Page 14 of The Prospector's Only Prospect
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The angry chatter of a squirrel woke Marigold.
It had been a restless night. Each time she or Virgil stirred, they rearranged themselves and fell back asleep, but now he was on his back, taking up most of the bedroll, and she was half sprawled across him, her head in the hollow of his shoulder, her leg thrown over one of his. Her arm was on his chest, and the weight of his arm was around her back. His fingers had found a pocket of warmth under the edge of her jacket and were tucked there. His chest rose in the slow, steady breaths of deep sleep.
It was surprisingly comfortable, so she didn’t move, only blinked a couple of times, noting the glow of dawn was beginning to reveal the shadowed world around them. The stream continued its steady trickle, but otherwise the world was silent. The squirrel had gone back to sleep, so she tried to do the same.
She was very aware of Virgil, though. Of his solidness and the way their legs were intertwined so her sex was pressed to his hard thigh.
A flush engulfed her. It was embarrassment, but one caused by the fact a different sort of heat was billowing to life within her. Something she had felt a few times in her marriage while kissing Ben, when her naked skin had rubbed against his and he’d fondled her in the dark. It was an internal furnace that made her sex feel damp and her breasts feel hard and made heryearn.
Against her better judgment, she imagined Virgil’s hands roaming beneath her clothing, finding her skin, shaping and stroking and teasing. She imagined his mouth devouring hers.
Don’t.
But the fantasy persisted. She wondered how it would feel for his callused thumbs to rub her nipples. How would his weight feel upon her… With Ben, it had always started out uncomfortable, but sometimes, when he took his time, she had begun to feel strummed into madness by his body’s movements within her.
That’s how she felt right now, she realized guiltily. As if they had made love and she was in the inflamed afterglow, waiting for her excitement to subside so she could sleep.
After Ben’s horrible betrayal, these fleshly, intriguing sensations had tangled in her mind as proof that she was the whore she’d been branded. After all, how could she claim to be virtuous if she was capable of lust? How could she argue she possessed exemplary morals when she wanted Virgil to roll atop her and thrust inside her?
She hadn’t moved, but her aroused, uneven heartbeat must have transmitted a message to him. He drew in a deep inhale and stretched at the same time. His arm around her tightened to hold her in place while his other hand reached to roam up her arm to her shoulder, pulling her closer as he rolled to face her.
She tilted her head and watched his eyes open to glittering slits.
Whatever he read in her expression had him sliding his hand upward and cupping the back of her head. His other arm dragged her higher against him, and he started to settle his mouth over hers.
“Virgil,” she whispered, startled, but also thinking,Yes? Maybe?
He jerked his head up.
“Fuck.” He flattened his palm into the dirt beside her head, levering himself up to walk away into the morning gloom. Seconds later, she heard him splashing in the stream.
Marigold grabbed the cushion and shoved her face into it, moaning with agony and an undeniable frustration. She hadwantedhim to kiss her.
When she heard him coming back, she sat up and brushed her skirt down. Her skin felt so thin she thought he must be able to detect how her heart batted and fluttered with discombobulation.
His expression was cold and grim.
“Let’s go. We’ll eat when the sun comes up.” He plucked the blanket from her weak fingers and balled it, walking away to throw it into the wagon.
Why did he have to sound so disgusted? Was she that repulsive? Did heblameher? A searing flame of injustice came to life behind her heart, but it was smothered by the knowledge she hadn’t rolled away from him the moment she woke. She had stayed in his arms and wondered how it would feel for him to kiss her.
She shifted to kneel on the unforgiving rocks while she rolled the bedroll, then shakily got to her feet and stowed it in the wagon.
A short time later, they crossed the stream and crept along the track, moving from one shadowed gulch into another. The birds were making every type of racket, but the silence between her and Virgil was tense and uncomfortable.
She tried to distract herself with another imagined letter to her sister.
Dear Pearl, the land is so serrated, it is impossible to see beyond the next hillock or around a bend to what comes next. I don’t know where I’m going, and all I can think is that I want to come back to you. I don’t know how I can survive here. I’m as unwanted as I was there.
Why was that eating her up? She didn’twanthim to want her. Not in that way, but his rejection had been unequivocal and had stabbed into a place that was already very tender, leaving her filled with embarrassment and regret.
Quite unexpectedly, they broke from the trees and arrived at the shore of a large lake.
The still water perfectly reflected the trees growing in bands on the sloped shoreline. Some were evergreen, and others were beginning to fade toward yellow and orange and red, even though it was still mid-summer. The peaks behind them were chipped like clay crockery, porcelain snow embedded in their cracks. The rising sun set one side of the valley aglow while the other remained in pensive shadow. Above it all was a sky that was bluer than any blue Marigold had ever seen.
Virgil stopped the wagon, and they sat for a long, communing moment.
