A Wife and a River - A Christian romance

by Sherri Schoenborn Murray

  He loved kids and little old ladies. It was only young women interviewing for his cashier position that he—

  “You even cleaned it this time.” Clara giggled. “Remember that time you—” her gaze halted on Mae.

  “Clara, this is Mae Bucknell,” Trevor said before advancing down the hallway.

  “Come in.” Clara waved a hand.

  “My truck had a flat tire and Trevor’s taking me home.” The floral-wallpapered hallway funneled the pleasant smell of supper on the stove.

  The tiny woman led the way into a pale-green kitchen with white cabinets. “I’ve just put the broccoli on to steam. Trevor, I thought Jack might show up for dinner tonight, and he just called to tell me that he’s dining someplace better.”

  Trevor chuckled under his breath.

  “He worded it nicer than that.” Clara giggled.

  “Have you been feeding him?” Trevor rinsed the steelhead in the sink.

  “Ever since the bouquet, he stops by here, at least, once a week.”

  “Jack used to eat dinner at my place three, four times a week. I wondered where he was dining.” Trevor chuckled. “Do you want to freeze this whole or in steaks?”

  “In steaks.” Clara pulled a roll of white freezer paper out of a lower drawer. “Jack said he’d come to one of our next prayer gatherings.”

  “You’re kidding! I’ve been asking him for over a year.”

  “Did you mention there’s always dessert?” Clara asked.

  “No, I should have.”

  “I did, and that’s when he said ‘I’d twisted his arm.’ Can you two stay for supper? There’s plenty.” At the stove, Clara lifted the lid on a pot and peeked inside.

  Trevor glanced over his shoulder at Mae and mouthed without sound: What do you think?

  She shrugged. Fletcher’s chicken pot pie was wonderful, but he’d probably be mad about them being late.

  “I’ll let you make the call,” Trevor said.

  “Clara, may I use your phone?”

  “Of course.” She pointed to a wall phone near the doorway to the living room.

  Mae picked up the receiver. Wilhoit might very well be the dinner invitation that Jack had accepted. Ruby might be there, and she was always unpredictable. Henry and Albert might rib her all through dinner about spending hours alone with Trevor, and then there was her dad… He’d be mad.

  “Wilhoit Mineral Springs,” Elsie’s voice came on the line.

  “Aunt Elsie, it’s Mae.”

  “Honey, where are you?”

  “My truck had a flat tire, and Trevor Dawber is bringing me home. We stopped to give a friend his steelhead, and we were invited to stay for supper. So please don’t wait on us.”

  “Let me tell Fletcher.” In Clara’s dimly lit living room, the faint chime of a clock announced the half hour.

  Fletcher cleared his throat before he picked up the receiver. “Isabelle made a cake so tell Trevor to plan on having dessert with us.”

  “Thanks, I will. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.” She hung up and was mildly relieved that they were dining at Clara’s.

  “What’s the verdict?” Trevor sliced the steelhead into steaks on a cutting board.

  “We’re staying here.”

  “Good.”

  “We’ll just get this fish wrapped and put away,” Clara said, working alongside him. “We can have snickerdoodles for dessert. I just made a batch this afternoon.”

  “That’s what smelled so good.” Trevor sounded happy.

  Mae didn’t have the heart to tell them about Isabelle’s cake.

  “How’s Evelyn holding up?” he asked Clara.

  “She’s missing that dog of hers something fierce. It’s like she’s a widow all over again.” Clara puttered about the kitchen behind Trevor.

  Their sweet camaraderie continued while Mae folded cloth napkins for the table from a stash in an open drawer. This man that she’d become reacquainted with today was indeed the Trevor Dawber that Fletcher and Henry had first told her about—one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. It had just taken a flat tire, a river, and two elderly people to confirm what she’d sensed all along.

  »»»

  Trevor had attended many church picnics out at Wilhoit in his youth, and knew when the heavy timber on the right-hand side of the road changed to open meadow, that he’d officially reached the historic park. A sign arched over the top of the driveway—WILHOIT SPRINGS. Beyond the poplar-lined entry sat the white, two-story hotel. An American flag hung from a pole extended off the front porch. Memorial Day—one of the biggest trout fishing weekends of the year—was a little less than a month away. Hopefully, he’d hire someone to replace Ollie by then. Maybe it would be Mae.

