"Danny," Karena interrupted, "that's enough now. Grampa is family, he's right here to help whenever anything needs to be done that we can't manage, and I don't want to hear any more about it. Wash your hands and help me make supper. And did Logan tell you to call him by his first name?"
There was a perverse pleasure in mentioning Logan's name, as if saying it aloud would confirm the reality of meeting him, being with him.
"I just washed when I fed Mort. I'm clean, honest. And Logan said to call him Logan, because having me call him Mr. Baxter made him feel older and wiser than he really was. How old do you think he is, Mom? Old as you, d'you figure? Older, maybe?" Squinting his blue eyes and tipping his head to the side as if coming to a brilliant deduction, Danny drawled slowly, "Y'know, I think he sort of liked you, Mom. He asked lots of questions about you, and he looked at you funny all the time."
Karena felt her face flame, and as her son opened his mouth to add something that could only be embarrassing, Karena headed him off effectively.
"Wash. Face, hands, neck. Hot water from the kettle. With soap." She pointed at the stainless steel basin on the washstand in a corner of the room, and with a dramatic groan, Danny complied.
Dinner was hamburger patties, boiled potatoes and raw carrots, with instant chocolate pudding, made by Danny, for dessert. Karena washed the dishes, Danny dried, regaling her all the while with more tales of the Gardom's farm, the wonders of milking machines, and surprisingly, several perceptive questions about the baby, Nicole.
Karena responded whenever he asked an actual question, but as usual with Danny, mostly she simply listened and nodded at the perpetual "y'know?" For the past six months, his sentences had all seemed to end in question marks.
Outside the screened windows dusk was falling, the breeze making soft sighing whispers in the evergreens.
"Can I take Mort down for a swim? He likes to go in the water with me."
"Sure. Just don't go too deep."
The long summer twilight would extend until almost ten o'clock.
Karena put a fresh pot of coffee on, added a stick of wood to the cook stove, smiling fondly through the window as she watched her gangly son trotting toward the lake and right behind him, big nose snuffing the boy's shoulder, the equally gangly moose calf with his amusing and ungainly gait.
She could hear snatches of Danny's voice as he talked on and on to Mort, and Karena shook her head ruefully. Danny was the most gregarious person she'd ever come across. He'd talk to a fence post if he had to, and supply the necessary answers.
When the delicious coffee aroma filled the air, she poured a hot mugful and took it out to the porch, watching the lake change color as the last beams of sun filtered through the sky and reflected in rosy hues on the water.
A squirrel she and Danny fed came down for his scraps, chattering noisily as he made trip after trip up the tree and down again with his spoils.
Usually she applauded his cocky performance, but Karena hardly heard him tonight. She sat with her bare legs curled under her in a corner of the sofa, and although her eyes looked out at the idyllic woodland scene she adored, it wasn't her own familiar lake she saw in her mind's eye.
Instead, her treacherous brain created the sparkling image of Lake Itasca, and a tall man's deep voice in her ear. She could feel his muscular arm around her shoulders and the sharp and urgent hunger he'd created in her body with his kisses.
Unfulfilled hunger. She bitterly regretted now the things they hadn't done together on that lakeshore, because she was certain there wouldn't be another opportunity.
Back here in her own world, a relationship with Logan seemed nothing short of preposterous.
As the summer twilight deepened and thickened around her, she was achingly aware of herself as a woman very much alone.
And very lonely.
Chapter Five
The next morning, Karena was handed a letter from the foreman of the crew when she climbed on the crummy with the men.
"Northwoods Timber has agreed to an on-the-job training program for students interested in the logging industry. With your approval, Abigail Swift, log scaling student, will be working with you for a short training period. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter."
Karena crumpled the letter up in disgust. One big advantage of her job, in her opinion, was being more or less alone and not working with women. She never knew what to say to women.
Look how inadequate she'd been around Logan's sister, Betsy. And Betsy Gardom was probably one of the nicest women a person could meet, at that.
