"We're all self made men," one of the others stated, a trifle pompously. "Most of us started out as loggers, and we've made our very modest fortunes in the logging business. Now we'd like to put something back into the industry by keeping the traditions of logging alive. We feel burling, ax throwing, all the logging arts, in fact, are beginning to die out, as new and more sophisticated logging methods come into use, and we don't like to see that happen. So, with the backing of several pulp and paper outfits and our own companies, we're starting a school in Brainerd, a place where logging skills are taught, both old and new. A logger's school, as it were, to open next spring."
Stanford Willis took over again. "You'd be a fine addition to our staff, Mrs. Carlson, teaching those techniques. We have several men lined up to instruct, but we feel it would be a great advantage to also have a woman with your skills."
Karena could only stare at him, dumbfounded.
"But I'm not a teacher," she stammered finally, when it became obvious they were waiting for a response from her. "I'm a log scaler. I work in the bush."
"Yes, we saw that on your form," he said. "Unfortunately, we couldn't offer you the hourly wages you earn at scaling. However, as we both know, scalers are laid off whenever loggers are, and there's fire season, wet season, strikes. What we'd be offering is stability, Mrs. Carlson. We plan to run classes regularly. As for not being a teacher, well, logging skills don't require a college degree."
"We watched your son compete, and he insisted you'd taught him," a short, balding man who hadn't said anything up till then said jovially. "You've just won the women's all round championship. I'd say you're well qualified. Anyway, we're not in a position quite yet to make you a concrete offer, but we'd like you to think about it, and if you're interested, we could discuss it further in a few months."
It was out of the question. It was about the last thing she could see herself wanting to do.
"Thank you for the offer," she managed, and then hurried back to where Logan and the three children waited impatiently.
"What'd they want you for, Mom?" Danny queried. "I thought you were never coming. We're all starving to death."
If she told Danny she'd been offered a job in Brainerd, he'd start packing the moment they got home. Danny yearned to live in a city, but he'd settle for a town. And there was no chance of her taking the job. It was too farfetched to even contemplate.
"They wanted to talk to me about logging sports," she said vaguely, and got away with it because her son was distracted.
Logan took them to a family restaurant, an uncrowded, relaxed place with a menu that both children and adults could enjoy.
As she drove through the summer night on her way home hours later, Danny snoring lightly beside her, Karena remembered vividly the lines of Logan's face across the table, the way in which his eyes rested on her like a caress all during dinner. They'd talked and joked and laughed a lot, and while the kids were at the dessert table, she told him of the job offer, making a halfhearted joke of it.
"Nobody's ever offered me a job before," she said lightly. "This must be my lucky day."
"Is it something you might like to do sometime in the future?" he asked.
"No," she said shortly. "I like my life exactly the way it is. I'd have to move to Brainerd, for one thing. I've no intention of ever living in a city again if I can avoid it."
Logan had looked somber for a moment after that, she remembered now.
She remembered his kiss, too. The memory of that kiss stirred a heated response inside her, and she shifted restlessly on the hard seat of the truck.
They'd left the restaurant reluctantly, far later than she'd planned. The three children, fast friends by then, raced off to a nearby newsstand for comic books and candy bars with the coins Logan lavishly distributed. She'd guessed at his reasons for suggesting the treat, and selfishly welcomed the few moments it would give them to be alone together. Now that the time had come, she dreaded to say goodbye.
They were in a parking lot beside the restaurant. Karena went over every detail that followed as she drove through the night.
He'd turned to her as soon as the kids disappeared and drew her forcefully into his arms, first slipping his glasses off and tucking them into his pants pocket in a way she was becoming familiar with.
She imagined she could still feel his strong fingers first on her shoulders, then slipping caressingly down her arms and back, holding her fiercely against him. There was no reticence in the way those arms enfolded her, or the way his lips met hers in a deep and burning kiss that made her head spin, her insides tug and contract with hopeless longing.
"I hate to let you go, now that I've found you," he'd whispered urgently, his face buried in her hair. "Danny drew me a map showing exactly how to get to your cabin. If it's all right with you, I'll be seeing you soon, Karena."
She'd nodded forcefully against his shoulder. It was very all right with her. But would he come?
Maybe his words were just a gentle way of saying goodbye, she brooded. Probably he'd go back to St. Paul and wonder what he'd ever seen in her.
Doubts nagged at her, vying with memories of pleasure all the way home through the star studded darkness. She fell into bed at last in the cool dark cabin, only to toss through restless, confusing dreams for the few hours before her alarm woke her for work at four.
She made coffee on the propane stove, filling her thermos and hastily making a sandwich to take for her lunch. Danny would sleep for several hours more and then spend most of his day with Gabe, the way he'd done during school holidays ever since Karena's old friend had moved into the cabin.
Gabe had spent the weekend visiting his sister in Oregon and Karena knew he'd be eager to swap stories with Danny.
Warm affection for the old man who'd been so important to her own childhood and who now was so much a part of her son's life made her smile as she went quietly outside to start the Jeep. It made work a lot easier, knowing Danny was happy and well supervised.
The only fly in the ointment was her father. Otis had quarreled with Gabe over the logging business they'd shared years before, and in his stern Swedish fashion, Otis had never forgotten or forgiven. Gabe tried to be friendly, but Otis's stiff-necked attitude made it impossible. And awkward for Karena and Danny.
The little moose made his mewing noise at her from his pen. "Go back to sleep, Mort," she advised affectionately, giving him a rub behind the ears. "Danny'll give you breakfast when he wakes up. You're a bottomless pit."
