Thanksgiving Groom

by Brenda Minton

  He noticed their red faces and slowing steps. He’d have to take breaks for their sake. If he hadn’t worried about their safety at the cabin, they could have waited for the next supply drop and signaled the pilot.

  When they got back to Treasure Creek they all had things to face. Penelope wasn’t as free as she wanted him to think.

  They walked on in silence. Penelope didn’t talk. Sometimes her lips moved and he guessed that she was praying. He remembered that new faith, when knowing God was as new as falling in love for the first time. He’d been a kid, but he’d wanted to tell everyone who would listen.

  He glanced up at the bright blue sky and then around him, at towering mountains and evergreens. They were following the stream because it would take them to a village inhabited by native Alaskans. That was a twenty-plus mile walk by his estimation. He knew that there was a fork in the stream when they reached that village, and taking the southern fork would lead them to Treasure Creek. They’d also be able to have shelter for a night. But that wouldn’t happen for a couple of days. His hope was that someone in the village would give them a ride to Treasure Creek.

  He pulled back his thoughts, because they had to take one day at a time and not get overanxious about making it to civilization. They had limited daylight and rough terrain to take into account. This day would end with the four of them camped along this stream, hoping a fire, their tent and sleeping bags would keep them warm enough. And he was pretty doubtful.

  At least Clark and Wilma would have each other. He glanced down at the woman walking next to him, huffing with exertion, her cheeks glowing from the cold and exercise. He shook off thoughts of her in his arms, because that wasn’t going to happen.

  He wasn’t about to play into her father’s plan.

  They set up camp before the sun went down. Penelope held a pole for the tent, which was about all the help she could be. Her fingers, even though she’d worn heavy gloves, were frozen and numb. Her cheeks were wind-burned and cold. She stumbled a little and Tucker shot her a look. He opened his mouth and then closed it. Good thing he did, because she wasn’t in the mood to be lectured.

  She glanced toward Wilma, who was steadily adding wood to the fire. Clark was stirring up some type of dried beef and vegetables with water. Soup. If only they could have coffee. She’d give anything for coffee. But Tucker had insisted on downsizing, and the coffeepot had been deemed too bulky to take along.

  She was going to miss that blue coffeepot that had bubbled so cheerfully on the wood stove back at the cabin. She was going to miss the cabin. She’d gotten to be herself, just herself, for the first time in a long time.

  “Hold that steady,” Tucker commanded as he tapped one of the last stakes into the ground. “Almost done.”

  She nodded but she couldn’t talk. Her lips were frozen in a tight line. She trembled inside her coat, shivering until her back ached.

  “Are you going to make it?” Tucker rounded the tent and was suddenly at her side. “Of course.”

  “You look a little lost. Food will help.” He took her by the arm and steered her toward the fire. “And heat.”

  “Yes, heat.” She stood in front of the fire and soaked up its warmth. It left her back cold, so then she turned.

  “This is a little more of an outdoor experience than you probably planned for.”

  “A little.” She waited for Tucker to walk away. He didn’t. He stood next to her for a long time and she wished he’d put an arm around her.

  Sign of hypothermia. She’d read books. She knew the symptoms. People did crazy things when they got too cold. Sometimes they wanted to be held. And she’d never wanted to be held so badly in her life. Tears were burning her eyes and her throat tightened.

  “Two more days, Penelope. You can make it.” His voice was soft and close to her ear.

  She nodded, but she couldn’t get words past the lump of emotion. He believed she could make it. He believed. She buried her face in her hands. How many people had ever believed she could make it?

  “You’re okay.” His arm slipped around her waist. Before she could really think about it, she turned into the solid wall that was his chest. Her cold cheeks met warm flannel that smelled of the outdoors. Strong arms wrapped around her and held her close.

  “Shhh, it’s okay.” He gathered her closer and she nodded, but she didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to move out of the safety of his embrace. She was suddenly in a place where it was okay to be weak, and yet someone thought she was strong.

