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“You haven’t eaten breakfast yet,” Maddie said. When Lucky’s hand slipped from her waist, she pointed out, “You didn’t have supper last night, either. You can’t keep going without eating.”
“I’ll start carrying out the gold while you eat,” the other man said.
A shiver of pure fear crawled up Maddie’s spine at the thought of that man being in her tent. Maybe it was because of the gun in her pocket, but a deep foreboding had settled in her stomach. Maddie lifted her gaze, wondering if Lucky felt it, too.
He didn’t, not according to the twinkle in his eye and the smile on his lips. Without taking his eyes off her, he said, “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“You want—”
“I want you to leave,” Lucky interrupted the man. “Now.”
The door slammed shut. Maddie didn’t have a chance for relief to settle in before Lucky said, “What are you so afraid of?” He caught her beneath the chin. “I’ve seen you mad and sad, and happy and excited, but I’ve never, not even when you fell over the side of the mountain, seen fear in your eyes, not like what I saw a moment ago.”
Maddie attempted to draw in a breath of air, but it lodged in her throat.
“Did that man do something to you? Say something when I wasn’t here?”
She shook her head.
“Then, what is it?”
Telling him she didn’t know what it was would be useless, other than it would give him one more thing to worry about, and that she didn’t want. “It’s nothing,” Maddie said. “There have been so many changes, so much to do.” Stretching onto her toes, she kissed his cheek. “And worrying about you not eating isn’t helping matters.”
He grasped her shoulders and tugged her close to fully kiss her, and no one knocked this time to interrupt them. Lucky ate his breakfast then, and afterward, Abe and Tim helped him haul the gold out to the boat.
The Fenstermacher brothers had been thrilled to join ranks in mining the gold and were as committed to the adventure as she and Lucky. More so, possibly. So was Jack, and Homer, well, the bird was just naturally happy. He squawked her name twice before landing on the ground next to her feet.
Lucky laughed and kissed her cheek. “We’ll be home before dark.”
Though she had the urge to hug him hard, she realized that was just her own jitters, so she nodded instead. “Be careful.”
“We will,” Lucky assured her. He stepped into the boat and nodded for Tim to shove them off the shore.
Maddie watched until they floated around the bend in the river, and let out a long sigh before turning around. “Come on, Homer, we’ve got work to do.”
The bird flapped his wings and strutted along beside her. Tim had waited, too, and in his booming voice, declared, “Sunny day. We’ll get a lot of work done today.”
She offered a false smile and nodded, knowing he was just trying to lighten her mood. Nothing could really do that, though, not with how deep it became when she caught the man who’d knocked on their door earlier glaring her way.
“Don’t worry about him,” Tim said in what he must have thought was a whisper. “Cole told me to keep an eye on him. And I will.”
* * *
Lucky was home before dark. Maddie met him at the water’s edge and told him of the large cleanouts the day had provided. “I’ll need a bigger magnet,” she said as he hugged her.
Her whisper made him laugh, and he appreciated that. Not caring that all the miners could see them, Cole kissed her thoroughly. It had only been a few nights since he’d held her, loved her, but it felt like years. He’d known it would be like this. That the camp would be overrun with others and time alone would be nonexistent, but he hadn’t expected it to be this agonizing. The fear he’d seen in her eyes this morning still gouged at him, too. No matter what she said, she was afraid of something.
There was no fear in her eyes when they separated—just the opposite, in fact. A part of him wished they hadn’t found an ounce of gold. Then the camp would be empty except the two of them. As it was, not even their tent held enough privacy for what he wanted.
Disappointment flowed all the way to his toes. Cole kissed her forehead and then turned her toward the tent. “Let’s go eat supper.”
“Tim shot a moose behind their old camp today,” she said. “It took most of the day to haul it all over here.”
A shiver rippled up his spine. He’d told Tim to stay at her side all day, and he damn well expected the man to do just that. “What was he doing across the river?”
