Gold Rush Bride

“Oh, no, of course not.” Kate shook her head, too, and looked properly shocked at the very thought. Though, judging from her brief experience with Will Crockett, his good deed to the Chinese family aside, she wouldn’t have put it past him to have had a wife in one place and have no qualms about marrying another he would never see again.

She offered Vickery a seat on the wide window box and pulled up a stool beside him. She encouraged him to go on with his tale.

“Right. Well, yes, she died of cholera. Not six months after Crockett brought her West.”

“So he’s from the East then. New York?”

“Philadelphia.”

“Ah.” Kate hadn’t a clue where that was. The only place she knew of in the eastern part of America was New York.

“Sherrilyn Rogers Browning was her name. They say she was a beauty.”

“Really.” Absently Kate smoothed her well-worn dress and tucked a tendril of frazzled hair back into place.

“With a taste for luxury and fine things.”

“And yet she wed a fur trapper?” That was too farfetched to believe.

“Well, yes, I guess she did.”

“Just how do you know this, Mr. Vickery? Did Crockett tell you?”

“Oh, my, no. He’s not the kind of man who talks about his family.”

Kate hadn’t gotten to know him well enough to either agree or disagree.

“Matt Robinson told me.”

“Ah, the infamous Matt Robinson.” She smiled, recalling his swashbuckling behavior of the day before. “He’s quite the colorful character.”

“Oh, quite.” Vickery leaned in close, as if he were about to tell her something of great import. “Rumor has it Crockett’s the son of a very wealthy man. Someone important—in politics or banking maybe—back East. No one really knows.”

Six months at sea packed aboard a ship with immigrants of every imaginable background and social status, Kate had gotten quite good at picking up languages and at judging people’s circumstances from their speech.

More than once she’d detected a sort of refinement in Crockett’s voice and manner, though he seemed to bend over backward to cover it up, obliterate it. He worked hard at being something he was not. Why?

Kate rose from the stool and gazed out the window at the clear autumn sky. It didn’t really matter, did it? Will Crockett was gone for good, and so much the better. He was right, after all. She had what she wanted. Why, then, did she feel so despondent?

After Mr. Vickery said goodbye and tottered off down the street, Kate turned back to the window and stared blankly after him, her thoughts consumed by what she’d learned of Will Crockett.

Trailing a finger across her lips, she recalled their kiss. It had been her first. She was twenty-two and had never been kissed. Not until yesterday morn when Will Crockett made her his wife. He wasn’t really her husband, she reminded herself. It was purely a business arrangement. It’s not as if he’d left her. He’d planned to leave all along.

She glanced up the street and, to her surprise, saw the portly priest turned miner who’d married them the day before. Father Flanagan, newly arrived in Tinderbox to make his fortune. A fortune he’d use to build a church, a parish, here on the frontier.

Crossing herself, Kate offered up a silent plea for God to forgive her sin. Sweet Jesus, she’d actually married him! In the church. No matter that it was out in the open, under the clear blue sky. She’d said the vows before a priest, before God.

It was a real marriage, despite the fact that Will Crockett was on his way to Alaska, and that soon she, too, would take to ship and sail for home.

Will stood on the levee in Sacramento City in the shadow of the Golden Eagle and resisted the urge to draw the miniature out of his pocket. Why the hell he’d bought it, he didn’t know.

The painted image of Kate Dennington surely hadn’t changed in the ten minutes since he’d last looked at it. All the same, the keepsake was in his hand before he knew it, her blue eyes and proud Irish features staring up at him.

“You’re an idiot, Crockett.” He jammed it back into his pocket as the men huddled around him on the levee waiting to board the riverboat turned to stare. Shrugging, he swore silently under his breath.

He’d been hard on Kate yesterday, and regretted his bad behavior. He’d been angry, not at her so much as himself. He was attracted to her, and that was the problem.

The way she’d pushed through that crowd of men and come to Mei Li’s defense yesterday morning in town had surprised the hell out of him. The woman had grit. He admired that, along with those blue eyes of hers.

Absently his hand moved to the pocket housing the miniature. At the last minute he fisted it at his side and mouthed a silent curse.

