She looked down at the forest floor and shook her head. “Oh no, Eli. You’re not in this alone.”
He went to her then, knelt by her side, ran his hand over her head and down her soft cheek. “I said I’m in love with you, Bryn,” he said, waiting for her to meet his gaze. “I have to know. Have to know this today. Are you in love with me?”
Her eyes shifted back and forth, always on him. “Eli Pierce, I’ve always been in love with you.”
And then she was back in his arms, beneath him on the forest floor, beside him, her dark hair blending with the land he had always loved. They kissed and cuddled and talked and picked pine needles and twigs and sticks out of each other’s hair until the sun sank over the western mountains and the chill of the forest superseded even the warmth generated between their bodies.
They picked at their dinner, lost in staring at each other across the candlelit table, each dizzy in the discovery of love. Shoving aside his plate at last, Eli reached for her hand. “Pray with me, will you, Bryn? I’ll start, you finish?”
She smiled, pushed her own half-eaten trout away and took his hand in answer. He stared at the simmering beauty of her in the dancing candlelight, just a moment longer before bowing his head too. “Father God, thank you for this woman. This thing that has started between us. We ask for your hand in our relationship, that you will guide us and lead us and pull us away from anything you don’t want us to do. Please, Lord, we ask that you help us draw the lines on our passion for each other. We want to honor you in all things, including this.”
“Yes, Father,” Bryn added, a smile in her voice. “I thank you for Eli, too. What a blessing he has been to me, throughout my life, but especially this year. Lord, I’m afraid. Afraid of this wrenching open of my heart, afraid that it will be left open and bleeding. Protect us both, lead us, but make us brave and courageous, too. Help us to follow your call, wherever it leads. We ask for these things in your name, Jesus. Amen.”
“Amen,” Eli echoed.
She met his eyes then, and they stared at each other for several long minutes. Eli felt as helpless as he had when he had fallen for Chelsea Thompson. Except worse. Or better. He laughed.
“What?”
“Nothing. Well, I forgot how great—and terrible—it feels to be in love. It’s all tangled up inside me.”
“I know the feeling.” She covered his hand with her other, and he did the same. “I just can’t believe that all this was just beneath the surface.”
“Me neither. In a way. But then I think I knew it all along. Just wasn’t acknowledging it.”
She nodded, glanced to the window. “Eli …”
He followed her look. In the corner of a window pane was the faintest stripe of neon green on the far horizon.
“Do you think?” she asked, nodding toward the lake.
“Could be. That would be the perfect ending to a perfect day. Let’s go.”
Wordlessly she went for her parka and then opened the door. “Separate canoes?” she asked.
“Probably would be safer for us,” he said with a laugh. “Otherwise we might end up making out in the middle and fall in.”
She shivered. “That would be cold. I’ll make you a deal. You stay on one end of the canoe, and I’ll stay on the other.” She stuck out her hand, and with a grin Eli shook it.
Her eyes moved from him, back to the night sky. “Oh, Eli, they’re coming. Hurry!” He laughed at her girlish zeal and nodded for her to step in and go to the front of the canoe. When she was seated, he pushed off and sat in back. In minutes, they were in the center of the lake, watching as the aurora grew along a serpentine path that was almost identical to the one they had seen five years before.
But this time as it neared, the rays crisscrossed above them in shades of purple and green. Again and again the lights rolled past, as though the Weaver was at work on a heavenly loom. It reminded Eli of a plastic disk he’d had as a child, filled with multicolored sand that created new patterns each time he moved it.
Bryn turned her face from the light to Eli. In the dim glow of a sinking quarter moon, he could see that her cheeks were as wet as his own from the tears of joy and awe. The northern lights were always so magical, such a vivid reminder of the majesty of his Creator, the power at his hand. “Oh, Eli,” she breathed. “It’s God’s blessing. A blessing on our love.”
