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A knock rattled the narrow stateroom door. "Miss O'Shea? Miss O'Shea? I'm here for your bags."

Her perfectly coiffed head snapped up. Oh my God. This was it. The moment her new life began.

She forced herself to remain steady. It wouldn't do for a twenty-nine-year-old woman to go rushing about like a schoolgirl. She had an impression to make. The people she'd meet in the next moments would be her neighbors, her customers, perhaps even her friends.

Rising stiffly, she smoothed her shirtwaist's crisp white front and shook the wrinkles from her pin-striped serge traveling skirt. Her hands ran a quick check of the rust-colored hair that lay coiled at the base of her neck.

Glancing around the tiny cabin that had been her home for forty-four days, she smiled. Not a thing was out of place. Her two trunks were stacked in the corner, their brass corners perfectly matched, their bright metal locks aligned. Her leather gladstone valise shone like a general's boot, and her most prized possession, a bright red bicycle, gleamed. Everything was exactly as she liked it, orderly and spotless.

"Come in," she said. Her voice was low and throaty with just a touch of harshness, like the contented purr of an old tomcat. Its whispery sensuality contrasted sharply with the chiseled, almost austere lines of her face.

The narrow door popped open, and a young man scurried through. Offering a quick, perfunctory smile, he headed for the trunks. Halfway there he stopped dead. It was a full minute before he turned around, and when he did his eyes were as big as quarters. "A durn bi-cycle," he said, shaking his head. Pride brightened Devon's moss-green eyes. "Isn't it grand?

It's a Royal Worcester Two-Speed Changeable-Geared Ra-cycle-just like Miss Lillian Russell rides. My sister and her husband gave it to me as a going-away gift."

A hard swallow set the boy's Adam's apple to bobbing. "You're wantin' it to go, then?"

A small frown tugged at her perfectly arched eyebrows. "Of course."

"But-"

She cut him off with a wave of her pale, freckled hand. Picking up a book from her berth, she patted its leather spine. "Have you, perchance, read Mr. John McMoffat's Guide for Alaska and Yukon Gold Seekers?" "Nope."

"I thought not. The Guide recommends bicycles for travel in the Yukon. As you know," she said smartly, "not many horses make it this far north."

The boy's lips quivered. "McMoffat, huh? Fella must live a fur piece away. Yer sis and her husband, they really buyed it fer ya, fer this trip?"

"They did, and I would take it as a personal favor if you'd stop grinning like that. The Guide makes the point that-"

"Thanks, ma'am!" He hefted the bright and shining bicycle onto his narrow shoulders, snatched up her valise, and bolted out of the cabin.

Odd young man, she thought as she moved over to her makeshift crate vanity and sat down. A sharp glance in the hand mirror assured her that she looked as good as a fairly plain, almost middle-aged woman could look. Her freckled skin was clean, and her hair, normally a pile of corkscrew curls the color of old rust, was well-contained.

Pinning her hat just so atop her sternly backswept hair, she plucked up her handbag, gloves, and umbrella. With a quick tilt of the chin, she sailed out of the cabin.

Outside rain fell hard and fast, pinging on the metal overhang above her head and running over the edge in a sheet of undulating silver.

She stood close to the ship's curved metal wall, her Cur-acoa kid walking boots pressed ankle to ankle and well out of harm's way. Her gloved hands, trembling ever so slightly, were curled tight around the chain handle of her handbag.

The sternwheeler edged toward the ribbon of brownish-gray muck that banked the Yukon River and began to slow.

She frowned. Why were they slowing down? This swampy wasteland couldn't be her destination.

She'd expected a town like Circle City; a town with opera houses, dance halls, libraries, lights. A boom town.

She peered through the gloom. There was nothing out there; nothing except a single half-finished log cabin that sat like a skeletal king amidst a shoddy court of grayed canvas tents.

Tents! She shivered, pressing a hand to her breast as she stared at the six tents dotting the boggy pasture. What were they for? Certainly no man could survive a Yukon winter with so little to protect him from the elements?

"Devon O'Shea!"

Her name boomed across the decks, startling her.

"Devon O'Shea, report to the bow."

Clutching her handbag tighter, she popped open her umbrella and moved cautiously down the slick metal stairs. Her high heels clicked atop the wet, puckered metal as she hurried across the deck. "I'm Miss O'Shea," she said to the burly crewman handling the sternwheeler's bow line.

