Follow A Wild Heart (romance,) (10 page)

If only Danny had remembered to fill the water barrel and then light a fire in the stove to heat the water.

Inside the shower house, the tangy smell of cedar filled her nostrils, and the small wood stove was giving off rays of warmth.

Thanks, Danny, you're a good kid, she whispered silently to her son. Making sure the stove was lit and there was water heating was one of the chores Danny was supposed to do each day, but like all boys, sometimes he forgot. Thankfully, this was one day he'd remembered.

She doffed her clothing eagerly, wrinkling her nose at the thick jeans stiff with dirt and pitch, caulked boots and heavy cotton socks, lightweight T-shirt streaked with soil, sweaty underwear. Log scaling wasn't a dainty profession.

Stepping into the slatted shower cubicle, she turned the spigot and scrubbed vigorously with the scented shower soap she kept hanging from a nail, then shampooed her hair and stood, eyes closed, letting the heated water pour over her body, willing the stiffness and weary exhaustion to seep out of her pores as long as the hot water lasted.

Fifteen minutes later, wearing a pair of fresh blue jean shorts and a pink tee from the stack of clean clothing she kept inside a small chest in a corner of the shower house, Karena ventured across the yard and entered the cabin, feeling refreshed and clean again.

Her father was sitting at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in front of him. Danny sat across from his grandfather, looking trapped. The instant Karena appeared, the boy leapt to his feet with an expression of transparent relief on his face.

"Hi, Mom, how was work? I gotta go take Mort out for a walk, he's been cooped up hours already. See you later, Grampa." With that, he was out the door and gone.

"Hello, Pop."

Her father nodded at her without a trace of a smile.

"Daughter," he greeted her seriously in his heavy Nordic accent without looking at her or responding to her friendly greeting, and familiar irritation niggled at her. Once, just once, why couldn't he smile, show some affection?

What had happened to Otis Ahlgren over the years to turn him into this grim, unapproachable man? She remembered rare times when she was little, when her father had carried her on his shoulders, teased her to make her laugh. There was no laughter in this man at all now.

Karena smiled determinedly at her tall, rawboned father and moved to the cupboard for her favorite red mug, then to the wood cookstove where the huge enamel coffeepot sat warming. She filled her mug and topped off her father's.

"Want to come sit on the porch, Pop?" She loved the screened area at the far side of the cabin with its view out over the lake. She'd sewn slipcovers from brightly patterned sheets for the two soft, overstuffed old sofas out there, and when spring arrived each year she moved all her plants out to take advantage of the sunshine that streamed in.

Otis carefully balanced his refilled cup and followed his daughter through the small kitchen area into the larger, all purpose main room of the compact cabin. Here, the steep roof was high and beamed, with a tiny loft overhead where Karena kept her drawing materials. A partition along one wall formed two compact bedrooms for Karena and Danny. A huge natural-stone fireplace formed the interior wall, with long, narrow windows on the side overlooking the lake, and a door at the far end, which Karena used now to lead the way out to the summer porch.

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'Sit here, Pop." She motioned at the old wooden rocker she knew her father liked before curling up in a deep corner of the flowered sofa. For a long, quiet moment she gazed out at the evergreens, which seemed to frame the sloping vista down to where the sparkling deep green lake lapped softly in the afternoon breeze.

"You staying for supper?" Otis lived alone in his house in Northome, and when he drove the six miles to see her, he often stayed for supper. As long as she hadn't invited Gabe as well. When that happened, Otis left in a huff.

But tonight he shook his head. "One of the neighbors is having a birthday, and he invited me to eat with him."

She felt a guilty relief. Tonight, she didn't feel up to having him stay.

"I just stopped over to talk with that boy of yours."

Danny was always "that boy of yours" when his grandfather was displeased about something. With an inward sigh, Karena decided to get the lecture over with.

"What's the problem, Pop?"