  “My sister made some kind of cake, and Fletcher asked if you’d stay for dessert.”

  He chuckled. They’d just had snickerdoodles and tea with Clara.

  “I didn’t want to break Clara’s heart. She sounded so tickled about her cookies.”

  “I’d love to stay for dessert,” he said, glad that Mae was a woman who’d rather eat two desserts than break someone’s heart. He shifted into park in the otherwise empty gravel lot across from the hotel.

  Jack wasn’t here tonight.

  “My Uncle Donald, who owns Wilhoit, will ask you to pay two bits for entry into the park. But you don’t need to. You’re only bringing me home.”

  “I don’t mind.” Donald’s mandate came as no surprise. He’d heard before that every vehicle that entered the park had to pay two bits. Courting Mae could get expensive.

  “You shouldn’t have to.”

  “Don’t worry.” He grinned over at her. The sunset cast shafts of light through the treetops, bathing the setting and the woman across from him in a golden aura. She appeared as at home in the cab of his truck as she did behind his counter like she belonged in both places.

  “Thank you for the casting lesson and the ride home.”

  “The evening’s not over yet.” He chuckled at the blush that grazed her cheeks.

  When they climbed the porch steps, a lean, white-haired elderly man asked, “Did you bring a jug?” He wore a red-and-black mackinaw and was seated in a bent alder wood chair to the right of the door.

  “Yes, Uncle Donald, Trevor brought one. He also brought me home, so don’t ask him to pay.” Mae headed inside, leaving the two alone.

  Trevor held up an empty apple cider bottle that Clara had given him by the O-ring handle. “I’ve been out here a few times before, for church functions when I was younger.”

  “Put your two bits in the can.” The elderly man pointed his cane to a five-gallon milk can at the top of the stairs.

  Trevor dropped a quarter into the near-empty metal container. Mae had tried to warn him.

  “It’s beautiful out here.” He gazed out over the railing. Amongst old growth cedar and Douglas fir trees, white cabins lined the west side of the property and followed the curve of Rock Creek, a three-foot wide stream.

  “Wilhoit water won second at the World’s Fair in Spokane in 1908.”

  Trevor nodded. The owner of Wilhoit before Donald had told him the same thing.

  “It’s chock-full of minerals. Cures whatever ails you,” the elderly man added.

  Mae eased the screen door closed behind her. “Dessert will be ready in ten minutes, so we’ll have time to walk to the pumps.”

  “Take him to both springs. The sulfur one, too,” Donald said.

  Part of the Wilhoit experience was filling your jugs with the carbonated water. Mae started ahead of him down the stairs, and he caught up with her on the path.

  “Up until the late-twenties, Wilhoit had its own post office, church, bowling alley…” A sweet fragrance infused the air as they passed a Hawthorn tree bearing tiny white flowers.

  “Sounds like you’re used to giving tours.”

  “I do on the weekends, sometimes.” She nodded. “Before World War One, Wilhoit averaged more visitors a year than Crater Lake.”
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  It was hard to imagine that much traffic on the seven-mile stretch of road between the park and Molalla. “How long have you lived out here?”

  “Almost nine years, since the accident.”

  “I’m sorry.” A rush of empathy left him not knowing what else to say. Mae’d only been twelve when their world had turned upside down. “How long have Fletcher and his boys lived out here?”

  “Longer than us. Fletcher used to be the cook for the hotel before Uncle Donald bought the place. The hotel’s pretty much retired, but Fletcher and his sons stayed on. They help in exchange for room and board.”

  He’d always assumed the Gleinbrochs were a relation of some kind.

  “Right after high school, I went to stay with my great Aunt Lela in Oregon City. She’d had a stroke, and needed help. I ended up living with her for over two years.” Their pace slowed as he took in the tranquil setting, the utter quiet of being deep in the country. “She passed away this January, and then I moved back home.”