He cocked his head in her direction, looked her over- thoroughly-and then turned his attention back to the wrist-thick rope in his hands.

Nervously Devon tightened her grip on the umbrella. "Sir," she said to his broad back, "I am Miss O'Shea. Is there a problem?"

He turned to face her. Swiping the rain out of his bloodshot eyes, he shook his head. "If you're Devon O'Shea, and heaven help Stone Man if you are, there's no problem. You're gettin' off."

"Not here, I'm not."

Shoving his red wool cap high on his head, the crewman scratched his sweaty brow. "You told the cap'n you was gettin' off at MacKenna's post. Right?"

Her mouth went dry. It was all she could do to nod.

"Stone Man's place is here."

She fought to remain calm. "Who?"

"Stone Man-that's what folks around here call ole Cornelius. Anyway, his post is here."

"Here?" she managed to gasp. "Mr. MacKenna's post is here?" "Yeah. Here."

She looked around. Gray, desolate swampland stared back at her, silent and lifeless. She pressed her small, gloved hand flat against her roiling stomach. For one terrifying moment she thought she was going to be sick.

"You want to sit down, miss? You don't look so good."

Fighting panic, she clamped her mouth shut. She had to think...

"Miss? You want to sit down?"

"No," she ground out. "I don't want to sit down. I want to know how much a return ticket to St.

Michael costs."

He shrugged. "I dunno. 'Bout a hundred bucks."

She winced. It might as well be a thousand... "Okay, I can't go there... Then I'll go back to Circle City. Please inform the captain."

"The boat don't go that way again till spring. Come on, lady," he said, "you're getting off here."

She didn't know how long she'd stood on the ragged square of once-red canvas that served as the town's dock, or how long she'd stared, dry-eyed, at the sternwheeler that was now a dot in the distance. She knew only that she was stuck in this godforsaken swamp, bound here by poverty and the vow she'd given Mr. Cornelius MacKenna.

Wrenching her gaze away from the sternwheeler, she re-squared her sagging shoulders. There was no use wishing things were different. Crying over spilled milk didn't put it back in the bottle.

She slapped a smile on her face and reached down for her valise. Halfway there she froze, her eyes rounding with horror. Her open umbrella slid through her fingers, landing on the rain-slicked canvas with a quiet thunk.

The muddy ground was swallowing her bicycle! Instinctively she lurched forward, dropping to her knees nd scrambling to the canvas's rippled edge. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the wind pick up her umbrella and carry it off. It spiraled end-over-end like a dancing black bubble and landed in the brown river. With a silent curse she curled her fingers around the icy steel of the bike's handlebars and yanked hard.

The mud fought back. Rain hammered her face, pooling and clogging in her eyes and running in cold streaks down her cheeks. She licked the wet rivulets from her lips and swiped them from her eyes.

Sucking in a big breath, she pulled with all her strength. "Come... on." The words came out in two bursts of chattering teeth.

The bicycle popped free. She hauled it onto the canvas and lay it on its side, pushing slowly to her feet.

Panting, shaking with cold, she peeled the mud-blackened gloves from her hands and crammed them into her handbag. Staring at her treasured racycle, its bright red frame mottled with clumps and streaks of mud, she felt tears threaten.

She squeezed her eyes shut. No. She had to remain calm. Crying wouldn't help. Besides, it was only mud.

What was mud to a Two-Speed, Changeable-Geared Racycle? A little water and the bicycle would be as good as new. One had to keep things in perspective.

Slowly she opened her eyes. Adventures, she thought grimly, were messy businesses.

Tilting her chin upward, she took her first step toward Mr. MacKenna's trading post.

It was the second step that nearly killed her. She plungi into the mud like a falling boulder. The black goo tonguedi her knees, curling cold and syruplike around her legs. Bits and chunks of it splattered up to her face, mingling with the rain and sliding down her wet cheeks in torrents.

She knotted her fists, fighting the urge to scream in frustration. Gritting her teeth, she plodded through the thigh-deep mud. Her skirts were a deadweight that fought her eve: step.

After what seemed hours, she stopped. Heaving for breath,! wiping the persistent rain from her eyes, she tried to focus. Something loomed in front of her. She blinked hard.

