Page 11

After kissing Melissa in the store and telling her about his past—most of it, anyway—Dylan sensed a subtle change in their relationship.

As much as he didn't want to, he found himself following her softly rounded shape with his eyes, and his trips to the side store window became even more frequent. When he saw her customers hanging around her, chatting, he wanted to go out there and tell them to stop bothering her, that she had work to do. But deep down, he knew the miners didn't bother her nearly as much as they did him.

Her beauty was not glamorous or queenly, as Elizabeth's was. Melissa had an uncluttered, quiet grace that made him think of clear, cold streams and wildflowers. He could not begin to imagine Elizabeth changing a baby's diapers or tending to the other messy aspects of motherhood. Melissa did it all and yet retained her prettiness and much-improved spirits.

Whether or not she could admit it to herself, her mood had brightened considerably since Logan's death. Dylan noticed that she had finally begun to stop flinching at loud voices and no longer looked over her shoulder whenever she went outside.

He told himself again and again that a woman and a child played no part in his foreseeable future. It was all very well to imagine his fairy tale scene with Melissa and Jenny in the kitchen when he came home at night, but it was just that—a pretty daydream. He figured the first five years of his horse-ranching operation would be nothing but hard work, and he'd have to live in a cabin while the house and all the outbuildings were constructed. He would have no trouble doing that—fancy trappings didn't matter to him. But it would be too hard for a woman. Even if it wasn't, Dylan was not willing to risk his heart again.

And that was the crux of the matter.

A wife deserved a whole husband, and he knew he wouldn't be able to give completely of himself. He would always hold something back, the part of his soul that would let him love her fully.

But still he watched Melissa with a yearning that continued to grow every day. Just being around her was a sweet kind of torture he felt better than when he'd lived alone, but to have to only look and not be able to touch—it was hell.

The afternoon after Logan died, Rafe dropped by the store. To avoid climbing stairs, which stole his already feeble wind, he'd made arrangements to move from his rooming house to a first-floor room at the now completed Fairview Hotel. Although there were no guest rooms on the first floor, Belinda Mulrooney had fixed up one for him—for a price, of course. A nice place, he observed drolly, but all the walls were nothing more than canvas with wallpaper pasted on them.

"Anytime a guest so much as farts, it can be heard by the entire establishment."

Rafe looked far worse than Dylan had ever seen. His face was more ashen, and his deep-set eyes had taken on a slightly sunken look. The skin on his face stretched tightly over the bones. Dylan felt a chill of foreboding rush down his spine. But Rafe's clothes were as dapper as ever, and his biting wit suffered no debility.

From the street outside Dylan heard strains of "Nearer My God to Thee,"

honked out of a Salvation Army band that had staked out a spot on Front.

"I see you now have the luxury of musical accompaniment,"

Rafe remarked, gesturing with his cane at the brass and tambourine ensemble.

Like an old man, he lowered himself into the chair where he'd spent so many hours pitching cards and observing Dylan's corner of what he called man's last folly of the century.

"Except for the war with Spain,"

he would add with his rich drawl.

"That truly is supreme idiocy."

"Are you doing all right, Rafe?"

Given his gray-faced, appearance and shuffling gait, it seemed like a foolish question, but Dylan had to ask.

Rafe sent him an arch expression.

"Why? Don't I look all right?"

Dylan chuckled. Even as ill as he was, Rafe could still make him laugh. He realized that he would miss his friend very much when he was gone.

"Have you yet realized what good fortune befell you with Logan's death, Dylan?"

he asked, his breath shorter than ever.

Dylan was wary—he suspected this had something more to do with Rafe's transparent effort to secure a protector for Melissa and Jenny. Pretending indifference, he poured a bag of coffee beans into a canister.

"And what might that be?"

"She is a widow now."

Dylan's head came up. A widow. Of all the realities that had occurred to him since Logan's death, the most obvious of them all had not: Melissa was now a marriageable woman. He'd only considered that Logan wouldn't bother her again, and that Jenny wouldn't suffer the same abuse her mother had. But the imaginary wall that had stood between them, and which he'd used as a flimsy shield against the hunger that she aroused in him, suddenly had crumbled. She was no longer another man's wife.

Dylan shrugged.

"Yeah, she's a widow. I'm not going to be the one who changes that."

Rafe sighed, and it sounded like a cross between a wheeze and a rattle.

"Don't let an incident with one woman turn you into a bitter, cantankerous man."

"Hmm, from the voice of experience,"

Dylan said with a laugh, refusing to be pulled into the conversation.

