His Harbor Girl

by Rekha Ambardar

  He huddled in his seat and looked out the window.

  There, straight ahead, was the clearing.

  “Hang on, partner.” Kip said used the Western drawl he saved for special occasions. He made concentric circles like an eagle swirling down on carrion. “And we’re home.”

  Kip touched down with two skipping bumps like a child jumping on a pogo stick. “That’s because the ground is uneven. Not my fault.”

  Bryce heaved a sigh of relief. This might be the quick way to get to and from the island, but it kept a man’s nerves on edge. Especially if he’d had a quarrel with the woman in his life, or what he had of a life.

  He hefted the bag of supplies over his shoulder and jumped off the plane.

  Fred came lumbering out. “Back already? I thought you guys would have dinner there. Why didn’t you?”

  “What? And miss all this? Not a chance.” Bryce grinned at him. “What’s been going on while we were gone?”

  “New wolf tracks.”

  “Really? Where?”

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  “Further inland. And I sorted out the radio collaring equipment.” Fred led the way into the cabin. “The interview lady wants another interview with you. Come on, what’s cooking, huh?” Fred darted Bryce a sly wink.

  “Knock it off. What else? Spot any tourists around here?”

  “Some.”

  Bryce shook his head. “That will slow us down.”

  “Yeah. Well, wash up. Dinner’s waiting.”

  “What are we eating?”

  “Spanish rice, beans, venison stew.”

  Bryce un-shouldered the bag and let it fall on to the table, then stretched out his arms to relax his muscles. Maddening quarrel with Leanna or not, he was bushed and hungry.

  The two graduate students stomped in, chattering and thumping each other on the back. Seeing Bryce, they grinned.

  “We lucked out. Found some moose kills.”

  One of them set down a green army bag that looked bulky. Bryce knew it contained megaphones and amplifiers for broadcasting wolf howls to locate dens.

  “Did you use the trails?” Bryce asked. He lowered himself onto a chair near the heavy table upon which Fred started laying a bowl of stew and another bowl containing tomato-garnished rice.

  “Trails and ridges,” one of them said. Wearing plaid shirts they looked like rustic lumberjacks, rather than students.

  Their faces were covered with weeks’ growth of beard.

  Bryce instinctively passed a hand over his clean-shaven face. No matter how tight the finer amenities of cabin living, he had to shave. No telling when he’d encounter a fastidious wolf pack that might be offended by his personal grooming habits. They wouldn’t think much of being studied by a guy looking like a wino on the run from the law.

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  “The moose remains we found were either calves or very old.”

  “Figures,” Bryce replied with a thoughtful expression.

  “The healthy moose get away. Hate to say it but the more moose there are, the better the wolves will fare.”

  “Wolves have dwindled down to a mere fourteen on the island.” Fred gulped down Sprite.

  “Let’s hope that more pups survive each winter, and we find no antibodies when we test them. Because that would mean they’re free of parvo virus.”

  Bryce laid his fork down. As much as he labored over the sorry fate of the wolves, he hated to see moose killed. But the curious law of nature had ordained it that way. Survival of the fittest.

  “The remoteness of the island makes it easier to track since there are no hindrances, except for tourists in the summer.” Fred got up to put his plate in the sink. A long white apron hung on a hook above the sink as if to offer a challenge to the official dishwasher of the evening.

  “Hopefully, they’ll taper off at the end of summer. But as long as the ferry service is available they’ll keep coming.”

  Bryce’s mind slipped back to the time he saw Leanna standing near a clump of bushes. He’d wished he could stop his chest from giving a walloping thump like a triphammer. What the sight of her could still do to him! And with no help from her whatsoever. Of all the crazy, random things, she had to be a tour guide, the very opposite of what he had set out to achieve. Not that he questioned Leanna’s choice of work, but it simply got in the way of his professional objectives.

  Bryce pushed back his chair and stretched his legs.

  Sipping coffee, he let the hot liquid simmer in his mouth as he swallowed. God, it felt good and strong, despite the trudges through mud puddles, skin tears on his hand from pulling 89

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  apart bushes that felt like nettle thorns, and sticky summer heat. At the end of the day it made it all worthwhile to make his notes and take stock of their accomplishments, armed with a cup of steaming hot coffee.

  “No, no,” Tim said, assuming a mock-serious expression and holding up both hands. “Don’t any of you guys get up.

  We insist. We’re doing the dishes. And, please, no applause.”

  “Thanks, guys. Tomorrow’s my turn.” Bryce grinned at the two students who affected a dainty walk toward the sink with the plates they had gathered to wash.

  “There is a way we could put the presence of tourists to good use.” Bryce got up to walk around the cabin. He felt stuffed from eating so much. The penalty for liking Fred’s cooking. “Ask them if they heard any wolf howls.”

  “Uh-huh. That together with aerial tracking would give us the home range of the wolves.” Fred got out another stick to whittle.

  Bryce suspected that the whittling had the effect of smoking a cigarette on Fred, or chewing gum. It helped him to concentrate or relax as the need arose.

