grabbed her and twirled her around. She screamed. Then laughter halted her cries. She glanced sheepishly up at the puppy-friendly face of Liberty Burroughs.
“You surprised me!”
“Sorry, Miss Perry.” Thin cheeks puffed out with pleasure, forming a grin, he looked her over. “You sure have good lung power for such a little woman.”
She glanced away, gazing regretfully at the pile of clothes by the tub. “Liberty, your things—”
“Didn’t come for clean shirts. Came to tell you the news.”
“News? Did you make your strike?” Her voice trembled. Although delighted for his good fortune, she feared what this would do to Kevin and Joel. They could not hide their disappointment about Fifteen Above’s low yield.
For a moment, his effervescent smile dimmed. Even his exciting tidings would pale beside the thrill of a big strike. Every man up here wanted to enter the fraternity of El Dorado kings. Then, perking up, he seized her slender shoulders.
“Miss Perry, the Americans done beat the Spanish in Cuba. They took the harbor on July 3! Stewart just came back from Dawson. Big hullabaloo there, celebrating the victory. The damn Spanish’ll learn they can’t take what belongs to us!”
Samantha stared at him, dumbfounded. So far from civilization, she had almost forgotten about the war with Spain.
“Is the war over?”
“It will be soon. They won’t be able to have much of a sea battle when we’ve captured their entire navy.” He crowed with delight and swung her into his arms.
Before Samantha could stop him, he squashed her against him. His mouth over hers startled her. Liberty had been the most gentlemanly of her patrons. She had not expected this from him. Then she relaxed, realizing this was the most innocent embrace she had suffered since she came to the Yukon.
When he raised his mouth from hers, she put her arms around his neck. His nose touching hers, he told her the rest of what he had heard. She laughed with delight when he told of the rout in Cuba.
Then a voice demanded, “What in hell are you doing to her?”
Her face nearly as red as her scraped knuckle, Samantha pulled away from Liberty. She met rage—in Kevin’s eyes. Next to him Joel stood, his face blank
. She could guess what he thought. This time Kevin shared his fury.
Kevin stepped forward threateningly, but she intercepted him. Putting her hands on his arms, she lowered them, taking his hands in hers.
“Kevin, Joel, you must hear the wondrous news Liberty brought over from Sixteen Above! He was so kind as to—”
“I can see how kind—” the blond growled. Shoving her aside, not noticing that Joel caught her to keep her from falling, Kevin was all rage, centered on the huge Liberty.
She looked anxiously at Joel. Surprisingly, he flashed her a quick smile, then pushed past his enraged partner. Slipping his arm around Liberty’s massive, bony shoulders, he asked with a grin, “So, what’s so wonderful that you’ve come over here to celebrate?”
Uneasy, the giant man looked from one to the other. He had never seen Houseman this irate before. Usually Gilchrist was the one who reacted heatedly on Fifteen Above. He could not imagine either man being furious about his giving Miss Perry a victory kiss.
Then he understood. Houseman loved the woman. Not that it would be difficult to love pretty Samantha Perry. The men at Sixteen Above often talked about her—how kind and industrious she was, why she came all the way to the Yukon to find a husband, when she must have had many offers in the States.
“Stewart heard news about the war,” he started in a low voice. These men were his friends. He did not want to fight them. In fact, he did not want to fight anyone. At times like this, memories of a fistfight in Missouri—when his opponent had not risen from the floor—always haunted him. He flinched now, recalling how the man had died from the impact of his hands. Since that time he had avoided lifting his deadly fists to strike any man.
“The war?” Joel turned to Kevin as if the battles far south of the Yukon were of the greatest interest to them. “Did you hear that? Burroughs has news of the war.”
“I heard,” Kevin muttered. He rested his elbow against a tree and regarded the taller man with distrust. Perhaps Burroughs did have a reason to be kissing his Samantha, but it had better be a damn good one.
Liberty wasted no time telling them what he had heard from his partner. Not looking at Samantha, he repeated the sparse details of the battle. When he saw Gilchrist’s reaction of delight, he began to regain his good humor.
Joel clapped him on the back. “Why, that’s wonderful, Burroughs.”
“Yes,” said Samantha. “And I think we should celebrate. Liberty tells me partying has been going on in Dawson.” She plunged ahead, although they looked as if she had gone insane. “We can have a potluck dinner. Here. We are central, and most of the men have to come here by the end of the week to pick up their laundry. Thursday night.”
“A potluck?” said Kevin sharply. “This is no place for a church social.”
Her enthusiasm dimmed at his words. The only way anyone dealt with her here was to offer her more work, or trouble.
Joel jumped into the conversation, “Of course, we’ll have a party. That’s a grand idea! We all need a break. If they can celebrate in Dawson, why not us?”
“Why not indeed?” seconded Liberty. The plan seemed very sound to him. He would enjoy a chance to sample one of the delicious meals he had smelled cooking in their cabin. “What do you want us to bring?”
Samantha hesitated. What the men cooked might be awful. Quickly, she calculated. The three of them here, the two on Sixteen Above, three more on Seventeen, and the lone prospector on Fourteen. She could prepare a meal for nine.
“If you’ll supply the materials, I’ll cook it all.”
Joel shook his head. “That’s too much for you to do.”
“Nonsense,” she retorted. They all needed some sort of relaxation to temper the heated words exchanged in the past weeks. “I know what I can handle. You tune up your fiddle, Joel, so we can dance.”
