Page 5

When Dylan walked into the store, he saw Rafe tipped back in the rocking chair beside the cold stove, flipping cards into a chamber pot that he'd taken from a shelf. His feet were propped up on a keg, and a whiskey bottle and a half-empty glass stood on the plank flooring next to him.

"I wondered where you got off to. I've been languishing here for the better part of an hour. Between card games, drinking in the saloon without intelligent conversation sometimes loses its allure."

He grinned at Dylan and gestured at the strongbox.

"I did manage to sell a pair of rubber boots and some matches to one of your adventurous customers in your absence. I put the dust in your box."

Dylan laughed, highly amused at the idea of Rafe Dubois, a high-born Southern gentleman with silk handkerchiefs and French-laundered shirts, working behind his counter.

"Maybe you should think about a job in trade. I could use the help here. You already have a key to the place."

"That is an offer that I'll believe I'll pass on, thank you. I did you the favor since you'd wandered away from your business."

Dylan shrugged and hung his hat on a peg near the now cold stove.

"I took Melissa down to the waterfront to, you know, buy her a few things."

He mumbled the last part of the sentence, but Rafe heard him perfectly well.

The other man recrossed his ankles and pitched another card at the chamber pot. So far he'd missed only twice.

"A shopping expedition? What a picture of domestic delight."

Dylan knew Rafe was teasing him, but he felt defensive.

"Hell, Logan abandoned her here with just the clothes on her back. The baby didn't even have a diaper."

A card pinged off the inside rim of the enamal pot.

"So I gathered,"

Rafe said, keeping his eyes on his game.

"And how are Melissa and her child faring?"

"All right, I guess."

Dylan hoisted a crate of beans to the counter and began putting the cans on the shelf.

"And you? How are you doing with your new arrangements?"

"This is a great time to ask, considering that you got me into this."

"I'm guessing there's a fine woman hiding beneath Melissa's timid exterior. You make a nice-looking little family."

The word family made Dylan wince.

"The hell we do. That's not why I agreed to this. Logan would have sold her to the highest bidder. I couldn't let that happen."

He had the feeling that Rafe was enjoying this enormously.

"You'll thank me later."

"For what?"

Rafe looked up.

"For giving you something more to care about than proving a perfidious woman wrong."

As if summoned by his comment, Elizabeth's face rose in Dylan's memory. Raven-haired. Beautiful. Treacherous. He swung around, frowning.

"Is that what you think I—" he began.

Just then, though, a couple of stampeders came in for supplies, and his attention was forced away from the subject of fickle women.

The two miners both smelled like cow flops on a riverbank at low tide—not a lot of washing went on at the claims. In fact, not a lot of anything but digging and sluicing went on. Frantic to make good on the claims they'd filed, the miners often worked twenty hours a day, especially during these periods of almost total daylight. Thinking about that reminded Dylan why he'd chosen to open this store.

"How's it going out there?"

he asked them, not really wanting an answer.

One of the miners, a rough cob with a grizzled beard and a battered hat, replied, "Me and my pard over there, we've been digging night and day for a little color."

He indicated the other man, a mild, simple-looking sort who stared at the bushel basket of oranges serving as a doorstop. The first man eyed Rafe suspiciously, who appeared not to notice anything beyond his cards. But Dylan knew he was listening avidly. These two were probably prime examples of what Rafe called man's greatest folly. Then the miner leaned closer to Dylan and whispered confidentially, "I just know I'm gonna strike it rich, but I have to keep an eye on old Jim. He tries to pretend that he's simple, and he does a good job of it. But given half a chance, I know he'd stick a knife in my gullet while I'm asleep and steal my poke."

He squinted one eye venomously.

"Is that a fact?"

Dylan backed away from the stench of his foul breath and unwashed body. He sensed Rafe's suppressed laughter as he continued to pitch cards at the chamber pot.

The gold rush had brought all kinds of people to the Yukon, and funny things happened to some men's minds in the face of such great potential wealth. He knew of one stampeder who had come up in '97 and mined thirty thousand dollars. But the money had given him no pleasure. Anxiety about being robbed had driven him to the edge of reason, until he was overcome by worry and shot himself. Another one, rotting with scurvy and almost lame, grew so obsessed with finding gold that he wouldn't take the time to betreated. Gold wouldn't buy much in the grave, Dylan thought.