Slowly the blur cleared, and she could see a string of two-inch-by-twelve-inch planks stretched out before her.

"A boardwalk." The word came out in a soft, thankful sigh. She surged forward, stumbling blindly toward the nearest plank. Her foot came down hard on the board's edge, driving it deep in the soggy mud. Beneath her foot the wood shifted and shot forward. With a strangled cry she fell backward, landing flat on her back in the mud.

"Darn it!" she screamed, beating her ice-cold fists in the mud. She wanted to kick the stuffing out of something, anything, she wanted to-No.

She had to relax, to get control. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she tried counting. "One... two... three..."

She staggered to her feet. Slinging an arm around the nearest post, she held herself upright. Eyes closed, she tried to regain her breath.

Something cold and wet smacked her in the head. She looked up. Hanging above her were the dirtiest, ugliest, biggest pair of denim pants she'd ever seen. Scrawled across the seat were the words: MACKENNA'S POST.

It couldn 't be. Devon's every hope for the future vanished. She eyed the half-finished log cabin at the end of the muddy street, and disappointment settled rock-hard in the pit of her stomach. Her post could at least have been in the cabin.

Reluctantly she brought her gaze back to the filthy, grayed canvas structure in front of her. MacKenna's Post. Her post. The store she'd come halfway across the country and then some to run was housed in a dilapidated tent. A tent. "Perfect," she said with a groan. "Just perfect."

Shoving through the flaps, she marched inside. Dead center she stopped, her eyes scanning the sorry tent in a heartbeat. About the size of an average dining room, it had sagging gray canvas walls, a mishmash of haphazard shelving, a tiny metal stove, and a filthy wood-plank floor.

Against the far wall a mountainous slab of humanity sat hunched behind the most lopsided, disorganized counter she'd ever seen. The thick, sharp odor of unwashed bodies and old food engulfed her. Her fragile control slipped a notch. This... this pigsty was the post she had intended to transform into a fashionable store.

"Mr. MacKenna?" she said stiffly, moving toward the disgustingly unkempt counter-and the even more disgustingly unkempt man behind it.

His head came up slowly. "Yeah?"

She moved in for a closer look at her new partner. Her eyes narrowed with immediate disapproval. He was a grim," angry-looking old man-what she could see of him, anyway.

A wide-brimmed miner's hat was pulled low on his forehead, shielding his entire brow. All she could see was a huge black handlebar mustache and bushy black beard that was shot through with threads of gray. A curtain of straggly midnight hair hung limply from beneath his hat to below his collar.

Reluctantly she looked into his eyes. And froze. He was staring at her. From within the flossy swirl of gray-streaked black hair, his eyes stood out like cat eyes, whiskey-colored and predatory.

A chill slithered up her spine, and she took an involuntary step backward. Her heartbeat drummed in her ears. There was something about his eyes that frightened her, an intensity that was almost animal-like-raw, unveiled, and dangerous. The words I'm your new partner lodged in her throat.

Something whooshed past her hand. She glanced down, her eyes widening as a huge glob of tobaccoed spit hit the floor beside her foot and puddled.

Spit! The hairy ape had spit at her! Her control shattered. "How dare you? You filthy, disgusting-" He lunged at her. "Get out of my post."

"Your post?" Spitting mud, she rammed her hands on her board-straight hips and glared up at him. "Don't you dare yell at me, you baboon." ' "Bab-" His dramatic voice cracked. "Go home." ; "I am home."

That stopped him. He stepped backward, eyeing her warily. "You're crazy."

Opening her handbag, she whipped out her letter. When she saw what her muddy fingers did to her perfectly clean, precisely folded paper, she felt another surge of anger. It was all his fault.

How dare he act as if she d done something wrong. "Did you or did you not place an advertisement in the 5/. Louis Post Dispatch seeking a partner in this post?"

"Huh?"

"And did you or did you not receive a response to this advertisement, which you accepted?"

"Huh?"

She gritted her teeth. Darwin was right. "Mr. MacKenna," she said stonily, "are you a man of your word?"

His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. "Yeah."

"Then this is our store."

"Huh?"

"Stop grunting at me!"

"All right, lady," he answered in a rich, rumbling voice that sent chills of apprehension scrambling down her rigid spine. "Just what in the hell are you trying to say?"