“I want a dog. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have one here.”
“What kind do you want?”
“I don’t care. Just a dog.”
Mike went to the door, opened it, and yelled, “Charlie!”
A large, white, shaggy dog came bounding in with a frisbee in his mouth. He looked up at Mike expectantly and wagged his tail. Mike reached down and took the battered, chewed plastic disc. The tail stopped wagging and Charlie’s eyes riveted to the frisbee.
“Not in the house, Charlie,” Mike said sternly and the tail made a half wag. “Worthless piece of dog meat,” he said affectionately and scratched the big head. “You got a two track mind. The frisbee and the . . . ball.” Charlie jerked to attention on hearing the magic word. Mike laughed.
“Shame on you for teasing him,” Kelly chided. “Come here, Charlie. What kind of a dog is he?”
“Part shepherd, part husky, I think. He’s got to be part of something else with the disposition he’s got. You can have him if you want him. He doesn’t fit in with my sled team at all.”
Charlie ambled over to Kelly and sniffed. She scratched his head and he leaned against her.
“How old is he?”
“Two years, I thought he’d outgrow playing with the frisbee and the ball, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to.” Charlie peaked his ears on hearing the magic words again, and Kelly laughed, hugged his furry neck, and received a wet lick across her face for the trouble.
“Shall we team up, Charlie? I’ll take care of you if you’ll take care of me. What do you say?”
“I’ll end up by taking care of both of you,” Mike said drily. “Come on, Charlie, take this tooth punctured thing and get out of here.” He held out the frisbee and Charlie clamped his teeth on it and bounded out the door. Mike shut it behind him.
Kelly washed mugs and filled them with coffee. “Is there an extra Citizen’s Band radio around, Mike? We used to have one here and in the lodge.”
“There’s a good base station in the lodge. I’ll fix it up and we’ll run a couple of substations. Marty’s talking about coming back and . . . she might want to open the other cabin.”
“She wouldn’t have to do that. She could move in here with me.”
“I don’t think she’d want to do that.” Mike grinned knowingly.
“Well, are you going to tell me, or do I have to start wheedling?”
“Start wheedling.”
“Oh, come on!”
“All right. If you’re going to be that way about it, I’ll tell you. It wouldn’t surprise me if Marty brought a man back with her.”
“Man? You mean she’s going to get married?”
“You make it sound so . . . obscene.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I’m surprised, that’s all. She didn’t say anything about having anyone special.”
Mike shrugged. “I don’t know how special he is.”
“Mike!”
He was watching her intently. “Don’t get in a sweat. Marty’s got a right to make her own mistakes.”
“Then you don’t like him?”
“Not especially, but that’s not what’s important, is it?” He got up and put on his coat. “I didn’t like Jonathan Templeton, either.” He was watching her, trying to read her face, and she looked up at him, her features torn by confused emotions.
“I can’t imagine life without you and Marty.” For the first time in months she felt weepy.
Mike’s face had a strange, hard look on it, but it softened as he came toward her. He bent and kissed her cheek.
“See you in the morning. I’ve got the day off. We’ll take a run up to Talkeetna and pick up a few things.”
“I’m too tired to make out a list.”
“Don’t try. Bed down on the couch. Tomorrow we’ll dig into the stuff up at the lodge and make this place livable.”
“You’re too good to me. What’s the catch?”
“I’ve got designs on your body.” He leered and his eyes raked her suggestively.
“Oh, get out of here, you . . . you . . . turkey! Now I know you’re nuts!”
Kelly expected to fall asleep at once, but her mind refused to rest. Plans for the lodge, the comfortable relationship she had established with Mike, the prospect of Marty getting married, all blurred together in a swirl of thoughts. She tried to make her mind go blank but Jonathan’s words sprang before her. “She will be my wife until the day she dies.” Why would he say a thing like that unless he wanted to make Mike angry? But . . . Jonathan wasn’t petty. He was probably frustrated because he couldn’t get the divorce papers signed. She admitted, reluctantly, that she had been petty in making Katherine and Nancy wait for Jonathan’s freedom. The marriage had, obviously, hurt him.
