LYDIA SOARED TO PEAK after peak, each one higher than the last, as Gideon enjoyed her, over and over again. Presently, he rose from his knees and joined her on the bed, held her while she recovered, but except for his boots and shirt, he remained fully dressed. He ran his fingers through her hair, seemingly fascinated by it, kissed her eyelids and murmured senseless words as she made her slow descent, once again reaching small, soft climaxes as she floated down from beyond the clouds.
“More?” he asked, his voice husky, when she’d finally settled back into herself.
That ordinary word sounded foreign to her; she could not divine its meaning. She made a small, crooning sound, hoping it would suffice as an answer to whatever Gideon’s question had been.
Gideon didn’t inquire again. He took Lydia by the hips, rolled onto his back, and set her down squarely on his mouth.
Lydia was startled by the instant, consuming need his swift action—and his open mouth—ignited within her. She flung back her head and shouted his name, raspy-voiced, desperate, and groped with her hands for the railings in the headboard, sure she’d rocket right through the ceiling if she didn’t hold on for dear life.
Once again, Gideon drove Lydia to a shattering, cataclysmic release, and then another. When he knew she’d been thoroughly, mercilessly satisfied, he laid her down beside him, stroked her hair, murmured tender words that did not string together in sentences, caressed her breasts and her thighs and her belly, as though he couldn’t touch her enough.
She was certain he would take her then. Part her legs and mount her, make her truly his wife.
But he did not.
Lydia was too spent to cry, or even to speak. Joy and sorrow tangled within her, in knots that might never be untied. The day, and Gideon’s assiduous lovemaking, had left her exhausted, and sleep began to pull at her, dragging her down into dark, enfolding arms.
As she drifted off, though, she thought she heard Gideon mutter, “God help me.” Oh, but that might have been part of the dreams that immediately swamped her.
* * *
WHEN LYDIA AWAKENED, many hours later, she instantly realized that she was alone in bed, and bolted upright in a sudden, uncomprehending panic. The room was dark, but gradually swelling with the faintest traces of light.
It was morning—or almost morning.
But where was Gideon? Had he left her, gone to sleep in another bed, in another room?
Like a mermaid struggling free of entwining seaweed, Lydia unwound herself from her hair and the bedclothes, got up, and hastily donned the calico dress she’d worn the day before. She might have worn the nightgown instead, since it had no buttons to contend with and she was in a significant hurry, but it would be hours until she found it, so far under the bed that she had to fetch the broom to retrieve it.
She brushed her hair quickly, was plaiting it as she rushed out into the hallway.
“Gideon?” Lydia whispered the name; he could not possibly have heard her. She was about to start opening doors when she noticed a billow of soft light at the top of the back stairway, the one leading down into the kitchen.
Holding the tip of her braid so it wouldn’t come undone, she drew a deep breath and headed for the stairs.
Gideon was there, and since his back was to her and she was barefoot, making no sound on the plank steps, she had a moment to blink back smarting tears of frustration and relief. To gather her scattered composure, calm her floundering heart, slow her breath.
Dear God, he was so beautiful—if such a term could be aptly applied to a man—even in his rough working-man’s clothes.
Why didn’t he want her?
How could he teach her ecstasy—every touch of his hands and his mouth at once masterful and infinitely tender, nearly to the point of reverence—and still turn away without taking his own pleasure?
Was she repulsive to him in some way?
That couldn’t be so, not when he’d made her cry out in lust and need and finally triumph, not once but many times, attended her with such stunning intimacy.
Lydia’s cheeks were hot as she remembered, as she let her body remember. She’d ridden Gideon, ridden his tongue and his lips and his unabashed hunger for her, as though finding herself astride some mythical, runaway horse, winged and formed of fire.
She took another step, meaning to find a piece of string and tie the end of her braid, and Gideon heard her then, or sensed her presence somehow.
He turned, and she saw bleakness in his eyes, even though he was smiling, ever so slightly.
“I was just—I was just meaning to bind my hair—” Lydia stammered, flustered.
“No,” Gideon said gravely, with a shake of his head. He’d brewed coffee, the aroma filled the cool, unstirred air of the kitchen, tantalizing and comfortingly normal, and now he set aside the cup he’d been drinking from. “Don’t do that.”
Lydia stood utterly still on the third stair from the bottom—odd, she thought, that she’d counted, given her state of mind—a very improper question struggling at the back of her throat, barely held in check.
Why, Gideon? Why don’t you want me?
