Gold Dust (45 page)

Gabe was nursing his fourth cup of coffee in the dining room of the hotel when he saw Katy march into the lobby. She stopped,
hands on hips, and looked around her. When she glanced into the dining room and saw him, her eyes widened, her mouth fell
open, and she stared. He would have smiled at the expression on her face, but smiling hurt too much.

“Omigod!” she said, and came toward his table, looking every bit like a little girl who’s been caught in a flagrant piece
of mischief, which, of course, she had. “Pa! Is it really you?”

“In the flesh.”

“What are you… oh, look at you!” She sat down across from him, her eyes on his face with its purple cheek and gash above the
brow. “What happened?” Her eyes grew round with horror as she answered her own question. “You’re the one who beat up Jonah!”

“Just who beat up who is a matter for debate,” he told her, wincing.

“How could you? What did you do to him? Where is he? You didn’t kill him, did you? If you did, I’ll… I’ll…”

Miffed by her instant swing of concern from him to Jonah, Gabe scowled. “He’s as alive as I am. Probably more so, since he’s
younger.”

“Where he is?”

“How should I know?”

Katy jumped up, but he reached out and grabbed her hand. “Sit down, young woman. We have a few things to talk about.”

“Later, Pa. I’m sorry, but I have to find Jonah. He—”

“Sit! Down!”

Her mouth clamped shut, and with a vintage Katy glare that Gabe was all too familiar with, she sat. “I can’t believe you took
after him, Pa. If you’re mad at me, that’s one thing, but you ought to be grateful to Jonah. He’s done nothing but try to
take care of me since we left Willow Bend.”

“Yeah. I’ll bet! What makes you think your Jonah didn’t jump me?”

“He wouldn’t do that! He never fights unless he absolutely has to. He’s the gentlest, most restrained man I’ve ever met!”

Gabe gingerly touched a scrape on his jaw. “He is, huh?” Katy’s attitude confirmed a father’s worst fear: his little girl
had learned to love another man. He’d suspected it the evening before while Jonah Armstrong and he had drowned their differences
in a bottle of good whiskey. The newspaperman had accused him of siring a daughter who was stubborn, spoiled, reckless, and
had a temper like nitroglycerin. The poor man had grown more frustrated and agitated with every fault he’d listed.

Gabe had merely agreed. He’d even expanded a bit on Jonah’s list of Katy’s irritating qualities and faults. People who love
her generally learn to put up with them, Gabe had told the younger man.

With a resigned nod Jonah agreed. She had a heart as soft as goose down, a spirit wild as the mountains, and courage to match,
he admitted. Those made up for a lot.

Had Jonah convinced her to marry him yet? Gabe had inquired as the newspaper man had stared morosely into his whiskey.

Jonah had merely groaned, and they’d spent the rest of the evening indulging in the manly pastime of complaining about the
irrationality of the female mind.

And here was the troublemaking female in the flesh. Feisty and defiant as ever. Wondering just how attached Katy was to Armstrong,
Gabe decided to push a bit.

He finished his coffee, set the cup down, and glared at his daughter across the table. “Do you know how much trouble you’ve
caused? Leaving without telling anyone—”

“I left a note!”

“Skipping off to the Klondike with some greenhorn yahoo who doesn’t know his tail from a toadstool.”

“Jonah’s not like that!”

“Some slick-talking, citified, soft-palmed dandy who figures to get himself a little company on the way to the gold fields
by sweet-talking some naive little country girl into going with him.”

“That’s not the way it was!”

“What kind of belly-crawling vermin would hire a young girl—?”

“I’m not a girl! I’m a woman!”

“—to guide him into a wilderness filled with all sorts of dangers?”

“He didn’t know I was a girl!”

Gabe lifted a brow. “Then he’s stupid as well.”

“He’s not stupid!” The more Katy defended Armstrong, the more apparent was her affection for the man. “He’d just never met
anyone like me before. He’s from Chicago,” she said, as if that excused just about anything.

“Chicago, eh?”

“Pa! You have no right barging in here and treating me like some runaway twelve-year-old and treating Jonah like he’s some
kidnapper holding me for ransom. I’m a grown woman, and if I worried you and Olivia, I’m sorry, but I’ve got my own life to
live, and I’ll live it as I please.”

“Katy—!”

