“Of course. It’s only been a month since he last saw you.”
“Tomorrow’s gonna be fun.”
* * *
MAC CHECKED HIS WATCH. It would be a quarter to eleven in Kansas. He had time to check in with Chandler before Ursula arrived. On the other hand, if Chandler had anything new to report, he would have called. Until he did, there was nothing Mac could do to help Andi. But maybe there was something he could do for another little girl.
He wasn’t sure about this outing, meeting a bunch of people and attending public events. He’d done everything he could to stay out of the public eye. But this wasn’t about him. Any press he encountered today would be there to cover the festival, not him. All the same, he selected a muffler that could partially obscure his face if he felt it prudent. Maybe he should add sunglasses, as well. Or maybe just forget the whole thing.
Before he could talk himself out of going, Blossom rushed to the window and barked at the sound of a car arriving. She stopped barking and wagged her tail, recognizing Ursula and Rory when they got out. Mac grabbed Blossom’s leash and was out the door before they arrived.
Rory ran forward to greet Blossom. “Mac, guess what? We brought carrots to feed the reindeer. Marissa said we could.”
More people. Just what he needed. But Rory looked so excited, Mac couldn’t begrudge her. He managed a smile. “That’s great. Who’s Marissa?”
“She’s Chris’s wife. They’re Sam’s friends. They have a reindeer farm.” Rory climbed into the back seat. She spent most of the drive chattering and singing to Blossom, so Mac didn’t have to say much. Occasionally, Rory would address a remark to him. “I’m gonna ride the Ferris wheel, but not the Hammer. It’s too scary. Do you wanna ride the Hammer?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Will you do the Tilt-a-Whirl with me?”
“Sure.”
“Good. Ursula says she can’t, ’cause her stomach doesn’t like it.”
He glanced toward Ursula. Judging by the twitching at the corner of her mouth, this was exactly what she’d planned to happen. He grinned. “Fortunately for Ursula, I have a strong stomach.”
Once they reached Anchorage, Ursula pulled up in the driveway of a modest split-level that backed up to the forest. Before they could knock on the door, a dark-haired woman holding a baby opened it and ushered them up the stairs. She closed a baby gate behind them and they all hugged and greeted each other. Ursula took the baby in her arms before introducing Mac. “Mac, this is Dana MacKettrick, and this handsome young man is my grandson, Griffin.”
Mac smiled at the baby and offered a hand to Dana. “Mac Macleod.”
Rory was talking to the baby. Griffin leaned from Ursula’s arms trying to reach her. Cute kid, with a thatch of dark hair and eyes already turning from blue to brown, like his mother’s. Finally, Ursula set him on the floor, where he started crawling purposefully toward Rory.
“Oh, here’s Sam.” A dark-haired man carrying a large diaper bag trotted up the stairs to join them, followed by a brown dog. Mac held onto Blossom’s leash until he was sure they’d get along, but they simply sniffed one another and wagged their tails. The man set the bag aside and rested his hand on his wife’s back. Ursula introduced them.
Sam offered his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Macleod. Ursula told me you’d bought the cabin next door. I’ve read some of your books.”
“Call me Mac.” Mac was never quite sure what to say when people mentioned reading his books. Asking if they liked them sounded insecure. Thank you seemed awkward.
Fortunately, Sam didn’t seem to expect a response. He turned and opened his arms. “And here’s Rory. How’s my favorite girl?”
Rory stopped playing with the baby long enough to give him a hug. “Hi, Sam. When are we going to see the reindeer?”
“Just as soon as we can get Griffin’s stuff packed up and his snowsuit on, which could take an hour or so with the way he wiggles.”
It didn’t. Dana packed a few diapers and snacks into the bag while Rory distracted the baby and Sam zipped him into his snowsuit. Fifteen minutes later, Blossom was curled up against the Lab on his bed in the corner, and they were on their way. Rory chose to ride in the car with Griffin, which left Mac and Ursula alone in her car for the trip downtown.
