ALASKAN BRIDES 01: Yukon Wedding

by Allie Pleiter

  He pointed at her, his eyes as dark as when he’d thrust his shovel against the necks of those young robbers. “And wouldn’t you be eager to know my secrets? Have at my gold? Is that the only thing you ever really wanted from me? You like all the gifts I bought you well enough, but I supposed some appetites can’t be satisfied.”

  “What are you talking about? I told you I didn’t want your gold.” Truth, trust—those had been what she wanted from him, not the land or gold or security he thought was the currency of his world. If he couldn’t see that after all this time, he never would.

  Mack stalked across the rug. He turned from her, planting his hands on the fireplace mantel with a fierce thud. “I would have given you anything you wanted. But it’s never enough. I always wondered what drove Jed to the lengths he went for fortune, but maybe I understand now. It doesn’t matter whether it was earned or stolen, begged or borrowed for you, does it? Just as long as there’s more.” He turned to her, and the dark despair made his eyes look so deep and hollow her breath caught in her throat.

  Lana was stunned by his accusation; it seemed to come out of nowhere. “What are you talking about? What have I ever done to make you think like this?”

  “Demanded my secrets.”

  “Expected your trust,” she corrected. Georgie began to cry at their raised voices. She moved toward the door to Georgie’s room, suddenly wanting to be nowhere near Mack and his rage.

  He followed her. “You schemed behind my back. You betrayed me.” As he turned, she noticed one side of his shirt held a large red stain. And he had smears of blood and dirt all over his pants.

  “What happened to you?” She picked Georgie up and sidled past Mack to take her son into the main room again, the air was much too close in here.

  Mack didn’t follow her at first, but after a moment the sudden quiet clung to the house with suffocating power.

  He came out of their room, holding her jewelry box. He slammed it on the table so hard one hinge pulled out of the wood. “I’ll tell you what happened to me. Nick Peacock, that’s what.” He reached into his back pocket, and the size of the red stain on his shirt almost made Lana gasp. She did gasp when he clenched one of her handkerchiefs in his fist.

  “Where did that come from?”

  “Nicky Peacock. He followed me upon the trail tonight. Really, Lana, I suppose it’s a compliment to you that I was too bamboozled by your earlier performance to look over my shoulder.”

  “What’s Nicky Peacock got to do with anything? Why were you up on the trail tonight?”

  “You know why!”

  “No, Mack, I don’t. You told me you were going to get the gold, but who knows what you were really doing? I see no gold. Why are you hurt? What happened?”

  Mack held his hands out in an empty gesture. “You’re right. I don’t have the gold. I’m lucky to be alive, so I’ll be thankful for that, I suppose. If you’re so determined to get your hands on the great Tanner fortune, you’ve had what you need all along, Lana. I’ve told you where the map is.”

  “You’ve never really showed me the map, Mack. You don’t trust me enough to show me, do you? Even if you dug it up this moment, I know that map isn’t enough to find the gold. It was all too clear you couldn’t trust me with the whole truth. You trust no one. No one.”

  “The map has a key.” He pointed to the jewelry box. “Your pin. Take the pin you love so much and go dig it up yourself, for all I care. I’d just as soon never lay eyes on you again. Poor Georgie. It’s not his fault that neither his mother nor his father could be trusted.” With a growl she felt to the bottom of her shoes, Mack threw the handkerchief on the table. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the map. The one he’d told her was buried in the garden. Had he dug it up tonight, or had that been another of his deceptions? “Keep whatever you find. Peacock planned to keep your half of the gold anyway. You’ll have to rip the initials out of the handkerchief, though. This marriage is over and you’re on your own again.” For the second time tonight the cabin door slammed shut with enough force to shake the house.

  His mistrust felt like a physical blow. Had they really learned so little about each other in this brief, odd marriage? Why on earth would God call him to marry her, as he had asserted again and again, only to put them through this pain? Even as she paced the room, her eye drew back again and again to the stained handkerchief, the folded map and the now-splintered jewelry box, as if they were symbols of her ruined life. What kind of man would believe the word of a thief like Nicky Peacock over that of his wife? She’d never given him any reason to think she’d scheme with the likes of Peacock to rob him of his gold. Even with Jed’s many deceptions, Lana couldn’t recall a man so quick to mistrust, so sure the world was nipping at his heels. Everyone thought so highly of Mr. Treasure Creek, but even through her anger Lana could see he was a collection of deep wounds held together by sinews of faith.

