At the Rainbow's End (18 page)

His fingers stroked her arm through the thin silk of her shirtwaist. She could not escape the entreaty in his eyes. Hoping her own true feelings were not as visible, she said, “Joel, we're on the street.”

“I know. Dammit, Sam, I know! Sometimes I wonder how a place which is supposed to be empty can be so crowded. I never can find a moment alone with you.”

“Not here,” she pleaded as passersby regarded them with curiosity, going around them like a bubbling stream around a boulder.

With a sudden growl, Joel took her by the arm and walked down the street. He ignored her gasp as he opened the door of the Gold Hill Hotel. She had no time to protest when he shoved her into the lobby.

The Gold Hill did not have luxurious trappings like the Dawson hotels. Its simple walls were whitewashed and lit by intermittent lanterns. The odor of kerosene permeated everything. A pair of rickety chairs offered the only seating in the narrow space.

Joel walked up to the desk with blind determination and pounded his fist on the top. A slender man popped out of a small office behind it.

“Yes?”

“I want a room for an hour.”

“An hour, sir?” Noting the flushed face of the woman beside the dark-haired man, he said with quiet dignity, “Sir, it is not the policy of the Gold Hill Hotel to rent rooms for the purpose of a tryst. You might be wiser to visit—”

Joel leaned forward without releasing Samantha. “All right. Pretend I said nothing of renting it for an hour. I want a room for the night.”

“Joel, what are you doing?”

As if she had not spoken, he demanded, “How much?”

“Four dollars.”

Without blinking an eye at this exorbitant rate, he drew a small bag of gold dust from his pocket and measured out the appropriate amount on the hotel scale. Neither of them paid any attention to Samantha's demands that he be reasonable. Eyes down, the man handed Joel a key.

Silent, Joel forced Samantha ahead of him up the stairs and along the dim hallway. He ignored her words and the way she tried to slip from his grasp.

Easily opening the door of the room and closing it, he let her go and watched her. She walked across the room and peered out the window. He waited for her to speak, but she remained uncharacteristically silent. This warned him of the depth of her outrage. He knew only one way to break the stalemate—she would talk if he infuriated her enough.

Smiling, he asked, “Planning to jump?”

“What has come over you?” she demanded, slapping her bag against her leg to show the frustration bottled within her. “You bring me to a hotel and try to rent a room by the hour? How dare you! Why don't you just put up a sign that says …”

“That says what?”

She reddened and turned away. “I don't know. I don't know, Joel. We must just leave now.”

Securing the key in the pocket of his vest, he moved to her and put his hands on her trembling shoulders and leaned her back against him. With his cheek resting on the top of her head, he whispered, “Sam, I don't want to leave. Neither do you.”

“How do you know what I want?” She twisted out of his arms and ran to the door. When she found the doorknob would not turn, fury gripped her. Turning, she cried, “How dare you lock me in here? I thought you were my friend!”

“Sweetheart, I've never been your friend.” She stared at him aghast. Then he said, “You know you've been in love with me for more than a year.”

Refusing to admit the truth, she snarled, “How could I love a man who would hold me against my will! The clerk downstairs was right. Why don't you go to one of the whores on the edge of town?”

He drew her into his arms. Although she struggled to escape him, he simply put his lips over hers and tasted the dulcet flavor waiting for him. She inhaled, ready to scream out her fury, but he tightened his embrace until her breath had no way to escape.

Fighting him, Samantha found she was battling herself, too. Just as when he had first kissed her, she now found it rapturous to sink into the velvet strength of his arms. Pressed tightly to his body, she was aware of her own fevered reaction joining his deepening desire. Her shriek of outrage was stifled by a soft moan as his tongue sought to rediscover the succulent secrets only he could uncover in the depths of her mouth.

“Oh, Sam,” he whispered, “just to hold you like this is so wondrous.” His finger beneath her chin brought her face up so he could see her dazed expression. “Stop denying what you know is true.”

“I don't know—”

“I do.” With a husky laugh, he scooped her up, his arms as unyielding as the rocks on the hillsides near their cabin.

