Free Tainted Gold by Lynn Michaels

what I’mfinding now.” He held his finger out to her. “This is a rare opportunity for me. Usually I have to rely on data collected from the surface, but with all the old mine shafts around here, I get a look at things inside and out. The chemical breakdowns tell me what kind of ores your grandfather and the other old-timers dug through, and I’m looking at that against what’s down there now, plus rates of settlement, seepage, and sediment levels—”
    Logical, Quillen sighed silently with relief. All perfectly logical and scientific.
    “You know, I’m not the only one with a grudge against the Cassil family,” she told him. “Jeremiah, that’s our illustrious mayor’s grandfather, set up the one and only assay office and charged killing rates. He got richer than the miners.”
    “I believe that was a common practice of the time.” Tucker looked at her askance as he scooped tomatoes into the wooden bowl. “It was, and still is, called free enterprise.”
    “On my end of the pickax,” Quillen replied tartly, “it’s called robbery.”
    Shrugging offhandedly, he turned quickly away from her as he bent his head over the colander to shred lettuce. This time, despite the reflection of the sink light on the lenses of his glasses, Quillen knew she hadn’t imagined the subtle, almost wary flicker in his blue eyes. Again, she was certain that something she’d said had precipitated it, although she still couldn’t figure out what.
    He finished the salad, doctored a pound of ground beef, then left Quillen to make patties while he started the fire in the hibachi on the back porch.
    “You make great hamburgers,” she told him over the round oak table in her kitchen once they’d finished eating. “What’s in them?”
    “A little Worcestershire, a little onion”—he munched on a pickle and swallowed—“a little egg, and a little garlic.”
    “Delicious. Thank you. You cooked, I’ll clean up.”
    “Terrific.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead and sauntered out of the kitchen. “I hate K.P.”
    When Quillen joined him in her studio fifteen minutes later, the dishwasher gurgling behind her, Tucker stood in front of her board, the Luxo lamp on, his hands in his back pockets as he gazed at the painting of the prince on the mountaintop. He turned toward her and lifted his glasses to the top of his head.
    “This guy’s virtually naked. I couldn’t see that last night without my specs.”
    “Most of them are. I almost got to do some of the Conan posters.” She sighed wistfully. “All I could think of was oooh, oooh, would I love to draw Arnold Schwarzenegger’s muscles.”
    “Sorry, kid, you’ll have to settle for mine.” He unsnapped and began to unzip his jeans.
    “Your face ,Tucker.” She cupped his chin lightly in her hand. “All I need is your face.”
    One corner of his mouth dipped disappointedly. “You don’t want to see my little maroon jockey briefs?”
    “Not tonight, thank you.”
    The doorbell rang.
    “Oh.” He zipped his jeans and looked crestfallen. “I guess that means you don’t want to feel my lump, either.”
    “ Tucker !” She laughed, glancing back at him as she crossed the living room to answer the bell.
    “Hi, Quillen.” Paula Clarke, a petite brunette who occupied one of the rear singles, came through the door as Quillen opened it. Two feet inside the room she stopped, her eyes riveted on Tucker, then she winked and backed out into the hall. “See you later.”
    “No, wait.” She glanced at Tucker. He nodded and she followed Paula into the hall, pulling the door shut behind her. “You’ve been a stranger.”
    “We’re just swamped at the shop.” She flipped the envelope in her hand nervously against her fingers, then handed it to Quillen. “Here’s my rent and”—she winced—“my notice.”
    “You’re moving ?”
    “I love my apartment,” Paula went on in a rush, “but this salesman from Cassil Realty came by the shop yesterday and left a