So, Karena silently grumbled to herself, watching the gray dawn outside the window of the truck change slowly to pink, what chance did she have of hitting it off with Abigail, whom she was going to have to spend eight hours a day training? She was probably some giddy eighteen year old, anyway, who thought log scaling was a great way to meet men.
Abigail was on the crummy Wednesday morning, and she looked closer to forty than eighteen. Her black hair, liberally streaked with white, was braided in a coronet around her head. She stuck out her hand to Karena.
"Hi, I'm Abigail Swift," she said rapidly in a husky voice.
Abigail had the face of an aging imp, with a wide, mobile mouth, a small upturned nose and huge dark eyes that sparkled with good nature. She was shorter than Karena by a good six inches, and as they climbed off the truck at the scaling yard, her plump little body seemed about to burst out of the stiff new jeans and red checked shirt she wore. She radiated vitality, and to Karena's horror, she talked nonstop.
"I've done the theory end of the scaling course, but honest to goodness, I never figured there'd be this many logs strewn around to do something with," she chatted on. "See, I worked in a supermarket before, and things were a lot more ordered. This is a whole new ball game for me. I figure a person ought to change their lives every ten years or so, don't you? And I was always good at math."
Would she have to contend with this stream of words every day? With an awful foreboding, Karena made a show of putting her earplugs in and her hard hat on. She led the way over to the scale and set to work as the first truck of the morning arrived with its load.
Karena knew the other woman was watching her carefully the first part of the morning, wisely doing her best to simply stay out of the way, and at times it was even possible to forget she was around at all. Fortunately, conversation was impossible, with the earplugs safety regulations required and the noise of the power saw the bucker used for cutting the logs to length after they were scaled.
When coffee time came at mid morning, Abigail followed Karena and Max into the scale shack and sat down with her thermos on a stump, slightly more subdued than she had been earlier.
Karena introduced Max, and Abigail gave him her captivating grin. Max actually blushed a little, and rubbed a rueful hand down his unshaven chin. Abigail began talking, relating again her background as a supermarket checker, adding that she figured she'd only been accepted in the log-scaling course because she represented a minority— aging white females—and Max chuckled.
"You don't look very old to me," he said gallantly, and Karena glanced at him in surprise. She could see how he must operate with the ladies.
"What does your husband think of you working in the bush?"
Karena had to grin. Max was anything but subtle.
"Never been married, and I'm already forty two, so I guess I missed the boat," Abigail said baldly, her mobile mouth turning down ruefully at the corners. "Wasn't that I never wanted to, but up till a year ago, I was taking care of my mother, she's seventy four, and you don't get much of a life of your own that way."
Karena was astounded at how open Abigail was about her life. She wanted to ask where her mother was now, but just then Max brought out his cookie supply, and Abigail was fascinated by the birds that gathered.
Karena felt slightly guilty for ignoring the other woman earlier. After all, she was supposed to be helping her learn. So, for the rest of the morning, she
made an effort to make sure Abigail understood what was going on, and that she had a chance to try scaling a load on her own.
Abigail had trouble with the different species of trees, and Karena pointed out practical ways of telling one from the other, using color and texture. Abigail paid close attention, and only needed to be shown once. Obviously, she knew how to listen, even if she did talk a lot.
The sun was bright and hot by lunchtime. Karena usually chose to sit in the woods, away from the work site, to eat her lunch. It seemed rude not to ask Abigail to accompany her, because the shack was full of truck drivers taking their lunch break, but she dreaded the strain of having Abigail one on one.
But there was no decision to make, for Abigail simply followed her and plunked down next to her on the leafy ground.
"I'm so glad we can sit over here by ourselves and eat," she confided, unwrapping carrot sticks, celery and a hardboiled egg. "I'm as nervous as a cat today, and I never know what to say to a bunch of men. That's why I took this job, partly. Figured I'd learn about the stronger sex," she admitted.