A sizable pile of beans, coffee, nails, tobacco, and other supplies was assembled on the counter, and the men handed over their pokes to Dylan to weigh the payment.

Gold dust was the common legal tender in Dawson, and gold scales were as much a part of everyone's possessions as shovels and whiskey. Except for those rare occasions when he received coins or paper money, all of Dylan's transactions involved weighing raw gold. As he sprinkled dust onto the one pan, the rough cob suddenly grabbed his wrist.

"I seen what you're up to,"

the miner erupted angrily, revealing blackened teeth. He reached for a knife from his belt.

"I never seen such a place—there ain't an honest man up here. Well, nobody's going to cheat me, by God! I wish to hell the Mounties would let a man carry a gun. I'd—"

Stunned, Dylan jerked his hand away and grabbed the meat cleaver beneath the counter. The miner yelped.

"You'd be on the floor now, bleeding your guts out because I would have shot you. I don't cheat anyone,"

he said in a low, clear voice. He swung the cleaver down, narrowly and purposely missing the man's hand. It caught the corner of his grimy shirt cuff beneath its blade and drove it deep into the planks, trapping his arm. From the corner of his eye, Dylan saw Rafe rise from his chair and edge closer.

The miner's eyes looked as big as flapjacks, and his mouth opened and closed like a fish's. But no sound came out. His dim-witted sidekick, Jim, merely looked puzzled.

"You should be glad the MP don't allow firearms in Dawson, mister,"

Dylan said in the same low voice.

"Where I come from, you falsely accuse a man of cheating and you find yourself in a world of hurt. But this is your lucky day, and I'm going to let you keep your hand. Now you take Jim and get out of here. And don't come back."

Dylan left the cleaver in the counter, and the miner yanked and yanked on his shirtsleeve, like an animal with its leg caught in a trap, until the fabric finally gave way.

"You're a crazy son of a bitch!"

the man panted. He scrambled out of the store, pushing Jim ahead of him, and Dylan watched them go.

It was then that he saw Melissa standing there in a new dress, her eyes filled with fear.

***

Melissa gaped at Dylan, her heart pounding against her ribs like a hammer on a rock. She had walked in just in time to see Dylan produce the legendary meat cleaver and sink it into the miner's arm, pinning it to the counter. At least from where she stood, it had looked like the blade had impaled flesh.

Dylan turned his gaze on her, and the frightening blank fury on his face nearly froze the blood in her veins. His eyes seemed as hard as green bottle glass, and his jaw was so tight, she could see the muscles working in his cheek. This was the man she'd heard about, the man with an icy rage that most knew better than to cross. Dear God, she had to live with him, sleep with him in the same bed.

Dylan stepped out from behind the counter.

"What are you doing here, Melissa?"

His fists were clenched.

He seemed enormous, as big as a mountain, and tension radiated from him in waves. She could hear the anger in his voice, and her eyes fell to the tendon and muscle in his forearms.

She cast a panicky look at Rafe Dubois, but he merely nodded and smiled.

"Mrs. Harper,"

he acknowledged pleasantly, "you look very nice this afternoon."

Then he sat down in a chair and began fiddling with a deck of cards. She took a step backward and laced her fingers together to make one tight fist over her heart.

"Thank you. I-I just came for some flour and the other things . . . like-like we talked about earlier."

She heard the quiver in her own voice and hated it.

"But I can come back—this is a bad time."

Dylan came closer and reached for her, closing his big, warm hand around her upper arm. His long fingers encircled it easily. She uttered a little squeak and tried to pull away, but his grip was sure.

"No, it's not a bad time."

He exhaled, as if discharging a bit of the rage that was percolating inside.

"Now and then I get a surly customer, or one who's not quite right in the head."

And it was sane to nearly chop off a man's hand? she wondered foolishly, feeling a swell of hysterical laughter fill her chest. Realizing that he wasn't going to let her leave, she said, "I just need one or two things to cook dinner."

Maybe she could make a quick escape, she thought, and leave him down here with his temper.

He released her arm with seeming reluctance, and she immediately stepped back.

"All right, take whatever you want to make a good meal. You might as well look through this stuff, too, before I put it back on the shelves."

He gestured at the supplies still heaped on the counter.

"If you need help taking anything upstairs, I'll carry it for—"

"Oh, no, I don't want to trouble you,"

she said quickly, avoiding his intense gaze.

