Follow A Wild Heart (romance,) (15 page)

"Pop'll probably be over tomorrow sometime," she said quietly. "As for friends, there's only Gabe Philips, you'll like him. Let's go back to the house now, it must be getting late." She put her fingers to her lips and gave a shrill whistle that startled Logan.

"Mort, come on now, time for bed," she called, and the moose materialized out of the brush almost right beside them. Logan had the crazy notion he'd been eavesdropping.

Without another word, she led the way back up the dark path, enticing Mort into his pen and automatically shutting down the generator for the night.

Logan waited quietly in the moonlight, listening as the pulsing motor died. Before she reached the door of the house, he took her shoulders in his hands and turned her, pressing a feather-light kiss on her lips.

"Goodnight, moon lady," he whispered, and she smiled tremulously up at him, her eyes unfathomable in the moonlight.

Dawn was a faraway chorus of bird song that grew louder along with a persistent voice in his left ear demanding, in a hissing whisper, "Hey, Logan, wake up. Did you bring your swimsuit?"

Certain that he'd only closed his eyes seconds before, Logan groaned and rolled from his side to his back, blinking dazedly at the unfamiliar surroundings and the grinning boy in red bathing trunks bending over the bed sofa.

"Mort and I go for a swim in the morning, I figured you'd want to come with us, you'll really like it. C'mon, get up, it's already getting daylight out there."

Dawn wasn't an event Logan generally celebrated with any enthusiasm. He squinted up at Danny, and finally managed to croak, "Yeah, for sure. Give me a minute, okay?"

"I'll wait for you down by Mort's pen. Mom likes to sleep in till seven on weekends, so be quiet."

Sleep in till seven? In the city, Logan's clock radio generally went off at eight fifteen on weekdays. Saturday and Sunday, he seldom rose much before noon.

Stifling a groan, he sat up as Danny crept silently out.

Ten minutes later, boy and moose greeted him effusively, and both beat him down the path to the small wooden dock floating on the blue surface of the lake. The sun was still only a promise in the eastern sky, but first the exuberant moose calf and then Danny plunged unhesitatingly into the water.

Logan did dive, reluctantly, a shallow plunge into water that felt as if it were about to freeze over. The air whistled out of his lungs at the shocking chill, and his half sleeping body went into spasm and then turned painfully numb in less than an instant. Gasping, he resisted the overwhelming urge to hit for shore and find several warm woolen blankets.

"Feels great, doesn't it, Logan?" Danny hollered cheerfully, and Logan breathlessly agreed, a trifle less enthusiastically. Surely, he told himself grimly, if a twelve year old kid could stand it, he could. Maybe.

Mort was having a wonderful time, splashing around like a child in a bathtub, but Logan soon found that the calf was also a menace in the water. If he came close to either Logan or Danny, he insisted on putting his front legs on their shoulders or back, effectively submerging them.

After sputtering to the surface after one such dousing, Danny gasped, "Know why he does that, Logan? I found out from my books."

Logan adroitly avoided Mort. "Tell me, before he drowns us both."

"Moose are good swimmers, see, but when they're calves, they get tired real easy so they put their head or front feet on their mother's neck, and she tows them to shore. Mort does it by instinct," Danny said, sounding like a parent who thinks he has a genius for a child.

Logan suspected there were many more necessary moose skills Mort didn't instinctively have.

For instance, Danny had said the calf wasn't making any effort to graze on alder shots or forage in the woods around the house, as he ought to be doing by now if he were in the wild state.

Mort had no other moose to teach him how to be a moose, and Logan felt that lack was going to bring distinct problems for Mort in the future. He didn't want to worry Dan, but he planned to research the problem and find out what might be done to help the little animal grow up as naturally as possible.

They played roughly with the calf for a while, splashing him and being splashed and dunked. Then, Logan determinedly set off at a regulated crawl in an effort to get his frozen blood circulating again, and when he turned for shore, he discovered Danny some yards behind, trying clumsily to imitate his stroke.