“Cute baby,” Mac offered. “Does he look like your son did at that age?”
Ursula beamed. “Isn’t he? I’m not sure if Griffin looks like Sam did. Sam didn’t come into our lives until he was ten. He was twelve when his mother took off and he moved in with us.”
“What do you mean, took off?”
“Exactly that. We lived near Sam’s elementary school, and we got to know him. My husband, Tommy, liked to build things, and Sam loved hanging around and helping. Occasionally he’d stay over with us when his mom went out. One day, she didn’t come back for him. So we kept him.”
“She never came back for her son?”
“No. After that, Sam was ours.”
He looked at Ursula with admiration. “You must have done a good job raising him. He seems a fine man.”
“He works hard and loves his family. I couldn’t be prouder of him.”
“And now you’re doing it again. Raising someone else’s child.”
Ursula shook her head. “Not someone else’s. They’re mine. Both of them. I might not have given birth, but I love those kids with all my heart.” Ursula drove on for a moment without speaking. When she stopped at a traffic light, she turned toward him. “My friend Marge seems to think by taking in Rory, I’m making some sort of sacrifice. She’s wrong. I love that girl. I loved her parents, too, and while I wish they could have been the ones to raise Rory, I’m blessed to have her. She belongs to me, and I belong to her.” The light changed, and she drove onward. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little touchy about the idea that Sam and Rory aren’t really mine.”
“I understand, and you’re right. They’re lucky to be yours.”
“We’re all lucky.” Ursula parallel parked in front of a gift shop. They walked two spaces up to Sam’s Jeep.
Rory jumped out of the car and bounced on her toes. “Where are the reindeer?”
“Over on Fourth. Just wait right there while we get organized,” Ursula said. She helped Sam arrange the baby in a backpack while Dana gathered the baby’s things.
Meanwhile, Rory’s head swiveled. She was showing signs of bolting. Mac reached for her hand. “Rory and I are just going to walk over to that dog statue, okay?”
“Good idea.” Ursula flashed him a smile.
He let Rory lead him to the statue of a husky. “Oh, it’s Balto. I know this story.”
“He’s the dog who brought medicine.”
“Right. For the diphtheria epidemic in Nome.”
“That’s why the Iditarod goes to Nome.”
Mac chuckled. “How come you’re so smart?”
Rory thought before she answered. “Because I ask questions. Mommy said that’s the way to learn things.”
“Your mom sounds like she was pretty smart, too.”
Rory nodded. “She knew lots of stuff. She was pretty, too. And real good at skiing.”
“I know. I saw her on television.”
“You saw my mom?”
“Yes. I saw her when she was competing and won a medal.”
“Daddy won a medal, too.”
“I know. That’s really cool.”
Rory wrapped her arms around herself. “Mommy said skiing in the meets was fun, but not as fun as skiing with me and Daddy in Kincaid Park.”
“I’ll bet.”
The group caught up with them. “Ready to find the reindeer?” Dana asked Rory.
“Finally.” Rory grabbed Dana’s hand and tugged her along the sidewalk. Mac wasn’t sure she knew where she was going, but she was determined they were going t
o get there fast. Sam hurried to catch up with them.
Ursula dropped back to walk beside Mac. “You know, you should really be in this event. Very Hemingway-esque.”
“Ah, such a shame I didn’t sign up.”
Her eyes crinkled in the corners. “I happen to have connections with the reindeer people. I could get you in.”
“Into what, exactly?”
“The Running of the Reindeer. It’s Anchorage’s answer to the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.”
“Yeah, uh, don’t they have a lot of casualties in Pamplona? Sounds like a young man’s game.”
“Well, the course here only goes five blocks, and the reindeer are much gentler than bulls. They’re female, for one thing.”
“All of them?”
“All the ones they bring for this event. The males have already shed their antlers.”
“Antlers. That’s what I’m avoiding.”
Ursula laughed. “What kind of cowboy’s afraid of deer?”