Instantly she stiffened. Only when he sat in a well-worn, upholstered chair near the window did she relax. She had been sure he would place her on the bed and do what she wanted as much as he did.

He murmured, “I don't want to hurt you, but you tempt me.”

“You tempt me!”

“But strongwilled Samantha will resist temptation,” he teased with a laugh, “at any cost!”

“I must.” She gazed at him longing to trace the cleft in his chin. “If it was simply you and me, Joel, it might be different. But Kevin—”

“Kevin!” he spat out with bitterness, “That's all I hear from you. Can't you forget him for just one hour?”

Her eyes closed in pain. The partners of Fifteen Above should have known their plot was mad from the beginning. Rising, she walked to the large bed. Her hand followed the arc of the footboard. If all had come to pass as she had wished, she would have had a husband she could love without guilt and self-recrimination.

“How can you ask that? Do you truly want me to forget him forever?” She pointed to the bed. “Could you hold me here and not once feel you were betraying him?”

“You don't belong to him!” He stood and closed the distance between them. “Sam, I want you to be mine. It's been months since you arrived at Fifteen Above. How much longer are you going to play this game?”

She laughed sharply. “Game? I wasn't aware I was the one playing a game. If you and Kevin had not—”

“Stop talking about him!”

“Jealousy doesn't become you, Joel Gilchrist!”

“Lying doesn't become you!” he yelled. When she flinched, he smiled. “So you find it harder to take insult than hand it out?”

He stepped away and leaned on the windowsill overlooking the busy street. For several long minutes he said nothing. The silence grew torturous, but Samantha was determined she would not speak first.

When he turned to look at her the rage was gone from his face. Instead a naked yearning softened his rock hard eyes. In a soft voice, he said, “I can admit I'm jealous, Sam, if only you would stop pretending about you and Kevin.”

Lured by his half-apology, she walked to him. Her hand caressed the breadth of his chest. “I have never said I feel the same about you two. He's my friend. You are—you are something else.”

“Something else?” Suddenly he laughed and flung his arms around her. “Not an open declaration, but I guess that's the best I can hope for now.”

“Yes, it is,” she said thoughtfully. “Don't push me into a corner, Joel. I have had to fight to survive at my brother's the past few years, and I don't want to do the same here.”

Devilment twinkled in his eyes. With a sudden shove, he pushed her down onto the mattress of the creaking bed. “So you'll fight, will you—”

“Joel!” she cried, but he kept her from rising, holding her against the dust-filled blankets and pressing his mouth to the soft curve of her neck.

His lips tracing her neck until they reached her ear, he whispered, “Fight me, Sam. Show me how much you hate it when I hold you.”

“I don't hate it,” she found herself admitting. She closed her eyes, savoring the heat which raced through her. When she felt his fingers move across her shirtwaist, she shuddered with desire. Her hands clenched on his back as he touched the sensitive surface of her breast through the silk. All of her softened beneath him, and she melted into burning passion.

When she heard him say her name, she opened her eyes, dazed. Joel's face above her was blurred by her glazed vision. She said his name in a fevered whisper. The sensation of his caresses cut through the thin material of her shirt, making her want to beg for something more—

“Sam? Listen to me, honey.”

It took all her strength to obey his order. When he started to move his hand from her, she kept it there, covered it with her own. “Oh, that is so …” She could not voice the luscious feeling his touch created—a comforting warmth, yet a fierce aching for satisfaction.

“Sam,” he said, smiling. “You can't escape what you feel. But you'll never really surrender, will you?”

The bed protested with a shrill squeak as he slipped his arm under her shoulders and pulled her over to rest against him.

Stunned, Samantha sat and swung her feet off the thin mattress, wondering how she had been so stupid. She had allowed him to compromise her.

His broad hand captured her wrist, and he kept her from standing. Desperately, through clenched teeth, she said, “Joel
please
.”

“Please what?” he teased. “Please who?”

