Midnight Sun (Sinclair Sisters) (8 page)

She risked a glance at him, saw that his jaw looked iron-hard. “Yeah, that must be it.”

She glanced away, trying not to think of what they’d just done.

Trying not to wonder what would have happened if Toby hadn’t arrived when he did.

“You’d better go,” she said, making an effort to smile. “Your breakfast is waiting and I’ve got work to do.”

As she started to turn, the sun peeked out from behind a cloud, casting shadows beneath his cheekbones and the little indentation on his chin. He didn’t move when she grabbed the plastic bag of garbage and headed for one of the heavy iron trash cans that were supposed to be bear-proof.

She saw him walk over and pick up his rifle, his fingers wrapping around the stock with a casual ease that said he was comfortable with the weapon. He didn’t walk away as she expected. Instead, he stood there watching, waiting until she disappeared inside the house.

Monday morning, she and Maude planned to work with the metal detector. She had seen them in the prospecting videos, in a variety of shapes and sizes. This one, a Garrett Crossfire, was an elliptical, plate-like metal object with a long, broomstick-type handle. While Buck chopped wood and filled the bins beneath the covered porch, Maude explained how it worked.

“You use ’em to find placer deposits in the stream or in the gravel along the creek. If you’re lucky, you could turn up some nuggets in that dry creek bed where the course of the stream has changed over the years. This thing’ll find ’em as small as a pinhead. You never know—ya might get real lucky and run across a vein.”

Maude went on with a demonstration of how to use the machine, carrying it outside the shed toward the hill behind it. Charity tried to keep her mind on the lesson as much as she could, but her brain wouldn’t fully cooperate. Instead, her mind kept replaying her heated encounter with Call the morning before.

“You gonna tell me what happened over the weekend?” Maude finally asked. “You been gnawin’ on somethin’ like a bear on a bone since I got here.”

She tried to sound nonchalant. “As a matter of fact, I saw one on Sunday morning—a bear, that is. It wandered into the yard and nearly scared me to death.”

“What happened?”

“I guess one of us left out a bag of garbage. Lucky for me, Mr. Hawkins scared it away.”

Maude shook her head. “That man sure has a knack for showin’ up at just the right time.”

“That’s the God’s truth, though I can’t say I’m sorry he arrived when he did on Sunday.”

“You two have another run-in?”

She fought to keep the color out of her face. “You might say that. After the thing ran off, he quizzed me on bear etiquette. When I failed the test, he suggested I sell out and go back where I belong.”

She thought of what happened after that—of those hot, delicious, never-ending kisses that had kept her restless and awake half the night—and kept her eyes carefully trained on the handle of the metal detector.

“Like I said before, don’t pay Call no mind. It’s the grief makes him grouchy as a bear with a thorn in its paw. Digs into him like a rusty pitchfork, though these last months it seems like he’s finally beginnin’ to get past it.”

“What do you mean? What happened to him?”

“I ain’t much for gossip, but I guess you got a right to know, seein’ as how the two of you keep crossin’ swords. The way I hear it, Call came up here after he lost his wife and three-year-old daughter.”

Her heart snagged. “His wife and daughter were killed?”

She nodded. “In a car wreck, I heard. Call musta really loved ’em. He quit his high-powered job in California, bought that big chunk of property next door, and built himself a place to live. He was raised in the north, ya see. He come back here to heal.”

A lump rose in Charity’s throat. She had wondered at the brief flashes of something she had glimpsed in Call’s eyes. Now she realized it was pain.

“Oh, Maude, that’s terrible. I can’t begin to imagine how it would feel to lose your family like that.” But as close as she was to her father and sisters, she could guess.

“I think you been good for him. Till you come along and the two of you started spittin’ at each other, he spent most his time holed up in his house or traipsing around the woods by himself. Like I said, last few months, he’s been better. Been goin’ into town once in a while. Hired Toby to work for him. Still, it’s you who put the fire back in his eyes. I used to think I’d never seen such cold, lifeless eyes in all my days. Now, he looks at you, and they light up with fire. Makes ’em glitter like twenty-four-karat gold.”

Charity thought about that, thought that Call’s eyes hadn’t seemed cold at all when he had looked at her Sunday morning. In fact, they seemed to burn.

“I’m glad you told me, Maude.”

“Like I said, I ain’t usually much for gossip.” She looked at Charity as if she somehow knew what had happened between her and Call that morning. It was ridiculous, of course. Though at times Maude did seem to have some sort of mental radar.