“No! You listen, Pa. Jonah and I have a good claim that’s got a thick pay zone of gold. We’re going to be rich. And even if
we weren’t, we can make our own decisions and live our own lives without—”

“What’s this we?”

“Jonah and me! We filed the claim together. We’re working it together, and—”

“And what else are you doing together?”

“That’s our business!”

His Katy had finally grown up, Gabe acknowledged. He had begun to think it wouldn’t happen, that she would never outgrow the
hoydenish shell of her childhood and emerge as the unique woman he had always known she could be. Here she was, still shaky
and wet from her birthing into adulthood, but standing on her own two feet nevertheless. His only regret was that a stranger
had brought her to it, not him. Not her father. Yet, Jonah Armstrong wasn’t a stranger to Katy. He was obviously more to her
than a father ever could be.

Gabe could scarcely keep the smile from his face as he gave his daughter that final push from the nest. “You can forget that
fast-talking newspaper man, little girl, because you and he won’t be doing anything else together. I went easy on him in the
first round, but I’ve given him until three this afternoon to leave town if he wants to keep his skin in one piece. And he
won’t be going on the steamer, because you and I are going to be on that boat. You’re coming back to Montana, to the ranch.
We’ll return next summer to work your claim, and then you can do whatever you want with the gold. You can stay on with Olivia
and David and me, if you want, or even buy a place of your own and live alone. But if you want a man, find someone who knows
which end of the bull has horns.”

Katy expelled an indignant huff. “You haven’t listened to anything I’ve said! Don’t you touch Jonah, Pa. Don’t you dare touch
him!”

She grabbed her parka, stuffed her hat onto her head, and
marched indignantly out the door. Gabe shook his head and chuckled. “Katy girl, you’re wrong. I listened to everything you
said.”

Jonah was letting sleep soothe both his injuries and his hangover when Katy exploded into his hotel room, snatched his arm,
and tried to drag him out of bed.

“Get up, Jonah! Now! What are you doing sleeping when you’ve only got till three to get out of town? Up! Get up!”

“What… what the hell?” Jonah muttered.

“I just saw my father.” Unable to pull him off the bed, she joined him there, kneeling in the tangled sheets and blankets
to sorrowfully touch his injuries. “Oh, Jonah! I’m so sorry. Usually Pa isn’t this unreasonable.”

“Katy! Izzat you?”

“Of course it’s me. Look what he did to you! But he could do a lot worse. Dammit, he
will
do a lot worse if you don’t get up and get out of here.”

“Huh?” Katy’s words buzzed around Jonah’s aching head like so many persistent flies, and made just about as much sense.

She bounced off the bed and snatched his shirt from the peg on the wall.

“I just came from talking to Pa. I tried to tell him that you’re not the villain he thinks you are, but he’s got his back
up. Believe me, you don’t want to mess with Pa when his back is up. If he told you to get out of town by three, then you’d
better get of town.” She threw his trousers on the bed and rummaged in his pack for underwear. Socks and long johns flew into
the air and landed on the bed.

“Three?” he muttered, scratching his bare stomach.

“Jonah!” She plunked herself down on the bed again. “Don’t choose this moment to be stubborn and proud. I’ll go with you.
We’ll go to the claim. Pa will be angry when I don’t leave with him on the steamer, but I told him I’m a woman who can make
my own decisions. He’ll leave us alone.”

Jonah wondered whether the hint of doubt in her voice was for the fact that her father would leave them alone, or she was
a woman who could make her own decisions.

“Uh… I have until three to get out of town?” Jonah asked.

“Don’t tell me it slipped your mind.”

“No.” It had never been there to slip. The last he remembered, he and Gabriel O’Connell had spent the evening drinking and
complaining about the mysteries and complications of women—a subject that always serves to make men feel superior and comradely.
Tongue loosened by whiskey, Jonah had told Gabe the whole story of their adventures—well, not the whole story. The man was
Katy’s father, after all, and he threw a mean punch. He was also a smart son of a gun, and no doubt he’d filled in the parts
Jonah had left out.

“Come on, Jonah! What Pa did to you yesterday is nothing compared to what he’ll do if you don’t go! Please!” She laid a hand
on his bare chest, a gesture that did anything but make him want to leave the bed. “Let’s go.”

