Alaskan Sweethearts (5 page)

He said the last in a whisper, as though it pained him.

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Just that sometimes we mess up and there’s no going back to fix it.”

“Oh.” Scarlett waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. “I’m just saying it would be nice to have help sometimes.”

She still felt she was a Christian, which was the cruel part of all this. She couldn’t help believing in Him. But she no longer trusted that He was there to help when she needed Him. She wasn’t going to tell that to Hunter, though. Not if he wasn’t going to tell her what had happened to put that look on his face. Anyway, she had to live in the real world if she was going to protect her son. She couldn’t rely on anyone, and especially not a God who never seemed to show up.

Hunter was silent for so long she wondered what he was thinking.

“You’re not going to try to change my mind?” she finally asked. “My grandmother would be making her arguments by now.”

“I’m not your grandmother,” he said mildly.

“I see that.”

“And I know it sometimes seems that God doesn’t care,” he added. “Like I said, I was away from God for a long time, too.”

She was glad he wasn’t going to scold her. Maybe he even understood.

A streak of lightning flashed between the clouds and seconds later a loud clap of thunder rattled the windows. Scarlett shivered as fat drops of rain fell from the sky. Hunter stepped close enough to shield her from the worst of it, but not all. She was grateful for that as the rain hid the tears streaming down her face. She hadn’t realized until now just how upset she’d been that God had let her down. Before she’d married Victor, she’d believed in a God who loved her. Because her father had left them when she was young, she’d felt particularly vulnerable. She’d prayed, specifically asking Him if she should marry Victor. He hadn’t sent any sign not to do it. He hadn’t even punished Victor for leaving, either. Bad people truly did win. Now all she had was a raw emptiness where her faith had once been.

“We best get back inside.” Hunter put his arm around her shoulders and led her toward the door. “No point in standing out here and drowning in the rain.”

She looked up at him, trying to regain her composure. “No one drowns in the rain.”

He might know she’d been crying, but she wasn’t sure. The politeness she saw in his eyes made her suspect, though—as if he was being careful not to intrude on her emotions just as he’d been careful not to reveal all his emotions when they’d talked.

“Turkeys do,” Hunter said blandly as he opened the door and smiled down at her. “Stupidest bird you ever want to meet. They open their mouths when it rains and look up at the sky until they literally drown.”

It wasn’t until Scarlett stepped over the threshold into the café that she realized she was no better than a turkey. Her new silk suit would be ruined unless she got it all wet soon. The only way to do that was to take it off and put it in water or to keep it on and go back out into the rain. If she didn’t, then the hundreds of rain spots would dry and the material would never be evenly colored again.

She blinked the last of her tears away as she looked over at Hunter. Water was dripping off his hat. His cotton shirt was plastered to his skin. He’d be astonished if she announced she wanted to go back and stand in the rain to save her suit. She didn’t want to make a fuss, but the outfit had been expensive—more than she could afford. And she didn’t want to ruin it. She’d planned to wear it to Fiona’s wedding late this fall, assuming her sister ever made it down the aisle. Fiona had already postponed the wedding twice. Scarlett was beginning to wonder if her sister ever intended to marry her rich daredevil fiancé. But then Scarlett could understand being hesitant. Just looking at Hunter was enough to make her sympathize with her sister. Her emotions went back and forth about him.

* * *

Five minutes later Hunter sat at the table with a white towel wrapped around his shoulders. Someone had given the cat a saucer of milk and she was lapping it up beside him. Linda, the owner, had come out from the kitchen and taken one look at him and Scarlett, declaring they both needed drying off. She’d taken Scarlett into the back room, along with his Stetson. Linda apparently kept some spare clothes there and she planned to put his hat by the oven.

The new waitress only worked a few hours each morning and was gone now, so Linda managed both the kitchen and the waitressing.

“What kind of bird is this?” Joey asked as he held up the paper napkin that Hunter’s grandfather had folded into a shape. His mother had told him about turkeys drowning in the rain and that had started his questions about birds. The boy had seemed to forget the stuffed animal he’d brought with him; the teddy bear just lay on the table.

“An owl,” his grandfather said before Hunter could answer. Then the old man bent his head and began folding another shape.

