Bait Shop Blues

by Nancy Pirri

  “I’ll be fine. Going up to see your uncle?”

  Leif nodded. “And my mother.”

  Maxie nodded. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

  “It’s been a long time. It’s past time I talked with her about things.” He sighed. “I’m thinking about selling out my half of Gateway to Cassie.”

  “Now why in the heck would you do that?”

  “It’s about time I started living my own life. I do have a degree in Natural Resources, you know.”

  “This store’s in your blood. I can’t see you doing anything but running this place. Besides, who’s going to take folks out fishing? Cassie-girl doesn’t know a thing about fishing and guiding and she sure as heck can’t fly that plane!”

  “Cassie’s got big plans for Gateway. I don’t think the fishing will be missed. Once she builds those housekeeping cabins she’ll do just fine, and then she’ll be able to afford to hire herself a guide. And you already know what a success the coffee shop is. She’ll be turning it into a full-scale restaurant once she has the addition built onto the store. Besides, I owe it to her. I’m the one at fault for her accident.”

  “Think about it before you come to a final decision,” Maxie said. “Things just won’t be the same around here without you.”

  “I will, Maxie. Let Cassie know I’ll be back soon.”

  ~ * ~

  Cassandra slowly wakened her shoulder and head aching, which meant it was time to take her medicine. She sat up in bed and checked the time on her bedside clock, stunned to find she’d slept six hours. It was no wonder she was in pain.

  But it had taken her a while to go to sleep in the first place. And all of her thoughts were about Leif and Gateway. Perhaps Leif was right about her returning to Chicago, but she found it difficult to leave now that she’d fallen in love with the shop. Who was she kidding? She’d fallen in love with him. It hurt that he didn’t reciprocate her feelings.

  She’d seen how his complexion had paled at the mention of marriage. He’d said he was too young to have kids, which meant he was too young to marry. She was ready, and not just because her biological clock was running down. She wanted someone with whom she could share her life—she needed to find her life-long companion—her soul mate. She’d believed for a moment in time Leif was that man.

  Gateway was Leif’s home, not just hers. As much as she’d like to make changes to the place she couldn’t now. She also knew she couldn’t live here any longer now that she admitted she was in love with him. She wouldn’t be able to stand the pain of seeing him day after day, knowing that he didn’t feel the same way. Besides, he’d won the competition fairly, and she never broke her word.

  ~ * ~

  The Red Lake Reservation was filled with lots of activity. Young children played in the large park in the center of the community while mothers and grandmothers kept watch. School had just let out for the day and swarms of children tore out of the building across the street.

  Leif sat on the park bench, arms draped over the back as he watched the activity with a smile, his mother beside him. Their reunion had initially been uncomfortable, but the longer they spoke, the more they started to get to know each other. He’d spent four hours at her home, with his stepfather, talking generalities. But now it was time to talk about what Leif had been avoiding all these years.

  “I’m glad you came,” Anna Hightower said.

  Leif smiled at her and kept a grip on her hand, which she’d settled on his knee.

  “Me too,” he said, a catch in his voice. “I’m thinking I may start spending more time here on the rez.”

  Her smile widened and pulling her hand from his she clasped hers together and pressed them against her chest. “I’d like that, son. You know, we could use another card hand on Friday nights.”

  “Great. Any idea if there’s a house for sale? Just something big enough for me would be fine.”

  Leif knew housing was at a premium on the reservation, but he didn’t want to impose on his mother and her husband.

  Anna frowned. “But you have Gateway. Come to visit, anytime, and you can just stay with me and Paul. We’ve plenty of room.”

  “I may be moving here permanently.”

  “But Gateway’s your home, Leif.”

  “Well, it is, but it isn’t, and that’s another story. I’ll tell you about it in a bit, but I came here to listen to something I should have a long time ago.”

  Anna looked deep into his eyes. Finally, she said, “You want to know about your father. I’ve waited a long time for this—too long. I’m not sure if I can begin now.”

