Adam laughed and kissed her forehead.
“You are tempting me from my appointed path!”
“It will be very rocky if you are hungry and it would be far easier for you to accept what I have offered.”
“Although I would not accept money from you or from any other woman,” Adam said seriously, “I would rather paint you than go looking for gold in the Rocky Mountains.”
“It sounds exciting! Perhaps I could go with you and cook for the other gold-diggers, who the books tell me are fleeced of their nuggets by dishonest tavern keepers amid dancing girls.”
“That is true enough,” Adam agreed. “The hardship the men endure would be intolerable if they had not some sort of amusement.”
“Just as you would find it!”
“Of course!” he agreed.
‘That is what I would be for him,’ Roberta thought to herself. ‘But
