Northern Lights Trilogy

by Lisa Tawn Bergren

  He was…magnetic. She had seen women turn and look back at him as they passed. Thankfully she had never discovered him looking too. In the three months he had been in Juneau, he had never given her cause to wonder. Everything was beginning to feel so…right.

  “What is it, kitten?” he asked softly. He ducked his head to catch her gaze, and, in doing so, his face neared hers.

  Kaatje was silent, only looked back into his eyes, and then allowed her gaze to drift down his straight nose to his full lips.

  He apparently understood her feelings, her desire, because he took a step closer. “Kaatje, are you ready?”

  “I am getting closer every day,” she whispered.

  Soren took her hand and pulled her along the porch of the roadhouse, then along a narrow alleyway, a shoveled track that led to the back. The snowdrifts were deep, and they were suddenly alone in a white cavern, away from the prying eyes of passersby. He waited no longer. Placing his large hands on her back, one between her shoulder blades and the other at her tailbone, he slowly, agonizingly slowly, pulled her to him. She gave in to his touch, all too willing to surrender to the desire she felt for the husband she had not lain with in seven years.

  His breath was sweet and warm on her face as he brought her to him in quiet, languid passion. Kaatje fought the desire to fling herself toward him, giving in to the ecstasy of being sucked into marital pleasures. He was teasing her, testing her to make sure she really was right about her feelings. Barely touching her lips then pulling slightly away, watching as her eyelids drooped with desire, studying her like a tutor with a student finally learning how to solve a difficult problem.

  A bolt of electricity suddenly shot through Kaatje from head to toe, and she wrenched away, taking a step backward. He was using his body as a means to controlling her. She could see it clearly now. He followed her, a look of confusion and concern lurking at the edges of his expression, seemingly trying to recapture the moment. To regain control. Control. He pulled her to him again.

  She put a quick hand on his chest and turned sideways, fighting to contain her composure. “No.”

  “Kaatje, say yes.…”

  “No! I will not do this! Don’t you see, Soren? I need to forgive you with my heart and mind before I forgive you with my body. It has to be.…straight. Or else it will never be—”

  He pulled her even closer, pushing away her hand and pulling her tightly against him. “You desire me. I felt it. I know you, Kaatje. You want your husband again. You want me.”

  His tone was victorious, driving her fear deeper, as if seducing her would be the final battle. She had been so close to giving in. She was still fighting the heat inside her, the desire to let Soren win and give herself up as the spoils. He cupped her chin, urging her lips toward his.

  “No,” she gasped. “Stop!” she shouted, when he did not.

  He dropped his hands, his face filled with the confusion she felt.

  “I’m sorry, Soren. I’ve…made a mistake. I still need time.”

  “Time?” His confusion turned to anger. “You think you can do that to me? I’ve been waiting a long time for you, Kaatje. A long time!” His voice was rising too. He turned to pace away from her and then back. “Have I not proven myself to you? For three months, I’ve been the model citizen. The model husband! I go to church with you! I shovel your walk! I take whatever crumbs you give me. Now, it is time to take what is mine,” he said lowly, angrily pointing toward his chest and advancing upon her. She backed up and stumbled over a fallen icicle.

  He was instantly beside her, pulling her up, toward him.

  “No!” she shouted. “No!”

  “Kaatje—”

  “What is going on here?” Kaatje knew the voice behind her. It was James. “What are you doing to her?” Suddenly he was right behind her in the narrow alley, shouting over her shoulder at Soren.

  “I was only helping her up,” Soren grit out. “And besides, this is none of your business.”

  “Even if it wasn’t Kaatje,” James ground back, “I would come to the aid of a woman under attack.”

  Kaatje was beginning to feel stupid. After all, she had come with Soren.

  He echoed her thoughts. “I wasn’t giving her anything she hadn’t asked for for weeks.”

  “I did tell you to stop,” she protested. “Only after you kissed me,” he returned.

  Kaatje shook her head, feeling woozy on her feet. “I need to go.” “What?” Soren asked.

