Rafe tried to put an arm on her shoulder, and she shrugged him off.
“Yer not a whore?” the Irishman asked. Barely pausing, he added, “Well then, when you get tired of the greaser, will ya marry me?”
Several men protested, chiming in with their matrimonial offers.
Chuckling, Rafe turned back to the broadsheet pasted on the outside of the newspaper office. A headline on the paper displayed outside the tent-office announced the discovery of “pound diggings,” or paydirt that yielded a pound of gold a day, at Devil’s Bar on the North Fork of the American River.
Hmmm. Maybe he’d head there. He could ask for directions once he got to the general store.
But, no, there was another, even more interesting article about hundreds of miners scurrying north, lured by rumors of a lake of gold. A lake of gold? Sounded good to him. Even better than the pound diggings.
“Rafe! Are you listening to me?”
He turned back to Helen, who stood with hands on hips, having succeeded in getting the grumbling miners to drift off. She tapped a foot impatiently, waiting for his response. His eyes shot to the front of her camouflage blouse, which she’d left unbuttoned over her T-shirt. He saw right off that her foot tapping had set her bare breasts to jiggling.
Helen was right. He was developing a one-track mind. He should be ashamed of himself.
Instead, he was enjoying himself immensely.
“What now?” He pretended to be still annoyed with her.
“I said that I just thought of something. Where are the harness and parachutes?”
“That’s what I tried to tell you earlier, Helen. Remember, way back before you started spouting off about tickling, I tried to tell you there was another reason why we had to head north. The parachutes and harness were on Pablo’s horse, and I found out last night, when you were taking a bath, that Pablo rode out of town. And he was traveling north.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me before?” Her face was red with chagrin. Between her continual anger, and her sunburn, she was starting to resemble a beet.
“Helen, Helen, Helen, remember how you attacked me the minute I entered our hotel room? I plum forgot.”
“You’re plum nuts. How could you have let him go?”
“Don’t start on me, Prissy.”
Her face fell. “Now what are we going to do?”
“Well, I guess we’ll have to go prospecting,” he offered, real quick. “The guy who was in line to take a bath last night told me that Pablo has a brother at Rich Bar. That’s one of the northernmost diggings.”
Frowning, she considered all that he’d told her.
“And check out this newspaper article about a lake of gold being discovered in that region. See, it’s fate. God must want us to become gold diggers.”
“A lake of gold? God? Fate?” she sputtered out. “I’ll show you fate.” She swung her arm in a wide arc, about to punch him in the stomach. Again.
He ducked aside with a laugh. “Really, Helen, you’ve got a vicious side to you.”
She clenched her fists at her sides and appeared to be counting to ten. When she was done, she tried a patient tone. “This is serious, Rafe. Whether we go digging for gold or not, we need those parachutes to get back to the future.”
“You’re right, Helen. Tell you what. We’ll go search for Pablo. But, once we recover the parachutes, you have to agree to go prospecting with me afterward, before we go home.”
Her eyes narrowed and she studied him suspiciously.
“Is it a deal?” he asked.
“For how long?”
“Probably only a few weeks.”
“Do you promise? On your honor? We’ll go back then?”
“I promise,” he swore.
She extended her arm and shook hands with him. “A deal.”
He held onto her hand when she was about to pull away. Pulling her closer, he whispered, “How about another deal? How about if, on our last night here in the past, you and I break in those three condoms?”
“Is that all you can think about?” She yanked her hand out of his grasp with disgust.
“Actually, yes.”