As Danny would say, it was awesome.
She glanced over to where Logan was opening a bottle of wine and carefully pouring it into a plastic glass, frowning and swearing under his breath when it slopped onto his leg. His dark hair was flopping over his forehead, and the lenses of his glasses were dusty, giving the dark eyes behind them a fuzzy look. Appealing. Boyish, and yet not.
He handed her the glass.
"Aren't you having any?"
He reached into the basket and extracted a can of beer.
"I'm not much on wine," he said apologetically.
Frowning anxiously, he studied the quantities of food spread all over the blanket, and slowly a wide, self-satisfied grin spread across his features.
"I guess that's enough stuff, don't you think?"
Karena wondered if he were putting her on. But one glance at his face convinced her he wasn't, and she nodded, bemused. It was obvious that he'd planned this picnic carefully, worried over details, gone to a lot of trouble in his earnest man's fashion to arrange everything exactly the way he imagined it ought to be.
A whole loaf of sandwiches, put painstakingly together one after another with meat, tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise. Wine, even though he didn't drink it. Napkins, boiled eggs, strips of celery. Chocolate bars.
For her. All for her.
Something inside Karena's chest tightened, as if she might cry. She was so accustomed to packing lunches, planning meals, cooking for Danny and often for her father or Gabe. It was so seldom, now her mother was dead, that anyone cooked or prepared food especially for her.
"Have a sandwich, Karena." He watched anxiously as she solemnly unwrapped one of the monstrous concoctions and took a huge bite, barely able to stretch her mouth around it. She chewed appreciatively and swallowed with difficulty.
"It's absolutely delicious, Logan."
His anxious look faded and he sighed with relief. "I don't cook much. I usually eat at the college, or else I go out. Of course," he added complacently, "anybody can make sandwiches."
"Of course," she echoed faintly, wondering how she'd ever get through both halves of one, much less tackle the other fifteen or so. But now that the food had her stamp of approval, he relaxed fully and settled comfortably propped on an elbow, chewing his way through one sandwich after another, taking long pulls at his can of beer, telling her anecdotes of the field trip he'd spent here years before, the way it had rained, the jokes the students played on one another.
She watched, mesmerized, as his strong throat convulsed with each swallow, as expressions played across his strong face. His shirt was open at the neck, and she could see the dark swirls of chest hair in the V, the lean width of shoulder and the way his torso tapered neatly into trim waist and hips, nicely muscled thighs showing beneath the hem of his shorts.
The lake water lapped gently against the stones, and a breeze sighed its way through the old pine forest surrounding them.
"Karena."
Her name brought her out of a dreamy reverie. They were finished eating, and they'd sat in companionable silence for a time, sipping their drinks. He was sprawled out, not quite touching her, propped up on one elbow and looking quizzically at her. She stirred, moving self-consciously a few inches away, sitting up and readjusting her legs.
"Is there anybody special in your life?" His voice had a quiet intensity.
"Well, there's Danny," she said lightly, but she knew exactly what he was asking, and a prickle of apprehension shivered up her spine, mixed with a queer, rebellious longing.
"What about adult males, excluding relatives?" he persisted, and she looked out past him to the shimmering gray-blue lake, narrowing her eyes against the glare of sun.
"No," she said shortly, thinking of the sparse number of adult males who'd ever been part of her life. Johnny was the last, and that was several years ago now. She'd heard from one of the truck drivers a few months ago that Johnny was married and she hoped it would work for him. She'd had sense enough to know it wouldn't have worked for herself, with Johnny. But afterward she had been lonely for a while, and it had hurt that Pop was so openly pleased when they broke up.
Her father hadn't liked Johnny one bit.
"In that case..."
He uncoiled gracefully, slowly, and she watched, trying to decide what she should do. She was in his arms before she could make herself move away.