  She turned to James. “I need some time. To leave. Leave Juneau for a while.”

  “What?” Soren repeated, looking bewildered.

  “James, will you escort me to Ketchikan? Tonight?”

  “You cannot be serious,” Soren complained, following them out of the snowbound alley. “You’re going where?”

  She turned back to Soren, but held on to James’s arm. “To Ketchikan, Soren. I need some time, time away from you. Being with you has helped in some ways, but now I’m simply…confused.”

  “But why have him along?” Soren spat out, nodding toward James.

  “Because he’s a gentleman and will see me safely to the Storm Roadhouse in Ketchikan.”

  “Like he saw you safely along the Yukon?” he sneered.

  Kaatje lowered her eyebrows in consternation. “Yes. Exactly.” She turned away from him then, her skirts flying, but did not miss James’s victorious look back at Soren.

  “I’ll bring the sleigh at three,” James said when they reached the front door. “We can catch the four o’clock ferry to Ketchikan.”

  “Fine,” Kaatje said, not looking at him again. Her stomach was a mass of knots as she rushed to the front door of the roadhouse. Inside, Karl and Elsa looked up from their armchairs beside the fire, at the end of the restaurant. They had taken to reading books aloud to each other for an hour every afternoon. Kaatje suddenly wondered why they hadn’t come to her aid. Was it the distance and their dialogue that had kept them from hearing her? Or had James been close by, spying on her?

  “I am sorry,” Kaatje said. “I did not mean to disturb you. But now that I have, I need to speak with you.” Quickly, she walked the length of the room, appreciating the warmth of the flames as she neared. “I need to leave for a week’s time and wondered if you two could manage the children and restaurant for me.”

  “Well, certainly,” Elsa began, clearly confused. “With it only being open for supper this winter, and a good staff, that’s no hardship. But where are you going? And in such a hurry?”

  “To Ketchikan. I’ve been meaning to check on the Bresleys and their progress on the roadhouse. It’s only a few months before you will be bringing tourists to stay the night! And things with Soren have become.…”

  “Complicated?” Elsa guessed.

  “Yes. I need some—”

  “Room?”

  Kaatje shot her an irritated look.

  “Forgive me,” Elsa said. “I wondered if it was going too quickly. I know, I know, I’ll quit with that. I think a brief holiday will help. Yes, I’m game for managing the restaurant. How hard could it be?”

  That comment worried Kaatje. She looked toward Karl. Surely, between the two of them, they could manage. And another chance to be alone together would be good for them, not like her and Soren.…

  “Yes, I’m game too,” Karl said. “At least I am if you promise you’ll return at week’s end. Tell us what we need to know.”

  James Walker pulled up promptly at three, talking lowly to the sleigh’s horses. His heart was twisting with conflicting emotions. Should he have said no when she asked him to take her? Should he have found someone else? But he was so relieved to spirit her away, away from that devil of a husband. More and more he was convinced that Soren was only acting, that given enough time, he would show his true colors. Had he not done just that today in that alley? What if James had not been nearby? Would he have taken advantage of Kaatje? And if he had, would that have put a stop to her falling in love with him again? Perhaps if Jam
es had just let Soren continue, Kaatje would’ve seen him for what he was. But James couldn’t bear the thought of Soren hurting her.

  He cradled his head in his hands. The questions had barraged him for hours now, and his head hurt so much he could barely see. The restaurant door opened and James raised his head, even tried a smile.

  “You look the worse for wear, man,” Karl said, clambering down the steps and resting his hands on the side of the sleigh. “You’re seeing Kaatje to the ferry?”

  “To Ketchikan.”

  “To Ketchi—” Karl stopped abruptly. “She asked you to take her all the way to Ketchikan?”

  James shrugged, ignoring the pain slicing through his head. “She trusts me, I guess.”

  “Yes. She trusts you.”

  James did not let his gaze waver, understanding Karl’s unspoken warning. “I know, Martensen. I know. You’re not thinking about anything I haven’t thought myself a hundred times.”

  Karl leaned his forearms against the seat of the sleigh, his expression one of complete understanding. “You’re walking on delicate ground, James.”

