The Bride of Willow Creek(45)
“Good.” He dangled the beer bottle between his fingers. “The front yard’s going to weeds.”
“Look,” she said sharply, twisting on the step to face him again. “There have been a lot of adjustments to make. I can’t do everything at once. I’ll get to the front yard when I can.”
“Damn it, Angie, I wasn’t criticizing. I know it hasn’t been easy stepping into a family and a life you’re not used to.” He hesitated then added, “And you’re doing a good job.”
Her angry retort died in a glow of surprise. This was the first compliment he’d offered since her arrival, and it made her speechless. As with Daisy’s blessing, the depth of her gratitude was embarrassing and annoying.
“Thank you,” she said finally. Then she straightened her shoulders and told him about her conversation with his daughters and Lucy’s death-rattle performance.
Sam laughed, a deep rumbling sound that made Angie smile to hear it. “That girl should be an actress.”
Her smile faded to concern. “Do you think it’s natural for young children to be so interested in such matters?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “Weren’t you when you were their age?”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I don’t remember. But I know they’re thinking about Laura, and I’m afraid I’ll say the wrong thing.”
“Maybe they aren’t. Two miners died in a cave-in a few days ago. It’s a safe bet the girls heard about the deaths at school.”
“I’m certain they were thinking about Laura.”
“It’s hard to lose a mother at their age,” Sam said after a moment, his voice soft in the darkness. “When they ask me questions, I try to answer honestly. I don’t paint a halo on their mother; I don’t want them to make a saint out of her. But I don’t want them to forget her either.”
In Angie’s mind, saint, halo, and Laura were not words that went together. She tasted the cold beer and tried to will the tension out of her shoulders. Being with Sam made everything inside tighten into a state of waiting. Waiting for what she couldn’t have said because she didn’t know. Waiting for the next argument? The next sharp difference of opinion? The next touch? The next kiss?
Not the next kiss, she told herself firmly. There would be no more kissing. Neither of them wanted that.
“Is it a good sign that you hit a small jackpot?” she asked at length. “Does that mean you’ll hit a big jackpot?”
When he shrugged, the scent of earth and soap stirred around him. She became aware of the warmth of his knee near her shoulder, and she edged away. Never in her life had she been so constantly or so acutely aware of a man. Sometimes at the end of the day, she felt exhausted from thinking about Sam Holland. Wondering. Speculating. About things that shouldn’t have been in her mind in the first place.
“Finding a pocket of high-grade might mean nothing at all,” he explained. “That’s the frustrating part. Or it could mean I’m close.” After finishing his beer, he set the bottle on the step. “The syndicates are snapping up claims right and left, but they aren’t interested unless the ore is a sure thing with long-term prospects and assays out at five hundred dollars a ton or more.”
“I don’t know anything about mining,” Angie said with a frown, trying to follow what he was saying. “What do the syndicates have to do with anything?”
“If I found a jackpot, I’d sell it to a development syndicate.”
That shocked her. “Wouldn’t you be giving up your riches? Why wouldn’t you keep your mine?”
“It takes a fortune to develop a working mine. The sylvanite—that’s the ore—isn’t lying around on the surface. You have to go deep. That means shafts with access elevators. That means a crew of hard-rock miners. Then you have to buy lumber to shore up the stopes. And pumps and coal to run them to keep water out of the mine. And expensive equipment. Then you have to pay transport to the mill and pay mill fees to extract the ore. An ordinary man like me can’t afford the development costs.”
She’d had no idea. “What kind of price would a development syndicate pay?”
“It depends. Al Jordan got over a hundred thousand for his Nobby Hill claim. But Al was down two hundred feet and had dug several drifts. The ore he brought up was top grade. Clink Williams, on the other hand, sold his claim for six hundred dollars. All he had was a dry pit and a pocket that had the assayer shouting eureka. Highest-grade ore anyone’s seen in a year.”