His words were the closest thing to an admission of weakness she’d ever heard from him. It uncurled something deep inside, even as she fought against it.
“I like Psalms,” Mack said as he walked over to the fireplace and began arranging kindling. The fire shot red-gold into his dark hair, casting a warm glow over his neck and arms. Even tired and mussed, the man exuded strength. “I like that David argued with God. Or yelled, or complained, or demanded. Straight shooter, that David. Always let God know where he stood. I’d like to think God returned the favor.”
Mack always talked about God in the most surprising ways. Ways that seemed impossible for ordinary folk. Combined with the intensity of his character, it was easy to believe Mack had some kind of Almighty connection mere mortals couldn’t achieve. “What’s that got to do with why I can’t sleep?” Lana said. She’d been careful not to say anything about her growing fears all evening. He was so protection-minded, she was afraid if she showed even the smallest fear he’d lock her in the house under guard.
“Well,” Mack blew the flames higher and added another log, “I am rarely up nights thinking how fine everything is. Most folks sleep well when they’re happy, even if it is light at ten o’clock.” He craned his neck over his shoulder and managed the sort of smile women would swoon over. A dark but dashing look—the heartbreaker of years past and fortunes won.
“It’s the light,” she lied, returning the book to its place on the side table. “I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to it.”
“Actually, it hasn’t bothered me nearly as much lately.” He eased himself into the chair, but not before he buttoned his shirt properly and took the Bible from where she’d returned it. “I have these things called curtains now. Handy contraptions to keep the light out.”
Lana rolled her eyes, suppressing a smile. “Imagine that.”
“I’m eating better, too.”
He’d always been incapable of a direct compliment. Still, he was trying, she had to give him that much. “Are you now?”
“’Course, my house is always in a ruckus and I’ve tripped over blocks twice this week. That’s new, too.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “How very difficult for you.” She knew very well how well Georgie could try a soul. Did he stop to think how hard it was on Georgie? Death and strife and uprooting to a new home?
“It’s a challenge.”
It was as if he’d buttoned up the vulnerability as easily as he’d buttoned up the shirt. The unshakable, no room for doubt persona was back full force. It left Lana wondering if she’d really seen his guard down seconds ago or just imagined it. “All parenting is,” she replied, “I suspect you gave your mama quite the run for her money.”
A crack reappeared in the facade and his face darkened. “I wouldn’t know. I didn’t know her at all. I was only two when she died.”
“I hadn’t realized you lost her so young. I’m sorry.” He’d lost his mother at the same age Georgie lost his father. Perhaps that was why he was so adamant Georgie have her full attention.
“My brothers told me stories of her. They didn’t remember much, but they knew her some. And my father would talk about her all the time, so in a sense she was still real to me. I knew her favorite songs, her favorite colors and foods, her favorite psalm, lots of things.”
His eyes seemed to gaze back into memory, and Lana realized that all those people he’d just spoken of—father and brothers—were all gone, too. The question slipped out of her mouth before she’d even realized it. “What was her favorite psalm?”
Mack flipped the book open. “The Twenty-third—like lots of folks.”
She didn’t want him to read it. She was somehow afraid of what the familiar words would do to her, especially in his voice, especially from a man who had lost as much if not more than she had.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” he began, and Lana felt her throat tighten. “I shall not want.”
She’d heard those words dozens of times, but despite Mack’s soft voice, the words hit her like sledgehammers. Green pastures? Spreading a table? Words of abundance and security, things she craved so much, the ache in her chest seem to expand too far too fast.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.”
She had walked every single step of the valley of the shadow of death. Felt every jagged inch of the path through that horrible place, but she feared evil. The kind of trust these words portrayed was far beyond her wounded heart’s capacity. Lana felt a double edge cut through her: a desperate yearning for the faith he described, and a heavy sense of her complete inability to achieve it.