  Leif nodded. “I know you wanted to tell me when I turned eighteen, but back then I didn’t trust you. I wouldn’t listen, and I’d been gone from the reservation by then for four years, living with Roy.” He shrugged. “If it’s worth anything I’m ready to listen now.”

  Guilt overwhelmed Leif when he saw her eyes fill with tears. She reached up and wiped her cheeks where a few drops had fallen.

  He gave her a sheepish smile. “Guess I’ve finally grown up. Why didn’t he marry you, Mother?”

  He felt even worse when she bowed her head and sobbed into her hands. Noting the gray streaks in her black hair, which she wore in her usual bun at the nape of her neck, he realized she was growing older. Because of his anger and pride he’d denied himself a mother for several years. What a fool he’d been, but he hadn’t been able to forgive her weakness for liquor for a long time. After she married Paul Hightower two years ago, the man had come to Gateway to talk to him about putting the past behind him. Leif had immediately liked and respected Hightower and he slowly began to make his way back into the family.

  “Mother? Stop crying now. You’re breaking my heart.”

  She looked up and swiped her tears away with both hands. She gave him a brilliant smile. “Do you know that you haven’t called me Mother since you were fourteen years old?”

  He sighed. “I’ve been a fool.”

  Anna shook her head. “No, you’d been hurt by my weakness. I’m sorry to admit it but it took Paul to make me see the light. He helped me turn my life around when it should have been you.

  “Now, about your father.” She gave him a rueful smile. “I don’t even have a picture of him. Sad, isn’t it, but we were together such a short while.”

  “What happened? Tell me everything,” he said. “I need to know.”

  “Your father was married to another woman when I got pregnant with you. Now, before you think he was less than honorable I must tell you there were extenuating circumstances. His wife had been ill with cancer for a year before I met him on the reservation. I’d just turned twenty-one and had been hired as a waitress at the Red Rooster Inn.

  “What was a white man doing on the reservation?” Leif asked.

  “Your father—his name was Leif, too, was a carpenter and had been hired to expand and remodel the restaurant. It had become a popular place—still is. One evening, after I finished my shift, he invited me out for a drink. I won’t admit that I didn’t enjoy partying and the attentions of handsome men because I did. So, I went with him. For hours we sat in that bar and he poured out his woes about his young wife and her illness. I felt sorry for him yet guilty because I was attracted to him.

  “We’d both had too much to drink and when he asked me to return with him to his motel room I agreed.” She bit her bottom lip and was silent a long time before she spoke again. Finally, she met his eyes. “We weren’t careful and you were the result of our carelessness. He finished the job and left the reservation a week later. I never saw him again.”

  “Didn’t he give you any information about himself? What was the name of the company he worked for? Does he even know about me?”

  “That’s how I did finally find out about him, through his work place. But when I contacted his employer in Virginia, they said he’d left a while back, after his wife died. He left without telling anyone where he’d gone. For two years after your birth I tried to find
him through the only channels available to me, but never did. I had no money to hire a private investigator, and so I was forced to give up the search. Right before you turned eighteen I’d learned from his past employer, whom I contacted every now and then to see if he’d heard anything, that he’d been killed in a motorcycle accident.”

  Leif rose from the bench and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Damn.” Tears filled his eyes. Now he’d never learn to know the man who’d fathered him. He should have let her tell him the truth all those years ago. He could have been searching for him during all this time.

  “Then that settles everything,” he said. “You’re sure you don’t have a picture of him? I’d like to see if we share a resemblance.”

  She shook her head. “No. But, I do know his younger brother is alive. We’ve been communicating off and on for years. I’ve sent him pictures of you. He’s wanted to meet you for a long time but you never gave me the chance to tell you about him.”

  Leif’s heart soared at the news and he said eagerly, “Where does he live? I want to meet him. Can I call him?”

  Anna laughed. “Of course you may call him. And he lives in Ely, thankfully not too far from here. Call him when you return to Gateway.”

  “I plan on it. Does he resemble my father?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  Leif’s spirits plummeted, then rose with her next words.

