“Stay back, or you’ll fall out.”
The girl stuck her hand into the stinging drops. “It’s really pouring.”
“It’s good drinking water,” Mr. McQuaid said. “If you can manage to catch it.”
“Catch it?” Astrid squinted through the darkness as though trying to get a better look at the man.
“Yep.” He leaned forward, cupped his hands together to form a bowl, and then let the water fill it. When the rainwater reached the top, he lifted his makeshift bowl to his mouth and downed the water.
Astrid watched him, fascination radiating from her little body.
“You try it.” He nodded toward the falling water.
She eagerly held her hands out into the rain but managed to capture only a scant amount. Mr. McQuaid showed her again, then helped her to cup her hands so she caught a little more before it leaked out.
“Keep practicing.” He leaned back, his shoulder brushing Greta’s again.
Astrid chattered away as if there was nothing strange about sitting in a cave during a thunderstorm with a man they didn’t know. Although from everything Greta had witnessed of him so far, he seemed like a decent fellow. He’d gone out of his way to help her find Astrid. He’d saved them from certain mauling, possibly even death, from the mountain lion. And he’d aided them into this shelter where they were safe from the storm.
As if that wasn’t enough, he’d been kind and gentle with Astrid, giving her something to do to occupy her time. She could see now why both Phineas and Mr. Steele counted Mr. McQuaid as their friend.
“Thank you, Mr. McQuaid.” Her words seemed somehow inadequate.
“Ain’t nothing,” he replied so quietly, she almost didn’t hear him over the rain slapping against the rocks.
“I owe you our lives.”
“No, ma’am. You don’t owe me. I don’t expect nothing for helping someone in need.”
Her estimation of him rose another notch. If Mr. Steele had suggested that Mr. McQuaid approach her about marriage, did she need to give the idea more consideration? Certainly a man of such high caliber wouldn’t suggest a match unless it was a good one.
Would Mr. McQuaid ask her again? She waited, letting Astrid’s prattle fill the silence. This was the perfect opportunity for him to leverage the situation to his advantage. With all he’d just done for her, she’d have a hard time turning him down.
When Mr. McQuaid didn’t say anything more, she tugged on one of her loose strands of wet hair and let her self-doubts come calling. What if he’d changed his mind? Especially after seeing how difficult her life was with Astrid? And what if he’d taken a closer look at her and decided she wasn’t pretty enough?
Had she thrown away her chance with him? Did she even want a chance?
“Mr. McQuaid,” Astrid said when she’d had her fill of drinking rainwater, “have you found any gold out of the river?”
“Nothing that amounts to much.” He shifted his legs and made room for the little girl to sprawl out next to him. “I learned that getting rich fast only happens to a lucky few. Most of the rest of us have to set store by hard work, the way the good Lord intended.”
“I don’t like working hard,” Astrid said with her usual honesty.
“Astrid,” Greta reprimanded.
“It’s the truth.”
Mr. McQuaid took off his hat, combed through his damp hair, and then leaned his head back as though he was taking time to think before he gave an answer. Greta preferred that much better than someone who liked to hear himself talk.
“My pa always told me and my brothers that even if we don’t like doing hard things, it’s those hard things that make us strongest.”
“You’re sure strong,” Astrid replied. “That must mean you’ve done a lot of hard things.”
“Yep. Reckon I have.” His answer was decidedly sadder. What kind of hardships had he experienced to make him so sad?
“Do your pa and brothers live here in Fairplay too?”
“No, Pa—well, he died a while back. And my brothers are living in Pennsylvania.”
“Are they younger than you?”
“That’s enough now, Astrid,” Greta cut in. “You know it’s not proper manners to pry into someone’s private life.”
“It’s alright. Yep, my brothers are younger.”
“What are their names?”
Greta sighed with exasperation, but Mr. McQuaid was already answering before she could rebuke Astrid again. “Flynn is closest to me at twenty-one. Then there’s Brody. He’s nigh to eighteen. And Dylan—I think he’s about fifteen.”
“So you had four boys in your family?”
“Yep, and I’ve got a little sister. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen her, but last time I did, she was full of questions too.”
“How old is she?”
“Last time I checked, she was only knee-high to a grasshopper.”
Astrid giggled. “No, really. What’s her name?”
“I reckon she’s about eleven, and her name’s Ivy.”
“Since I’m nine, maybe she can be my new friend.”
“She’d probably like that.” Mr. McQuaid was quiet for a heartbeat, and the steady patter of the rain echoed in the cavern. “I’m hoping to move my family out here next summer.”
Greta sensed a wistfulness in his tone, a missing of his family. Why had he moved away from them? Was that one of the hard things he’d had to do?
It hadn’t been hard to move away from family. In fact, leaving had been more of a relief for her—and for them too. The trouble was thinking she might have to go back. She dreaded what her sisters-in-law would say if she and Astrid showed up on the farm needing a place to stay.
It would be humiliating to burden them again.
She straightened her spine. She had to find a way to make it on her own.
“I don’t think me and Greta will still be here next summer,” Astrid said, as if reading Greta’s mind. “Unless I find more gold to see us through.”
Greta smiled wryly. “I highly doubt what you found today was gold.”
“It was shiny.”
“I’m sure most of the gold lying on the surface has already been scooped up by the miners living in town. Isn’t that right, Mr. McQuaid?”
He shifted his body, clearly uncomfortable in the tight, damp space. “All the valuable land around here is claimed. Some of the mines, like Mr. Steele’s, are producing more gold than others.”
“Greta’s fiancé had a gold mine.”
“Yep. He was part owner and doing well for himself.”
“Too bad he had to die.” Astrid piled her new rock collection on Greta’s lap. “I liked him, even if he was old.”
“Astrid.”
“It’s true. He was a lot older than Thomas.”
At the mention of her best friend, Greta’s throat closed up with emotion. More than a year after his death, she couldn’t think of him without missing him.
“Who’s Thomas?” Mr. McQuaid asked.
“Greta was set to marry him, but then he went off to war and got killed.” Astrid spoke the words matter-of-factly, but to Greta, Thomas’s death from pneumonia while at training camp had been anything but matter-of-fact. It had been devastating, even worse than learning of her pappa’s fatality at the Battle of Shiloh in April.