Gold Rush Bride. Debra Brown Lee

propped open between the two rooms, and a thin sliver of moonlight played across the rough-hewn floorboards.

      Wait! There it was again. A kind of scraping sound. She narrowed her eyes and listened, but all she heard were the crickets outside. Still, if she did have rats, she’d best take care of them now. They could clean out an entire month’s worth of grain in one night if you let them go unchecked.

      She swiveled quietly out of bed and touched a toe to the floor. Lord, it was cold as ice! She groped in the dark for the chair on which she’d draped her dress and shawl but couldn’t find it. And if she lit the lamp she’d scare the vermin back into hiding.

      Something creaked from the next room, and Kate froze in place. All the hairs on her nape prickled. She held her breath and listened harder. If it was a rat, it was an awfully big one.

      As quietly as she could, she slipped a hand between the bed’s straw mattress and ropes. Her fist closed over the cool steel of the percussion cap pepperbox that had been her father’s pistol since she was just a sprite. Vickery had given it to her along with a single-barrel flintlock rifle and what few other valuables her father had in his possession when he died.

      When she’d left Ireland she hadn’t known a pistol from a dead bolt, but six months at sea with a shipload of strangers, some of them military men, had taught her much. She’d cleaned and loaded the small, six-barrel pistol last night, just in case, never imagining she’d have to use it so soon. Brandishing it in front of her, she inched on tiptoe toward the open door.

      She’d be all right as long as she didn’t trip over anything. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the dark. But the cold! She shivered almost uncontrollably. Her feet were like ice, and the thin wool of her shift provided little protection against the chill air.

      Well, if it were rats she’d feel awfully stupid. Sliding up beside the open door, Kate peeked slowly into the moonlit store. All was quiet. She could swear that something, or someone, was in there. Or had been a moment ago.

      She scanned the floor and countertop, and the half-empty shelves for scurrying rodents. Nothing. Perhaps she’d been mistaken, after all. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d dreamed of vermin or insects creeping up on her. The Dublin tenement had been full of them.

      Her nose wrinkled as she caught a whiff of kerosene. How strange. She’d filled the lanterns that afternoon but could swear she’d sealed the fuel tin. She stepped into the store, squinting toward the corner where her father had housed his tinned goods.

      Two distinctly human footfalls sounded to her left. Without a second thought Kate whirled, leveled the pistol at the sound and fired. The blast shattered the silence.

      A second later the intruder was on her. A scream rose up in her throat as he wrestled her to the floor, fighting for possession of the gun. His knees dug into her spread thighs and pinned her to the splintery floor.

      “Let me go, you bleedin’ bastard!” The pistol jammed as she tried to fire again. No other choice left to her, she hit him with it—a sideways swipe in the dark that grazed his head.

      “Son of a bitch!”

      That voice! She could swear it belonged to—

      He grabbed her wrist and squeezed so tight tears came to her eyes. She dropped the pistol, and in one quick move he pinioned both her arms above her head.

      “Sweet Jesus!”

      “Wrong. Guess again.”

      His face was inches from hers. She could barely make out his features in the milky light but felt his breath hot on her face, and the tease of soft fur against her bare arms.

      “Crockett!”

      “Good guess. Give the lady a gold star.”

      “Of all the—” She struggled beneath him, but was no match for his size and strength.

      Crockett jerked her arms higher, forcing her back to arch and her breasts to press upward into his chest. His body radiated heat like the pig-iron furnaces in Clancy Street back home.

      “Are you done, now?” He relaxed his grip on her, and she yanked her wrists free.

      “Done with what? And get off me!”

      He rolled off her, and she scrambled to her feet.

      “Done trying to kill me. There’s a law against that kind of thing, you know. A wife kills her husband—well, that’s a hanging offense here in Tinderbox.”

      “Husband, indeed!” She dashed to the lantern sitting on the countertop and lit it as Crockett got to his feet. An open window explained the cold, and how he’d gotten in. She swung it closed and latched it tight. “What the devil are you doing here?”

      The soft lantern light played across his even features and reflected back at her from those black eyes. “I could ask you the same thing. You’re supposed to be at Vickery’s.”

      “Oh, aye, and let ruffians break into my store in the night and steal me blind, I suppose?” She stepped toward him with the intent of chewing him out. Just who did he think he was, letting himself in and—

      His gaze raked over her shift-clad form, and for the barest moment she read something in his eyes that made her heart stop. In a flash, she retrieved her shawl from the other room and pulled it tight around her body.

      She could swear he was grinning somewhere under that stony expression of his. She took in his muddied boots and garments and his wild hair, which looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb since he left Tinderbox.

      “Shouldn’t you be on the riverboat?”

      His eyes grew cold again. “Any man in his right mind would be. But I’m not, am I?”

      “But your ship, the steamer north…I thought that you—”

      “There’s another one in a month. And that one I’ll be on, come hell or high water. Bet on it.”

      “A month!”

      He was supposed to sail now, this week, and be gone forever. That had been their bargain. That’s what he’d said, what everyone had been telling her for days. She wouldn’t have married him at all had he meant to stay on.

      “What, exactly, do you intend to do for the next month?”

      He moved toward her, his gaze pinned on hers. The tiniest spark of fear balled inside her. She backed toward the door leading to the street. “Su-surely you don’t think to…”

      A dozen random thoughts raced through her mind. She realized that she knew nothing about him, only what little Mei Li and Mr. Vickery had told her. He could be anyone—a criminal, a murderer or…

      He reached for her and her breath seized up in her chest.

      “Stand aside.”

      “W-what?”

      His dark eyes narrowed, and she realized he wasn’t looking at her, but past her at the door. She breathed again and scooted sideways out of his light.

      “Looks like there’s plenty to do around here for a month.”

      “What do you mean?” Her gaze followed his and when she saw what he’d been eyeing she gasped. “Someone’s tried to jimmy the door!”

      Crockett fiddled with the loose latch. “You haven’t seen Leon Packett around here, have you? Or his brother, Jed?”

      Landerfelt’s men. The ones Will and Matt had thrashed the day before. Well, almost two days now. It was well past midnight. “No, I haven’t seen them. Why?”

      Crockett shook his head. “Damned stupid.” The self-deprecating edge in his voice surprised her.

      Then she noticed the blood. “You’re hurt.” Without thinking, she reached out and touched her finger to his temple.

      “Yeah. Thanks.” He brushed her hand away. “Lucky your