第 11 页

It was abandoned. Somebody had built this cabin, lovingly, with his own hands, and then for some reason he had left. Why? Had he died? Had his family?

The photograph gave no answers.

Uneasy with her discovery, she turned her attention to the second picture. It was a portrait of a well-dressed old woman sitting stiff-backed in her favorite chair. She looked like a queen.

But again something was wrong. Devon's eyes narrowed' with concentration. What was amiss?

It came to her suddenly. The old woman was alone; she'd jj always been alone. There was no wedding ring on her skeletal, dark-veined finger, no pictures of children on the intricately flocked wall behind her. There wasn't even a faithful dog at her side. Had she been alone always? Had she wanted it that way?

Good-old-spinster-aunt Devon. The thought flashed; through Devon's mind with lightning speed, bringing with it a stab of pain so acute she almost cried out. The photograph slipped through her shaking fingers and fluttered to the table. This woman, the look in her eyes...It's me. It's my future. "Are ye all right, lass? Ye look a wee bit pale all of a sudden."

She barely heard the words. Of their own accord her fingers crept back to the photograph, gliding gently over the woman's gaunt features. She could feel the old lady's pain, She clenched her jaw, refusing to give in to tears.

Most of the time Devon accepted her loneliness, refusing to acknowledge the hollowness in her soul. She would always be separate, isolated; she knew that. It was a choice she'd made long ago, on the day of her mother's death.

And yet sometimes, like now, the need to hold a child of her own swelled, slicing through her shell of self-control like a dagger.

The photograph brought it all back to her, made her ache for all the comforts she'd never have. A husband's soft kiss,! a child's toothless grin, a hand to hold hers through the cold, waning years of her life.

She swallowed, tasting the thickness of unshed tears in her throat. Just like the woman in the picture, she was alone and lonely.

"Lass?"

She heard the father's query through the fog of her own thoughts. Snapping herself back to the present, she snatched up the picture and slammed it facedown on the table. "I'm fine, Father.

Truly," she answered quickly; perhaps too quickly, for she couldn't quite still the quiver in her throaty voice. "Why did you show me these?"

"Stone Man took them."

"My God, I wouldn't have thought him capable of such... depth."

"There's more to Stone Man than meets the eye. He's angry all the time-mad as the dickens, really. But I think it's because he feels things deeper than most folks, and because he's afraid."

She looked at him askance. "Afraid? Stone Man?"

He nodded solemnly. "Aye, he's afraid to need anyone. Such a feelin' makes for a lonely existence. And," he looked at her intently, "for what it's worth, I'd trust him with me life."

She stared at the photograph of the cabin, trying desperately to catch a glimpse of the man behind the camera. It was the most powerful image she'd ever seen and so unlike the man she'd lived with for a week. It didn't make sense. How could the soul of an artist and a poet be housed in the body of an antisocial, foulmouthed Neanderthal?

"Why? Why is he so mad at... everyone?"

"God's truth, I don't know." He sank back into his seat. Taking a sip of coffee, he continued.

"There's talk, just talk, mind ye, of a woman in his past. A bad woman. And there's speculation on somethin' darker, but I don't know what it is."

"He wouldn't like me knowing this."

The old man shook his head. "He doesn't talk to anyone except Bear, and I don't suppose they talk about feelings. Men come to the Yukon to get away from talkin', and Stone Man more than most."

"Yes," she said softly, "he does value silence."

The priest's head gave one birdlike little twitch, as if it were trying, futilely, to upright itself.

When he spoke his squeaky voice was strangely subdued. "Wouldn't ye value silence if ye were afraid of gettin' to know folks?"

She thought about that for a moment. "Yes... maybe I would."

He set down his cup with an audible clink and slowly maneuvered himself to a stand. "Well, lass," he said, adjusting the collar of his coat, "I'd best be gettin' along. There's souls aplenty to be savin' in this land."

Impulsively she took his hand. "Thank you, Father. I'll make it work with Stone Man. I will."

A bright smile lit the old man's face. "Aye, I was hopin' ye'd say that. Ye got spirit, lass. It takes a special woman to get to the Yukon." He squeezed her hand. "And an even more special one to stay. God be with ye."