  “But, here’s one to chew on. Who’s going to log the data into the computer? I don’t know that stuff and I don’t think the students or you have the time once this thing gets going,”

  Fred said.

  “You’re right.” Bryce glanced at the students, hard up to their elbows in sudsy water and washing noisily like toddlers playing in a tub during a bath. “And we can’t ask the park employees who man the dock cabin to input data onto our computer. Maybe, I should advertise for someone at the mainland.”

  Bryce moved to the table crammed with papers, diskettes, books and folders to sift through his file folder. He had made twenty pages of hand notes, besides graphs and 90

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  tables. But these would have to be logged and stored away. It wouldn’t be wise to have them strewn around here. He believed in making backup files to be sent to the Wildlife Ecology Center where Kip made frequent trips. There, his secretary could start printing out hard copies of their work.

  Documented evidence of their work had to be put into safe hands. He couldn’t afford to lose them or have them go out of sequence, which could happen if left in notebooks or sheets of paper.

  He pushed the mountain of material on the table away from the edge from which it looked about ready to fall, and looked around, a muscle working in his jaw. Maybe the Park Service officer could post a notice on the mainland. What were the chances that Leanna would apply for the job? Maybe he could engineer it to turn out that way. He’d give it a try.

  That would get Leanna out of the clutches of that Nolan Packard guy and give her a chance at a better paying job, one that used her intelligence.

  Collecting all the loose sheets of paper, he stacked them neatly and let out a sigh of satisfaction. The idea gave new impetus to his work. He could see the stacks of paper dwindling as their contents were entered into the computer.

  Bryce gripped the top of the chair and imagined Leanna sitting in it. What could he do to change things between them? To have her love again. Swim clear across the lake, if that would help.

  The cabin went suddenly very quiet. The guys had finished washing up and had retreated to their cabin with the insidious-looking bag before they were drafted for o
ther chores. Fred was moving about in the lean-to outside, probably sorting specimens. Kip had taken his camping equipment out to hunker down under the stars. He wouldn’t be confined within four walls.

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  Bryce could finally work without the guys all casting sneaky looks at him, wondering what got his tongue. He sat on the chair with his legs up on the table, crossing them at the ankles, his favorite way of sitting when reading or writing.

  He pulled out a note pad and pencil and scribbled in a right-slanted scrawl. “Wanted: A research assistant to log in data, graphs and tables for scientist working on wolf study.

  Salary negotiable for good worker.” The cell phone number stood prominently displayed. If anyone had questions about the job they could call him directly.

  Bryce studied the ad and then added a ballpark salary. He grinned as an idea suddenly occurred. It would produce results if Leanna acted in the way he hoped.

  He got up and placed the note in a folder, intending to let it settle in his mind before he printed out a copy using fancy bordering on it, the way he’d seen the office secretary do when she had to design invitations for office parties. His secretary would be impressed at the way he created the notice. Satisfied with his work, he printed out several copies of it.

  That out of the way, he pulled a bag from under the table and poured out its contents onto the floor. There were masking tapes used as labels for specimens, syringes for injecting wolves with sedatives while radio collaring, and a roll of plastic baggies secured with a rubber band.

  The sound of a step broke into the lull of the cabin’s living room area. Bryce turned around. Fred walked in the door, his hand still in the gloves used for sorting specimens.

  “Need another bag for storing.” A bucket holding heavy-duty plastic bags stood in a corner and he pulled one out.

  Seeing Bryce occupied in his own chore, Fred stopped. “What d’you got there?”

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  “Making sure we have all the instrumentation we need for radio-collaring.” Bryce straightened up and surveyed the items on the floor. “I’ve made up an ad for a research assistant to help us with the data. I’ll be posting it on my next trip to the mainland. Don’t know when that’s going to be.”

  Fred’s eyes bugged out. He was obviously fascinated by the idea. “Good job. Maybe, we could get that journalist babe to do it.” His eyes beamed at the prospect.

  “She already works for The Environmentalist. I doubt she would be interested.”

  “Okay. Too bad, though. You lost your chance.”

  “I’ll regret it till the day I die.”

  Fred made a doleful face and shook out the bag. “Back to cleaning and sorting.” He disappeared into the darkening scene outside.

  Bryce helped himself to another mug of coffee, went to the open door and stared out. This place looked like the original Garden of Eden in the summer months from what he’d heard and read. He loved being among the trees looking for signs of wolf dens. In the cold winter months in Wisconsin, with the snow lying in thick sheets all around, looking for tracks in the snow had made him feel like he was treasure hunting. Only, they had no treasures to hunt and life had been hard, at least for him.

  He leaned against the doorway and let the breeze sift in and flush out the aroma of cooking that still seemed to cling to the inside of the cabin.

  The computer workspace grabbed his attention once again. Once the data were entered they would have accomplished their mission. And the only person he saw in his mind’s eye, with her fingers dancing over those keys, was Leanna. A slow smile turned up the corners of his mouth.

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  This was a brainwave, if ever there was one. The best he’d ever had.

  * * * *

  Leanna kept up a steady jog, followed by Kai and Cody.

  The beach lay calm, lit up by the glow of the sun just dipping into the water like a red plastic pan.