“I must divorce him,” she said aloud, and the sound of her voice in the silent room startled her. She closed her eyes, feeling drained. Slowly sleep came to ease her troubled mind.
She woke once in the night with tears in her eyes and knew she’d been dreaming about Jack. Under the spell of her passion for him, the dreams they’d shared haunted her like an unforgotten melody. She could see his face, tender with love, bending to hers on their wedding night. “God, but you’re beautiful, and you’re mine. Say you love me. Say you love . . . only me.” Jack faded away and Jonathan was shouting, “I never should have married her . . . damn her!” In the next breath, he muttered agonizingly, “Something’s got to give. I can’t take much more of this.”
Kelly sank into an exhausted sleep and awoke only when she felt something rough and wet on her face. She opened one eye. Charlie was staring at her. She opened the other eye and saw the outside door open. Seconds later, Mike’s square body filled it, and he kicked it shut after him. He brought in an armload of wood and knelt beside the fireplace.
“Are you going to lay on your butt all day? Get up, we’ve got things to do.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE FIRST WEEK flew by. The second week ended and Kelly looked back with amazement at what she and Mike had accomplished. First, and most important, they had found Clyde and Bonnie Fisher, a middle-aged couple from Ardmore, Oklahoma. The Fishers had come to Alaska for better pay and found making a living just wasn’t all that easy. But they loved the country and wanted to stay. Bonnie cooked fabulous, home-style meals, according to Clyde, and Clyde was about as handy as the pocket on a shirt, according to Bonnie. They both proved to be right.
“Think of the ads I can run in the papers! ‘Come to Mountain View Lodge and meet Bonnie and Clyde.’” From the very first Kelly felt as if she had known them forever.
“That’s the only reason I married that ugly ol’ boy,” Bonnie said with spirit, her twinkling eyes seeking out Clyde. “I looked all over the country for a man named Clyde. I swore I was goin’ to get me one. We was goin’ to be Bonnie and Clyde. Well, this ugly ol’ cowboy was the only thing I could find, so I took ’im.”
“And I let ’er catch me ’cause she’s fat and soft and keeps me warm on cold nights.”
They were a perfectly matched couple and Kelly loved the good-natured banter that passed between them. They would live in the lodge in the room behind the kitchen, and be more or less responsible for it. Salary didn’t matter too much, as long as they had a place to live and food to eat.
The first snow began falling one night and by morning it was a foot deep. Kelly looked out the window at the strange, haunting beauty of a monochromatic landscape, set against the deep blue of the winter sky. She put the copper teakettle on the cookstove and went back to the window to watch Charlie dig his nose deep in the snow and come up with his battered frisbee. He came to the window and stood looking at her, tail wagging. Kelly couldn’t resist his silent plea.
The instant she opened the door he was there, frisky and playful. Shivering in the cold, she took the frisbee and sailed it far out into the air. Charlie bounded after it, leaped, and caught it in his mouth. He stood looking at the closed door, then with a toss of h
is head, he threw his toy up in the air, then pounced on it when it landed.
Kelly continued to play with Charlie on her way to the lodge. “You’re just an overgrown pup, Charlie!” Kelly had put on her old red down-filled jacket and her yellow wool toboggan cap. Her makeup-free face was sparklingly alive. “I’ve more important things to do than play. One of these days you’re going to work, too. I’m going to hitch you up to my old sled. But not today . . . so have fun while you can.”
Kelly left her boots on the mat inside the door of the lodge and let her gaze wander around the cozy room. A fire was roaring in the massive stone fireplace that held an eight-foot log. The room was not large, but uncurtained, double-paned windows gave it an appearance of spaciousness. The “family room,” as they called it, shone with new pride. Even the potbellied stove at the far end of the room had a new coat of stove blacking to cover the few rust spots the idle years had given it. In this cold climate heating was a main concern and each of the three private bedrooms, as well as the dormitory room that held eight bunk beds, had wood-burning stoves. Guests would eat their meals at the long trestle tables set up in the cozy lodge kitchen. In the bush they didn’t expect all the modern conveniences.