He wished he could reach out to her then, hold her. “Yes,” he agreed, looking back up. “Yes, it is.”
Bryn rose early the next morning, stretched luxuriously, and then lay back to stare at the ceiling and think about Eli. She didn’t know where they were going or what would transpire between them; for now, this was enough. This fabulous feeling of knowing that every last nerve cell was awake, that she loved and was loved in return.
After about twenty minutes, she pushed herself out from under the warm Hudson’s Bay blanket and to the stove. She frowned at the empty woodbin and then chuckled to herself. She had gone out yesterday to fill it, but a certain man had diverted her attention.
Bryn grabbed the wood carrier and headed out to the door, which stopped abruptly when it banged up against something solid outside. “What—”
“Uhh,” said someone in pain.
She peeked around the door and discovered Eli in his sleeping bag. “Want to tell me what you’re doing here?” she asked. They had said their good-nights on shore, after the aurora had faded away into the night, leaving behind only its imprint in her mind.
Bryn had assumed Eli had gone home.
“That manhunt,” he explained, sitting up and rubbing his hip where the door had connected. “Five miles south of here. Over the ridge.”
“Still don’t think I can take care of myself, Eli?”
“Let’s just say I don’t care to gamble that you could. I just kissed you last night, Bryn. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
She considered his words for a long moment, then gave in. “Thanks, Eli. For caring. How’d you know he was so close?”
“Went home after we said good night, heard the report, and came back over. I had thought to sleep over here earlier, but after our kisses”—he smiled at her appreciatively and rubbed his jaw—“I knew my days of sleeping inside your cabin and not in your bed had come to a close.”
“So you took to my front porch. Very gallant.” She bent over and kissed him lightly. His face was as cold as the morning air. “Why don’t you come in? I’m getting some firewood, and we’ll soon have a pot of coffee on.”
“Sounds good.” He climbed out of his sleeping bag, still fully clothed in jeans and a blue wool sweater, and took the wood carrier from her hand. “Let me get that.”
“Okay,” she said with a shrug. She followed him out to the woodpile and watched him gather a handful of kindling and an assortment of larger pieces.
“What would you have done, Bryn? If he had come here, I mean?”
“I guess he would’ve met my friend here,” she said, pulling the revolver from the back of her waistband.
“Leon told me you were carrying it. Is it loaded?”
“Not much good without a bullet, is it?”
“Can you shoot it?”
“Dad taught me how to shoot a rifle.”
“Can you shoot that?”
“If I show you, will you sleep in your own bed instead of on my front step tonight?”
He paused and stared hard at her. “Maybe.”
She turned, aimed at a tree twenty feet away. “See that knothole?” she asked, still aiming.
“I see it.”
She shot then, and the bullet zinged just an inch right from the hole, embedding itself in the old tree limb.
Eli went over and touched the bullet flattened in the wood. He looked back at her with open admiration. “A real bed would be preferable to that front stoop.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
After spending the entire day hiking and fishing and stealing kisses, Eli had finally torn himself away from Bryn and tossed and
turned through the night, worrying about the escaped convict, wishing he had camped on her porch again. Even with a girlfriend who was armed and dangerous herself. He rolled to his side and stared out the bedroom door to the front window, where he could see just a smidgen of the lake. He smiled at his use of the term girlfriend, even in the privacy of his thoughts.
Bryn Bailey was his girlfriend. She was his. She loved him! He grinned like an idiot, happy beyond all measure. Dear God, he prayed, thank you for this. For all this bounty. Bryn is a treasure beyond belief. You’re so good to me. Thank you. Help me to be a faithful steward of this gift. Amen.
A helicopter swept overhead suddenly, and then another, wiping the smile from his face. He sat up abruptly and craned his head toward the window. State police choppers. The convict! The chase was coming closer! He hurried over to the window, looked around, but the helicopters had zoomed out of his line of vision. The lake was still. A gentle curl of gray smoke emerged from Bryn’s chimney—she was up and eating already. His smile returned a little. I think I’ll just go bum a cup of coffee from her, keep her company. He’d feel better being with her, even if she did have a gun.
