“That’s why I cater to women,” she explained. “And because it’s good business. I’ve discovered a niche that needed filling. The women of this world are just as interested in the wilderness as men are, or even more so. And they have fun.”
“And this market is what Simms was after?” Ben asked.
“Yup. That and my acreage.”
There was a knock on the kitchen door loud enough to rattle the windows. Emma saw Jasmine’s eyes widen in horror.
“Oh, God. I’m dead,” the girl said, sliding back her chair and standing up. “Thank you for dinner, Miss Sands. I’ve got to go.”
Ben had reached the door and opened it. He must not have liked what he saw any more than Jasmine did, because he took a defensive stand between their visitor and the girl.
“Where’s my daughter?” came a booming voice.
“She’s just finishing her dinner. You’re Mr. LeBlanc, I take it?” Ben answered.
Emma said quietly, “You don’t have to run, Jasmine. We’ll invite your dad in for some pie.”
The girl turned her look of horror on Emma, then blushed. “I have to go.”
“Jasmine! Come on, girl.”
Emma stood up. She stepped in front of Mikey, who was headed for the door, and pulled him to a stop before pushing past Ben.
“Good evening, John. You didn’t have to come all the way out here. I was going to bring your daughter home. Why don’t you have some pie before you leave?”
John’s demeanor suddenly changed, and his face turned as red as Mikey’s.
“Good evening, Emma. I … we can’t stay. I’ve got a Grange meeting tonight.”
“Some other time then, John. Come on. I’ll walk you to your truck while Jasmine gets her school pack.”
As she closed the door behind her, she saw Ben staring at her through the glass. She smiled and led John away from the house and certain trouble.
“What was that all about?” Ben asked.
“Nothing,” Emma answered as she sat down at the table to have her pie.
Mikey snorted.
Emma shot him a warning look, but the boy ignored it. “That was John LeBlanc. He doesn’t particularly care for me. Nor you, either, if he learns you’re Benjamin Sinclair,” Mikey informed him.
“Why?”
“Something about the sins of the father,” Mikey explained as he served himself a piece of pie, not sounding terribly concerned.
Ben shot Emma a questioning look. “Is it common knowledge that I’m Mike’s father?”
“Yes. And John LeBlanc was on duty at the dam the morning it was blown up. He walks with a limp now, and like everyone else in town, he blames you and the environmentalists you came here with.”
Ben stood up and paced to the woodstove. He turned to Emma and his son. “It’s archaic to blame Mike for something they think I did. Does everyone else treat him like that?”
“No, just a few. Mostly those who were directly involved. Durham did for a while, but I set him straight years ago. He was Dad’s closest friend and the one who found him. It’s hard for some people to let go.”
“LeBlanc certainly changed his attitude when you showed up. Why?”
“John used to date Nem,” Mikey piped up.
Emma could see that Ben didn’t like that news, either.
“His kid’s your age, Mike. Which means …” He looked over at Emma. “That you were just a baby when you dated him.”
“Jasmine’s his stepdaughter,” Emma explained. “And I was nineteen at the time and he was twenty-six. Any other questions?”
“No. But I think you should know that you’re not dancing with anyone else tomorrow night.”
“You don’t really intend to go to that dance, do you?”
“Hell, yes. We have a date.”
Emma looked at Mikey, who was nodding agreement. No help from that quarter. “Someone’s bound to recognize you, Ben. There’s sure to be trouble.”
“I don’t intend to hide out here for two more months. And it’s probably time I cleared my name, don’t you think?” He looked at his son. “And Mike’s, too.”
“A local dance is not the place for public vindication. Especially not when liquor’s involved. Half the town will be drinking tomorrow night, and the other half will be carting them home and tucking them into bed.”
“I won’t start anything.”
“You won’t have to. Don’t you see? These are hardworking, uncomplicated people, and they have long memories when they’ve been wronged. If just one person recognizes you, there’s going to be trouble.”
