“You did?” Alice’s eyes widened. “And?”
“He was not ready for a commitment at the time.”
“That’s why you came home?”
Leanna nodded. “Mom was ill, too, as I found out later.”
Alice lowered her voice. “Kai is Bryce’s child, isn’t she?”
“How did you know?”
“Wasn’t hard to figure out. Does Chester know?”
Leanna shook her head. “It was all too complicated back then. Besides, with Mom being ill, he had plenty to think about and I didn’t want to worry him with my problems.
Anyway, I don’t regret what happened because I have Kai now. When I met Bryce, I thought it was the most wonderful thing. He knew what he wanted and went after it. I first saw him sitting on the floor at a party, holding a discussion on parvo viral infection in wolves.”
“Is that the type of infection that dogs get if they stay too long in the woods?”
Leanna nodded in admiration. For all her fluttery ways, Alice was well informed. Many were the times that Leanna had hoped that her father would cultivate a friendship with her; Alice would smooth over his rough edges. But he had yet to reciprocate Alice’s friendly and thoughtful overtures.
“I remember his hair was a mess, and he wore jeans and a white shirt with a button missing. Yet his eyes shone with an excitement which he would have even if he were looking at lightning bugs in a jar.”
Alice appeared disappointed. “That’s how you met? A handsome devil like that?”
Leanna shrugged. “At the time I thought I’d have a better chance of getting to know him if I were a wolf.”
Alice laughed. “I’ll say!”
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“Then one day he called out of the blue and asked if I wanted to go to a movie. Some new movie, I forget which.”
“Did it get better?”
“Oh, yes.” Leanna chuckled. Alice was positively drooling. “He took me everywhere, not just out for a date, but to his lab to look at specimens under microscope. His work occupied him most of the time, and I was flattered that he wanted to share all that with me.”
“And then?” Alice angled her head to listen more intently.
“That went on for a while. Then, all of a sudden, it was as if I was no more important than lab equipment. I would have followed him anywhere, but he wasn’t ready to call it permanent.”
Alice shook her head. “I’m so sorry.”
“And I wasn’t going to force him. That’s when I came home and found out Mom was ill.”
“You weren’t talking much then, I noticed. You looked pale. I wondered if something was wrong.”
Leanna remembered her listlessness. About that time she knew she was pregnant. All those Saturday evenings spent at Bryce’s apartment filled with books, pictures of specimens viewed under the electron-scanning microscope. She’d gotten him to listen to tapes of Dave Bruebeck’s piano and the cool sax of Acker Bilk. He’d be tender and passionate one moment. The next minute, he was back to the paper he had to prepare for a conference, bursting the bubble of the sense of closeness between them.
“Kai has your coloring but her father’s features. Does he know?”
Leanna’s palms felt sweatier. Alice had asked the dreaded question. “No, he doesn’t.” If Alice could see Kai’s resemblance to Bryce, wouldn’t he do the same? And if he did he would probably ask for visitation rights to his child. That 23
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would be the end of the ordered life Leanna had carved for herself and Kai almost out of nothing.
“When are you going to tell him?”
“When the time is right.” She wasn’t ready to think about it just yet. Later, perhaps. But she had no idea when that would be. Or if it made it any easier now that he had re-entered her life.
The low roar of a pickup truck told Leanna that her father would be trudging in with his arms full of bags of tools or groceries.
Leanna jumped up, opened the front door, and looked out. The sand-washed road that lay like a gray ribbon off to the side of the store was deserted. No more customers, she decided. She locked the door from the inside, hung the
“Closed” sign, and went into the back, where she could hear Chester moving about in his apartment.
Presently, he came out. “See what Gramps got for you, Kai.” He held out a small bag of chocolate chip cookies.
“Dad, you shouldn’t have.”
“Don’t worry about it because I ate some of them. You young people fret too much about diet. Don’t you agree, Alice?”
“I don’t know the meaning of the word.” Alice’s face lit up.
Leanna grinned at Alice’s attempts at getting Chester to chat with her. Her father was usually too busy with his carpentry projects to slow down and notice what went on around him.
Alice walked toward the back door. “Well, I’ll see you later.”
Leanna smiled and waved. Alice lived close by, two houses down in a ranch-style home shaded by maples. It was a 24
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house that Leanna had watched Gerald construct with little help from anyone else.
She and Kai followed Chester into his apartment, which resembled the inside of a boat. A steering wheel hung from the ceiling like a fan. Shells of every shape and color were arranged on a low wooden shelf that he’d built. A sign on the wall that said “Welcome Aboard” completed the eccentric decor.
“I hauled them over to the island safe and sound. The luggage they had!”
“They’re here for work, Dad. From what I hear, they’ll be here a while.”
“That young Robertson seemed interested in our store.
Nobody expects to see a boat turned into a store.”
Her ears perked up. Was it really the store he was interested in? “What did he say?”
“Just asked how long you had it. Then he turned odd when I said you had gone off to get something for Kai.”
“You mentioned Kai?”
Her father nodded. “He asked who Kai was, so I told him.”
