Follow A Wild Heart (romance,)

by Hutchinson, Bobby

  He'd resent her for it, the way she resented her own father for his stubborn attitude toward Gabe, his narrowmindedness, his attempt to control her life.

  Well, there was no comparison between the two situations.

  Her father was totally unwilling to compromise, that was his problem.

  She forced as much of the soup down as she could without choking, using the remnants of her will to keep herself from formulating the question that logically followed that conclusion about Otis. It sneaked into her brain anyway, and she got up from the table and hurried out to the bathhouse, running from it.

  Inside the door, the warmth and silence of the cedar smelling room engulfed her, but the question was there waiting for her.

  How about you, Karena? How willing are you to compromise? Aren't you reacting exactly like your father?

  Chapter Eleven

  Logan was in a meeting. The large private company that had sponsored his department's latest research grant had sent a committee to assess the advisability of renewing the sizable fund for another year. Logan read the fifth and sixth pages of the pamphlet he and his colleagues had put together as a sample of what they were doing.

  It was a study titled, "Economical Methods of Decreasing Moisture Content of Green Wood Chips: Resultant Energy Benefits."

  Not one single word in the whole thing made sense to him, and he'd supervised the study and written the paper himself.

  Before Karena. Everything he did now seemed divided into Before and After Karena.

  "Our goal is to develop a system that will effectively increase the amount of energy from a given amount of forest residue..."

  He pretended to listen as one of his colleagues, Dr. Edgar Mason, effectively sewed up the grant for another year.

  He should feel elated: the project was his baby. Instead, Logan came to the conclusion that he simply didn't give a damn.

  He tossed the papers down on the boardroom table and closed his eyes wearily, then opened them again, because every time he shut them Karena's face was vividly etched on a screen in his mind.

  It had been a month now since he'd seen her. He'd made forty different plans for salvaging their relationship, and not one was any good.

  What good were plans, when he wanted Karena so much he was willing to make any concessions whatever with his job, his home, his life, in order to have her?

  A dozen times, he'd decided to simply turn his back on everything, his apartment, his life-style, his career, and drive to her cabin and stay there for the rest of his natural life.

  "If you did that, you'd resent me for the emptiness in your life," he could hear her saying, and much as he hated to admit it, Karena was right. He knew he needed his job, friends, a life-style he was comfortable with.

  Those weeks at Itasca, the weekends at her place, had taught Logan a great deal about himself that he hadn't really wanted to know. For instance, he admitted now he wasn't the rough-and-ready cavalier he'd always fancied himself to be, and the admission didn't do a whole lot for his ego.

  He was no wimp, but he hated to live without indoor plumbing. He hated fiddling with that diesel generator every night and morning, the stink, the noise, when simply living where electricity was available made it unnecessary. Heating with wood that had to be found, dragged home, stacked and chopped wasn't at all romantic to him. He saw it as hard, unnecessary work, and he hadn't even tried it in the wintertime.

  He liked theaters and restaurants and telephones and saunas.

  Those were minor points, however. He'd cheerfully accommodate himself to her cabin, if the other problems were solvable.

  There was this career of his. He could apply for a different sort of job, one that would take him out of the college and into rural forestry somewhere near Northome. He'd always thought of that as a possibility at some future time, when research began to pall.

  Except that now, perversely enough, he wanted to teach. Itasca had backfired on him. It had shown him what he wanted to spend his life doing. Not research, not sitting in stuffy meetings like this one to justify what he was producing. Not even working in rural forestry, or going out into private industry.

  "Professor Baxter, we learned a lot from you," one of the kids from Itasca had told him earnestly that final day. "To begin with, we just thought you were the worst. But you kind of tricked us into doing our best. You taught us how to learn, y'know?"

  For the first time in his academic career, Logan had felt like a hero.