“John LeBlanc didn’t recognize me.”
Emma walked over to stand in front of him. “Wayne Poulin probably will.”
He growled deep in his chest. “Is that bastard still around? I would have thought someone had killed him years ago.”
Emma remained silent.
He glanced at Michael, then back at her. “Who … who did Kelly run off with?” he asked in a suddenly subdued voice. “I thought she was in love with Poulin.” He darted another look in Michael’s direction. “That’s what she told me that … that day.”
Emma went back and started clearing the table. “We don’t know. According to Wayne, it was some guy she’d been seeing in Bangor.” Emma shrugged. “It’s possible. She went shopping there often enough.”
She took Mikey’s untouched pie from him. “Kelly and Wayne fought more than they loved. Wayne would get crazy jealous if Kelly even looked at another man. She probably got tired of the roller-coaster relationship and took off with the first man who offered her a way out.”
Michael pushed his chair back and stood up. “Be thankful, Dad,” he told Ben. “I could have been living with Wayne Poulin all these years if Kelly had married him.” The boy made a face and gave an exaggerated shiver. “But for the grace of God and my frightened mother, I could have been his stepson.”
Ben blew out a tired sigh. “What a mess.”
“Things have a way of working out for the best,” Michael said. “Don’t look back. Look at the present. And the future. I’ve had a good childhood; I’ve been loved, given security, and experienced life to the fullest so far.” He gave his father a great big grin. “And I’ve still got a lot of living ahead of me, and it’s going to be a wonderful adventure. Don’t regret anything. If you hadn’t come here sixteen years ago, I wouldn’t exist.”
With a gentle punch to his father’s arm, Michael walked out of the kitchen, giving Emma a wink.
The silence he left behind was thoughtful. Emma didn’t move. Neither did Ben.
“He’s right, Ben,” she said into the void. “I’ve been silently thanking you for Michael for the last fifteen years.”
“I wish … I’m sorry I missed those years,” he said, still not turning. “I would like to have known him.”
“You can now.”
Ben finally turned around, and Emma watched a play of emotions cross his face. Curiosity settled into place when he finally spoke again. “Where’s Kelly now? Has she ever contacted Mike?”
Emma shook her head and went back to clearing the table. “I had taken Mikey with me to Portland for the weekend,” she explained. “When we returned, all I found was a note from her saying she had to leave for a while. It also said she’d call once she got settled, and that she’d send for Mikey.” She looked at him. “She never did either one.”
Ben’s face was unreadable.
Emma carried the dishes to the sink before she turned to him again. “Wayne Poulin claims Kelly has written him two or three times over the years, but I don’t know if I believe him. He was always a loud braggart, especially when he was drinking. He continues to claim she’ll come back to him.” Emma shook her head. “He’s trying to save face, even after all these years. I actually feel sorry for him.”
“Why didn’t Kelly marry Wayne? She told me she intended to.” He snorted. “Apparently I was just someone to pass the time with, because her real boyfriend was spending the summe
r at some logging camp in Canada. When he came home, she ran right back to him. It took me a week to get her alone again, so I could ask her to come to New York with me. “
“I don’t think she was running back to Wayne as much as she was running away from you.”
Ben stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“Kelly was afraid of you, Ben. You were so sophisticated and worldly, and so passionate about the dam not being built. I think Kelly was afraid that if she fell in love with you, you’d … you would overwhelm her.”
“She told you this?”
“More or less. I tried to get her to contact you several times during her pregnancy, but she was afraid you’d insist she and the baby move to New York. Or worse, that you’d fight for custody.” Emma walked over to him and touched his arm. “She was eighteen and scared, Ben. And we’d just lost our father. We were both scared. So we took the insurance money the lumber mill paid us for Dad’s death, bought Medicine Creek Camps, and we clung to each other.”
“She was nineteen and you were only fifteen.”
“Friends helped out a lot. And Kelly was old enough to get custody of me, mostly thanks to the people in town.”