Slowly, he crossed to her, took her free hand, led her down one step, and then another, until they were face-to-face. Gently, he freed her braid from her fingertips, watched as the plait began to come undone.
“Gideon?”
He met her eyes, but with some difficulty, as though he did not want to look away from her hair, ever. “What?”
“Am I—am I ugly?”
His eyes widened. “Ugly?”
Lydia blushed furiously, full of misery. “Un-unattractive in some way?”
His gaze had returned to her hair again. Gently, he eased the strands apart, undoing the braid slowly, running splayed fingers through the unbound locks. “God, no,” he replied, after a very long time.
“Then why?” Lydia asked, unable to restrain herself any longer. “Why don’t you—why won’t you—?”
Gideon continued to comb his fingers through her hair, but he met her eyes. No answer he could have given would have stunned her, or broken her, more cruelly than what he said then.
“Because I’ll be leaving you, one of these days.” He thrust out a sigh, and Lydia, bludgeoned by a sorrow so deep, so consuming that she could barely stand up under it, thought she’d surely swoon. “I’ll be leaving you, Lydia. And it will be all too soon.”
Lydia’s knees would no longer support her. She sank, aware of Gideon’s hands taking firm hold on her upper arms, onto the steps. Sat there, trembling, wanting to scream, wanting to sob, but painfully unable to make even the smallest sound.
Gideon crouched, holding her hands now, looking up into her face. “You’ll meet someone else,” he promised, his voice still hoarse even after he’d cleared his throat once, “and you’ll feel no shame in sharing a proper husband’s bed.”
Lydia longed, suddenly and ferociously, to bury her fists in Gideon Yarbro’s thick, taffy-colored hair and snatch it out of his scalp in bloody-ended hanks. At the same time, she thought if she loved this man even a smidgeon more than she did at that moment, she’d shatter into tiny, brittle pieces and never be able to pull herself together again.
She dared not speak, dared not move.
“I should have left you alone,” Gideon said, half to himself. “Just gotten you away from Fitch and left you alone.”
With no bidding from her, Lydia’s hands rose to cup his cheeks—quite the opposite of what she’d wanted to do earlier. He’d shaved since leaving their bed, for his skin was smooth now. “Oh, Gideon,” she managed. “Gideon.”
Gently, and with a reluctance Lydia hoped she hadn’t merely imagined, Gideon took hold of her wrists. Pulled her hands from his face.
“I’ve got to go,” he said.
Fresh alarm seized Lydia. “You’re l-leaving now?”
Gideon’s smile was sad as he straightened, stepped back. “I’m due at the mine, Lydia,” he said, very quietly. “There’s work to be done.”
“But I was going to make hotcakes,” Lydia burst out, marveling at the inanity of her protest even as the words tumbled off her tongue, helter-skelter. “And sandwiches for your midday meal—”
He picked up a bundle from the table, something wrapped in a blue-and-white checkered napkin. Raised it a little for Lydia to see. “I’ve got a little grub in here,” he said. “And I had some bread and cheese for breakfast. I’ll be all right.”
With that, he nodded once, in farewell, turned and made for the door, a man in a hurry to be gone.
Lydia managed—heaven only knew how—not to cry until after the door had closed soundly behind him.
When Lydia was certain he wouldn’t turn around and come back for some reason, she bent double, still sitting on the third step, until her forehead touched her knees.
She did not sniffle.
She did not sob.
She wailed.
* * *
GIDEON’S SECOND MORNING at the mine was pretty much like his first, except harder. The soreness in his arms, legs and shoulders was exquisite torment—and yet it did not begin to match what was going on in his heart.
Lydia.
He hadn’t meant to hurt her—only to get her safely away from Jacob Fitch. That had been what she wanted, hadn’t it? She’d sent the letter, after all.
Instead of saving her, he thought dismally, he might have destroyed her instead.
As he worked, his body went numb, which was a blessing, but the bruises on the inside continued to pulse with every beat of his heart.
By the time the noon whistle sounded, and Gideon laid aside his shovel and sat down on the same ledge he’d occupied the day before, with his napkin-wrapped lunch lying untouched beside him, Mike O’Hanlon joined him, once again.
“You’ll pardon my sayin’ so,” the big man remarked, in his rolling brogue, “but you don’t look like a man who’s been beddin’ a willin’ bride, young Yarbro.”
