by Mary Davis
He watched her body language: no dilating pupils, no fidgeting, no reddening of the ears, none of the telltale signs of lying. “Maybe he goes by his initials or a middle name. Any Mikkelsons? I’d really like to tell him hello from his aunt.”
“Sorry. I know a Jason Mitchel. But no Mikkelson.”
Was that a dead end or simply a detour? Maybe he could come at it from a different angle. “So why do people come from all over the world to work on this island?”
“Lots of reasons.”
That was too general of an answer to be any help. But it was an interesting question, and though it had nothing to do with finding Justin, he was curious to know Haley’s reason. “Why did you come to Mackinac Island to work?”
“I ran away from home.”
Just like that. No compunction, no hesitation, no explanation. Did she run away from a husband-and-child family or parents? “Aren’t you a little old to be a runaway?” This island seemed to be a refuge for people who wanted to hide.
“With a family like mine, it was long overdue.”
“Bossy and overbearing?”
She hesitated. “I think I’ve said enough about me.”
“Come on. You can’t make a comment like that and not tell me more. I would really like to know what kind of family would cause you to run away.”
She squinted and moved her mouth back and forth, contemplating him.
“Please.”
Her expression opened up again, and her shoulders relaxed. “Users. Everyone needed something from Haley. Dad, to get back in Grandpa’s good graces. Grandpa doesn’t like anyone in the family except me for some reason. But since running away, I’m probably on his this-no-good-family list, too. Mom, to keep the house running smoothly so she could look good volunteering at every charitable event that came her way. I’ve bailed my sister out of jail three times with the promise not to tell Dad and Mom. And. . .”
He waited a moment. “And what? Or should I say who?”
The tops of her ears reddened. “And the dog would hide under my bed when he was in trouble for chewing Dad’s shoes beyond recognition.”
He sensed a change in subject. “Was that the straw?”
“Straw?”
“The last straw—the reason you left home?”
She gave him a look that told him she didn’t want to admit any more to a stranger. “It all adds up. I got tired of being surrounded by irresponsible people.”
“And one day, you packed your bags and left for no apparent reason.”
She looked toward a shop employee who strode toward her carriage. When she made eye contact with him, he said, “No takers. You can head out.”
She waved an acknowledgment, then turned back to Brent. “Last chance to get off.”
He leaned back and stretched out his legs. He might as well enjoy his solo trip with Haley. For some reason, he still had a feeling Haley knew Justin Mikkelson, but he was equally convinced she didn’t know it. Was Justin using an alias? Jason Mitchel perhaps? Both did have the same initials. That seemed a little too obvious.
Haley turned in her seat. “Since you’ve taken the tour before, do you just want to be driven into town or do you want the spiel?”
He pushed thoughts of Justin from his mind. “What I’d really like is to know more about you.”
“I think I’ve told you enough about me.”
“What time do you get off?”
“If you’re asking me out, the answer is no. I don’t date fudgies.”
Perceptive. And she wasn’t into playing games. No feigned surprise that he was trying to ask her out. Straight and up front. He liked that. Unless she was playing hard to get. He shook that thought away. She didn’t seem the type. “What would a fudgie be?”
She pulled her mouth back in a grimace. “Sorry. I meant to say tourist.”
“So people who work here call tourists ‘fudgies’? Why is that?”
She lifted her shoulder. “Tourists buy thousands of pounds of fudge each summer, hence the affectionate nickname.”
“But what if I haven’t bought any fudge?”
“Guilt by association.”
He snapped his fingers. “What if I quickly got a job here—then would you go out with me?”
She chuckled.
“I know the problem. You don’t know enough about me. I’m devoted to the Lord and look forward to seeing Him in heaven one day. I became an emancipated minor at sixteen after my dad died. I have a great truck with an awesome sound system. And I play electric guitar. I’ve been in the Peace Corps and gone on twelve mission trips with church groups. I’m an all-around great guy, but don’t ask me to cook.” He skipped the part about working at various jobs and not having a permanent home.
“I’m afraid I’m still going to have to say no.”
“How do you do that?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Do what?”
“Turn a guy down but still make it sound like a gift.”
“You are something else.” She shook her head. “Do you always lay it on this thick?”
“It’s all your fault. I look at you, and it just comes out.”
Haley laughed. She had a pleasant, soothing laugh. And he was glad he’d said something to evoke it from her. It was worth the rejection.
She pulled back on the reins. “End of the line, bud.”
He looked around surprised they were already back in town. “You have to eat sometime. Lunch?” He didn’t know why he was even asking. To get her to smile again?
She did smile and shook her head. “Go see the island.”
“Thanks for the ride.” He jumped down and held up his camera. “May I take your picture? To remember my trip by.” She nodded and smiled down at him. He clicked the shutter, then gave her a salute and headed for the closest open door. He looped through the shop—no Justin—then stood at the window. Haley was greeting her next group of passengers. Why was he drawn to her?
Lord? Are You trying to tell me something about her? Does she really know Justin but doesn’t realize it? Should I stay close to her? Or is she just an attractive woman who has hit a sweet spot with me?
