Chapter 2
Troy’s heart leaped into his throat at the sight of Lizzy falling.
He couldn’t believe it. The most interesting, capable, not to mention beautiful, assistant he had ever had, and she was about to plummet to her death because he hadn’t thought to offer to climb up in her stead.
What had he been thinking?? It was just that Lizzy was so …
different. She didn’t need constant handholding.
Nor did she want it. She liked to jump in and help get things done, and Troy liked that about her.
But as she jerked midfall, her meeting with the ground postponed, he noticed that a rope was wrapped around her right leg and holding her in place. Thank the good Lord.
Troy scrambled up the ladder until he was high enough to reach Lizzy. Swinging a little back and forth, she was quite calm, which didn’t really surprise him. Any other person, man or woman, would have been screaming their head off. But Lizzy remained ever levelheaded.
“I’ve got you!” Troy reached out and wrapped his arms around her. As he did, the rope that had been holding her suddenly snapped with a loud twang, and Lizzy’s full weight transferred to him.
It took every ounce of his strength to hold them both steady, but she was still slipping, falling again. Troy cried out as she slid away from him. He grabbed her hand as she swung, pulling every muscle in his arm to the point of pain.
“Troy!”
“I’ve got you!” he cried again, barely hanging on as Lizzy seemed to fling herself forward. “Lizzy! What are you?—”
“I can reach the ladder now,” she said after a tense moment.
Troy grunted and then her weight was lifted from him and he looked down to see that she was below him on the rungs of the ladder.
Thank you, Lord, he prayed gratefully as she started down.
Perhaps it was just the fright at almost losing her that did it, but Troy’s heart was hammering in his chest as though it was a wild bird. His knees felt weak as he stepped onto solid ground, and he only just managed to reach Lizzy before they sagged in a heap together.
Before he knew what he was doing, he wrapped his arms around her and held her, feeling her shaking against him as she buried her head against his shoulder and clung to him.
It was such an unusual moment for her. Lizzy was a strong woman.
She had been looking after her little brother for ages on her own.
She had survived a bandit attack and had walked for weeks to escape the evil men who took her home from her.
She had been in Troy’s life for two months now, and he had never seen her cry. She had lived through an illness that had claimed more than a few of her community, and she was still going strong. Nothing seemed to dim her spirits for long, and Troy deeply admired her for it.
He held her close, trying to be a gentleman and not notice how soft and warm she was. He didn’t succeed entirely. She was so lovely. As absentminded as he could be, that had never escaped his notice.
Her breathing slowed gradually, and she calmed. The shivering stopped, and in a moment she lifted her head from his shoulder. “I’m sorry …”
“No, you did nothing wrong,” Troy said. “I’m just glad you’re okay. You are okay, right?”
She nodded and smiled up at him. Having her this close, still in the circle of his arms, Troy felt a warmth suffuse his chest and wondered if it would be wrong not to let her go. Of course it would. They weren’t stepping out or courting or anything. They weren’t married.
They were friends. Good ones, at that. She was the best friend he had ever had, and he didn’t want to lose that.
Troy reluctantly let go of Lizzy and moved a little way from her. He began to inspect her, lifting her arm and taking a discreet look at her leg. Thank goodness for her boot. It had stopped the rope from chafing her ankle.
“What are you doing?” Lizzy asked as Troy looked her over, resisting the urge to pat her down to check for fractures.
“I’m making sure you haven’t broken anything,” he said. “Julie says that sometimes folks don’t know they’ve broken a bone until the fright wears off. You could still be in shock, and there might be something wrong with your arm or leg.”
“I’m fine,” Lizzy said. “I think I’ll be stiff and a little bruised here and there tomorrow, but other than that, I’m not hurt. Thank you for saving me. You seem to be making a habit out of it.”
“And you seem to be making a habit out of needing me to save you,” Troy said with a chuckle.
“Yes, that seems to be true,” Lizzy conceded. Her cheeks were flushed pink in her olive complexion. Her eyes were a deep chocolate brown, warm and bright, and her dark, almost black hair had escaped its ties and now hung in silken folds down her back.
There was something about her beauty, mysterious and enchanting, that always seemed to draw Troy into her dark eyes.
He found himself wondering about the possibility of kissing her and then was mortified with himself.
They were friends. Colleagues, really. They worked so well together, fixing and building things.
