She listened, desperate to keep her mind on anything but the logging truck that suddenly loomed ahead of them. Their motor home was on the inside curve, but the huge vehicle had rattling logs in its bed… She bit her lip as the logger whizzed past them. The taste of blood was sweet and warm.
“Film, Anne. An ounce of silver is all it takes to make five thousand color photographs. I’ve just started selling to film manufacturers. Like the buyers for every other industry, they require a specific grade of silver. And that’s just the point. I’ve got lots of different mines, so I can provide several different grades to different buyers. No other metal conducts as well as silver, and it’s a natural dry lubricant… You can open your eyes now,” Jake said mildly.
She did. Jake vaulted outside to open a tail, weathered wooden gate with a No Trespassing sign nailed to it. The killer road was behind them, replaced by a gravel lane. Once they were inside the gate, they might as well have entered another world. The mountain valley was flat, a grassy field leading to a stand of gold pines, backdropped by the spiked hills.
When Jake stopped the vehicle and turned the key, Anne stepped out and took a good long breath. The sun beat down in warm, soothing rays, as if apologizing for that harrowing ride. Fresh, sweet air surged into her lungs, and at the same time curiosity was battering questions in her head. This little dale was mining country? “Jake?” She turned to see Jake stepping out from the back of the motor home, with a pair of decrepit black galoshes in his hand.
“Anne, I stuffed socks in the toes so they’d fit you. There’s no way you’re going into the mine with heels on.”
“What mine?”
“Baby Rivard.” He motioned. She saw nothing but a grove of trees, and then the fluff of a rabbit’s tail as it hopped away from them. Her eyes skimmed back to the grin on Jake’s face, and the permanently muddy boots in his hands. With a wry smile, she exchanged her Italian leather sandals for his choice of footwear.
He took her hand as they started walking toward the face of the cliff. The boots felt cold and clammy on her stockinged feet, and no one would have considered them graceful. Only when they’d passed through the grove of trees did she see the planks that formed a path to the opening of a cave.
“This mine won’t ever be profitable, Anne. The vein’s shallow and not worth the effort of taking out the ore, but it will give you a good idea what a silver mine really looks like. Almost all silver comes from ores that contain larger amounts of other metals. Lead, usually, and copper a lot of the time. This little honey’s got copper and gold and quartz. The ore’s rich-it’s where I got the silver your necklace is made from-but it yields only a few ounces of silver for every ton of ore. That’s why…”
Jake stepped into the dark hollow in the mountain, still holding Anne’s hand. As she followed him, she shivered suddenly in the cold, dank air. He released her hand and took a lantern from a hook. She watched him light it and hold it high so that they could see the passageway ahead of them.
“Are you listening, Anne?”
“Yes.” She was listening, though not entirely to the lecture on silver. She was listening to a side of Jake she’d never heard before. Nothing in heaven or on earth could convince her that silver would provide a practical, stable livelihood, but for the moment that wasn’t the point. For a man who had roamed lackadaisically from one project to another all his life, Jake clearly had learned a great deal about Idaho…and silver.
He’d changed, she thought fleetingly. Or had she misunderstood the man in the past? She watched his face, so full of animation, his silvery eyes picking up the flickering reflections from the lantern’s light. She couldn’t possibly follow everything he was talking about. “They grind it into dust…loosen it from the rock, submerge it in tanks of foaming water… Tailings…ash-gray sludge…then the refinery process…” He was really irresistibly handsome, all shoulders in the chamois shirt, all lithe grace and tawny head and sheer brazen male every time he moved.
Finally, Jake stopped leading her through the labyrinthine passageway with its floor of small, gritty rocks. “There.” He motioned.
Her eyes were reluctantly diverted from his profile to the strange walls of the cave. She’d been so busy, between studying Jake and trying to keep from stumbling on the uneven ground, that she had really barely looked at their surroundings.
Moisture dripped slowly down the rough, craggy walls. When Jake lifted the lantern just so, the inside of his mountain took on color-the greenish gleam of copper, the translucent sheen of marble, the threads of pale yellow, and last-and brightest-a long streak of pure silver.
“If there were lead in the vein, the silver would have shown up as black. That’s why I wanted you to see it pure, Anne.”
Tentatively, she reached out to touch the gleaming vein. The cave was dark and damp and claustrophobic…but the silver thread beneath her fingers felt soft, smooth and uniquely alive. Its pure beauty didn’t belong here at all. Unwillingly, she felt Jake’s enthusiasm suddenly catch up with her. Not that she would ever, ever become involved in anything so foolhardy…
Jake hung the lantern on a hook in the cave’s ceiling and turned Anne to face him, capturing the fingers that had been slowly following the silver vein. “You’re catching it, aren’t you?” he murmured. Laughter was in his eyes, laughter…and something else. He pulled her arms around his neck and leaned down to touch his forehead to hers. “Silver fever. Not the greed for it, but the fascination with it. And the treasure’s there, Anne. It’s always been there, all through these mountains for centuries. Some men have captured it, but most have failed. It’s just too hard to reach.” His voice changed. “Some love affairs follow that same course. The woman is the treasure, yet how elusive she’s been through the years. Self-contained, her vulnerable core well hidden. No one’s keeping count of the number of men who’ve tried to claim her. It doesn’t matter. They haven’t been smart enough to outwit the lady, now, have they?”
Anne shook her head, suddenly feeling shaky. “Jake-”
“We’re only talking about silver, Anne. And mountains. Relax.” He tipped her face up, and lowered his lips to hers, pulling her into the promise of riches he offered. Not silver, not metals, not wealth, but adventure and softness and wild, wild dreams… Her fingers got lost in the thick texture of his hair, splaying on his scalp, pulling him closer. She rose up on tiptoe in the oversized boots; the silky Victorian blouse molded ever so willingly to his chest.
A kiss intended as a moment’s sharing seemed to change its mind. Jake’s arms tightened on her back, moving slowly down the supple shape of her. She no longer felt the chill of the cave. Silver was running in her veins. Molten silver, smooth and hot and shiny. And suddenly Jake was kissing her again, over and over, rough, drugging kisses.
Her hands traced the feel of sinew and flesh, from his neck to his spine to the small of his back. As though some wanton fire had bewitched them, her fingers tightened on his hips, inviting the intimacy, deliberately provocative. Your silver scares me, Jake, her heart whispered, but don’t you dare share your crazy dreams with anyone else.
So slowly his lips lifted from hers, his eyes never leaving her face. His profile would have looked jagged and harsh if those eyes hadn’t been filled with the same warm wanting as her own. “No more waiting, Anne,” he said quietly.