  “Yes.”

  “The best thing you could do would be to be her friend. Keep your distance.”

  James shot him an irritated look. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “I’m afraid it is. Kaatje is a dear friend, and I’d like to say you and I have started a friendship too. But Kaatje comes first for me.” He dropped his tone. “I’ve been where you are, man. Wouldn’t it be best to simply leave? To come back after Kaatje makes her decision? Give your feelings time to cool?”

  “I cannot. Not until Kaatje makes her decision. I’ll go just as soon as she can look me in the eye and tell me she trusts Soren to treat her right. If she can do that, I’ll be gone. But I can’t get past the idea that she needs me. Needs me here.”

  “Is it she who needs you here, or you who needs to be here? Check yourself.”

  “I do. A hundred times a day.” He sighed heavily, surprised that he felt no defensiveness with Karl. Perhaps because the man looked at him with such empathetic eyes. He obviously had struggled as James was struggling now. “So you think I should send her to Ketchikan by herself?”

  Karl looked him dead in the eye. “I do. She’s looking for time to straighten things out. The Bresleys will be with her in Ketchikan—”

  He was interrupted by Kaatje coming out, saying good-bye to the children, giving Elsa last-minute instructions. Karl opened a pocket watch, one with an anchor on the face, and whistled. “You had better get going. The ferry’s going to leave without you.”

  “Ach, yes.”

  Karl put her bags in the sleigh and then helped the bundled woman onto the seat beside James.

  “Take care, Kaatje. See you in a week,” Karl said, smiling up at her.

  “I’ll be praying for you, Kaatje,” Elsa added.

  “Good-bye, Mama! Good-bye!” called her girls, waving and looking a little wistful that she was leaving them again.

  “Go, James. Hurry. Before I turn back.”

  He clucked to the horses and flapped the reins, turning them in the street back toward the harbor and waiting ferry. Tiny bells rang as the metal skis of the sleigh swooshed over the fresh snow, taking them toward the coast. James purposefully avoided looking at the mercantile, knowing Soren was probably in the window. He noticed Kaatje raising her head and then lowering it as if seeing someone and saying a silent good-bye. He did not care to see many more interchanges between the woman and her husband. It was about more than he could bear. It kept him up at night.

  They were to the harbor in a few minutes. “Kaatje, I wanted to ask you… Do you think… I was thinking it might be wiser for me to stay home. For you to go to the Bresleys’ and have some time to think. Without me. Without Soren.”

  She looked at him quickly, her eyes furrowed in confusion. “Go alone? No, I couldn’t do that. If you don’t wish to come with me, I could stay. There’s so much to take care of back—”

  “No! No, that’s not it. There’s no place I’d rather be than with you. And I think you should spend a little time away. Thinking on things. But I wonder if I might be confusing the issue by going with you.”

  “Nonsense. You’re the perfect gentleman, James. I trust you with my life.”

  He sighed heavily again. “I wish you wouldn’t. I’m afraid I’ll let you down someday. Do something that will deflate that big balloon you have me riding on.” He pulled the horses to a stop. “So you won’t go alone?”

  She squinched up her face and shook her head slowly. “I do not think so. You are my rock, James. I want you with me.” She took his gloved hand softly in her mittened one. “I know this isn’t fair of me, but I don’t know what else to do. It’s all so much… If you cannot come with me, I do not think I care to go.”

  “Kaatje, are you trying to find time for us to see if there’s a future for us before deciding whether to take Soren back or not?” He didn’t like the sound of it. Or rather, he liked the sound of it too much.

  “No, no, my friend. I love being with you, but it isn’t right…. And yet, I need you. Oh, I must drive you to the brink of insanity with my aimless chatter!” She threw up her hands in self-disgust. “You see how confused I am? This is why I need to get away. To get my mind clear!”

  James swallowed hard and then jumped down, pulling her valise from the back. “Come, Kaatje. I’m taking you to Ketchikan.”

