Page 51 of Inventions of the Heart

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

AND THEN A WAVE HIT SO HARDthe boat nearly laid on its side. We were mighty lucky that—”

“I think I hear a cow bawling.” Zane stood and quickly headed for the door.

He just plain ran. The big dummy.

Michelle noticed that Josh hardly broke from his story. Though she’d been distracted, she wasn’t sure Josh had ever stopped talking. She wondered if he talked in his sleep.

She decided if Zane could do it, so could she. “I’m going to fetch my mending.”

She stood up and just plain ran. Now she was thinking Zane was smart as a whip, andshewas the one learning from him.

Of course, she didn’t have any mending. And for a fact, she didn’t know how to mend. But it didn’t matter. She wasn’t going back.

The days were spent in hard work, and Josh had turned out to have excellent cowboy skills. But the evenings werestretching out in boredom. How could a man make a life on the sea, traveling the world, sound so dull?

Tomorrow, though, they’d go to the gold mine. And Michelle would get to go along.

Jilly too.

Maybe tomorrow night, if they brought gold home, Michelle could stand to listen to Josh’s seafaring tales while she chipped the gold out of the quartz rocks.

She got her nightgown on and went to bed, wondering how long Jilly would last listening to Josh. And when Zane would come back from the barn.

She fell asleep wondering.

JOSH SCRATCHED HIS HEAD ASHE STARED AT THE PILE OF ROCKS.“I don’t know much about gold. I wouldn’t have recognized this as being a gold strike.”

“Not sure I would have, either.” Zane nudged a rock with his boot. “This isn’t a part of the ranch I come to often. Building a church for the mission group took Michelle and her sisters into the woods, and they recognized it.”

“Laura found it.” Michelle felt like she should give credit where it was due. But she was sure she’d have recognized it, too.

“Let’s get to work.” Jilly pulled her hammer and chisel out of her saddlebag. They’d added to their supply of digging tools in Dorada Rio. But not overly, not wishing to draw attention to their interest in chiseling in a town very knowledgeable about gold.

The day took up a rhythm of hammering and workingover the gold. They’d do more work on it at the house, but the more stone they could separate from the gold here, the less they’d need to haul.

Beth Ellen and Annie had come, too. So they had a good crew, though Annie had to chase after Caroline most of the time. Beth Ellen took turns with Annie, giving their soft and ladylike hands a break from the harsh mining work.

Michelle and Jilly just wore gloves.

“I think the quartz plays out.” Michelle pointed to the end of the thick slab. It went plenty far, but it didn’t go on forever. “The gold vein may go down into the ground, but if not, then we’ll have a few weeks’ work here and that will be the end of the gold.”

Michelle came to Zane’s side and patted his arm. “You’re not going to have to hire miners or worry about a gold rush. Unless we scout up more gold around here, but I’ve already done a lot of looking. I didn’t see another rock formation similar to this. We’ll simply harvest all this gold, take it all at once to sell, make sure to announce loud and long that this is all there is, and hope you don’t lead a parade of desperate men back to your ranch.”

Zane shuddered. “That’s all I need.”

The day stretched long. They’d ridden over on a side trail so the Hogan sisters and Zane’s men wouldn’t notice them. They’d made a comment to Shad about a family picnic to celebrate Josh coming home, and they’d ridden off with plenty of food. They’d also hammered as quietly as they could and hoped the Hogan sisters down through the trees in Zane’s meadow didn’t hear them.

Mining for gold was a complicated business.

Josh said he’d take over and do the mining quietly. Michelleand Jilly offered to come along and help. Zane didn’t like that, but he didn’t do much growling, and Josh really did need the help, or he’d be all summer on this.

At home that night, Michelle and Jilly taught the family how to split the gold off from the quartz, and by week’s end, they had a tidy pile of gold to haul to town.

Except they didn’t dare take it.

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