“The prudent kind.” He could just imagine how a herd of cattle would react to this crowd. Mac was starting to notice a strange preponderance of elaborate fur hats among the people gathering. Of course, it was the fair. The crowd grew denser as they got closer, but Ursula led him through the throngs toward a roped-off area where Rory and the others were talking to a group of people, including a boy a year or two older than Rory.
A red-bearded man stepped over to raise the rope and allow Ursula and Mac under. “Thanks, Chris. This is Mac.” Once they were inside, Ursula introduced Mac to the rest of the group. The oldest man, Oliver, who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus, explained to Mac that they were three generations of reindeer farmers. Mac let it slip he’d grown up on a ranch, and before he could find an excuse, he’d been pressed into service helping unload reindeer from the trucks.
Fortunately, they didn’t seem to be easily spooked by the crowd, and Mac found he enjoyed working with the reindeer. Rory was in her element, petting one of them and feeding it carrots while the boy holding its lead rope told her the names of all the others as they came off the truck. Dana took Griffin and went to stand with the spectators, but Ursula and Sam stayed and helped.
“How do you get them running?” Mac asked Oliver as he handed him the lead of another reindeer.
“My wife and Marissa have a couple of the herd leaders at the other end of the course. Once we turn them loose, they’ll hurry to their friends. We’ll run them in batches.”
While they had been getting the reindeer ready, someone had gathered the herd of human runners up ahead. Most seemed to be in costume, dressed as everything from butterflies to pirates. A group of cavemen wearing only fur loincloths and sneakers jogged in place, their skin slowly turning blue as they waited. Ursula pulled Rory back from the herd.
Someone gave the signal, and the crowd surged forward. After giving them a block or so head start, the reindeer handlers snapped off the leads and sent the reindeer on their way. They galloped forward, darting between the runners toward the end of the street. Cheers and laughter erupted from the crowd.
They repeated the procedure with the next herd of humans and reindeer. Meanwhile the catchers at the end of the street brought the reindeer from round one back for another go. They managed a total of five waves. Mac was impressed. They had this down to a science.
Afterward, they walked a few of the reindeer among the crowds. Rory jumped right in to help, handing out treats for the children to feed the reindeer while their parents took pictures. Eventually, they helped load the reindeer back into the trucks and said goodbye to the reindeer farmers. The baby in Dana’s arms was beginning to fuss. Sam took him and lifted him high in the air, distracting him for the moment.
Ursula slipped her glove under Mac’s elbow. “Well, cowboy. What did you think of your first Running of the Reindeer?”
He grinned. “Whoever came up with that idea had been through a long winter in a small cabin.”
“Probably so. Are you hungry?”
“I am,” Rory volunteered. “Funnel cakes?”
“Maybe later.” Ursula put her other arm around Rory’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “We need real food for lunch. And Griffin needs his nap. So, what do you say we pick up something and take it to Sam and Dana’s?”
“Burgers?” Rory asked hopefully. “From Arctic Roadrunner?”
Ursula looked questioningly at Mac. “I never turn down a good burger,” he assured her.
“Burgers it is. Sam,” Ursula called, “go ahead and take Griffin home. We’ll bring food.”
Mac enjoyed lunch. It turned out Sam was an engineer who worked shifts on the North Slope of Alaska and Dana was a math teacher, both with fascinating stories to tell. Mac’s writerly instincts kicked in, thinking about how he could use some of these situations in a book, before he remembered he wasn’t writing anymore. And why.
Ursula must have noticed that he’d suddenly gone quiet. She gave him a gentle smile and touched his arm before urging Rory to tell Sam and Dana about the snowwoman she and Mac had built while the power was out. Not for the first time, Mac wondered if Ursula read minds.
The rest of the day was like that. Mac and Ursula left Blossom at Sam’s and took Rory to watch the people making snow sculptures from giant blocks of snow, and then to the carnival. Mac enjoyed his time with Rory, listening to her speculation about what the snow sculptors were making and her excited squeals at the top of the Ferris wheel. But at the same time, he couldn’t help remembering days like this with his own daughter. Andi should have had the chance to marry, to have her own child to ride with on the carousel, to live her life.
