The Alaskan Catch

by Beth Carpenter

  He spread the contents of the envelope on the coffee table. Dana leaned forward to examine them. Even upside down, Sam could read Chris’s State of Alaska birth certificate listing his mother as Fiona McCarthy Raynott. A yellowed clipping of the article they had seen about the fire rested beside it on the table. Dana picked up the two cardboard photograph folders and opened the top one. She examined it, a trace of a smile crossing her face, and then she handed it to Sam.

  The man on the right could have almost been Sam, if he’d grown his hair into a shaggy mullet and dressed in a really loud polyester shirt. The grin on his father’s face indicated a day of celebration, as did his arm around the shoulders of the man Sam could only assume was Wayne Raynott. Each of the men held a full mug of beer.

  As he looked closer, he could see some resemblance to Chris: the stubborn jaw, the broad shoulders. Raynott seemed happy, too. Behind them, Sam recognized the gold pans and pickaxes from the photos in the newspaper. Carefully, he slipped the photo from the folder and found a handwritten note on the back. Wayne Raynott and Roy Petrov. Opening Day at The Nugget.

  He looked up to see Dana staring hard at the other picture. She finally closed the folder and set it on the table. She turned to Chris. “So I gather you were as much in the dark as me that we didn’t have the same mother?”

  “Before that day in the attic, I had no idea. Although looking back, I seldom got a lot of warm fuzzies from Mom. On the other hand, neither did you.”

  Dana nodded as if that was old news. “So what did you do?”

  “I confronted Wayne. He wouldn’t tell me anything, even confirm that the birth certificate was genuine. He told me to forget what I’d seen and mind my own business. Eventually, I said if he wouldn’t tell me what I wanted to know, I was going to Alaska to get the truth. He said if I did, he wouldn’t welcome me back. I decided I could live with that.”

  “And you drove off without saying goodbye.” Dana’s voice was small, the hurt of the teenager coming through.

  “I’m sorry, Dana. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “You could have contacted me later, told me what happened and where you were.”

  “I didn’t want to get you in trouble with the old man. You know he never backs down.”

  Dana closed her eyes and balled her hands into fists, as though trying to keep some violent emotion in check. Sam fought the urge to thump Chris on the head. Did he realize when he ran away how much he would be hurting his sister? Sam had to believe he didn’t. Chris could be a bit clueless, but he was never deliberately cruel.

  Dana blew out a long breath and opened her eyes. Her features were once again calm and in control. “What happened next?”

  “I went to Fairbanks. Actually, it took me more than a year to earn enough money to make the trip, but I arrived in late summer. I changed my name in the meantime. I figured if I didn’t have a father anymore, I didn’t need his name. Once I made it to Fairbanks, I asked around, did some digging and finally found a group of old-timers in a bar who remembered the whole scandal.”

  Chris opened the photo folder Dana had inspected to display what was obviously a wedding picture. Almost as tall as her husband but slender and delicate, Fiona wore a gauzy white dress and had a wreath of daisies nested in auburn curls. Wayne wore a rust-colored suit and lizard cowboy boots. They smiled at each other, looking happy and very much in love.

  Chris squirmed and looked at the table. “Most of the town seemed to be of the opinion that Wayne caught his partner and his wife in a compromising situation and started a fire that burned down the bar.”

  “But the investigation didn’t find arson,” Dana piped up.

  Frown lines formed on Chris’s forehead. “So you know about the fire?”

  “We read the newspaper article,” Sam said. “What else did you hear?”

  “Some of the group used to be regulars at The Nugget. They said Fiona and Roy both worked in the bar and had never shown the slightest romantic interest in one another. In fact, they said Roy was in love with another girl, but kept it quiet because—” he darted a glance of apology at Sam “—Wayne didn’t like her.”

  Raynott sounded like a real prize. Sam raised an eyebrow. “My mother, I assume?”

