cared to admit. But there was challenge in Buck’s eyes and a slight curl on his lips, and she wasn’t about to let him know that she was afraid. Her fingers gripped the end of the pipe and she felt the incredible suction power of the dredge. Careful to keep her hands away from the opening, she held it steady as water rushed into the pipe.
She was much shorter than Buck. Too bad she didn’t think of that before she bent to suck a load of gravel off the bottom of the stream. Water rushed into the top of the waders, filling them clear to the waist, making her so heavy she couldn’t stand up and sweeping her right her off her feet. Luckily, Buck grabbed the suction pipe or God only knew what might have happened.
Water rushed up to her neck and a heartbeat before she went under, she made the mistake of glancing toward the bank of the stream.
Call Hawkins stood there with his feet splayed, nearly doubled over with laugher. If she hadn’t been the butt of his joke, she might have thought how good he looked wearing a grin for once, instead of the scowl that usually darkened his face.
CHAPTER FIVE
Gold! We leapt from our benches.
Gold! We sprang from our stools.
Gold! We wheeled in the furrow,
fired with the faith of fools.
Fearless, unfound, unfitted,
far from the night and the cold,
heard we the clarion summons,
followed the master-lure—Gold!
—Robert W. Service
Call laughed so hard his eyes began to tear. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed this way—certainly not in the past four years. Nothing he could imagine was as funny as Charity Sinclair in ugly rubber waders being washed like a rag mop down the creek. If he hadn’t realized she was about to get into a deep, rocky section where she could actually get hurt, he might be laughing still.
Instead, he sloshed into the stream just as she splashed by him, grabbed hold of the neck of her soggy sweatshirt, and hauled her out of the water. The sweatshirt molded to her breasts, which were even nicer than he had thought. There was a funny little panda on the front whose ears seemed to sag as she staggered to her feet, spitting and flinging water.
He couldn’t help it. He started laughing again. “Nice work, hotshot.”
She tried to stand up but the waders were so full of water, she floundered and toppled back into the creek. Call grabbed her again, hauled her up, and jerked down the suspenders, freeing her from the heavy, water-filled rubber pants. She shoved them down her legs and stepped out of the cumbersome gear, and he tossed them up on the bank.
Dripping water and shivering with cold, she climbed out of the stream, wet clothes plastered to her body, which was, he saw, very nicely curved. Her hair was a soggy blond mess, her teeth were chattering, and as she sloshed by him, he couldn’t help feeling a little bit sorry for her.
“You all right?” he asked.
She swayed a little, steadied herself with a hand against his chest, then drew away, her expression a study in misery. “More or less.”
He saw Maude Foote scurrying toward them, her wrinkled face lined with worry.
“Get a blanket, Maude,” he said. “She’s more cold than anything.”
Her legs were wobbly. He considered picking her up and carrying her up to the cabin, but figured she probably wouldn’t like it if he did. Instead, he slid an arm around her waist and she leaned into him, letting him guide her up the hill. He noticed she didn’t protest. Maude met them halfway and draped an old olive-drab army blanket around Charity’s trembling shoulders.
“You’re not hurt, are ya?” Maude asked.
She managed to muster a smile. “Just my pride.”
“It’ll be easier once the weather warms up. Most folks don’t start dredgin’ quite this soon.”
“I’ll get the hang of it,” Charity told her. By then they had reached the porch. Buck Johnson was already there and Call didn’t miss the smug expression on his face. Buck didn’t much like women, except, as he’d once put it, on their backs with their legs apart. Call had a sudden suspicion that Buck had somehow engineered the scene at the creek and was amazed to feel a shot of anger.
“You must be freezing,” he said to Charity as her slender body trembled against him. “You’d better go in and get out of those wet clothes.”
She nodded, looking utterly bedraggled. “Thanks for helping me down there.”
“No problem.”
“I guess I did look pretty funny.”
His mouth edged up as he remembered the incident again. “Yeah, you did.” She gave him a watery smile. Her lips were pink and plump—so soft-looking, he thought, and his body began to stir.
“If you hadn’t helped me get out, I probably would have floated all the way to Dawson City.”
“Maybe not quite that far.”
She started up the steps to the porch, sloshing water with every step.
“Charity?” She turned to look at him, surprised at his use of her first name. “What is it? Why the hell are you up here?”
Something shifted in her features. He caught a flash of uncertainty and something else he couldn’t name.
“I don’t know. I just had to come. There didn’t seem to be any other choice.”
It was an odd answer, one she seemed as puzzled by as he was. He watched her climb the stairs, noticed the way the wet jeans molded to her legs and bottom, and felt a jolt of lust he hadn’t felt in years.
She’s trouble, he thought again. And after what he’d been through the last four years, trouble was the last thing he wanted.
“I thought I was going to drown—in three feet of water.” Wrapped in her soft yellow bathrobe, Charity stood in front of the fireplace in the living room, rubbing her hair with a towel. “And he had to be there. God, it was so humiliating.”
She was finally warm again, having just stepped out of a nice hot shower. Unfortunately, the plumbers had been less successful with the toilet. It still didn’t work, but they were scheduled to bring out a new one on Monday.
Assuming, of course, the sun didn’t shine and they decided to go fishing instead.
Maude chuckled. “Call ain’t really a bad sort. He’s got his own set of problems, just like you got yours.”
“Actually, he was fairly decent today.” She tossed aside the towel, picked up the brush she had set on the arm of the sofa, and began to pull it through her hair. “I’d probably still be in the water if he hadn’t pulled me out when he did.”
She could still remember the way he’d sloshed into the icy stream, as if