Comfortable couches against the walls sported bright new slipcovers that matched the indoor-outdoor carpeting put down for extra warmth, and soft bearskin rugs added a native touch. Several beautiful fur pelts were stretched and nailed to the walls, as were Kelly’s father’s collection of primitive Alaskan tools. Sets of fur-lined chairs stood adjacent to the windows so guests could enjoy the view of Mount McKinley on clear days.
Kelly was excited to see that everything was ready to receive the guests who would be arriving the next day. Two couples were coming up on the train from Anchorage and Clyde would meet them in the four-wheel drive carry-all. Mike was on emergency-call for the utility company and had to remain near the Citizen’s Band radio.
Marty was coming home to stay at the end of the week. She had made one quick trip to the resort before resigning from her job in Fairbanks and had brought her fiancé with her. Kelly had decided she liked him even if Mike didn’t. She suspected Mike secretly thought no man was good enough for his twin.
Marty had introduced her fiancé as Trampel P. Thornburg, and Kelly had thought, good grief why would anyone name a child Trampel? But Marty called him Tram, which wasn’t so bad. He was a ski instructor and a wildlife photographer. He and Marty would occupy the third cabin and together they would arrange cross-country ski tours or overnight camping expeditions for the extra hardy wildlife enthusiasts. Many tourists loved winter safaris, especially those that offered excellent opportunities to observe caribou, moose, and wolf.
“Are you goin’ to stand there admirin’ or are you comin’ to eat these flapjacks?” Bonnie called from the kitchen door.
“Flapjacks, again? I’ll be so fat I won’t be able to reach the table!”
“Well, land sakes! You’re so skinny a good Oklahoma norther would blow you clear down to Texas. Get yourself on in here, now. You need somethin’ that’ll stick to your backbone with all the work you’ve been doin’.”
Bonnie’s square body was bundled up in a bright blue jogging suit complete with turtleneck sweater topped with a bibbed apron. She waddled around in fur-lined moccasins.
“Bonnie! What are you going to wear when it really gets cold?” Kelly’s eyes had a vivid sparkle. “All you need is earmuffs and you’ll be ready to trek to the top of the mountain!”
“If there’s anything this Oklahoma girl hates more than Texas football, it’s cold! I’m here to tell you I’m not pokin’ my head out of this here lodge till spring!”
“You’re priceless! Where’s Clyde?”
“He’s out on the end of that chain saw again. Give that man anything with a motor and movin’ parts and he’s as happy as if he had good sense.”
In the late afternoon Kelly stuck her head out the door of her own cabin and called to invite Mike in for coffee. Closing the door, she viewed the room proudly. She loved the cozy, neat home she had shared with her father during her growing-up years. She remembered the winter they made the braided rug that covered the floor. He had braided the wool strips and she had sewn them together with nylon fishing line. It was as bright and as durable now as when new. A pillow-lined couch with a freshly washed slipcover stood on one side of the fireplace and a rocking chair on the other. A floor-to-ceiling bookcase which also housed the stereo set she had sent down from Anchorage when she gave up her apartment, and a winter’s supply of reading material, helped to turn the cabin into a home. Although not fancy by city standards, it gave Kelly a feeling of permanence and security.
She set two mugs and a plate of Bonnie’s freshly baked chocolate chip cookies on the trestle table that divided the kitchen from the rest of the room and smiled at Mike when he came in. He pulled off his boots and hung his coat on a peg.
“Sit down and ruin your appetite for supper.” Kelly lifted the graniteware coffee pot from the stove.
“It would take more than what you’re offering to do that,” Mike said, reaching for a cookie. “Now if I could find me a woman who could cook like Bonnie, I might even marry her.”
Kelly poured the coffee, then paused to listen before she returned the pot to the stove. “Do you hear a chopper?”
“Yeah, guess I do. The rangers up in the park have one, but they seldom come down this far.”
The sound of the helicopter came closer and Kelly went to the window to peer out.
“You don’t suppose our guests decided to fly in tonight instead of taking the train tomorrow?” she asked with a worried frown.
