"Oh, well," she said. "There's always the next pan."
Cash smiled and watched while Mariah absently dried her fingertip on her jeans. A familiar heat pulsed through him as he looked at her. The desire he had felt the first time he saw her had done nothing but get deeper, hotter, harder. Despite the persistent ache of arousal, Cash had never enjoyed prospecting quite so much as he had in the past week. Mariah was enjoying it, too. He could see it in her smile, hear it in her easy laughter.
And she wanted him. He could see that, too, the desire in her eyes, a golden warmth that approved of everything he did, everything he said, every breath he took. He knew his eyes followed her in the same way, approving of every feminine curve, every golden glance, every breath, everything. He wanted her with a near-violent hunger he had never experienced before. All that kept him from taking what she so clearly wanted to give him was the bitter experience of the past, when he had so needed to believe a woman's lies that he had allowed her to make a fool of him. Yet no matter how closely Cash looked for cracks in Mariah's facade of warmth and vulnerability, so far he had found none.
It should have comforted him. It did not. Cash was very much afraid that his inability to see past Mariah's surface to the inevitable female calculation beneath was more a measure of how much he wanted her than it was a testimony to Mariah's innate truthfulness.
But God, how he wanted her.
Cash came to his feet in a swift, coordinated movement that startled Mariah.
"Is something wrong?"
"No gold here," Cash said curtly. He secured the gold pan to his backpack with quick motions. "We might as well head back. It's too late to try the other side of the rise today."
Mariah looked at the downward arc of the sun. "Does that mean there will be time for Black Springs before dinner?"
The eagerness in Mariah's voice made Cash smile ruefully. He had been very careful not to go to the hot springs with Mariah if he could avoid it. He had enough trouble getting to sleep at night just remembering what she looked like bare-legged and wearing a windbreaker. He didn't need visions of her in a wet bathing suit to keep him awake.
"Sure," he said casually. "You can soak while I catch dinner downstream."
Disappointed at the prospect of going to the springs alone, Mariah asked, "Aren't you stiff after a day of crouching over ice water?"
Cash shrugged. "I'm used to it."
Using a shortcut Cash had discovered, they took only an hour to get back to the line shack. While he picketed the horses in fresh grass, Mariah changed into her tank suit and windbreaker. When she appeared at the door of the cabin, Cash glanced up for only an instant before he lowered his head and went back to driving in picket stakes.
With a disappointment she couldn't conceal, Mariah started up the Black Springs path. After a hundred yards she turned around and headed back toward the cabin. Cash had just finished picketing the last horse when he spotted Mariah walking toward him.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I just decided it would be more fun to learn how to handle a gold pan than it would be to soak in an oversize hot tub."
Cash's indigo glance traveled from the dark wisps of hair caressing Mariah's face to the long, elegant legs that were naked of anything but sunlight.
"Better get some more clothes on. The stream is a hell of a lot colder than Black Springs."
"I wasn't planning on swimming."
"You'll get wet anyway. Amateurs always do."
"But it's hot. Look at you. You're in shirtsleeves and you're sweating."
He didn't bother to argue that the sun wasn't warm. If he had been alone, he would have been working stripped to the waist. But he wasn't alone. He was with a woman he wanted, a woman who wanted him, a woman he was trying very hard to be smart enough not to take.
"If you plan on learning how to pan for gold," Cash said flatly, "you better get dressed for it."
Mariah threw up her hands and went back to the line shack before Cash changed his mind about teaching her how to pan for gold at all. She tore off the windbreaker and yanked on jeans over her shoes. Without looking, she grabbed a shirt off the pile of clothes that covered her blankets. She was halfway out the door before she realized that the shirt belonged to Cash. "Tough," she muttered, yanking the soft navy flannel into place over her tank suit and fastening the snaps impatiently. "He wanted me to be dressed. I'm dressed. He didn't say whose clothes I had to wear."
There was no point in fastening the shirt's cuffs, which hung down well past her fingertips, just as the shoulders overhung hers by four inches on either side. The shirttails draped to her knees. Yet when Cash wore the shirt, it fit him without wrinkles or gaps.
"Lord, but that man is big," Mariah muttered. "It's a good thing he doesn't bite."
Impatiently she shoved the cuffs up well past her elbows, tied a hasty knot in the tails, grabbed the gold pan and shovel and ran back to where Cash was still working on the horses.
"I'm ready," Mariah said breathlessly.
Cash looked up, blinked, tried not to smile and failed completely. He released the horse's hoof he had been cleaning and stood up.
"Next time, don't wear such a tight shirt," he said, deadpan.
"Next time," Mariah retorted, "don't leave your tiny little shirt on my blankets when I'm in a hurry."
Snickering, Cash shook his head. "Let me get my fishing rod. We'll start in the riffles way up behind the shack. The creek cuts through a nice grassy place just above the willow thicket. Grass will be a lot easier on your knees than gravel."
"Don't you need gravel to pan gold?"
"Only if you expect to find gold. You don't. You're just learning how to pan, remember?"
"Boy, wouldn't you be surprised if I found nuggets in that stream."
"Nope."
Mariah blinked. "You wouldn't be surprised?"
"Hell no, honey. I'd be dead of shock."
Her smile flashed an instant before her laughter glittered in the mountain silence, brighter than any gold Cash had ever found. Unable to resist touching her, he ruffled her hair with a brotherly gesture that was belied by the sudden heat and tension of his body. The reaction came every time he touched her, no matter how casually, which was why he tried not to touch her at all.
Unfortunately for Cash's peace of mind, there was no satisfactory way to teach Mariah how to pan for gold without touching her or at least getting so close to her that not touching was almost as arousing as touching would have been. The soft pad of grass beneath their feet, the liquid murmur of the brook and the muted rustle of nearby willows being stroked by the breeze did nothing to make the moment less sensually charged.
Mariah's own response to Cash's closeness didn't help ease the progress of the lessons at all. When he put his hands next to hers on the cold metal in order to demonstrate the proper panning technique, she forgot everything but the fact that Cash was close to her. Her motions became shaky rather than smooth, which defeated the whole point of the lessons.
"It's a good thing the pan is empty," Cash muttered finally, watching Mariah try to imitate the easy swirling motion of proper panning. "The way you're going at it, any water in that pan would be sprayed from hell to breakfast."
"It looks so easy when you do it," Mariah said unhappily. "Why can't I get the rhythm of it?"
Cursing himself silently, knowing he shouldn't do what he was about to do, Cash said, "Here, try it this way."
Before common sense could prevent him, he stepped behind Mariah, reached around her and put his hands over hers on the pan. He felt the shiver that went through her, bit back a searing word and got on with the lesson.
"You can pan with either a clockwise or counterclockwise motion," Cash said through clenched teeth. "Which do you prefer?"