Outside on the duckboards that were meant to serve as sidewalks, Dylan steered her toward a sheltered recess between his store and the saloon, and away from the rough, milling crowds that wandered up and down Front Street. Backed into the corner, she was forced to look into his set, chiseled face. Dylan Harper was a frightening man. Danger and an iron will were plain in his eyes. She dropped her gaze to his hands where they hung at his sides. They were large—broad and long-fingered, and they looked as if they would make sizable fists. Oh, dear God, she hoped that agreeing to leave Coy would not prove to be an even bigger mistake than marrying him had been.
Dread made her grip Jenny tighter than the baby liked, and she issued a little squeal of protest in her sleep before settling down again. Melissa felt her wet diaper seeping through the blanket against her arm. Jenny was bound to wake up soon, and even the best babies cried when they were wet and hungry. Men hated crying babies. Dylan glanced at Jenny, and Melissa pulled farther back into the corner. He looked impatient and cross as he eyed them both, and a knot of fear swelled in her throat.
"Look, this is how it's going to be," he said. "Since I let Rafe talk me into this damn-fool arrangement, I plan to take advantage of it." The weight of dread settled more heavily on Melissa. "I keep the store open long hours, and my days are hard. I need someone to tidy up the place, do my washing and cooking. My place upstairs isn't very big, so brooming it out now and then shouldn't be too taxing. I'll pay you, and I'll look out for you and the baby, here. But this is only a business deal, and a lousy one at that since I'm still out my twelve hundred dollars. You can call yourself Mrs. Harper if you want, so people won't think you're just living with me, and I won't deny that we're married to anyone who asks. But that's as far as things will go between us. You're not going to be my wife, and I won't expect to claim any rights as your husband. And I don't know much about babies, so don't expect me to change diapers or any of that. I'm up here to make money, and when I have enough for my plans, I'm going back to Oregon. I'll give you some cash for a new start here or wherever you want to go. That's all right with you, I hope." The words all came out in a terse speech, as though he had rehearsed it in his mind and didn't want to forget something.
She nodded and kept her voice low. "Yes, it's fine." His proposal sounded fair, and though relieved that he would not expect her to sleep in his bed, Melissa was very wary just the same. He could be lying about everything. His handsome face could be just a mask that hid a dark heart, and certainly, his well-known reputation in Dawson made him a man to be feared. At any rate, both her father and Coy had taught her that she could not take at face value anything men told her. But she knew better than to show it. She knew not to show anything, not hurt, not anger. If Dylan meant what he said, she intended to earn enough money, to do whatever it took, so that she would never have to depend on a man again. For now, though, she knew she had to make the best of this.
"What do you want me to call you?" he asked. "Lissy?"
She had never liked being called Lissy, although everyone except her mother had done so. She gazed up into his face again. "No, please . . . will you call me Melissa?"
"All right, then, Melissa. Let's go," Dylan said, and turned to lead her back to the store.
Just then, Jenny began to stir, her wet diaper getting the better of her good nature. "Mr. Harper," Melissa murmured, clearing her tight throat, "I don't have my belongings with me. No clothes for me or the baby. Not even an extra diaper. Coy has them all."
He sighed, and his frown only served to remind her that getting her and Jenny instead of his money was not what he wanted at all. "Maybe it's none of my business, but how the hell did you end up with a bum like Logan?"
She lifted her chin slightly and summoned all the dignity she could muster, but her cheeks grew warm. "We all make the wrong choice sometimes, Mr. Harper." She could see by his expression that a whiff of the baby's urine-soaked pants had reached his nose.
"Well, come on, then. My stock caters mostly to miners, but maybe I can find something for you."
She had another view of his broad shoulders as she followed him back into his store, where he managed to find three flour sacks, and a blanket for Jenny. "These aren't the best, but they'll work for now." He pulled out his huge knife and slit the sacks into diapers with such wicked dexterity, Melissa flinched. Then he cut the wool blanket into pieces that would fit a baby. He started to hand them to her, but tucked them over his arm instead.