She hadn't wanted to move, anyway. The smell and feel of him were all around her, strong arms, enticing clean-man odor, and she could feel the tendons in his arm flex against her back, feel his hand cradling her head, and all at once, she was frightened. Not of Logan, but of herself.
She became absolutely still, tense and waiting, but he didn't kiss her as she'd expected he would. Instead, he gentled her, the way she gentled the baby moose at times, running his fingers along her skull, testing the texture of her hair, stroking a hand lightly down her arm and up again, causing threads of sensation to spin their way throughout her.
"You smell marvelous," he said, sniffing at her throat and forcing a tiny giggle from her.
He made her feel good, feminine, appreciated.
"Karena..."
Just her name, but murmured so softly, like a caress, or the beginning of a song.
He took his glasses off and slipped them into his pocket, and his lips found the pulse on her wrist, and his tongue mimicked the throb, making a wave of heat spin over her. She drew her hand away jerkily, resting it on his shoulder, and then slipped it curiously down over the soft fabric of his shirt, coming to rest uncertainly on his chest. Beneath her palm, his heart made a lie out of the easy manner in which he held and touched her.
His heart pounded against her outspread hand like a primeval drumbeat, and a thrill of pleasure shot through her veins like liquid heat.
Logan wasn't as controlled as he seemed.
Well, neither was she.
A moment later, when his lips first met hers, Karena knew that she wasn't controlled at all.
His lips were infinitely gentle at first, touching her in a nuzzling, innocent manner that was at once reassuring and maddening.
But when her mouth parted with the rise of blood and the throb of want in her, he made a despairing sound deep in his throat and his arms tightened, drawing her close against his kneeling form.
The innocence of the kiss disappeared in a thudding heartbeat, and now there was raw need, and a shuddering intensity that melded her body against his larger one.
Chapter Four
His hands slid up the silky sides of her jumpsuit, fingers outlining the shape of her ribs, then covering her breasts with palms that seemed to radiate heat. Her nipples surged with delight, and for a time the sun dappled afternoon shimmered behind her closed eyelids, and a wild and primitive passion made her body ebb and flow into his touch, undulating back and forth with a rhythm he returned.
Then he drew shakily away, putting distance between the magnet of their bodies, forcing his hands from her aching breasts to hold her jaw gently between fingers that trembled, his eyes fathomless and tender.
"I figured it would be like this between us," he whispered. "I want you, Karena." But he held himself away, waiting, and then she knew it was a question.
For an instant she hated him for asking, desperately wanting him to sweep her along, putting conscious will aside, letting her convince herself afterward that there had been no moment of decision.
His voice was hoarse, rough, and his eyes were almost black, absorbing light in their depths.
"What about you, Karena?"
He was making her decide, and it just wasn't fair. She struggled with the hunger he'd aroused, slowly conquering it one beat at a time.
"Shall we pack this stuff up and take a spin around the lake in the canoe?" She had to clear her throat twice before the words came out. He leaned across the small distance he'd put between them and fluttered a regretful tiny kiss on her parted lips, then drew back with a rueful smile.
"That's about the l
ast thing I want at the moment, but it's probably the best idea."
He was going to hate himself any second now for being such a chivalrous jerk. In fact, he did already.
What had made him stop and question what was happening? Whatever it was, it had never bothered him before today. One of the things a guy learned around the age of fourteen was never to ask a girl if he could kiss her, and here he was at thirty eight, asking like an utter fool.
But this feeling in him for Karena went beyond insistent body demands.
Karena was watching him, and he smiled reassuringly at her. She was beautiful, seductive and innocent at the same time. Her lips were puffed from his kisses, her golden skin flushed with rosy color. The sun was making a shining halo of her silvery mop of hair, and the shutters she could draw over those gray eyes were absent, so that it seemed as if he could peer through their translucence and see into her soul.
"You didn't eat much." His voice was gruff, and he stuffed sandwich packages into plastic bags and then into the basket.
"I guess you caught me on a day when I wasn't very hungry."