He was just turning away, going to heat some water for a brief bath, when a shot rang out across the lake.
Eli’s head whipped around toward the window, and he wondered if he had misplaced the gunshot’s report. No, he was sure of it. It had come from the direction of the Bailey cabin.
Bryn.
“Get out of here!” Bryn shouted. The black bear was at her window, snuffling about through the broken panes as though she was fixing her blueberry pancakes for him instead of Eli. He had come around before, and by his radio collar, she assumed he was one of Ben’s orphans, come home to roost. But he had never been this forward, usually shying away when she banged some pots together or yelled.
When he came to the door and started pushing against it, making it shudder with his weight, she moved forward with two cast-iron skillets, clanging them together in hopes of shaking his interest. He just kept pushing at the door—was he rubbing his back up against it? Sure enough, his up-and-down momentum succeeded in raising the latch bar. The door swung open. He rolled inward on his back, as surprised to see her as she was him.
That was when Bryn pulled out her revolver and, shouting, shot at his feet, hoping to scare him. The bear immediately turned tail and ran outside, but he didn’t get far. The fish drying on racks high above him caught his attention and he turned, still looking for an easy breakfast.
Eli paddled madly across the lake and, for the first time ever, wished for an outboard motor. Despite the early-morning chill, sweat broke out across his brow. What if he was too late? What if the rapist had already gotten to Bryn? He paused for half a second, listening for the sounds of a scuffle, a scream, but he heard nothing. As he neared, he could see that Bryn’s cabin door was open, alarming him all the more. With her constant battle with squirrels, there was no way she would leave such an open invitation to them.
I should have stayed with her, obeyed my instincts. He cursed himself as a fool for believing she could take care of herself. A woman out here, alone, unprotected. He dug in deeper, willing every muscle to work to get him across the lake faster. Please, God, he prayed. Please, God.
It was then that he saw Bryn with two skillets, banging them together. His eyes tracked through the trees, in the direction she was looking. A bear. A black bear. He stopped paddling, his arms and shoulders and back aching, and almost felt like laughing. A bear! Bryn could handle a bear!
She looked up at him then. “Good morning! Think he’s one of Ben’s!”
Eli nodded, out of breath, his heart still pounding.
In formation, the two helicopters roared back over the lake, heading in the direction of Anchorage. The sound apparently scared the bear, and he ambled off with the lumbering, rolling gate common to all bears.
Bryn shook her head and walked down to shore to greet Eli. “I thought about shooting him, but Ben would’ve never forgiven me. The rascal has become a regular pest—” She stopped abruptly and stared at him. “Eli? What’s the matter?” He knew he must be as white as a ptarmigan in winter.
He lifted one hand helplessly, looked away. “I heard a shot. Thought …” He shook his head and gave her a rueful look. “I was worried. I came as fast as I could.”
Bryn stared at him and then looked to the sky, where the helicopters had disappeared. She crossed her arms. “Haven’t been listening to your radio this morning, huh?”
“No,” he said, slightly irritated by her smug manner.
“They caught him, Eli. Over the ridge, near that old mine you and I hiked to once.” She waved him in, grinning. “The only intruder I had to deal with was a bear our neighbor raised.” She pulled the canoe front onto shore and hugged him when he disembarked on shaky legs.
He held her tightly and kissed her forehead. “Thank you,” Eli whispered skyward.
“What?” Bryn asked, looking up at him.
“I was just giving thanks that you’re all right. Regardless of who was on the attack. I haven’t been that scared since we encountered the poachers.”
Over the next weeks Bryn and Eli became inseparable. Eli flew her on every Housecalls mission he could, and they often stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, talking, kissing, and snuggling on her porch or his.
