Mort, so curious his nose was in jeopardy several times from a hammer, had been tethered to a tree down by the lake, and was grunting and whining to protest his banishment.
The past week's rain had left everything fresh. And wet, Karena thought, feeling a blush steal over her face as she looked at a certain spot hidden by the trees down at the lake and remembered lying there the previous night with Logan.
Danny and Logan had arrived back from Bemidji just before dark, and Danny was talking excitedly to her before the Jeep had even stopped.
"Mr. Gardom wants me to come and stay with them the long weekend before school starts. It's fall fair, and there's gonna be a hay ride and a bonfire and a wiener roast and everything. I've got a note from Mrs. Gardom for you. Please, I can go, can't I, Mom? Alex and Liz and I are building a tree fort, and we've only half finished it, and I promised I'd bring the old bear rug Gabe gave me to use on the floor."
"Slow down, Danny," Karena admonished automatically. "Let me read the note and think about it for a moment. You go and say hello to Mort. He's wandered over by the edge of the woods."
Danny thrust the slightly battered envelope into her hand, and as he went hurtling off into the dusk, Logan drew her impatiently into his arms. All the misgivings that had plagued her for the past hours fled as his lips sent shivers of pleasure through her.
In Logan's arms, everything seemed possible and the awful doubts of the lonely drive home faded. She looped her arms around his neck and gloried in the passion of his kiss.
"I missed you," he whispered into her ear after a long moment. "I wish you had come along today. Betsy was disappointed at not seeing you again." He wrapped his arms tighter around her midriff, pressing her against him, and she gasped. It was obvious how much he wanted her, and already she could hear Danny's voice, jabbering away to Mort as he led him up the hill to where they were standing.
Logan gave a small groan of frustration and released her. "If Danny goes to the Gardoms," he suggested eagerly, "how about driving with me to St. Paul for those three days? The Itasca session ends then, so I have to go back, and I'd like to show you where I live."
She interpreted the banked fire in his eyes to mean exactly what she herself was imagining. An entire three days alone, away from interruptions. She'd never liked cities, but Karena barely gave that a thought as voluptuous images of long, sensual interludes played wickedly through her mind. Gabe would look after Mort, Karena was plotting as she quickly read Betsy's cheerful invitation.
"Say I can go, Mom, please, we gotta decide because it's only three weeks away."
"You're quite sure this is something you really want to do now, Danny," she teased unmercifully. "I wouldn't want you forced into anything you hated."
"Please, Mom," Danny groaned. "Get serious, okay? This is my whole social life we're talking about here."
Karena rolled her eyes at his dramatics, and then said slowly, "If the Gardoms are going to have you visit again, why don't we write and ask if Liz and Alex could come up here and spend next weekend with you? They'd like to meet Mort, and it would give their mother a break."
"All right!" her son hollered, and she nearly fell over backward as he catapulted himself at her in glee. "We can go fishing and swimming and everything, and Gabe would show them his elk teeth, and—"
"Danny, you nutty kid, you're going to break my ribs," she complained happily. Hugs or kisses from her son were few and far between these days, and she rubbed his unruly shock of thick pale hair affectionately.
Over her son's shoulder, Logan shook his head vigorously and pantomimed horror at the thought of three children around instead of only one.
"And you can ask your forestry students if they want to come up next Sunday and meet Mort," Karena added to Logan. "We may as well have everybody on the same weekend."
Logan groaned, but he offered in a martyred tone, "I'll phone Betsy and see if the kids can ride up with me on Friday night. And I'll tell my students."
Later, he'd asked her a bit desperately, "When are we ever going to get any time alone together?"
It didn't feel right to either of them to pursue the physical side of their relationship in her bedroom with Danny asleep nearby. So after Danny had gone to bed, they took a blanket with them and under a canopy of stars and an August moon that sailed yellow and high overhead, they'd eased their need and fulfilled their love for each other in a clearing by the lake.
