Page 43 of I Do, I Do, I Do
Was she free to accept his invitation? A frown tugged Zoe’s mouth and brow, and she pressed her wedding ring through her glove. Exactly how married was she? She didn’t know what the legalities might be, but the facts were that she had exchanged marriage vows with a man who was not dead and whom she had not divorced. She had a husband looking for gold somewhere out there in the Klondike wilderness.
“Zoe?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
A slow smile lifted one corner of his lips. “This isn’t a difficult decision.”
“Actually, it is.”
“Do you have other pressing matters? Appointments? Engagements? Urgent tasks?”
He knew she didn’t have a thing to do except wait for his Indians to finish relaying the outfits from Canyon City to Sheep Camp. “Are other people going with us to view the glaciers?”
“No.”
She pushed at the fingers of her gloves and then brushed at her skirt. Certainly she was beyond the age and innocence of needing a chaperon. But a married woman didn’t go off in private with a single man, not if maintaining her good name and reputation were important to her.
But no one except Juliette and Clara knew that Zoe was married. And no one knew exactly how married she might be. All three marriages couldn’t count. So did Jean Jacques’s first marriage to Juliette count the most, or did his last marriage to her count the most?
“I brought fresh fish pulled out of the Taiya this very morning. Potatoes for roasting. Biscuits made with my secret recipe. And for the finish, bread pudding with raisins. Will that help you make up your mind?”
When she saw his grin, she laughed at how silly she must appear from his viewpoint. Tom was a family friend; they had known each other since childhood. Where was the harm in spending an afternoon together? He might well have invited her to accompany him to examine the glaciers even if he’d known that she was Mrs. Jean Jacques Villette. His invitation was a gesture of friendship, not courtship.
“I’d love to see the glaciers,” she said.
“Good. What finally made up your mind? Was it my legendary biscuits or my devastating smile?”
“Neither,” she said, laughing up at him. “I’ve started a letter home, and I’m telling Ma that I’ve run into you. She’ll want to know all about your packing business, how long you’ve been in Alaska, and what are your plans for the future. I don’t dare mail my letter without including your news.”
She hoped that mentioning Tom would soften Ma’s shock at learning that her only daughter was in the Yukon chasing after a no-good husband. She hadn’t mentioned the no-good part, but Ma would read between the lines and suspect that all was not as it should be in Zoe’s marriage. A few hints would prepare the way for future shocks and revelations.
“Be sure to post any mail before you leave Sheep Camp. From here on, mail delivery will be spotty at best and more likely nonexistent.” Tom nudged the gelding close to the rock and instructed Zoe to stand and jump on behind him.
Zoe hesitated only a minute, then raised her skirt high enough to swing a leg over and plop herself behind him. He kept his gaze steadfastly forward, and if he caught a glimpse of the heavy woolen knickers beneath her skirt, he gave no sign.
They rode away from the river and up a sparsely wooded slope. Once this side of the divide had been thickly forested, but now the trees had gone up in smoke, having fueled thousands of campfires since the gold rush began.
After almost sliding off the horse, Zoe stopped being silly and wrapped her arms around Tom’s waist and hung on. He stiffened when she first touched him and then relaxed as if having her arms around him was the most natural thing in the world. In truth, she really didn’t feel much of his body—mostly she felt and pressed against the heavy weatherproofed duster he wore.
They zigzagged up and up and up until the tents and telegraph poles were lost to view beneath layers of smoke and low-lying clouds.
“Can you hear the glaciers?” Tom asked after a while.
“I think so.” A faint, eerie creaking made gooseflesh stand up on her skin. And she knew she would never be able to describe the ghostly groan of the glaciers grinding forward at a slow, inexorable pace.
Awed by the sheer frozen mass, Zoe didn’t speak when Tom reined inside the blue shadow of an ice wall and then helped her to the ground.
“How long has this glacier been a glacier?”
“Why are you whispering?”
“I don’t know,” she said, taking a cloth from him and spreading it over the flattest boulder she could find. One day years and years from now, this boulder would be engulfed by the glacier. No memory of their picnic would remain.
While Tom built a fire with wood he’d brought from below, he told her what he knew about glaciers, and Zoe listened carefully so she could tell Ma in her letter.
“Are you cold?” he asked at the finish.
“A little,” she admitted.
