Tainted Gold (7 page)

“You just couldn’t stand it, could you?” she taunted, her voice trembling. “You just had to go down there.”

“Relax, will you?” he said, his smile smooth and confident. “I’ve been exploring caves since I was seventeen. That makes me an eighteen-year vet, Quillen. I know what I’m doing.”

“That isn’t a cave, Tucker!” she shrilled at him. “It’s a mine that’s already killed two men! Are you trying to make it three?”

“Quillen, listen—”

“No,
you
listen!” She jabbed her index finger at him. “That God-cursed hole in the ground belongs to me and I’m the one who’ll be held responsible if you get hurt or—or worse,” she faltered, unable to say the word
killed.
“I won’t have that on my conscience, Tucker. Now for the last time, stay out of it!”

“Okay, okay,” he soothed, holding his hands out to her as he came slowly toward her. “I’ll stay out of it, I swear.” He made a three-fingered pledge sign and smiled. “Scout’s honor.”

“You’d better,” she said coldly.

“I gave you my word, Quillen,” he retorted sharply, then smiled again. “So where do you want to have dinner tonight?”

“Separately,” she snapped as she swept her cloak around her and flounced away down the hillside.

Part of her felt hurt and disappointed that he didn’t follow her, but the rest of her frankly didn’t care if she never saw him again. Swiftly she exited the deserted festival grounds and made it as far as her Blazer before the tremor in her voice seeped into her body. Her fingers shook so badly that she could hardly open her pouch, and she bit back tears as she fought her keys to unlock and open the door.

Damn him, anyway! Tearing off her cloak, she flung it into the truck. Her elbows slid onto the soft, tan leather seat, and she buried her face in her hands. Why had he gone down there?
Why?

Lights danced inside her head, lanterns, flashlights, red winking emergency lights mounted on police cars and an ambulance. Ropes and rubber hoses scraped against stones and the gurgling
chug-chug
of kerosene compressors pumping oxygen into the shattered, rock-choked shaft echoed in her ears as she began to cry.

“Oh, Daddy,
why
,” she sobbed, crumpling against the seat and cradling her head in the crook of her left arm.

She cried until her sleeve was soaked and she had no more tears. Slowly then she raised her head, plucked a corner of her cloak off the passenger seat and dabbed it against her wet cheeks.

“That’s
it
,” she resolved out loud, her voice warbling unsteadily as she clenched her fist around the cloak. “I don’t care how much it costs—I’ll sell Grandma’s house if I have to—but that damn, cursed hole is going to be filled in and no one—
no one—
is ever going down there again!”

Two warm, strong hands settled gently on her shoulders, and her whole body tensed. “Forgive me, Quillen,” Tucker said softly. “I didn’t think.”

Tears filled her eyes again, but she blinked them away furiously and stretched away from him to dig through the clutter on the console between the seats for the small box of tissues she kept there,
somewhere.
“Oh, hell,” she swore irritably to cover her embarrassment at being caught in such a vulnerable situation. “I cry once a year whether I need to or not, and then I never have any damn Kleenex!”

“Here.” He dangled a red bandanna over her shoulder, and she snatched it away from him. “Let me drive you home.”

“I’m all
right
,
Tucker.” She wiped her face again and wished she could blow her nose. “You just”—her voice cracked—“you just scared the h-hell out of me.”

Cupping his hands around her arms, he turned her toward him and drew her closer. Quillen tried to resist, tried to hide her wet, streaked face in the dusty front of his shirt, but he raised her chin with one hand and then swept both his arms around her shoulders. Tears dribbled past her squeezed-shut eyelashes and she clung to him, trembling, her arms curled under and over his.

“Pl-please,” she begged, her voice breaking on a sob, “don’t
ever
go down there again.”

“I won’t,” he shushed her, his hands rubbing up and down her back and molding her to him. “I won’t.”

The slow rhythm of his palms soothed and relaxed her. Then, slowly, as warmth and friction built between them, Quillen felt the ragged catch in his breath as his mouth brushed her right ear. His left hand cradled her head while his right arm pressed the small of her back and arched her body against his.