About an hour after the priest left, Devon was ready to begin her quest. She closed the tent door behind her and took a deep breath of the fresh late-summer air. Her lungs filled with the sweet, soft scent that blew along the Yukon River. Strangely, it smelled like spring back home, though the first colorings of fall were already tinting the trees.

Adjusting her khaki-colored felt hat, she lowered the fine white veil across her eyes. The bright landscape muted. Her gloved hands closed tighter around her lard tin's metal handle; the thin wire bit into her palms. With her other hand, she lifted her skirt and headed for the hills.

The lichen-covered ground bounced beneath her feet like a bed of springs. Her footsteps evaporated almost immediately. Though the land was frozen solid no more than twelve inches below the surface, it seemed determined to have a life all its own.

Halfway to her destination, she stopped, setting down her bucket and letting her gaze wander. The hill was a wash of brilliant colors: scarlet, gold, green. Firewood in full pink-red bloom swept across the landscape like the stroke of an artist's brush. And the aroma! She breathed in deeply, savoring the jumbled floral scent.

Even the ground was a palette that looked more like spring than late summer. Tiny spots of color dotted the greenish-gold lichen moss. Pink, red, blue, yellow-all the colors of the rainbow danced in die soft breeze, scenting the air.

How could she ever have thought it ugly? Or desolate?

When she reached the low-lying shrubs that hemmed the hillside, thrill set her heart thumping.

She found what she was looking for.

After seven days in the Yukon and nearly two months en route, the panorama spread out in front of her made her knees weak. She licked her lips in anticipation. Fresh blueberries!

She grinned. Stone Man didn't have a chance.

Smack! "Darn it!" Devon murdered another one of the little beggars with her hand. Her cheek stung from the impact, and she was certain there were finger imprints on her skin. The Yukon mosquitoes were bigger than buggies. She couldn't hear anything over the drone of their maneuvers.

She gritted her teeth. Why in the blazes had she picked the prettiest netted hat instead of the biggest? The darn gauze was more an invitation than a deterrent. In fact she was certain that a few of the flying combatants were engaged in a rousing game of storm the veil.

Smack! She slapped herself. Hard.

She couldn't take much more. She was getting light-headed from lack of blood. The mosquitoes were taking at least a quart a minute.

She glanced down at her bucket. It was seven-eighths full. Then she looked at the apron she'd also filled.

Good enough. Stone Man hadn't said how much she had to increase business-or for how long.

There weren't more than twenty-five men in the whole valley. How much jam could they eat?

Besides, she thought grimly, working the post wasn't worth dying for.

Peeling off her berry-stained white gloves, she carefully knotted the four corners of her apron together and stuck her arm through the gap. Then, picking up her bucket, she headed home.

As she wandered she found herself thinking about the photographs Father Michaels had shown her, about the man who'd taken them. Such moving, aching pictures...

Her step slowed. The wind shifted, fluttering through her hair with a soft hiss, and her thoughts drifted with it.

Suddenly she was thinking about the kiss. Their kiss. The one they'd shared that first night together. The memory slipped into her mind, and strangely she had no desire to keep it at bay. It was something she'd wanted to think about for days.

Not that it had been a kiss; not really. But still, when his lips had moved against hers, when his tongue had crept into her mouth, she'd felt something strange and new. A tingling that had spread through her body like a trickle of melting snow. For the first time in her life she'd felt... feminine. When his strong arms had closed around her body- She considered smacking her face again. Good God, what was next? Thinking the man desired her? It had been an assault, no more. He'd simply used his lips instead of his hands. He hadn't wanted her body; he'd wanted her absence.

It was the mosquitoes, she decided. They'd drained her brain of blood. No matter what Father Michaels said, and no matter how good a photographer her partner was, Stone Man was not the type of man a woman could befriend. Not a woman like her, anyway. His female friends, if he had any (which she seriously doubted), would certainly have names like Blaze or Busty.

Still...

Forget the photographs. They were the problem. Their images had created the one thing Devon's rational mind couldn't ignore: a puzzle.

Her partner-big, silent, sour Stone Man-had become a puzzle. Never, not once in her whole life, had Devon Margaret O'Shea been able to walk away from an unsolved puzzle. It was like living in a messy house. Things just weren't right.