  “I’m sorry.” She hiccupped the words and didn’t move her cheek from the soft flannel of the jacket he wore under his coat.

  “You’re fine. You’re strong. It’s overwhelming out here, Penelope. It’s cold. It’s quiet. It’s hard going. We’re all tired. You’re tired.”

  She pulled back and wiped her gloved hand across her cheeks. He took her hand in his and pulled the glove off and shoved it into the pocket of her coat and pulled the other off.

  “I’ll freeze without them.” She started to reach into her pocket but he grabbed her hands, both of them, and held them tight in his.

  “Your hands will freeze if you keep them on.” He lifted her hands to his mouth and blew warmth onto her numb fingers. “This will help. After you get warmed up you can put them back on.”

  She could only nod. How could she do or say anything when this moment wrapped around her, stealing her breath, her thoughts and maybe even her heart.

  “I should help do something.” She backed away from him, immediately missing his warmth. Her hands wanted to be back in his. She wanted his arms around her again.

  But moving away from him was the right thing to do. Even if it left her cold from the inside out.

  She turned to Wilma, who was warming something in a pan and pretending she hadn’t witnessed a moment of weakness between the two of them. Penelope justified it in her mind, telling herself that it was natural in this environment, in their circumstances. Of course they would be drawn to one another in this situation.

  “What can I do to help?” She glanced back at Tucker and then she faced Wilma with a smile. She heard Tucker walk away and she breathed easier.

  “Get our four mugs from the pack that Clark carried. Tucker said no coffeepot. He didn’t say a thing about the soup pan I brought. Or the bag of instant coffee.”

  “Oh, Wilma, you’re a blessing.”

  “I think so.” Wilma smiled up at her. “Rehydrated soup and instant coffee. Not exactly a gourmet meal….”

  “It’ll be the best meal I’ve ever had.” Penelope rushed the words.

  She watched Tucker carry sleeping bags into the tent. Three of them. He kept his outside. She started to ask why, but then she thought better of it. Two more days and they’d part ways. She wouldn’t have to think about Tucker. He wouldn’t have to think about her.

  That would be better, she thought.

  “Hold those mugs out, I’ll pour our coffee.” Wilma brought her back to planet Earth.

  The aroma of the coffee, even instant, was wonderful. Penelope held the cups and Wilma poured from the saucepan. Clark appeared and he took the first cup with a smile.

  “My wife is always up to a challenge.” He winked at Wilma.

  “Stop that, you crazy man.” Wilma blushed in the soft light of the fire. Her eyes lit up, though. Penelope wondered what that was like, to have someone who loved her that much. She wondered if she would ever know.

  She thought about her mother, the way her mom’s eyes looked when Penelope’s dad entered a room. She shuddered to think about that being her life. She wanted someone like Clark, someone who held her tight and went through the hard things at her side.

  Tucker took the cup of coffee she held out to him and she couldn’t stop herself from thinking back to being held tight just five minutes earlier. Their gazes met and she thought he was thinking the same thing.

  Tucker wasn’t too upset with Wilma for packing the instant coffee. By midnight, with everyone sleeping
in the tent and him parked next to the fire, he’d be real glad for a cup of coffee. He’d never been fond of the instant stuff, but when the temperature dropped to well below freezing, instant coffee wasn’t so bad.

  Mud heated up in water wouldn’t have been bad.

  He pulled his blanket around his shoulders and hunched down, with his back against an upturned log. One of his last nights of solitude. He wasn’t sure how long he’d stay in Treasure Creek, once he got back to town. Maybe a few days.

  He had to go back to Seattle. The thought settled in the pit of his stomach and stayed there. For the first time in years, he wasn’t excited about his job. He had always loved the challenge, the arguments, learning how people ticked, and what would make them say what he needed them to say.

  Each time he closed his eyes he thought about an unknown girl, a family grieving. His grief.