By seven o'clock, Karena had been hard at work for two hours. She glanced up and saw Max Macabe, the loader man who worked with her in the scaling yard, wave at her and mime taking a coffee break. She nodded, finishing the load she was working on before heading over to the scale shack.
Max was already sitting on one of the round stumps they used as stools when she ducked inside the crude tin roofed shack.
Pulling off her orange hard hat and removing her earplugs, she unscrewed the top of her thermos and poured out a cup of the rich black coffee she'd brewed before daybreak that morning. Then she squatted down on her own stump and stretched her blue jeaned legs out before her.
"How you doing, Max? How was your weekend?"
The attractive, gray haired giant took a long, deep draught of his coffee. "Not bad, I guess. I drove into town and went to a movie, had a few beers with a lady I've been seeing now and again. Nothin' special."
Max's marriage had broken up several years before. He'd told Karena bits and pieces during their coffee breaks over the months they'd worked together, and it was a pattern she'd recognized as familiar from other sporadic conversations with loggers.
"Lisa was a city girl, that's what the trouble was," he'd said sadly one morning. "She was pretty, she never wanted to live in the bush, she wanted a house in the suburb and a man with a nine-to-five job, in a place where she could have bridge parties and join clubs. So she lived in town and I stayed out at camp during the week, and after awhile we didn't have much to say to each other."
Max was forty eight, and Karena had overheard enough ribald conversations to know he was considered a mover with the string of ladies he picked up in local bars.
There's safety in numbers, he would say good naturedly when the guys ribbed him.
"How'd the logging competition in Bemidji go?" he queried now.
"It was tough, but I won the women's overall trophy, and Danny won all the events he was in, too." For just an instant, she considered confiding in Max, telling him about meeting Logan, about the astonishing offer the judges had made her after the awards, but she quickly stifled the impulse. She'd never talked much about her personal life, and she'd learned from listening that men gossiped as much as women were accused of doing.
The morning sun was beginning to warm even the shaded areas around the shack, and she heard the chorus of birds from the surrounding woods.
Max loved birds, and he brought dozens of cookies for them, which he broke into crumbs and spread outside the shack. Camp robbers, crows and ravens were the most common visitors, but today blue jays and sparrows had heard about the free lunch. Karena finished her coffee and watched the collection of raucous birds for several moments in silence.
"How's Mort doing?" Max asked then. He was one of the men who'd brought Mort to her cabin last May, and he was intensely interested in the little moose's progress. "Did your father do okay as moose-sitter on the weekend?"
Karena grimaced. "As you know, Pop isn't one of Mort's admirers. I haven't talked to Pop, but Mort seemed fine this morning. He's developed a passion for oranges now, as well as bread. I'm still feeding him fresh milk and mixing it with canned milk; he goes through gallons every day."
"People I've talked to say it's a rare thing for a calf as young as Mort to survive in captivity," Max said thoughtfully. "They usually die, first couple of days."
"Pop insists it's better if they do," Karena said ruefully. "I can understand what he means, too. Mort is cute and little now, but what happens when he's fully grown? He's not learning to forage for himself the way a wild calf his age would be doing; he relies on us to feed him. And we can't keep him forever, he's going to be huge in a few months. Plus, Danny and I are both getting more attached to him by the day."
"Sorry we landed him on you?" Max queried anxiously, and Karena grinned and shook her head.
"Nope, I love the little guy. But no more foundlings, okay, Max? One baby moose around the house is about all I can handle."
Max went out to police the birds and make certain the weaker of them got their share, and Karena lingered for another few minutes in the empty shack, her thoughts returning to the weekend.
What would Logan Baxter be doing right about now, she mused. Not watching birds, she'd bet on it. Would he even be up yet? She tried to imagine him in an apartment in the city, tried to envision what his days consisted of, and failed utterly.
But how could Logan, on the other hand, imagine the scene here, Max feeding the birds, talking with her about the moose?
Two different worlds. Wasn't there a song about that?
The best thing to do was forget about him, she lectured herself sternly.
With an impatient shake of her head, she tossed the coffee dregs into the grass and hurried back to the scale as a loaded truck drove onto the grid to be weighed. Automatically, Karena noted the numbers on the scale, marking them on her board, waiting until the driver dumped the load of logs. Then she weighed the empty truck and subtracted, averaging out the board feet of timber, meticulously noting the species, log length, top diameter, grade, in the appropriate square on her form. She'd been doing her job so long it demanded only a portion of her thoughts, and inevitably, helplessly, her mind returned to Logan.
All morning, thoughts of him managed to sneak past the defensive block she'd tried to erect in her mind.
Another loaded truck, and another, growled their way onto the scale, and she performed the familiar routine over and over, feeling bored and bone tired as the hours passed. And suddenly very alone.
Don't you ever get lonely out there in the woods by yourself, he'd asked her.
Go away, Logan Baxter. Out of my head, out of my heart. But it was already too late for that, and she knew it.
The day finally ended. Karena climbed in the truck they labeled "the crummy" with the men at four o'clock, endured the bouncing, jolting journey back to the spot where she'd parked her pickup that morning and then drove the miles down the road to her turnoff in a stupor of weariness and unshakable depression.
She pulled up on the spot of gravel where she always parked, at the side of her cabin, and wished fervently that her father's old blue car wasn't already parked a few feet away. She could hear the rise and fall of his rumbling, accented voice ponderously telling Danny something, probably lecturing about poor little Mort again, she thought resignedly as she headed stealthily for the small shower house set under the trees several yards away from the main cabin.
If only she could shower and change before she had to talk to anybody. Especially Pop.