The boy had taken to the white-haired man more readily than Hunter would have expected.

It probably helped that Mrs. Hargrove was in the café having a soft-boiled egg and toast for breakfast. She had stepped over to the table to meet Joey and suggested more birds to him. She had a way about her that put children at ease. Most likely, Hunter thought with a smile, it was the wrapped lemon drops she kept in her apron pocket. She wasn’t above slipping a boy one of them when she met him, just as her way of saying she was his friend.

Hunter could see her sitting at a nearby table and finishing up her tea. She glanced over at him.

“Thanks.” Hunter smiled at her. “I owe you one.”

She nodded and the gray curls on her head bounced as she did so. She wore a green-checked housedress that was almost completely covered by a white bibbed apron. She was noted for her baking-powder biscuits and chokecherry jelly, both of which she brought faithfully to church dinners.

The truth was that he owed her a lot. What wasn’t so widely known was that she’d been his salvation as a boy. When he and his brothers had settled in with their grandfather, Hunter had done as much as he could to care for them all. He hadn’t known who to turn to for instruction, though, and the older woman had volunteered. She’d been the closest thing to a mother that he and his brothers’d had all those years. She’d taught Hunter how to make pancakes and how to bleach grass stains out of their white socks. He’d learned what to do for a fever and how to use that small bottle of iodine she’d given him.

He looked at the older woman fondly for a moment. Her wrinkled face lit up with a smile.

“How’s Doris June doing?” he asked. That was her daughter. She’d worked in Alaska for a time before coming home to marry a local rancher. Mrs. Hargrove doted on her, saying how nice it was to have family close by her.

“Good,” the older woman said.

“I’m hoping to convince my brothers to come home,” he told her then. People who lived in Dry Creek might move away, but they almost always came home sooner or later. He hoped his brothers would do the same. He’d written letters to each of them, saying how well his grandfather was behaving and how the ranch needed them. The envelopes were sitting on his dresser at home, waiting to be mailed.

“It would do my heart good to see them,” Mrs. Hargrove responded, beaming. “I miss those boys.”

Hunter realized he might not be able to mail those letters now. His grandfather was certainly not reformed. And then he looked at the dear woman’s face in front of him. Hunter didn’t know how many of her white hairs and worry lines were due to him and his brothers. He’d never told her about the struggles they’d had when the other kids had said things about the old man. He’d given Scarlett a hard time for only trusting one person, but he realized that, for most of his life, that one person for him had been Mrs. Hargrove. Even now, he didn’t want anything to smudge the good opinion she had of him. He’d never talked to her about his grandfather’s schemes although he was sure she knew.

They sat together quietly for a moment.

“Bring Joey to Sunday school tomorrow if you can,” Mrs. Hargrove said after a few minutes. She was watching the boy fold a napkin into bird wings. “He’s got a lively mind and will add to the class.”

“I’ll have to ask his mom.”

“Will there be a problem?”

Hunter shrugged. “She may not want him to come.”

Linda had left a pot of coffee on their table and he poured himself some more and lifted the cup to his lips.

Then Mrs. Hargrove leaned toward him. “Your grandfather tells me you’re dating the boy’s mother, so she’ll listen to you.”

Hunter almost spewed hot coffee all over the table, but he managed to swallow it instead.

“I just met her,” he clarified. “We don’t even know each other. She sure doesn’t listen to me.”

“Well, sometimes these things happen quicker than we expect,” she responded, the twinkle in her eye deepening. “Besides, I know you’re persuasive when you need to be.”

Hunter gave a quick look toward the back room. He didn’t think Scarlett would appreciate this conversation. He certainly didn’t. Fortunately she and Linda were still back there doing whatever they were doing about Scarlett’s suit.

“We’ve only know each other for an hour,” he whispered. And most of that time they’d been at odds.

“Yes, well, maybe it does take longer than that,” Mrs. Hargrove conceded with a chuckle as she picked up her fork to resume eating.

Hunter turned back to Joey. Linda had brought some colored paper napkins and scissors to the table for him to use. When the café owner had her Saturday-night specials, she sometimes decorated with strong colors. She’d had a beach theme recently. Hunter spied a bright pink napkin and picked it up.