A smile on her lips, she wondered again why she could never stay angry at him. He was diabolical, playing with her life as if she had been born merely to amuse him during his stay in the Klondike.

“You want me to say ‘Please
me
,' right?” she said with mock coldness.

“It is tempting, Sam.” He reached across the bed to stroke her back. “You're tempting. But you still won't make a decision, will you?”

She pulled her wrist from his grip, stood, and smoothed her skirt. “I have made a decision. I'm hungry.”

“So am I!” He drew her back to him and kissed her lightly, whispering, “I'd like to taste you.”

She forced herself to pull away and demanded, “Stop it! I'd like something to eat. I skipped breakfast this morning.”

“One thing before we go,” he said, rising. Moving to where she stood fixing her hair before the mirror, he whirled her into his arms. His fingers entangled in its lushness, he said “Sam, don't forget I want you.”

As he kissed her again, she knew she could never forget the sweet power of his lips on her. He stepped away from her and held out his hand, and she took it, wondering how much longer she could pretend. She loved Joel Gilchrist. Not because she wanted to. Not because she even liked him. Simply because she could not imagine a life without him.

“I won't,” she said as he opened the door.

“Won't what?”

“Forget.”

His secretive smile teased at the corners of his mustache. “I don't think you will, Sam, but I will make sure you don't.”

“I imagine you will.”

He laughed broadly. Closing the door behind them, he thought that life with Samantha would never be dull. He just hoped it soon would be even more exciting. Glancing down into her sparkling eyes, he saw her true feelings. A twinge teased him, but he ignored it. If making her and himself happy helped him do what he had thought about for many years, then what could be the harm?

The twinge increased in his mind, but he ignored it. All would come as he hoped, soon. It must.

Chapter Ten

“Dinner first,” announced Joel, smiling, and Kevin nodded. They had met their partner less than five minutes ago. He wondered if Kevin had done more than walk up and down the streets. His pants were covered with dried mud and his beard as scraggly as when they left him an hour before.

He liked Kevin. If he did not, it would be much easier to tease Sam's heart into his possession. Kevin was like his younger brother—in many ways more self-assured than he, but needing someone to lean on, too. Perhaps that was why he and Kevin had gotten along so well before Sam's arrival. The patterns of a lifetime had been easy to follow.

Looking from his partner to Samantha, he felt his breath clog in his throat. Although Sam's face was nearly as brown as his from her hours in the sun, she had lost none of her delicate beauty during the hard months of the spring and summer. Neither had she given up her charming innocence, which contrasted so violently with the stubborn streak she exhibited each time he urged her to let him touch her.

Not that he minded … too much. The chase was exhilarating. He hoped, though, that she would soon realize it was useless to resist their desire.

Feeling his eyes on her, Samantha looked up to meet his admiring gaze. A smile drifted across her lips. Unable to stop herself, she touched the strong line of his arm with her left hand.

Softly Joel asked, “Where would Milady like to eat?”

“There's a choice?” She looked at the primitive buildings along Percentage Avenue. Weary of the filthy conditions along the Bonanza, she had hoped to find things better in Grand Forks. She had imagined it a miniature of Dawson, but none of that boom town's gaudiness had reached the mud and sod topped buildings here.

He laughed. “Perhaps I should ask what type of international cuisine you'd prefer. There's a Japanese restaurant, in addition to the hotel and Dewey's Saloon. If you want to satisfy your sweet tooth, we can go to the confectionary, which makes wondrous Viennese treats, or to the German bakery on First Avenue.”

“All of that here?”

“Don't let Grand Forks' appearance deceive you. It offers many hidden delights.”

“I'm sure,” she said sarcastically.

His eyebrows arched. Obviously, she would not allow him to think she forgave him for embarrassing her with the clerk at the hotel.

Kevin suggested, “How about the hotel? Hattie always cooks a good meal.”

“No,” answered Samantha hastily. Not looking at Joel, she continued, “Somewhere else.” She would not risk other comments like the one spoken when Joel rented that room. She never wanted to set foot in that building again.