  And now, he wanted to challenge more young minds, make them see what forestry was really all about. He'd felt a response to those young people up at Itasca, he'd felt stimulated. He'd felt a deep sense of human involvement and self-fulfillment that had been lacking in his career.

  It took him several weeks after he got back to admit it, but he missed every last one of those maddening students. He missed Itasca, he even missed the damned soil pits.

  Worst of all, worse than anything he'd ever experienced before, was the way he missed Karena. And Danny. And, God help him, Mortimer Moose. They'd become his family, his center, his purpose for living, and he was desolate without them.

  There had to be a solution, a compromise to this dilemma, that would suit everyone. He had to formulate a workable plan for living with Karena, because he sure as hell couldn't stand living without her.

  The first step seemed to be to get his life in order here. He was going to his department head the instant this meeting was over to ask if he could assume teaching duties on any level whatsoever.

  Then, he had to mail a version of the letter to Karena he'd spent four weeks writing and tearing up. It had started as a ten page testimonial of his feelings for her, but what was the point of that?

  She knew how he felt about her. That wasn't the issue.

  The letter was now a one page sterile note, stuck in with the detailed information Brian Sutton had sent him about the Michigan Wildlife Society's re-entry project.

  The project was an exciting and ambitious attempt by concerned naturalists to help wild animals like Mort who had become reliant on man for their survival to learn to adapt to their natural environment. Brian and several students from Itasca who had helped him investigate the project felt that it was the ideal solution for Mort, and the response from the people in Michigan had been enthusiastic. Logan had phoned several times and discussed Mort with the supervisor.

  "The only stipulation we have is that the moose be brought here as soon as possible," he'd insisted. "Our most successful efforts have involved younger animals, and this moose is still under a year, not yet in rut. He's still young enough to pattern to other moose. We have funds available for transporting costs, and I'm mailing other information."

  There were details and names, and Logan had already contacted the naturalists who would help with all the arrangements. Now all that was required was a go-ahead from Karena.

  September had brought a long, warm spell of Indian summer, and there still wasn't any snow in the woods this second week of October. The sky stayed its faded denim blue, but for the past several days an icy wind blew that managed to cut through Karena's layers of thermal underwear and woolen stocking cap, chilling her to the bone.

  Maybe she felt the cold more intensely because of the icy chill in the region of her heart, she thought tiredly as she climbed into the truck for the long drive home.

  Where had the contentment gone, the pleasure she used to feel at the end of a day at the prospect of going home to her snug cabin and her son? Everything had seemed to go sour on her lately, and even Danny was quieter than she'd known him to be as the weekends came and went and he realized Logan wasn't going to come back.

  Gabe, too, was gone, at least temporarily. His sister Ida had come and taken him back to Portland to convalesce.

  "I figger it'll give the old girl a purpose in life, having me around to take care of," he'd told Karena and Danny. "And derned if I don't need somebody to fetch and carry for a while. This overhaul's left me weak as a lamb." />
  "We'll take care of you, Gabe," Danny had offered wistfully.

  Gabe reached out and tousled his hair. "I know you would, son, but you're in school and your mammy has to work, and that sister of mine has nothin' at all to do. This is good for her. I'll be back soon, don't you fret."

  Karena's heart ached for Danny. He'd lost Gabe and Logan at the same time, but when she tried to talk with him about it, he clammed up on her. She often heard his angry voice outside, though, going on and on to Mort.

  Mort was becoming a major pain in the neck. One day Karena had arrived home before Danny to find a terrified young woman hiding behind the cabin, while Mort stood like a sentinel by her small car, playfully butting at her when she tried to get in her vehicle and leave.

  Karena bawled Mort out soundly and took the shaken young lady into the cabin for coffee.

  "I'm Shannon Marshall, I'm with Evergreen Realty," she explained when she'd calmed down. "I have a client who wants a hideaway by a lake, and I've been driving around exploring the area. I drove in here and knocked on your door. I would have left since no one was home, but that— that animal came out of the woods and right over to me, and I panicked."