So when the old phone rang in her Talkeetna cabin one early morning, Bryn was none too happy. Exhausted, she groaned and forced her eyes open. “This relationship is going to be the death of me yet,” she groused. She reached for the receiver and pulled it to her ear, allowing her eyes to shut again for one blessed second. “Bailey here,” she mumbled.
“Bryn? Bryn, honey, it’s your mother.”
Bryn sat up straight in bed. She hadn’t heard from Nell all summer long. “Mom? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, honey. It’s … I’m afraid I have bad news. Your father called today. He tried to reach you last night, but you were out, I guess. He’s in Boston. Your Grampa Bruce is very sick. Honey, they don’t give him long to live. Maybe a day or two.”
“Oh.” Bryn’s hand went to her mouth.
“Can you go there? To see them, I mean?”
Bryn shook her head as if to empty it of the water that seemed to be drowning any thought. “Yes. I mean, I have to check with Carmine, but, yes, I think I can. Will you?”
“Oh no, honey. I have no place there. That’s your father’s family. He’ll be there with … No, I’ll stay here. But I’ll keep you in my thoughts. Let me know where you are, will you?”
“Sure, Mom. Thanks for calling. For letting me know.”
“Of course. Call me, honey.”
“I will,” Bryn promised, staring at the phone for a long moment after. Her mother had actually sounded caring and loving. She hadn’t even called Ashley “that woman,” as she usually did. Bryn supposed Nell cared about her grandparents too. They had been her own inlaws for over thirty years. A person didn’t just throw away thirty years without a thought, regardless of how distant the relation might be or how much your ex-husband hurt you in leaving.
Bryn picked up the phone again and dialed Eli’s cell. Her tears started flowing then, at the thought of saying good-bye to her grandfather and in fear of finally seeing her dad again after so long. It had been a couple of years, with the excuses of being cross-country from Bryn and raising two young sons with Ashley. They’d been married almost five years, Bryn figured, counting in her head.
“Alaska Bush,” Eli answered, sounding as though she had awakened him.
“Eli, I’m … s-sorry,” she said through her tears. She choked on her sobs.
“Bryn? Bryn, what’s the matter?”
“It’s my gr-grandfather, Eli. He’s dying. I have to go to Boston.”
“Boston?” He sounded surprised.
“I have to see him one last time, before it’s too late,” she sobbed.
“Of course you do. I’ll be right there, swee
theart. You get your stuff together. I’ll get you to an airport right away. And, Bryn?”
“Uh-huh?” she managed, wiping her nose.
“I love you. Hang on to that, okay?”
“Th-thanks, Eli.”
By the time Bryn got to Anchorage and down to the Lower 48, then all the way across country, it was midnight in Boston. When she emerged from the plane, she saw her father in the terminal, a washed-out expression on his face, and she knew.
“Oh, Dad,” she wept, sinking into his arms.
“I’m sorry, Bryn Bear,” he said, holding her tightly. “He knew you were on your way. We told him. But he died this afternoon.”
They stood there together, clinging to the love they had shared for a man now gone, clinging to each other. Finally her father pulled away a little and kissed her forehead. “It’s for the best, you know. He hasn’t been in good physical shape for a long time. He was ready to go be with Gramma.”
Bryn nodded. “I know. The people left behind are just never ready.” She had seen it herself a hundred times at the teaching hospital. The deceased let go, and the bereaved wanted to hold on.
Peter let one arm drop and then guided her forward, toward baggage claim, with his other arm wrapped around her shoulders.
“How’s Aunt Luanne?”
“Struggling. It will do her good to see you. Trevor’s here too, down from Maine with his wife.”
Trevor Kenbridge, her cousin, was as close as a brother to her. “Did he get to see Grampa before he died?”
Peter smiled sadly and cocked his head. “Yep. That Trevor always could get your grandfather to laugh. He got his last smile out of him.”
She nodded, looking around. “Dad, is Ashley here? And the kids?”
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