  “Actually, you look more like him than your father.”

  Grinning, Leif swept her into a big hug. He kept his arm around her, smiling at her when he said, “Finally I’ll be able to settle this empty feeling inside me. Now, about me and Gateway, well, you see I’ve met this woman. She’s in love with me and wants to have a family soon.”

  “Oh, Leif!” Anna exclaimed, hugging him. “That’s wonderful!”

  “Not so fast. I told her I’m too young to be a father.”

  She frowned. “She’s pregnant?”

  “No. She’d like to be, though. She’s thirty-one, a few years older than me so she’s more than ready to start a family. She hasn’t had much luck with men. The last one left her at the altar.”

  “Oh, that’s horrible. The poor woman. It sounds as though she’s made some bad choices in her past.”

  “Yeah. Part of the problem is she’s a Marilyn Monroe look-alike.”

  “Oh.” She gave him a twisted little smile. “I can see that might be a problem for her. Now, Leif, I know in your teens you had a ‘thing’ for the starlet. I always found that strange since she’d died before you were born. It wasn’t as though you’d lived during her time.”

  “The first time I saw Cassie I felt as though I’d been hit over the head with a sledgehammer. But then, once I got to know her, I realized there were differences, and that made me like her even more.”

  “Does she love you?”

  “She hasn’t said so but I think she may. She’s being careful, probably waiting for me to say something first.”

  She nodded. “Have you?”

  “No.”

  Anna raised her brow. “Because you don’t love her?”

  “Hell, I think I do, but we haven’t known each other long. I want to spend more time with her first. Get the chance to really get to know her. I don’t want to jump right into marriage and have a kid nine months later, then get divorced in a year.”

  “I guess I can understand why she’s not declaring her own feelings about you because of her past. It took a year of hearing Paul tell me over and over again he loved me in order for me to believe it before I’d marry him.

  “So, what’s the issue with Gateway? You love that old place. You loved Roy. And now it sounds like you’ve found a soul mate.”

  “I don’t want to leave, but Cassandra is Roy’s granddaughter. She has big plans to change the place, and I have to admit, they are aren’t bad ideas,” he said in chagrin. “When Roy died he gave her half ownership of the place. I’ve been thinking, maybe she should have the whole thing.” He went on to explain to her about the disastrous journey they’d taken together, and her accident.

  “Ah,” Anna said. “I understand now. But you know, according to her terms, you’ve won complete ownership of Gateway, fair and square.”

  “Did I?” He shook his head. “I knew she hadn’t a chance of winning. I took advantage of her.”

  “I think you should have an honest conversation with her first. Tell her you love her and want to spend time with her. Tell her she can stay at Gateway as long as she wants.”

  Leif grinned. “That’s what I plan on doing, as soon as I get back.” His smile slipped. “The only thing is I’m afraid she won’t give me the time I believe we need to get to know each other before we decide to marry. She didn’t say so, but I could tell by how our conversation went that she’s afraid she’s running out of time and wants to have a baby soon, Mother. And I’m not so sure I’ll make a terrific Dad.”

  “If she loves you she’ll give you time. I don’t know if it’s fair for her to wait for you too long, though, honey, to decide.” She shrugged then and added, “And it’s a crap shoot in life for any of us to be successful in parenting our children. Before you left home you were wonderful with all your cousins, I recall.” She chuckled and shook her head. “I even remember you being the only boy cousin willing to change a diaper and how you enjoyed babysitting the little ones. You’ll do fine, Leif.”

  Leif wasn’t so sure about that, but for the love of Cassie, he would welcome fatherhood. He thought of Cassie carrying his child and grinned. With her short stature she’d be a round little bundle. But he wanted to be sure they’d last together. And to his mind, the only way he felt they’d have a fighting chance, was to learn to know each other better.

  ~ * ~

  That evening, he sat on a kitchen chair in his mother’s kitchen and dialed Gateway’s number. He wanted to check on Cassie’s progress and make sure she was on the mend.

