LITMIR.BIZ

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time he had laughed this way—certainly not in the past four years. Nothing he could imagine was as funny as Charity Sinclair in ugly rubber waders being washed like a rag mop down the creek. If he hadn’t realized she was about to get into a deep, rocky section where she could actually get hurt, he might be laughing still.

      Instead, he sloshed into the stream just as she splashed by him, grabbed hold of the neck of her soggy sweatshirt, and hauled her out of the water. The sweatshirt molded to her breasts, which were even nicer than he had thought. There was a funny little panda on the front whose ears seemed to sag as she staggered to her feet, spitting and flinging water.

      He couldn’t help it. He started laughing again. “Nice work, hotshot.”

      She tried to stand up but the waders were so full of water, she floundered and toppled back into the creek. Call grabbed her again, hauled her up, and jerked down the suspenders, freeing her from the heavy, water-filled rubber pants. She shoved them down her legs and stepped out of the cumbersome gear, and he tossed them up on the bank.

      Dripping water and shivering with cold, she climbed out of the stream, wet clothes plastered to her body, which was, he saw, very nicely curved. Her hair was a soggy blond mess, her teeth were chattering, and as she sloshed by him, he couldn’t help feeling a little bit sorry for her.

      “You all right?” he asked.

      She swayed a little, steadied herself with a hand against his chest, then drew away, her expression a study in misery. “More or less.”

      He saw Maude Foote scurrying toward them, her wrinkled face lined with worry.

      “Get a blanket, Maude,” he said. “She’s more cold than anything.”

      Her legs were wobbly. He considered picking her up and carrying her up to the cabin, but figured she probably wouldn’t like it if he did. Instead, he slid an arm around her waist and she leaned into him, letting him guide her up the hill. He noticed she didn’t protest. Maude met them halfway and draped an old olive-drab army blanket around Charity’s trembling shoulders.

      “You’re not hurt, are ya?” Maude asked.

      She managed to muster a smile. “Just my pride.”

      “It’ll be easier once the weather warms up. Most folks don’t start dredgin’ quite this soon.”

      “I’ll get the hang of it,” Charity told her. By then they had reached the porch. Buck Johnson was already there and Call didn’t miss the smug expression on his face. Buck didn’t much like women, except, as he’d once put it, on their backs with their legs apart. Call had a sudden suspicion that Buck had somehow engineered the scene at the creek and was amazed to feel a shot of anger.

      “You must be freezing,” he said to Charity as her slender body trembled against him. “You’d better go in and get out of those wet clothes.”

      She nodded, looking utterly bedraggled. “Thanks for helping me down there.”

      “No problem.”

      “I guess I did look pretty funny.”

      His mouth edged up as he remembered the incident again. “Yeah, you did.” She gave him a watery smile. Her lips were pink and plump—so soft-looking, he thought, and his body began to stir.

      “If you hadn’t helped me get out, I probably would have floated all the way to Dawson City.”

      “Maybe not quite that far.”

      She started up the steps to the porch, sloshing water with every step.

      “Charity?” She turned to look at him, surprised at his use of her first name. “What is it? Why the hell are you up here?”

      Something shifted in her features. He caught a flash of uncertainty and something else he couldn’t name.

      “I don’t know. I just had to come. There didn’t seem to be any other choice.”

      It was an odd answer, one she seemed as puzzled by as he was. He watched her climb the stairs, noticed the way the wet jeans molded to her legs and bottom, and felt a jolt of lust he hadn’t felt in years.

      She’s trouble, he thought again. And after what he’d been through the last four years, trouble was the last thing he wanted.

      “I thought I was going to drown—in three feet of water.” Wrapped in her soft yellow bathrobe, Charity stood in front of the fireplace in the living room, rubbing her hair with a towel. “And he had to be there. God, it was so humiliating.”

      She was finally warm again, having just stepped out of a nice hot shower. Unfortunately, the plumbers had been less successful with the toilet. It still didn’t work, but they were scheduled to bring out a new one on Monday.

      Assuming, of course, the sun didn’t shine and they decided to go fishing instead.

      Maude chuckled. “Call ain’t really a bad sort. He’s got his own set of problems, just like you got yours.”

      “Actually, he was fairly decent today.” She tossed aside the towel, picked up the brush she had set on the arm of the sofa, and began to pull it through her hair. “I’d probably still be in the water if he hadn’t pulled me out when he did.”

      She could still remember the way he’d sloshed into the icy stream, as if he were immune to the freezing temperature or the creek was actually warm. He was amazingly strong and his chest was as hard as granite. She still remembered the tingle of awareness she had felt when he slid his arm around her waist.

      “At least I know what I did wrong. I should have gripped the pipe farther back, put more length in the water instead of bending over so far.”

      Maude frowned. “Buck should have told you that.”

      The brush stilled in her hand. “You don’t think he—”

      “No, not on purpose. Not that he wasn’t happy to see ya fail. Tomorrow you’ll do it right, show him just because you’re a woman don’t mean you can’t hold your own.”

      Charity turned. “That’s what you’d do, isn’t it, Maude?”

      She laughed. “Honey, that’s what I been doin’ all my life.”

      It was late in the afternoon two days later that Charity saw Call again. From the start of this endeavor, her plan had been to take Saturdays and Sundays off. She had come to see this rugged country and as excited as she was with the prospect of actually finding gold, she also wanted to enjoy herself.

      Friday had been a good day. As she and Maude had planned, she had pulled on her ugly waders and gone back into the stream, and this time her turn with the suction pipe had gone off without a hitch. Buck had glared at her, but eventually he would get used to the idea that they would be working on this project together.

      By the end of the day she was tired but satisfied with her progress and really looking forward to having Saturday and Sunday off.

      When morning finally arrived, she slept in late, then built herself a fire and sat down in front of it to read one of the new adventure novels she had received as a member of the Glenbrook Action Readers’ Club. She had already made the address change to her post office box in town for the four action series books a month she got through her subscription.

      The day was overcast and rainy, usual weather for this time of year, but not so cold she couldn’t sit for a while out on the porch. Call’s big husky-wolf, Smoke, surprised her with a visit and she fed him some ham bone scraps from the beans and biscuits Maude had cooked for supper the night before. Afterward, she climbed a little way up the hill to get the best reception possible on her cell phone.

      She called her dad, as she did once a week, and told him she was well and getting settled in. She asked about Patience and her dad said she was dating a lawyer, but he didn’t think it was all that serious. The conversation ended a little while later. Long distance calls were expensive up here and her dad had remarried several

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