“Great.” Gingerly Laurel sat down on the cot. “Well, it turns out Marian’s ankle is only sprained. There are no bones broken. She’s supposed to keep off her foot for a few days.”
Cassie remained focused on her sorting. She was making one pile of wildflowers, another of birds, one more of insects, stacking the pictures with the greatest care.
“You know,” Laurel went on, “I actually feel sorry for Mariah. I know she’s been a pain ever since day one. But the truth is that she’s had one bad experience after another. I suppose she brought a lot of it on herself, but even so, I can’t blame her for being upset.
“This must have been the last straw for her. Imagine, being all the way up here and spraining your ankle. She must be so disappointed that she won’t be able to keep up with the rest of us! Besides, it must be kind of scary, getting hurt so far away from home....”
She let her voice trail off, aware that Cassie wasn’t listening. It was as if there were a barrier between them, an invisible wall that couldn’t be seen but that could easily be felt. Laurel wanted desperately to break through.
Suddenly she snapped her fingers. “Your present! I almost forgot!”
Cassie glanced up, surprised. “You brought me a present?”
“It’s just a little souvenir from Homer.”
Reaching into her backpack and rummaging around, she brought out the small white box. On top was a sticker printed with the name of the gallery.
“Open it,” she urged, eager to see Cassie’s reaction.
Cassie’s expression was one of astonishment. Slowly she took the lid off the cardboard box, then lifted out the earrings Laurel had so painstakingly chosen for her. She peered at them, her expression blank.
“I hope you like them,” Laurel said, suddenly uneasy about Cassie’s lack of enthusiasm for what she’d thought was a perfectly lovely pair of earrings. “I had a feeling that out of all the jewelry I looked at, you’d like these earrings best. They also had some pretty necklaces. I was pretty sure you’d prefer these, but Trip thought you’d like—”
“Trip?” Cassie repeated coldly.
Laurel froze. She realized she’d made a major mistake in mentioning him. “That’s right.”
“You went shopping with Trip?”
“Yes. Poor Mariah was resting at the hotel, waiting for Dr. Chase to get a second opinion on her X rays—”
“You two practically had a honeymoon in Homer, didn’t you?”
Laurel took a deep breath. “Cassie, we really have to talk about this. Please let me explain—”
“It could hardly have been more cozy, could it? You and Trip painting the town red while Mariah was tucked away at some hotel.... Meanwhile I was back here, miles away....”
“You’ve got to understand that I’m simply not interested in Trip.”
“But he’s crazy about you!” Cassie’s voice was edged with hysteria.
“Cassie, the last thing you need in your life is a boy like Trip.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know where to start! He’s conceited, he’s arrogant, he thinks he’s God’s gift to women.... And while we’re on the subject of women, he seems to think they belong somewhere down there with trained dogs and other house pets.”
Laurel paused, wondering how much she dare tell Cassie. She could see she wasn’t getting anywhere with her. Yet she couldn’t be sure how she’d take it if she told her what had really happened in Homer.
Just as she was about to pour out the entire story, Mariah burst into the room, nearly falling over herself as she struggled with her crutches.
“That’s it!” she cried. “That’s the last straw!”
“What happened?” Laurel asked.
Mariah didn’t seem to hear. “I’ve had enough. I’ve put up with that creep long enough. I’m fed up with Trip, and—and everything else about this place!”
“What did Trip do now?” Laurel asked angrily.
“He thinks it’s hilarious to call me every insulting name in the book. Peg leg, gimp ... you’d think that boy grew up in a cave. He’s the cruelest, most insensitive person I’ve ever met.”
Choking on her words, Mariah threw down her crutches. Angrily she started grabbing her clothes and stuffing them into her duffel bag.
“What are you doing?” Cassie demanded.
“I’m getting out of here. This whole trip has been a disaster from the very start.” Mariah spat out her words. “It was a mistake. An awful, horrible, stupid mistake!”
Her face was hidden by the curtain of her long black hair as she hopped around the cabin, thrusting things into the duffel bag. Laurel sat in silence, perched on the edge of the cot, watching.
“Ever since I got here, I’ve had one horrible experience after another. First, the attack of the killer terns. Next, finding dead bears at every turn. Then those disgusting leeches all over my body. And now spraining my ankle. And I haven’t even mentioned all the egos I’ve had to deal with.”
“Mariah,” Laurel finally said, her voice soft, “don’t forget that there’ve been good moments as well. What about the beauty of this place? What about the chance to work with a scientist as accomplished as Dr. Wells? What about all you’ve learned, for heaven’s sake?”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Marian waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Don’t think for a minute I’m going to fall for that goody-two-shoes act of yours. It’s true I came here to learn something about science. At least that was part of how I got roped into this in the first place. But if you ask me if it’s been worth it, there’s absolutely no question in my mind that this has been the most horrendous experience of my entire life!”
“At the very least, wait until your foot’s healed,” Laurel pleaded. “Come on, Mariah. Give it more time.”
Suddenly Mariah stopped. She turned around to face Laurel, a look of amazement on her face. “Why are you doing this, Laurel? What difference does it make to you whether I stay or go?”