  Georgie had quieted, and the growing silence allowed Lana’s anger to melt into a deeper fear. Mack wasn’t himself. The man she saw behind those horrible dark eyes wasn’t really her husband. She was hurt and angry, that was true, but as she stared at the blood that stained her handkerchief and thought of the size of the cut on his head and the red blotch on his shirt, she realized how none of this made any sense. Something was very, very wrong here. The fear gripped her more tightly, as if the isolation of the cabin would swallow her alive.

  Lana grabbed her coat and Georgie’s, pulling his tiny trousers on under his nightshirt. “We’re going to the Aunties, honey. We need their help.” Yes, it meant revealing one of Mack’s precious secrets, but too much was wrong to worry about that now. She couldn’t hope to sort this out on her own; her mounting dread was already clouding her thoughts.

  “Cookie,” Georgie exclaimed with a smile, despite his tears.

  “Yes, cookie. Help and cookie.” Lana made sure to close the door without a slam.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Telling the story seemed to make it worse. Lana fought back tears too many times as she recounted the night’s drama to the Tucker sisters and Caleb Johnson. Lucy had convinced everyone to go over to Caleb’s house, since, as dockmaster, Caleb would know if Mack indeed had left for Skaguay as he said. There was no ferry this late at night, but Mack had many friends who might transport him as a favor.

  Leo seemed especially disturbed by Lana’s story. “You’re sad. And mad. That’s wrong,” Leo said with a growl in his voice. “Mr. Mack is a mean man.”

  “He’s an angry man, that’s for sure,” Caleb replied, taking off his spectacles and pinching the bridge of his nose. It was so late it was early, the stormy night slipping into a dull grey dawn long before sunrise ever showed in Seattle. “And clever,” he added, raising one eyebrow at Lana. “Who would have thought he made the map key in the pin he gave you?”

  “And why not tell me!” Lana shot back, more confused than ever. So many layers. He trusted her with the pin but not with its purpose. With the map but not with the key. She regretted revealing Mack’s secrets, but something had to be done and she needed to decide what. Had she just betrayed the growing closeness she’d imagined between them, or had it never been there at all? Her heart couldn’t believe the events of the last few hours. Mack. Nicky Peacock. Lana’s heart tumbled over and over in her chest, a storm of hurt and anger, and a growing fear that the Mack she knew had been a lie. Or had gotten lost.

  “It’s nothing we’ll sort out tonight,” Caleb concluded with a yawn. “Best let everyone simmer down ’til morning. We’d best hope things look clearer in the light of day.” With a tiny joy she couldn’t feel for herself, Lana noticed Caleb take Lucy’s hand for a moment as they said goodbye. There really was something between those two. She wanted to feel pleasure at the tender surprise of it, but couldn’t muster the energy to feel anything but hollow loss. She could only hug Georgie tighter as he slept on her shoulder, ignoring the weak “it’ll all work out” comments Lucy offered as they walked home to he
r empty house.

  Sleep was impossible. While Georgie was fast asleep in his room, ignorant of his new family’s unraveling, Lana sat staring at the barest remains of a fire in the hearth. Not knowing what else to do, she’d pulled aside the movable brick in the fireplace where she’d stuffed the map before going to Lucy. There were so many things in that hiding place! With a gasp she unfolded notes from a lawyer in Skaguay—Mack had looked into the process of adopting Georgie as his own son! And there were rough sketches of a larger house, a big home with room for a large family. Lana couldn’t reconcile the man of these papers with the bitter, angry soul who had stomped out into the storm tonight. Again, the suffocating sense of everything going wrong twisted around her throat. She had to find him. Desperately, Lana stared at the map, trying to work out how Mack’s pin served as a key. No matter what she did, the map remained a confusing puzzle of lines and curves.