  “Are you sure, James? I do not want to push you—”

  “Come on. We’re going.”

  twenty-one

  Learing off a chunk of jerky with his teeth, Kadachan leaned against a black pine. He ignored their collective grumbling as he observed the group of six men that James Walker had hired. It was unheard of, hiking through the mountains of Alaska in the dead of winter. Only doubling their salaries and promising them a portion of any gold strike kept them moving when most miners were holed up for the winter and didn’t come out again until May’s ice break. But they were almost at the claim.

  They were a rough lot, but sturdy. James had chosen them well. And he had firmly stood behind Kadachan when he announced his requirements to them all. “You will obey this man’s orders as if he were me. If you do not, you will not collect on your pay. And if he doesn’t return with you come ice break, I’ll have all your heads.” The thought of obeying an Indian on a work site was so disagreeable to two that they had left, muttering under their breath about “filthy injuns.” But the rest had remained, willing to earn a buck through the winter rather than spend it on poker. Two of the men were Inuit, which helped Kadachan. He doubted that James had chosen them on a whim. As with most things, James knew exactly what he was doing. James Walker was a careful man.

  Except when it came to Kaatje Janssen.

  Kadachan agreed with James that Soren was not all he appeared to be. But he also knew that James’s love for the woman was bound to cloud his thinking, alter his perspective on things. Kadachan hoped, for James’s sake, that he was right—that Kaatje’s mine would produce a small fortune and drive the true Soren to the surface like a hungry salmon after a fly.

  “It’s time to move again,” Kadachan stated, pushing his back off the tree. He began walking, not waiting for the others to follow.

  “When you think we’ll get there?” called one of the miners, a shiver in his voice. It was cold in the wind coming off the river’s ice. The man was obviously feeling it too.

  “Ten, eleven days.”

  “If we’re not caught in a blizzard,” called another.

  “If it begins to snow, we will build shelter. We have provisions.” Kadachan knew this land, these woods, the water. A change in weather did not frighten him.

  “For the whole winter?” grumbled the fattest man, already huffing from the exertion of walking in snowshoes.

  Kadachan paused and eyed the whole group. “It will be enough.”

  Joseph Campbell had arrived in Saint Michael five days prior, exactl
y as Trent Storm had requested. It had been a long journey from the Montana Territory to Seattle and northward to Alaska, but it had been undertaken with impressive speed. Between rail and sea, travel these days was certainly efficient. He hoped he could accomplish this latest mission for Mr. Storm and return as speedily to his family.

  It was always financially worthwhile, seeing to Mr. Storm’s requests. And gratifying. Why, who would have ever guessed that the woman he trailed through Montana and Washington would later become Mrs. Trent Storm? It made him feel as though he had a hand in the matchmaking. He hoped marriage would not make Trent less…fiscally generous. Keeping a woman—and presumably a family at some point—in fashion and comfort took resources these days.

  Donning his hat and raising the collar of his wool coat, he left the small hotel yet again, determined to follow up the latest lead in finding Soren Janssen’s castoff lover. A Catholic priest had approached him after services on Sunday and told him he had heard that Joseph sought information about a woman and child who had recently lived with a white man off the Yukon River.

  “It is not an uncommon occurrence,” the priest had said, his English thick with a Russian accent. “There are many lonely white men who take Indian brides and then abandon them when they decide to return to the cities of their birth.”

  “He never married this woman. And I believe she had a son.” He had gathered that much, if she was the right woman, from correspondence with others along the Yukon. He motioned toward his own head. “She is said to be tall for an Inuit. And beautiful. A princess once.”

  The priest shook his head, his eyes conveying his sorrow. “It pains me to see such things.”

  Joseph respectfully waited for the priest to go on.

  “There is one woman that could match such a description. A nun here found her on the streets, her child almost frozen with the first snows. I believe the nun found her a job as a washerwoman a block west.” The town was only two blocks long by three short blocks wide; it would not be difficult to find it. In fact, Joseph remembered seeing the sign for washed shirts for five cents.

  “I appreciate your help, Father,” Joseph said with a curt nod. “I shall be adding to the offering plate this Sunday.”