Helen looked over and saw that Hector had been watching her closely. “I don’t ever want to leave here,” he said fiercely. “This is my home now.”
“Of course it is, honey,” she said, patting his hand.
“You and Mr. Rafe are gonna leave sometime, though,” he accused.
“Yes,” she conceded, “but we won’t abandon you.”
“When you go, I’m gonna stay with Mr. Zeb. He sez I kin call him Granpap.” His voice quivered with tears of uncertainty.
“We’ll see, but it’s nothing for you to worry about now.” She corrected his work, then scooted him out the door. He and Zeb were going hunting for rabbits that afternoon.
She checked the sourdough in a crock near the fireplace. Mary had given her a starter batch, and every day she added a little flour, sugar, and water to keep it working. With care, it would last forever. She also picked an arrangement of Effie’s wildflowers and put them in an empty whiskey bottle. The flowers and the colored light from the “bottle windows” created a warm, homey atmosphere for the cabin.
Afterward, she ambled toward the stream, planning to help Rafe with the gold digging. He was standing thigh-deep in the icy water to the far left of the little valley, working alone. Zeb and Hector must have already left. Usually, a claim was worked by three adult men who could wash out eighty to a hundred pails of dirt a day, but they had to pace themselves here, knowing there were other chores to be done about the cabin.
Many of the miners used more sophisticated methods of prospecting — long toms, or cradles, or sluice boxes — but they required at least a half-dozen men to share the labor. Simple panning — adding water to a pan of dug-up gravel and swirling it around so the water and lighter materials spilled over the top and the heavier masses, like gold, sunk to bottom — was a centuries-old method of prospecting that still worked for the one- or two-man gold-digging operation.
An unusually warm October sun beat down on Rafe’s bare back, which glistened with sweat. Occasionally he stopped swinging a pick against the outcropping of rock and he stood, arching his shoulders.
Helen picked up a shovel and pan that Zeb had discarded nearby and scanned the area. She stepped into the frigid stream, boots and all, with her shovel and pan held up high.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Rafe asked, just noticing her.
“I’m going to help you.”
“No, you’re not. Don’t come any closer,” he warned. “Oh, no, oh, please, don’t do anything to get that T-shirt wet.”
“Honestly, you have a one-track mind. In the middle of muscle-deadening work, you can still think about — ” Her right boot slipped on a moss-covered rock, and her feet went out from under her. She landed flat on her back in the shallow water.
She expected Rafe to be howling with laughter when she came up spluttering for air, flinging her wet hair back over her shoulders. But he was gawking, transfixed, at her sodden chest.
Looking down, she saw her breasts clearly outlined by the clinging fabric right down to the nipples, which had hardened in the cold stream. “Now, Rafe,” she said, backing away.
“Son of a bitch!” he exclaimed, throwing his pan and pickax up onto a boulder. “Even St. Augustine was never given this much temptation, I’ll bet.” He made a flying leap for her, and they both landed in the stream. The snow-cooled waters did nothing to stem his ardor or her fast-matching arousal.
Like a madman pushed beyond his limits, Rafe kissed her lips and neck. His hands roamed frantically over her breasts, across her back, cupping her buttocks. “Touch me… Oh, please… Oh, yes, like that,” he pleaded, then almost screamed when she did.
They rolled in the water, splashing, falling under, coming up laughing and kissing and trying to speak but only able to come out with disjointed words. When Rafe’s mouth closed over Helen’s breast, T-shirt and all, she keened and pounded on his back with her fists. “Damn you! Damn you for making me want you this much.”