Charity returned her attention to the metal detector but her mind remained on Call and what he must have suffered. If what Maude said was true and he was beginning to get over his grief, maybe she could help him.

“I didn’t really thank him for saving me from the bear. Maybe I should.”

“He could probably use a good homemade supper. I doubt Toby is much of a cook.”

“Even if I asked him, he probably wouldn’t come.”

“Maybe not.”

“I don’t suppose it would hurt to ask.”

Maude reached into the pocket of her flannel shirt, pulled out her short-stemmed pipe, and stuck it between her teeth. “Nope. Never hurts to ask.”

Charity thought about asking, she really did. But after the way she had behaved she simply couldn’t face him. For heaven’s sake, she had nearly torn the man’s clothes off! Never in her life had she felt so reckless, so wildly out of control, but of course he didn’t know that. If she went over to his house, he would probably think she was trying to seduce him.

Inwardly she groaned, embarrassed all over again. Still, she thought about him, couldn’t get those hot, drugging kisses out of her head. Fortunately, she had plenty of work to occupy her mind and keep herself busy.

They started using the metal detector, slowly working their way along the stream. Later they would form a grid and work the property inland. In the afternoons, when the air was a little warmer, they worked the dredging machine, taking turns on the suction pipe.

“Best place to look for gold is between the layers of bedrock,” Buck told her. “Sinks into the tiniest crevices. Stays trapped there for hundreds of years … till somebody comes along and sucks it out.”

“What about nuggets? Where’s the best place to look for those?”

His eyes dropped down to the peaks of her breasts. “You can find nuggets in lots of different places. They come in all shapes and sizes. Pretty little things, they are.”

Charity ignored the innuendo, knowing he only said it to make her uncomfortable.

Buck returned his attention to the dredge. “Gold is mostly in the bedrock and fine, black sand. Or you might run across some alluvial gold. It washes down each year and you find it in the gravel. Metal detector works good for that.”

But so far they hadn’t found any nuggets or anything else. If they
had
dredged anything up, it was caught in the wire mesh and riffles of the sluice box. Cleaning the box, she learned, meant taking it apart, removing and carefully cleaning all the screens and riffles, then putting it back together again. It was a long, painstaking process, so it was done just once a week.

She was using the metal detector on Thursday morning, running it along the banks of the creek, when a pair of men’s hiking boots appeared at the edge of her vision. Her gaze traveled up a set of long, nicely muscled legs encased in faded denim, past a worn leather belt, over a flat stomach that vee’d to a man’s wide chest. She must have been staring, because Call reached over and shut off the metal detector.

“Hi,” she said lamely.

He cleared his throat and she wondered if he was as nervous as she. “I saw you working your way along the creek. I figured I owed you an apology for … for what happened the other day.” He glanced over her head, then looked back into her face. “I don’t usually attack helpless women. I hope I didn’t scare you.”

She was a lot of things that morning, but afraid of those burning-hot kisses wasn’t one of them. “No apology needed. What happened was my fault as much as yours. Why don’t we just chalk it up to an adrenal rush with nowhere to go?”

He nodded and turned to leave.

“Actually, I was thinking of coming over to your place,” she said, stopping him. “I never thanked you for saving me. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I’d probably be bear food by now.”

His mouth edged into a faint half-smile. “I doubt it. You don’t really need to be afraid of them. Most of the time, bears leave you pretty much alone. You just need to use a little good judgment and be cautious whenever one’s near.”

She studied his face, the chiseled lines and valleys, the square chin and solid jaw. There was something different this morning, but she couldn’t quite figure …

“You shaved,” she blurted out, feeling like an idiot the instant the words left her mouth.

His lips curved up. She remembered exactly the way they felt pressing into hers and a little sliver of heat trickled into her belly.

“Believe it or not, I shave every once in a while.”

“You look good.” God, did he. If she’d thought he was handsome before, now she realized how disturbingly attractive he was.

“Do I?” A hint of color crept beneath the bones in his cheeks. “Then I guess I’ll have to do it more often.” He glanced down at the metal detector. “How’s it going? Found anything yet?”

“Not yet. I don’t think I’ve quite got the hang of this thing, but tomorrow we clean out the sluice box. Hopefully, something will turn up then.”

He nodded, began to look off toward his house like he wanted to escape. Or maybe only part of him wanted to leave.