Karena was munching on a thick ham and cheese sandwich. She swallowed and gave Abigail a puzzled stare.
"But you talk so easily. You charmed Max at coffee time; I'd never believe that you were nervous at all."
Abigail stared longingly at Karena's thick sandwich and chomped on a carrot.
"Wanna know the truth? I didn't sleep all last night, I was so afraid of making a fool of myself, and I just use words like a smoke screen to hide the fact that I'm the last forty two year old virgin in America outside a nunnery. Well, almost virgin. There was one guy, so long ago I need notes to refresh my memory. Now, tell me about your life. Anybody who looks like you do isn't a virgin, that's for sure. Are you married or living with anybody? Got any kids and how old are they? And what do you use to keep your skin looking like that?"
Karena choked on her sandwich.
After the first few days, Karena found herself beginning to look forward to lunch hours with Abigail. She was different than anyone Karena had met before, male or female, and she had a wicked, wonderful sense of humor, usually directed at herself.
Karena's natural reticence didn't seem to bother her at all, but she listened closely to anything Karena did say, and remembered details. She also worked hard.
Karena did, as well, just as usual, rising before the sun to get to work, fitting in her household chores and cooking in the efficient and capable way she'd perfected over the years. She deflected as best she could the frequent confrontations with her father over Danny and the moose calf.
She made a cake for Danny's birthday on Thursday, and the books she'd ordered for him arrived. He was ecstatic, and also quieter than usual in the evenings because of them.
A week went by, and on the surface, the pattern of her life resumed its texture, but inside she waited for the loneliness to begin to fade, along with the ever present images of Logan Baxter that haunted her waking and sleeping dreams. She had no telephone, but she did expect him to perhaps write her a note. But he didn't, and her initial doubts about him were reinforced. She'd been nothing but a novelty to him.
She longed for the sense of contentment she used to have with her life to surface again.
It didn't happen. Instead, the images of Logan became rebelliously stronger, the dreams more vividly real, while her conviction that she'd never see the man again was reinforced with every endless passing day. Several times, she came perilously close to confiding the whole story to Abigail.
But she'd never had a woman friend, and she didn't know how to begin.
"Logan, there's a place for you over here."
The lilting female voice hailed him as he entered the noisy cafeteria, and he waved a less than enthusiastic hand at Bernice Zimmer, taking more time than he needed to make his selection from the array of hot and cold dishes at the counter.
Finally, though, he joined her, sliding the tray onto the small table and folding his long legs carefully under it to avoid her knees.
"I thought maybe I'd see you if I dropped in here today. Logan, where've you been? It's over two weeks since you called, you know, and I'm leaving for San Francisco in a few days."
She smiled at him quizzically, obviously expecting a logical, satisfactory explanation. Bernice was endlessly logical. Logan guessed that a law historian probably had to be, but he found it exhausting at times.
She was attractive, dark and dramatic-looking, and she played up the effect by wearing vibrant colors, red and purple today, and having her straight black hair cut to jaw length in a sharp, shining block that accented her angular features.
"Stan's away on vacation," Logan said vaguely, dubiously eyeing the shepherd's pie he'd chosen. He hadn't had his usual appetite lately. "I've had to take over his part of the study we're doing on particleboard testing, and that meant flying to Illinois for a three day meeting last weekend."
"I phoned you the other night, Tuesday it was. I had tickets to the preview of that documentary on aboriginal art, but you weren't home, so Marcia came with me. It was excellent; you'd have enjoyed it."
"I got home on Tuesday. I was probably out for a jog." Irritation niggled at him. Bernice always made him feel as if he was obliged to explain himself. Now why was that? He'd never felt that way even once with Karena. A stab of longing swept through him, and the image of the lovely, shy woman with silvery curls danced its way into his head.
