Pathways (9780307822208) (9 page)

“Sure. After we pick up cinnamon rolls. Want one, Bryn?” Her tone was friendly, but her eyes conveyed anything but warmth.

“That’d be perfect. I need to grab some groceries too. Is it okay that I’m intruding?”

“No problem.” Eli came around to open the truck door for them, gesturing for Sara to enter first. As she ducked inside, Eli’s eyes found Bryn. “It’s … it’s good to see you,” he said lowly.

“It’s good to see you, too, Eli. We’ll have to catch up sometime.”

“I’d like that,” he said, then brushed past her toward the driver’s side of the cab.

Bryn didn’t dare look over at Sara, certain she would appear as jealous as Bryn herself felt about her.
Stupid, Bailey
, she told herself.
You’re being completely stupid. Back off. You’re here for you this summer, not to reclaim Eli. And you have no right to him anyway
. Suddenly all she wanted was the safety of the taxicab, the reminder that she was a cheechako, and the subdued smell of old cigarettes—anything to make her forget the spicy, outdoorsy aroma of Eli Pierce.

“So tell me about Bryn Bailey,” Sara invited, her tone carefully neutral. They had dropped Bryn off at the mercantile for supplies.

Eli smiled over at Sara and took her hand with his right. They had been friends from the start this summer, and dating for a couple of weeks. “She’s an old family friend. Her dad and my dad bought places on Summit the same summer. They met in Germany. It’s a long story.”

“I have time.” She crossed her arms, and Eli could feel her eyes on him. A slight flush rose up his neck.

“Bryn has come to Alaska every five years since we were kids. Last time I saw her was in 1991. Her dad practically dragged her up here. I’m surprised she came alone. I wonder where …”

“And?” Sara asked impatiently, pulling him back to the point of their conversation.

“And … we were friends, that’s all. Did some hiking, some canoeing, some flying together.” He pulled the truck over, across the street from the bakery, and looked at Sara. “I’ll be honest with you, Sara. I wanted to have something more with her; she wanted more with me. But we were just too different. Not to mention that she lived in California and I lived in Alaska. Now she’s in Boston. And she’s not a believer.”

“But if she had been?”

“If she had, something more probably would have happened between us. But there was still the major obstacle of distance.”

Sara nodded, her eyes searching the park before them. They were on the edge of town, near the river. She nodded again, as if mulling over his words, but then simply smiled. “I’ll go talk to the guys, see if there’s someone who wants to take my day trip tomorrow so we can spend more time together at the lake. Meet you back here?”

“Sure. I’ll go get the rolls.” He watched her turn to let herself out the door, and wanting to reassure her, he reached for her once more. “Sara, there’s nothing between Bryn and me. We’re old friends. That’s all.”

“Uh-huh. I’m not staking a claim, just curious. We’re just
friends
too, right?”

“How long you here for?” Eli tossed over his shoulder to Bryn. He had seated Sara beside him in the cockpit, wanting to make her feel like the priority. After all, he had invited her out to the lake to be with him.

“Couple of months,” she called out. Eli caught Sara’s meaningful glance as he focused on the instrument panel again. It was clouding up quickly, and Denali was already behind a thick curtain of gray. He’d follow up with Bryn later. Right now he had to concentrate on getting to Summit safely and not setting off any more alarm bells for Sara. Sara was a fine woman and a fast friend, just his type; he didn’t want to mess up with her. They’d just started to really connect. There was the potential of something sweet between them … Something
like what he had once with Chelsea Thompson. Something big.
Yeah, something big
.

He nodded at Joe, another pilot, who gave the prop a pull and pushed the plane out to the water. Bryn had two huge duffels with her this time and several bags of groceries. Eli ran through their combined weight one more time and, satisfied that they weren’t overloaded, cruised out to the end of the lake, radioed Talkeetna’s air traffic control, and, when cleared, took off.