  Chris nodded. “They said after Roy died, Wayne skipped off with all the insurance money. Roy was supposed to be an equal partner, but with him dead, who was left to question the settlement? By that time, Roy’s girlfriend had her baby. After Wayne skipped town, she kept asking around, trying to find him. Eventually she found somebody who remembered where he moved. She said she was going to make him pay, but nothing ever came of it, as far as anybody knew.”

  Sam sat back and crossed his arms. “Okay, this makes a nice story, but you’re not going to sell me on the idea that you just happened to meet me and had no idea who I was.”

  “No.” Chris shook his head. “They remembered your name. I found you easily enough through newspaper articles.” Chris turned to Dana. “There were several pieces in the Anchorage paper. Sam had earned quite a few scholarships when he graduated high school and told the reporter he planned to major in mechanical engineering at UAF.” He shifted his attention back to Sam. “It wasn’t hard. I hung around the engineering dorm, got somebody to point you out and followed you. The place you were working had a Help Wanted sign in the window, so that seemed like the easiest way to meet you.”

  “Why did you go to all that trouble?”

  Chris shrugged. “I don’t know. The guys in the bar seemed to think your dad’s death kinda knocked your mother off-balance. If my father was responsible for you not having a father, I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “I was fine,” Sam barked. It was true, thanks to Ursula and Tommy.

  Chris gave him that crooked grin. “You were fine. In fact, you had your life together a lot more than I did.”

  “So why’d you stick around?”

  “Honestly? I liked you.”

  “Not enough to tell me the truth.”

  Chris had the grace to look embarrassed. “Fair enough. But put yourself in my position. As far as you knew, I was just a guy who ran off to Alaska on a lark. I had no influence with Wayne, no access to his money. I couldn’t actually do anything to right past wrongs. All I could do was keep an eye on you, watch your back. If I told you who my father was, would you have let me hang around?”

  “Maybe.” Sam thought about it. “Probably not.”

  It was true. Chris did watch his back. In college, he’d shown up in time to throw a few punches and help run off a drunken mob yelling slurs at Sam when he was walking home from his job late one night. Years later, Chris warned him away from a girl he was considering dating. A coworker got involved with her instead. That woman was drama 24/7 and still making the man’s life miserable. Sam had never had a reason to doubt Chris’s loyalty. Not until his sister showed up and spilled his secret.

  Sam looked over at Dana. She sat very still, her eyes on Chris, but as Sam watched, a tear escaped and slid down her cheek. Sam wasn’t sure why she was crying: for her father, for the years she’d lost with her brother or for some other reason, but he couldn’t stand to sit and watch her cry, and Chris was oblivious. Sam moved to the couch beside her and pulled her against his shoulder.

  “Hey, it’s okay. Don’t cry.” He wiped the tear with his thumb. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “B-but you both think that my father... That he—”

  “It doesn’t matter. We can’t change things that happened before we were born.”

  Dana shook her head and sniffed. She wiped away any trace of tears and sat up, drawing away from him.

  Sam turned to see Chris eyeing them, his expression indicating he’d just added up two and two and wasn’t altogether pleased with the answer. He met Sam’s eyes and held them. “Does that answer all your
questions?”

  “For now.” Sam’s gaze didn’t falter. He wasn’t the one in the wrong here.

  “Good. Because I may have a few of my own tomorrow. Right now, I’m going to bed.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  SAM HAD A restless night. At about five, he finally abandoned his tangled sheets and went looking for coffee. Light leaked over the mountains and into the kitchen window, allowing him to make out a shape at the bar. He stumbled into the kitchen and flipped on the light. Chris sat hunched on one of the barstools, a cup half-filled with dark liquid in front of him beside a jar of instant coffee granules.

  Sam grimaced and put a filter into the coffee maker. “I don’t know how you drink that stuff.”

  Chris shrugged. “You do what you gotta do.”

  Whatever that meant. Sam spooned the Colombian blend Dana had chosen into the coffee maker and flipped the switch. “I’m surprised you’re still here. Isn’t your boat going back out today?”

