for a wife with a fortune. The thought turned his stomach. He would be his own man, despite the risks. Her latest telegram had reached him in Seattle, begging him to reconsider. He’d written that he was pressing on. He’d earn his fortune and return to have his pick of the New York debutants. He’d have his old life back or return like a whipped dog.
He looked up to find her staring at him.
She shook her head in dismay. “Go on in and strip out of those things. Take a blanket off my bed and heat the coffee. It’s in the pot. You do know how to rake coals and start a fire?”
“Of course.”
She made a harrumphing sound as if she did not believe it. It occurred to him suddenly that he might not be her ideal partner, either, though he could not see her objection. She turned the dog cart and stopped. “Leave the flap open or your crates will likely walk away on you. You have a pistol?”
“Not on me.”
“I find they do more good when they are carried in plain sight.” She patted the handle of her Colt. “You’re not at Yale now, college boy. There are thieves everywhere here.”
With that she set the cart in motion, as he wondered if she were among the thieves. Was this even her tent?
“Princeton, actually.”
She shrugged and continued on.
He shouted after her. “And how do you know I went to college?”
She called back without stopping. “Only an educated man would be fool enough to carry a crate of books to the Yukon. Might make good tinder, I suppose.”
He looked at the broken crate, lid askew. On top lay his copy of The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, edited by Jean Paul Richter. The woman acted as if it were a box of dumbbells or some other useless fodder.
Eventually his shivering forced him into retreat, but he kept the tent flap up. The woman was shrewd with the kind of knowledge that did not come from a classroom, he’d give her that.
The inside of her tent was much more spartan than he had anticipated. In his experience, women shared a pack rat’s propensity for dragging home bits of glitter and fluff. Lily Delacy Shanahan’s tent looked as if it belonged to a new cadet. Her bed was made with sharp corners. Her wood supply was ample and well away from the stove. She had a small, neat kitchen area all set up, including the coffeepot. He sloshed the contents and found it still half-full. Jack stoked the coals and added kindling, sighing in relief as the flames lapped around the slender branches. She had one crate beside the bed and a sack, sewn from a piece of canvas, hanging from a tent post. He shrugged at the oddness of her private quarters. His shivering made it difficult to unbutton his sodden coat. Jack’s trembling fingers looked ghostly white from lack of blood as he wrestled with his sweater and flannel shirt. Then he peeled out of his union suit, bringing it down to his waist. Only when he was holding his soaked garments did he notice the clothesline stretched tight over the stove. He added organized to her list of attributes as he threw his things over the line and then held his hands out to the stove. It was no good. The shaking was worse and his skin was as puckered-up as a plucked chicken’s. A glance at his nail beds startled him. The blue tinge had him doing as she had instructed, removing the red Hudson’s Bay blanket from her bed and wrapping it over his shoulders. The coarse wool grazed his damp skin as her scent reached him and he paused to inhale—cinnamon. The shivering brought him close to the stove. He set the coffeepot on the top and then jumped up and down until his numb feet began to tingle.
A few minutes later the coffeepot steamed and he poured himself a hot mug. He inhaled the aroma and hummed in pleasure.
“Take off your boots!” Lily harped from the street.
Jack nearly dropped his coffee. He glanced down at the ground and saw it was hard-packed earth, making her request totally illogical.
“You can’t track dirt onto dirt,” he said, thinking that reasoning with a woman was as productive as explaining physics to a cocker spaniel.
“Your feet are wet. You have to warm them or you’ll get frostbite.”
She was correct again, though he wouldn’t say so aloud. She knelt before