So smooth he’s slick, she heard Cal say inside her head, but ignored his voice as she raised her head from Tucker’s shoulder. She knew he’d lied to her, she knew he’d go down in the mine again, but she kissed him anyway, parting her lips to meet his and lifting her arms from his shoulders to his neck.

“Quill…Quillen.” He breathed deeply as he reluctantly broke the kiss and caught her wrists in his hands as he backed away from her. “I ought to scare the hell out of you more often.”

Curving his hand around her cheek, he smiled, deepening the cleft in his chin, as his thumb traced her tingling lips. Abashed, and frightened again by the intensity of her feeling for this man she scarcely knew, Quillen squirmed her hand out of his and pressed herself against the door-frame of the truck.

A brief frown wrinkled his forehead, then he smiled. “Arrogant and brazen, right?” He held his palms up to her in a stick-’em-up gesture. “Look, no hands—I promise.”

“Tucker, I’m sorry,” she apologized, looking away from him to hide her confusion and embarrassment. “I’m really not a neurotic mess. I’m usually a very down-to-earth—”

“—very lovely, very desirable woman,” he finished gently, “who’s being pressured from all sides right now—I understand that—and I know I’m part of it.” With the barest touch of the tip of his middle finger against the curve of her jaw, he turned her face toward him. “Until you’re ready for us to be lovers, Quillen, I want to be your friend.”

“Now
that
”—she laughed shakily—“is an arrogant, brazen assumption.”

“Oh, yeah?” He grazed his finger along her jaw.

Steeling herself against the warm, lush shivers flooding her body, Quillen lightly slapped his wrist and managed to keep her voice even. “No hands, you promised.”

“Okay, okay.” He tucked his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “You won’t let me drive you, but I’m following you home. It’s my fault that you’re upset, and I feel bad about it. Besides”—he grinned—“I’m hoping you’ll ask me to stay for dinner.”

“We’ll see,” she hedged, and retreated into the Blazer. “And if you can keep up you can follow.”

“All
right
.” He
clapped his hands. “I love a challenge.”

Quillen watched him trot away from the truck as she started the engine. “Somehow,” she said, sighing, “I knew that.”

Since high-speed chases were not high on her list of fun things to do, she made no attempt to lose or outrun the Jeep
.
Its dust-coated tan hood pulled in behind the Blazer as it bounced in four-wheel drive along the rutted lane leading to the access road. Once they’d reached the two-lane blacktop highway, Quillen switched the transmission to two-wheel and headed toward town with Tucker following a safe four carlengths behind. Occasionally she looked back at the jeep in the side mirror and wondered why she couldn’t stay mad at this man.

As she swung the Blazer around the corner onto her block, she glanced in her rearview mirror and pointed Tucker at the curb as she signaled a right turn into her driveway. She switched off the engine and started across the pavement. Tucker, a khaki-strapped, navy canvas duffel looped over his left shoulder, came trotting up the drive and met her at the corner of the house.

“I said dinner,
maybe
,” she reminded him, and raised one eyebrow at his bag.

“Do you want to eat with this?” he asked, pointing at his dirt-encrusted clothes. “Could I please shower and change?”

“How convenient that you keep an overnight case packed,” she answered tartly, but smiled. “Is your toothbrush in there, too?”

“And my teddy bear,” he told her blithely.

Laughing, they climbed the steps to the front porch and Quillen unlocked the door. Inside, the hall was warm after the evening chill and smelled of the paste wax she used to polish the mahogany drum table which sat against the stair wall. The painted china hurricane lamp centered on one of Grandma Elliot’s doilies was lit and cast a funnel-shaped column of light against the oak panels.

Draping his arm on her shoulder, Tucker waited beside her as she slid her key into the lock. Faintly from upstairs, Quillen heard a click and muffled footfalls, and glanced up the green carpeted flight toward the second-floor landing.

“Miss McCain, is that you?” a small voice piped. “May I come down?”

“Yes, Mrs. Sipp.”

Smiling, Quillen looked over her shoulder at Tucker, then back to the stairs as her favorite tenant appeared on the landing.

