“What’s her name?” Peter asked.
“Don’t know yet. Livin’ with them for a while before I christen them. Got to get to know their personalities. What can I get you two nonbear types? Coffee? Tea?”
They each accepted a cup of tea, and Ben went to the stove to pour steaming water—the pot was always on at his house—into mismatched mugs and added Lipton bags. “Tell me,” he said from the kitchen. “What brings you Californians to Summit this year?”
“I think the question should be, ‘What takes us away from Summit the other years,’ ” Peter said with a laugh. “But getting my wife up here has been a problem.” His face sobered. Bryn could see that Ben’s easy way was working its magic on her dad. “It seems I can’t talk her up here, no matter how much I try,” Peter continued.
“This country’s not for everyone. And should only be for those who love her.” He glanced at Bryn and then moved to scoop up the second bear cub. “This little girl isn’t faring as well as her sister.” The baby barely moved in his arms and only reluctantly accepted the bottle of formula. “Sometimes,” he said, settling into a torn leather chair with the cub, “you can give a bear everything it could possibly need, but something still isn’t right. Guess there’s no real substitute for a mother, but a body can try.” He looked up then, again at Bryn. “Heard some hammers swinging down your way,” he said, changing the subject.
“Yes,” Peter said proudly. “Bryn and I are working on a small front porch. Someplace to escape the rain without having to be inside.”
“I think we should cover it in mosquito netting,” Bryn said, waving around her head at yet another bloodsucking insect. They were the worst thing about Alaska.
“That would be nice,” Ben agreed. “I might consider that myself someday. Business good, Peter?”
“As always.” Peter sighed and Bryn glanced at him. He was one of Orange County’s top businessmen, working in banking, primarily acquiring smaller, local banks for the larger, national ones. “But sometimes I get so tired I think about chucking it all and coming here full time.”
“What keeps you back?”
“A kid in college and a wife used to Newport.”
“Dad, I thought you loved your work.”
“Sometimes. More and more, no.”
Bryn’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I could get a job, Dad. You know I’ve offered—”
“No, no. Nell would never hear of it. I won’t hear of it. It’s enough of a job to keep up that grade-point. After you’re done with premed, I’ll let you foot the bill. That’s what I’m waiting for. Then I’ll look at my life again, reconsider my options. I can make it till then, honey. I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?”
“Yeah. But I just never … Dad, I never knew you were miserable,” she said softly.
He laughed shallowly. “Did I say I was miserable? Don’t worry about me.” He took a sip of tea and cast an embarrassed look toward Ben. “Please, honey, forget I said anything.”
“There’s something about Summit Lake that just makes a body think, isn’t there?” Ben cut in, breaking the tension.
“I’ll say.” The cub had gulped down her bottle, and Bryn rose to put her down in the playpen.
“And what have you been thinking about, Bryn Bear?”
She glanced at her father, rolling her eyes at his use of her nickname in front of Ben. He knew she hated that. She supposed by his look of contrition, it had just slipped. “I don’t know. Maybe taking another look at my life. It’s good to just breathe the clean air up here,” she said. “Have the chance to think at all.”
A plane roared overhead, and Bryn jumped up to stare out the window and catch the Beaver’s wings tipping in greeting. “Eli!” she said with glee. She glanced back and saw the men share a knowing look. But she didn’t care. All she wanted was to be in that canoe, paddling down to Eli, finding out about his trip. She bit her lip, reminding herself that she had only another two weeks in Alaska. They would soon head home, to Newport, back to school. What would happen to their relationship then? How would she endure missing him then, when life resumed its frantic pace?
Bryn swallowed against a sudden lump in her throat. All at once, she understood her father’s desire to run away to Alaska, to peace, to quiet.
She was becoming drawn to this place too—and more and more to Eli. She was falling in serious “like” with the man, she admitted. Eli’s plane bounced atop the waves and then glided to a stop, turning halfway down, toward the Pierces’ cabin. Bryn frowned. She was falling for Eli Pierce. Just what was she supposed to do with that?
