Follow A Wild Heart (romance,)

by Hutchinson, Bobby

  "I hate to let you go, now that I've found you," he'd whispered urgently, his face buried in her hair. "Danny drew me a map showing exactly how to get to your cabin. If it's all right with you, I'll be seeing you soon, Karena."

  She'd nodded forcefully against his shoulder. It was very all right with her. But would he come?

  Maybe his words were just a gentle way of saying goodbye, she brooded. Probably he'd go back to St. Paul and wonder what he'd ever seen in her.

  Doubts nagged at her, vying with memories of pleasure all the way home through the star studded darkness. She fell into bed at last in the cool dark cabin, only to toss through restless, confusing dreams for the few hours before her alarm woke her for work at four.

  She made coffee on the propane stove, filling her thermos and hastily making a sandwich to take for her lunch. Danny would sleep for several hours more and then spend most of his day with Gabe, the way he'd done during school holidays ever since Karena's old friend had moved into the cabin.

  Gabe had spent the weekend visiting his sister in Oregon and Karena knew he'd be eager to swap stories with Danny.

  Warm affection for the old man who'd been so important to her own childhood and who now was so much a part of her son's life made her smile as she went quietly outside to start the Jeep. It made work a lot easier, knowing Danny was happy and well supervised.

  The only fly in the ointment was her father. Otis had quarreled with Gabe over the logging business they'd shared years before, and in his stern Swedish fashion, Otis had never forgotten or forgiven. Gabe tried to be friendly, but Otis's stiff-necked attitude made it impossible. And awkward for Karena and Danny.

  The little moose made his mewing noise at her from his pen. "Go back to sleep, Mort," she advised affectionately, giving him a rub behind the ears. "Danny'll give you breakfast when he wakes up. You're a bottomless pit."

  By seven o'clock, Karena had been hard at work for two hours. She glanced up and saw Max Macabe, the loader man who worked with her in the scaling yard, wave at her and mime taking a coffee break. She nodded, finishing the load she was working on before heading over to the scale shack.

  Max was already sitting on one of the round stumps they used as stools when she ducked inside the crude tin roofed shack.

  Pulling off her orange hard hat and removing her earplugs, she unscrewed the top of her thermos and poured out a cup of the rich black coffee she'd brewed before daybreak that morning. Then she squatted down on her own stump and stretched her blue jeaned legs out before her.

  "How you doing, Max? How was your weekend?"

  The attractive, gray haired giant took a long, deep draught of his coffee. "Not bad, I guess. I drove into town and went to a movie, had a few beers with a lady I've been seeing now and again. Nothin' special."

  Max's marriage had broken up several years before. He'd told Karena bits and pieces during their coffee breaks over the months they'd worked together, and it was a pattern she'd recognized as familiar from other sporadic conversations with loggers.

  "Lisa was a city girl, that's what the trouble was," he'd said sadly one morning. "She was pretty, she never wanted to live in the bush, she wanted a house in the suburb and a man with a nine-to-five job, in a place where she could have bridge parties and join clubs. So she lived in town and I stayed out at camp during the week, and after awhile we didn't have much to say to each other."

  Max was forty eight, and Karena had overheard enough ribald conversations to know he was considered a mover with the string of ladies he picked up in local bars.

  There's safety in numbers, he would say good naturedly when the guys ribbed him.

  "How'd the logging competition in Bemidji go?" he queried now.

  "It was tough, but I won the women's overall trophy, and Danny won all the events he was in, too." For just an instant, she considered confiding in Max, telling him about meeting Logan, about the astonishing offer the judges had made her after the awards, but she quickly stifled the impulse. She'd never talked much about her personal life, and she'd learned from listening that men gossiped as much as women were accused of doing.

  The morning sun was beginning to warm even the shaded areas around the shack, and she heard the chorus of birds from the surrounding woods.

  Max loved birds, and he brought dozens of cookies for them, which he broke into crumbs and spread outside the shack. Camp robbers, crows and ravens were the most common visitors, but today blue jays and sparrows had heard about the free lunch. Karena finished her coffee and watched the collection of raucous birds for several moments in silence.