  She left Karena her card, assuring her that she could sell the "property" immediately if Karena ever wanted to.

  "It's rustic and charming, and as long as the moose doesn't come with the house—" She left with a weak grin and a joke, but the situation could have been far more serious, Karena realized. Mort was a wild animal, even though she and Danny never thought of him that way. And he was becoming more unpredictable the older he got.

  Even her job had lost its appeal. The long, solitary hours outdoors gave her far too much time to think, to remember, and besides, she missed Abigail. The training program had ended the previous week.

  "Max and I are enjoying a meaningful relationsip," Abigail had assured Karena with a wink the day she left, and Max brought homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies these days for the birds.

  It was wonderful, Karena thought sadly, that someone's romance was progressing the way it should.

  The fat envelope from Logan was waiting when she stopped at the mailbox by the turnoff, and she stared down at it, the truck's engine idling as she tore it open with shaking fingers.

  Nothing has changed, she warned herself sternly. Nothing can change.

  But she scanned the single sheet hungrily.

  "My dear Karena," it began, and her heart hammered sickly. She loved him, needed him, missed him, and she read the brief, businesslike message and glanced at the other material with a sick hopelessness in her stomach.

  The note was starkly brief and almost impersonal. It told her everything she needed to know about sending Mort away, and nothing she longed to know about the man she loved with every fiber of her being.

  "I miss you, I intend to see you soon," he'd ended tersely. "All my love, Logan." There was a letter for Danny, and that was it.

  Mort came cantering over when she got home, bumping her so hard it was all she could do to keep her balance. She whacked him hard to stop him from putting his front legs on her shoulders, and as usual, he looked puzzled and surprised.

  "Oh, Mort, you old softie," she chided, and fed him the sandwiches she'd left at lunchtime.

  Karena suspected that in Mort's mind, he was still an adorable baby, but the fact was, he'd lost his baby face long ago, and his nose had become distinctively down turned. He was five months old now, and his face was long, narrow, serious and sad, with the lugubriously tragic expression mature moose have. He was much taller than Karena, with humped shoulders and a pronounced goatee hanging down from his throat. He was growing bigger every day, requiring incredible amounts of food, getting more rambunctious, rougher in his play.

  With a lump in her throat, Karena studied him. The time had come to part, and the longer she procrastinated about it, the harder it seemed.

  Danny simply denied the necessity. Karena was certain the letter Logan had sent the boy dealt with Mort's leaving. Danny tore it open, skimmed the contents and threw the letter in the fire. Then he raced out the door.

  Karena read the detailed information about the reentry project. Sadly, she admitted it was the right solution for Mort.

  She wrote the necessary letters that night and mailed them the next morning, making sure Danny knew what she was doing. The confirmations were back the following Monday. Mort would be moved within a week.

  That Monday evening, Karena showed Danny the letter from the naturalists.

  "This is the best thing for Mort, and we should talk about it, Danny, please," she begged him. He went in his room and slammed the door.

  Wednesday, when supper was over, she made another attempt to reach her son.

  "Danny, I'm just as sad about seeing Mort leave as you are."

  He shoved angrily away from the table, pushing his chair back roughly and starting to hurry out, his features set in blank, cold rejection.

  "Danny Carlson, you stop right there," Karena hollered. She seldom ever used that commanding tone on him, and she hated doing it now. But he simply had to listen, to accept what was inevitable.

  "You sit down and listen to me," she ordered, her voice rising until she was nearly shouting. "You knew this had to come with Mort. I warned you in the beginning when we first got him what would eventually happen."

  She heard her voice, harping at him, and with a feeling of utter horror, she realized she was sounding just like Otis often did when he was angry with her, even using the same phrases: "I warned you... you didn't listen... I told you so..."

  Appalled at herself, she stopped and sat silently for a while, staring at her son's pale, rebellious features. His mouth was set in an angry, thin line, and his eyes were full of hostility.