The earth was damp and still soggy from the rain, and the mosquitoes took generous portions of Logan's blood. Mort came snuffling out of the lake and stood over them, getting himself soundly cursed by Logan and labeled a pervert, but the intimate time together was wonderful.
There were several times during the following five days when Karena thought maybe this idea of having Alex and Liz and the students visit all at once wasn't so good after all.
What on earth was she, a born recluse, doing inviting all those people over?
Tuesday, Abigail morosely confided that Max had called again Saturday afternoon, talked to her for over an hour about a special bird feeder he'd built for his trailer, said he had to go because he was meeting somebody that evening and he needed to shower, and hung up.
"I stormed out and ate three double hamburgers. He's sabotaging the thin me that's hiding inside this flesh. We talk and laugh and joke at work, we get along great and I figure he really likes me." She stared longingly over at the shack where Max was talking with one of the truck drivers.
"I guess he just doesn't see me as a woman, that's the problem," she complained. "He figures I'm one of the guys from work."
"I think Max is scared of being friends with the lady he's dating. It's easier on him if he keeps them separate," Karena remarked. "Also, he probably needs to see you out of your work clothes, Abigail."
"I'd like to see me out of my work clothes, too," Abigail agreed lecherously. "My legs and my chest are my best assets, and what chance have they got in this rig?"
Karena grinned, and then she heard herself say, "Look, I'm having some people over on Sunday." Was she losing her marbles? "Why don't I invite Max, and ask him to pick you up and bring you, too? He's always going on about wanting to see Mort again, so I'm sure he'll come. We'll have a barbecue or something," she added weakly.
Abigail grabbed her and gave her a hug, spilling cottage cheese all over Karena's jeans.
"You're a real trooper, Kari. I'll make my special chocolate cheesecake to bring along, and when he finds out I can cook and I've got legs under these denim coveralls, Max's barflies will be a thing of the past."
Karena was a lot less enthusiastic. The coming weekend had gotten totally out of hand. It was beginning to seem that the only resident of Minnesota who wouldn't be at her cabin for this gala event on Sunday was Otis. He'd dropped by the night before she talked to Abigail, and when she invited him to join them Sunday, he gave her another lecture about missing church and grumpily announced he wasn't much on parties.
As the weekend drew closer, Karena felt exactly the way she would if she were about to visit the dentist for a root canal. Not that having Lizzie and Alexander come for a visit was any problem, she got on fine with kids. It was Sunday and the advent of the forestry students that loomed over her like Armageddon.
Logan drove in late Friday, and the twins exploded out of the Jeep. They fell instantly in love with Mort, the cabin, the lake and everything Danny and Karena had planned for them.
"Where are we sleeping, Mrs. Carlson?" Lizzie wanted to know almost immediately. "Mom let me borrow her best overnight case, and I've got to take good care of it. I don't think Alex even remembered fresh undershorts," she said scathingly.
Karena showed her where she was putting everyone. Logan, as usual, had the porch, Alex shared Danny's room, and she'd given Lizzie hers, so Karena had made herself a pallet bed up in the tiny loft where she kept her drawing supplies and unfinished pictures.
"Why don't you just sleep with Uncle Logan?" practical Lizzie wanted to know. "He
's in love with you, my mom said so, and on TV when people are in love, they sleep together."
Karena managed to say, "TV isn't real life, Liz. Do you want to come up and see the loft?"
There were several of Karena's half completed sketches of Mort and one of a raccoon on the small table in the stuffy loft.
"I can't believe you can draw like this, Mrs. Carlson," Lizzie enthused. "D'you think you could show me how you do it?"
Karena smiled at her. "Sure, we'll give it a try tomorrow after breakfast. And how about calling me Karena instead of Mrs. Carlson?"
Lizzie gazed at her with absolute worship in her expression, but Karena was relieved that Logan was climbing up the narrow ladder after them. Maybe Lizzie would aim her more difficult queries at him instead.
"Look at this drawing of Mort, Uncle Logan. He was so little and cute like this. He's really big now, isn't he? How come he grew so fast?"