"Good. If you learned nothing else from me, at least I set an example of what not to do with your life. You know, I was like you once, certain that I'd never let any woman get close—I told you about that. But I never told you about Priscilla Beaumont."

His voice dropped and his tone became introspective. He stared at a coffee can on the shelf as if a memory unfolded before his eyes.

"She was a beautiful young lady, graceful, charming, kind, and from an old, well-respected New Orleans family. Suitors lined up with their calling cards every day of the week to pay their respects and to propose. Gently, but firmly, she turned all of them down. There was another gentleman who had already captured her affection, she told them, although she would not reveal his name to them. That was because the gentleman in question—a cad, really—did not want to be bothered with such foolishness as love."

He smiled faintly.

"She was lovely, as fair as a spring flower. He did everything he could to push her away, even though in his heart he truly cared about her."

He looked up at Dylan.

"Obviously, I was the cad."

Dylan had already guessed as much.

"What happened?"

Rafe took another deep breath, and the rattling wheeze sounded again in his chest.

"Eventually, her father forced her into a marriage that he arranged with a shipowner's son. A year after the wedding, she died from an overdose of laudanum."

"Well, Jesus, Rafe, I'm sorry."

Returning from his reverie, he sat up a bit straighter, and his voice took on a brisker tone.

"Don't be. I'm sorry enough for both of us. Just don't make the same mistake. True love, an affaire de coeur, comes along only once or twice in a lifetime, my friend. Some people never find it at all. Forget about what happened with Elizabeth and put it behind you. I have seen the way you look at Melissa and the way she looks at you."

He hoisted himself to his feet again.

"A body would have to be blind to miss the sparks that fly between you two."

Dylan felt his face grow hot all the way to his scalp.

Just then, a delivery driver walked in. A big hulking giant, he looked like the epitome of a teamster.

"Mr. Harper, I got your goods outside that came up on the St. Paul."

Grateful for the chance to escape, Dylan pulled his shirt off over his head.

"Okay, let's get them unloaded."

Rafe caught his arm as he passed him. He looked especially haggard suddenly, as if talking had used up his small reserve of strength.

"Don't throw away this chance, Dylan,"

he said in his low voice. It seemed to have grown huskier over the past few weeks.

"Trouble comes by the barrelful in life; good things are doled out to us on a teaspoon."

Rafe walked out then, his progress slow and measured, and Dylan watched his retreating back.

On the other side of the street, the Salvation Army band took up "In the Sweet By and By."

***

Melissa automatically clutched her apron pocket, feeling for her gold pouch. Then she picked up Jenny and left her pot of boiling water, intending to buy a box of starch from Dylan's stock. He might resist taking money for Coy's debt, but she would tolerate no argument about paying him for her laundry supplies. If she was making money from her venture, so should he. But when she rounded the corner of the building, she stopped in her tracks, captivated by what she saw.

Standing in the back of wagon and silhouetted by a blue summer sky, Dylan hoisted a keg to his shoulder. Obviously, the work was hot, and his torso gleamed with sweat that also dampened his belt. His muscles, thrown into bright relief by shadow and sun, contracted as he shifted the keg and handed it down to a burly man on the duckboard. His jeans hung low and snug, and Melissa's eyes were drawn to the hollow of his spine, to his arms where tendon and sinew flexed and lengthened.

"Is that the last of it?"

the burly man asked. They'd stacked merchandise on either side of the front door.

"Yeah, that's it."

Not seeing her, Dylan dragged the back of one gloved hand over his forehead, then jumped down off the tailgate of the wagon right into her path.

"Oh—hi,"

he said. He looked down at his bare chest and then gestured at the wagon.

"Um, I just had some stuff delivered from the waterfront."

Melissa tried not to gape, but this was a different Dylan from the man who stood at his shaving mirror in the mornings. He was more vital and earthy and powerful. And he called to something just as vital and deep within her. She watched, fascinated as a rivulet of perspiration ran down the center of his flat belly to be absorbed by the low waistband on his jeans. Seeing him this way only fanned the low, hot flame he had lighted when he kissed her.

"I—well, I just wanted to get a box of starch."

He nodded, and scribbled his signature on a manifest that the wagon driver handed him.

"Go ahead and help yourself. I'm going to wash off in the back."

He kept an enamel washbasin and a bar of soap behind the building near her stove.

Watching him round the corner, she felt like a silly young schoolgirl gaping at the object of her crush. But the truth was that her feelings went deeper than a crush, and her daydreams about him didn't end with a simple kiss. She was tempted to follow him back to the washbasin . . . she could imagine sheets of water flowing through his hair and down his back, sparkling in the sun, catching on his long lashes and the tip of his nose. Picturing it made her insides jumpy and tight.

