Lover in the Rough (22 page)

“I’ll bet he gave up on the Queen in 1908, when the Empress Dowager of China died and the market for pink tourmaline collapsed,” said Chance calmly, as though the moment of his rage had never occurred. “Christ, how he must have hated this mine.”

“Who?”

“The man who lit a match and blew the Queen’s entrance to hell and gone.”

Neither of them said anything more until Chance stopped once again in front of the part of the tunnel wall that had fascinated him before. He took off his gloves and ran his fingertips delicately over the wall just above the shoring. Reba waited quietly, too numb to question what he was doing. The thought of sunlight so close almost overwhelmed her control, so she didn’t think about sunlight anymore, concentrating instead on Chance.

“I’m going to try something,” he said finally, stepping back from the wall. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll eat and then decide whether to tackle the old entrance or the new cave-in.” He slipped off the rucksack and shotgun, and laid them to one side. He propped the shovel against the wall, keeping the pick. Then he looked at her and smiled. “Another kiss for luck?” he asked, reaching for her.

Reba went into Chance’s arms in a silent rush, hungry for his warmth, for the safety that she always felt when he held her. With an inarticulate sound she clung to him, felt him curl around her body, enveloping her in his strength. She tasted the salt of his sweat and the sweetness of his mouth, felt herself tasted in turn, caressed with a gentleness and hunger that made her never want to leave his arms.

“If the luck is half as fine as the kiss,” said Chance in a deep voice, holding Reba so tightly she couldn’t breathe, “we’re as good as out of here.” His arms loosened. “Stand about three meters up the tunnel,” he said, pointing her back toward the shattered granite. “If the shoring goes, I don’t want you to get dirt in your boots,” he added, smiling grimly.

Reba walked five steps, turned, and watched. To her surprise, Chance ignored the closely spaced upright beams in favor of the beams that had been piled behind in a solid wall. He squared off to the side of the upright beams, brought the pick up and buried its point in one of the beams that had been laid on its side behind the upright rank. Though old, the wood was surprisingly strong. Instead of splitting or crumbling as Reba had expected, the beam remained intact.

Chance yanked hard on the pick handle, trying to move the beam rather than remove the pick. The thick piece of wood shuddered, shedding dirt as it jerked forward a fraction of an inch. He yanked again. The beam shifted slightly. His muscles bunched beneath black flannel, straining the cloth. As he yanked on the pick handle again, his shirt split down the back. The beam leaped forward a few inches. He shifted his grip on the pick handle and pulled hard again and again, dragging the heavy beam out of its decades-old resting place.

There were seven more beams, each one as thick and heavy as the one before. Once, when one of the beams he had removed threatened to roll back underfoot, Reba darted forward and tried to push the beam out of the way. She could barely shift the wood an inch. Six feet long, eight inches thick and as heavy as stone.

In the end, the best she could do was brace a rock against the beam to keep it from sliding back under Chance’s feet. He didn’t notice. He was locked in battle with the stubborn shoring, his breath rasping in the stillness of the tunnel, his eyes like hammered silver in the occasional flash of her helmet light. Beneath the long tear in his shirt, muscles coiled and slid and gleamed like oiled metal.

Reba stood and stared, forgetting about time, forgetting about fear, forgetting everything but Chance. She couldn’t look away from him, fascinated by his elemental power and endurance.

As Chance went to work on the last of the lateral beams, the tunnel wall crumbled. He leaped sideways, sweeping Reba back with him. Together they watched dirt seethe around the upright beams, burying them for half their height.

“Chance,” she said hoarsely, feeling the heat and sweat of his body against hers, “all your work.”

He touched her lightly with his lips. “It saved me a lot of digging.”

Chance went back to the half-destroyed shoring. His light picked out the gap left when earth had flowed out and through the closely spaced upright beams.

“Turn off your light,” he said.

Reba clicked off her light without asking why. Deliberately Chance shut off his helmet light. Darkness—seamless and absolute. He turned on his light again and attacked the wall with the pick. In the reflected light, his face was grim. She watched and said nothing. She didn’t turn on her light.

Dirt and rock tumbled forward. Chance brought the pick back again, sank its point into the wall as though it were the first stroke of the day rather than the thousandth. Sweat gleamed and ran down his body. That and his deep breaths were the only signs of how hard he was working. The rhythm and power of his strokes never varied.