Mack seemed to sense her turmoil, for he fell silent when he finished the psalm. Lana felt fragile, as if one wrong word from him would shatter her—and he was so good at saying or doing just the wrong thing. She found herself holding her breath, fighting the urge to run from the room, and yet somehow rooted to her chair.
“He is with us,” he said after a long pause.
Lana felt twelve emotions at once. For once, Mack Tanner had said the exact right thing.
Chapter Fifteen
He’d read the Bible to her. Actually, he hadn’t even read it, for he knew the words of the beloved psalm by heart. Mack’s father had said that it was possible to watch the words of scripture pierce a heart, that there were times the power of God’s word showed so clearly on someone’s face, it was like watching a wound. Or a healing.
He’d just seen it. On the face of his wife.
He stared at her bedroom door long after Lana left the room. She’d undone him, pure and simple. The jolt of protective panic he’d felt when they’d discovered that pair digging in the yard was bad enough. He was so overcome with fury that someone might endanger his family—yes, he’d come to think of it as his family now—that he’d been violent. He’d wondered, in his darker moments, if Georgie’s presence behind him had been the only thing keeping him from doing serious harm to those boys. He surely wanted to wring their necks for their greedy stupidity. And perhaps his own foolishness—his plan of the diversionary six nuggets wasn’t working.
Everything was going wrong. The store was way behind schedule, the last city council meeting had not only been a fiasco, it had resulted in his mayor-ship, there was this new twist of Viola Goddard’s mystery baby and he was supposed to have the solutions for all of these! All of Treasure Creek seemed to be pressing down on him, clawing away at his composure, keeping him up nights as surely as the midnight sun.
While sun and town may have kept him up tonight, what was going to rob the rest of tonight’s sleep was the current pounding in his chest. Mack hadn’t mentioned his mother in years. Hadn’t opened up that black box of memory for anyone since his father had passed. How was it that Lana could pry it open without the slightest effort? How was it he would have stayed up all night telling her things he hadn’t spoken of to anyone else? She was so much smarter than he’d ever given her credit for, fooled as he was by her preoccupation with ruffles and baubles. There was much more to her than he ever would have guessed.
He liked that.
She tugged words, thoughts and feelings out of him in ways he didn’t like to admit. Mack was comfortable with the obligation of his marriage, had even hoped for friendship, but he was more than a little unraveled at the thing currently uncurling in his chest. It felt dangerously close to attraction. And Georgie…well, Georgie seemed entirely too able to pull a confounding tenderness from him. The pair of them, Lana and Georgie, panicked him, made him do foolish things. What kind of steady-hearted man could suggest a picnic and go after thugs with a shovel in the same Sunday? What kind of man could read his mother’s favorite Bible verse to a woman in one second, and be broadsided by the urge to hold her in the next? She looked so frail in that moment, so undone by God’s word, that all these inexplicable emotions had come roaring to life in him.
And what had he done? He’d said the wrong thing. “He is wi
th us.” Could he, preacher’s son that he was, come up with nothing more eloquent than that? Of course God was with them—God was with them every moment of every day. Lana didn’t need platitudes, she needed clear comfort, a better promise of protection to calm her spirit. And what had he given her? Four measly words. Which obviously hadn’t helped, for she’d teared up and quit the room about as fast as she could, managing a stumbling good-night with hardly a look back. I can’t sort her out, Lord, he said with his hand on the Bible, as if trying to recover the sensation of her hand on the worn leather cover. I can’t provide for her if I don’t know how.
The celebration idea seemed to spark something in her. As foolish as he found such a party, she seemed to think it grand. And perhaps, as diversions went, it had merit. People seemed to need Treasure Creek to have all the trappings of a real town—mayor, town council meetings. Why not a summer festival of some sort? Treasure Creek ought to celebrate its growth, ought to give corporate thanks for the blessings God had granted.
Her party idea actually made sense.
And made her happy. While he wouldn’t currently admit it to another living soul, making Lana Tanner happy was a very satisfying prospect indeed.
