“You should head to your bedroll.” He yawned, then scrubbed a hand over his face. “I want to get an early start tomorrow.”
“I won’t be able to sleep.” She twisted her fingers together in front of her. “Do you think something happened to Heath and Richard? Shouldn’t they have been back by now?”
He sighed. He had a fairly good idea what happened to them. Gold fever. He should have realized that’s why they wanted to look for a place to ford. They were probably in the river at that very moment, panning to see if they might find some gold.
The notion made him despise Richard even more. The man had already put Bryony and the rest of the party in enough danger when he and Heath left them in that alpine valley for weeks on end while they prospected.
Did they realize what they’d done by delaying the trip out for so long?
Or if they realized it, did they care?
What if Heath had slid off the edge of the mountain two days ago? A mountain they could have easily traversed a month earlier, before winter set in? Would Richard have realized that his actions had led to his friend’s death? Would it have bothered him?
Perhaps not, if he’d found gold.
But Mikhail was guessing they hadn’t found any. Why else would Richard be interested in looking at every last rock and creek bed he and Heath had passed on their way to meet the rest of the expedition?
He had a suspicion that the reason things had been moved around in his pack that morning was because Richard had stolen a peek at his journal to see if he’d written down anything that might lead them to gold.
Not that Richard would have found much of anything written in his journal. Writing was difficult for him, but not quite as hard as reading. It was a slower process, one where he could focus on a single word at a time, rather than get overwhelmed by an endless amount of swimming words and letters.
He couldn’t spell to save his life, but he could draw crude maps when needed and jot down a few things from time to time. He’d carried a journal with him for years, slowly recording some of the more important things he’d found.
The discovery of gold had never been one of them.
“I expect both Richard and Heath are fine, and that they’ll be back anytime,” he muttered. Besides, the light was so dim now that they wouldn’t be able to see well enough to tell whether there was gold in anything they sifted. “I don’t think they went very far.”
Bryony nodded, but her eyes still held worry. “Perhaps I fret too much.”
He reached out, placing a hand on her shoulder. Some of the stiffness seemed to leave her body in response. And for a moment, he almost wished that he wasn’t wearing a glove and she wasn’t wearing a parka, that it was summer and they were sitting on the beach in Sitka, staring out over the calm waters of the sound—just so he could feel the warmth from her shoulder soaking into the skin of his hand.
She looked up at him, their gazes tangling, and he suddenly wanted to say something to match the moment, to tell her that he understood, even though he didn’t know what, exactly, he understood.
Or maybe he didn’t want to say anything at all. Maybe he wanted to lean forward and press his lips to hers, just to see how they would taste. Warm like her parka, or cold like the air surrounding them?
Just what would she do if he turned her to face him and brought his lips to hers?
“Do you think something happened to Heath and Richard?” Dr. Wetherby said from behind him.
He jerked his hand away from Bryony’s shoulder and turned toward the scientist. “No, but I expect?—”
Rustling sounded from the woods to his south, and Mikhail narrowed his eyes at the sound, carefully surveying the trees along the riverbank through the growing shadows.
“Were you asking about us?” Richard’s voice rang through the twilight. A moment later, he stepped beneath the tree where they were standing, his meticulously combed hair gleaming in the dim light from the fire. “We’re fine. Just took us longer than expected to find a spot to cross the river.”
“Did you find one?” Bryony looked between Richard and Heath, who had stepped into the clearing behind Richard.
“Maybe.” Heath used his gloved hand to brush a bit of rain from his beard. “We found a spot where the river is wider but shallower, though we couldn’t tell how deep it was.”
“Figured we’d send the frontiersman here across first and let him figure out how safe it is to cross.” Richard slapped Mikhail on the back, but there was nothing friendly about the action.
“What took so long?” Dr. Wetherby scowled at Heath. “I assumed you would have been back a couple hours ago. Dinner is all cleaned up.”
“Yes, Heath. How far down is the place you found to ford?” Bryony asked her brother.
Heath gestured downstream. “Not too far. The river widens and shallows just a couple of bends down.”
“Does it now.” Mikhail crossed his arms over his chest. “How interesting.”