She gave up trying to ignore the nagging questions that plagued her mind. There was no way on God's green earth she'd get a decent night's sleep until she'd solved the riddle.

But how? Tightening her grip on the handle, she picked up her pace.

There was only one way. She had to get past Stone Man's gruff facade. Somehow she had to glimpse the man behind the icy mask, the man who'd taken those photographs.

Chapter Eight

Stone Man snapped open his pocket watch. He took one look at the time and immediately tensed.

Seven o'clock. Just one more hour, he thought sullenly. One more hour of glorious silence before he had to shut up shop and head for home.

"Home." The word came out of his mouth in a disgusted sigh.

He had no home anymore. He had a tent that belonged in one of those damned ladies' books- flowers everywhere, tablecloths, clean sheets. The only thing missing was curtains, and they were only absent because there were no windows. He winced. Yet. He wouldn't put it past little miss perfect to cut a hole in the canvas wall. In fact, he could hear her now. There just had to be a window over the table. The sunlight in the morning is so pretty...

Thank God it'd all be over in two days.

He couldn't wait. In just two days she'd come barreling in the store with her inedible foodstuffs.

And he'd get to throw her out on her ear.

He grinned. In the past two days he'd spent hours fantasizing about the meeting, about the look on her face when he actually said the words "You lose." The two sweetest-sounding words he'd ever heard.

Little miss perfect would probably burst into tears or faint dead away.

God, he couldn't wait.

* * *

Thick spirals of steam pelted Devon's face, tugging at the tight wisps of hair around her face. A few reddish strands popped free from their moorings and curled wildly across her sweaty brow.

Wrapping a towel around the pot's handle, she lifted the heavy iron pan off the stove and set it on the table. She backhanded the moisture from her brow and let out a long, tired sigh. This was the last batch for today. Leaning forward, she peered into the pot.

"Perfect," she said aloud, wiping another big trickle of sweat from her temple. The blueberry-sugar mixture was a deep blackish blue. Careful not to burn herself, she poured the berries into clean lightning jars then poured moose tallow on top as a sealant and screwed the lids tight. When she was finished, she quickly counted today's jars. Thirty-two. With yesterday's work, that made a total of fifty-seven jars of jam. And she still had two days left.

Working quickly, she cleaned up her cooking mess, boxed up her jams, and shoved them under the bed, where they couldn't be seen. Flipping open the nickel face of her pocket watch, she checked the time. Seven forty-five.

He'd be home in fifteen minutes. Sighing wearily, she sank onto the bed, letting her feet dangle lazily over the side. She couldn't cook dinner. Not tonight. She was just too darn tired...

She flopped backward, sinking deep into the mattress she'd restuffed yesterday. The soft, earthy scent of newly gathered lichen moss surrounded her. She stared at the grayed, sagging ceiling, letting her tense muscles relax.

Her mind drifted... right into Stone Man's photographs. She squeezed her eyes shut. Why couldn't she forget those darn pictures? Every time she paused lately she found the mysterious photographs hovering at the edges of her thoughts.

She couldn't reconcile the pictures with the man who'd taken them, and it was driving her crazy.

So much disorder. So many pieces out of place.

She'd done a lot of thinking about him over the past two days, and she'd only reached one rather obvious conclusion. There was more to Stone Man than met the eye. Somewhere under all that hair and filth lurked a very special soul. A soul capable of feeling the cabin's loneliness and glimpsing the old woman's pain.

The thought softened her. Maybe Father Michaels was right; maybe Stone Man was simply afraid of needing someone. Maybe he was lonely, and maybe-just maybe-he needed a friend.

Her heart did a funny little flip at the thought. If he were lonely, then he needed her, for only a friend could ease the ache of loneliness.

A quicksilver dash of hope shot through her mind. All her life she'd been a caretaker, an organizer of other people's problems. It was a role she felt comfortable in, and without the sense of helping others she felt vaguely lost and adrift.

She glanced around the spotless cabin, remembering the filth that had coated the place the day she'd first walked in. She remembered the bugs, the dust, the dirt, the dried food.