  Wilhoit was home to her. “You were young to make such a commitment.”

  “Aunt Lela was a wonderful woman and, I’d always been like the daughter she’d never had.” Halting on the trail, she held her hand out toward a three-sided building, open in front. “Here’s the Bottling House.” Benches lined the walls around a cement slab and the pump. Hinged windows were propped open with sticks. Very little had changed since he was young, except for the name; he’d known it as the Pump House.

  “Once a month, Aunt Lela and I would make the drive here from Oregon City to visit everyone. We’d stay in The Alaskan.” She motioned to a small log cabin bordering the trail. “She’d take hot mineral baths. We always brought jugs of Wilhoit water home.” Mae stood on the large, round stone cistern, and pumped the community tin cup full.

  “I kept trying to believe, like Uncle Donald, that the water cures whatever ails you, but it’s the Lord who numbers our days.” Meeting his gaze, she handed him the cup. “That was quite the disclaimer, wasn’t it?”

  “My last five years had their ups and downs, too.” That’s all he’d say about his divorce.

  She nodded. “This is the soda water spring. You get used to the taste, or as my dad says, you get a hankering for it.”

  “He sounds like a character.” He took a sip and handed the cup back to her. Some people deemed Wilhoit water tasted like 7-Up. Maybe flat 7-Up with salt and something else added. He’d never developed a taste for it.

  “I saw you grimace.” She smiled. “Do you want to try the sulfur pump?”

  “Not if it’s the one that smells like rotten eggs.”

  “It is.” She laughed softly under her breath. “Carloads of people come here every week for jugs of sulfur water. Aunt Elsie thinks it has to do with the old belief that: the worst a medicine tastes, the better it must be for you.”

  “So she’s not a believer.”

  “No, but Dad and Uncle Donald are. They drink sulfur water with every meal.”

  Trevor’s sour expression made her laugh. They filled the jug from the soda water pump. Tiny gold and copper flecks glittered through the glass. Should he invite her to his church tomorrow or ask her to work for him? Tonight, before he left, he’d do one or the other.

  “Fletcher just waved us in.” She waved back to the men on the front porch of the hotel. “Albert’s cranking the ice cream, and you know how long that can take.”

  “Wilhoit needs a dinner bell,” he said as they started back. “In Walt’s backyard, he has one of those triangle-shaped dinner bells. When his wife was still alive, he’d be out fishing; and when it was time for him to come up for supper, Carolyn would ring the bell.”

  “What a wonderful life,” she breathed.

  “Yep.” He couldn’t agree more.

  “After Carolyn passed away, Walt had a hard time going fishing. There was no one back home waiting for him. No one to ring the bell.”

  “Awh . . . I’m going to bring Walt something special, the next time I go there.”

  “He’d love that.” Trevor smiled to himself and hoped for Walt’s sake that she wasn’t thinking Wilhoit water.

  »»»

  One glance at James Bucknell and Trevor saw the strong family resemblance. Mae had inherited her gray-blue eyes and auburn-colored hair from her father.

  “It’s nice to finally meet you.” Trevor extended his right hand.

  “So you’re Trevor Dawber. For some reason, I had a hard time imagining what you’d look like.” James reached in deep, his grip strong.

  “Get me a cup of coffee, babe.” He addressed Mae, and then rolled his wheelchair to the end of the long dining table and set the brake. While she retreated to the kitchen, James pointed to a chair.

  Trevor pulled out the nearby chair and sat down.

  James covered his mouth with the side of one hand and whispered, “You haven’t said anything, have you?”

  “No, not a thing.”

  “Good. When she hasn’t been around, I’ve been tossing that fat yarn. Works pretty good.”

  On Mae’s return to the dining area, Trevor sat back in his chair. She set a cup of coffee in front of her father and cup of black coffee in front of him.

  “Thank you.” He grinned up at her.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Yep, I hear so much about Trevor’s Tackle Shop around here, that I feel I already know you,” James said.

  “I grew up trying to copy your style. You threw tight line.”

  “Those days are gone,” James voiced, probably more for Mae’s benefit than anyone else’s.