“You still haven’t said why Kelly didn’t marry Poulin.”
“That was the one smart thing Kelly did. Wayne went ballistic when he found out she was pregnant, and she knew he’d never accept Michael.” She started washing the pots in the sink. “Wayne went to college that fall, and when he came back the next spring, Michael had been born. Kelly and Wayne got together and broke up at least a dozen times over the next five years. Until she suddenly vanished into thin air.”
She stopped talking and silence settled over the kitchen, but for the sound of clanking pots as she scrubbed them. Emma had gotten over her adolescent crush on Benjamin Sinclair the day Kelly had left, blaming him for the whole damn mess. Instead of staying and fighting for Kelly’s love, he had abandoned them all, and Kelly had only followed his example.
And on that long-ago night, Emma had decided the only person she could ultimately rely on was herself. She glanced at the man of her dreams—and her nightmares—and found him staring out the back door at nothing. It was then she suddenly realized she’d unknowingly been holding on to her hopes these past ten years. Ben had come for his son as soon as he’d known, and he’d grown into someone even more remarkable than her teenage mind could have imagined.
But it was too late for her. She had struggled too long and worked too hard to risk her heart.
“You should take Mikey down to Bangor tomorrow, to a hockey game at the university. He would probably like that.”
He turned, his eyes dark with some unidentifiable emotion. “Tomorrow night?”
“Yeah. The hockey team’s really good.”
“But that would mean you and I would miss the dance in town.”
“I guess so. But I would understand.”
His approach reminded her of a stalking bobcat, and Emma took a cautious step back, holding a pot lid up like a shield.
He caught her by the shoulders and just stared at her, his hands warm and solid, his whole presence overwhelming.
“Are you afraid to be seen with me? Is that it? Are you afraid to go out with the man you think killed your father?”
Emma snorted and pulled free, her eyes narrowed as she planted her hands on her hips. “For an intelligent man, you sure can be dense sometimes. You wouldn’t be standing here now if I thought you killed my father.” She pointed at him. “Your only sin was walking away from my sister without a fight.”
She saw him flinch, and she continued. “It appears you leave your brain at home when you come here, Ben. Sixteen years ago, the result was Mikey. This time you could start an all-out war. The clear-cutting controversy is much more widespread than the dam was. More jobs are at stake and more men are desperate. There’s also the question of my feelings. I don’t intend to be your entertainment. I’m not dancing with you and I’m not hopping into your bed only to watch you walk away again, taking Mikey with you this time. Understand?”
He forced her back a step. “Nothing about my being here is entertaining. This has got to be the most difficult journey I’ve ever made. And the most important.” Emma glared at him, but he just smiled back. “Thank you for sending me that letter.”
“I didn’t send the damn letter!”
He continued talking as if she hadn’t spoken. “It might have been a little late in coming, but I’m grateful anyway.”
“I did not send that damn letter,” she repeated through gritted teeth.
He took hold of her shoulders and kissed her nose. “I forgive you for waiting so long, because I understand. And don’t worry; I’ll look out for Mike in this land-use war. I’ll keep him safe.”
She wiggled away and bolted for the great room. He called her name, and she stopped and turned. “What?”
“There’s one more thing you’re mistaken about.”
“And that would be?”
“When I get you in my bed, entertainment will be the last thing on my mind.”
Just then the dishes in the cupboard began to rattle and the floor started to vibrate. Emma knew it was just another one of the small tremors they’d been experiencing for the last couple of months, yet she was suddenly afraid Ben had commanded the very forces of nature to prove his power.
She fled to the safety of her bedroom.
Chapter Nine
Every so often the world seemed to close in around her, and Emma got the urge to escape. Usually she hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail up to Mount Katahdin, and with every step deeper into the wilderness, things would somehow fall into perspective. Climbing mountains and wading across streams quickly reminded Emma that a single life was insignificant in the bigger scheme of things, and that whatever problem she was facing was usually minor when viewed through the eyes of Mother Nature.