"You sure can swim good, Logan," the boy gasped enviously, completely out of breath.

"It's just a matter of practice," Logan said. "Plus a few tricks a swimming instructor showed me once. Look, it's simpler this way."

He demonstrated strokes and breathing procedures, finding Danny to be a quick pupil, and for fifteen minutes Logan forgot entirely how cold the lake had felt at first, engrossed in teaching the boy technique.

The sun was climbing well over the horizon when man and boy finally dragged a reluctant Mort out of the lake, coaxed him up the incline and shoved him into his pen. Danny used an old blanket to dry the calf off and gave him a bucket of milk, which the greedy moose noisily devoured. Then, more than half frozen, he and Logan made a mad dash for the shower house.

The cedar-smelling air inside the small cabin was wonderfully warm, and Danny efficiently shoved another stovesize log into the small glowing wood heater as soon as they entered.

"There's plenty of hot water," he announced with satisfaction. "You go first if you like," he offered expansively. "I'm more used to that cold lake water than you are, I guess."

"Did you come down here earlier and light this fire?" Logan asked curiously, admiring the simple efficiency of the shower house, and Danny nodded matter-of-factly.

"It's one of my chores. Mom says chores develop character. Yuck."

Logan showered thoughtfully, grateful for the steaming water, pondering how often he'd turned his shower on at the apartment with no thought of how the water was heated.

The evening before, he'd felt a kind of wonder when Danny nonchalantly showed him how the generator worked.

While the boy showered, Logan shaved with a disposable razor he had brought along.

"What sports do you play at school, Dan?"

"Basketball. The coach says I've got potential, but I've never made the team because all the practices are after school and I've got to catch the bus home. Mom said I could stay with Grampa, his house isn't too far from my school, but I figure I'll wait to be on the team till I get my driver's license. How old were you when you learned to drive, Logan?"

"Ten. My older brother taught me. But I was sure I'd die of old age before I finally could get my license at sixteen. Can you drive, Dan?"

"Oh, yeah, Mom showed me a long time ago, in case of emergency. But I only get to drive up and down the lane, and only when she's home."

"How do you spend your days now that it's summer vacation?"

Logan was piecing together a picture of their life.

"Doing chores, taking care of Mort and being with Gabe. We go fishing a lot, sometimes camping, and he shows me stuff about the bush. Gabe used to be a trapper, after him and my grampa broke up their company. He lived in Canada for a few years, before he came back up here. Gabe's real smart about nature and animals."

Logan noted that Danny talked a great deal about Gabe and hardly at all about his grandfather.

Together, they dressed and walked companionably toward the house, where smoke was rising from the chimney and the smell of bacon floated enticingly out the screen door.

Karena, flushed from the heat of the glowing wood stove, turned and smiled at them.

"Good swim?" she asked.

Danny immediately began regaling her with all the finer points of breathing and movement that Logan had taught him about swimming and she listened, smiling and nodding at her exuberant son, her gaze slipping past him now and then to Logan. High color on her cheeks played up the cool gray of her eyes, and Logan stood and grinned at her like a fool, drinking in her fresh, wholesome beauty, the homeyness of the kitchen, and enjoying the wonderfully alive sensations the morning swim had created.

Danny finally disappeared into his bedroom for a moment, and Logan took advantage of it by closing the distance between them and drawing Karena into his arms for a quick embrace.

"Morning, beautiful," he whispered, pressing a kiss on her soft parted lips before she could find breath to protest. Danny called from the bedroom, and Logan released her quickly, loving the shy confusion on her features as she returned her attention to the frying pan, turning a sizzling pancake deftly.

When Danny reappeared, she waved the spatula at the two of them and ordered with mock sternness, "Don't just stand around waiting to be fed, you two. Get the table set, and I need another few sticks of wood for this stove. Danny, get the milk from the cooler, and while you're at it, go down the cellar and find me a jar of that blackberry syrup we put down last summer. Logan, the place mats and cutlery are in the sideboard behind that chair. Hurry up, both of you, because breakfast will be ready as soon as I finish this last pancake."