The longer he was around her, the longer he wanted to be around her. She pulled away for her next tour. He took a deep breath. Back to work.
Four
Brent sat at Dalton’s kitchen table with his laptop open. One by one, he moved the general pictures into a Mackinac Island folder. He only had a handful today and none he thought would be useful. Then he moved the handful of pictures of a particular carriage driver into a folder he labeled Hailey. He wondered how she spelled it. It was one of those names that could have as many variations as the people with that name, unlike his with exactly one spelling. No one ever misspelled Brent.
He enlarged the second picture to fit the screen. Haley sat in her driver’s seat and smiled down at him as he had clicked the shutter. Haley, the adult runaway. Her voice played through his head.
I got tired of being surrounded by irresponsible people. Her words mixed with the worn-out recording of Michelle’s. “My dad thinks you’re irresponsible.”
“Who cares what he thinks. What do you think?”
“I care for you deeply, Brent.”
“But you think I’m irresponsible, too.”
“I just want to know what to expect. I want stability.”
Irresponsible people.
Irresponsible.
Irresponsible.
He closed his laptop and pushed back from the table. How did one define irresponsibility? How did Haley define it?
Brent stood and went through the door out to the weight room that had been converted from a garage and also housed Dalton’s drum set and electronic keyboard. “Do you think I’m irresponsible?”
Dalton lay on his back on his weight machine, doing crunches on an incline bench. “How so?” He grunted before curling back down.
“In life, in work, in general.”
Dalton curled up and hooked his arms aroun
d his knees. “In life? You were always there for me, especially when I needed you most.”
Brent remembered how frail and withered Dalton’s wife, Joslin, had looked at the end. And how distraught Dalton had been.
His friend continued. “In work? Have you ever been fired? Besides the time you were fifteen and we both got fired.”
He shook his head. “But I’ve never kept a job for more than eleven months in my life.”
“By choice?”
“I just haven’t found anything that fits right.”
“Do you always give two weeks’ notice?”
He nodded again.
“Very responsible.” Dalton shifted his position slightly. “You’ve had a job or jobs since you were fifteen; you support yourself and always give notice before leaving. Sounds responsible to me. So in general, I’d say you’re a responsible kind of guy.” He swung his legs off the bench and grabbed his towel. “What’s this all about?”
“I was thinking about Michelle.”
“Now that’s your first problem. She was never your type.”
“I was in love with her.”
“Isn’t she married now?”
“Yes. But that doesn’t stop her words from haunting me. I’ve proposed to three different girls in my life. They all turned me down. Why? What’s wrong with me?”
“You just haven’t met the right pre–Mrs. Brent Walker. It’ll happen.”
He wouldn’t mind finding out if Haley was a potential Mrs. Brent Walker. “So you don’t think that because I live out of my truck I’m irresponsible?”
“You’re a minimalist.”
“The sound system in my truck is better than most people have in their homes.”
“Hey. I’ve got a decent system.”
“So you’re saying there is absolutely nothing wrong with me?” Then why couldn’t he find a life partner?
“Well, you could use a few cooking lessons.” Dalton stood and wiped his face with the towel. “I didn’t think anyone could ruin burgers on the grill. Those things were leather.”
“It’s a gift.” Dalton should have known what he was getting into, asking a man who lives out of his truck to cook. Then Brent blurted out, “I have a trust fund.”
His friend did a double take.
“And a bank account with a substantial amount in it from my mom’s insurance policy.”
Dalton lowered himself back down onto the incline bench and stared.
“I never told anyone.”
“Why did you live so frugally, skimping, sometimes barely having enough to eat until your next paycheck? You were working two jobs to make ends meet after your dad’s insurance money ran out. I thought you never had an apartment for very long because you couldn’t afford it.”
“When Dad died, he had a will. He left everything to me. That wasn’t a big deal until the lawyer told me about the bank account with the insurance money from Mom. Dad left a letter. Said he couldn’t bring himself to spend it. He would’ve rather had Mom back than any amount of money. After I was born, Mom insisted on life insurance for both of them. She wanted to be sure I was taken care of. It was the lawyer’s idea for me to become emancipated at sixteen. He was afraid someone would take me in and spend my money.”
“And the trust fund? Did your dad do that, too?”
He shook his head. “My grandparents.”
“I didn’t know you had any grandparents.”
“They died before Mom did but set up the fund when I was born. They felt my dad was irresponsible”—there was that word again—“and didn’t want him to have any of their money. And if they left it to my mom, Dad would have access to it, too.”
“Wow.” Dalton stared at him. “Why didn’t you blow through it at sixteen?”
He shook his head slowly. “I couldn’t touch any of the money in the trust until I was twenty-five. And it never seemed as if it were mine anyway. Like it was set aside for a special purpose, but I don’t know what that is. I feel as if my grandparents must have had something in mind and wouldn’t approve of my spending it on something else.” So it sat in a bank growing—he supposed, waiting. For what, he didn’t know.