"I'll take you down to the market on Wall Street tomorrow. Since the spring thaw, steamships have made it upriver with everything from ice-cream freezers to safety pins. I expect we'll find something for you and the baby to wear. For now, I'll show you the upstairs."
They had to go back outside to reach the side stairway that led to his room, and the mud was nearly knee-deep. Melissa struggled to keep her balance while the sucking mud pulled at her thin shoes. She jumped when Dylan Harper grasped her elbow to steady her. His hand felt big and rock hard, the firm grip of his fingers burning through her sleeve.
A team of Angora goats slogged by close to the duckboards and nearly brushed her elbow while it pulled a sled laden with supplies. On these swampy streets, horses were useless and wagons sank to their wheel hubs. During the journey to Dawson she had seen all manner of animals pressed into the service of hauling goods, including sheep, burros, dogs of every breed, even dehorned reindeer.
Melissa hoped Dylan would release her when they climbed the narrow stairs, but instead he fell back only one step so he could continue to hold her arm. When they reached the landing at the top of the stairs, he let go of her to push open the door, allowing her to pass through first.
Inside, after Melissa's eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw a stove, a corner for washing, a table and chairs, and one big bed. There was no extra space for another.
"Where will I sleep?" she asked, fearing she already knew the answer.
He shrugged. "There's nothing we can do except share the bed. I told you I won't touch you." Apparently, her disbelief showed in her eyes because he added in a low, silken voice, "My word is better than Coy Logan's."
Melissa had no reason to believe that. Staring at him and then the bed, she clutched Jenny to her. "I promise that somehow I'll earn enough money to repay every penny of Coy's debt to you."
His gaze shifted away from hers for a moment. "Well, settle in," he mumbled and pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "I'm going back to work."
He gave her a lingering look and then turned to leave.
Not only would Melissa pay him back, she'd make enough to leave this wild, crowded place and the savage man who had taken them in. She would return to Portland to make a life for herself and her daughter.
No man would ever have power over them again.
Chapter Two
The door slammed, and Melissa stood on the other side of it, listening to Dylan Harper's footfalls going down the stairs. Left alone with Jenny to survey the log-walled room and her circumstances, she struggled to grasp all that had happened to her today.
That Coy had traded his wife and his own child to a stranger to pay a debt— She did not feel hurt, exactly. After all, how could someone who had worked so hard to earn her loathing still hurt her? She had been his wife for just over a year, and learned early on that he was much less of a man than she had originally believed. But discovering the full extent of his selfishness and disloyalty had still left her badly shaken. She hadn't realized that he did not care for her and Jenny at all. Or maybe she simply hadn't been able to admit it to herself until this moment.
In truth, she knew that she would not miss him. Despite his big talk about the future during their very brief courtship, he had proven himself to be short-tempered and lazy, like her father and brothers. But what about Dylan Harper? Though he claimed otherwise, and while he actually worked—at his own business, too she had learned the hard way not to take any man at face value.
If looks alone reflected a person's character, if g
ood people were handsome and the wicked ugly, life would be simpler. But sometimes beautiful faces hid dark hearts, she knew, and while Dylan was much better-looking than Coy, that didn't tell her much. Tall and broad and muscled, his form suggested a life spent at work on tasks more physically demanding than sitting on a tree stump, lifting nothing heavier than a whiskey bottle, or complaining about the government, as Coy had been apt to do.
She had seen a sharp, untamed intelligence in Dylan's green eyes. His hair was the color of buckskin—blond, but darker than her own. He had a wide brow and a long narrow nose that snubbed slightly at its end, and his square jaw suggested a stubborn, determined temperament. His mouth was full and sensuous. He was savage, magnetic—he could draw people as strongly as he pushed them away. She sensed a hunter in him, wild and independent. There was no question that he was attractive. In fact, she thought he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. But how would he treat her and the baby? And if he got tired of their arrangement and decided not to see it through as he'd promised, he might toss them out in the muddy street if he wanted to.