"If you'll just give me a gunnysack, I can manage."

She glanced up, and he watched her for a moment longer. Then he nodded and walked away.

Melissa had trouble keeping her mind on her task; she picked up and put down the same tin of baking soda three times before she realized what she'd done. In the end, she'd collected a few potatoes, coffee, sugar, a piece of ham, some dried apples, and a couple of other staples. It hadn't seemed like much. When she filled the burlap sack Dylan gave her, it turned out to be heavier than she'd expected. She gripped it tightly, but when she dragged it from the counter to lift it, the sack dropped to the rough floor with a thud, bending her with it.

"Melissa, let me bring this upstairs for you,"

Dylan said. His frown dipped to the bridge of his nose, giving her no confidence.

Worried that he would simply grab it away from her and take it himself, from her bowed position she protested, "No, please don't bother. I just lost my grip on it."

With supreme effort she lifted the sack and stood upright, then dragged it toward the door. Her arms and shoulders, already stiff from lifting the rice last night, flared with pain, but she refused to let him see that.

"I'll have dinner ready in an hour or so,"

she panted and hauled her groceries through the open door, glad to have made her escape.

Dylan stared at the outside wall as he listened to the sound of her slow steps going up the stairs on the side of the building. It sounded as if she were dragging the weight of the world with her.

From his post by the chamber pot, Rafe Dubois looked first at the now empty doorway, and then at Dylan.

"Hell, that girl is scared to death of you. She probably fears you more than she does the devil himself,"

he remarked with casual surprise.

Dylan shrugged, wishing Rafe hadn't noticed.

"She's got a safe place to live here and more food than she's probably seen in three months. I can't help it if I scare her—that's her problem."

But he knew that was a lie, and Rafe's quirked eyebrow told him that he knew it, too.

***

Upstairs, Melissa's cooking efforts were hampered by Jenny. She had fed and changed the baby, but for some reason her usually quiet and happy child would not settle down. In fact, she had started getting fussy as soon as Melissa had fed her. It was as if her own nervousness had telegraphed to Jenny. She put the baby in her makeshift bed, but after a few minutes she started crying, and Melissa picked her up and walked with her, anxious to quiet her. She checked the little girl's diaper for open safety pins and felt her for fever. She found nothing. But when she tried to lay Jenny in her crate again, the baby recommenced her howling, forcing Melissa to pace the room with her.

"Hush, now, button, hush,"

she urged feverishly.

"We have to be quiet, just like before when your father was with us, remember? He's gone, but we still have to be quiet."

Between moments of walking with the baby, Melissa managed to put together a meal of boiled ham, mashed potatoes, and apple pie. There was no butter, and only canned milk for the potatoes, but then she hadn't tasted fresh milk since she passed through Seattle, months earlier. Butter was something she had not often seen in her life.

She caught herself listening for the slam of the door downstairs in the store, for Dylan's footfalls on the stairs. The sight of him with the meat cleaver in his fist wouldn't leave her mind. How far would that rage go?

The most frightening part of his anger had been the deadly cold of it. Coy would rant and swear and carry on, yelling and throwing things. A lot of noise had accompanied his fits of anger. Coy's outbursts had been no less frightening, but they hadn't sneaked up on her. Dylan's fury made her think of a cool and deadly snake, sliding up from nowhere.

Dylan was so different in every way from Coy, or her father and brothers. At least he seemed so in her few dealings with him.

But a temper was a temper, and she imagined that one slap or punch hurt just as much as another.

Her heart, though . . . she had learned to keep it safely out of reach. The bruises healed, but a broken heart would not fare as well.

***

After Rafe left Harper's to search out a card game at the saloon, Dylan decided to lock up for an hour or so and go eat dinner. He thought he detected the aroma of ham and hot apple pie drifting down through the ceiling. It smelled better than any saloon food he'd tasted in Dawson, maybe better than anything he'd eaten since he left The Dalles, his hometown in Oregon.

He stood outside on the duckboard and flipped the hasp over the door, then secured it with a padlock. Despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold dust deposited here in Dawson, he knew a lot of business owners didn't bother to lock their doors. The Mounties's presence was so respected, and the threat of banishment from Dawson so real, genuine crime was a rarity here. No one wanted to be forced to leave town and forfeit his one big chance to strike it rich. Men were arrested for using obscene language, or cheating at cards, or for selling whiskey to saloon girls. Theft, robbery, and assault were surprisingly rare; towns with far fewer people living under calmer circumstances experienced much worse. But Dylan had been burned by tempting fate, and he kept his place locked.