  The zipper on the tent ripped the stillness of the night. He turned, watching the dark figure hurry across the open area to the fire. She had wrapped her sleeping bag around herself and pulled on the boots he’d made her wear. She hadn’t liked leaving the other boots behind.

  He smiled, but quickly pushed that reaction down. This wasn’t a friendship he wanted to pursue. Instead he stared up at her, wishing that look would send her running back to the tent.

  The one thing he’d learned about Ms. Lear was that she didn’t back down easily. Instead of cowering, she hunkered down next to him.

  “I’m sorry I fell apart earlier,” she whispered without looking up at him.

  “No big deal.” But it had been kind of a big deal, mainly because he still remembered holding her.

  “I think I might have had a touch of hypothermia. The symptoms include confusion.”

  He laughed, at first loud and then softer. He didn’t want to wake the Johnsons. If they could sleep, they should. Someone should get rest for the trip tomorrow.

  “You think that was from hypothermia?”

  She pulled the quilt tighter around her shoulders and moved so that her arm didn’t touch his. “Of course. It isn’t as if I’m prone to falling apart, or even to throwing myself into a man’s arms.”

  “Of course you aren’t.”

  “Stop.”

  “What?” The tone of her voice had changed to anger, taking him by surprise. “Why are you mad?”

  “Because you insist on putting me in some little box that you’ve labeled ‘heiress.’ You think you know me, know how I should behave or what my life is like.”

  “I see.” He knew the rule to this game. The less said, the better.

  “You think I need a big, strong man to take care of me.”

  He listed off in his mind a few things, starting with driving a Jeep off the road, leaving the Jeep to wander in the woods, coming face-to-face with a bear. He kept the list to himself while she rambled on.

  “I’m sick of people like you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Stop.”

  “Penelope, I stopped talking a long time ago.”

  She peeked up, the sleeping bag tight around her neck so that just her face stuck out. Man, she had a kissable mouth. She had eyes that made him feel sucker-punched each time she looked at him all soft and vulnerable, or like a wildcat determined to fight her way out of a corner.

  He leaned, and for the first time in a long time, he didn’t think something through before he acted. As she stared up, half wildcat and half lost kitten, he leaned and touched his lips to hers. Soft at first, and then a little more demanding. He wrapped one arm around her quilted shoulders and held her close as his lips moved over hers. When she whispered his name and kissed him back, he didn’t know if he’d ever breathe again.

  Or if he’d ever want to breathe without her.

  Her hair slipped through his fingers and he held her close, leaning in for one more taste of the sweetest lips he’d ever kissed.

  This was more tender than his first kiss with Cindy Douglas on the playground after school. It was sweeter than a college romance that he thought would last forever.

  And it’s smoke and mirrors, he told himself as he pulled away. She was just a mirage, something out of reach and unreal. He didn’t need that. He didn’t need this to cloud his thinking when so many things in his life were on the fence.

  What he didn’t need was a high-maintenance female in his life.

  She obviously felt the same way about him, because she broke away from his arms and stood up, wobbling a little, scaring him because he wanted her away from the fire if she was going to trip. He reached but she backed up.

  “Don’t.” She took a few more steps back. “This is just confusion from hypothermia.”

  He was tempted to laugh again, because she didn’t believe that any more than he did. “Sure, hypothermia.”

  “Exactly. In a few days we’ll be back to our real lives, being who we really are. And I don’t think either of us would like the other person if we met up with them on the street.”

  “In the real world?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I think I probably agree.”

  “Good night then.” She turned, tripping a little over that crazy sleeping bag and then practically running to the tent.

  That was the end of that. He almost relished the thought. But it wasn’t the end. He had a bad feeling it wasn’t even close. Maybe the bad feeling came from deep inside, where he didn’t want it to be the end.

  And as tired as he was—he must have been tired, or he wouldn’t have thought that way—he was in for a long night. No way could he go to sleep and leave them vulnerable to whoever was prowling in the woods.