“I-I’m not really sure.” Laurel frowned. “I guess it’s because I’ve come to think of you as part of the group. For better or for worse, we’re all in this together. It’s hard to imagine being up here without you and Russ ... even Trip.” With a little shrug, she added, “We’re a team.”
Marian hesitated, standing in the middle of the room with a sweater in her hand. “It really matters to you, doesn’t it?”
Laurel thought for a few seconds, then nodded.
“You never cease to amaze me.” There was no anger in Mariah’s words. Instead, she sounded sincere.
“Please stay, Mariah,” said Laurel.
“The doctor did tell me to rest my foot for a few days....”
“You don’t want to make it worse,” Laurel said gently. “A long plane ride would be torture.”
With a loud sigh, Mariah plopped down on the bed. “I don’t know what to do. I just feel so—so helpless.”
“I can imagine. And nobody knows as well as I do what a jerk Trip can be,” Laurel went on. “Don’t let him get you down.” Glancing at Cassie, she added, “If anything, the three of us have got to stick together just so we can demolish his theory that girls aren’t as good as boys.”
“I suppose that if I left,” Mariah mused, “in a way it’d be saying he’d won.”
“That’s right. You don’t want him to think he drove you out.”
“All right,” Mariah finally said. “I’ll stay.”
“Good,” Laurel said simply. “I think you’re making the right choice.”
She glanced over at Cassie once again. Her blue eyes were clouded. Yet instead of avoiding Laurel’s gaze, she looked right back at her. Laurel couldn’t be sure, but she thought that what she saw reflected there was admiration.
Chapter Seventeen
When Dr. Wells came into the cabin early the next morning, he was carrying a letter. The look on his face told Laurel he had something favorable to report.
“Good news,” he told the grou
p, gathered around the table eating breakfast. “I just got a note from Ben Seeger. We’ve been invited to Anchorage to give a presentation on our research at the Department of Fish and Game.”
“That should give you a good chance to get some feedback on our tern research,” said Laurel. “When are you going?”
“I’m not. The invitation’s for this Friday, and John Torvold and I’ve already made plans to go into Seward to get supplies and meet with some other field biologists. But this is an excellent opportunity for a couple of you to get out there and talk about what we’ve been doing.”
“Sounds great.” Trip was grinning broadly. “What time do I leave?”
“I’m afraid only Laurel and Russ will be going.”
Glancing around the table, Laurel saw that Trip’s face had fallen. She wasn’t at all surprised to see that Cassie looked relieved. What did surprise her was that Mariah looked almost as disappointed as Trip.
“This is a really excellent opportunity,” Mariah said. “Wouldn’t it make sense for us all to go?”
“I can’t spare all of you for a full day. The summer is speeding by, and we still have a lot to accomplish before the end of our stay. I can only afford to send two of you. Besides,” he added, casting a stern look at Mariah, “you’re still supposed to keep off that foot.”
Laurel glanced over at Mariah, intending to cast her a look of sympathy. Yet when she did, the intensity with which Mariah’s dark eyes were burning kept her from doing so.
“Well, Laurel,” Mariah commented, speaking so softly the others couldn’t hear, “it looks like you lucked out. You seem to have a real talent for coming out on top.”
Laurel’s first reaction was to defend herself. Not only did she feel betrayed, she also felt foolish. To think she’d actually thought she’d gotten through to Mariah the day before. It turned out that nothing had changed.
She simply looked away, shaking her head slowly. It was time, she knew, to start accepting the fact that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep Mariah from being Mariah.
* * * *
With an exasperated sigh, Cassie threw down her drawing pencil and reached up to stretch her arms. With Laurel and Russ working with Dr. Wells on their presentation and Mariah still bedridden, she’d decided to throw herself into her sketches for the project. For almost an hour she’d been sitting cross-legged at the edge of the lake, bent over her sketch pad. Yet today nothing was coming out right. Her flowers looked two-dimensional, the leaves lifeless ... even the proportions were all wrong.
She was about to give up for the day, to go back to the cabin and settle in with a good book and one of the chocolate bars she’d kept stashed away. But as she stood up and brushed leaves from her jeans, she noticed a flash of color moving among the trees a hundred yards or so deeper into the woods.
It only took her a few seconds to figure out it was Trip. Easily she made out his familiar outline in the distance: his broad shoulders, his muscular torso, his headful of blond curls that had been in need of a trim at the beginning of the trip and now was positively unruly.
Cassie’s heartbeat quickened. Part of her, her shy, uncertain side, yearned to run and hide, to head back to the cabin before he spotted her. Yet another part of her, a brave part she’d barely realized existed, was thrilled to have finally gotten him alone.
She smoothed her short red curls, wondering how she looked. This was a moment she’d been anticipating for a long time. If only she could let him know how she felt. If instead of being so bashful and tongue-tied in his presence, she could flirt with him, tease him ... make him see her in an entirely different light. .. .
After running her fingers through her hair one more time, wanting to make sure no leaves or twigs were stuck there, she tucked her sketchbook under her arm and headed in his direction, taking extra care not to embarrass herself by stumbling.
