Lover's Gold Read Online Free Page A

she searched his light blue eyes. Then she felt Chuck Dawson’s moist palm at her waist and suddenly wanted nothing more than to be out of the room.
    “Thank you for the coffee, my dear,” Dawson said dismissively. “I have a meeting at the mine this afternoon. Maybe I’ll see you this evening.”
    Elaina nodded, glanced at Morgan, and fled the room.
    Morgan sat back down. He hadn’t missed the relief that swept over the girl as she’d closed the door behind her. He owed that girl. Owed her his life. He was going to find out what the hell was going on in Keyserville if it was the last thing he ever did.
    Glad for the clanging pots, scraping silver, and pounding mallets of the hotel kitchen, Elaina picked up a serving spoon and stirred a pot of beef stew that was bubbling on a back burner of the huge black stove. As long as she was busy, she didn’t have time to think, though it was hard not to dwell on her grim future as Mrs. Chuck Dawson.
    “Laina honey, who is that man?” Ada Lowery pointed toward the inner office. Living, as she did, in a small suite of rooms off the kitchen, Ada missed little of what went on in the hotel.
    “That’s Black Dan himself,” Elaina said, putting the lid back on the stew pot. Then, taking her place beside Ada, she picked up a knife and started peeling an onion.
    “Lord A’mighty, he’s a hard-lookin’ sort. Tougher’n a boot, I’ll wager. Kinda handsome, though, if he’d lose that scowl of his.” Ada, too, picked up an onion and set to work.
    The kitchen was warm and humid; a kettle of beef stock for gravy and soup boiled next to the stew. The windows were fogged with steam, and the dampness made tiny dark brown ringlets curl around Elaina’s face. Absentmindedly she shoved them behind her ear.
    “He looks a little like Ren Daniels,” she told Ada.
    “Who?” Ada’s eyes were beginning to tear from the stinging onion juices.
    “Oh, just a boy I used to know. I’ve mentioned him before. The one I had such a fancy for when I was a little girl. Surely you remember. I probably drove you crazy talking about him when I first moved in here. His younger brother, Tommy, was my best friend.” She and Tommy had played together whenever she could escape her mother’s endless round of socializing—teas, recitals, church functions—and her own numerous hours of lessons—piano, singing, ballet, French. It had been through one of the abandoned tunnels she and Tommy used to play in on the far side of Blue Mountain that she’d been able to find the boys that night in the mine.
    She wondered for the thousandth time in the past nine years where the two boys were. What had become of Tommy? Had he grown up to be as handsome as his older brother? She’d met Ren only a few times, when he came to walk Tommy home from school. Ren had insisted Tommy go to class while he worked extra hours in the mine to support them. Ren took care of Tommy after their parents died, and Tommy adored him.
    Elaina finished peeling the onion and picked up another. Her eyes, too, were beginning to tear. The women looked at each other and laughed good-naturedly.
    “Good thing the men can’t see us,” Elaina joked. “They’d be sure we were crying.”
    Ada Lowery grew serious. “You sure you ain’t gonna be cryin’ up a storm if you go through with that weddin’ Chuck Dawson has planned? He ain’t gonna be put off much longer.”
    Elaina sighed. Ada was right. Chuck had been pushing for the wedding for over two years. Lately he’d become adamant. In three weeks their engagement would be official, and Chuck had already warned her not to plan on a long engagement.
    “I don’t have any choice,” Elaina said defensively.
    Ada shook her head. “Life’s nothin’ but choices, honey, and this is the most important one you’ll ever make.”
    “We’ve been all through this, Ada. Henry Dawson’s the last man on earth I’ll be indebted to.”
    Ada harrumphed but said nothing. Elaina picked up another