  If there even was someone out there.

  Penelope ran from a kiss that probably changed not only how she felt about Tucker, but how she felt about herself. Her heart raced and her fingers trembled as she climbed back into the tent and zipped the flap. As if zipping the flap would close out the cold. They had built a small fire a short distance from the tent, and their sleeping bags were supposed to be for near-arctic temperatures, but none of that seemed to matter.

  After the warmth of Tucker’s kiss, she felt cold to the bone.

  She curled up in the sleeping bag and tried to count sheep, but sheep weren’t enough. Clark was snoring, and outside, animals were making noises that sounded like grunts and sometimes growls.

  Hours later, she thought something pawed around her corner of the tent. She huddled in a ball and prayed for it to go away. It continued to snort and dig. Clark snored louder, coughed a little and continued to snore.

  She could see the flicker of the fire and watched as Tucker’s silhouette moved, adding wood. He sat back down, wrapping himself in a sleeping bag. Tomorrow would be a rough day for all of them, but especially for Tucker.

  It was all on him—to take care of them, to get them back safely. Clark was a big help, but it was Tucker who took charge and kept them going forward.

  She closed her eyes and tried to slow her breathing to bring on drowsiness and maybe sleep. What a mistake. Closing her eyes intensified the noises inside and outside the tent. Closing her eyes meant remembering the softness in Tucker’s eyes when he leaned to kiss her.

  That meant remembering the way he’d slid his hands into her hair and pulled her close. Now what in the world was a girl supposed to do with those thoughts, with that memory?

  She couldn’t run far enough or fast enough to outrun how it had felt to be in Tucker Lawson’s arms that way. The best thing she could do would be to remember that he was exactly the kind of man her father wanted her to marry, and the type she had no intention of marrying.

  Chapter Seven

  “Tromping through the cold, in a cold, white wonderland, over the mountain we go, freezing all the way. Ears so cold they ring, making my feet numb, oh what fun it is to walk…”

  “Enough already!” Tucker turned and shot the chirpy socialite a glare that he hoped was colder than the ice in the stream they were walking next to.

  She’d been maki
ng up words to the tunes of familiar Christmas songs for the last hour. Her cheerfulness was about to do him in. No one should be cheerful when they had walked for two days in the frozen Alaskan wilderness, and with no end of walking in sight. Either she didn’t get how bad their situation was, or she was pretending everything was great.

  His look went from Penelope to Wilma and then to Clark. The older couple was rock solid. Years in the mission field had conditioned them to some pretty tough conditions. They smiled at Penelope, who had stopped singing.

  “I’m just trying to keep our spirits up and make time pass a little more quickly.” She leaned on the walking stick as she trudged forward, limping. He let out a sigh and bit back any other angry retorts. She’d really proven herself out here. She hadn’t whined or complained. She hadn’t asked to stop for a break. Yet she was barely able to walk.

  “Let’s take a rest.” He pulled the pack off his back.

  “For real?” Her smile lit up her eyes.

  “Yeah, Pollyanna, for real.”

  “You’re such a charmer.” She wrinkled her nose and walked away from him, right up to a fallen log that she lowered herself onto with a sigh. Wilma joined her.

  “It’s too early to make camp.” He mumbled as he walked away, looking for dry firewood. He glanced up at the sky. Nearly two in the afternoon and the sun was dipping behind the mountains. The early dusk wasn’t nearly as much of a problem as the clouds on the horizon. Gray, heavy clouds. The kind that dropped huge amounts of snow.

  “We can’t stop here.” Clark looked at the sky and then at his watch. “I don’t remember how far that village is, but I think we can make it by dark. Or at least be there early tomorrow.”

  Another night in the cold. Another night without sleep. Tucker rubbed his hand across his face and nodded. He looked back to the women. “Yeah, I know.”

  “They’re fine, Tucker.”