Torchlight (29 page)

She smiled as a bull moose raised his head—the living mantel for a huge rack of antlers—with slimy bottom sludge hanging from either side of his huge snout. He shuffled out of the water, disgruntled by their passing, and the de Havilland sailed by. “How many of those do you see from up here in a summer?”

“Train bait?” he asked with a grin. “A hundred or so.”

“Train bait?” she chanced, feeling every bit the cheechako.

“Trains kill about forty every year in this area alone. They’re slow, they’re big, and they like the open track. Easier going than the forest.”

The rest of the trip was spent in relative silence, with only air traffic control coming through their headsets.

“Talkeetna,” Eli said with a toss of his chin. In five minutes they were landing on a narrow stretch of the Susitna River and, in another five, were tied up. “Want to come with me to the lumberyard?” Eli asked her. “I’ll have to get my dad’s truck to haul the wood. He leaves it parked at the church. I’ll be gone for about two hours.”

“No thanks. I think I’ll poke around town and mail my letters, pick up a few things. Meet you back here at, say”—she pulled up a sleeve to look at her watch—“three o’clock?”

“That’ll be fine,” he said, staring into her eyes a moment longer than necessary as if he could see through her, ascertain why she was reluctant to spend time with him. She wasn’t even sure herself, except that he seemed dangerous, too risky a diversion from her carefully laid plans. She looked away, busied herself with gathering her belongings, and pulled her backpack up on one shoulder. “See you then, Eli,” she said.

“See you then, Bryn,” he returned, nodding at her once. She turned away first.

As soon as she was talking to her mother on the phone, Bryn wondered why she had called. Maybe it was the vague longing in her heart, the pervading sense of displacement, missing home, wanting that security Eli seemed to have—

“Bryn? Are you there?” Her mother’s voice jolted her back to the present.

“I’m here, Mom. We’re doing fine. I’m just in Talkeetna for some groceries and then heading back to Summit. Is there … is there anything you want me to pass along to Dad?”

A long silence followed. “No. No, honey. Tell him I said hello. I’m going sailing with the Bancrofts tonight. It’s always awkward to do that sort of thing without your husband. I tell you, I just don’t understand why he has to go off to the end of the world every other year.”

“Maybe you should come up and see—”

“Oh no. I have no need to go someplace that has no running water or a decent toilet or a telephone.”

“We heat water on the stove for a bath every day. It’s kind of fun actually,” Bryn said.

“I’d rather have hot water at my disposal without lugging it anywhere. And listen to you! You sound as if you’re actually enjoying it this year.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it enjoyment, but—”

“Are the Pierces still there? Have you seen Jedidiah’s son?”

“Yes. He was sweet. We’re getting along better than last time.” She carefully held back the information that he had flown her to Talkeetna—her mother would never let Peter hear the end of it if she knew a twenty-one-year-old, just-licensed pilot had been in charge of her safety. There was no way to express in a way her mother would understand that Eli had a way about him that just made a girl trust …

“… that’s good,” her mother was saying. “Remember last time how crushed you were when that boy wouldn’t say boo to you?”

“I was fifteen, Mom. I guess we had a misunderstanding. He was dating someone.”

“Fifteen. My, it seems that was just yesterday. And now you’re twenty. I miss you, honey. Want to come home? We could tell your father the truth—that you prefer being here in California to Alaska in the summers. He’d … understand.”

He wouldn’t. Her mother knew it as well as Bryn. “I don’t think so, Mom,” Bryn said gently. “I think … this will be good for me. Good for me and Dad.”

“I … see,” her mother said, a bit icily. Bryn had chosen. And it was the wrong choice, as if electing to stay was an admission of loyalty to her father over her mother.

“I gotta go, Mom. We’ll send you a report in the mail in a couple of weeks. We’re fine. Don’t worry about us, okay?”

“A mother always worries,” Nell said with barely disguised irritation. “Take care of yourself.”

“I will. You too.” Bryn hung up the phone then, unable to rouse the words
I love you
from her lips with any semblance of honesty. She felt jumbled, confused, after her talk with her mom, as she always seemed to feel when they spoke.
Maybe this summer I can figure out exactly how I feel
, Bryn thought.
Maybe that’s why I need to be here. To get my thoughts straight. To figure out where I belong. How I belong.
There was certainly time and quiet on the lake.

And Eli. He clearly knew who he was. “Comfortable in his own skin,” as her Grampa Bruce would say. Maybe … No. She could never talk about such personal things with someone like Eli. He might laugh, or worse, feel sorry for her.
Poor, mixed-up Bryn Bailey.
Nobody at school thought of Bryn as mixed up. Everyone said she was so purposeful, focused. And she liked it that way.

She turned away from the phone, an open half stall against the side of Nagley’s Mercantile, and left to mail her letters. She passed five college-age kids, probably river guides, who were laughing and playing around as they walked.

Suddenly she wished she were with Eli. Smiling and half flirting. Out flying or maybe hiking … Thinking about anything but her mother and her father and the widening abyss between them all.

What would it take to reach Bryn?
Eli wondered, driving back to Talkeetna from Willow with Peter Bailey’s wood and nails. When he entered town, he waved at the postmistress, walking with her toddler, then at Sheriff Ross. The tourists were out in force, and with Bryn not in sight, he turned down a dirt road to circumvent
the crowd, heading back toward the river and his floatplane.