  "How's Mort doing?" Max asked then. He was one of the men who'd brought Mort to her cabin last May, and he was intensely interested in the little moose's progress. "Did your father do okay as moose-sitter on the weekend?"

  Karena grimaced. "As you know, Pop isn't one of Mort's admirers. I haven't talked to Pop, but Mort seemed fine this morning. He's developed a passion for oranges now, as well as bread. I'm still feeding him fresh milk and mixing it with canned milk; he goes through gallons every day."

  "People I've talked to say it's a rare thing for a calf as young as Mort to survive in captivity," Max said thoughtfully. "They usually die, first couple of days."

  "Pop insists it's better if they do," Karena said ruefully. "I can understand what he means, too. Mort is cute and little now, but what happens when he's fully grown? He's not learning to forage for himself the way a wild calf his age would be doing; he relies on us to feed him. And we can't keep him forever, he's going to be huge in a few months. Plus, Danny and I are both getting more attached to him by the day."

  "Sorry we landed him on you?" Max queried anxiously, and Karena grinned and shook her head.

  "Nope, I love the little guy. But no more foundlings, okay, Max? One baby moose around the house is about all I can handle."

  Max went out to police the birds and make certain the weaker of them got their share, and Karena lingered for another few minutes in the empty shack, her thoughts returning to the weekend.

  What would Logan Baxter be doing right about now, she mused. Not watching birds, she'd bet on it. Would he even be up yet? She tried to imagine him in an apartment in the city, tried to envision what his days consisted of, and failed utterly.

  But how could Logan, on the other hand, imagine the scene here, Max feeding the birds, talking with her about the moose?

  Two different worlds. Wasn't there a song about that?

  The best thing to do was forget about him, she lectured herself sternly.

  With an impatient shake of her head, she tossed the coffee dregs into the grass and hurried back to the scale as a loaded truck drove onto the grid to be weighed. Automatically, Karena noted the numbers on the scale, marking them on her board, waiting until the driver dumped the load of logs. Then she weighed the empty truck and subtracted, averaging out the board feet of timber, meticulously noting the species, log length, top diameter, grade, in the appropriate square on her form. She'd been doing her job so long it demanded only a portion of her thoughts, and inevitably, helplessly, her mind returned to Logan.

  All morning, thoughts of him managed to sneak past the defensive block she'd tried to erect in her mind.

  Another loaded truck, and another, growled their way onto the scale, and she performed the familiar routine over and over, feeling bored and bone tired as the hours passed. And suddenly very alone.

  Don't you ever get lonely out there in the woods by yourself, he'd asked her.

  Go away, Logan Baxter. Out of my head, out of my heart. But it was already too late for that, and she knew it.

  The day finally ended. Karena climbed in the truck they labeled "the crummy" with the men at four o'clock, endured the bouncing, jolting journey back to the spot where she'd parked her pickup that morning and then drove the miles down the road to her turnoff in a stupor of weariness and unshakable depression.

  She pulled up on the spot of gravel where she always parked, at the side of her cabin
, and wished fervently that her father's old blue car wasn't already parked a few feet away. She could hear the rise and fall of his rumbling, accented voice ponderously telling Danny something, probably lecturing about poor little Mort again, she thought resignedly as she headed stealthily for the small shower house set under the trees several yards away from the main cabin.

  If only she could shower and change before she had to talk to anybody. Especially Pop.

  If only Danny had remembered to fill the water barrel and then light a fire in the stove to heat the water.

  Inside the shower house, the tangy smell of cedar filled her nostrils, and the small wood stove was giving off rays of warmth.

  Thanks, Danny, you're a good kid, she whispered silently to her son. Making sure the stove was lit and there was water heating was one of the chores Danny was supposed to do each day, but like all boys, sometimes he forgot. Thankfully, this was one day he'd remembered.

  She doffed her clothing eagerly, wrinkling her nose at the thick jeans stiff with dirt and pitch, caulked boots and heavy cotton socks, lightweight T-shirt streaked with soil, sweaty underwear. Log scaling wasn't a dainty profession.