Leanna turned and stashed the groceries in the small refrigerator occupying part of a space that served as the living and dining area.
Chester caught her sharp movement. “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, nothing. Maybe he was just surprised that I have Kai. We lost touch after college.”
“Pleasant young man. Seems well educated. None of the arrogance that goes with it.”
No arrogance. Just an absent-minded carelessness of people around him. And now wasn’t the time to pick up the 25
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pieces of their annihilated relationship, if that was what Bryce was thinking.
“Yes, he’s that. The food is all put away. I’m off now. By the way, Dad, you might take time to chat with Alice now and then. She likes you.”
“I know. She’s a good woman. But I’m too busy with carpentry. Furniture World is buying small items from me on consignment.”
“Then go for it, since your carpentry work keeps you busy and happy.”
Leanna led Kai out of the apartment. Left to herself, Kai could spend hours playing with the nautical ornaments that littered her father’s comical apartment. It reminded Leanna of the Popeye movie she’d seen, and it had the fuzzy warmth the setting in the movie had exhibited.
“Back tomorrow,” Leanna called out over her shoulder.
“See my favorite girls later.”
As she walked up the hill with Kai skipping along beside her, Leanna felt a swell of reassurance when she thought of the change in her father since her mother’s death. She savored the moment. How unfortunate that her mother had never experienced it because of his long maritime journeys.
As she and Kai mounted the hill she heard seagulls cackle in unison. They flew and swooped down fearlessly and skipped in the lake behind her. She smiled at the cacophony around her and entered the walkway of her cottage. It was an old, bungalow-style cott
age with a gabled roof and a porch in front. Her father had bought it for a song and painted it a pale mauve, at her mother’s request. Delicate white curtains completed the ensemble.
Leanna spied Cody at the long living room window, resting his paws on the sill, staring at them in anticipation. Kai 26
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waved to him and he bounced with wild abandon at the window, tail wagging at raving speed.
Leanna unlocked the door and watched him come tearing up to them, licking their faces when mother and daughter knelt down to pet him. “Have you been cooped up all day?
Does Cody want to go for a walk?”
“Yeah, let’s.” Kai bounced like a ball at Leanna’s side.
“Fetch your leash, Cody.”
Cody trotted obediently into a smaller area by the living room and returned with a leather leash between his teeth and sat in front of Leanna with his front paws up, begging.
“Good boy!”
Kai and Cody leaped out of the front door and Leanna pulled it shut.
The road rounded the contours of the hill as it dipped in a silent curtsey toward the lake. The trio made their way toward the water, still as a sheet of blue glass. A sailboat or two bobbed on the water.
“Will we go to the island?” Kai asked.
Her daughter’s question was a sudden wake-up call to Leanna. “The island? I don’t know.”
“Will you take people there?”
“I suppose so.” Her throat constricted. She hadn’t thought about how she’d do that and keep out of sight of Bryce at the same time. She might run into him when she took tourists there. The thought filled her with caution, especially under her new resolve of going full steam ahead with her own life.
* * * *
The week after their arrival at the island found Bryce and his colleagues settled comfortably in their cabins. The two students shacked up in one, Bryce and Fred settled in the other. It had two small bedrooms with a common bathroom, 27
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a comfortable living area heated by a fireplace, a propane stove for cooking, and a shelf on the wall for food.
A drafting table served as Bryce’s desk. On it were laptop computer, assorted pens, pencils and rulers. Two or three thick reference books bulged with typewritten notes stuck in between the pages.
Fred sat on a stool whittling away on a long piece of wood he had found when they went out exploring. Bryce glanced at him. “You sure that’s going to make a fine walking stick?’
“Of course, I’m sure. This is a great way to go up and down hills and trails. Less trauma on the knees. ’Cos, face it, man, you and I aren’t getting any younger.”
Bryce grinned. “Isn’t that the truth?” Fred could pass as a lumberjack with his shoulder-length hair pulled back in a ponytail. He wore a faded red plaid shirt half tucked into his jeans. But all that was misleading. He had a razor-sharp mind and was an asset in their research.
“It was nice of Reed to bring us here, but, you know, Bryce…”
“I know. We can’t rely on public transportation to take us back and forth from the mainland. It’s a good forty miles and that will take up a lot of time. I’ve asked for a light plane and a pilot who’ll stay for brief periods of time. They’ve promised us that should we need it.” Bryce took a cell phone out of his pocket and placed it on the table.
“That’s a relief. We can cover more distance from a plane and it’s easier to spot wolves.”
Bryce helped himself to another cup of coffee from the coffee pot. They’d had a full day scouting the area. All four of them had eaten venison stew Fred had prepared from the frozen meat he’d brought along.
“So, how long have you known her?”
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“Who?” Bryce feigned wide-eyed ignorance.
“Reed’s daughter.”
Bryce let a few moments slip by. “We were in college together for a while.”
Fred jerked his head up. “Really? And what was she doing there?”
“Studying, like everyone else. But then she gave up and left in a hurry.”