“I’m so sorry to bother you,” Mrs. Sipp trilled as she came down the steps, her tiny feet swathed in fluffy pink slippers that matched the flowers in her dress and the lace tatted around her collar. “But the oddest thing happened this afternoon.” She stopped on the bottom stair. As her eyes locked on Tucker, she patted her frothy white hair, then withdrew an envelope from her dress pocket. “Mr. Phillips moved out, lock, stock and barrel.”

“You’re kidding,” Quillen said stupidly as she reached out to take the envelope.

“Oh,
no
,” Mrs. Sipp assured her breathlessly as she fussed with her collar. “I wouldn’t kid, Miss McCain.”

“No, I know that,” Quillen replied as she tore open the flap and withdrew a note tucked inside with a check for the next month’s rent: “Sorry for the short notice. Hope enclosed will cover all inconvenience. M.J. Phillips.”

Baffled, she looked up at Mrs. Sipp’s mesmerized, wide-eyed expression, then quickly over her shoulder at Tucker. He stood directly behind her, smiling, his hands clasped in front of him.

“Oh, pardon me. Rosalie Sipp, this is Tucker Ferris. Tucker—”

“Hello, Mrs. Sipp.” He reached past Quillen and offered his hand. “I’m the new tenant.”

“Oh,” she fluttered, her fingers barely touching his. “How
nice
.”

Quillen gave him a since-when? glance, then turned again toward Mrs. Sipp. “Did Mr. Phillips say anything?”

“No, Miss McCain, not a word.” She pursed her shell pink lips and shook her head. “But I must say, he certainly seemed agitated.”

“I think I’ll drop by the bank tomorrow. Mr. Phillips is head teller,” she explained to Tucker over her shoulder as she took Mrs. Sipp’s elbow and guided her up the stairs. “This is really odd.”

“I wouldn’t do that, Quillen,” Tucker put in quickly as he hit the bottom stair behind her.

“Why not?” she asked. “He’s a very nice man and this worries me.”

“That’s exactly why I wouldn’t,” Tucker continued, moving to Mrs. Sipp’s left side and taking her arm. “It must be pretty personal or he would have said something, don’t you think?”

“Oh, I agree with Mr. Ferris, Miss McCain,” Mrs. Sipp chimed in, her voice sounding giddy. “You wouldn’t want to
pry
!”

“Well, no, but—”

“I’m ready, willing, and eager to move in—you haven’t lost anything,” Tucker said as they rounded the landing.

At Mrs. Sipp’s second-floor front apartment, they stopped and waited while she let herself in. With the door half-closed, she waggled her fingers at Tucker.

“If you need a cup of sugar or, oh, just
anything
,
Mr. Ferris, I’m right across the hall.” She closed the door gently, and Quillen could have sworn she heard her swoon on the other side.

“Is she
real
?” Tucker whispered.

“Don’t let the spun glass exterior fool you,” Quillen whispered back as they crossed the hall and she unlocked Mr. Phillips’s vacant apartment. “That’s one tough old lady. She’s known around town as the Iron Marshmallow. She watches this place like a broody hen when I’m not here.”

As Quillen opened the door, Tucker stepped past her into the spacious, beige-carpeted living room. He nosed around the galley kitchen while she checked the bath and the bedroom. They crossed paths there, then met again in the living room.

“This doesn’t look like a pick-up-and-move.” Quillen frowned. “The place is spotless.”

“I’ll take it.” Tucker swung his duffel bag to the floor.
“What’s the rent? My checkbook’s in the Jeep.”

“Well, let’s see, the security deposit is—” Her sentence died in her throat and a shiver iced up her back.

Tucker cocked his head at her. “What’s the matter?”

“Oh, I was just remembering Realgar’s prediction.” She laughed, rubbing the gooseflesh beneath her sleeves.

“I told you he’s hardly ever wrong.” He tucked his hands in his back pockets and smiled.

“So you did.” She rubbed her arms harder and hurried toward the door. “Let’s talk downstairs while I—”

“Can I shower up here?”

With one hand on the knob, she turned and looked back at him. He still stood in the middle of the room, smiling. A very satisfied-looking smile, she thought. “Sure, that’s fine. See you soon.”

Pulling the door shut behind her, Quillen raced down the steps. It’s coincidence, that’s all, she told herself as she closed her apartment door behind her and escaped to the bathroom for a shampoo and shower.