School went so smoothly the next morning that Lana walked over to the new schoolhouse right after classes.
Lana decided to launch the first step in her grand scheme while her confidence was high. Mack hadn’t actually said he agreed to the idea, but if she could get the Tuckers behind it, he’d have no choice but to see the merit in her plan.
She was surprised and sad at how much calmer the classroom had become with Leo gone. Had be been more disruptive than she realized? She couldn’t ignore the sense of relief she felt from the students, unfortunate as it was. Still, some part of her yearned for the satisfaction of helping Leo reach his potential. Helping all of them reach their potential. They had so much. The whole town was capable of so much.
“A what?” Frankie Tucker balked, after Lana laid out her plans for the “Midsummer Festival.” Taking off her hat and scratching her head, Frankie looked as if she’d just been asked to wrestle a bear.
“A party. A townwide party when the General Store opens.” Lana looked her straight in the eye, as if it was the most natural idea in all the world, ignoring Frankie’s baffled expression.
Lucy Tucker waved the hammer she’d been using to finish a windowsill on the new school. “For everyone? Like a church social or somethin’?”
“Very nearly. It’d be for Mack’s store, but that’s more of an excuse. Everyone loves a chance to get gussied up, no matter what the cause. We could simply call it a Midsummer Festival. Parties bring folks together, don’t you think?” Lana looked at Frankie, who barely changed into clean pants for Sunday services, and wondered if the boisterous woman even owned a party dress. If Viola had a new mouth to feed, she might welcome the new business a prospective party would bring. Every hour, some new reason for the festival seemed to be coming to her. Grand plans were one of Lana’s favorite pastimes, her daddy used to always say. Of course, he’d be a bit stumped by what passed for “a grand time” up here, but that couldn’t be helped.
Margie Tucker leaned her weight on the plank she was holding. “I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re not much for shindigs up here. You’re as likely to get a row as you are to get a celebration.” Margie knew of what she spoke—she’d broken up nearly as many dock fights as Mack had.
“But we didn’t get a wedding when you got hitched,” Lucy added, with a funny look that made Lana think Lucy blamed her for that oversight, “so I suppose we’re due. But we aren’t the kind to help you with that sort of thing. I don’t know why you’re asking us, really.” Lucy looked down at Georgie, who was amusing himself with the long yellow curls of log shavings at her feet. “What do you think, Georgie? You like parties?”
“Because,” Lana said sweetly, not falling for the diversion, “if you’re for it, no one would dare disagree.” It was true. Whether it was for the sheer novelty of the Tuckers in party dress, or fear of defying the tough-as-nails trio, Lana didn’t care. Both worked.
She watched as the three sisters exchanged glances among themselves. “Caleb Johnson was saying the other day, how he missed all the county fairs he had in summers back home. I suppose I could fancy a party. I mean, it couldn’t hurt none to have one,” Lucy offered, clearly waiting for Frankie’s take as eldest sister.
“You’re not gonna make us get gussied up or anything, are you?” Margie’s suspicious tone almost made Lana laugh.
“That’d be up to you, of course. We don’t have everything worked out just yet,” Lana conceded. “I just thought you’d like to be the first to know.” Now, this was the way to the Tuckers’ collective hearts. The Tucker sisters liked to be at the center of everything—even if it was a fight—and being first in on a big scoop like this pleased them immensely. Not that they were gossips. They were women of incredible faith and integrity, actually. They never lied; just the opposite, a Tucker would tell you the straight truth, whether or not you wanted to hear it.
“You’re asking us if we approve?” Frankie crossed her arms over her barrel of a chest, puffing a lock of unruly dark hair off her forehead.
Lana folded her hands, ready to wait if necessary. “People care what you think.” Paradoxical or not, it was true. Despite the fact that the Tuckers gave little thought to what others thought of them, everyone in Treasure Creek held their opinion in high regard. Those opinions did sometimes come backed up with an occasional fist, so that may have been part of the reason.