❧
Haley sat cross-legged on the floor in the church. Bjorn was giving his input on the lesson. Bjorn and Astrid were a couple who came from Sweden to work on the island. They had quite a diverse group in the Bible study: four Canadians, two women from England, one from China, a Filipino, an Israeli, an Aussie, and, of course, Veronique from France. The Lone Ranger would probably fit nicely into this group. He’d said he was a Christian. Being in a Bible study with someone was a good way to gauge the depth of their faith, to see if their beliefs matched your own. Something she hadn’t had with Kennith. A mistake she would never make again.
She focused back on Bjorn and realized he had stopped speaking and Jason had started in. Whereas Bjorn appeared to be honestly seeking to deepen his faith, Jason seemed to try to say the right things. His faith seemed taped onto the outside. Another good reason not to go out with him.
What would it be like to go out with the Lone Ranger? She shook her head. What was she thinking? She didn’t date tourists, and she didn’t date coworkers; that pretty much took care of the island. She had been asked out a time or two by a tourist, but none as persistent or as tempting as this one. But no matter how tempting, she was going to stand her ground. No fudgie dating!
Pay attention, Haley. Lord, I’m sorry for being so distracted. Help me stop thinking about that man.
Jason finished talking. And, Lord, please deepen Jason’s faith.
She gave him a nod, then looked around the group. “Anyone else?” She closed her Bible and folded her hands. “Then let’s close in prayer.” She bowed her head and prayed for the international group, then added a silent one for her own ridiculous thoughts about a stranger she would never see again. The group quickly dispersed because they all had to get up before the sun to be ready for the next day’s fudgie invasion. She walked in the dark with Veronique, Shane, and Jason.
They had an arrangement within the Bible study; whenever any of the girls walked at night, one of the guys would go with them. And they could call for a walking partner any time of the night if they needed to. Though the island was relatively crime free, they operated on the better-safe-than-sorry policy.
As Haley walked beside Veronique, Shane and Jason walked behind them.
“Fudgie stories,” Veronique said.
Jason and Shane both groaned.
Veronique ignored them and took her arm. “Who was your most interesting fudgie today?”
“The Lone Ranger.” It was out before she thought.
“Who is zis Lone Ranger?”
She couldn’t deny it now. “Just some guy who rode my carriage yesterday and today alone.”
Jason and Shane moved up beside them, suddenly interested in the fudgie story.
“What is wrong with riding alone?” Veronique asked.
If she could only pull her words back. But it was too late. “Nothing. Most people come to the island with other people and ride the carriage together. I can’t remember anyone riding by himself before.”
“Did you report him?” Jason said.
She pulled her eyebrows together. “Why? He’s done nothing wrong.” She noticed Shane and Veronique giving Jason questioning looks, as well.
“He’s by himself, and he’s picked out your carriage two days in a row. That’s intentional,” Jason said, trying to defend his question.
Shane spoke up then. “I know the worst crime we have to worry about on the island is a ‘borrowed’ bike now and again, but be careful.”
Jason jumped back in. “Yeah, be careful. This guy could be a stalker or something.”
A stalker? She could not picture him as a stalker. She noticed Shane roll his eyes. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that. I’ll likely never see him again. It was probably just a fluke.” What would Jason say if she told him this man had asked her out? She
didn’t want to know.
Later, after she’d gone to bed, she closed her eyes, picturing the Lone Ranger’s face and pairing it with the word stalker. The two didn’t seem to go together. Lord, are my friends right? Should I be concerned about this guy? Is he a threat? She thought of his smile and pictured him saying, “I’m devoted to the Lord and look forward to seeing Him in heaven one day.” He hadn’t said he was a Christian or that he believed in God, two things a lot of people would say. People who had a deeper belief might say something more like what he said. And it was the first thing out of his mouth about himself, not tacked on as an afterthought.
She wished she could erase his smiling face from her mind. But what was so bad about having a good-looking man plastered to the inside of her eyelids? He would be gone by morning. She sighed and rolled to her side. Goodnight, Lone Ranger.
Five
Haley settled in for another day’s work—though the word work did not describe how she felt about her job. She loved the tranquillity of the island, and she especially loved working with the horses. Today she had Golddust and Pete. Golddust was the one to watch today. Whenever he headed up toward Surrey Hills, he wanted to keep going to the barn. Every run was quitting time for him. He was due for time off after today’s shift.
She pulled up to the curb to receive her first load of passengers. A smile pulled at her mouth when she saw the Lone Ranger climb aboard her carriage. “You’re a glutton for punishment.” She noticed he wore a cross made out of nails on a worn black cord similar to her own. Dressed much the same way as the previous two days: T-shirt, fleece jacket, walking shorts, and hiking boots.
He sat in the seat behind her, to her left. “I hear a carriage tour is a good way to see Mackinac Island.” He smiled broadly in satisfaction.
“There are a variety of other ways to see the island that you haven’t already seen on your other two carriage tours.”
“Like?”
“Like bicycling around the island and then through the interior. You can rent a horse and ride almost anywhere. Or you could take a cruise around the island on a yacht. You would get a more well-rounded view of Mackinac instead of a single perspective.”