He found her mind enlivening, and she challenged him constantly.
She probably didn’t feel the same way. He didn’t dare risk their friendship. It meant too much to him.
“We should get back to work,” Lizzy said.
Troy realized that he had been staring into her eyes and he felt embarrassed. He stood up hurriedly, clearing his throat and trying to smooth his hair. Then he reached out to help her up.
She took his hand, and they were dusting themselves off when Andrew Carter, one of the cofounders of the mine, came up to them.
“I don’t suppose you’ve managed to fix the elevator yet?” he asked.
“We were working on it,” Troy said. He turned to Lizzy. “I’ll go up this time.”
“Careful. There’s something slippery on the platform,” Lizzy said.
Andrew frowned. “What did I miss?”
“Only Lizzy attempting to join the carnival with a highwire act,” Troy said and winked at her. He had to make a joke of it. He was still shaking at the mere thought of Lizzy falling. He knew he’d be reliving the scene in his nightmares for a while.
“What?” Andrew asked. He rubbed the back of his neck. “What happened?”
Troy’s thoughts shifted. He considered his weary-looking friend and put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay? You look more worn than usual.”
Andrew sighed and nodded. “It’s just Mr. McGregor and his fellow investors.
They’re complaining about our lack of ‘forward movement,’ as they put it in their last letter.
I wish sometimes he would just come out here and see the progress we’re making.
Somehow, writing it all down doesn’t seem to do it justice.
Anyway. What happened just now with Lizzy? ”
He eyed Lizzy’s torn, oil-smeared dress.
Troy explained.
Andrew’s face went even paler. “Are you both okay?”
“Never better,” Lizzy said with an indomitable smile. “Don’t worry, Mr. Carter, everything will be up and running soon. We just need to oil the winch more regularly.”
“Right,” he said, seeming less than convinced.
“And perhaps it would be a good idea to send off for a photographer,” she suggested.
“Someone with a tintype camera could capture the work going on here and send the pictures back to Mr. McGregor. We could capture the houses being built, the mine being worked, and the ore being extracted. Perhaps that would help.”
Andrew frowned. “I didn’t think of that. Didn’t Kyle take pictures when we were at university, Troy?”
Troy wracked his brains. He seemed to recall Kyle walking around the campus with a huge bag full of bottles of chemicals and things and a camera fixed to a tripod. “I vaguely recall something like that.”
“I’ll go and speak to him,” Andrew said. “But you’ll have the elevator working soon, right?”
“Yeah, absolutely,” Troy said. He sighed as Andrew turned and left.
“He looks very worried,” Lizzy said. “Who is this Mr. McGregor anyway?”
“A friend of both our families,” Troy said.
“He has more money than a bank. He’s being really impatient with us though.
We explained how challenging this project was going to be, and Mr. McGregor said he didn’t mind so long as we could show progress.
I didn’t think he meant for us to be a fully functioning mine in such a short time. ”
“I wonder what changed his mind,” Lizzy said.
He shrugged and sighed. “We’d better get the elevator working again.”
Troy climbed up the ladder this time, and when he reached the platform, he realized the jug had sprung a leak, which had coated the boards in oil. It had gone everywhere except the pulley, where it was needed.
When he came down the ladder, one rung at a time, he found that Lizzy had made some adjustments to the handle and the locking mechanism that stopped the platform from swaying as people climbed in and out of the device.
He was admiring her work—and trying not to openly admire her for her courage, acting as though she hadn’t been seconds from death just a short while ago—when a bell rang.
It was time for lunch.
Troy and Lizzy worked the handle, bringing up the miners and their morning’s haul of ore. There were several heavy baskets, which Troy and Lizzy managed to get safely out of the ground by calibrating the mechanics to compensate for so much extra weight.
The baskets were taken directly to Ethan at the smelter, and then the men, all eight of them, joined Troy and Lizzy on their way to lunch.
Michael, Troy’s older brother, was among them.
“You got that contraption working, finally,” Michael said as he joined Troy and Lizzy on the walk to the campfire, where all their meals were prepared and eaten.
“We worked out what was holding it back and fixed it,” Troy said, winking at Lizzy. She grinned.
Lunch was soup and bread. They sat around the fire, as they did for all their meals except breakfast, which was had on the go, and conversation flowed around them. Lizzy took her soup and went to sit with Julie.
Michael sat with Troy, and they dug into their soup.