Kate Dennington wasn’t his concern. So why did he have second thoughts about leaving her? She was a woman alone in a town full of ruffians and gold diggers. So what? From what he’d seen of her, she was damned capable of taking care of herself.

Besides, he had plans. And those plans didn’t include a woman in them. Women were trouble. Sherrilyn had taught him that little lesson. Kate Dennington was trouble, too. That chaste kiss of hers proved it. How long had she practiced it, and with whom? She was good, all right. Very, very good.

He would live the life he wanted, the life he’d imagined while shut up for days on end in the private schools his father had insisted he attend. California was spoiled for him now, by the gold and the greed.

But Alaska…now she was something a man could build a life around. Untamed, unspoiled. The adventure of a lifetime. His gaze focused again, and he realized with a start it was fixed on Kate Dennington’s blue eyes.

That damned miniature must have jumped out of his pocket and into his hand! He gripped it until the silvered edges cut into his palm.

It was no kind of life for a wife, or children. Not his, or anyone’s. Something dark and bitter balled in his gut as an image of Sherrilyn, her face white in death, her lips blue, crashed into his consciousness.

Will jammed the miniature back into his pocket and eyed the restless crowd. Where in hell was that livery hand? It was an hour past the appointed time the man said he’d meet him. He’d offered a fair price for Dennington’s gelding, and Will needed every cent he could get his hands on to buy that working passage and make a new start.

The steamer headed north sailed day after tomorrow from San Francisco, right on schedule, so a riverboat stevedore had told him. The Golden Eagle was boarding passengers now for the day-and-a-half trip downriver to the port.

Will was out of time. “Damn.” He turned and calmed Dennington’s horse, who grew more agitated as the crowd on the levee began to board.

He’d bribed that same stevedore to sneak him on the second before the riverboat pushed off. He could be caught, but that was a chance he was willing to take. The bribe had been less than the fare by half.

Will scanned the faces of the men crowded around him, desperate to find that livery hand. It was a damned fair price, so where the hell—

“Leon told him once the husband was gone—some trapper or other—they was gonna burn her out.”

Will froze as his gaze fixed on the rough-looking miner who’d spoken.

“No kiddin’?” The greasy-haired man beside him laughed. “Well, hell, wouldn’t be hard to do. They don’t call it Tinderbox for nothin’. One match and the whole town’d go up.”

Will dropped the gelding’s reins and put a gloved hand on the miner’s shoulder.

“Hey, mister, wait yer turn.”

Will spun him around to face him, and the miner went for his knife. “We’re all in line, here.”

Will reached for his gun. Son of a—he’d forgotten he’d lost it to Landerfelt. “Burn who out?” he said, and locked gazes with the man.

The miner frowned but stayed his hand.

“Leon Packett told you this?” Will didn’t think Packett was capable of saying anything, for at least a day or two after Matt had launched him through that store window. “Burn who out?” he said again.

“That Irish gal.” The miner turned to his greasy friend. “What’s her name, you know it? That wagon driver we seen up Horseshoe Bar last night was the one told us.”

“That’s right. Said some Leon character told him his boss don’t take kindly to no furreigners puttin’ him outta business.”

“You heard this last night from Dan Dunnett?” He’d give that wagon driver more than a broken nose the next time he saw him.

“Dunnett. That’s right.” The miner narrowed his eyes. “What’s it to you? You know the lady or somethin’?”

Will shot them both a dark look. “Yeah, I know her.”

Perhaps there were rats, after all.

Kate sat up in bed and strained her eyes to see in the dark. There was no window in the small living quarters of the cabin-turned-store. She’d left the door propped open between the two rooms, and a thin sliver of moonlight played across the rough-hewn floorboards.

Wait! There it was again. A kind of scraping sound. She narrowed her eyes and listened, but all she heard were the crickets outside. Still, if she did have rats, she’d best take care of them now. They could clean out an entire month’s worth of grain in one night if you let them go unchecked.

She swiveled quietly out of bed and touched a toe to the floor. Lord, it was cold as ice! She groped in the dark for the chair on which she’d draped her dress and shawl but couldn’t find it. And if she lit the lamp she’d scare the vermin back into hiding.