“So what? We’ll get one more night’s lodging out of them. Sit down and drink your coffee. Clyde’s already on his way out to meet the helicopter. I can hear him grinding on the starter.”
Kelly turned on another lamp and sat down across from Mike. Soon they heard the helicopter take off again and then the sound of a car returning from the clearing where it had landed.
“I should go up to the lodge and meet the guests.”
“Let Bonnie handle it,” Mike said, reaching for another cookie. “She’s already got enough stuff baked to feed an army.”
Kelly laughed. “If I don’t knock off eating so much, I’ll have to spend my vacations at a fat farm.”
“You look a sight better than when you first came home. You looked like a starved alley cat.” Mike’s strong mouth deepened into a genuine grin.
“That’s what I like about you. You say such nice things.”
The car stopped in front of the cabin. Kelly saw the lights shining on the snow through the window. Then a car door slammed shut and someone hammered on the door.
“Who was the wiseguy who said Bonnie could handle it?” she said as she got up.
She flung open the door and a man’s frame filled the doorway, his bare, snow-dusted head almost touching the top. Jonathan! He was wearing a sheepskin coat and carried a large suitcase in each hand. The chill that struck Kelly had nothing to do with the wind coming in.
Jonathan’s dark eyes took in every detail of her appearance—her worn jeans and a faded flannel shirt that revealed her white throat and the tops of her unencumbered breasts. His bitter stare made the color rise to flood her face, all except her white lips, which parted and whispered a silent “No!”
His face was harsh and powerful, the jaw jutted in angry determination, the mouth straight and very hard. Kelly looked around, as if for someplace to go. In her dazed state, she realized Mike was on his feet. She turned slowly to meet piercing brown eyes. At once her mind jerked awake.
“What are you doing here?”
Mike moved up beside her and Jonathan stood silently, dwarfing them, his broad shoulders tense. He moved into the room and dropped his suitcases. Kelly closed the door and stood with her back to it.
“I asked what you’re doing here!” Her voice echoed shrilly. She drew in her lower lip, her face stiff with brittle cynic
ism.
“I came to see my wife. What do you think?” His mouth twisted caustically.
Her body tensed as she tried to stop trembling. Her blue eyes flickered restlessly, not touching on her husband, whose presence seemed to fill every corner of her mind. Damn it! Here she was quaking like a timid rabbit, just as she had done in Boston.
“I don’t want you here!” Her voice had savage, raw feeling in it. “I’ll sign your papers. You can stay at the lodge tonight, but I want you out of here in the morning.”
Jonathan’s features hardened even more. He glanced at Mike, who was watching him with a taut expression.
“I’m staying and the sooner you realize it the better.” The icy eyes dared Mike to interfere.
“If Kelly doesn’t want you here,” Mike said through tight lips, “you’re going, and that’s all there is to it.”
Jonathan hit him. One moment the two men were glaring at each other and the next Mike was flying across the room and landing with a thud against the trestle table. It was over before Kelly could intervene.
She ran over to him. “Mike? Mike? Are you hurt?”
He sat up, rubbing the back of his head. “What do you think? I don’t bang my head on the table every day.”
Kelly stood up and turned on Jonathan. “What’s gotten into you? You had no reason to hit Mike,” she said furiously.
Jonathan’s hard-boned face was taut with rage. His hands clenched and unclenched. He looked as if he wanted to strangle the two of them.
“No reason? You better get him out of here or I’ll kill him.”
For a moment Kelly was lost for words. In the eight months she had lived with this man, he had never shown this kind of violence.
“You’d better go, Mike. I’ll talk to him,” she said quietly, her eyes begging him to obey.
“You’re sure?” He darted a look of pure hatred at the man standing in a pool of water that dripped from his snow-covered boots.
“Yes, I’m sure.” She reached behind Jonathan and plucked Mike’s coat from the peg. Mike shrugged into it and put his stocking feet into his boots. As if to assert his authority over the situation, Jonathan stepped over, opened the door, and slammed it shut after Mike passed through. Immediately, he turned on Kelly and the look of fury on his face made her shake with a totally new fear.
Dreamkeepers Page 3