Eli turned the plane toward his cabin, wanting to go directly to Bryn’s. But it was time to call a halt to things, slow it down, make sure they both knew that what was happening between them was impossible. She would head home in two weeks and rip his heart out of his chest when she went. He had to put a stop to their relationship, keep it mellow, or he wouldn’t survive. Even if she was to stay, Eli knew she wasn’t right for him. She wasn’t a Christian—he shouldn’t have let it get so out of hand. And besides, she wanted to be a big-city doctor. He was a rough-and-tumble bush pilot. It could never work out.
But being back here, on the lake, with her just down the way was already pure torture. Everything in him wanted to rush to her, to pull her into his arms and run his fingers through that black-gold hair and kiss the lips that had been inviting him for days.
I shouldn’t have come back. I should have stayed away. Lord, I can’t do this. Why? Why give me a desire for a woman who doesn’t know you? He thought he could feel God’s distinct moving in his heart, in his desire for Bryn, his hopes for her faith, his efforts to model his own. But his baser needs were threatening. How could he keep a lid on the situation when everything about Bryn Bailey made him feel madly out of control?
Still inside the cockpit, he leaned his chest against the yoke and his head against the console, praying for strength and wisdom. His eyes were closed, so when his father knocked against the window, he jumped in surprise. Jedidiah opened the door. “Eli? Son, you okay?”
“Yeah, Dad. Just praying.”
Jedidiah studied him for a moment. “Want to talk about it?”
“Yeah. That would be good.”
“Come on out then. Sit a spell with me.”
Eli climbed out of the cramped fuselage to the lopsided wooden dock. With the deep freeze every winter and the subsequent breakup each spring, keeping a dock in pristine condition was difficult. They had to pull it out of the water every fall, or they’d return in the spring to splinters after the ice chewed it up.
Jedidiah was pulling his boots off and gingerly setting his feet in the glacial water. “Ahh. It’s a warm one today. The water feels good. Come and join me, Son.”
Eli looked about them—it was maybe seventy-five degrees, indeed hot for the elevation—and then glanced down the lake. There were people—small in the distance—exiting Ben’s cabin. Probably Bryn and Peter. He sat down beside Jedidiah and pulled off his own chukka boots and socks, then slipped his feet into the green blue water. He sucked in his breath as liquid cold met warm skin, then shivered.
“Must be Bryn Bailey that has your knickers in a wad.”
Eli laughed under his breath. “That obvious, huh?”
“Haven’t seen you this worked up since you met Chelsea Thompson.”
Eli nodded with a smile. Chelsea Thompson. His sixteenth summer. The summer he thought Bryn thought she was too good to speak to him. Chelsea had been a close runner-up. A devout Christian, not to mention gorgeous … She had moved away just as they had declared their love. Just like what would happen with Bryn, if he were to tell her. “I don’t know what to do, Dad. She lives in California. Likes it there. Plus, she’s in for years of school, wanting to be a doctor and all. Wants to go to Harvard.”
“Told you to watch yourself.”
“I know it. I’ve watched myself fall for her like a trout for a handtied nymph.”
Jedidiah laughed
softly and clapped him on the back. “You could go with her. Outside. See some of this big, wide world. Find work as a pilot near her, see if it was leading anywhere.”
The idea was alluring, and Eli was grateful to his father for allowing him the room, the freedom to explore the possibility. But he knew it wasn’t right. “Can’t do that.”
“Because she’s not a Christian?”
“Mostly, yes. I’ve gotta put a stop to it. Before it hurts her as much as it’s gonna hurt me.”
“Think she’s not in as deep as you are?” They both looked down the lake to Bryn and her father, paddling south down the center of the lake, slowly getting larger the closer they came.
“Don’t know. She’s kind of closed-mouth about it. Another reason for me to be wary. She has something to work out. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.”
“Probably her parents. Mixed up a bit, I’d say. Bound to mix up their daughter.”
“Peter Bailey is one of your closest friends. I’ve never heard you say something like that about him.”
“He is a good friend. Haven’t met many others that are as loyal. But those qualms you’ve had about Bryn are the same qualms I’ve had about her father. Man’s been searching for a sense of place, a sense of who he really is and how he relates to the Father for years. I can’t seem to ever crack that thick head of his enough to help straighten him out.”