"Some scientists believe that no animal in North America grows as rapidly as a moose, Lizzie," Logan informed her. "A fully grown moose is the largest antlered animal on earth."
"Well, I also read that when a bull moose is in rut, he goes totally nuts and charges at trees and pees all over everything and you should stay away from him," Logan's delicate niece announced calmly. "I never heard anything so disgusting, have you?"
With that, Lizzie climbed down the ladder and ran off to find the boys.
Logan took advantage of the moment of privacy in the tiny loft to kiss Karena thoroughly. "This is probably the last chance I'll get all weekend," he said morosely. "Without that damned Mort spying on us."
"I think you better keep an eye on your niece, as well," Karena suggested dryly.
Logan wasn't listening. He was kissing her in a disturbingly determined fashion, and she soon added shakily, "But even Lizzie has to sleep sometime, and then, well, I've found this lovely little glade not far along the lakeshore, Logan. Logan, stop that now, the kids are coming in."
"A glade patrolled, no doubt, by the largest antlered animal on earth." Logan released her and glared at a study of a much younger Mort. "I just hope I'm around when he's in rut. I'll give him some of his own back."
"If Lizzie's right, you better hope you're not," Karena said.
Saturday flew past. Karena gave Alex and Lizzie lessons in logrolling and Gabe instructed them at ax throwing, and they all had a picnic on the lakeshore.
The van full of students arrived before noon on Sunday. Bright, attractive, voluble young people who scared Karena to death.
"Karena, this is Henry and Tony and Matthew and Laura and Sharon."
She wanted to fade into the underbrush, but Logan wouldn't allow it. He held firmly onto her hand and put her squarely in the limelight. She wanted to murder him on the spot.
"Karena is one of the few people who've succeeded in raising a newborn moose. Normally they don't survive. If you have any questions, she's the one to ask." Then he ambled off with the children and left her in the middle of the students.
"What exactly did you feed Mort at first, Karena, and how?"
"I, ah..." Her heart hammered wildly, and she had to swallow over and over before her voice would work. "I cut the finger from a pair of rubber gloves, because I didn't have a baby's nipple handy, and I tied it on a ginger-ale bottle. We made a bed for him in the cabin, near the stove."
Question followed question, but they were all things she could answer, and several times she even made them laugh. They'd come prepared with bread and oranges, prompted by Logan, and Mort, who'd been hiding behind the cabin in a sudden fit of shyness, was lured out and became boisterously friendly when he realized they had an unlimited supply of his favorite treats. Lately he'd started putting his front hooves up on people's shoulders in a misguided show of camaraderie, and because he now weighed well over a hundred and fifty pounds, he managed to knock most of the students over like bowling pins.
"Mort, you bad moose, behave yourself." Karena smacked his haunches soundly. Mort looked appropriately hangdog for several seconds, and then ambled over to Laura and Sharon and the bag of bread they offered, licking his lips.
The children arrived, escorting Gabe, and within minutes he had a circle of entranced young people around him as he related tales of early logging days in the bush.
Then Max drove in. Karena's eyes widened when she saw Abby step daintily out of his car. She was wearing a soft rose-colored summer dress that revealed an astonishing amount of cleavage, and her legs were surprisingly slender and well-shaped in dainty high-heeled sandals. She wore her hair in a long braid down her back, fastened with a ribbon, and she wore a touch of eyeshadow and lipstick.
"I decided I'd go for broke," Abigail whispered to Karena, while carefully handing over a cheesecake big enough to feed twenty people. "I read somewhere that chocolate is an aphrodisiac, and this perfume I'm wearing is supposed to drive any male insane."
"Just be sure to stay away from Mort; he's bad enough as it is," Karena advised worriedly.
Abigail's trick must have worked on Max, however, because as the afternoon progressed, he couldn't take his eyes off her.
That night, Logan's Jeep was the last to disappear with its cargo of exhausted, happy children. Karena stood waving until it disappeared, and her shoulders slumped as the tension of a day filled with too many people eased.
