Behind him in the flap that separated the makeshift sleeping area from the restaurant stood a half dozen curious miners. “Mebbe she’s breedin’,” one of them said.
Rafe stiffened. “Are you?” he asked accusingly.
“What?”
“Pregnant?”
“No!”
His shoulders relaxed and he turned away, ordering, “All of you men, out of here! Now!”
Grumbling, they obeyed, even Big John, who was still muttering, “Don’t be blamin’ me. I serve fresh fish.”
Rafe sat down on the cot next to her. “Are you sure you’re not knocked up?”
Her hot face felt even hotter. “I’m absolutely sure. It was the cigar smoke that made me faint. I can’t stand cigars.”
“Maybe we’d better find a doctor to double-check.”
Fighting back wooziness, she forced herself to a sitting position. “Give it up, Rafe. I’m not pregnant. It’s impossible.”
Maybe you need a few lessons in the facts of life, Helen. Men and women make love. Babies result.”
“Aaaargh! I didn’t make love.”
“You didn’t? Ever?”
“Of course, I’ve made love, you idiot. Just not… lately.” She immediately regretted her disclosure when a smug grin spread over his face.
“Define lately.”
“No.” She stood and tried to brush the wrinkles from her pants and blouse. It was a hopeless endeavor.
“A month?” he persisted, rising to his feet.
She refused to answer and began walking to the doorway.
“Two months?”
She made a tsking sound of disgust.
“Three months?”
Her head jerked up sharply in reflex.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he whooped. “You haven’t made love with a man in three months. Not even with your Kentucky Fried Colonel.” He threw an arm over her shoulder and pulled her close. “We’re gonna be so good together.”
They were still arguing, “Yes, we are,” “No, we’re not,” when they hit the street and the harsh reminder that this was 1850 California, and they didn’t have enough money for a bath, let alone a hotel room to make love.
But the harshest reminder came when they glanced across the street to an open lot where a large crowd had gathered.
“Oh, my God!” Rafe said and pressed her face into his chest. But not before she saw Ignacio hanging by the neck from a tree limb. Dead.
Helen gagged and made no protest when Rafe led her quickly in the opposite direction with an arm still wrapped around her shoulder. The furious miners were congratulating themselves.
“Damned greasers! We oughta string ’em all up.”
“Horse thieves and Mexicans… They’re all the same.”
“Dang it all, I never did meet me an honest female eater.”
“Let’s go get a drink. Lynchin’ sure does work up a thirst in a law-abidin’ man.”
A short time later, they stood in the same dark alley where they’d escaped the bandits. Braced against the wall with both hands in his pockets, Rafe brooded, trying to decide on their next move. Helen was rinsing her mouth with water from a bucket at the back door of the hotel.
“Ignacio was a vicious man, but I never would have wished this on him,” she said when she returned to his side.
“Me, neither. I should’ve known, though. Pablo told me about a man who’d had his head shaved and ears cut off, and was given a hundred lashes just for stealing a poke of gold dust.”
She stared at him, aghast. “Well, don’t blame yourself.”
“I’m the one who told the sheriff about the stolen horses.”
“Stop the blame game, Rafe.”
He shrugged. “At least Pablo and Sancho have escaped. Helen, we’ve got to get out of town as soon as possible, too, before the miners change their minds about us.”
She nodded. “We’ll go back to the landing site.”
“No.”
Even in the dim light from the half-open doorway of the hotel, he could see the flare of her nostrils. “It’s too dangerous to stay here,” she insisted.
“I’m not going back till I have gold,” he said obstinately. “Lots of it.”
“I’ll give you money if that’s all that’s keeping you here,” she pleaded. “I have a trust fund from my mother. Would… would twenty thousand be enough?” Hurt and rage washed over him in a blinding tidal wave. “I don’t want your money,” he lashed out.