Eli nodded. It helped to be understood, to share some of his crazy feelings with his father. He was grateful that Jedidiah, and his mother, Meryl, were healthy and loving and devoted to each other as well as him. He wished someday he could find a woman who would love Jesus as he did. Without that deeper connection, there was something essential missing. If only he could find it with Bryn.
“Thanks, Dad,” Eli said softly. The Baileys had turned their canoe toward home. Eli knew their voices carried over the water as easily as an osprey carrying a fish. “I needed to talk.” It was clear to him; God wanted Eli to back away from Bryn, even though Eli, in his heart, wanted to move forward.
“Anytime, Son. I’ll be praying for you. And Bryn.”
Bryn knew something had changed in Eli. The way he rigidly held his head up rather than bending slightly forward when she talked to him, the way he crossed his arms or shoved his hands into his pockets—anything to avoid holding her hand again. He was drawing away, closing his heart to her. The idea made her feel oddly desperate, eager to recapture what had begun to unfold between them. What had put a stop to the dream, the hope for something dramatic and romantic and altogether desirable? The thing that promised to shake up her orderly world, that had already shaken it? He seemed relieved to depart for Talkeetna, mumbling his good-byes.
She suffered through Eli’s three-day absence, wondering if it had all been a figment of her imagination, this budding romance, when he returned with the sudden appearance of a rainbow, showing up at her door with a sad smile and a bouquet of wildflowers. “Hey, Bryn. Wanted to know if you’d care to fly to Kenai with me tomorrow. See a little more of Alaska before you go.”
Maybe he wasn’t pulling away after all. Maybe he wanted to see more of her. With just a little more than a week left on Summit Lake, she was eager to spend any time she could with Eli, wanting to hang on to the thread of a promise with everything in her. Didn’t people write letters, use the phone, keep up a romance from afar all the time? Wasn’t it worth trying? She glanced back at her father, and he nodded once, his eyes just clearing the top of his book. “I’d love to. What time do you need to leave?”
“I’m going to meet with a few fishing operations down there, talk about how we might market ourselves together as a vacation package deal for tourists. Should get out of here, let’s see, by six o’clock? I know that’s early.” He seemed to be relaxing the longer they talked.
“Six is fine. Want to stay for dinner?”
“Ah, no. I shouldn’t. Dad’s unloading the plane—we went home to see Mom—and he’s planning a big return dinner.”
“I guess I’ll just see you tomorrow then.”
“Okay. See you then.” He turned to go. “Bryn, I …”
She waited, expectantly.
“Nothin’.” He shook his head. “See you tomorrow.”
“What time will you two return?” Peter asked loudly.
“Should be home in the twilight hours, sir. At least an hour ahead of nightfall.”
“All right. Just wanted to know when to send out the search parties.”
Eli smiled at Peter’s pale joke, glanced at Bryn again meaningfully, and then turned to go. She watched him walk down to the beach to his canoe, feeling as if she were severing a physical thread between them. She shut the door and leaned her head against it, still seeing Eli’s face, wanting to memorize him.
“You’ve got the bug, don’t you, Bryn Bear?”
“Yeah, Dad. I think I do.” She didn’t turn from her position.
“He’s a good kid.”
“And he lives in Alaska.”
“Well,” he said, turning a page, “everyone needs a summer romance now and then. Maybe now you’ll see why I love this place so much since Eli does too.”
If only it were just a fling. An idle flirtation. Light and fun. But what was moving in her heart was like a tidal wave over a lagoon.
Eli flew low in the morning light, so Bryn could clearly see the small herds of caribou, the occasional Dall’s sheep on the mountainsides, even a grizzly that rose up as if to wave at them as they passed over. Bryn shivered. “Hate to meet up with her on a hike.”
“Most are as anxious to avoid you as you are them. Kind of a magical moment when you see each other, stare each other down, and then the bear rambles off.”
“That kind of magic I’d like to avoid.”
Much of the land looked lumpy with the heavy vegetation of the tundra that was beginning to change color. They passed over rounded, ancient mountains and younger, more jagged peaks, and a snowline that was getting lower with each passing storm. Autumn arrived early in Alaska.