  She struggled for the right tone, the words that might have meaning for Danny. She made her voice soft, tried to instill in it the love she wanted to convey to him.

  "Mort is maturing, son. The older he gets, the more problems he's going to create, and the greater the danger of his being shot or injured in some way, or even worse, of his injuring someone else." Danny was staring stonily ahead, showing no reaction whatsoever. It was as if he didn't even hear her. Karena forced herself to go on.

  "Look what happened with that real-estate woman. What if Mort had really hurt her instead of only knocking her down? We could be sued, Danny, but worse than that, think how we'd feel about it if he seriously injured anyone. It wouldn't be his fault, but Mort would have to be destroyed. Isn't it better to let him go before he gets any older, while he still has a chance to be wild and free?"

  She talked on and on, not even sure he was listening. At last she ran down, and silence filled the kitchen, not a comfortable silence but a heavy, miserable cloud between them.

  Finally, Danny met her eyes, and the angry resentment and hurt she saw there made her shrivel inside.

  Nothing she'd said had penetrated at all, nothing had made the slightest difference to how he felt. Her arms ached to reach out and hold him to her breast, to hold him and be able to comfort him in the way she had those few short years ago when he was little. But she knew withouteven trying that he'd draw back, pull away from her arms.

  "Can I go now?" It was as if she'd been punishing him. Never in her wildest imaginings had she thought the day would come when this boy who talked her nearly to distraction since the day he learned to put two sentences together would start driving her crazy by refusing to say anything, but he was doing it.

  "I have to do the chores and it's going to be dark pretty soon."

  She lifted her hands up in a gesture of defeat and dropped them to her sides. "Go ahead, Danny. You'll have to get through this on your own, if you won't talk with me about it. But I feel just as sad as you do about it."

  "If you did, then you wouldn't send him away. You send everybody away. You sent Logan away, too." He slammed the door viciously, and she watched through the window as he ran recklessly down the path to the woods with the moo
se hard on his heels. She suspected Danny was crying. She certainly was.

  He came home hours later, silently did his homework and went off to his bedroom, firmly shutting the door. He was still sleeping when she got up for work on Thursday morning, and she didn't wake him until just before she left.

  "Bye, Mom," he mumbled groggily, and she reached down and tenderly tousled the mop of pale hair spread on the pillow.

  "We'll have to get you a haircut soon, or else license you," she said lightly, in a futile effort to dispel the ugly memory of last night's anger.

  "Get up now, lazybones, you don't want to miss the school bus. I've left the bread and cereal out for you, and the oranges are on the table. Mort can have a couple, there's a big bag of them." She bent down and kissed him, and he turned his head away.

  The bag of oranges was gone, and his note was propped against the box of cereal when she came home that after noon.

  "Mom, don't worry about us," his scrawled message read. "I don't want Morf to go far away with those guys, he's big now so I'm taking him where there are other moose. We'll be fine, I took food. Love, Danny."

  Karena stood in the cold and empty kitchen, reading it over and over stupidly. Then, when the meaning of the words filtered through, she ran to his bedroom, threw the doors of his closet wide. His parka was gone, his sleeping bag, ground sheet, his back pack.

  "God, please, no," she whimpered.

  She ran out then, through the living room and over to the kitchen door, throwing it open so ferociously it struck the wall behind. The yard was accusingly empty, and the cold air was causing mist to rise on the lake.

  "Danny," she screamed toward the forest, and her throat hurt with the force of it. "Danny? Come back, Danny."

  It was already gray twilight, and her voice echoed eerily.

  "Back, back, back," it begged in fading tones.

  Her heart was hammering as if it were about to leap from her chest, and she couldn't get her breath. Shaking violently, she snatched her jacket and hurried outside, clutching it to her breast for long moments before she remembered to put it on. She was shuddering uncontrollably, but not from the cold.