Stop it right now, she told herself sternly. Turning to walk into the store, she gave herself a sharp talking-to. She would have to stop thinking about Dylan the way she'd . . . well, that way, and as if he were really her husband. Even if she wanted to marry again, he'd made it plain that he had no interest in acquiring a wife.

She shifted Jenny to her other arm to reach for a box of starch from the shelf, and as she did, she caught sight of his blond head passing the window. Just looking at him made her catch her breath. Melissa knew that a treacherous emotion had begun to creep into her heart.

She was falling in love with Dylan Harper.

***

. . . your experience with one woman . . .

. . . put it behind you . . .

. . . don't throw away this chance . . .

Rafe's story, and his warning, kept repeating themselves in Dylan's mind as he walked toward the stairs that evening. Was his friend right? He knew that Rafe was dying, and for a moment he stopped to consider his own mortality. Rafe was just five years older than he was, and it sounded as if he'd collected regrets for the whole of his short life. If he himself were hit in the street by a runaway wagon tomorrow, or contracted some fatal disease, would he take regrets with him to his grave? he wondered. And even if he lived to be an old man, did he plan to do it alone, with no one to share his triumphs and setbacks?

The prospect was depressing as hell.

On Melissa's clotheslines, shirts and underwear flapped in the breeze along with diapers and dresses. No one could say she was lazy or purely ornamental. She did two jobs, really, the laundry and the housekeeping. He'd never thought her weak—after all, a woman who'd crossed the Chilkoot Pass while pregnant and survived Coy Logan wasn't weak. But she'd revealed herself to be even stronger than he would have guessed. Her strength didn't lie only in her physical resilience. She possessed a vitality of spirit that amazed him.

He knew she worked hard, though. Maybe, he thought—just maybe she would like to get away from the stove and have someone wait on her for a change.

Glancing down the street, he saw Belinda Mulrooney's Fairview Hotel. It was said to be a magnificent establishment, just as she'd promised. During her first twenty-four hours of operation, the bar alone took in six thousand dollars. Even if the place did have canvas walls, the dining room was reported to be lavish.

He took the stairs two at a time and opened the door to find Melissa at her usual spot at the stove. She glanced up at him and smiled, then ducked her head, blushing shyly. She had rebraided her hair, and she wore a clean, starched apron. She was a sweet sight to come home to, he couldn't deny that.

"I was thinking we might have dinner out tomorrow,"

he said, stopping at Jenny's cradle to let her grab his finger. The baby grinned at him and gurgled; even she looked better than she had when he first saw her.

"Out? Do you mean on a picnic?"

He glanced up.

"No, I mean at the Fairview Hotel."

"Oh, Dylan, really?"

Melissa's eyes were wide with excitement, and her smile was as bright as ten candle flames.

"I've heard it's a grand place. But what about Jenny?"

He shrugged.

"We'll bring her along. She should be all right. Belinda owes me a couple of favors—she might even have a maid she can spare to watch her for an hour or so."

"We'll have to dress up, won't we?"

she asked, casting a sidelong glance at his buckskins.

He laughed.

"Oh, I might surprise you. I guess you haven't seen all of my clothes."

Then he added, "I believe I heard Belinda even has an orchestra playing."

Melissa's brow furrowed slightly as she stirred the stew.

"Do you think they have dancing there?"

"No, the orchestra is out in the lobby. Why? Is dancing against your religion, or something?"

Idly, she stirred the pot on the stove.

"Well, no, of course not. I just—I don't know how, that's all."

He went to the table and sat down, afraid that if he didn't he'd be tempted to stand behind her and nuzzle her slender white neck "Really? I thought all girls knew how to dance."

"There wasn't a lot of call for ballroom dancing where I grew up," she said.

"It was forced on me when I was a kid. 'No gentleman can conduct himself in society if he cannot properly escort a lady around a ballroom,' he mimicked in a pinched-up voice that made her giggle. It was good to see her smile, he thought.

"I think we were only told not to use our sleeves for handkerchiefs."

"Oh, I heard that one too."

This scene wasn't far from the one he'd envisioned. Sitting around the kitchen at night after dinner. Talking, laughing, being close.

"Would you like to learn? To dance, I mean?"

"Maybe someday, I guess. I'll get someone to teach me."

"I'll teach you,"

he said, and knew he offered only for the chance to hold her.

"What, you mean now?"

"Yeah, sure, why not?"