"Mom, that was the best day I think I ever had." Danny sighed, joining her as she strolled slowly back to the cabin. "Did you see that crazy Mort showing off, Mom? And he tried to sniff the exhaust again when those forestry guys started their van. They absolutely couldn't believe he was for real."
During the day she had watched this gangly, self possessed son of hers talk freely with the students, offer to take Max and Abigail down to see the moose pen he'd help build, and encourage Gabe to tell yet another story.
"Danny, you're a party animal," she sighed, slinging an arm around his neck and using a term she'd heard from the truck drivers.
He laughed. His head already reached past her shoulder. "We should do that again next weekend. You did real good for somebody who isn't a people person, y'know, Mom?"
She moaned dramatically and pretended to stagger around as if the whole thing had left her demented, but she felt that she hadn't done all that badly.
But unlike Danny, she hoped she didn't have to do it again for at least another forty years.
"Now, Karena, you just spill the beans to old Abigail about this gorgeous hunk of man you've been keeping so quiet about," her flamboyant friend demanded at lunch on Monday after confiding gleefully that Max had asked her out on a real, honest-to-goodness date for the next weekend.
"How'd you meet Logan? "
Karena told her, and once started, she found herself going on and on. "He's been driving up from Itasca every weekend to see me, and I try not to think about him going back to St. Paul in September, but I'm going to miss him terribly, Abigail, I know that," she concluded.
"For heaven's sake, woman, haven't you ever heard of marriage? Obviously, you two need to get married. You'd save a lot on gas bills, for one thing."
"I've thought about it. I just can't see how it would ever work. Where would we live, for instance? I hate cities, and his work is there. He's a university graduate, and I never made it through high school. I've never met any of his friends, but even his sister scares me because she's everything I'm not."
It was such a relief for Karena to spill out all her concerns to someone. She blurted, "Honestly, sometimes I think the only thing totally right between us is s—" She stopped abruptly at the avid look on Abigail's face and weakly substituted, "Our sense of humor."
Abby gave her a knowing look. "I certainly hope Max and I get around to sharing a few laughs before I get much older." She sighed pensively.
Karena told Abigail about the upcoming long weekend in St. Paul.
''We'll have a chance to be alone together, which is fantastic, but I don't want to have to meet people," she said vehemently. "And I hate cities,
they make me claustrophobic."
"So be really claustrophobic and stay in bed with him for the whole three days," Abigail advised. Then she said wonderingly, "You're really worried about this, aren't you? Look, all you have to do is relax."
"That's exactly what male experts recommend about childbirth," Karena said glumly. Abigail was no help at all.
The following weekend at the cabin was quiet. They fished and swam, and Karena worked at her drawing in the afternoon while Danny and Logan went off to visit Gabe. They all ate supper on a makeshift table the men rigged up outside, and looking around at Gabe and Logan and Danny, Karena found herself wishing her father were there as well. He must be lonely, the stubborn man.
The next week flew past. Gabe came and collected Mort for the weekend, and early Saturday morning, she and Danny met Logan at the Gardoms' as they'd arranged. Karena could find no excuse for avoiding a meeting this time, but she felt absurdly nervous as they climbed the steps and rang the doorbell.
Liz answered the door, her red hair flying around her flushed face. "Danny, guess what? That cow, Sugarpie, had her calf last night. Alex and Dad are down at the barn with her now and they said when you came to tell you to go and see." Danny bolted for the barn, and tardily, Liz's gaze went to the adults, standing on the steps.
"Oh, hi, you guys. Mom says please come in." Liz remembered her manners and turned prim, but Logan grabbed her in a bear hug.
"Aren't you going to say, 'Uncle Logan, control yourself,' like you always do?" he demanded.
Liz shook her head. "I like hugs," she declared smugly. "When I get a boyfriend, I'm gonna hug him all the time. Come in the kitchen, Mom's feeding Nicole."
Betsy was seated comfortably in an armless rocking chair, nonchalantly nursing the baby. She smiled warmly at both of them, and Karena relaxed slightly and smiled back. It was hard to feel threatened by a woman in jeans nursing a baby.
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