Why did she have to live so far away from the college, and why the hell did he have to be buried in work right now? Driving over three hundred miles to see her for a few hours wasn't even a slight possibility. She didn't have a phone, so he couldn't talk to her, either, and both notes he'd written had landed in the trash. Letters weren't his strong point. It was totally frustrating.
"—broke the bone in four places, and he's in traction, of all things. Are you even listening, Logan? You're acting strange today. Are you feeling well?"
Logan came out of his reverie with a start.
"Sorry, I was—who broke what bone?"
"Professor Jameson, Jack Jameson, from your department. Didn't you listen at all? He was rock climbing over the weekend with a group of students, and he fell and broke his leg and some ribs. I thought you knew."
Obviously Logan had been wandering around in a daze all week. Jack Jameson wasn't a close friend, but certainly he was a colleague. Remorsefully, Logan focused his full attention on Bernice.
"I didn't know or I'd have gone to see him. What hospital is he in, anyway?"
She told him, adding, "I've got an appointment with the hairdresser this afternoon, but we'll go to visit him after six, and then we can have dinner at that new little place I told you about." She forked up a mouthful of salad and chewed complacently, as if the matter was settled.
It was clear all of a sudden to Logan why he had avoided Bernice since he'd made the fateful trip to Bemidji. The relationship he'd had with her over the past months could best be described as casually intimate, and after meeting Karena, it felt wrong.
He didn't understand exactly why, but going out with Bernice would seem somehow trivial after the force of the emotion he'd experienced in those two short days in Bemidji.
Besides, Bernice's innate ability to take over, to arrange his life, had always bothered him. Well, it was his own fault. Until now, he'd gone along with most of her plans.
Until now, it hadn't mattered.
He took a deep breath, shoved his glasses up his nose and plunged straight in.
"Bernice, I met a woman the weekend I went to Bemidji." Saying it was tougher than he'd expected. She'd stopped eating and was staring expectantly at him, one eyebrow lifted, head tipped to one side and shining hair hanging like a curtain.
"She's—well, I think—that is, I know she's going to be important in my life."
For a fleeting instant, he imagined there was vulnerability in her dark eyes, but it was gone before he could be certain.
"Are you telling me you're in
love with her, Logan?" she inquired evenly, sounding maddeningly reasonable. "I can't see why you're telling me this. We've never had an exclusive agreement, you realize that. So I really don't mind if—"
"That's not it. It's just that for some weird reason, I mind. I don't feel good about seeing anyone else just now," he said stubbornly, feeling like a totally gauche idiot, but needing to say it anyway because it was true.
"Well, if that's the case, I appreciate your honesty, although I don't understand the need for exclusivity this early on if you've only just met her." Bernice swept the remains of her lunch neatly into a pile on her tray, giving him a long steady look. "She must be rather unusual to have had this effect on you. I mean, I don't want to inflate your ego, but every unattached female at this college has set her cap for you at one time or the other. Unsuccessfully, I might add. Is she on staff here?"
Logan was immeasurably relieved to have the matter out in the open.
"No, she lives north of Bemidji, actually."
"That's a fair distance away. What profession is she in?"
"She's a log scaler."
A perplexed frown creased Bernice's smooth forehead. "A what?"
"Log scaler. She estimates the board feet in logs before they go to the mills."
"I see." Bernice gave him a long, measuring look. "So she works out in the woods?"
"Yes, she does."
Bernice frowned at him for a second, then glanced at the delicate watch on her wrist and rose gracefully to her feet.
"I have to run. But Logan—" her gaze was direct "—opposites may attract, but once the novelty wears off— well, if this doesn't work out for you, we can go on exactly as before, you realize that."
Discomfort was beginning to turn to anger. What the hell was he supposed to say to a statement like that? Thanks, great; it's nice to have a backup system operating?
In the end he said nothing, and finally, with a tiny flutter of her fingers, Bernice left.
Follow A Wild Heart (romance,) Page 8