Melissa knew she had to think of some way to protect herself and her child. There were no guarantees in life—this afternoon she'd learned that not even marriage protected a woman.
Jenny began to wail then, her patience exhausted, and Melissa was dragged back from her ruminations. She took two steps deeper into the room, looking for a place to change the baby. Dirty dishes cluttered the little table and clothes were slung over the two chairs. The quarters were close up here, just as Dylan had said, with a low, timbered ceiling. In fact, with him in the room, it had seemed even smaller still. His lean male ranginess filled the whole place in a way that she found more than a little threatening. Finally, she laid the baby on the floor and unpinned her soaked diaper.
"Hushabye, little love," she crooned as she fashioned the coarse flour sacking around Jenny's bottom. Trying to keep the quiver out of her voice, she forced herself to ignore the words Emerald Milling stamped on the fabric in blue ink. This was not the life a mother envisioned for her child. She herself might be dressed in old, worn clothes and feel just as old and worn. But she wanted so much more for Jenny Abigail. She lifted the baby into her arms. "Everything is going to be fine. Tomorrow I’ll get material for some new clothes, and I'll make you better diapers." Jenny stopped fussing and considered her with solemn eyes. "We're not off to a very good start together, are we?" Melissa whispered and rose to her knees. "But I'll get us out of this, just you wait and see."
Pushing aside the shirt that lay on one of the chairs, Melissa unbuttoned her bodice. Jenny was too thin as it was, and she didn't want her to miss any meals. The baby rooted around until she settled down to suckle. A sense of contentment washed over Melissa, and she snuggled her child close, smoothing a hand over her silky head. The silence gave her a moment to rest and study her surroundings.
There was only enough space for her to make a little corner for herself and Jenny. Glancing around, she spotted a crate the baby could sleep in. The poor little thing had never had a cradle, a fact that bothered Melissa a great deal. A baby ought to have a cradle, even if she had nothing else.
A year ago, she had viewed Coy as her deliverer. That he was a friend of her brothers should have given her pause, but it hadn't. She had been so anxious to get away from the tiny back street rooms she grew up in, away from the drunkenness and Pa's constant angry harangue, she had ignored the nagging doubts that had nipped at her and decided to marry Coy in spite of them.
She could still see Coy sitting at the kitchen table that rainy spring afternoon with Pa and her oldest brother, James. It was before her mother had died. Melissa hadn't been included in the discussion that decided her future, but she'd eavesdropped from her place at the stove and peeked at them now and then.
"Take her if you want her, Coy Logan," her father had groused with a dismissive wave of his hand. He passed a bottle of cheap corn whiskey to Coy after taking a long swallow for himself. "She'll be one less mouth I have to feed."
Hearing that, Melissa turned to face the stove again. Jack Reed had not earned a full day's pay or put food in any of his children's mouths in more than ten years. Her mother had been the one who worked—the one who had kept food on the table, as poor as the rations had been. Melissa had stolen another glance over her shoulder.
"I don't like it, and no offense to you, Coy," James had said, idly scratching his crotch. "But who's gonna take care of us if Lissy leaves? With Ma working for the Pettigreaves in their fancy house, there won't be anyone to cook and wash. Ma don't get home except on Thursdays. We have to eat in the meantime."
This had raised a heated discussion, but in the end Coy had won her hand. And although she hadn't known it at the time, that was the day her dreams had begun to crumble.
But all of that couldn't be helped now. She had more immediate concerns. She put Jenny over her shoulder and gently patted her back. The baby's velvety temple pressed warmly against Melissa's cheek, filling her with warmth that quickly turned to an almost overpowering urge to weep. She tightened her hold on her daughter, trembling slightly with the force of her emotions. Please, God. Melissa had long since realized that her own dreams had drifted away like dandelion fluff on the wind. But even so, deep in her heart, she still held dreams for her baby. She wanted more for her than hunger and betrayal and the stunning impact of a man's brutal knuckles against her jaw if she so much as dared to speak her mind. Those weren't outlandish dreams. Melissa wasn't young enough or foolish enough to set her sights too high these days. But she prayed that Jenny got chances that she'd never had, and that she would somehow figure out a way to smooth the path for her daughter.