A hufflike snort escaped Gideon, but he didn’t speak. He forced himself to open the bundle he’d brought along; his body was weak with hunger, even though he was sure his stomach would rebel if he tried to swallow a bite of the canned ham he’d found in the pantry that morning, along with an apple and a slice of bread.
O’Hanlon’s blue gaze caught on the ham, and he gave a low whistle of exclamation. “’Tis a feast, that,” he said.
Shit, Gideon thought. He’d been a fool to bring an expensive tidbit like this one to the mine, let the other men see him eating like a king while they dined on lesser things; what had he been thinking?
He’d been thinking, he reflected grimly, about Lydia.
About the way she’d given up her whole self to him, flesh and spirit, the night before. About how badly he wanted her, and how much he hated himself for making a plaything of that responsive, delectably female body of hers.
He thrust the ham, still in its colorful tin, with the turn key on top, into O’Hanlon’s hands.
“You have it,” he said.
O’Hanlon accepted the ham, although Gideon knew it injured the other man’s pride to do so. Just one more mistake, in a long line of them.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Irishman stash the tin in his lunch pail, unopened.
“They’ll be sendin’ us home in a little while,” O’Hanlon said, a few moments later. “With half a day’s pay on the books and no knowin’ what tomorrow’ll bring.”
Gideon frowned. It was barely twelve o’clock—the day shift wouldn’t be over for nearly six hours. “What?”
“Foreman just came down and told me,” O’Hanlon explained, splaying his huge hands on his thighs and heaving a sigh. “For all their millions, they’ll squeeze a nickel clean through till their fingertips touch, the owners will, if they think there’s a strain on the budget.”
How, Gideon wondered, could there be a “strain on the budget”? Copper prices were high; the government and the big industrialists back east were buying ore by the freight-car load. The men he’d met with in Chicago had handed him a sizable bank draft, with more to come when the job was finished, without so much as a blink at the amount.
“I guess we’re lucky they haven’t brought in a bunch of Chinamen to take our places,” O’Hanlon went on, but he didn’t sound like a man who considered himself lucky.
And why wasn’t he eating the ham? Gideon had caught a glimpse of the other man’s lunch as he wolfed it down earlier—a heel of bread, probably stale, one hard-boiled egg and a sliver of cheese. Surely, big as he was, and as hard as he worked, O’Hanlon was hungry.
Looking around at the other men, gathered in little groups, mere shadows just outside the dim reach of the lanterns, Gideon figured O’Hanlon couldn’t bring himself to partake of a “feast,” as he’d put it, in front of them.
“The railroad’s keeping most of them busy,” Gideon said, referring to the Chinamen most laborers both hated and feared.
O’Hanlon, though dismal of aspect, gave a rueful chuckle. “There’s that,” he said. “There’s that.”
The quitting-whistle blew then—two long, shrill bleats echoing down the hole from high overhead. Some of the support timbers groaned, as if in answer.
O’Hanlon heaved another sigh, got to his feet. “Half day,” he said, “half pay.”
“Damn,” Gideon replied, not because he’d miss the pittance, or the backbreaking work, but because the mine owners hadn’t said anything to him about money being tight enough to cut the men’s hours any further than they already had. And there was a good reason for that: it wasn’t.
This was some kind of gambit to keep the miners needy, keep them in line.
Something soured in Gideon’s empty stomach, roiled there.
In his mind, he heard the echo of something Rowdy had said to him the night before.
“They have it hard, Gideon. The miners, I mean. So do their wives and children—Pardner here eats better than they do.”
Christ, Gideon thought. O’Hanlon hadn’t eaten the ham because he meant to take it home to his family.
O’Hanlon had moved away, but he stopped, looked back at Gideon, who was still sitting on that ledge like a lump, listening to echoes.
“Come along,” the Irishman said. “Paddy might let us have a dram, on the cuff, if we’re charmin’ enough.”
It was the gesture Gideon had been waiting for, or one of them, anyway. He’d be inside the men’s circle, if only for a little while, and “a dram,” as O’Hanlon had put it, would almost certainly loosen their tongues. So why didn’t he feel better about it?
O’Hanlon was waiting.
“Sounds good,” Gideon said.
“And if Paddy won’t give us credit,” O’Hanlon went on, as if there’d been no break in the discussion, “maybe you’d spring for a round. Since you can afford ham that comes in a tin with a key on top.”