Dawson's low instance of crime wasn't the chief subject on his mind, though. His thoughts kept drifting back to Melissa. It wasn't difficult for him to picture her standing at the stove in that new dress he'd seen her wearing when she came into the store. It had looked nice on her, with its narrow blue-and-white stripe, and high white collar that made her neck look like a swan's.

More than her dress, though, he remembered her expression of pure, ashen terror when he'd glanced up to find her standing over there by the basket of oranges. Fierce annoyance had been his first reaction; why the hell had she chosen that moment of all moments to walk in? If the miner had decided to make the situation uglier than it was, having a woman in the mix could have complicated things considerably.

But he knew that Rafe was right. She feared Dylan more than anybody else. He felt certain that she'd seen her share of violence in her life. And in a town like Dawson, where everyone was struck with gold fever, scrapes like the one with the miner were bound to occur. Still, he didn't want her to be afraid of him; how would she share that small living space upstairs—how would she even work for him—if she feared him?

Settling his hat, he recalled that Elizabeth had been afraid of him sometimes, but she had seemed to relish the fear. It had excited her. In turn, she had aroused in him a dark, hot desire that gave him no peace, not even after their clandestine moments in his bed over the stables. He paused, his gaze fixed unseeing on the passing traffic. How did she like her life now? he wondered bitterly, with her wealthy, dull husband—

As he climbed the stairs, he heard the muffled sound of the baby squalling and it shook him from his thoughts. None of his past mattered now, he knew, and looking back to review regrets was one of the biggest mistakes a man could make.

When he opened the door, he saw steaming food on the stove, and Melissa pacing back and forth with the baby in her arms. Hearing him, she whirled and her expression made him think of a doe he'd once startled in the woods. Their eyes had locked for just a moment, and he had seen her terror before she bolted off through the brush.

"Oh! I'll have your dinner for you in just a minute."

She put the baby in her crate, and the child began howling again. In a rush she slapped the potatoes, ham, and some biscuits on the table, all the while shifting her gaze between him and Jenny. Then she hurried to the crate and picked up the baby again.

Baffled, Dylan threw his hat on the bed and sat down at the place she'd set for him.

"Aren't you going to eat?".

Melissa paced the small floor, jogging Jenny in her arms.

"No, not now. Not until—"

The baby's wails climbed to ear-piercing shrieks.

"Oh, please, button, please don't cry,"

she begged. With her cheek pressed to Jenny's head, plainly she was beside herself with worry.

Dylan took a bite of the ham. It tasted good, but he couldn't really enjoy it while the agitated woman paced with her screaming child in this little room. Her pale hair had come loose from its knot again and hung beside her face in damp tendrils. He pushed the other chair out with his foot.

"Maybe if you stop pacing and sit down?"

he suggested. He didn't know much about kids but he thought that Melissa was making things worse.

She eyed him warily.

"Come on," he urged.

Melissa edged closer, feeling as if she were approaching a wild dog, and perched on the edge of the chair.

"What's the matter with her? Is she sick?"

Dylan asked over the bawling.

"No, I don't think so,"

she said, hearing the overwrought edge in her own voice.

"She usually isn't like this—I just don't know what it is."

She continued to jog Jenny frantically in her arms, all to no avail. The baby turned the color of a ripe plum with her screeching.

"Jenny, Jenny, don't carry on so, sweetheart, please."

Melissa glanced up at Dylan's stem face, and her heart thundered inside her rib cage. She was familiar with that kind of expression—he looked angry and impatient, while he fixed her and the baby with that hard glare. On top of that, his dinner was growing cold in front of him, and she knew how men hated that. Oh, God, please make Jenny be quiet, please, please, please—

Suddenly, Dylan reached out to touch the baby's forehead. Melissa pulled back and clutched Jenny to her chest, unable to completely bite back a scream of her own.

He withdrew his hand and stared at her.

"Does she have a fever?"

he asked in that quiet, deadly serious voice she'd heard him use on the miner.

She shook her head and kept her eyes down, resenting him in that moment because she feared him, and hating the way it crippled her.

