Free Yellow Rock by Elle Marlow

with sorrowful, shimmering eyes. Her remorse was easy to read on her face, but he was still a man and couldn’t help but notice quite a few other things at the moment. Like the fact that even with her hair a mess, and her eyes slightly swollen from tears, the attraction he felt deepened, making him want to put his arms around her and kiss away her fears. All those thoughts and feelings created a lump in his throat and he swallowed hard. What was happening to him?
    “I’m sorry,” she said, her bottom lip quivering like a leaf. Dutch took a steady step in her direction.
    “It’s alright,” he told her truthfully. It really was. It didn’t matter to him one bit if she acted crazy sometimes. She had every right.
    “No, it’s not alright, Dutch. What if I had hurt you? I don’t want to be like this anymore. I don’t want to live in fear, wondering what’s going to get me next. I can’t…” she lowered her face down into her hands. He sat himself on the edge of the cot, wondering how he could comfort her without touching. He was afraid to make a mistake that would frighten her even more, and he sure didn’t want expose his own growing weakness for her.
    Dutch lifted his hand, pausing it inches over the crown of her head. Then slowly, he lowered it until the softness of her hair filled his palms. She didn’t seem to mind or notice, but he sure as did. She was like silk under his fingers, and he wished he could continue running his hands over the rest of her.
    “Willow. I can protect myself. As far as the rest, don’t worry. What you’ve lived through would have killed most people, yet here you are. You were probably right about wanting some solitude up on this mountain so you could heal. Up here, I’ll make sure you get all the time you need to get yourself right again.”
    She lifted her face, and her eyes filled with gratitude. “Thank you, Dutch.”

Chapter Six
    “So, promise me, when you build a fire out here, for cooking, keeping warm, or for whatever, that you keep the flames low. You don’t want to attract Indians and you sure don’t want any other prospectors seeing your fire. The last thing I need is a stranger up here snooping around my claim.”
    Willow had just finished braiding her hair, listening to Dutch and watching him put out the evening fire. He’d been instructing her all day on certain things to do or not to do in order to survive on the mountain, but she’d only half listened since her focus was continuously distracted by his good looks and rugged charm. When the temperature dropped with the sun, Dutch had put on a light blue flannel shirt. She admired what the color did for his sun-kissed complexion and his steel-like eyes. She also caught herself more than once gazing at his beard that he kept closely cropped. When he reached up to scratch it, she noticed that he had a severely crooked pinky finger. She figured it might be the only imperfect thing about him.
    “Did you break your baby finger, Dutch?”
    He held out his hands in front of him to inspect them. “Oh that. Nope, it’s an odd family trait.”
    “Does it hurt when you do so much work with your hands?”
    “Nope,” he then put his hands on his hips, looking annoyed that she’d changed the subject. “It is really important that you keep your wits about you, while we dig. You have to stay focused. This area is full of snakes, and right now they’re getting ready to hibernate as the cold weather moves in. That means they are going to be super aggressive.”
      She nodded in understanding as he began to pace in front of the cabin, gathering all his tools in preparation for a morning hike to his claim. “I’ve never taken anyone with me, but I guess I can trust you,” he mumbled more to himself than to her.
    “I won’t say a word to anyone, I swear. I’ve never prospected before. Is it hard?”.
    “It’s a full day of digging, loading dirt into buckets, then carrying it to the stream where I wash it down