But every time he threatened to sink into melancholy, Ursula was there, distracting him with some funny comment or encouraging him to accompany Rory for another turn on the Tilt-a-Whirl or on a quest to find the funnel cake booth.
The sun had set and the sky darkened long before Rory was ready to leave the carnival. After such an activity-filled day, Mac half expected her to collapse face-first into her plate of spaghetti at the Italian restaurant, but she held it together. It wasn’t until they picked up Blossom, said their goodbyes and headed home that Rory fell sound asleep in the back seat.
Tires hummed on the highway as Ursula drove through the darkness. They’d made it past Turnagain Arm and weren’t far from home when Ursula spoke in a soft voice. “Thank you for coming today. I know it wasn’t easy for you.”
Mac shrugged. “It was no big deal.”
“Yes, it was.” Ursula glanced into the rearview mirror. “It was a big deal for Rory. She loved having you along on the rides. You give her courage.”
Mac looked back at the sleeping girl. “Rory is one of the most courageous people I’ve ever met.”
“She is, isn’t she?” Ursula drove in silence for a few minutes. “I was ten, when my brother died.”
“I’m sorry.”
Ursula kept her eyes straight ahead on the road. “Billy was only three. My father had come home for lunch. He was running late and had to hurry to get back to work on time. What he didn’t realize is that my brother had slipped outside without my mother noticing and was playing behind his car.”
“No.” Mac’s fists tightened, wishing he could stop what came next.
“They say he died instantly.” She swallowed. “I used to hear my parents arguing at night, after they thought I was asleep. My mother would say it was an accident, that rehashing it didn’t help, but my father would never let it go. He blamed her for not watching Billy more closely. He blamed himself for not checking behind the car before he backed up. Even worse was when the arguing stopped and there was nothing but icy silence.”
“Did they divorce?” Mac knew a tragedy of that sort would put tremendous stress on a marriage.
“No. They stayed together. If you can call it that. Maybe it would have been better if they
had.” She sighed. “One day we were a family that played and laughed and loved. The next day, we weren’t. And my father never healed, never let our family heal.” She finally glanced over at Mac, her expression resolute. “I’m not going to let that happen to Rory.”
“Why should it? Rory has no reason to feel guilty.”
“Everyone has regrets when someone they love dies. She mentioned once that her parents moved from an apartment to a house because they wanted her to have a yard to play in.”
“It’s not her fault the furnace malfunctioned.”
“I told her that. But sometimes we try to make sense of a tragedy by blaming ourselves.” A car passed her and she slowed to let it into the lane ahead before continuing. “My husband died of a heart attack when he was forty. Turns out he had a congenital heart condition. His father died young, as well. I wish I’d insisted that Tommy go to a cardiologist to get checked. If we’d known, we could have adjusted his diet. There were medications he could have tried.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
“We’ll never know. That’s the thing about might-have-beens. They can’t change the past. But hanging onto them can impact the future.”
Mac let that hang in the air for a little while. “I understand what you’re saying, but...” He trailed off.
“But you’re not ready to let them go. I understand that.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Of course not. Every situation is different.”
Mac shook his head. Ursula didn’t understand. She couldn’t. In order to write the kind of stories he wrote, Mac had researched the psychology of killers, of their different motivations. He wasn’t just any dad, he was an expert. And yet, he’d overlooked the obvious red flags, and Andi had paid the price.
No, the regrets Mac carried around weren’t so easy to leave behind. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He owed it to Andi to see this through.
CHAPTER TEN
URSULA CRADLED THE phone against her shoulder and reached for a pencil. “Yes, your room is ready and I can be here at two for early check-in.” The doorbell rang as Ursula was finishing up her conversation. She finished her note about the time before leaving the kitchen. “No problem at all. See you then. Goodbye.”
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