Low Down and Max McCord reluctantly turned and stared hard at each other. Then McCord spun on his heels, walked through the crowd of men and continued on down the mountainside.
Low Down pushed her fists into her pockets and watched him stride away. She didn't really care if he kept going, jumped on his horse, and rode out of here. Getting married was a mistake that neither of them had asked for.
Fingering the letter in her pocket, she watched until McCord reached his diggings and ducked inside his tent, dropping the flap behind him.
She should have settled for the bag of gold or the stupid piano.
Thrusting out her hand, she squinted at the ring, bright and shiny against her sun-dark skin.
Well,whatever happened, she'd keep the ring. They'd convinced her that she deserved something for emptying all those vomit buckets.
But she'd really wanted a baby, someone to love who would love her back. A real family of her very own. Like an idiot, she'd let herself get her hopes up.
"Olaf? Isn't it time to break out the whiskey? The bride needs a stiff drink. And I want to hear more about that generous chipping-in part."
No sense crying over spilled milk. She might as well have a few drinks, hear a few prospecting stories, and enjoy what was left of her wedding day.
CHAPTER 2
«^»
Max scrawled his name, then shoved a handful of pages into an envelope and set aside the plank he'd been using as a writing desk. The floor of his tent was littered with earlier drafts of the hardest letter he'd ever written, evidence of a long and difficult night. Sitting on the side of his cot, he rubbed his eyes, then stared at the wadded paper balls.
Someone had been fated to draw the scratched marble, that was a given, but he hadn't believed it would be him. His life was planned. Searching for gold had satisfied a long-time curiosity, but largely it had been a last hurrah before settling down, a summer fling with adventure while he could still indulge such whimsy without affecting anyone else.
Digging his fingers into his scalp, he swore and kicked at the wadded balls.
Everything he wanted had been within his grasp.
Ironically, if the celebration at Olaf's cabin had taken place twenty-four hours later, he would have missed it. He would have been riding toward the front range and an assured future. He had delayed his departure for a day he really couldn't spare from a sense of obligation to toast the woman who had saved his life. That simple decision had led to his betrayal of Philadelphia and the destruction of their lives and happiness.
"McCord? Are you in there?" Preacher Jellison kicked at the tent flap.
He pulled a hand down his jaw, feeling stubble and the effects of no sleep on top of a belly full of rot-gut whiskey. The last person he wanted to see was Jellison.
"McCord?"
"What the hell do you want?"
"I can go inside or you can come outside. What'll it be?"
The air inside his small tent was close and sour, dense with oily smoke from the lantern next to his cot.
Swearing beneath his breath, he threw open the flap and stepped into the crisp mountain sunshine, blinking against the morning glare.
His tent sat atop a knoll above his diggings, about thirty feet from the creek bank. Last night he'd sold his claim to Coot Patterson for a jug of home brew, the worst stuff he'd ever swallowed. Holes burned in his stomach, and his head was filled with ricocheting cannonballs.
"If you weren't a preacher, I'd tear you apart piece by piece," he said on his way past Jellison.
Bending at the sandy edge of the creek, he scooped water into his hands and splashed his face and throat, letting icy drops roll down under the collar of his shirt. Then he rinsed the taste of rot-gut out of his mouth and spat.
"Would you feel any better if all you had to do was get Low Down with child and then abandon her?
You don't impress me as that kind of man."
Standing, he dried his hands on his shirt, gazing downstream at the men standing in water and whirling their pans or rocking their sluices.
"All right," Jellison said to his back. "Maybe everybody rushed into a situation instead of chewing it over first. But don't forget that you're alive because Low Down was the only person willing to care for you when you were throwing up your guts and raving out of your mind."