She gathered her courage and plunged in. “I still say I owe you for your very timely rescue. How about supper?”

“Supper?”

“Just a neighborly sort of thing. If you don’t already have plans, that is. I was thinking maybe tomorrow evening.”

He looked uncertain, torn in some way. “Well, I… yeah, tomorrow night sounds all right.”

“You won’t attack me again, will you?” she teased just to make him feel at ease, and he relaxed a little.

“Not unless you ask me real nice.”

Her own smile turned wobbly. Surely she could trust herself—couldn’t she? “Okay, then. Supper tomorrow evening. Seven o’clock okay?”

“Fine. I’ll see you at seven.” He started walking toward the path leading back to his house.

“By the way,” she called after him, “how is it you always seem to know what I’m doing over here?”

He turned to her and actually grinned. “Binoculars. A good woodsman always knows what’s going on around him.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Binoculars! You’ve been watching me with binoculars?”

Call kept on walking. “They come in real handy up here,” he said over one wide shoulder. “You ought to get yourself a pair.”

Charity sputtered, opened her mouth, then snapped it closed again and simply stood there fuming. Binoculars! She watched him disappear down the trail, so amazed she couldn’t get a single ugly name past her lips.

It was late Friday morning when Call sat down at his computer. Earlier, needing a little exercise and a chance to clear his head, he and Smoke had hiked into the forest behind the house. All the way up the trail, he had thought about Charity and the dinner invitation he shouldn’t have accepted, inventing one excuse after another not to go. In the end, he had resigned himself.

It was too late to back out now, and besides, it was no big deal. The woman was his neighbor. It wouldn’t hurt to be polite and he could practice his social skills, which, after four years of living like a hermit, were bound to be a little rusty. In the meantime, he would catch up on some of his work.

Call flipped on his computer and brought up his e-mail messages. One from Arthur Whitcomb at Inner Dimensions and another from Harry Turner at American Dynamics, where Call had been working as CEO before he quit. He replied to their questions, made a couple of suggestions, then clicked onto a message from Peter Held in Seattle.

The kid was in exceptionally good spirits. A headhunter, he said, had stopped by earlier that morning with an incredible job offer. He described the outrageous sum the job was supposed to pay and the unbelievable benefits.

Did I tell you I was good?
the e-mail said. Peter had rejected the offer, of course. He owned a percentage of Mega-Tech. If the technology he was developing worked as well as they hoped it would, he was going to make millions.

Call e-mailed the young chemist back.
Who are you kidding? You couldn’t stand a cushy job like that. You’d be bored in a week.
Which was the truth. Peter was a lot like Call had once been—ambitious and so full of energy he hummed with it. Graduating at the top of his Yale University class, Peter Held was brilliant and innovative, the only guy Call knew who could fill Frank McGuire’s very sizeable shoes. It was Peter, one of Frank’s disciples, who had contacted Call six months ago with the idea of resurrecting the hard-disk storage project.

At first Call had declined, but Peter had been so persistent—and so certain he could make it work—that Call had finally agreed, even given him a fat percentage. Call wasn’t sure if he had come up with the millions necessary for research because of the money he could make, or just to see if the kid could really do it.

Call leaned back in his chair. Whatever the reason, Peter was hard at work and he was making very good progress. Call wondered which of his competitors had offered Peter the job and if maybe they were getting a little nervous.

Friday night arrived. The day had been lovely, bright blue skies and fluffy white clouds, just the hint of a breeze. The best part was, when they had cleaned out the sluice box, they’d found not only a nice little cache of gold flakes, but six small, glittering gold nuggets. Buck didn’t seem all that impressed, but Charity was thrilled.

Maude said it was a very good sign and if Charity wanted, she could probably sell them to one of the jewelry stores in Dawson City.

Charity declined.

Whatever happened during her months in the Yukon, she would always remember the day she had found her first real gold nuggets, small as they were.

Her mood was buoyant as she set the little green table in the kitchen, using the plates and flatware she had bought at the general store that first day. During her cabin cleaning, she had run across a lovely old glass kerosene lamp and a bottle of oil with enough left in it to fill the bowl. The lamp glowed prettily in the center of the table next to the pine bough and pinecones she had arranged around the base.

She glanced at her wristwatch. Two minutes to seven. She heard a rap on the door an instant later. She had expected him to be on time. Call Hawkins wasn’t the kind of guy who would be late.