Something creaked from the next room, and Kate froze in place. All the hairs on her nape prickled. She held her breath and listened harder. If it was a rat, it was an awfully big one.

As quietly as she could, she slipped a hand between the bed’s straw mattress and ropes. Her fist closed over the cool steel of the percussion cap pepperbox that had been her father’s pistol since she was just a sprite. Vickery had given it to her along with a single-barrel flintlock rifle and what few other valuables her father had in his possession when he died.

When she’d left Ireland she hadn’t known a pistol from a dead bolt, but six months at sea with a shipload of strangers, some of them military men, had taught her much. She’d cleaned and loaded the small, six-barrel pistol last night, just in case, never imagining she’d have to use it so soon. Brandishing it in front of her, she inched on tiptoe toward the open door.

She’d be all right as long as she didn’t trip over anything. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the dark. But the cold! She shivered almost uncontrollably. Her feet were like ice, and the thin wool of her shift provided little protection against the chill air.

Well, if it were rats she’d feel awfully stupid. Sliding up beside the open door, Kate peeked slowly into the moonlit store. All was quiet. She could swear that something, or someone, was in there. Or had been a moment ago.

She scanned the floor and countertop, and the half-empty shelves for scurrying rodents. Nothing. Perhaps she’d been mistaken, after all. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d dreamed of vermin or insects creeping up on her. The Dublin tenement had been full of them.

Her nose wrinkled as she caught a whiff of kerosene. How strange. She’d filled the lanterns that afternoon but could swear she’d sealed the fuel tin. She stepped into the store, squinting toward the corner where her father had housed his tinned goods.

Two distinctly human footfalls sounded to her left. Without a second thought Kate whirled, leveled the pistol at the sound and fired. The blast shattered the silence.

A second later the intruder was on her. A scream rose up in her throat as he wrestled her to the floor, fighting for possession of the gun. His knees dug into her spread thighs and pinned her to the splintery floor.

“Let me go, you bleedin’ bastard!” The pistol jammed as she tried to fire again. No other choice left to her, she hit him with it—a sideways swipe in the dark that grazed his head.

“Son of a bitch!”

That voice! She could swear it belonged to—

He grabbed her wrist and squeezed so tight tears came to her eyes. She dropped the pistol, and in one quick move he pinioned both her arms above her head.

“Sweet Jesus!”

“Wrong. Guess again.”

His face was inches from hers. She could barely make out his features in the milky light but felt his breath hot on her face, and the tease of soft fur against her bare arms.

“Crockett!”

“Good guess. Give the lady a gold star.”

“Of all the—” She struggled beneath him, but was no match for his size and strength.

Crockett jerked her arms higher, forcing her back to arch and her breasts to press upward into his chest. His body radiated heat like the pig-iron furnaces in Clancy Street back home.

“Are you done, now?” He relaxed his grip on her, and she yanked her wrists free.

“Done with what? And get off me!”

He rolled off her, and she scrambled to her feet.

“Done trying to kill me. There’s a law against that kind of thing, you know. A wife kills her husband—well, that’s a hanging offense here in Tinderbox.”

“Husband, indeed!” She dashed to the lantern sitting on the countertop and lit it as Crockett got to his feet. An open window explained the cold, and how he’d gotten in. She swung it closed and latched it tight. “What the devil are you doing here?”

The soft lantern light played across his even features and reflected back at her from those black eyes. “I could ask you the same thing. You’re supposed to be at Vickery’s.”

“Oh, aye, and let ruffians break into my store in the night and steal me blind, I suppose?” She stepped toward him with the intent of chewing him out. Just who did he think he was, letting himself in and—

His gaze raked over her shift-clad form, and for the barest moment she read something in his eyes that made her heart stop. In a flash, she retrieved her shawl from the other room and pulled it tight around her body.

She could swear he was grinning somewhere under that stony expression of his. She took in his muddied boots and garments and his wild hair, which looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb since he left Tinderbox.

“Shouldn’t you be on the riverboat?”

His eyes grew cold again. “Any man in his right mind would be. But I’m not, am I?”

“But your ship, the steamer north…I thought that you—”

“There’s another one in a month. And that one I’ll be on, come hell or high water. Bet on it.”