It took him twenty minutes to get the lumber properly secured under the belly of the plane. If Bryn didn’t show up with too many purchases, they’d be perfectly balanced for the flight back to Summit. He rose, panting from the exertion of tightening the cinches, and wiped his hands on a cloth. He looked about for Bryn and spotted her approaching, only two sacks in hand—one a plain brown grocery bag and the other bearing the logo of a local T-shirt shop. It reminded him that she was only just passing through. Staying long enough to eat a few meals, but briefly enough that she needed a T-shirt as a memento.
Hang on to your heart, Pierce
, he told himself.
Pull back on the throttle.

Two guys passed her and turned around to stare. She moved forward, oblivious to the strangers’ admiration, focused only on him or the de Havilland. He couldn’t tell which. There were some cute girls in town, but no one as amazing as Bryn Bailey. He knew it; those guys knew it. Bryn could be a model with her perfect features and long, shiny hair and curves right where a man appreciated them. A shiver ran down his neck to the middle of his back and out to his elbows and knees. What would it be like to take a woman like Bryn in his arms and kiss her? To feel her cling to him and press her lips hard against his?
Hang on to your heart, Pierce.

She drew near and smiled shyly at him, her head slightly ducked. It made him want to hold her, to reassure her nameless, subtle fears. To kiss them away … 
Hang on to your heart, Pierce.
The warning was clear, a holy urging from deep within, but he didn’t want to hear it.

“Hi, there, pilot,” she said, finally at his side. “I see you got the wood. All set?”

“All set. You can climb on in.”

She paused on the float, one foot inside the doorway. “I was
wondering, would you take me out hiking sometime this week? If you’re not busy, I—”

“Sure. I’d love to.”
So much for pulling back.
“I have a flying job over the next couple of days. How about after that?”

“Well, I gotta check my social schedule.” She pretended to mentally mull over an intense calendar, finger to lip, eyes aloft. “Let’s see, other than a promise to my dad for a daily canoe ride, I don’t think I’m busy. So, Sunday?”

“Make it Monday. My dad and I hit church every Sunday morning, and that pretty much wipes out the day. Hey, you could come with—”

“That’s all right,” she said, climbing into the plane. “Monday will be fine.”

“Okay.” He climbed in behind her and buckled himself in, then grabbed the headset and put it on. He glanced at her, but she was staring outward, already quiet and thoughtful again.
Hang on to your heart, Pierce.
And this time the warning was as clear and alarming as a stall horn in the cockpit.

On Sunday evening Eli canoed over to the Bailey place to talk over the next day’s plans with Bryn. She was out on the front stoop with her dad, holding a pole in place while Peter pounded in a long nail. With her hair up in a loose knot, soft tendrils falling to her neckline, and a body that in profile would make any man swallow hard, Bryn was as desirable as a mystery to a detective. And when she looked at him with those dark eyes that seemed to convey every whisper his heart longed to hear …

Eli wanted to know her—what motivated, moved, mortified, molded her. He forced his focus back to their project, suddenly conscious of Bryn’s protective father and that he probably appeared to be gawking.
Am gawking.
The framework on the porch was almost complete, and appeared to be level and solid.

“Lookin’ good,” Eli called from the water, his eyes slipping back to Bryn.
The woodwork isn’t bad either.

“Thanks!” Peter greeted him. “Guess I haven’t forgotten too much in the twenty-odd years since we built these places.”

Bryn grinned at her father and then at Eli as he made his way ashore. “I think he was just waiting for my year to take this on,” she said half accusingly.

“Hey, girl, it was your idea.”

“So it was. But somehow I think it was yours all along.”

Her father slipped his hammer into a belt loop and crossed his arms. “Now how do you figure that?” Eli picked up a rising note of tension and shifted, uneasy.

“I don’t know … You’ve always been able to get me to do exactly what you wanted.”

“Not me. Your mother maybe.”

“Both of you,” she said, picking a splinter from her hand. Eli noticed her nails were closely cropped, with small white half-moons on each nail bed. Perfect. Just like the rest of her.

“Hey, Bryn,” he interrupted, not caring to be caught in the middle of a family disagreement. “I just popped over to talk about tomorrow. Want to head out early?”

“Sure,” she said, still staring at her father. “We thought we’d go hiking, Dad. Okay with you if I abandon camp for a while?”

Peter looked from her to Eli, then back to her. “Just make sure
you have the right gear and get back well before dark. Okay?” His focus was on Eli again, his intent clear. Alaska could be a dangerous place.
She’s your responsibility, Eli. I’m trusting you.

“No problem, Mr. Bailey,” Eli said respectfully. He turned back toward the canoe, saying over his shoulder, “I’ll see you tomorrow at seven, Bryn.”

“I’ll be ready.” There was no hesitation, no qualm in her voice. She was brave and gutsy. He liked that.

“Good night,” he said, already paddling away.

“ ’Night!” Peter called. Bryn was silent. And because she was silent, Eli knew he would be fantasizing about her whispering “good night” in his ear all evening. What was it about her? He stubbornly refused to look back toward shore.

For the first time since he’d started daydreaming about Bryn, Eli whispered a prayer heavenward. “Lord God, you have brought me to this place for a reason.” He paddled deep and hard in a J-stroke, powerfully forcing the cedar canoe forward. “Help me to be your servant, to be who Bryn needs me to be, and not so focused on my most base desires.” It was then that her declining his invitation to join them for church that morning came back to him.

Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Peter Bailey had never been a believer, always telling Jedidiah that he lived a moral, if not a Christian, life. And that was enough. Memories of the two men sitting out by a campfire, debating theological questions, came back to Eli. Like father, like daughter.

He had assumed she was a believer. Hoped she was a believer. Hadn’t wanted to think anything else, drawn into his attraction for her like … 
a tomcat to catnip.

The problem was that Eli was already rolling in the catnip.