  Stepping into the slatted shower cubicle, she turned the spigot and scrubbed vigorously with the scented shower soap she kept hanging from a nail, then shampooed her hair and stood, eyes closed, letting the heated water pour over her body, willing the stiffness and weary exhaustion to seep out of her pores as long as the hot water lasted.

  Fifteen minutes later, wearing a pair of fresh blue jean shorts and a pink tee from the stack of clean clothing she kept inside a small chest in a corner of the shower house, Karena ventured across the yard and entered the cabin, feeling refreshed and clean again.

  Her father was sitting at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in front of him. Danny sat across from his grandfather, looking trapped. The instant Karena appeared, the boy leapt to his feet with an expression of transparent relief on his face.

  "Hi, Mom, how was work? I gotta go take Mort out for a walk, he's been cooped up hours already. See you later, Grampa." With that, he was out the door and gone.

  "Hello, Pop."

  Her father nodded at her without a trace of a smile.

  "Daughter," he greeted her seriously in his heavy Nordic accent without looking at her or responding to her friendly greeting, and familiar irritation niggled at her. Once, just once, why couldn't he smile, show some affection?

  What had happened to Otis Ahlgren over the years to turn him into this grim, unapproachable man? She remembered rare times when she was little, when her father had carried her on his shoulders, teased her to make her laugh. There was no laughter in this man at all now.

  Karena smiled determinedly at her tall, rawboned father and moved to the cupboard for her favorite red mug, then to the wood cookstove where the huge enamel coffeepot sat warming. She filled her mug and topped off her father's.

  "Want to come sit on the porch, Pop?" She loved the screened area at the far side of the cabin with its view out over the lake. She'd sewn slipcovers from brightly patterned sheets for the two soft, overstuffed old sofas out there, and when spring arrived each year she moved all her plants out to take advantage of the sunshine that streamed in.

  Otis carefully balanced his refilled cup and followed his daughter through the small kitchen area into the larger, all purpose main room of the compact cabin. Here, the steep roof was high and beamed, with a tiny loft overhead where Karena kept her drawing materials. A partition along one wall formed two compact bedrooms for Karena and Danny. A huge natural-stone fireplace formed the interior wall, with long, narrow windows on the side overlooking the lake, and a door at the far end, which Karena used now to lead the way out to the summer porch.

  !'Sit here, Pop." She motioned at the old wooden rocker she knew her father liked before curling up in a deep corner of the flowered sofa. For a long, quiet moment she gazed out at the evergreens, which seemed to frame the sloping vista down to where the sparkling deep green lake lapped softly in the afternoon breeze.

  "You staying for supper?" Otis lived alone in his house in Northome, and when he drove the six miles to see her, he often stayed for supper. As long as she hadn't invited Gabe as well. When that happened, Otis left in a huff.

  But tonight he shook his head. "One of the neighbors is having a birthday, and he invited me to eat with him."

  She felt a guilty relief. Tonight, she didn't feel up to having him stay.

  "I just stopped over to talk with that boy of yours."

  Danny was always "that boy of yours" when his grandfather was displeased about something. With an inward sigh, Karena decided to get the lecture over with.

  "What's the problem, Pop?"

  "That boy of yours is awful stubborn, Kari. You're too soft on him, I've always told you that, and now he's around old Philips too much. Gabe Philips has no common sense, never did have. And Danny's getting like him. Just now, I told him we'd have to get rid of that moose calf. I had plenty of trouble with him this weekend, but Danny, he just won't listen. He talks back to me."

  "What did Mort do, Pop?" she demanded, feeling frustration and an old sense of helplessness at her father's accusations about her son, his resentment of Gabe, his general cheerless attitude toward life.

  Up until five years before, while her mother was alive, there had been a balance between Otis's heavy handed ideas on child rearing and Anna's gentler ways. But then Anna died, and Otis had seemed to become sterner and more rigid than ever, and since Gabe appeared on the scene, Danny had openly preferred the old logger's cheerful company to that of his grandfather's.