Gideon saw the bait, and handily avoided it. “I stole that ham from my sister-in-law’s pantry,” he said. The relative truth of that statement eased his conscience a little. Lark had owned that house before she’d signed it over to him and Lydia, and she’d surely paid for the plentiful supply of canned goods and sundries on the shelves, since he hadn’t and his wife was penniless. “But if we drink slow, I might be able to cover a round or two.”
Pleased, O’Hanlon slapped him hard on the shoulder. “She owns her own railroad, that sister-in-law of yours. Seems she’d be able to come up with a job for you, if she had a mind to help out.”
O’Hanlon, Gideon thought, was even smarter than he’d given him credit for. And still suspicious.
“Pinching a ham from the lady’s cupboard is one thing,” Gideon replied easily, “and going to her with my hat out is another.”
The other men slowly gathered around them, grumbling about the short day. No doubt, like O’Hanlon, they had wives and children to support—but no fancy tinned ham to present for their supper.
“Yarbro here,” O’Hanlon announced to the throng, “is buyin’ a round at Paddy’s.”
The foreman, a man Gideon had never met, and whom the owners had assured him wouldn’t be in on the plan, watched with folded arms and a hard look in his eyes as the miners trailed upward, toward the sunlight and the fresh air.
And Rowdy’s voice came back to Gideon as he climbed, in their midst, secretly, selfishly pleased that the shift was over early.
“When you get a chance, pay a visit to the shanties behind the mine and see for yourself.”
Reaching level ground, Gideon raised his eyes, saw the small raw-timber-and-canvas houses clustered close together on the barren hillside above. They had a precarious look, those shanties, as though they weren’t sound enough to hold to their footings, and even from that distance, he could see that the thin-limbed children scurrying among them probably weren’t accustomed to supper, let alone canned ham.
* * *
HELGA AND THE AUNTS ARRIVED at midmorning, riding in a wagon driven by Rowdy, their few belongings in tow.
By then, Lydia had recovered from her crying bout. She’d pressed a cold cloth to her eyes until the swelling and redness went away, and taken refuge in the room Lark referred to as “the study.” Mr. Porter’s books still lined the shelves, and she’d dusted them carefully, consoled by their presence, and chosen a volume of epic poetry to read later, after Gideon came home.
If Gideon came home.
After what he’d said that morning, he might not.
And now that Lydia had pulled herself together a little, she’d decided, with admitted bravado, that it would be just fine with her if he didn’t. She’d lived a long time without Gideon Yarbro, and she had no intention of folding up when he’d gone.
Helga and the aunts were inside, chattering among themselves as they went about settling in, before Lydia noticed the worried expression on Rowdy’s face.
Setting down the various valises, he nodded to Lydia and would have left without a word, if she hadn’t pursued him out into the yard. Caught up with him as he started to climb back into the wagon.
“Rowdy, wait,” Lydia said.
He shifted on the seat and took up the reins, but didn’t release the brake lever. Saying nothing, he simply waited to hear what she had to say.
“Is Lark all right?” Lydia asked.
“She’s a little poorly today,” Rowdy admitted. “I sent for Sarah to come and sit with her, in case her time is nigh.”
Lydia waited out a rush of alarm. If Lark needed Sarah or anyone else to sit with her, she truly wasn’t well. She’d worn herself out helping to get the house ready to occupy the day before, and if any harm came to Lark because of that, Lydia knew she’d never forgive herself.
“I’m coming with you,” she told Rowdy. “I’ll stay till Sarah comes.”
“There’s no need of that,” Rowdy said. “That’s what Lark would tell you, anyhow. Helga offered to look after her, or at least ride herd on the kids, but Lark wouldn’t hear of it.”
Lydia was already taking off her apron, smoothing her hair. “Please, wait for me,” she said quietly. “I’m just going to tell the aunts I’ll be out for a little while.”
In spite of his earlier protest, Rowdy looked relieved. “I’ll wait,” he said gruffly. “And I’m obliged, Lydia.”
Lydia dashed into the house, told Helga and the aunts she was going home with Rowdy and could not say when she’d be back, and returned, scrambling ably up into the wagon box before he could get down to help her.
“Lark may need a doctor,” she ventured, once they were under way.
“Doc Venable retired a couple of years ago,” Rowdy said, looking straight out over the backs of the two-horse team, but seeing, it seemed to Lydia, something she couldn’t, and slapping down the reins to hurry the animals up a little. “He still knows his business, but his eyesight isn’t what it used to be and he doesn’t make many house calls these days.”