Melissa heard the legs of his chair scrape across the floor, and she held her breath. Now she would hear his boot heels on the plank flooring as he came around to her side of the table. She waited for the sharp, heavy impact of his fist, or the fiery burn of a slap. Either, she knew from experience, would make her head feel as if it were going to come off with the blow. Lights would flash behind her eyes, like a thousand candle flames bursting into stars. She bent farther over Jenny, shielding her as best she could, and drew in a deep, sobbing breath.

But instead of coming toward her, she heard the boot heels walk away, and then the door opened and closed. His footsteps rumbled down the stairs and glancing up, she found she was alone with Jenny. Dylan's plate still held most of his dinner, and his coffee was untouched.

She and the baby had driven him out of his own place. No man would tolerate that, and it wouldn't surprise her if he went to the saloon. Now she had to worry about when he would come back, and in what condition. For a wild moment Melissa considered piling everything in the room against the door to keep him out. Or maybe she could pack up Jenny and leave before he got back.

And go where? she asked herself, trying to hear her own thoughts over the baby's crying. Could she find some kind of work? She wished she could dissolve into tears like Jenny, but she had to keep her wits about her or she would be utterly and irretrievably lost.

But before she could formulate any other ideas, she heard Dylan coming up the stairs again. He'd been gone only a moment—strange that she had already learned the sound of his steps.

He flung open the door, then maneuvered an oak rocking chair through the narrow doorway. His sun-streaked hair fell forward, obscuring his face as he wrestled it into the room.

"I had this downstairs,"

he said, straightening. He carried it to the window and angled it so that it faced the street. A mild breeze drifted in.

"Rafe will probably miss it, but I thought it might help."

Melissa gaped at him, taken by complete surprise. She sat motionless, still perched where he'd left her, and stared at Dylan's handsome face. She saw no anger there, no threat.

He came closer, slowly and carefully. Then he held out his hand.

"Come and sit by the window for a few minutes. It might make both of you feel better."

He didn't raise his voice over Jenny's squalling, but Melissa heard him perfectly.

"I'm sorry your dinner got cold,"

she babbled.

"I can put it back in the—"

"It doesn't matter, Melissa. I'll take care of it."

He pushed his open hand closer to her. She hesitated, then shifting Jenny to one arm, put her own hand in his palm. His fingers closed around hers, and he helped her to her feet.

"Thank you,"

she murmured as she settled in the rocker. Giving a push with the heel of her shoe, she set the chair in motion. It felt welcoming and soothing, and even Jenny began to quiet.

He turned to walk to the table, then stopped and fixed her with a direct look "I've never hit a woman in my life. I sure as hell don't plan to start now."

Dylan sat down at the table and poked a fork into his cold dinner. It tasted good, but he wasn't very hungry. The sight of Melissa huddling over her child, obviously trying to protect them both, had stolen his appetite. And the naked gratitude and relief he'd seen in her eyes when he brought in the rocker had startled him. Did she really believe that all men were like Logan? Was that the only way of life she had known?

His gaze fell on her again. She sat in a shaft of sunlight that slanted through the open window. It cast a bright halo over her blond hair as she looked down at the baby and rocked her, stroking her silken head with her hand. For just an instant, he wondered what it would feel like if her hand stroked his hair. Would it heal? Would it bring forgetfulness?

Presently, he heard Melissa humming softly in a voice so sweet that he put down his fork to listen. The picture of mother and child was perfect in that moment, and Dylan felt a stirring in his soul. Once, a long time ago it now seemed, he'd envisioned his own wife holding their baby like this. He dragged his gaze back to his food. Once, a long time ago, Dylan had let his love for a woman drive him to distraction.

It was a mistake he swore he would not repeat.

That night Melissa lay in Dylan's bed, made with the clean new sheets she'd bought. The quiet, semi-dusk of midnight gave the room a mellow pink glow. Jenny slept. She had at last exhausted herself when Melissa had calmed down too.

The sack of rice still separated her from the fierce, sun-blond man on the other side of the mattress. But he didn't seem quite as frightening now, and she didn't cling so tightly to the edge of the bed. She heard his slow, even breathing and knew he slept, too.

There were no guarantees in life, but tonight the agreement into which they'd entered at the Yukon Girl Saloon had been sealed.

And it had been accomplished with the gift of a rocking chair.