like that. And the miniature scribed with his daughter’s likeness was for sale in Landerfelt’s store.
“It’s the spittin’ image of her, ain’t it?”
Will turned at the sound of the familiar voice. It had been weeks since he’d seen Matt Robinson—his only friend, now that Dennington was gone. Although Matt was a year or two younger than Will, he’d grown up on the frontier and had taught Will everything he knew about how to survive. Trapping, trading, where and how to live.
They’d worked the Rockies together, then had made their way west to California. But the beaver were all trapped out now, and Matt had succumbed to the same lust that had every butcher, baker and candlestick maker heading for California in droves.
Gold fever. Will ground his teeth.
Matt whistled as he eyed the miniature. “I saw her two days ago at Sutter’s Fort. Had no idea she was Dennington’s kin. She don’t look much like him, does she?”
Will glanced toward Dennington’s just as a frazzledlooking Kate ducked out of the store to retrieve the traveling bag she’d left outside. It was a wonder no one had stolen it.
For the hundredth time in the past hour, his gaze was drawn to her trim figure and the wisps of auburn hair framing her lightly freckled face. She stole a glance at him, and he felt a queasy sort of unrest.
“I see ya’ve noticed.” Matt elbowed him, and Will snapped to attention.
He’d been crazy to think of helping her. The last thing he needed was to get involved with another down-on-his-luck immigrant’s problems. He’d done enough on that count lately, and look where it had got him.
It was time to change the subject.
“What brings you all the way to town, Matt? How’s the claim?”
“It’s a goin’. That’s why I’m here. I thought I’d take one more shot at convincin’ ya to go in with me. Whaddya say?”
Will looked hard at him, and read in his eyes what his friend didn’t say. “You’ve heard, then.”
“Heard what?”
“You know what. The whole town’s talking about what a damn fool I am.”
“The whole territory, more like it.” Matt cracked a lopsided smile. “But you’re no fool. I’d a done the same for the old Chinaman if I’d had the money.”
Will snorted.
“Speakin’ o’ which…”
Mei Li stepped out of Dennington’s store and turned up the street toward the Chinese camp on the outskirts of town. She shot Matt a tiny smile. He plucked his hat from his head and gawked at her like a schoolboy until she disappeared around the corner.
“You’re sweet on her,” Will said.
“Have been for months.”
“You’re asking for trouble, you know.”
“I know.”
Will grinned. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.” He glanced at Landerfelt watching them through the window, and the smile slid from his face. “Seriously, Matt, if you intend to court that girl, you’d best watch your back.”
Matt shook off his momentary stupor and slapped his hat back on his head. “I was hopin’ you’d do that for me.”
“Oh no. Not me. I’ll be halfway to—”
“It’s all gone, ain’t it? The cash, your horse, everything.”
Will met his friend’s knowing gaze. “Yeah.”
“Ya’ve got nothin’ to lose then. Work the claim with me and we’ll be filthy rich come the first snow.”
Filthy rich was right.
No, that was his father’s game, not his. Will had made a new life for himself here, had put his past behind him. But the gold fever and what it had done to this pristine place and the once-honest men who lived here brought it all back in spades.
“Sorry, Matt. Not interested.”
“Damned if I can understand your reasonin’.”
His reasons were good ones, but none of Matt’s damned business. He shot another glance at the miniature in Landerfelt’s store window. “Each man has to make a life for himself, Matt. On his own, in his own way.”
“You’re set on Alaska, then?”
He studied the image of Mary Kate Dennington’s proud Irish features and bright blue eyes. “I am.”
“But how ya gonna—”
“I don’t know. All I know is, come hell or high water, I’ll be on that ship.”
It was nearly dark, and cold as any day in Dublin she could remember. Kate stood in the rain at the foot of her father’s grave, her mind made up.
She was cold and wet and she bloody well deserved to be. She’d been a fool to borrow that money on the promise of yet another of her father’s harebrained schemes. She knelt in the mud and placed a hand on his muddy grave.
“What were you thinking, Da?”
He hadn’t been thinking, and that was the problem. Liam Dennington had been a dreamer, a risk taker. Always after that next pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
She smiled in the dark, remembering.
A bit shaky on her feet, Kate rose as mud seeped into her boots. Exhaustion had finally caught up with her and gnawed bone deep against another familiar sensation. Desperation. She clenched her teeth and willed them both away.
Her gaze swept across the forested hillside peppered with the dying light of miners’ campfires. The single street that made up the town of Tinderbox cut across it, dark and quiet.
One campfire, in particular, drew her attention. But the man hunched beside it with an oiled buckskin pulled over his head against the downpour was no miner. She watched as Will Crockett stirred up the embers with a stick.
Mei Li had been right. Vickery confirmed what the girl had said about Crockett being a trapper on his way north. He was the perfect choice for her plan. Now, if she could only muster the courage to ask him.
The soft strain of a miner’s fiddle carried over the din of the rain and reminded Kate of home, though Tinderbox was certainly not like any place she’d ever seen in Ireland. It was a strange new world, and she was an outsider. That was made clear to her today by Mr. Landerfelt.
The man was pompous and, on the surface, seemed to present no particular threat, but she’d read a dangerous sort of instability in his eyes when Crockett had crossed him. Who knew what the merchant might do to protect the monopoly he seemed determined to create?
There were other dangers, too. All afternoon men had come down from the foothills