“A month!”

He was supposed to sail now, this week, and be gone forever. That had been their bargain. That’s what he’d said, what everyone had been telling her for days. She wouldn’t have married him at all had he meant to stay on.

“What, exactly, do you intend to do for the next month?”

He moved toward her, his gaze pinned on hers. The tiniest spark of fear balled inside her. She backed toward the door leading to the street. “Su-surely you don’t think to…”

A dozen random thoughts raced through her mind. She realized that she knew nothing about him, only what little Mei Li and Mr. Vickery had told her. He could be anyone—a criminal, a murderer or…

He reached for her and her breath seized up in her chest.

“Stand aside.”

“W-what?”

His dark eyes narrowed, and she realized he wasn’t looking at her, but past her at the door. She breathed again and scooted sideways out of his light.

“Looks like there’s plenty to do around here for a month.”

“What do you mean?” Her gaze followed his and when she saw what he’d been eyeing she gasped. “Someone’s tried to jimmy the door!”

Crockett fiddled with the loose latch. “You haven’t seen Leon Packett around here, have you? Or his brother, Jed?”

Landerfelt’s men. The ones Will and Matt had thrashed the day before. Well, almost two days now. It was well past midnight. “No, I haven’t seen them. Why?”

Crockett shook his head. “Damned stupid.” The self-deprecating edge in his voice surprised her.

Then she noticed the blood. “You’re hurt.” Without thinking, she reached out and touched her finger to his temple.

“Yeah. Thanks.” He brushed her hand away. “Lucky your aim is as bad as your judgment.”

She felt bad about the incident. Nevertheless, it would have been his own fault had she killed him. What was he doing snooping around, looking for Jed Packett? She supposed she should be grateful. Clearly someone had been in the store.

She sniffed the air, remembering the kerosene. Padding to the dark corner, she peered at the open tin. She knew she’d closed it after filling the lamps. It wasn’t the kind of thing she’d forget to do.

Voices sounded from up the street, drawing their attention away from the fuel. Torchlight played off the glass of the storefront window, and a second later Matt Robinson’s concerned eyes peered through the glass. Two others huddled beside him, their guns drawn.

Crockett opened the door. “What’s wrong?”

“We was just about to ask you—er, Mrs. Crockett—the same thing.” Matt eyed Crockett’s rumpled clothes and the blood trickling from his temple. “We heard shots.”

“Just an accident.” Crockett retrieved her father’s pepperbox from the floor. “Miss Denning—Kate, I mean, was cleaning her pistol.”

“At two in the mornin’?” Matt cocked a tawny brow at the both of them. It was clear he didn’t believe it. “You two okay?”

“Fine,” they both said in a strained show of unity.

Matt Robinson wasn’t buying any of it, but the cautionary look in Crockett’s eyes kept him from probing further.

“That’s that, then.” Matt tipped his hat to her. “We’ll be gettin’ back to bed.” As he turned to leave, he shot Crockett a wicked grin. “So, ya decided not to go, after all.”

Crockett’s face hardened. He grunted some unintelligible response and kicked the door shut behind them.

Kate had had enough.

In a confrontational pose that had always garnered excellent results when questioning her brothers, she crossed her arms over her chest and tipped her chin at him. Crockett looked at her as if she were some mildly amusing annoyance.

“What now?” she said.

His gaze flashed on her bare feet. “I think it’s time we both got some sleep. I’ll just—”

“No. I want to know why you’re back, and exactly what your intentions are.”

He stared at her for a full ten seconds before answering, those black eyes fixed on hers. By God, if he thought he was going to intimidate her, let him think again.

“My reasons are my own business,” he said evenly. “As for my intentions…” He broke their deadlocked stare. “It’s a month till the next steamer north. You need protection, and I could use more cash. I’ll stay and work the store, until we both make enough to get the hell out of here.”

He wasn’t asking her, he was telling her. And there was something about his tone, a certain overconfidence, that she didn’t like.

“I don’t need protection.”

He twirled her father’s pistol around his little finger and cast a glance at the jimmied door latch. “All right. Suit yourself. I’ll be gone in the morning.” He slammed the pistol on the counter and turned to leave.