"That boy of yours is awful stubborn, Kari. You're too soft on him, I've always told you that, and now he's around old Philips too much. Gabe Philips has no common sense, never did have. And Danny's getting like him. Just now, I told him we'd have to get rid of that moose calf. I had plenty of trouble with him this weekend, but Danny, he just won't listen. He talks back to me."

"What did Mort do, Pop?" she demanded, feeling frustration and an old sense of helplessness at her father's accusations about her son, his resentment of Gabe, his general cheerless attitude toward life.

Up until five years before, while her mother was alive, there had been a balance between Otis's heavy handed ideas on child rearing and Anna's gentler ways. But then Anna died, and Otis had seemed to become sterner and more rigid than ever, and since Gabe appeared on the scene, Danny had openly preferred the old logger's cheerful company to that of his grandfather's.

"I'll tell you what he did, that moose." Otis sat forward in the rocker, holding it still and shaking a crooked forefinger at Karena. "He got out of the pen and stuck his head in the open car door, and he ate a whole loaf of bread and half of my coffee cake from Mrs. Epstein's bakery before I could stop him."

Karena giggled. She couldn't help it. The aggrieved tone, the insulted look on her father's stern features and the mental picture of the wicked moose calf gleefully chomping down Otis's weekly treat was too much.

But her father didn't see anything amusing at all about the situation. His expression became positively dour, and he warned portentously, "Kari, he's no laughing matter, this animal. Soon he'll be too big to handle at all, and what will you do then? From the first, I've told you and told you—"

Her humor evaporated, and it took every ounce of selfcontrol to hold her temper with the old man.

"Pop, I know letting Danny raise Mort isn't the smartest thing I've ever done, and before the animal matures I also know we'll have to find a place for him, maybe a game farm or someplace where he'll be safe. But for the time being, he's certainly not dangerous. A nuisance, yes, he's all of that. I'm sorry about your bread and coffee cake. I'll be baking one evening this week and I'll do Mom's special coffee kuchen for you to make up for it."

Otis looked only slightly mollified.

"Did Danny tell you we both won at the competitions in Bemidji, Pop?" Karena made a deliberate effort to change the subject.

"Ya, he said you won a big prize, and now you'd be buying him those fancy books he's so set on. You spoil that boy, Kari. And where is he now, I ask you? Gallivanting with that moose, instead of here doing his chores."

Karena got to her feet abruptly and collected the coffee cups, feeling her mouth draw into a tense line.

"I probably do spoil him a little, Pop, but he's my son. I feel he should have those books if I can afford them; they're educational." She turned her back on him pointedly and walked into the kitchen, where she shoved a length of wood into the stove and pulled drawers open, noisily beginning preparations for dinner.

Otis followed, and stood awkwardly watching her for a few moments. At last he said with a martyred sigh, "Well, I'll be going then."

"Good night, Pop," she answered with false brightness.

All he said was "Ya."

A moment later, she heard the car start and then the sound of the motor fade away as he drove off.

The kitchen door banged shut an instant later and Danny appeared.

"Grampa gone?" he inquired innocently, and Karena leveled a look at him.

"You know darned well he's gone. Where were you hiding?"

"Aww, Mom. He was giving me heck about Mort again. Y'know, why can't he ever just talk to a person? He's got to always be bawling me out for one thing or another. It's not my fault Mort ate all his dumb old bread, is it?"

Feeling at her wit's end with the whole issue, Karena said wearily, "Where's Mort now, Danny?"

"I gave him his dinner. I mixed up that calf feed Mr. Gardom gave me to try with his milk. And boy, old Mort just inhaled it, y'know, Mom? Mr. Gardom said if Mort liked it, he'd get all the vitamins and minerals he needs out of it. Mr. Gardom gave me a huge bagful, too, so we won't have to buy any for a while."

"Those people were awfully good to you, Danny. I want you to sit down after dinner and write Mr. and Mrs. Gardom a letter thanking them for having you stay with them." Expecting reluctance at that prospect, Karena was pleasantly surprised when Danny nodded eager agreement.

