The Bride of Willow Creek(81)

“Maybe I see your side better than I did before.” She hesitated. “Maybe we’re both to blame. The point is, nothing has changed.”

That wasn’t true. Everything had changed the night they held each other in bed. Angie’s world had forever altered. She couldn’t look at Sam the way she had before, and couldn’t look at herself the same way either. And to her dismay, Peter’s face and features became more shadowy with every passing day.

But it was her world that had changed. She saw no evidence that Sam’s world had altered.

“I won’t throw away my future because a few letters scratch your pride.”

She wanted Sam to tell her there was more than pride at stake. She wanted to hear that his world had changed, too. But he said nothing. In the silence Angie heard crickets strumming and the faint sounds of revelry drifting from town. A dog barked in the distance, and a nearby neighbor played a sad tune on a harmonica.

Sam stood. “You write to anyone you damned well want to.” He strode past her down the steps and started toward his tent. “It doesn’t matter to me what you do.”

“Good. Because I’m going to keep writing to Peter.”

The problem was, she wished Sam did care.

Tilting her head, she gazed up at the moon, blinking through a haze of tears. Everything had seemed so straightforward the day she arrived in Willow Creek. She’d known what she believed and what she wanted.

Now she didn’t.





Chapter 15

Throughout the next ten days Sam left the house immediately after breakfast and didn’t return from Gold Hill until sunset. That gave him an hour to enjoy his daughters’ company before he tucked them into bed. During his time with his girls, Angie either went into her bedroom and shut the door, or she sat by the lamp at the kitchen table, sewing or writing letters. Ignoring him.

He didn’t speak more than was necessary. If he’d sold a few bags of high grade, he put the money next to the sink before he headed back to town to have supper at one of the saloons. After he’d bypassed the pot on the stove for two nights in a row, Angie stopped leaving him anything. If she had asked, he would have told her there would be more money next week. This week he’d kept back a large percentage to buy lumber to shore up the drift he was digging. But she didn’t ask.

He was behaving badly. And he knew it, damn it.

Everything Angie had said was correct. They were married, yes, but they weren’t husband and wife. He had no right to tell her who she could write to and who she couldn’t. And he had no right to place obstacles in the path to her future.

By now he also knew that she had wisely disobeyed him about buying material for the girls’ new dresses. He’d been angry about that, too, until he counted the money in the jars and realized that accommodating his pride meant doing without something else. Now she was cutting up more of her dresses to make Lucy and Daisy new school clothes for the fall.

Angie was holding up her end of the bargain, keeping his house, paying his bills, saving him money, caring for his children. And she was getting damned little in return.

Stepping back, Sam lowered his hammer and squinted at the braces he’d built to shore up the drift. His drift was discouragingly shallow, only about ten feet back from the main shaft. The digging progressed slowly when there was only one man working the pick and shovel, and then hauling the dirt up and out of the main shaft.

But he knew his mine was rich. He knew it like he knew the sky was blue, like he knew the dimples beside Angie’s mouth. This was a fact.

This time the vein wouldn’t peter out a few feet from his main shaft. This time the quality of the ore wouldn’t deteriorate. The L&D mine would be one of the richest digs on Gold Hill. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind.

The only real question was how long he would keep digging, hoping to find a vug where he could pick gold off the walls and ceiling like picking golden apples from a money tree. If he found a vug, he’d never have to worry about money again.

Daisy would get her operation. Angie would get her divorce.

Sam thought for a minute, then he locked his hammer in the toolbox, climbed out of the shaft, and headed toward town.

“I don’t like that. I hate green,” Lucy said, dismissing the pieces Angie was carefully cutting from a skirt she had taken apart. “I won’t wear it.”

Angie put down the scissors and straightened up from the table. It was hot today and her back ached from bending over for so long. This morning the last of the ice had melted in the icebox and a puddle of water had leaked across the kitchen floor. She’d noticed a tear in her favorite apron. And Lucy’s attitude had steadily worsened since school let out for the summer.