Page 39 of I Do, I Do, I Do
“You used us and threw us away, and I hate you! I hate you, I hate you!” Juliette’s face was hot and her hands shook, but she had admitted her own truth. The words exploded up from deep inside, burning the back of her throat. And she didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry because she had finally conceded that Jean Jacques was an unscrupulous scoundrel just as Aunt Kibble had insisted he was. There were no excuses for what he had done, no justification. No explanation she could accept.
She turned to Zoe. “I don’t think I’ve heard you laugh before. You’re very pretty when you smile.”
“Being pretty never did a thing for me,” Zoe said, her smile curving down into a frown. She tapped the egg against the log and then peeled away bits of shell. “I used to think that being pretty would somehow save me from a life of work and babies. Instead it brought me a no-good bastard who ruined me for any other man. So yes. I’m really going to shoot him. And if they hang me for murder—so what? I have no plans beyond shooting Jean Jacques, so they might as well hang me. I don’t care.”
“I don’t have any plans either.” After they found Jean Jacques and Zoe shot him, what would she do? Spend the rest of her life listening to Aunt Kibble remind her what a fool she’d been?
“Are you all right?” Ben Dare pushed through a tight growth of thick spruce and scanned the clearing where they sat. His legs braced and his muscles tensed as if he were spoiling for a fight.
“Of course.” Hastily Juliette patted her hair and brushed loose bark from her skirt. Strands of hair fell around her face, and she must have smelled of perspiration. There was nothing she could do about it.
“I thought I heard you screaming,” he said, running a quick gaze over her body, checking for injury.
Circles of pink flared on her cheeks. Jean Jacques had given her a long slow look before they made love, just as Ben was doing. Jean Jacques’s eyes had been a paler blue than Ben’s, and Ben was taller. But the way Ben stared at her made her remember making love. The same fluttery, chaotic tingling raced around her body.
Zoe glanced up from the log. “Perhaps you heard Juliette shouting to me. Telling me where to find her.”
“It didn’t sound like that.” He walked up to her. “But I’m glad you’re all right.”
“I’m fine,” Juliette insisted. Except for being confused, exhausted, detested by her companions, and abandoned by her husband. “Perfectly fine.”
Then she collapsed against his chest and burst into tears.
Clara had a stew bubbling and coffee perking by the time Zoe spotted the tent pole with the pink ribbon and made her way through a tent city set up in no particular order.
“We don’t have our tent or camp stools yet,” Clara announced cheerfully, “but there are tree stumps all over the place. Pick one and sit down. You look all tuckered out.”
“I am.” Zoe’s feet ached, the backs of her legs were so sore that every step was a trial, and her backpack had rubbed a raw spot on one of her shoulders. “Has our medical kit arrived?”
“I don’t know.” Clara waved toward a tumbled mound of boxes and crates. “I thought I’d get the stew started before I began sorting things out.”
Zoe had never been this tired in her life. “Where’s our tent?” she asked when she’d summoned a small burst of energy. All she wanted to do was fall into her cot and try to relax her tight throbbing muscles.
“One of the pack mules went down,” Tom Price said, walking up to the camp stove. Clara gave him the cup of coffee she’d been about to hand to Zoe. “My men are bringing that load up on their backs. They should be here soon.”
“Did you know the Indian men can carry a hundred pounds and the women carry seventy-five pounds?” Clara spoke in the same cheerful tone that made Zoe want to hit her with a rock. “Look at this scenery,” she said, waving at the narrow canyon’s walls. “Isn’t it spectacular? And smell the air!”
To Zoe the air smelled of wood smoke, tobacco, mule and dog droppings, and various cooking odors.
“Did you see the glaciers hanging in the high valleys to the west?” Clara’s enthusiasm seemed boundless. “And wasn’t it beautiful when the trail dipped down to the river?”
Tom smiled at Clara’s high spirits and Zoe wanted to hit him, too. “Tomorrow you’ll see the snowfields.” He gazed at the clouds advancing across the sky. “It will be cold tonight. The Chilkats say it will snow before morning.”
Zoe groaned, and Tom and Clara laughed at her.
Then a silence opened, but Tom showed no signs of leaving. Abruptly Clara straightened and looked back and forth between them. “Well,” she said, stepping backward. “I guess I’ll go see if I can spot Juliette or find out where our tent is.” She straightened her cape and smoothed the brim of her hat. “Don’t forget to give the stew a stir every now and then.”
“How did the first day go?” Tom asked after Clara had bustled off. He smiled at her over the rim of his coffee cup.
Zoe couldn’t believe this was only the first day. “I didn’t think it would be this difficult.” When his eyebrow rose, she lifted a hand. “I know, I know. Everyone talks about how hard the trail is. But I expected to take it in stride as Clara apparently has.” She glanced up, noting the easy way he stood, with his legs apart and braced for whatever might come. He didn’t look like a man who had just kicked and coaxed a pack of mules over god-awful terrain, most of which was steeply angled, heavily treed, and littered with boulders.
“It won’t get easier. A person has to be truly motivated to endure this journey.”
The way his voice invited her to talk about motivation told her that he was curious about her reasons for going to Dawson City. And for one crazy moment, she considered confessing the truth. But then he’d feel obligated to try to talk her out of shooting Jean Jacques. Or maybe, as a long-standing family friend, Tom would insist on killing Jean Jacques for her. She didn’t want to talk about it. Nothing he said would change her mind about killing Jean Jacques, and she didn’t want someone else to pay the price for doing her job.
When Tom noticed that she didn’t have coffee, he poured her a cup. Jean Jacques had been thoughtful, too, but in the end his thoughtfulness hadn’t mattered for squat. She would a lot rather that he’d been truthful. In that case she would never have married him. Would never have ruined herself. Wouldn’t be here in Alaska eager to make a murderess of herself.
“Why are you going to Dawson?” she asked, gazing up at him. She liked the way he wore his hat tilted at a rakish angle. “Is it really worth your while to pack anyone all the way to Dawson?”