She smoothed her sweaty palms down the long, navy-plaid wool skirt she wore with a pair of soft black leather dress boots. A white cotton blouse with little blue flowers embroidered on the front tucked into the top of the skirt and a wide leather belt encircled her waist.

Nervously, she opened the door. “Hi. Come on in.”

Call looked nervous, too. “After I told you about the binoculars, I wasn’t sure I’d still be welcome.”

She smiled. “I remembered what happened that morning with the bear and decided to think of it as having a guardian angel.”

A corner of his mouth curved. “Now I’m an angel. I think I like that better than evil genie.” He stepped into the cabin, the top of his head nearly grazing the door frame. The cabin felt smaller the instant he closed the door and she realized what a big man he really was, lean but tall and broad-shouldered, very solidly built.

“I brought you a present,” he said.

“You did?” He held out his hand and she accepted what appeared to be an aerosol can in some kind of leather case.

“Pepper spray. I figured it might come in handy.”

“Pepper spray? I’ve heard of olive oil spray and butter spray, but never—”

He burst out laughing. His teeth were white and straight, and his mouth …
Don’t go there,
she told herself.
Don’t even think about it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, still chuckling. “I forgot you don’t know much about …” He fought to keep a straight face. “I should have told you pepper spray is used as protection from bears. You strap the holster on your belt when you go hiking.”

She should have been mad, since he was laughing at her again, but she thought of how rarely he must have laughed in the last four years and couldn’t quite make it happen.

She held up the can to examine it. “How does it work?”

“You just point and spray. It’s to use in case a bear charges you. You wait till he gets about twenty feet away, hold the can up, and fire a stream of spray into his face.”

“You’re kidding, right? You’re making fun of me again.”

He shook his head. “I’m telling you the truth. Scout’s honor.” He held up two fingers.

A boy scout.
She knew they had them in Canada and she could bet that he had been one.

“Let me get this straight. You’re telling me I’m supposed to stand in front of a charging bear and spray it with a can of pepper?”

Call fought back a grin. “It isn’t my idea of a good time, but it works. At least it usually does.”

“You’re not speaking from personal experience?”

“I’ve only had to use it once, but it did the trick. When that little stream of spray hit that grizzly in the face, he couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

Good Lord, the man had faced down a grizzly bear with a can of aerosol spray! She stared at that hard, rugged jaw, thought of Max Mason, and didn’t doubt it for a second.

She grinned as she set the pepper spray down on what passed for a kitchen counter—a board with a strip of linoleum glued to the top. “That was very thoughtful. You know what they say in the Yukon—a can of pepper spray beats a bouquet of flowers any old day.”

He smiled, began to survey the interior of the cabin. “The place looks really good.” He was dressed in a new pair of jeans and a tan, long-sleeved pullover shirt with a wide navy strip across the shoulders.

He had shaved again, and for the first time she noticed he had also cut his hair. It wasn’t short, but it was neatly trimmed. He looked handsome and virile, and incredibly sexy, and suddenly she wondered if inviting him over was such a good idea after all.

“I know how run-down this place was,” he was saying. “You did a really good job fixing it up.”

“Thanks. I had fun doing it. Mostly.”

There was something in his other hand and he set it down on the table. “I also brought a bottle of wine. I hope you like red.”

“I love red. I love wine, in general.”

“Me, too.”

“And martinis. I love martinis but I never drink them. They make me do things I regret in the morning.”

His eyes turned a deeper shade of blue. “I’ll remember that. Next time I’ll bring a bottle of Kettle One.”

She flushed, but the heat she was feeling wasn’t just in her face.

Call looked over at the pot simmering on the stove and she thought that every time he looked at her, she felt a little like that pot.

“Smells good. What is it?”

“Nothing fancy, just beef stew. I also made some biscuits.” She gasped at the reminder and darted past him toward the stove. “Son of a—gun.” She started to reach in and yank out the pan, but his hand shot out and snagged her wrist.

“Careful.” He slowly released his hold, but she could feel the ghost of those long, strong fingers as if they were still there.

Not such a good idea at all.

Grabbing a pot holder, she pulled out the pan, unhappy to see the biscuits were already black on the bottom.

“I’m still not used to cooking on a wood stove. Maude fixes most of the meals.”

“I’m starved. Anything will taste good to me. Why don’t I open the wine while you check the stew?”

Charity nodded and turned toward the stove.