She looked at him with those clear gray eyes as if he'd lost his senses.

"But dinner—"

"We can take a couple of turns. We'll just be a minute or two."

"There's no room in here. Don't you need a dance floor to dance?"

"No, not to learn a few steps."

"But there's no music."

"Sure there is. Can't you hear McGinty's piano player next door?"

Yes, Melissa heard it. The sound was always there, in the background. And Dylan had managed to deflect all of her excuses. But she didn't want to stumble all over his feet and make a fool of herself. Dancing—that had been the last thing on anyone's mind in her old neighborhood.

He held out his hand to her.

"Come on, Melissa. If you won't dance with me, I'll just have to ask Jenny."

She laughed.

"Oh no, you won't. I just fed her and she'll spit up all over you if you jiggle her."

"Then I guess I'll have to jiggle you. Come on now, don't say no."

Oh, that teasing grin was so hard to resist. She couldn't imagine what had put him in such a playful mood, but it sure beat an angry, cleaver-wielding man.

"Well, I suppose . . ."

She put down her cooking spoon, and he immediately whisked her into his arms. He cocked his head and listened for a moment.

"They're playing 'On Top of Old Smokey' down there. Let's see, that's a waltz. Put your left hand here"—he positioned it high on his right arm—"and I'll take your right one here."

He closed his fingers around hers and put his other hand on the small of her back.

"Now just relax and follow me."

Relax! As if she could, with the clean, male scent of him drifting to her and his warm arms holding her. He stepped back and pulled her along, but her feet didn't move, and she tumbled against his chest. Had she noticed before how broad it was?

"Oh, I'm sorry,"

she gasped, recovering her balance, but not her dignity. Her face turned flame-hot.

He chuckled.

"That's okay, but this time when I step back, you step forward. When I move to my left, you move to your right. You know, just follow along."

Melissa had grave doubts, but she nodded, unwilling to be released from his grasp just yet.

He led them through a series of less than graceful maneuvers on the small floor space, her skirts snagging on the chair legs, until the music changed to a much faster tempo and beat. Their movements narrowed to just standing in place and turning in a circle. It all seemed so silly, Melissa got the giggles and couldn't stop. Dylan laughed with her, and finally they collapsed into the chairs at the table.

"You get the idea,"

he said, and pushed his hair away from his forehead with both hands.

"Kind of."

"Yes, kind of."

It felt so good to actually laugh with someone for a change—to have something to laugh about—and not have to worry about being told to pipe down, damn it.

"We'll just have to wait until we have a bigger kitchen to dance in,"

she added, and than realized how it sounded.

"I mean a bigger floor, anyway."

Dylan's laugher died, but the smile stayed in his eyes as he gave her a contemplative look. It passed so quickly she wasn't sure what she had seen, except she felt as if he been examining her soul with his riveting gaze.

"Maybe we'll have a chance to try again someday," he said.

Pushing herself away from the table, she replied hastily, "I'll finish putting dinner together."

For the rest of the evening after they ate, Melissa bustled around the small room in a flurry of busyness. Dinner out, in a hotel dining room! And with Dylan. She had eaten in a restaurant only one other time in her life, and that had been in Seattle when Coy relented and let her buy hot tea and a doughnut in a cafe. Surely, this would be more exciting.

While Dylan sat at the table and held the baby, she brought out her nicest new dress and pressed it carefully. She even ironed a clean dress for Jenny, although she worried that it might be a little small for her—she was growing so fast. Jenny sitting on Dylan's lap looked so natural, she thought. He had endless patience for her, and he genuinely seemed to enjoy entertaining her. Melissa got that little pull at her heart again. If only he were really her father.

As for her clothes, Melissa had a nice dress to wear, but her heart sank when she realized how functional and bulky her work shoes were. They weren't intended to be worn for a dressy occasion. And she had only two pairs of stockings, both black cotton.

Thinking back to the day she and Dylan had gone to the marketplace, she remembered seeing all kinds of pretty lingerie for sale—petticoats, corsets, silk stockings. Of course it was disgraceful that it was all out on public display, but just the same it had been lovely. Standing at her ironing board, she could feel the weight of her apron pocket, heavy with gold, against her thigh. She had feared spending even one cent of that dust she'd worked so hard for. It represented her future, which was uncertain at best.

But tomorrow night would be very special. Maybe she could afford to part with just a little money to buy nice stockings and a pair of dress shoes. And possibly some cologne to go in the atomizer Dylan had bought for her.

