Page 50 of The Gold Rush Bride

Barnaby walked toward her, stopping less than a foot away. “You’ll do no such thing. It’s too dangerous.”

She didn’t back up but stiffened her spine. She took her fisted hands and held her arms straight at her sides. “I came by myself and I can get home by myself.”

Barnaby gritted his teeth and hissed out a breath. “You will be the death of me.”

“Then come with me.” She hated to beg for anything, but how could they have a life together if he didn’t come and she wasn’t having her baby in some dirty backwater mining town. “We have enough to start a new life...together. Where do you want to live? What do you want to do? We’ve got enough money to do it. You want a ranch, right? We can do that. Or just a house somewhere. We can do any of that. Why can’t you see...it’s enough?”

“Your father understood. I lost my wife and son chasing after this.” He bent and picked up a good-sized nugget off the ground. “Now, I’ve found it. I can say losing them wasn’t in vain.”

She understood now. She would never be enough. Their children would never stand up against the baby he lost. “I’m glad to know where I stand...where my child stands.” She turned and walked into the tent.

If she left now, she would make Dawson City by mid-afternoon. She pulled out her pack and filled it with clothes. That was all she would take. She’d get money when she hit town and she still had fifty dollars left from the cash she’d brought with her. She was entitled to half of what was in the bank. Perhaps not legally, but he’d said they would split it evenly and he’d set the account up in both their names. She’d take her half, have most of it wired to her bank in St. Louis. She still had an account there. Maybe she knew she’d be returning, just not alone.

* * *

Barnaby gritted his teeth.His stomach turned somersaults because he knew he couldn’t do or say anything that would make Sadie stay. The only thing he could do was let her go. He walked over to Sam’s camp.

“Sam, can you escort Sadie to Dawson City? She’s not having anything to do with me right now and is, in fact, refusing to talk to me. I have some gold to pay you for your trouble.” He held out two nuggets the size of chicken’s eggs.

Seth’s eyes widened. “I thought when I heard the blasts from your claim this morning that you must have hit something. But I didn’t expect this.” He took the nuggets. “I’ll see her safe to Dawson City and into the first group heading back.”

“Thank you. She can be very stubborn, and I don’t really blame her. Winter’s coming and it’s best if she isn’t here, though I can’t tell her that now.”

Sam waved a hand and frowned. “Why not? Is it better to leave things left unsaid when the words could heal the wounds that are bound to fester?”

Barnaby paused and considered his friend’s words. “You’re a smart man. Tell me again why you haven’t taken a wife?”

Seth shrugged. “Maybe when I go back to civilization, I’ll think about searching for a wife.”

“I’m trusting you to take care of mine.”

“Consider it done.”

Seth went into his tent, got his coat and stuffed some clothes in an old flour sack before returning to Barnaby.

“Where is she?”

“She already took off on the horse. She said I could carry the gold on my back since it was so important to me.”

“Did you hit the big one?” Seth’s eyes widened.

Barnaby saw excitement twinkle in them. “We hit a small vein. The dynamite looks to have uncovered the rest of it we haven’t dug up yet. I’ll be here collecting the nuggets on the ground and then doing a bit of digging to make sure we got all of it.”

“Then you’ll go after her?”

He looked in the direction she took, sadness almost overwhelming him. “Yeah, I’ll go after her.”

Seth clasped a hand on Barnaby’s upper arm. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

Barnaby looked away. “Tell her what?”

Seth grabbed him by his shirt and turned him back. “Look at me. This is Seth you’re talking to. I’ve known you too long. You don’t get to play dumb with me. You didn’t tell her you love her. She might have stayed if you had.”

“If she loved me, she would have stayed.” His throat felt clogged, and he swallowed over a lump the size of one of those nuggets he’d just given Sam.

“Why? She wasn’t getting anything from you in return. Why should she have stayed? And why are you sending me after her when you could go yourself?”

“I can’t go. There’s a lot of gold here to be collected. It could take me a week or more. She couldn’t stay even that long.”