“Bet you’ve never seen a flamingo,” he said to the boy.

Joey looked up. “A flammy what?”

“It’s a pink bird with long legs,” Hunter said. “Here, I’ll show you.”

Joey frowned slightly. “Pink is for girls.”

Hunter grinned as he started to cut up the paper. “Not if you’re a bird, it’s not.”

Between his grandfather and himself, they had made Joey cutouts of fifteen different birds by the time Scarlett returned.

Hunter tried not to stare at her. He thought he was used to her vibrant beauty by now, but his mouth went dry when he saw her in a simple white cotton blouse and a pair of Linda’s denim jeans. Scarlett walked over to their table and bent to hug Joey.

She was dangerous, Hunter told himself. And she probably knew it. Beautiful women did, in his experience. A man shouldn’t trust them.

“How are you doing?” Scarlett asked her son.

Joey held up the flamingo. “Boys wear pink, too, if they’re flammy birds.”

Scarlett ruffled Joey’s hair and smiled over the boy’s head at Hunter and his grandfather. “Thank you both.”

His grandfather didn’t say anything and Hunter knew the old man was waiting for him to give a witty response. But Hunter hadn’t been this reluctant to talk since the third grade when Missy Crocker had given him a valentine card. Politeness had kept him from giving Missy back her valentine, but he knew she’d only given him the card to make another boy jealous. Those same manners prevented him now from telling his grandfather what he was thinking. But people were watching. The longer he was speechless the more uncomfortable everyone became.

“You’re welcome,” Hunter finally managed to say to Scarlett. He knew it wasn’t enough so he added, “Joey is a good boy.”

Hunter wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard his grandfather give a soft sigh. “My grandson here was just like your son when he was that age. Loved any kind of animal or bird. Wasn’t too much for fish, but anything else. Especially birds. He’d fix the poor thing’s wing or pour out a dish of fresh milk for a homeless cat.”

“Grandpa—”

“He’s a regular saint, my Hunter is,” the older man continued and then, apparently not knowing how to wind it all up, added, “he’s single, too. Make some woman a good husband if she was of a mind to settle down on a large ranch. We have a nice big house on the place. Just put in a dishwasher. State-of-the-art. Takes all the work out of cooking. That and the special vacuum we have—it’s like having a maid.”

Hunter would have slunk out of the café and stayed there, but Scarlett didn’t seem to be listening to his grandfather’s patter anyway.

“Speaking of houses,” she said, as though she hadn’t even noticed that the man who had raised Hunter from boyhood had put a target on his back for any ambitious woman seeking a few new kitchen appliances. “I was hoping we could see the house today that we’ll be living in—you know, when we get the deal set up.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment.

“I wanted to take some pictures for my grandmother,” Scarlett finally added when no one spoke.

“Now that there is a fine woman,” his grandfather said with another sigh.

That seemed to startle Scarlett. “My grandmother? She always said you had a grudge against her.”

Hunter watched his grandfather’s face grow rosy. It was nice to see the old man squirm for a change.

“We had our misunderstandings, it’s true,” his grandfather agreed, looking down. “I was hoping she and I could put some of them to rest.”

Hunter was astonished. His grandfather never bothered to make peace with anyone. He just mumbled things that implied time would wash his mistakes away or the ocean would sweep away the sand so every day began anew. Hunter had tried to tell him it never did work that way, but it was the old man’s theory and he was stubborn.

“I hope she doesn’t flat-out hate me—” his grandfather said, almost as if he were asking for reassurance. He looked up when Scarlett didn’t answer right away. Then he continued “—for what she went through. I never knew Murphy died. Cross my heart. He was hearty enough when I last saw him. Oh, I knew he had that fever. That’s why he didn’t go with me to the claim office. It wasn’t like I started out planning to only sign my name. It’s just— I was standing there and I remembered how he’d snatched your grandmother right away from me and I thought why not get a little of my own back? I was due something, wasn’t I? But I would have done it all different if I had known how it would be.”

Scarlett didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she looked the old man squarely in the eyes. “I don’t think my grandmother hates anyone. She’s the forgiving sort. I’m not sure she’ll be real friendly, though. I think that’s asking too much. You did take all the gold, too.”