Northern Lights Trilogy (136 page)

“We’ve been away six months, darling.”

“Are you sorry to be missing your second Alaska opening?”

“Not half as sorry as I’d be if I weren’t here with you.” He smiled at her, then, scanning the deck, pulled her between two lifeboats. Hidden there, he kissed her, a deep, searching kiss, until she squirmed in his arms. “Trent, what if someone else is strolling the deck?”

“Then, my love,” he said tenderly, “they’ll see a couple in love stealing a scandalous moment together.”

“Come,” she said, slanting her eyes at him as she took his hand. “Let’s go somewhere proper for a married couple intent upon privacy.”

When they reached their room, Trent popped the cork from a deep green bottle.

“Champagne? What are we celebrating?” Tora asked. Trent was not ordinarily one to drink.

“Us. Our union.” He poured two flutes and handed her one.

“And to our friends at the Ketchikan roadhouse. May we soon be reunited.”

“To our friends in Ketchikan,” Trent repeated.

“Karl, where are you?” Elsa muttered in exasperation. The children hopping up and down at her side had not helped her growing impatience either. Finally, she sent them to the house to wait with Kaatje’s girls. First the guests disembarked from the
Fair Alaska
, coming down a wide, canopied gangplank to the pier below. It had seemed to take the crew an eternity just to set it up, and another lifetime to wait for all the guests to come to the pier. At last he appeared, her beloved, coming toward her. Elsa thought her heart would burst with joy. It wasn’t until the moment she saw him that Elsa realized how much she had missed him.

As he walked toward her, she moved uneasily. What if things weren’t as she remembered? What if he did not feel this intensity that had overtaken her as soon as the
Fair Alaska
drew near? What if he did not love her as she loved him? What if things had changed in the three weeks they had been apart?

Yet as he came closer, she could see the love in his eyes. And she knew that all her fears were for naught. Karl Martensen loved her with all the passion and intensity she felt for him. When he reached her, he took her hand and, bending low, kissed it with reverence. Then, before anyone could see, he quickly kissed the inside of her wrist. It
sent butterflies to her stomach, and she grinned back at him as he straightened, still tenderly holding her hand.

“I’ve missed you, Karl.”

“And I, you. I told you that you ought to come with me.” He offered Elsa his arm, and they walked up the beach on newly constructed stairs to the Storm Roadhouse.

“It wasn’t the place for children. It being your first voyage with passengers and all.”

“Kristian and Eve are well behaved. And at some point they’ll have to travel with us.”

“At some point,” she repeated, relishing the idea of traveling together and never parting. “Is that when I captain your ship?”

“How about we make a deal? You take her out of port to our destination, and I’ll bring her home.”

“I will be content with any arrangement, Karl. Truly. I agree with you. This last separation proved to me that I don’t want to leave your side again. If we are to be together, let us be together. And soon,” she said urgently, squeezing his arm.

“It can’t be soon enough for me,” he said in a suggestive whisper as they entered the grand house. “Remind me why we’re waiting to marry?”

“Tora waited on me for months. I ought to be able to wait a few weeks for her return.”

“She obviously wasn’t as much in love as we are,” he said lowly, making Elsa laugh. They walked through the front foyer and into the dining hall.

In one corner the small orchestra that traveled aboard Karl’s ship entertaining the guests was setting up as Christina and Jessica—dressed in their finest—brought guests elegant hors d’oeuvres of smoked salmon, caviar, shrimp, and red beef. A waiter served the finest beverages available in the Storms’ crystal wedding flutes.

The clinking of glasses brought Bradford Bresley forward, and he waited patiently for the crowd to quiet. “Thank you for joining us
for the thirty-fifth Storm Roadhouse opening. As a joint venture, Trent generously allowed a few of us to take stakes in his roadhouses in Juneau and here in Ketchikan, so it is with some mirth that I now can call myself an innkeeper.”

The crowd laughed obligingly.

“Trent and Tora Storm could not join us today because they are otherwise engaged.” He coughed conspiratorially and again was rewarded with laughs. “But we neophytes at innkeeping will try to get through this on our own. So, a toast.” Every adult in the room raised a crystal flute. “To prosperity and fond memories.”

“To prosperity and fond memories,” the crowd said as one.

“Do I dispute a land claim here?” Soren asked, as soon as he was inside the door of the Juneau land office.

“You can take it up with me,” said a clerk, moving to an open portion of counter and waving him forward.

“I had parcel 1155 registered in my name, Soren Janssen,” he said, spreading out his original deed. “I worked it, had tracer mine materials on site.”

“And?”

“Another man brought in a crew while I was here in town, used my equipment, and found the gold that was meant for me.”

The clerk looked more closely at the deed. “Claim-jumpers, eh? Parcel 1155…Yes, I read about this one. They struck it big, didn’t they?”

Soren only responded with a scowl.

The clerk’s smile faded, and he looked again at the deed. “Says here that your claim was up in November of last year. You renew? Pay the taxes?”