"Ya, sure. I got their address. I want to ask in the letter if there's other stuff I ought to start feeding Mort. Mr. Gardom said he'd never raised a moose, but he figured they shouldn't be all that different from cattle."

Karena had an uneasy hunch that Mort was going to be very different from cattle, but she refrained from commenting. Danny threw himself down in the armchair under the window, and Karena winced. Why didn't he ever seem to bend his knees and just sit, instead of dropping into furniture like a stone?

In an emphatic voice, Danny went on, "See, Ma, that's the thing, that's what I mean. Mr. Gardom and Logan both talked to me, and even listened to what I said. They didn't just harp at me all the time like—"

"Danny," Karena interrupted, "that's enough now. Grampa is family, he's right here to help whenever anything needs to be done that we can't manage, and I don't want to hear any more about it. Wash your hands and help me make supper. And did Logan tell you to call him by his first name?"

There was a perverse pleasure in mentioning Logan's name, as if saying it aloud would confirm the reality of meeting him, being with him.

"I just washed when I fed Mort. I'm clean, honest. And Logan said to call him Logan, because having me call him Mr. Baxter made him feel older and wiser than he really was. How old do you think he is, Mom? Old as you, d'you figure? Older, maybe?" Squinting his blue eyes and tipping his head to the side as if coming to a brilliant deduction, Danny drawled slowly, "Y'know, I think he sort of liked you, Mom. He asked lots of questions about you, and he looked at you funny all the time."

Karena felt her face flame, and as her son opened his mouth to add something that could only be embarrassing, Karena headed him off effectively.

"Wash. Face, hands, neck. Hot water from the kettle. With soap." She pointed at the stainless steel basin on the washstand in a corner of the room, and with a dramatic groan, Danny complied.

Dinner was hamburger patties, boiled potatoes and raw carrots, with instant chocolate pudding, made by Danny, for dessert. Karena washed the dishes, Danny dried, regaling her all the while with more tales of the Gardom's farm, the wonders of milking machines, and surprisingly, several perceptive questions about the baby, Nicole.

Karena responded whenever he asked an actual question, but as usual with Danny, mostly she simply listened and nodded at the perpetual "y'know?" For the past six months, his sentences had all seemed to end in question marks.

Outside the screened windows dusk was falling, the breeze making soft sighing whispers in the evergreens.

"Can I take Mort down for a swim? He likes to go in the water with me."

"Sure. Just don't go too deep."

The long summer twilight would extend until almost ten o'clock.

Karena put a fresh pot of coffee on, added a stick of wood to the cook stove, smiling fondly through the window as she watched her gangly son trotting toward the lake and right behind him, big nose snuffing the boy's shoulder, the equally gangly moose calf with his amusing and ungainly gait.

She could hear snatches of Danny's voice as he talked on and on to Mort, and Karena shook her head ruefully. Danny was the most gregarious person she'd ever come across. He'd talk to a fence post if he had to, and supply the necessary answers.

When the delicious coffee aroma filled the air, she poured a hot mugful and took it out to the porch, watching the lake change color as the last beams of sun filtered through the sky and reflected in rosy hues on the water.

A squirrel she and Danny fed came down for his scraps, chattering noisily as he made trip after trip up the tree and down again with his spoils.

Usually she applauded his cocky performance, but Karena hardly heard him tonight. She sat with her bare legs curled under her in a corner of the sofa, and although her eyes looked out at the idyllic woodland scene she adored, it wasn't her own familiar lake she saw in her mind's eye.

Instead, her treacherous brain created the sparkling image of Lake Itasca, and a tall man's deep voice in her ear. She could feel his muscular arm around her shoulders and the sharp and urgent hunger he'd created in her body with his kisses.

Unfulfilled hunger. She bitterly regretted now the things they hadn't done together on that lakeshore, because she was certain there wouldn't be another opportunity.

Back here in her own world, a relationship with Logan seemed nothing short of preposterous.