The pick sank through dirt and rock into wood. The wood shattered. Blue-white light poured into the tunnel.

“What is it?” asked Reba, coming to stand beside him.

“Daylight,” said Chance simply, laughter and triumph rippling beneath the calm word.

She stared in disbelief. “But it’s so
blue
.”

“It always looks blue after you’ve been down in a mine with artificial light.” He held his hand between the upright beams, letting sunlight pool in his glove. “The most beautiful color on earth, as rich as life itself.” He laughed softly and began removing his tool belt. “Think you can squeeze between these beams,
chaton?
”

Reba turned toward him, hardly daring to believe they were truly free of the China Queen’s dark embrace. The silvery green of Chance’s eyes convinced her. They were only that color in sunlight, when he was laughing.

She threw her tool belt between two upright beams, turned sideways and slid between the splintery wood. Chance tossed tools through, picked two beams that were a few inches farther apart than the others, and forced himself between them. Reba was waiting a few feet away, standing just inside the entrance to the China Queen, her arms raised, sunlight pouring in a soundless cataract over her. As she heard Chance’s footsteps, she turned toward him. Her face was rapt, her smile more beautiful than the radiance surrounding her.

“It’s incredible,” she breathed, “like being in the center of an immense blue-white diamond. Everything perfect, vivid, alive.” She swept off her helmet and shook out her hair, laughing, her arms held out to him as though he were the sun.
“Alive!”

Chance lifted Reba high in his arms, spinning her around, laughing with her. He looked into her eyes, cinnamon brilliance in the sunlight, her lips as pink as Pala tourmaline. She was laughing, disheveled, scratched and streaked with dirt . . . the most beautiful thing he had ever brought out of the dark earth. He bent and kissed her with endless hunger, drinking her life and beauty, feeling her melt and dissolve in his arms, sinking through his flesh into his very bones.

“Marry me,” he said, his voice almost harsh, his lips pleading and demanding at the same time. “Marry me,
chaton
.”

Reba looked up, her eyes dazed, her lips trembling with the passion that Chance radiated as surely as the sun radiated light. Tiger God, burning in her arms.

“Yes,” she said, because she couldn’t say no. Not to him. She could refuse him nothing, least of all herself. “I don’t think I could live without you.”

Chance looked at her for a long moment, his eyes ablaze. Then he kissed her with a reverence that made tears stand brilliantly in her eyelashes. She felt exquisitely fragile, unbelievably beautiful, wholly consumed and protected at the same time. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him, but she could not. There were no words except the ones she had promised not to say.

And did the words really matter that much? Facing death together had collapsed ordinary time into dust and then blown the dust away, leaving behind only those things that were solid and enduring. She knew that Chance was courageous, ruthless, gentle, disciplined, harsh, passionate, powerful, dangerous and would risk his life to protect her. He had found and released the woman inside her, the wildness that only he could summon. He wanted her as she had never before been wanted. She wanted him in the same way.

She loved him, with or without the words.

“Come with me, my woman,” Chance said, smiling very gently, brushing her lips with his own. He set Reba on her feet, gathered up the loose equipment and stacked it beyond the dark arch of the China Queen’s entrance, keeping only the shotgun. “I’m going to show you what gougers do when they bring something precious and beautiful out of the earth.”

Reba smiled up at him. “ ‘Whither thou goest,’ ” she said, her voice as warm as her smile.

Chance took off his gloves and hers, held out his hand, and led Reba into the sunlight beyond the China Queen.

The early afternoon was hot and bright, filled with the desert wind that poured invisibly through mountain passes to the east, foretaste of the summer heat to come. Chance led Reba around the shoulder of the ridge to a shallow crease slanting down a rugged hillside. The ravine was deeper than it looked. Within moments they were concealed inside it. Chaparral grew to the height of small trees, casting delicate, shifting patterns of darkness and light beneath fragrant branches.

“This is the only tricky part,” said Chance, leaping down a steep ledge of crumbling granite. He turned and held his arms out to Reba, lifting her down to more secure footing with a strength that still surprised her each time she felt it.