  Not too much later, there came a rap on the cabin door. Mack would hardly knock, but then again, Mack was doing things she couldn’t hope to understand tonight. Lana rushed to the door, only to discover Leo standing there.

  “Leo?” His face bore none of the childlike affection she usually saw in his large brown eyes. The darkness she saw in its place sent ice down the back of her neck.

  “Get that pin,” he said in a voice that didn’t even seem to belong to him. “I heard you talking at Papa’s house. I’ll show Mr. Mack how smart I am.”

  “Leo, I…”

  Leo produced an enormous knife. “Get it!”

  If only she’d put the jewelry box back in Georgie’s room, maybe she could climb out the window and run for help. But Leo had already seen the map and the pins laid out on the table. “We can’t leave. Wait until morning.”

  “I heard you say the pin you love most. Get it. We’re going to get the gold now.”

  Lana backed up toward the table. “I don’t know where the gold is, Leo. I don’t know how the map works. I can’t help you find it.”

  Leo raised the knife. “You think I’m not smart enough to make it work? That’s all anyone thinks, isn’t it? I’m smart enough to steal, I am. You’ll all see.” He seemed twice his huge size, filling the room with a dangerous anger.

  Georgie’s only chance at safety was to stay asleep in his room. He’d been up most of the night, and Lucy had promised to come by first thing in the morning. It seemed a horrible option, but Leo looked capable of anything, and if she couldn’t save herself, she could save Georgie. Oh, dear Lord above, save him! Save me! She cried the prayer in her heart as she took Mack’s pin and laid it out before Leo on the table. Mack, her heart moaned as Leo began moving the pin around on the map, lining it up this way and that, what’s happened and where are you? Lana tried twice to move away from the table, to inch toward the door, but each time Leo would look up with burning eyes and point to a chair. How many times had she told him to “sit back down” in school? Leo was at war with his world and everyone who’d dismissed him—Mack included, it seemed. Bent on revenge with a dangerous determination. She could only hope to keep him calm enough to head off before Georgie woke up.

  “Got it.” It took Leo all of ten minutes to fold the map up in such a way as it showed a design clearly matching the brooch. How strangely dull and keen that man-child’s mind worked, that he could unlock a puzzle that stumped her but still not see the foolishness of what he was doing.

  “Everyone will know you took the gold, Leo. This won’t work. You’ll be in worse trouble than before. Stop this and we’ll talk more.”

  “No!” Leo growled loudly. “Everyone will know. Everyone.” He wasn’t making sense, wasn’t connecting that everyone knowing would be the doom of his plan. “We’re going now.”

  “You’ve got the pin and the map, you don’t need me, Leo.” Lana used the light and encouraging voice that had charmed him in the classroom. “You’ve worked it out on your own, you’re smart enough to do this without me.”

  “No, you’re coming. Now.” He scooped up the pin and the map in his huge hands and motioned toward the door with his knife. A light rain had started up again, she could hear it against the windows. She’d probably be lying dead in the Alaskan mud somewhere before the end of the day. Oh Georgie, to leave you an orphan. Would God be so cruel?

  Lana had no idea how long she and Leo trudged through the cold dawn, following whatever clues Leo had uncovered from the map. One minute she thought he’d worked it out, the next minute they’d take some odd turn and she’d hear him grind his teeth in frustration. Once or twice she tried to talk him into giving up his search, but it only darkened his mood, and the more angry he got the less clearly he seemed able to think. Lord, I’m done for, she cried silently, sure she would not survive the day. Leo seemed ready to turn on her any minute, sure she was withholding the secret of Mack’s gold no matter how she tried to convince him otherwise. Looking into Leo’s twisted features, Lana recalled Mack’s words: greed made men animals.

  “Stop that!” Leo yelled at the unfolded the map, for the steady rain would smear the markings further every time he opened it to reposition the pin. She could only hope, as the land sloped upward, that they were somewhere near the Chilkoot Trail and its steady stream of stampeders, where someone might come to her aid. “Stop it! Stop it!” he yelled at the clouds, his rage now fully unleashed. He threw the map on the ground and stomped it into the mud, taking an enormous rock and throwing it on top. Bellowing, he threw the pin in the mud as well, and Lana scrambled after it. This was the wrong thing to do, for the last thing Lana remembered was the shadow of Leo’s enormous hand coming down over her face with a force that sent sparks flying through her vision.