The trip to Summit took about ninety minutes, and much of it was spent listening to the roar of the engine and watching the fast moving, low-lying clouds move in on the Susitna Valley. “You okay?” he asked Sara.

She nodded quickly, her wide eyes never leaving the front windshield. “Fine. How long till we reach the lake?”

“Another ten, fifteen minutes.”

“That cloud bank,” she said, motioning toward the wall of silver before them, directly over the mountain pass. “We’re going through it?”

“Yes. We’ll be fine. I’ve flown through stuff like that plenty of times.”

She nodded again, a bit too eager to agree. He glanced back at Bryn, who stared wordlessly out at the tundra beneath them. She was more beautiful than ever; the five years had given her the gift of more pronounced curves and a mature look that enhanced everything right about her. But there was a touch of mournful sorrow in her eyes, and the crow’s-feet at the corners seemed deeper, the shadows beneath, darker. She was plagued by something unhappy. He cleared his throat and stared ahead again.

Ben always said Alaska was filled with people who were running
either away from something or toward something. If Eli were a betting man, he would wager she was running away. But from what? Where was her father? Coming in soon? His questions would have to wait until he could return to Summit, without Sara.

They dropped Bryn off at her cabin while the heavens softly rained, reminding her of flour coming from her grandmother’s sifter.

“You going to be okay, Bryn?” Eli asked after bringing her duffel bags up to the cabin. He looked troubled, as if he wanted to say more but knew he had to get back to the plane and Sara.

“Oh yeah. You hop in; I’ll push the plane out.”

“Okay. Let me know if you need anything, all right? We’ll be here until tomorrow evening. I’m coming back next week with supplies for Ben. He’s home. Radio me in town if you need something.”

“All right,” Bryn said, thinking about him and Sara alone in that snug little cabin across the way. “
Here until tomorrow evening.” Surely Eli and Sara wouldn’t …
She resolutely pulled the hood of her parka up, and they ran back to the plane. She smiled as Eli’s face reappeared in the cockpit window and she called, “Thanks for the lift! See you around!” It was none of her business what Eli Pierce did or didn’t do these days. Never mind that she couldn’t even get the man to kiss her five years ago. There had been plenty of others who had been willing in the interim. Unfortunately, none of them seemed worth her while. Not like Eli.

She pushed them off again, and Eli ran up the engine and motored across the perfectly still lake, marred only by the tiny raindrops and the wake behind the plane. Within minutes, they had landed on the other side.

Suddenly Bryn felt bone-cold and very alone. Sighing, she made
it up the beach and under the protection of the porch roof she and her father had built. Bryn ran her hands up the nearest pole, her eyes scanning the length and breadth of their work. It was holding up well. “Oh, Dad,” she whispered. It made her ache inside to recognize how lonely she was, how different Summit was without him.

She knew she had come here to feel closer to him, to remember when he was still trying to reach out to her. But she had also come here for her. To look forward, to find rest and rejuvenation and direction. It was a challenge to spend two months on Summit alone. And a good one. From the looks of things, Eli wouldn’t be around much, with Sara in the picture and tourist season soon coming to its zenith. It was up to her. To figure out where she had been, where she was now, and where she was going.

Bryn fished for the old key in her pocket, slid it in the lock, and then pushed on the lever. The door creaked open. Even her father hadn’t been back since they had left, pestered by her mother, plagued by an intense work load, then caught up in his new …

She hauled one heavy duffel into the sitting room and then the other and her groceries. The fire was laid in the wood stove, just as they left it—“I like to know it’s here, ready for me to come and light it,” her father had said upon their departure—and thankfully, with a quick strike of the match, the dry tinder immediately blazed to life. She left the cabin to gather more wood, pulled from beneath the higher, wetter logs. She dumped her armload beside the stove and set about unpacking.