“Wait. I—”

There were a dozen good reasons she should boot him out and slam the door behind him. And a dozen more why she shouldn’t, not the least of which was the fact that he was right. She did need protection. And it might not hurt to have a man around, either. Much of the store’s stock was so heavy, the mining equipment in particular, she couldn’t lift it even with Mei Li’s help.

He looked at her, one dark brow arched in question, his hand on the broken door latch.

“I…I guess that would be all right,” she said. “But the cabin’s too small for us both. You’ll have to sleep outside.”

In Dublin she’d lived with her father and four brothers crowded into a basement flat smaller than this by half. The cabin was a palace by comparison.

No matter. It was just a tiny lie. One of many, she suspected, she’d be forced into over the next month. She’d save them all up and when she got home she’d have a nice long confession with her parish priest.

“That suits me fine.” Crockett yanked the door open and stepped into the night.

“Good night, then, Mr. Crockett.”

He slammed his fur hat onto his head and winced. The spot where she’d hit him had swelled to the size of an egg. “Good night Mrs. Crockett.” The words hung there between them as a bitter look twisted on his face.

She watched him as he stormed up the street, and had the gnawing feeling she was destined to burn in hell after all.

Chapter Five

Crockett’s Grocery and Dry Goods.

“Got a ring to it, don’t it?” Matt gathered up the borrowed stencils and horsehair paintbrush and stood back to admire his handiwork.

“Not particularly.” Will stared at the drying paint and ground his teeth.

The only other building he’d ever seen his family name on was built of hand-hewn granite and the finest imported marble one could buy. His mood darkened just thinking about it.

“Glad you decided to stay, Will.”

“I told you, I’m not staying. It’s just temporary.”

“Oh, right, I forgot.”

He caught Matt’s mischievous grin and was tempted to wipe it off that silly face of his.

“See ya around, then.” Matt waltzed up the street toward Cheng’s, whistling a bawdy miner’s tune.

Will swore.

Aside from the fact that he was out of his mind to have returned last night, two good things had come of it. He’d saved Dennington’s daughter’s hide. Again. And he’d foiled Landerfelt’s little plan, which gave him immense satisfaction.

He grabbed the homemade ladder leaning up against the store, swung it under his arm and started around to the back porch of the building he now owned. Before he turned the corner, he shot a glance across the street.

Landerfelt glared back at him, an unlit cigar crushed between his teeth, through the new pane of glass installed in his storefront window earlier that day. God knows where he’d got it, and what he had to pay to get it here.

On impulse, Will tipped his hat at him and smiled. Hell, yes. If he was going to be here another month, he might as well glean as much twisted pleasure out of the situation as possible.

Speaking of which…through the open side window of his new enterprise—the window he’d climbed through last night—he spied Kate behind the counter bargaining with two scraggly-looking miners.

He stowed the ladder and moved up close to the sill to watch her. Her back was to him. His gaze strayed lazily over the curve of her hips and the plump swell of her derriere.

His mind fixed on the image that had kept him awake half of last night…Kate standing in front of the lantern in her threadbare shift, the curves of her naked body silhouetted in the soft light. He recalled the feel of her struggling beneath him on the floor, her thighs pinned open by his, her breasts crushed against his chest.

Snap out of it, Crockett.

He reminded himself that their arrangement was a business deal. Not unlike the one his father had concocted with his last bride. This time the stakes were much lower, of course…a couple of steamship tickets and some cash…but the intent was the same.

To make money.

And the second Mrs. Crockett appeared to be quite good at it, from what he overheard of her dealings with her two most recent customers.

“Don’t be tellin’ me my business, now.” She placed a brass weight on the tendering scales, as he’d shown her that first day, then fisted her hands on her hips. “There. That’s the price. Take it or leave it.”

The miners grumbled but completed the transaction. Goods and gold were exchanged. Kate swept the precious tender into the old leather pouch Dennington had used to safeguard his money, and stuffed it into her skirt pocket the instant the miners left.

Will slipped past the open window and chucked his rawhide gloves on the back porch before stepping into the living quarters flanking the store. Kate had been busy in the short time he’d been gone. The cabin was spotless. So tidy he hardly recognized it.