For food, anyway. But, oh, the hunger for him...
The rest of the afternoon, they paddled around in the canoe and talked about everything under the sun except the growing awareness between them. He told her more about his childhood, and she listened closely, laughing at anecdotes of the boy Logan had been.
"I wanted to be Tarzan when I grew up, and I used to go around with a shoelace tied to these damn glasses so they wouldn't fall off when I swung from tree to tree," he confided.
When the day began to slide toward evening, they reluctantly returned the canoe and drove back to Bemidji.
"I'll go pick up Danny and the twins. We'll be cheering you on tonight," Logan assured her as he left her at the festival grounds. "Then we're going out for a celebration dinner, all of us. No arguments."
"But you don't even know whether I'll win or not," she protested.
He smiled mischievously. "You've got it all wrong. We're celebrating my win, Karena. My luck at meeting you. But if you win, we'll celebrate that, too." He bent swiftly and kissed her, and after he left she stood thoughtfully watching the car drive away.
It hardly seemed possible that she'd known him only two days.
That evening, Karena fought valiantly to win the women's division of the logging sports all around championship, and she succeeded. Both Sara Wise and Suzy Evans gave her affectionate hugs when her name was announced as overall winner. Suzy nearly cracked her ribs, in fact, so exuberant were her congratulations.
Danny, the twins and Logan had cheered wildly from the stands during each heat, and she'd had to force her concentration to the task at hand instead of listening to the tall man sitting between the children.
After being announced the winner, when she stood on the makeshift stage to accept the generous check and the bronzed trophy, her gaze skipped past the official making the presentation to note the proud grin Logan was wearing in the front row.
"It gives me great pleasure to award this trophy to you, in the spirit of all logger sports and those who keep the tradition alive," the announcer was saying, and Logan gave her a thumbs-up salute.
For an instant, she found herself wishing the festival were beginning instead of ending.
She still had to drive home tonight. She had to go to work in the morning, she reminded herself. None of this was part of her real life, especially not Logan Baxter.
"Wonder if I might have a word with you in the festival offices before you leave, Ms Carlson?"
The gray haired man's gruff voice commanded her attention. One of the judges, he wore a business suit and she nodded automatically at his request, wondering uneasily what breach of festival rules she might have unwittingly committed.
"I'm Stanford Willis. Fifteen minutes from now?" he persisted, and she nodded again, hoping that whatever Willis had to say wouldn't take long. She only had a couple of hours, and she wanted to spend them with Logan.
As she hurriedly changed, she suddenly realized that for the first time in her whole adult life, she was actually dreading going home. She, who hated crowds, was looking forward to dinner in a city restaurant, a place bound to be full of smoke and noise and strangers and all the things she abhorred.
And it was because of a man she'd met two days before.
It was because of Logan.
A person couldn't fall in love in two days.
Could she?
She made her way quickly to the area the judge had indicated and tapped lightly on the door.
"Come in, come in," a hearty voice called.
There were two other men in the small room besides Willis, and now her stomach knotted with tension.
What did they want with her? Willis introduced the others, but Karena knew she wouldn't remember their names. She was suddenly nervous and extremely uneasy.
She sat stiffly in the seat they indicated.
"We're the sponsors for the logging sports competitions, Mrs. Carlson," a tall, thin man with a small moustache explained. "We're based in Brainerd," he went on, and Karena nodded.
She'd competed in Brainerd once or twice, a small city on the Mississippi, about a hundred miles southwest of Bemidji.
While she was there, she'd visited a replica of an old time lumber town and had been impressed that some people were doing their utmost to preserve the logging heritage of the state. Brainerd called itself the hometown of Paul Bunyan.
Willis took over. "We've got a proposition for you," he said briskly. "We're very impressed with your skills in the logging arts, and if you're interested, we'd like to offer you a job." He smiled kindly at what Karena knew must be an expression of utter confusion on her face.
"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 yearn
ed 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.
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