Within a week Bryn had settled into the cadence of her days, beginning with stirring the coals in the stove, adding wood, uncovering the jar of sourdough starter, and dumping two-thirds of it in
a bowl. She put three heaping teaspoons of flour back into the jar, added some lukewarm water, stirred, and capped it. If she did it every time, Ben had told her, she could have sourdough forever.

Bryn wasn’t wild about the taste, but it allowed her to have fresh bread and pancakes and biscuits on a daily basis, and made her feel somehow less the cheechako. She had been given her starter by Ben, who had been given it by another, who had been given it by another. Who knew how far back the origins of it were? She smiled, thinking of the miners and trappers who had first settled this land, bringing their white man’s concoction with them. After a sourdough summer, maybe she wouldn’t be considered an Outsider at all.

Conscious that a week had passed since Eli and Sara had roared down the lake, taking off just as the mild summer storm lifted, Bryn jumped at every unusual sound. She was waiting for his return, she acknowledged to herself. Hoping for his return, like a stupid schoolgirl with a crush.
Get a grip. Bailey
, she told herself. This summer was about her, not about rekindling old flames.
I need a project
, she decided, sliding biscuits in the oven. After three overly crispy, overly blackened attempts, she had finally mastered the needed heat of the fire to perfect her baking. In twenty minutes, she’d have them out to accompany her maple bacon, sizzling in a pan, and fried eggs. She ignored the cholesterol count.
When in Rome …

Project
. What could she do? She looked around the cabin. She’d already added a couple of rough-hewn shelves. Made them herself by carefully following the instructions in a pioneer-era guide she’d discovered in the back room. She picked up the book and thumbed through it.
A fireplace
. In the book there was a river-rock fireplace and step-by-step instructions on how to construct it. Wouldn’t her father love a fireplace? Love knowing that there was not only a wood
stove for heat but also a real fireplace, with a hearth and chimney and a crackling fire, ready to be enjoyed? She supposed there was a part of her that still wanted to please her dad, connect with him, however angry she might be. And yet she could do this for herself, too. To expand her mind, keep her hands busy.

She looked to the end of the cabin. There was no window to contend with—the fireplace would add charm to the structure. It wouldn’t have to be huge. Bryn smiled. It was the perfect job. There was only so much reading and fishing she could do. The hard, manual aspect of it would be cathartic.
That’s it
. After breakfast she would begin to gather rock, a process that she guessed would take at least a week. Later she’d paddle down to Ben’s to ask his advice and input. Maybe he’d even help get her started or pitch in during the times she would undoubtedly need another set of hands. Eli certainly appeared unavailable. She quickly turned her thoughts toward breakfast.

She flipped the bacon and placed it on her plate, then added the eggs. Her dinner the night before had been a cup of beef bouillon and cold biscuits, so breakfast smelled heavenly. She sat down with her meal, ate quickly, and then geared up for the task at hand, gathering a canteen of water, some smoked sockeye salmon—Squaw candy, the natives called it—and the last biscuit in the pan, as well as her father’s fly-fishing gear. Bryn laced up her hiking boots and set off for the south end of the lake, toward the trout spawning area where Eli had fished with her, and then to an ancient, dried-up riverbed full of stones that were perfect for fireplace building.

It was perhaps a half-mile away, and the weather was great for hiking. The sun was out and warmed her skin with the hint of true summer in Alaska, though it probably only hovered around sixty degrees. She wore thick twill chinos to protect her legs from the
underbrush and mosquitoes and an old lavender turtleneck sweater that had always reminded her of her last summer in Alaska. While at the river, she planned to fish. If they weren’t biting, she would scout for a few perfect rocks to begin her collection.

She had just settled in to casting, feeling the rhythm of the line, when she heard the metallic whir of a prop plane in the distance. Within sixty seconds, the Beaver cleared Gevanni Pass and came into view, flying low over the length of Summit Lake. It was Eli. She waved as he passed by, and he tipped his wings, then swooped up and around to prepare for landing. She resisted watching the whole process, concentrating on her casting, which was suffering dreadfully from the distraction.