  "I'll tell you what he did, that moose." Otis sat forward in the rocker, holding it still and shaking a crooked forefinger at Karena. "He got out of the pen and stuck his head in the open car door, and he ate a whole loaf of bread and half of my coffee cake from Mrs. Epstein's bakery before I could stop him."

  Karena giggled. She couldn't help it. The aggrieved tone, the insulted look on her father's stern features and the mental picture of the wicked moose calf gleefully chomping down Otis's weekly treat was too much.

  But her father didn't see anything amusing at all about the situation. His expression became positively dour, and he warned portentously, "Kari, he's no laughing matter, this animal. Soon he'll be too big to handle at all, and what will you do then? From the first, I've told you and told you—"

  Her humor evaporated, and it took every ounce of selfcontrol to hold her temper with the old man.

  "Pop, I know letting Danny raise Mort isn't the smartest thing I've ever done, and before the animal matures I also know we'll have to find a place for him, maybe a game farm or someplace where he'll be safe. But for the time being, he's certainly not dangerous. A nuisance, yes, he's all of that. I'm sorry about your bread and coffee cake. I'll be baking one evening this week and I'll do Mom's special coffee kuchen for you to make up for it."

  Otis looked only slightly mollified.

  "Did Danny tell you we both won at the competitions in Bemidji, Pop?" Karena made a deliberate effort to change the subject.

  "Ya, he said you won a big prize, and now you'd be buying him those fancy books he's so set on. You spoil that boy, Kari. And where is he now, I ask you? Gallivanting with that moose, instead of here doing his chores."

  Karena got to her feet abruptly and collected the coffee cups, feeling her mouth draw into a tense line.

  "I probably do spoil him a little, Pop, but he's my son. I feel he should have those books if I can afford them; they're educational." She turned her back on him pointedly and walked into the kitchen, where she shoved a length of wood into the stove and pulled drawers open, noisily beginning preparations for dinner.

  Otis followed, and stood awkwardly watching her for a few moments. At last he said with a martyred sigh, "Well, I'll be going then."

  "Good night, Pop," she answered with false brightness.

  All he said was "Ya."

  A moment later, she heard the c
ar start and then the sound of the motor fade away as he drove off.

  The kitchen door banged shut an instant later and Danny appeared.

  "Grampa gone?" he inquired innocently, and Karena leveled a look at him.

  "You know darned well he's gone. Where were you hiding?"

  "Aww, Mom. He was giving me heck about Mort again. Y'know, why can't he ever just talk to a person? He's got to always be bawling me out for one thing or another. It's not my fault Mort ate all his dumb old bread, is it?"

  Feeling at her wit's end with the whole issue, Karena said wearily, "Where's Mort now, Danny?"

  "I gave him his dinner. I mixed up that calf feed Mr. Gardom gave me to try with his milk. And boy, old Mort just inhaled it, y'know, Mom? Mr. Gardom said if Mort liked it, he'd get all the vitamins and minerals he needs out of it. Mr. Gardom gave me a huge bagful, too, so we won't have to buy any for a while."

  "Those people were awfully good to you, Danny. I want you to sit down after dinner and write Mr. and Mrs. Gardom a letter thanking them for having you stay with them." Expecting reluctance at that prospect, Karena was pleasantly surprised when Danny nodded eager agreement.

  "Ya, sure. I got their address. I want to ask in the letter if there's other stuff I ought to start feeding Mort. Mr. Gardom said he'd never raised a moose, but he figured they shouldn't be all that different from cattle."

  Karena had an uneasy hunch that Mort was going to be very different from cattle, but she refrained from commenting. Danny threw himself down in the armchair under the window, and Karena winced. Why didn't he ever seem to bend his knees and just sit, instead of dropping into furniture like a stone?

  In an emphatic voice, Danny went on, "See, Ma, that's the thing, that's what I mean. Mr. Gardom and Logan both talked to me, and even listened to what I said. They didn't just harp at me all the time like—"