Ignacio released her arm, starting to back away. Helen saw Pablo and Sancho sidle toward the crowd of miners and disappear.
Raising his rifle higher, the sheriff growled, “I don’t s’pose those horses have the Rancho Salerno brand on ’em?”
Ignacio made a low, gurgling squeak in his throat.
“C’mon, men, I think we got us a few horses ta inspect,” ol’ John Wayne said, his rifle now pressed directly into the fat belly of Ignacio, whose exit was blocked by the wall of miners. “How many horses they got?” the sheriff asked Rafe.
Rafe shrugged. “Ten, I think.”
The sheriff nodded and motioned for Ignacio to move in front of him toward the alley entrance. The miners opened a path in their center for their passage, along with the four deputies.
Helen and Rafe stayed behind, realizing at the same moment that they were free. They shared a quick smile.
The miners seemed undecided about whether to follow the sheriff for that entertainment, or to stay and see what Rafe and Helen were going to do.
“Are you gonna be corkscrewin’ t’night?” the trapper they’d met up with earlier called out to Helen, his attention shifting back and forth between her and the shrieking squeals of Ignacio out on the street behind him.
“No,” Helen stated firmly.
“Well, not for anyone but her husband,” Rafe added brightly as he buckled on Ignacio’s holsters, inserted the discarded pistols, and crisscrossed the ammo belts over his chest.
“Not for anyone,” Helen emphasized.
“We’ll give you five hundred dollars in gold dust,” one of the hayseed twins offered.
“Well…” Rafe said, tapping his chin pensively.
Helen could tell by the twinkle in his eyes that he was teasing, but she glared at him impatiently.
“Just kidding, guys. She’s not for sale. Anytime. Anyplace. Anywhere.”
Grumbling, the men began to walk away.
Rafe turned back to her then. “Happy now?”
A delayed reaction set in. Trembling, she could barely nod her head. “God, I am so tired and dirty and hot. I wish I could take a bath and sleep for two days. Then wake up in the twentieth century.”
“Me, too.” He reached out a hand and brushed a strand of hair off her cheek. The expression on his face was unreadable, but the whispery caress seemed to have significance. The gesture touched her deeply.
“How did I do as a hero?” he joked, but Helen saw a vulnerable, almost needful, emotion on his handsome face.
Her heart went out to him in a way she just couldn’t explain. She should have answered in the same, light-hearted tone, but her innate honesty forced her to confess, “The best.”
He smiled at her with such tenderness that Helen felt tears well in her eyes. Holding her gaze, Rafe leaned down and brushed his lips across hers — a brush of a kiss, so brief she almost missed it. But Helen’s world tilted askew, and she knew from Rafe’s sharp intake of breath that he was equally affected.
Without a word, they headed for the other end of the alley.
“So,” Rafe said huskily, looping an arm over her shoulders as they walked, “we make quite a team, don’t we?”
She prepared to make a prissy remark, to criticize him for the familiarity of his embrace, not to mention the kiss. Subordinate officers didn’t kiss their superiors.
Instead, she laid her head on the cradle of his chest, nuzzling his warm neck, and murmured, “Yeah, we do.”
For more than an hour, they strolled arm in arm, through the 1850 town of Sacramento, stopping every few steps to examine and comment on the extraordinary sights. With their escape from the bungling bandits and their impulsive kiss, their relationship had entered a new phase — tentative friendship and possibly something more precious. Rafe chose not to ponder the latter too closely… just yet.
Darkness now blanketed the town, but bright light from lanterns and candles filtered through the open doorways of the dilapidated structures and through the fabric of the canvas tents, making them glow like golden balloons. The nighttime businesses were putting out their welcome mats — saloons, brothels, and gambling halls — the seedy establishments that fed on the Gold Rush like parasites.