“I’d have thought you’d enjoy seeing me pounded into the ground,” Jonah said. “Aren’t you the same girl who threw nearly everything
in the cabin at me and then tossed me out on my poor buckshot-battered backside?”

Her eyelashes fluttered down over her eyes. “I was riled.”

“So I gathered.”

The little hand that lay on his chest doubled into a fist and pounded into his sternum. “I had a right!”

“Ooof! Keep pounding like that and there won’t be anything left for your father to mangle.”

“Then Andy rode up to the claim and told me someone was beating on you. I had to help!”

Bless Katy’s heart, wasn’t that just like a woman? He remembered Gabe telling him that his wife Olivia might never have married
him if she hadn’t felt obliged to rescue him from a pack of villains who were gunning for him. Suddenly he understood what
Gabe was doing—he hoped.

“I can’t run from your father, Katy.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Sooner or later a man has to stand up and fight for pride if nothing else.”

“Horseshit! Since when have you been so stupid?”

He grinned. “Maybe since I met you.”

She pulled on his shoulders, trying to get him off the bed. “You can’t fight my father! He’d pound you to a bloody pulp.”

“I did all right with him yesterday.”

“He was just playing around! Jonah, you’re strong and you’re fast, but Pa learned to fight on the docks in New York, and then
the Blackfeet taught him a few nasty tricks. He’ll wipe up the street with you. Please!” She ran her fingers lovingly down
his cheek. “I like your face just the way it is.”

He put his hands on her waist and drew her closer. “Do you?”

“I’ll marry you, Jonah. I’ll go anywhere with you. But promise me you won’t fight my father.”

“Would it be such a sacrifice to marry me?”

She willingly cuddled against him, fitting her body to his. “No. It’s not a sacrifice.”

“Does it bother you that I can’t fight as well as your father, or shoot, or ride, or punch cows? Hell, I don’t do any of those
things as well as you, much less your pa.”

“That doesn’t bother me. Jonah, I love you. You’re gentle, kind, smart, and you’re strong enough and brave enough not to have
to swagger around proving to everyone how strong and brave you are.”

“I’m that wonderful, am I?”

“Yes.”

He turned so that he could bring her closer on the narrow bed. Her hair tickled his lips and smelled of pine and the cold
mountain breeze. He wanted to make love to her right then, and spend the rest of the day at that activity as well, but there
was an issue that had to be taken care of first. He reached around Katy to his leather-bound journal that lay on the bedside
table. “I want you to read something. No, don’t move. I like you there. Just read.” He handed her the loose pages he’d taken
from the journal.

Her eyes scanned the pages rapidly at first, then slowed. She bit her lip. “When did you write this?”

“I’ve been writing it all along between Skaguay and here.”

“The imp of the Old West proves that beauty depends little on high fashion,” she read softly, “that femininity lies not in
decorum and graciousness, domestic skills, or style. True femininity resides in a courageous spirit and caring heart.”

“What you read in the cabin were a few smart-mouth comments I wrote on the train to Seattle.” He took the pages from her hand
and let them drop onto the floor. “I never sent any of this in to be published. It’s too close to my heart.”

“Oh,” she said in a chastened whisper.

“Katy, don’t you see that it doesn’t matter?” He rolled so that he loomed above her. In this case he wanted to dominate, he
wanted to bully the knowledge into her so forcefully that she would never forget it. “You
are
Pandora, Calamity Jane, and Buffalo Bill wrapped up in one package, and more besides. What’s so awful about that? If you can
love a smart-mouth tenderfoot who can’t set a rabbit snare or catch a fish with his bare hands, why can’t I love a boot-stomping,
wolf-hugging imp who will never write a homemaking column for
Godey ‘s Ladies ‘BookV

She looked up at him with jewel green eyes that sparkled from pooling tears. “I do love you, Jonah. I have for such a long
time.”

“And I love you.” He grinned wickedly. “You can try to get away from me all you want, Katydid. I’ll never let you go. No more
pushing me away.”

“I promise.”

He reached between them and unfastened the buttons of her trousers.

“What are you doing?”

“You have too many clothes on for the climax of this conversation.”

“Jonah! We don’t have time for this. We have to go over to Andy and Camilla’s place to get Hunter, then skedaddle up to the
claim before Pa gets wind of what we’re up to.”

“Ah, ah!” He grinned. “No pushing me away. Remember?”