“Bemis can bring his guitar,” added Burroughs, growing more excited by the second. “And I think Cornelius on Fourteen has a trumpet.”
“Wonderful.” She counted on her fingers the items she would need. Liberty was assigned the task of dividing those things between the claims and being sure they arrived on Fifteen Above two days before the party.
“You need the things day after tomorrow,” he said slowly.
She nodded. “Yes, and it’ll be a wonderful party.”
“How do you know?” demanded Kevin, his voice petulant now.
“I just know.” She smiled so confidently none of them could doubt her.
Samantha had no trouble finding Joel after she finished her work outside. When she came into the cabin, he sat at the table rubbing a soft cloth on his violin, a pensive expression on his face. Sympathy roiled through her, but if she touched him, he might growl with displeasure.
Sitting on the bench next to him, she said softly, “I have just been talking to Kevin. If you want to cancel this celebration, I will understand, though I wish I had known about your brother before we made all our plans. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugged, staring intently at the highly polished wood of the violin.
“What good would it have done? Harold was the hero in our family, the younger brother I never could live up to. How can you compete with a man who gave his life because the scandalous, yellow press demanded war? When he went to Cuba as a reporter to defend U.S. expansionists, Harold soon changed his mind. He learned first hand the cruelties of General Valeriano ‘Butcher’ Weyler, and how the U.S. yellow press was inciting a war. He had to go—wouldn’t listen to me—”
“Butcher Weyler?” she gasped. Even those who had not followed the war closely knew of the governor general of Cuba, whose atrocities against Americans and his own countrymen had helped to escalate the war fever. “Oh, Joel, I’m sorry!”
“No misguided pity!” he snapped. “I’m tired of hearing it. I left Virginia and all that. I came to hate all the people who told me I must be proud of the way Harold died.”
He certainly took no pride in Harold’s death. They had argued for two weeks before his brother left. Joel could not hide his adamant opposition to interfering with the Spanish government in Cuba. It hurt when their family sided with Harold. They saw only Harold’s dreams of glory as a reporter.
So Harold naively went to Cuba, to push the views of the war-mongering press, but ended up writing scathing reports of the dead and their murderers. Then Harold himself had died, for daring to write the truth. And the war came, anyway.
Joel took no pleasure in having been right. His brother’s corpse had come home in a crude box. It rested beneath a marble marker in a Lynchburg churchyard topped by a quickly written commendation for bravery from his overworked editor. He had ridden from his family’s house to scatter pieces of the letter in a field outside the city on the day of Harold’s funeral, when the rest of the household was prostrate with grief. He wanted to erase forever the image of his brother’s search for fame and fortune, which led to his death.
Samantha’s voice brought him out of the painful past as she said gently, “You sound so bitter! Did you hate him that much?”
“Hate?” Joel regarded her with astonishment. “I didn’t hate him. I adored him. He was my baby brother. He always needed me. I couldn’t stop him from going.”
Pushing dough for the evening meal into the pan, she said, “You sound as if you were jealous of him.”
“Of course I was. He was everything I wasn’t. When I was busy with music, he became involved in pursuits more acceptable to our father. We were so different. I wonder sometimes how we could have had the same parents.” He glanced out the doorway at the last of the lingering twilight color fading from the sky. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love him, too. After all, is it so different from now?”
“I don’t understand.” She wiped her face on the edges of her soiled apron. It seemed as if she never stopped sweating. “Is what different?”
“Jealousy.” He gave her a slow grin, which started with his blue eyes, flowed to his lips, and returned to sparkle in his e
yes once more.
“What on earth can you be jealous about? One of the El Dorado kings spending his gold in Dawson?”
He reached across the table to capture her hand, his long fingers surrounding her small, delicate ones, sticky with bread dough. He tugged, drawing her toward him. His other hand rose to the back of her neck. Holding her head steady, inches from his face, he gazed intensely into her eyes.
“You don’t know, do you, Sam?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she whispered. Their lips were so close. All she had to do was move slightly, and she would feel them against her.
He smiled sadly. “I guess love blinds you to everyone else.”
“Love?” She jerked her head out of his grip. “What love? Now you have me completely confused.”
“You two have been very discreet, but I don’t need to be hit in the head to see you’ve decided Kevin is more to your liking than me. After seeing you two together, and all.”
“And all? What did Kevin say? Did he tell you—?” She lowered her eyes, knowing this might convey guilt she did not deserve.
Joel fought the agony in his gut. He had not wanted to lose this one fight. All his life, he had avoided battles. He had sought other ways of solving his problems, hoping he would be able to get what he wanted easily. Softly he said, “Kevin’s told me nothing, Sam. I just know him well enough to see the change in him. He takes many more breaks from the work in the river. He goes off to see you and comes back with an expression of delight on his face.”
“We aren’t lovers,” she whispered.
“I never said you were.”
“What you saw …” She turned away. If she lied, he would guess it. The truth might cause more problems.
He put his fingers under her chin and tilted her face upward, studying her troubled features. “You don’t have to apologize for your attraction to Kevin. Sam, I said only that I’m envious of what you two have. After all, a deal is a deal.”
“A deal? That’s all I am to you!” she cried, suddenly hurt and furious. Surprising herself, she demanded, “Did you two set a time limit for seducing me? What else does the winner get? Besides the opportunity to break my heart?”
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