  “Yeah. I found a guy to take my place. I’ll hire on with one of the salmon boats tomorrow.”

  “How come?”

  “I thought I’d better come up and make sure everything was back to normal. I’m glad I did.” Chris picked up his mug and took a sip. “What’s going on with you and my sister?”

  Sam turned his back to reach into the cabinet for a mug. “You mean the sister you never mentioned you had? The one you haven’t seen in nineteen years?”

  “Yeah, that one. What are your intentions?”

  Sam gave a wry laugh. “My intentions? Are we in the twenty-first century or what?” He filled his cup with the fragrant brew.

  Chris set his mug onto the bar with a bang. “I know your five-year plan, Sam, and it doesn’t include a wife. Don’t play around with my sister’s heart.”

  “I don’t think you should be throwing stones. Do you have any idea how upset she was when you abandoned her without a word?”

  “Abandoned? She was sixteen. It’s not like I left her to be raised by wolves.”

  “You left her with a father who ignored her and a mother I haven’t quite figured out yet but obviously isn’t the nurturing type. She needed you to look after her.”

  “Well, I’m here now and I’m not sure I like what I’m seeing. Are you sleeping with her?”

  Sam gave Chris a look of disgust. “No, I’m not sleeping with her. No, I haven’t promised her a ring or a white picket fence. I have a lot of respect for your sister, Chris. She’s strong, and determined, and generous. And she came all the way here to find you because, for some reason, she thinks you deserve your share of the inheritance.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not going to take it.”

  “Why not?”

  Chris shrugged. “It’s dirty money.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No maybe about it.” Chris’s jaw tightened. “In spite of the way he ignored her, Dana always acted like our father was some sort of white knight. Okay, he kept his nose clean and maintained a good reputation for the store, but he used the moral high ground like a club. He fired an employee for taking off early twice in a week because her kid got sick at school. He took advantage of a mistake on a price sheet to gouge his suppliers on a huge order. He once grounded me for a month because I didn’t rat out my mother for going to an estate auction without telling him.”

  “An estate auction?”

  “Don’t ask. The point is, Wayne Raynott might have morphed into a scrupulously honest pillar of society, but he wasn’t a good man. Half of that insurance settlement should have been yours. You know it. I know it. And he knew it.”

  Sam tended to agree but tried to see if from the man’s perspective. After all, Dana had faith in him. “Maybe he tried to make things right. He sent a check.”

  “What check?”

  “To my mom. She tore it up.”

  “How much?”

  “Five hundred, I think.”

  Chris snorted. “That was chickenfeed compared to his net worth, and he made that fortune with your money.”

  “Not my money.”

  “Your father’s money. They were partners. Roy’s share should have gone to his son. Per stirpes and all that.”

  “Per stirpes?” Sam raised an eyebrow.

  “Latin. By branch. Meaning passed through the branches to the next generation.”

  Sam let out a snort.

  Chris grinned. “I read, you know.”

  Sam sipped his coffee and turned over the situation in his mind. “The only name on the property tax record was Raynott. Maybe Roy wasn’t an owner of the building itself and that’s why he didn’t collect insurance.”

  “It was common knowledge they were equal partners. My father wouldn’t have taken on a partner who didn’t bring in at least an equal investment, believe me.” He eyed Sam with suspicion. “Why are you defending him?”

  Sam shrugged. “I try not to let my own self-interest color my perceptions. Besides, Dana seems convinced her father wasn’t a cheat.”

  “When I left, Dana’s number one goal was trying to please Wayne. From what she said when she showed up on our doorstep, nothing’s changed. The man is dead, and she’s running around Alaska, settling his affairs. His image is important to her. If it turns out he’s not the man she thought he was, what does that say about her?”

  “That she’s loyal to her family? Not such a bad trait.”

  “Blind loyalty can be.”