Call watched his pretty little blond neighbor at work. Her hands were slightly unsteady, her movements more awkward than normal. She was nervous, but then so was he.

At least three times, he had started to send Toby over with one of the lame excuses he had invented on the trail. Aside from a sexual relationship, he didn’t want to get involved with a woman, and after what had nearly happened between them last Sunday, he was afraid his attraction might lead to more than just lust.

Even in the wild days before he was married, he couldn’t remember a woman ever turning him on the way she did. She kissed like an angel and tasted as sweet as sin. If Toby hadn’t shown up when he did, there was every chance he would have had her on the ground, her jeans down around her trim little ankles, and been buried to the hilt inside her.

Of course, he was a man who hadn’t had sex in four years. Perhaps it was nothing more than that. He wanted her. Badly. The way she had responded, it was clear she wanted him, too. He needed to get his life back to normal and that included having sex.

Especially having sex.

He wanted to have it with Charity Sinclair.

Call used the wine cork he’d had the foresight to bring and opened the wine, a nice bottle of St. Michelle cabernet.

“Where are you from?” he asked as the cork made a soft pop and came out.

“Manhattan.” She turned away from the stew and her chin inched up. “I was an editor at one of the big publishing houses. You probably think that’s funny, too.”

He set the bottle down on the table. “I think it’s pretty amazing. I admire the courage it must have taken for you to come to a place like this.”

Charity sighed and gave the stew another stir with the wooden spoon. “I’ve always wanted to come here. I can’t remember a time I didn’t. It was a lifelong dream. I know everything about the Gold Rush and more than you might guess about looking for gold.”

“Gold fever? That’s what brought you here?”

“Not really.” She gazed out the living room window, at the snow-capped mountains stretching endlessly beyond the creek. Evening was upon them, but this time of year it was light nearly eighteen hours a day. It wouldn’t be dark for hours. “It’s nearly impossible to explain. It’s like an itch I needed to scratch, like a compulsion of some sort. I had to come.” She shook her head. “It sounds ridiculous, I know. I don’t even understand it myself.”

She looked upset and he realized she had agonized over coming here for years. A dream, she had called it. An odd one, for sure, but he had to admire her courage in undertaking such a difficult endeavor.

“You look nice tonight,” he said. Feminine and pretty in a long wool skirt instead of jeans, her shiny blond hair swept up in a soft knot on her head. He wanted to pull out the pins and run his fingers through it, see if it felt as silky as it looked.

His body tightened. He swore a silent curse as he went hard inside his jeans. He wanted to forget the stew, haul her into his arms, and start kissing her again. He wanted to do a lot more than that.

“This country is everything I dreamed it would be,” she was saying. “I just wish I knew more about the animals and the land. That isn’t really something you can learn from books.”

“No, I don’t suppose it is.” He poured wine into the pair of water glasses she set in front of him on the table, handed one of them to her, and lifted his own in a toast. “To Klondike stew and next-door neighbors.”

She grinned. “To burned biscuits and new beginnings.”

Call smiled and they both took a drink.

The stew was great and the conversation easier than he expected, at least in the beginning. She told him about her father and sisters and her job as an editor in New York.

“I did mostly action adventure and intrigue,” she said. “Clive Cussler; Stephen Coonts; Dale Brown; the Max Mason, Grim Reaper series—that kind of thing. I love to read and especially those kinds of books.” She tipped her head toward a bookshelf fashioned from a pine board perched on two granite boulders. The shelf was beginning to fill with paperback novels. “I buy them through the mail. Which reminds me, I need to check my post office box. I’m hoping a new batch came in during the week.”

“I like reading, too. I’ve spent a lot of time doing that in the last few years.” Call told her he had come to the Yukon four years ago, after he quit his job in Silicon Valley as CEO of American Dynamics.

“It’s a company that’s involved in developing sophisticated software. Before that I owned a company that manufactured games. I got involved in the field when I was a student at Berkeley. My roommate and I came up with a game called Warriors and Maidens. It turned into the beginning of the Black Knight Fantasy Series.”

Her eyes rounded above the rim of her wineglass. “You’re the guy who invented Warriors and Maidens?” she said with a sort of awe.

“One of them. Richard Gill was the other. At the time, it just seemed like a way to have fun. We came up with the game—and the rest, as they say, is history.”

“I can’t believe it. I love that game.”

The conversation progressed. Call didn’t offer anything too personal and neither did Charity.