  Maxie picked it up on the third ring.

  “Hello!”

  Leif pulled the phone away from his ear, cringing at the sound of raucous laughter nearly blasting his eardrum, then slowly brought it back.

  “Uh, Maxie? What’s going on there?” He pressed his ear tight against the phone in order to hear her reply.

  “A few of us got together. We’re just having a little party for Cassie. She’s healing fine, Leif. She’ll be...”

  He breathed a relieved sigh when he heard she was mending but couldn’t make out the rest of Maxie’s words because of the shouting and laughter in the background.

  “We’re having a party!” Maxie exclaimed. “I can’t hear you so I’ll talk to you when you get here. Hope it’s soon, before Cassie has a chance…”

  Leif hung up when he couldn’t hear the rest of her sentence. Scowling, he sank back in his chair. What in the hell? Their friends on the lake were having a party without him? Huh. It was time to go home, he decided. Besides, he thought he’d heard Cassandra’s infectious laughter mixed in with a man’s boisterous guffaws, which didn’t sit well with him.

  If Cassie was partying it should be with him, damn it. As soon as he returned to Gateway she could start up her restaurant, continue doing the work on the books while he led his fish-guiding trips.

  He still wasn’t convinced about expanding Gateway to include housekeeping cabins, but he’d think about it. Maybe a couple wouldn’t hurt. Compromise was the key, something old Roy had stressed to him during his life time, something Leif was just beginning to understand.

  Rising from his chair he moved swiftly down the hallway to the guestroom, packed his bag, and left it on the floor. Then he headed downstairs to the basement family room where he found his mother and Paul.

  Leif grinned and shook his head in chagrin. His mother sat on Paul’s lap, arms wound around his neck as they kissed. Paul lounged in his deep leather chair, legs atop an ottoman, arms wound around Anna’s narrow waist. Leif folded his arms across his chest and cleared his throat.

  Anna’s hea
d snapped up and her face turned red.

  “Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to let you know I’m going back to Gateway in the morning, but I’ll be stopping first in Ely to visit my father’s family, the Halversons.”

  Anna started to move off Paul’s lap when Leif held out his palm. “No, there’s no need to get up. I’ll see you at Christmas.”

  He waved and started up the stairs again, but paused at his mother’s words.

  “Bring Cassie back with you when you come.”

  Leif replied, “I will.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Leif left the reservation the following morning, called his uncle and made plans to stop by on his way home. His Uncle Eric and Aunt Mathilda lived in a big, rambling log house in the country, an idyllic place with a stream running through the back yard.

  For four hours, Leif sat on a sofa beside his fifty year old uncle, looking through photo albums at pictures of his father, aunt and uncle and their children—Leif’s cousins. Leif was astonished by how much he resembled his grandfather, his father and Uncle Eric. He’d learned his paternal grandparents had died just in the past year, which saddened him.

  His eyes blurred as he stared at the pictures. He blinked in order to clear them, then looked at his uncle.

  Uncle Eric spoke, his voice filled with emotion. “You’ve no idea how much we wanted to meet you, but knew we had to wait for you to come to us. It wasn’t easy.”

  Leif gulped down the lump in his throat, shook his head. “I was foolish and stubborn, and now I’m kicking myself in the butt because of it.”

  Eric shrugged. “Don’t, son. I’m sure it seemed like the right thing for you to do.”

  “Yeah, but hindsight is a killer. If only crystal balls were real.”

  “Uh-uh,” his uncle said, grinning. “Think how boring life would be without any surprises.”

  They laughed as they rose from the sofa.

  Unfortunately, Leif’s Aunt Mathilda was down in St. Paul, helping her daughter, who’d recently given birth to her first child. Leif had learned his aunt and uncle had three children. The eldest, Annie, and her husband, John, had just had a baby boy. Cousin Melissa was single and living in Europe, working as some hot-shot global-corporate lawyer. His youngest cousin, Peter, was living in California, attending UCLA medical school.