He was crouched in a clearing, frowning as he studied a notebook, comparing what he saw on the page with something he was examining on the ground. His hair was pale blond, Cassie noted, bleached by his having spent so many hours in the summer sun. He wore faded jeans and a torn gray sweatshirt, the fabric stretched taut across his wide shoulders.
“Hello, Trip.” Cassie did her best to sound casual.
She only hoped he couldn’t hear the jackhammer-like pounding of her heart.
He barely glanced up. “Hey, Cassie. How’s it going?”
“Great.” She paused, wishing desperately she could come up with something to say that was interesting enough to pull him away from his book.
“How are your observations?” she asked.
“Hmmm?” He barely seemed to have noticed that she’d spoken.
“I said, How’s the research going?”
“Oh. Fine. I’m finding.... Would you please move? You’re blocking the sunlight, and I really want to get a better look at this mushroom. I’m having trouble identifying it.”
Cassie’s mind was racing. She wanted so desperately to connect with Trip, to make him respond in a way that showed he considered her worthy of at least some of his attention.
“Trip,” she said boldly, “would you like to go for a canoe ride on the lake some evening? Just the two of us?”
“If I’d only thought to bring one of my field guidebooks along, I’d be able to key this out....” It wasn’t until he’d spent a good minute or two examining the clump of mold that he glanced up. “Did you say something about going for a ride on the lake? What are you talking about?”
“I just thought ... I only ... what I meant was....” Cassie could feel her face turning bright red. “So you and I could talk.”
“Talk? About what?”
“Well, it’s not what we’d talk about so much. It’s more that, uh, you and I haven’t really had much of a chance to get to know each other.”
He stood up, frowning as he stared at her. Cassie wished the ground would swallow her up, but she forced herself to look into his eyes, waiting for his response.
“Sorry, Cassie. I don’t have time for any joyrides today. Could you hand me my backpack? I’d better run back to the cabin for that field guide so I can get going with this. Catch you later!”
He was gone as abruptly as he’d appeared. Swallowing hard in an attempt to get rid of the lump in her throat, Cassie tucked her sketchbook into her backpack. She knew she’d never be able to concentrate. At the moment, she didn’t even feel like eating that chocolate bar. Instead, she headed further into the woods, hoping that a long walk by herself might help banish the confusion and other bad feelings that were rumbling around inside her like a summer storm.
* * * *
Cassie stepped through the dense growth of forest, into the clearing just beyond Wolf Lake. She paused at the edge, struck by how peaceful it was here. The field of muskeg with its coarse, uneven growth was particularly beautiful today. The oblique light of the sun, shining weakly in a blue-gray sky, brought out the subtle variations in the muted shades of green, yellow, and red.
But the beauty that surrounded her was not what she was thinking about as she stood alone in the field. Her heart ached too much for her to concentrate on the magnificent view. She couldn’t remember having ever felt such a yearning. And knowing she would never be able to have the one thing she truly wanted caused tears of frustration to well up in her eyes.
She started when she noticed someone off in the distance, coming toward her. She watched as Russ moved with great determination across the spongy ground, raising his hand in a wave as he drew near. He was carrying a pair of binoculars, a field guide tucked under his arm.
“Hey, Cassie,” he called, smiling broadly at her. “How’s it going?”
“Oh, all right, I guess,”
“Great day, isn’t it? Perfect for bird-watching. I saw five or six new species. I can hardly wait to tell Dr. Wells....”
Suddenly his voice trailed off. He was close to her now, and he leaned forward, his face tensing into a frown. “Are you okay?”<
br />
Cassie’s first impulse was to assure him that everything was just fine. Instead, she found herself saying, “Not really.”
“What’s the matter? Are you feeling all right?”
“It’s nothing like that. It’s just that....” She buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Russ. What’s wrong with me?”
The sympathetic look on his face changed to one of confusion. “What are you talking about, Cassie? There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“There must be.” She bit her lip, not certain of how honest she dared be with Russ. “I must be the only girl in the universe that Trip’s not interested in.”
“Is that it.” His expression softened. “Why don’t we find someplace to sit down?”
She nodded, then followed him to the edge of the field of muskeg, where the woods began. Once they’d each found a fallen log to sit on, he shrugged off his backpack and lowered it to the ground.
“You know,” he said earnestly, “I’d kind of noticed you were interested in Trip.”
Cassie laughed coldly. “I didn’t know it was that obvious.”
He shrugged. “I’m pretty good at picking up on people’s signals.” He hesitated before adding, “What I haven’t been able to figure out is why.”
“What do you mean, why?”
‘‘Don’t get me wrong. I think Trip’s a really bright guy. He’s serious about science, and he knows what he’s doing. He and I pretty much get along fine. It’s just that when it comes to the way he acts around girls....” Russ shook his head. “Like I said, Cassie, I can’t figure out what you see in him.”
“That’s my business,” she replied tartly.
“I suppose it is. It’s just that... well, somehow I see a girl like you ending up with a guy who’s practically the total opposite of Trip.”
“Oh, I get it. You mean somebody short, dark, and ugly.”
“No. I mean somebody quiet. Sensitive. Considerate. Somebody who’d appreciate you, Cassie.”
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