The ravine widened, becoming a gently slanting natural bowl before it narrowed once more and plunged wildly down into the deep, rugged canyon below. The bowl was quite small, hardly larger than her living room. A spring sparkled among boulders, becoming a tiny stream that threaded through the bowl in a series of curves worn out of solid stone. Between the edges of the stream and the steep sides of the ravine, grass trembled, heavy with sunlight and seeds.

“It’s beautiful,” sighed Reba. “How did you ever find it?”

“I smelled it.”

She looked up at him in disbelief.

“This is a dry land,” said Chance, smiling at her. “The scent of grass and water are like red flags marking a trail. That’s how I found our hilltop. The water there is underground, though. Little more than a seep.” He laughed at her amazement. “I’ve spent a lot of time in deserts, remember?” He kissed the tip of her nose and gently pushed her until she sat in the lush grass. “Rest here while I bring some things from camp.” His fingers searched through her hair for the unique warmth of her scalp. “I’ll be right back,” he murmured, reluctant to leave her for even a moment.

Reba watched Chance vanish into the shaded ravine. She closed her eyes and leaned back, bracing herself on her hands, her face turned to the sun. She waited for him without impatience, feeling sunlight and heat seep into her body, letting the last of anxiety and darkness slide away.

After a few moments she realized how tired and dirty she was. The thought of a bath became almost irresistibly attractive. But the nearest bathtub was hours away. With a sigh, she put away the seductive thought of water cool and sweet on her skin, water washing away the residue of hard work and fear that clung to her. She listened to wind and the tiny stream flowing, sounds blending into serenity and peace.

Reba sensed Chance’s return before she heard him. When she felt his fingers unbuttoning her shirt, she opened her eyes and smiled lazily. He was kneeling next to her, naked to the waist, his powerful muscles sliding smoothly beneath tanned skin.

“Is this what gougers do after a hard day?” she asked, laughter and desire making her voice throaty.

“It’s an old and hallowed tradition,” he assured her, smiling.

“What do you call it?”

“Washing off the find.”

She laughed silently, watching his eyes as he unbuttoned the orange-and-russet shirt he had given to her.

“It’s true,” Chance said. “The first thing any gouger does is clean off whatever he’s found. If it’s opal,” he added smoothly, “most gougers just lick off the dirt to see what’s beneath.”

Reba’s breath stopped.

“In fact,” he continued with a slow smile, “it’s said that you can tell a gouger by his tongue.”

“You’re making this up,” she said, divided between laughter and desire.

Chance smiled down at her, his eyes brilliant. His hands peeled away her grubby flannel shirt. “Every word is true,” he murmured, unhooking her bra, “as true as you are beautiful.” He bent and touched the pink tip of her breast with his moist tongue. “And you’re very beautiful,” he said in a husky voice. “As pink as the best of Pala’s riches.”

His sable moustache brushed over her breast, making her breath stop again. His teeth closed delicately over her nipple. He drew her into the heat and pressure of his mouth, caressing her until she shivered and called his name. Reluctantly he lifted his head.

“I promised myself I would wait,” he said, his voice almost rough. “I keep my promises. Always.” His hand cupped her breast gently, then slid down to unfasten her jeans.

“What promise?” she said, her voice a bit ragged.

“That I would wash every bit of that she bitch Queen off us before I came to you again.” Chance’s voice was hard, his eyes the silver-green of spring shimmering beneath a potent sun. “We’ve been given a second life,
chaton
. We should be baptized before we begin it together.”

He took off the rest of her clothes and his own before he led her to the lowest of the pools. Water brimmed and rippled over stone at the far end, making a tiny waterfall no taller than Chance and barely as wide as Reba’s hand. She shivered at the first cool shock of water on her skin, then surrendered to the taste and feel of liquid flowing over her, Chance’s hard and gentle hands touching every bit of her, washing her, leaving her as clean and strong as her love for him.

“My turn,” she said, smiling up at him and holding out her hand for the soap he had brought from camp.

He gave her the soap and stepped beneath the tiny cascade. Water shivered over him in flashes of silver brilliance. She washed his hair first, then his face, lingering over the sensual textures of his lips and moustache. The muscles of his neck fascinated her fingertips, twisting and rippling beneath her touch, flowing into shoulders and arms powerful enough to dig her out of a deadly black trap and bring her into the pouring sunlight beyond.