Resolutely, she lined the crate with a piece of the blanket Dylan had given her and laid Jenny inside. The baby waved her fists vigorously, apparently pleased enough to have a dry diaper, a full stomach, and a place to rest. Swallowing hard to ease her tight throat, Melissa chucked the infant under the chin.
"Well, it isn't a real crib, button, but at least you don't have to share it."
Melissa's gaze skittered to Dylan's big, roughhewn bed. It was made from slender tree limbs, the headboard and footboard bent into arches and secured at the joints with rawhide thongs. Rustic, she thought, but oddly pleasing to the eye and considerably better than anything Coy had ever provided. A couple of animal hides that had been stitched together—wolves' hides, Melissa thought-were draped over the end and appeared to serve as a blanket. Long-legged jeans were slung over the pelts and a pair of boots sat on the floor.
Just as Dawson was basically a man's town, this room lacked any hint of a woman's touch. But at least the windows were glazed with real panes of glass, and they opened. The tiny miner's cabin she and Coy had lived in had just one window, and it had been made of empty bottles held together with dried mud. Dylan's windows even bore heavy curtains to close out the light of the midnight sun. Well, they couldn't be called curtains, exactly. They were just rectangles of canvas with raw edges—they had probably been cut with the same knife and method that had created Jenny's diapers from the sacking.
A small galvanized steel sink with a pump stood against one wall. There were homes in Portland that had real faucets with running water, but she had never seen one. This she was accustomed to, and it meant she wouldn't have to haul water to wash dishes and clothes, as she had at Coy's cabin. Beneath the jumble of dishes, an oilcloth graced the table, another step up from her last dwelling. But the place needed a good cleaning.
She rolled up her thin sleeves and put a kettle of water on the stove to heat. Then grabbing the corn broom that stood in the corner, Melissa began sweeping.
Staying out of Dylan's way would be difficult in a place this small, and tight living conditions tended to make tempers short. And he'd made it no secret that he really didn't want them there. But experience had taught her that she had to keep him in a good humor. That was the only way she knew to protect herself and Jenny.
She intend
ed to do her best.
*~*~*
Downstairs at Harper's Trading Company, Dylan stood over a crate of oranges, unloading it into smaller baskets. The fruit was a little soft from the trip up here on a steamer, but the captain who had sold it to Dylan had given him a fair price.
Although it was after nine o'clock at night, the sun threw a wedge of bright light across the plank floor, and crowds still wandered the street outside as if it were the middle of the afternoon. After two years up here, he still hadn't grown accustomed to a summer sun that shone until midnight. He was glad for the light tonight, though. It gave him an excuse to work in the store and keep his mind off the footsteps he kept hearing overhead.
Unloading a crate of oranges didn't take much concentration, though. And that was the problem.
It was a rare moment that found him alone in the store, and the thoughts spinning through his head were glum.
Business was good, he couldn't complain about that. With thirty thousand stampeders surging into Dawson to strike it rich in the gold fields, he was making more money than he would have believed possible.
Initially, he'd planned to dig for gold too, just like the rest of them. And he'd had the advantage of being here when George Carmack made the big gold discovery on Rabbit Creek that had started all this. Good claims had still been available then. But mining was grueling work, and there were no guarantees. Despite the men who became rich, many more did not. Dylan expected to work hard, but after trying his hand at mining, he had decided that he'd rather spend his energy on a sure thing. And it was a sure thing that these men needed equipment and supplies. So he let them dig for the gold, and they brought it to him when they bought whiskey and flour and tobacco, and anything else he could find to sell them. No, it wasn't business that put him in this sour mood.
Harper's Bride Page 2