Logan rolled his eyes at Danny. "Was she ever in the army?" he queried out of the side of his mouth.

Danny, eyes sparkling with delight, said, "Could have been a drill sergeant, huh, Logan?" and then ducked as Karena flipped a tea towel at them.

The next hour was full of laughter and teasing, with everyone talking at once. Karena had refilled Logan's mug twice with her rich coffee, and even Danny was no longer reaching for another pancake when the sound of an approaching vehicle came from outside, and a moment later, a car door slammed.

"It's Grampa," Danny said in a flat tone when he peered out the window, and Logan noticed the anxious glance Danny shot his mother. He noticed, too, how Karena's face, relaxed and laughter-filled only a second before, became sober and guarded when footsteps approached on the gravel path, the screen door opened and closed and a tall, singularly imposing man strode in and stood frowning at the little group around the table.

Logan stood up politely.

"Pop, this is my friend Logan Baxter," Karena said at last. "Logan, my father, Otis Ahlgren."

Logan walked over to the older man, extending his hand with a smile.

"How do you do, Otis, pleased to meet you."

The older man's handshake was deliberately slow in coming, and when it did, it was brief. He barely grunted a greeting, and dropped Logan's hand almost immediately.

He had piercing pale blue eyes that looked as if they could ferret out a man's soul. Logan met the challenging stare straight on, but no warmth crept into Otis's gaze.

Logan suddenly felt secretly relieved that at least he was tall enough to confront the other man shoulder to shoulder, eye to eye. There were vast advantages to being tall, which he'd never fully appreciated before.

Otis was forbiddingly stern, with a thin mouth that looked as if smiling would be an effort. He was handsome, however, with a full head of wavy, silvery hair and a flowing mustache, hair that must have once been exactly the color of Karena's. He was strong, and his body was still muscular, although he looked at least about sixty five. Handsome and intimidating.

"Sit down, Pop," Karena suggested with an impatient wave of her hand after what seemed to her an eternity of silence as the two tall men stood immobile. "I'll get you coffee. Did you have breakfast already? We were just finishing."

Her father turned his head and gave her a narrow eyed, reprimanding look that said as plainly as words "What is this man doing here at breakfast time?"

Karena flushed despite herself, and then straightened her shoulders and stared back at him defiantly. For goodness sake, she told herself in exasperation, it wasn't as if she had a different man here every Saturday. Couldn't he make an effort to be polite, just this once?

"I've eaten already," he said shortly, turning his attention now to Danny. "Boy," Otis abruptly pronounced in Danny's direction, "you go and get the power saw from the shed, and the axes. Put them in the half ton, we're going for a load of wood today. And make sure that moose of yours is locked up tight, I don't want him near my car. He was out of that pen of his again when I drove in."

Danny hastily pulled on the battered running shoes he'd abandoned earlier at the back door and hurried out.

Otis finally took a chair at the opposite end of the table from Karena. Logan had resumed his seat, and he watched as the older man accepted the coffee and pastry Karena served, making serious business of adding cream and sugar to his huge mug, taking big swallows, chewing ponderously on the nut filled rolls without a word of appreciation or praise for her efforts.

Logan felt half amused at the taciturn display, but he also found a part of him was protectively furious with Otis for making Karena uncomfortable, as he was obviously doing. She fiddled with her utensils, and her gaze flickered anxiously back and forth from Logan to Otis.

"That your Jeep outside?" Otis finally asked Logan abruptly.

Logan returned the man's steely blue eyed stare unperturbed, but feeling a steadily growing irritation at his rudeness. He waited a long beat before he nodded his head. "Yes, it's mine," he confirmed, deliberately not elaborating on the statement. Two could play at this silent intimidation game.