“Not that it’s my idea of a good time,” Lucy declared from over yet another nail, “but I suspect someone like Caleb would think a festival is a good step for the town…if you can keep it from getting out of hand.”
That was Lucy, always qualifying every idea with a hint of doubt. For all her boldness, she could be as recalcitrant as a mule. Her drab habit of dressing in blacks and grays only strengthened the image for Lana. “Mack will take care of that,” she replied, knowing that it was the accepted answer for just about any trouble in Treasure Creek.
And that was the trouble with Treasure Creek. They looked to Mack for everything, and it had only doubled since his “election” as Mayor. She had an idea for that, too, but it would have to be broached very carefully.
“Well, then.” Frankie’s voice took on a tone of declaration. “I can’t say I’m against it.”
While not a rousing endorsement, it was all Lana needed. She smiled broadly. “Time to get going, Georgie.” Georgie picked up two of the long, loopy wooden shavings, bouncing them like springs with a giggle, and stood up to go. Still, Georgie was smart enough to remember who the Tucker sisters were and what they usually carried. He looked up at Lucy with wide, brown eyes.
Lucy beamed. “Well now, little fella, all you have to do is ask.”
Georgie carefully transferred both shavings to one hand and held out the other chubby palm. “Peez?”
Lucy dug into the upper pocket of her overalls to produce a hanky of questionable cleanliness, unwrapping a “cookie.” Lana could never cease to amaze herself with the unappetizing colors of the Tuckers’ “baking.” The disc looked more like hardware than baked goods. “There’s a good young man,” Lucy said as she blew something off the top of the cookie and handed it to Georgie. The boy hasn’t gotten sick yet. Lana reminded herself that she’d found her precious son out in the garden yesterday, gnawing on a dirty root. Still, she hoped he’d keep all his teeth. The sharp snap his bite of cookie made set her own teeth to aching as she helped Georgie wave goodbye with the handful of shavings. Step One had been accomplished.
She tried not to feel surprised when she found herself in cautious prayer that Step Two would meet with equal success.
The certainty of it had settled upon him while fitting the last of the shelving in the General Store. Mack had known it for weeks, months even, but as he and Ed struggled to get the final planks onto their brackets, it p
ressed on Mack so clearly he couldn’t deny it any longer: He needed help. Treasure Creek needed a preacher and a sheriff far more than it had ever needed a mayor, and it was high time to do something about it.
Every Bible passage he read over the past month seemed to be about partnerships, about Apostles going out in pairs, Moses and Aaron, Timothy and Paul. His own home, running more smoothly than ever despite Georgie’s constant motion, spoke just as loudly about the virtues of shared labor. Mack needed partners.
When they took a moment to sit and have a drink of water after the shelf was wedged into place and secured, Mack forged ahead. He looked Ed straight in the eye and made his case. “Ed, you should be sheriff.” Mack had given the matter quite a bit of thought, and while he could name a few folks who’d readily volunteer, none of them would come near doing the job Ed would.
Ed seemed a bit shocked to hear it. Surprise flickered across his face, followed by an unsettling chuckle. “Should I now? Didn’t know Treasure Creek had the position open, to tell the truth.”
Mack remembered the scene at the most recent town meeting and narrowed his eyes at Ed. “It followed fast on the heels of mayor, if you must know. Sort of a one-two punch.”
Ed made a “you got me,” face, followed by a long, drawn out pause of thought. “I’m not the man,” he said, pulling one broad hand over his neatly trimmed beard.
“’Course you are.” It was weak, as arguments went, but Mack hadn’t at all anticipated Ed’s refusal. A bit of reluctance maybe, or just surprise, but Mack never expected his offer to be turned down. Ed was practically doing the job now, it was in his very nature.
“Nope. I don’t think so. Breaking up the occasional fight, that’s one thing. But being the law? Having to answer to folks and fill out papers and such? I’d only let you down.”
ALASKAN BRIDES 01: Yukon Wedding Page 12