  Isabelle, Mae’s younger sister, carried a large tray into the dining area, and soon everyone in the large great room rose to join them. Four of the eight people seated around the table were customers of his—Mae, Fletcher and on occasion, his two sons—Henry and Albert.

  Bowls of a dark-looking chocolate cake teamed with vanilla ice cream were passed around the table.

  “Where’s your truck at?” James asked Mae.

  “Walt’s Place. After work, I went fishing. Remind me to call Barb,” she looked at her sister. “Monday’s supposed to be my last day. I won’t be able to make it now.”

  “Well then, today was your last day. You’re finally done at the Greasy B.” Fletcher grinned, slapping the table.

  “Is this a dark chocolate cake or burnt chocolate cake?” Henry looked across the table at Isabelle.

  “You tell me,” she said with a faint lift of her chin. With her dark, curly hair and ebony eyes, Mae’s younger sister was also a beauty.

  One bite into the cake, Trevor knew it was burnt.

  “The cake’s great, Izz. The best you’ve ever made,” Albert said. Either Isabelle wasn’t good at baking or Albert was in love.

  The girl took her first bite, frowned and slumped back in her chair. “Sorry, everyone, it’s horrible!”

  “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” James said. Amidst the chuckles, he lifted his glass of Wilhoit water high.

  “Dad, I hate when you say that about my cooking.” Isabelle set her hands in her lap.

  “They’ll come a day when I won’t say that about your cooking.” He grinned.

  “Amen to that,” Henry said.

  During the first lull in the conversation, Trevor cleared his throat and glanced toward Fletcher, seated three people over on the opposite side of the table. “Ollie, my first employee’s, not working for me anymore,” he said.

  Fletcher’s jaw hung slack.

  “What happened?” Mae asked.

  Trevor ’s gaze drifted to hers, directly across the table. “He worked for me just long enough to earn an Ambassadeur 5000 baitcasting reel.”

  “You’re kidding!” She shook her head.

  James chuckled as did several others at the table.

  “What’s the deal with those reels? I keep hearing about them,” Fletcher said.

  “Well . . . the main reason you want a level-wind is that you don’t twist your line e
ver when you’re fighting a fish.”

  “That’s what I don’t like about bait fishing.” James shook his head. “You’re constantly getting loops in your line, and before you know it, you have a bird-nest. I don’t miss it.”

  There was also line management with fly fishing, but Trevor didn’t think he needed to be reminded of it.

  “Even with the 5000, you’re still going to get some backlashes.” Trevor spooned a bite of cake. “It takes practice to get your thumb educated.”

  “What do you mean?” Albert waggled his thumb above the table. The lanky teen must be over six feet and had grown half-a-foot since the last time he’d seen him.

  “When you’re fighting a fish, you can add more drag by adding pressure to the spool with your thumb. And if you’re drift fishing, you can extend your drift with much better control by thumbing line off the spool.” Trevor leaned back in his chair. “You feel the fish bite better with this type of reel because your thumb is on the spool as you slowly let off line.

  “When you’re letting off line with a spin reel, there is a period of about… three to ten feet of your drift that you don’t feel anything. You have no sense of feel at all. A baitcasting reel is all about thumb education.”

  “Thumb education.” Albert grinned.

  Trevor was glad that he and Mae had dined at Clara’s. This often happened when he was invited places for dinner. His hosts asked so many fishing questions, and he had so many stories to tell, that like tonight, his ice cream was half melted.

  “What happened with Ollie?” Mae brought the conversation back around.

  “Let’s see . . .” Trevor lifted his gaze to the glass chandelier. “Ollie took home his first paycheck—the Ambassadeur 5000—on Monday, after work.” He nodded and peered at Fletcher. “Then on Wednesday, he didn’t even show up. Once a year, I teach a fishing lesson for Hal Perkins’ fourth-grade class at Scotts Mills Elementary, and that just so happened to be on this day. I was scrambling for someone to fill Ollie’s place when you walked in.”

  “That was the day I lost the star-shaped thingamabob on my reel when I was netting my steelhead,” Fletcher said.

  “It’s called the drag knob,” James said.