At about ten-thirty, after Jenny was asleep, Dylan stood and stretched. Melissa tried not to stare, but she was fascinated by the way his shirt buttons strained against the lean muscle beneath them.

"Well, I guess I'll go down and have a last look at the store."

"All right,"

she responded. This was her time to get ready for bed. When he returned, she would be in her nightgown and lying under the covers with the lamp out.

But tonight when he closed the door behind him and went downstairs, Jenny woke up squalling. It took Melissa the better part of a half hour of rocking her and walking her and swinging her in her cradle before she settled down again.

After the baby finally went back to sleep, Melissa stripped down to her chemise and drawers and stood at the porcelain basin to wash. She glanced out the window next to, her. Outside, the early August sky was growing dark; the midnight sun was finally waning and the nights were getting longer. Down in the street the parade continued, and she heard music coming from several of the dance halls and saloons on Front Street.

Her arms and neck were covered with suds when she heard Dylan coming up the stairs. Oh, God, she thought, as she looked in the mirror at her state of undress. She began splashing water haphazardly, trying to rinse off the soap and dry herself before he came in, but she succeeded only in soaking her chemise in the process.

The door opened and Melissa jumped, letting out a gasp. There Dylan stood, looking at her as if he'd never seen a woman before, taking in every inch from her bare feet to the top of her head. Looking down she saw that her wet chemise was as transparent as organdie, showing off her nursing breasts and nipples to their fullest. The expression in his eyes was possessive, powerful.

But it wasn't fear she felt.

"P-please turn around,"

she demanded with a shaking voice.

With a last sweeping glance at her form, he took a deep breath and complied.

"I thought you'd be done by now,"

he said, sounding a little short.

"I would have been, but the baby woke up, and—"

"Look, I'll just wait outside on the steps until you're finished. You can call me."

He walked out again and slammed the door behind him.

Melissa scurried to finish her ablutions and shimmied into her nightgown, worried about keeping him outside too long, but almost afraid to let him back in.

Outside, Dylan flopped down on the top step, resting his elbows on his knees, and tried to ignore the nagging ache in his groin. That image of Melissa—full, ripe breasts, nipples like sweet cherries, a tiny waist, and gently curved hips—burned a picture in his brain that knifed through his heart, bounced down to his crotch, and back again. How the hell was he supposed to go back in there and sleep in the same bed with her and pretend that he hadn't been affected by her? Sullenly, he propped his chin on his hands. He wasn't a monk, but by God he was living like one, and he didn't like it for one damned minute.

For the briefest moment he thought about visiting one of the prostitutes that had settled over on Second Avenue in the heart of the business district. But he abandoned the idea. It wasn't just physical satisfaction he wanted. He could buy that any hour of the week, except Sundays, of course. He wanted more, and with a sinking feeling he realized that the only woman who could give it to him was Melissa.

In the soft warmth of her he might find solace and peace, possibly even the sense of belonging he'd craved since he was a kid.

But making love to Melissa was out of the question. Men needed only the urge to make love. Women needed a reason. And he cared too much about her not to give her a good reason. Where would that leave them? Nothing could come of their pairing. He would be going back to The Dalles, and she would continue with her life, someplace.

Behind him the door opened a crack.

"I'm finished now."

"Okay,"

he grumped.

He heard her bare feet scamper across the plank flooring, and then the ropes under the mattress creaked as she flew into bed.

He stood up and stretched his back, wishing he had somewhere else to sleep tonight, without the torture of temptation lying next to him. He'd once thought of sending Melissa off to a hotel. Now he wondered if he should be the one to get a room. Tipping back his head to look at the emerging stars, he knew he couldn't do that either.

He would just have to suffer through it.

***

Had the clock that sat on Dylan's trunk ever sounded so loud? Melissa wondered. She lay in the darkness, listening to the timepiece noisily tick off the minutes that dragged by. The room had a chill tonight, and she burrowed down beneath the light blanket

She suspected that Dylan was awake as well, and envisioned them lying in his bed like two tailor's dummies, stiff and tense.

How could she sleep after he'd walked in on her while she was practically in the altogether? It was bound to happen sooner or later, she supposed, considering their tight living quarters. The embarrassment of being seen in her underwear, though, was only a pinprick compared to the other feelings roiling inside her.

With each passing day, she felt a womanliness ripening within her, a sensation she'd never fully experienced before. Coy had not summoned such feelings, not before she married him and certainly not after. This restlessness, this itchy yearning, seemed to be caused by just one man: Dylan Harper.

She rolled over, turning her back to the rice sack. But nothing could come of how she felt about him.

He'd made that plain. And maybe it was for the best.