  “Hurry up, guys. You’re way behind.” She stopped for Kai and Cody to catch up then threw herself on the soft white sand. Cody and Kai did the same.

  “Is Bryce coming again, Mommy?”

  “I don’t know.” Leanna’s heart pumped with an uneasy beat. She hadn’t seen him after their terse encounter the last time. Maybe it bode better for them both if he stayed away.

  The perpetual fear of his finding out about Kai before she was ready to tell him herself clanged in the back of her mind like a racing fire engine.

  “Cody likes Bryce too,” Kai chanted as they trudged up the hill to the house. “Don’t you, Cody?’

  To Leanna’s annoyance, Cody hung his tongue out and looked at her appealingly. “Be quiet, Kai. You don’t know what you’re saying.” That was all she needed, both of them reminding her how wonderful Bryce was.

  Leanna had to sort out feelings of annoyance and anxiety.

  Annoyance at Bryce and the ever-present worry of Kai being the bone of contention between them, specially now that new plans for The Tug were in the making. A snack bar would attract more customers. Going one step further than just dreaming about it, she’d applied for a small loan at the Northern City Bank.

  Half an hour later, the trio crossed the road and walked up the shady avenue of maples.

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  “Heel, Cody.” Leanna waited for him as he came to her side. The run at the beach whipped up an appetite.

  “I’m hungry.” She smiled at Kai. “Are you?”

  Kai nodded.

  Leanna laughed. “Let’s see. I’ll make some spaghetti.

  Would you like that?”

  “Yes,” Kai screamed with delight. “Come on, Cody. I’ll race you home.”

  Leanna followed close behind and grinned as Kai and Cody waited for her to open the door. “Want to help me with dinner?” she asked Kai.

  Cody gave a soft “woof,” as if reminding her that he didn’t want to be left out in the important chore of fixing dinner.

  “All right. You, too.”

  She took out a large stainless steel pan, filled it with water and placed it on the burner, which she turned on.

  “Want to help me break the spaghetti and put them in when the water starts boiling?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to call Aunty Alice and ask if she’d like to have dinner with us.” Leanna hurried into the living room to make her call. She picked up the cordless phone and dialed Alice’s number.

  “Hello?” Alice’s voice came over the receiver.

  “Have you eaten? We’re making spaghetti. I thought you’d like to come over.”

  “I’d love to. Give me a minute to wash up. I’ve been weeding among my azaleas all afternoon.”

  Leanna smiled as she hung up. Alice and her gardening were like her father and his carpentry. Would be nice if she could get the two of them together. She tried to call her father too. But when she dialed his number, the endless ringing of 95

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  his phone drummed in her ears. Not there. He must be visiting one of his VFW buddies. It didn’t matter; she’d have Alice for company.

  Leanna went into the kitchen just in time to see the water boiling. She took out a packet of spaghetti. “Here, this for me and I’ll put it in the pan.” Kai put the packet on the kitchen table and, opening it, broke the pasta a little at a time.

  “Did I do good, Mommy?”

  “You sure did.” Leanna dumped the spaghetti into the pan and then took out a small onion to chop and sauté. In a few minutes, the meat sauce and onions simmered in another pan.

  The doorknocker on the front door resounded with a thud. “In here, Alice,” she called out.

  Alice walked in, bearing a round pan covered with an aluminum foil. “Cheesecake.” She set it on the table and glanced at Leanna. “How did it go at The Tug?”

  “Fair. Summer means tourists. Autumn and winter are another story. But that�
�s all going to change.” Leanna stirred the contents of the saucepan, creating a mouth-watering aroma of sautéed onions and lightly seasoned meat sauce. A quick glance assured her the spaghetti bubbled steadily. In a few minutes she could drain the water.

  Alice sat at the table, her eyes fixed at Leanna. “Why is that?”

  “I’ve applied for a small loan to add a snack bar to The Tug. If it comes through, I’m planning to make the addition.”

  Alice did not reply. Leanna’s attention riveted on the spaghetti, which she now took over to the sink to drain. It took a few moments for her to realize that Alice hadn’t made any comment about her wonderful new idea. She placed the pan on the counter and said, “What do you think?”

  “Is it a good idea? What if it doesn’t bring in customers?”

  Alice’s eyes widened with concern.

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  “I’ve a good feeling about this. In the winter the skiers come to town. If we could serve hot chocolate, bagels and croissants, they would stop to browse and buy. I’ve seen it done in other places.”

  Leanna tried not to show the doubt she sometimes felt about this new idea. She had to try it out first. Maybe it would work; she’d never know if she didn’t try.

  “I hope you’re right. Want me to set the table?” Alice got up.

  “Yes. The plates are in the top cabinet near the fridge.”

  Alice stood tiptoe and barely reached the shelf to bring the plates down. She laid them on the table and placed the napkins.

  “I know I’m right.” Leanna opened the drawer, picked up silver ware and placed them near the plates.

  Silence fell as they started their meal.

  “Heard from Bryce?”

  “No.” Leanna’s mouth drooped slightly.

  “And you’re not going to say anymore.”