But hiking wasn’t going to help her today, so she went shopping instead.
She flew down to Bangor, landing on Pushaw Lake and bumming a car from someone at the seaplane base. Then she spent the morning wandering around the mall, eating fast food and trying on shoes that tortured her feet. And for the first time in over ten years, Emma entered a store that had nothing but home furnishings, and bought decorative towels.
Eventually she headed for a dress shop. It took her over an hour, and more nerve than she knew she possessed, but she finally purchased a dress she would probably have to burn after tonight.
The whole flight home, the bag from the boutique sat beside her. The salesgirl, and even some customers, had talked her into buying the dress, and the closer to home Emma got, the more her courage deserted her. What had she been thinking? Had some oversexed fairy suddenly taken over her brain? She couldn’t actually wear the damn thing in public.
She would have to burn it before tonight.
Emma suddenly banked the Cessna, aborting her approach to Medicine Creek Camps and headed back down the lake. It was time to visit with Greta.
“Well, well. Look what my cat dragged in.”
“This poor old thing couldn’t catch a cricket. I carried him in.”
“So now that you’ve done your good deed for the day, come have some tea with me, Emma Jean. I just made a carrot cake.”
“No wonder Wayne Poulin and Sheriff Ramsey are looking so fat lately. You’re feeding them too well, Greta.”
Greta LaVoie brushed that aside and motioned to Emma to take a seat. The petite woman lifted the kettle from the stove and began filling it with water. Then, with motions that belied her seventy-five years, she bustled to her china cabinet and set up a tray for tea.
Emma did as she was told, dropping her bags on the floor beside her and sitting in comfortable silence, waiting for the only mother figure she had ever known to begin mothering her. This was exactly what she needed. In this ramshackle old boardinghouse, Emma had always been treated like a princess. Greta had been coddling and caring for her since Emma was six years
old. Scraped knees, broken hearts, and one or two squirrel bites had been mended here by a woman who hadn’t changed in twenty-four years. As timeless and as constant as Medicine Lake itself, Greta Lavoie had been Emma’s sanctuary.
The caring and worry went both ways.
Six years ago Greta had lost her lifelong companion, and had leaned on Emma in her grief. Sable Jones had affectionately been known in town as Greta’s sister, but everyone had known the truth. Same-sex living arrangements were nearly unheard-of forty years ago, when the women had arrived in Medicine Gore, but they had quickly become part of the close-knit community. The two women had bought this old house and opened up a boarding home, taking in mostly bachelor woodsmen who wanted to be cooked for and pampered. When Sable Jones had died, the entire town had come to her funeral and mourned their loss.
“How’s things out at Medicine Creek?” Greta asked as she cut two large pieces of cake and set them on the tray.
“Fine. Greta, have you ever seen Wayne Poulin get any mail from away?”
Wayne had been boarding at Greta’s for nearly fifteen years, and Emma had been thinking about Wayne, and Kelly, and Ben’s letter.
“Sure. He gets lots of mail from away. He corresponds with other foresters all over the world. Why?”
“Would you have noticed if he ever got any mail that could have been from … from Kelly?”
Greta stopped fussing with her dishes and looked over at Emma, sorrow etching her aged face. “No, child. I know he’s said Kelly has written him, but I haven’t seen any letters like that.”
Emma shrugged. “I was just wondering.”
Greta walked over and set her hand on Emma’s shoulder. “Kelly would have written you, not Wayne. I don’t believe anything he’s said about her. He was mighty upset when she left, and he’s still telling people she’ll come back to him. It’s his pride speaking, Emma Jean.”
Emma nodded agreement. “I thought so. But I wondered.”
“Been shopping, I see,” Greta said as her foot touched the bags Emma had brought in. “What’d ya get?”
With a grand flourish, Emma picked up one of the bags and plopped it on the table. “When have I ever gone to Bangor and not brought something back for you?” she asked, reaching into the bag and leaving her hand there.
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