“I was here in town, working. I assumed I could renew it at my leisure.”

“You assumed wrong. When the taxes go unpaid and the claim lapses, it’s fair game.” He turned to a large book behind him and let
it slam to the counter, then he paged through until he found what he wanted. “Didn’t you say your name was Janssen?”

“Yes.”

“This mine is registered to a Janssen.”

“I know.”

“Hmm. Cat-gee,” he said slowly, trying to sound out her name. “A brother or cousin? Seen that a time or two. Liable to tear a family in two.”

“Kaatje. My wife.”

The clerk snorted and then hid his smile behind a hand. He swatted the clerk nearest him. “This man lost his claim to his wife.” They both broke out in undisguised laughter. “Not getting along with the missus, eh? I’d suggest you reconcile, or you’re out your gold. There ain’t a lick I can do for you.”

Soren turned and left without another word, ignoring the second peal of laughter exploding behind him. Would the humiliation never end? It wasn’t enough that she blocked his every attempt to make something of himself. Now she had gone and stolen from him. And there was no getting it turned back around.

He placed his hat on his head and straightened the brim. Reconciliation. He and Kaatje had never been further from it. Not that he was ready to pursue it again, after all the embarrassment she’d put him through.

She had taken up with Walker. She’d led Soren on while cheating on him and cheating him of his gold.

Sure she didn’t know about it.

He didn’t buy that explanation for a moment. Soren looked one way and then the other as he stood at the street in front of the claim office. What was there for him to do now? No wife to win, no mine to claim. He felt all tied up inside, like an angry bull brought down and bound at the hooves. It made him want to run or chop down trees or swim back to Ketchikan and give that James Walker the licking he begged for.

Ketchikan. He would go back, and one way or another, set things to rights.

But first he wanted a drink. It had been far too long since he had indulged in a decent pint of whiskey. If there ever was a perfect night for it, this was it.

Karl smiled as he smoked a rare, celebratory cigar with the other men out back of the hotel, and then walked farther out, away from the lights of the house. Kristian followed every step he made, as he had since Karl’s arrival. “Yes, there they are!” Karl exclaimed. He bent to point the northern lights out to the boy, and Kristian hopped up and down.

“Can I go tell the others?”

“Yes. Let’s do. They’ll all want to see them.” It was a remarkable show, in deep red and purple against a black sky. He dropped his cigar to the ground and mashed it with his heel until no spark remained. Then he hurried toward the roadhouse after Kristian, taking the stairs two at a time. Since returning from Seattle, he had been aching to get Elsa alone, to properly bestow his engagement treasure on her. Now was the time—he knew how much she loved the northern lights.

“Hey, everyone!” Kristian yelled. “Come and see. The northern lights are out! The northern lights!”

As Karl knew they would, the people came at once, chattering and laughing, a party en masse. But he grabbed Elsa as she passed. “Not you.”

“But I want to see!”

“And so you shall. But it’ll be a private showing.” He gently took a sleepy Eve from her arms, handing the girl off to Mrs. Hodge, and then offered Elsa his hand. It gratified him as she coyly slipped her long fingers in his. How good it felt to hold even her hand! What would it feel like to hold the rest of her in his arms, with no need to relinquish her again? They walked around the house to the back as
the others went to the front, and continued on, climbing the high hill. From the ship he’d seen that there was a clearing at the top—he hoped it was as perfect as he thought it might be.

It was. Elsa gasped as he helped her sit on a wide stump, then knelt at her side. Trees angled down on either side of their private auditorium giving them a perfect view of the mountain range and the colors that climbed the sky in slashes above them. The aubergine lights were vertical as the magenta stripes crossed them.

“It looks like a wild Scottish plaid,” Elsa whispered.

“Or a very rare zebra.”

Elsa laughed, the sound of it like a wind chime in his head.

“Elsa, I bought something for you in Seattle.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.” He reached inside his pocket for the velvet-covered box. “It’s a ring. I want to put it on your finger. You can see it once we’re nearer the house. But I wanted to give it to you here, on this perfect night.” He took her hand in his and slipped it along her finger. “We’ll have to get it sized—”

She hushed him with the fingers on her other hand. “It’s perfect.”

“But you can’t see it.”

“Karl, it’s perfect.” She leaned over to him, tilting her head slightly for a kiss, and he gladly obliged.

“We have to wait until Tora returns? “ he asked urgently, as they parted.

“Until Tora returns,” she said firmly.

He rose and nudged her to the side of the giant stump, then sat down beside her. He put an arm around her, liking how she fit in the crook of his arm, and pulled her close. “Have you thought about what we’ll do once at sea? I mean, really thought about it? You’ve been a captain for some time, and, truthfully, it will be difficult for me to stand down as first mate.”

“There needn’t be such conflict. My joy is just being at sea. Let’s begin together, with the children, and see where it leads. I will be
content for some time simply to be your wife and the mother of my children, if not forever. I have much to keep me busy between Kristian, Eve, and my painting.”