  Sam took another swig of coffee, hoping the caffeine would clear the cobwebs that were preventing him from seeing things objectively. But all he could see was the fury on Dana’s face after they talked to the man in the pawnshop. If he took Chris’s side, she might never forgive him.

  He pulled out a skillet and opened the refrigerator. Soon the sizzle and irresistible aroma of bacon filled the room. He slipped slices of bread into the toaster, adding the scent of fresh toast to the bacon. Within minutes, the door to Dana’s bedroom opened and she stumbled into the kitchen to the coffeepot.

  “Why is everybody up so early?” She poured a mug and settled onto the stool beside Chris.

  “Healthy, wealthy and wise, like Ben Franklin said.” Chris tousled her hair, and she swatted his hand away, but the corners of her mouth turned up.

  “Cut it out.”

  Sam put the bacon to drain on a paper towel and pulled out some eggs. “Fried or scrambled?”

  “Fried,” Chris and Dana answered at the same moment.

  Dana laughed. “If you can flip them without breaking the yolks. Chris never could.”

  “Ah, but he didn’t have my patented technique.” Sam broke several eggs into the hot bacon fat and covered the skillet with a lid.

  Dana grabbed a slice of bacon off the plate and nibbled on the end. “Mmm, bacon.”

  “So.” Chris took another sip of coffee and turned to Dana. “I was thinking.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Only a little.” His smirk indicated it was an old joke between them. “Anyway, I have to go back to work tomorrow, but we should spend today together.”

  “That would be great.” The expression on her face touched Sam’s heart. It took so little to please her. The slightest attention from her brother and those amazing eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. It was as though she were starved for the smallest scraps of affection from her family. Once again, he considered how lucky he’d been to have Tommy and Ursula in his life.

  Chris gave her that lopsided smile women always swooned over. “I know just where we should go. It’s something you always wanted to do, but Dad would never let me take you.”

  Dana grinned. “Really? They have them here?”

  “I’ve never been, but I’ve driven by lots of times. I think they’re open all summer.”

  “What are
we talking about?” Sam transferred the eggs to plates and passed them around.

  “Go-carts. Wanna come?” She looked as excited as any ten-year-old.

  A momentary shadow passed over Chris’s face, but Sam didn’t care. Maybe Chris didn’t want him there, but Dana did, and just then, he wasn’t overly concerned about Chris’s feelings. Dana deserved a happy day with her brother, and after hearing Chris’s opinions of his father, Sam wanted to go along and keep the conversation away from touchy subjects. “I’d love to race go-carts with you.”

  “Great.” Dana smiled and took a bite. “Good eggs, Sam.”

  The amusement complex didn’t open until noon, so they spent the morning hiking through the forest adjacent to their neighborhood. Kimmik ran ahead of them, snuffling the trees and bushes along the path. Dana seemed to have a permanent smile on her face, excitedly pointing out squirrels and Steller’s jays as though they were something exotic. When Sam showed her a set of bear tracks, you’d have thought he’d discovered gold. She must have taken a dozen photos.

  They stopped by Chris’s favorite burger place for lunch and then headed to the go-cart track. The attendant gave them an odd look when the three of them showed up with no children in tow, but soon they were buzzing around the track along with a birthday boy and his rowdy friends.

  Sam took the outside lane, testing the speed and control of the little car. Dana flew by him and waved. Even over the roar of the engines, he thought he could hear her happy laugh as she passed. Chris was right on her heels and gained on the corner, but Dana pushed forward and beat him into the finish. Sam grinned, watching her raise her clenched hands in victory.

  After they’d had their fill of go-carts, they had a round of mini golf at the adjacent course. Dana’s putting skills were truly terrible. Almost all of her shots either stopped halfway to the green or shot out the other side, but she never stopped smiling.

  At least that was Sam’s impression, until he watched her high-five Chris after he sunk his putt, and he moved to the next hole. When Chris’s back was turned, Dana’s expression turned pensive. What was she thinking? Sam brushed a hand against her back, and she flashed a smile at him.