Lydia thought of her own father. He’d been a doctor, too, and a good one, though mostly ineffectual in every other area of his life. Although she hadn’t missed him in a very long time, she did then.
“I see,” she said. “And there isn’t another physician in Stone Creek?”
Rowdy shook his head. “Sam O’Ballivan’s been beating the brush for one, from here to San Francisco, but so far, no luck.”
They reached the house quickly.
The Yarbro children were sitting on the porch, in a solemn, tight little row, their shoulders touching.
Lydia glanced at Rowdy, saw her own deepening concern reflected in his face.
He’d barely brought the wagon to a stop when a long, shrill scream came from inside the house.
The children flinched.
“Christ!” Rowdy said, under his breath, bolting from the buckboard without setting the brake and running toward the house.
The children didn’t move, except to break ranks momentarily so their father could dash between them. Their eyes were huge, and their faces were so pale, every freckle stood out.
Lydia, following quickly behind Rowdy, paused to speak to them.
“Hank,” she said, to the eldest boy, “do you know where Dr. Venable lives?”
A tear streaked a crooked path down Hank’s cheek. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, stiffening when Lark screamed again.
“You go and fetch him right now,” Lydia said.
Hank launched himself off the step and ran hard for town.
Lydia turned to Julia, who was shaking visibly, the two smaller children huddled against her sides.
“Can you take Marietta and Joe and go to my—to Mrs. Porter’s house, Julia? Where we were yesterday?”
The little girl nodded, dashed at her face with the back of one hand. “I know right where it is,” she said. “I’ve been there lots of times, with Mama.”
“I want you to go straight there, then,” Lydia instructed, with a calmness she didn’t feel, especially after a third long, plaintive cry from Lark. “Helga and the aunts will look after you and Joe and Marietta until someone comes to bring you home.”
Julia stood, taking her sister and brother by the hand. “Will you help my mama?” she asked. “She’s been carrying on like that since right after Papa left the house with the ladies and their things.”
Lydia’s throat thickened, but she straightened her shoulders and raised her chin. “I’ll do everything I can to make your mama feel better, Julia,” she promised. “And I know it will ease her mind when I tell her you’ve been such a big, brave girl, and tended your brother and sister.”
Mimicking Lydia’s actions, Julia squared her shoulders, and raised her chin. “You tell Mama that Joe and Marietta will be fine, because I mean to see to it.”
Lydia managed a smile. Nodded. She was too choked up to speak again.
She watched as Julia half dragged, half shooed the smaller children across the yard and onto the lane, where the puffs of dust Hank’s feet had raised as he ran were still settling.
Neither Joe nor Marietta wanted to leave, which made Julia’s task that much harder.
Joe shrieked for his mother, and Marietta was wailing at the top of her lungs, but Julia wouldn’t let them turn back.
Lydia kept the three small children in sight until they’d rounded the bend and disappeared, then turned and hurried inside the house, up the front staircase, along the hallway.
Finding Rowdy and Lark’s room wasn’t hard; a door stood open at the end of the corridor and, through that door, Lydia could see Lark writhing on a bed soaked red with blood.
Lark’s skin glistened with perspiration, and she was deathly pale, due to the blood loss, no doubt, and the pain. Rowdy sat beside her, holding tightly to her hand, his face stony with fear.
Seeing Lydia, Lark struggled to focus on her face. “The children?” she whispered raggedly. “Lydia—the children—”
Lydia was already rolling up her sleeves, marveling at the strange and sudden strength rising within her. “They’re being looked after, Lark,” she said. “And Dr. Venable will be here soon—Hank’s gone to find him.”
Lark sighed, closed her eyes, stiffening under another wave of pain.
Lydia turned her attention to Rowdy. “I’ll need hot water,” she said. “And plenty of clean cloth.”
Rowdy hesitated, torn between doing what he knew had to be done and staying at Lark’s side. Finally, after placing a kiss on Lark’s grayish, sweat-slickened forehead, he rose, gave Lydia one glance of mingled pleading and gratitude, and went to fetch the things she had asked for.
Lark groped for Lydia’s hand, and Lydia gave it.
“I can’t leave them,” Lark croaked, fairly crushing the bones in Lydia’s fingers. “The children—Rowdy—”
“You’re not going to die, Lark,” Lydia said, again drawing on some heretofore unknown source of fortitude and certainty. “I won’t permit it.” She bent over Lark, so their faces were close together. “Do you hear me, Lark Yarbro? I will not permit you to die.”