  “Mr. Tanner! Mr. Tanner!”

  Mack raised his head off the desk in his hotel room. He’d waited outside the land grant office where he’d arranged to be the first transaction of the day. He didn’t sleep until he’d disposed of the wicked gold and held the land deed in his hands. If it were up to him, he’d never see an ounce of gold again.

  He’d gained his land, but lost everything in the process. The empty hole in his own chest screamed out what he’d refused to believe: he loved Lana and lost her. He had done what he’d sworn never to do, left himself open to the pain of losing someone close to him. Again. Early this morning, as he held the land deed that was to be his future, all Mack could think was that it was impossible to know which hurt worst—to be betrayed again or to have his heart crushed again.

  Another set of pounding on the hotel room door. “Mr. Tanner!” It was Jimmy Crow’s voice. Teena Crow’s brother.

  Mack yanked open the door to see a haggard looking Jimmy with his hand raised to pound yet again. “You must come now. Your wife is ill. She hit her head hard up on the trail and Teena is very worried.”

  Mack’s heart twisted into a pinching knot. He didn’t need to ask what Lana was doing up on the trail. Some part of him wanted so badly to be wrong, to discover that she did somehow love him, but he’d been blinded by Lana’s charms and Georgie’s innocence.

  Georgie.

  “Is Georgie all right?”

  Jimmy looked puzzled. “The boy? He is not with you?”

  Fear shot down Mack’s spine. Even if she were twice the deceiver he thought her, she would never leave Georgie behind. Not even for all his gold. “He most certainly is not. Has anyone checked the house?”

  “I went by on my way to you. It’s empty. And torn up. Things toppled over, tossed everywhere.” He lowered his voice and raised one eyebrow. “Did you fight?”

  Mack’s stomach gave a lurch. Did the people of Treasure Creek think him capable of violence in his own home? “Of course not!” Mack shot back, grabbing his coat and hat. “Well, we had an argument, but not like that. Have you got a fast horse?” If he took the Tlingit trail back and rode hard, he could make it there faster than any ferry he could hire.

  “Bolt is the fastest horse in the village. It is why I brought him to you.”

  Reaching into his coat pock
et, Mack threw the poke of gold dust he’d kept onto the table. “This should more than cover your ferry ride home. You have my thanks, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy smiled. “Just remember you have my horse.”

  Mack battled with himself the entire ride, worry for Lana and Georgie warring with confusion over what had really happened last night. The hour ride pounding through the back trail had pummeled one sure truth into his brain: he’d been foolish. He’d allowed his wounded, suspicious nature to jump on Nicky Peacock’s accusations about Lana with no real proof. Worse yet, he’d not even been man enough to confront Lana directly with the whole of the matter. He, who preached and strived to help Treasure Creek stay clear of Alaska’s rampant deception, had fallen prey to it easier than a tenderfoot stampeder. He’d believed Nicky Peacock over the woman he cared most about. Believed a deceiver’s story over what his heart knew to be true, and paid the price for his foolishness. Mack was too easily convinced he had lost Lana because he’d allowed himself to love her. Fear spawned as many sins as greed; perhaps more. While he’d always thought himself a visionary, he wasn’t. He was just a foolish, frightened man undone by his own obsession to be master of his fate. To manufacture his own future instead of trusting that future to God.

  It was full daylight by the time Mack turned Bolt into the clearing outside of the town that held the Tlingit village. If God granted him the chance to set things right with Lana, he’d move heaven and earth to do so. He just hoped he hadn’t come to his senses too late. “Teena Crow!” he called into the village, barely waiting for Bolt to skid to a stop before throwing himself off the horse and heading for Teena’s dwelling at a full run.

  He nearly tackled the healing woman as she ducked out of the entrance. “Peace, Mack. She is resting.”

  Mack grabbed the small woman’s shoulders. “Is she all right?”

  “Thank God Leo did not do worse. Leo is a big man and the knife could have done her great harm.”