“Unreal,” she said to herself, awed by the beauty.
“Or the most real thing you’ve ever seen?”
She didn’t answer, hadn’t an answer.
Soon they sailed past groves of birch beginning to turn a pale yellow, over braided Atlantic blue rivers, beyond sublime ponds where the sound of their plane’s engine raised hundreds of birds—pintails and red-breasted mergansers and sandhill cranes—to flight, and by thick forests that seemed impenetrable. At times the mountain peaks stood clear and bright in the early light of day. Other times they were clouded in, dark and brooding and ominous.
“You hope to build a business with these people you’re visiting?” she asked, breaking the silence at last.
“Yep. K2’s got Talkeetna pretty well hemmed up,” he said, referring to the biggest floatplane operation in town. “Need to get some fresh blood. If I don’t, my flying might just be a hobby. I’ll have to find some other way to make a living.”
“I hope it goes well,” she said, tentatively taking his hand. It was warm, her own fingers frosty in the cool plane.
“Me too,” he said, smiling briefly at her. Then he moved his hand away, back to the wheel.
By the time they reached the Kenai Fjords, set down, and tied up, it was time for Eli to get to his first meeting. “I’ll find us some lunch and a rental boat for this afternoon,” she volunteered.
“All right,” he said with a little surprise in his eyes. “There’s a place just down the street,” he said, nodding past her. “I’ll meet you there in a couple of hours, okay? I should be done with all my meetings by then.”
“Sounds good.”
“Bryn … you’ll be okay? Hanging out by yourself?”
She furrowed her brow in playful agitation. “I’m a big girl, Eli Pierce. You go do your business, and I’ll be fine.”
“All right. The rental shop. Two hours.”
“The rental shop. Two hours. See you then.” They paused, clos
e together, and once again Bryn wondered if he would kiss her, just a quick one. But he was already turning away, striding down the street. He was a picture, all natural good looks and masculinity amid this otherworldly setting. Sighing, she turned and began walking.
The Kenai Peninsula was remarkably different from the rest of Alaska. Almost entirely supported by fishing, the town was full of houses that were tall and thin and close together, reminding Bryn a little of the East Coast. In the protected coves, porches often extended out over the water on stilts, and the homes were painted bright red or silver blue or yellow in gay contrast to the woods and rocks about them.
Bryn spent an hour ducking into a few tourist shops with clerks who had a slightly desperate look to their faces, as if they knew there were too few days left of the summer and still too few dollars in the cash drawer to make it through the winter. The entire town seemed a bit dilapidated and depressed, showing the wear and tear of a diminishing economy and overfished waters. Still, Bryn found it charming and enchanting to be walking among people again after three weeks in relative isolation, even if she felt more the cheechako here than in Talkeetna. Many of Russian descent, fishing folk were a different breed—toughened by the salt spray on their faces, undaunted by the freak storms that could rob them of their boats, their livelihood.
She stopped in a store and purchased smoked salmon and halibut, crusty French bread, cream cheese, and a jug of homemade apple juice, probably imported from someplace like Oregon. She also bought a USA Today dated two days ago and then moved on to the rental shop. In short order, she had secured a sturdy rowboat with an even sturdier motor, the proprietor assured her. Then she settled onto a park bench at a lovely overlook, opened her paper, and waited for Eli Pierce to return.
When Eli found her sitting across from the rental shop, he believed his heart actually hurt to look at her. Maybe it had been a mistake to invite her on this trip. He’d planned to use the time to break the news to her that “they” could never be. But his heart ached at the thought.
Dressed in a lavender cotton turtleneck and black leather jacket, she looked smooth and sophisticated. Her hair was loose and shimmering in the slight breeze as she tried to read her ruffling paper. She was so beautiful. So smart. Probably used to a paper delivered on the day it was dated. She could never be happy in Alaska. And moreover, he didn’t belong with her if she didn’t share his love for the Lord and his love of the land. She was highly educated, going much farther than his own associate’s degree. A doctor. A doctor. What right did he think he had to even consider being more than a friend to her?
Pathways (9780307822208) Page 5