Fred gave him a mock-serious look. “If you’re looking for advice, old Uncle Fred has a remedy for what ails you.”
“And what’s that?”
“Lose yourself in work. But I don’t have to tell you that.”
Bryce chuckled. “No, you don’t. Coffee?”
“Later. By the way, did you give Reed our cell phone number?”
“Yes. Just in case somebody wants to get a hold of us and doesn’t know our whereabouts. Like family members.”
“Now, you’re making it sound as if we’re in a line of work fraught with danger.”
Bryce said in a level voice. “Just a precaution.” He got up and went to the sink where the plates had been washed and stacked. He put them in the shelf overhead.
He had been busy all day each day, but he couldn’t squelch the questions at the back of his mind—how long Leanna had been a single mother and who Kai’s father was.
When Chester had mentioned Kai, Bryce had to steady himself to absorb that piece of information. Even though Leanna had denied that she was married, now thinking of it, there had been a tentativeness to her reply when he asked.
She’d also appeared even more unapproachable than he’d imagined.
Bryce returned to the worktable and started rifling through his notes. He had hoped to find her here after all 29
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those years of her puzzling disappearance and silence. When his wolf study had offered him an opportunity, his desire to find her redoubled. He’d even questioned himself as to how he’d let her slip away from his life in the first place. In the back of his mind, though, he wasn’t sure he would find her, but it was worth a serious attempt. As for picking up the threads again with Leanna, that didn’t look promising at all.
He opened up his laptop and retrieved a file. He pulled out a sheet of paper from one of the thick books on the table and glanced at the data, then keyed some of them into his computer. Bryce scrolled down to view the pictures he had scanned in. Pictures of wolf pups, a pack of wolves running across snowy terrain. The first wolf pack from Benedict Island to catch the world’s attention nearly forty years ago.
“The Big Pack,” Bryce muttered.
“What’s that?” Fred turned a puzzled glance at his colleague.
“I’m looking at an original of the snapshot of a wolf pack that appeared in the National Geographic years ago.”
“Not many researchers have come here in recent years.
But now, since you’ve rattled their cages about it, they are looking this way.”
Bryce continued his pensive study of the pictures until his scrolling brought onto the screen the picture of a svelte brunette laughing at the photographer. Bryce’s hand fell from the keyboard. A photo of Leanna appeared on the screen. He stared at the picture and shook his head, half-ashamed. What had he let go from his life? And what a fool he had been.
They’d always been together at college, ever since he’d garnered up enough guts to call her and ask her to a movie.
When he hadn’t the time to take her out, she’d gone along with him to the law library, an ornate building that almost looked like a medieval cathedral. He used to go there to look 30
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up DNR regulations and Leanna would bring along her own work.
The summer they’d met was the best. After staring at lab specimens all day they’d go to the outdoor café for pizza and ale.
In the picture, she leaned back against blooms of lilacs, and laughed at Bryce photographing her. She made fun of his picture taking. “You’ve taken so many wolf pictures that you don’t know how to photograph humans!”
Bryce sat there lost in a long tunnel of memories, back to when he first knew her. A warm summer evening, darkening with the scent of lilacs and the fragrance of the English lavender perfume that she used. The smoothness of her skin,
the dark silk of her hair, falling in chestnut ripples, the sweet warmth of her kisses. He’d never let on even to himself that her sudden flight had hurt him. Ever the cool intellectual, he’d forged ahead with work and life, and dated around.
Except that the slinkier the women who came on to him, the more he edged away, until he retreated into his work completely.
He had carried her picture in the wallet, and then, when she left, he’d put it in the desk drawer at the office, until he scanned in photos of wolves and pups. Then he’d scanned in Leanna’s photo also on a whim. Later, he realized it was not really on a whim. In the back of his mind he worried that with all the traveling he’d lose the picture, so he’d stored it in the desk drawer. And now, here she was again in front of him, reminding him of those early days, which he could almost reach out and touch. He stared at her photo, which was all he had of her. Obviously, she had picked up the reins of her life, which didn’t include him.
He closed the file and got up. Weariness dragged him down, a sort of mental weariness, not the happy, tired feeling 31
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that resulted from a full day of work. For all his panache when he’d talked to Leanna that day at The Tug, he could tell she had changed from the compliant girl he’d known. But even in the wildest of dreams he hadn’t pictured her with a child. A muscle twitched in his cheek as he pushed away papers that balanced on the edge of the desk.
“You’ve been quiet. What you doin’ there?” Fred got up with his newly whittled walking stick.
“Compiling earlier data.” Bryce forced a grin. Damned if he was going to let Fred see a picture of Leanna among his photos.
“There. Now I’m ready for tracking wolves.”
“You’re using that in the research plane when we get one?” Bryce couldn’t help a sly dig.
“Of course not. On the ground.”
“Let’s get a good night’s rest. Work starts tomorrow.”
Bryce headed toward his room, a Spartan affair comprising a low, wooden bed with a thick mattress and a dresser for clothes. But he’d piled it high with books and papers. He spent more time finding space for his books while on his field trips than he cared to remember.
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