“She gets it from her big brother,” Ingrid said.
“Hardly, Mom. I think you and Dad are a lethal combination.” Grace pulled a pan of brownies from the oven.
“Exactly,” Darek said. “So it’s about ten o’clock, and I know she’s out there, and it’s eating at me. I was sixteen, and I couldn’t believe Mom and Dad were letting this happen. So I grabbed my sleeping back and snuck outside, setting up about twenty-five feet away from her.”
“Except he made so much racket, Casper woke up and decided he’d tag along. When they got out there, they found Eden wrapped in a blanket on the dock,” Ingrid said.
“With me,” Grace added. “Eden thought Mom was nuts, so she rousted me out of my warm bed and made us sit on the dock, watching the shelter.”
“Owen woke up around midnight, saw that we were gone, and came looking. He saw Casper’s sleeping bag in the moonlight, thought he might be missing a party. He came outside and tripped over me,” Darek said.
“Which sounded like waking a bear from a sound slumber.” Grace began to plate the brownies. “Darek howled, which woke up Eden and me.”
“So John and I wake to this terrible howling and then shouting, and we race downstairs thinking something horrible has happened to Amelia.”
“They get outside and find Casper, Owen, and Darek all in a wrestling match, not sure who they’re really fighting,” Jensen said, coming downstairs holding a pair of track pants and a sweatshirt. “The screams are echoing across the lake to our cabin—”
“And my grandparents’ cabin,” Claire said. “They get up, along with everyone else on the west end of the lake, thinking that someone is dying, and my grandma calls the police.”
Roark set his finished plate on the counter, smiling.
“Meanwhile, John pulls the boys apart. Grace and Eden are completely freaked out, and in their panic, Grace falls in the lake,” Ingrid said.
“Totally Eden’s fault. She was running to Amelia’s shelter, didn’t see me, and body slammed me out of the way.”
“So now we have Grace in the lake, a couple of the boys bleeding, and the police heading up to the resort. Not to mention that we’ve woken our guests.”
“It was chaos,” Darek said. “But in all of it, no one had seen Amelia.”
Silence fell, and they looked at Roark, Darek grinning, Grace shaking her head, Ingrid chuckling.
All at once, Roark got it. “She was already asleep inside.”
Claire nodded. “She’d gone inside to bed, asleep in the den long before Darek stumbled out to save her.”
“And that is how the Christiansens don’t hover,” Jensen said. “Leave no man unscathed.”
Grace made a face, turned away.
“So we hover a little. Amelia’s the youngest,” Darek said.
“And extremely capable,” Roark said. “You should have seen her today. She is so at home in the woods—knew exactly what to do.”
“But you’re the one who got Jake Goldstein to fly in. Slick move,” Darek said.
Yeah, well, it didn’t take a hero to dole out cash. Roark finished off his milk. “I’m headed to the hospital to check on Amelia.”
It was Darek’s expression that stopped him.
“What?”
“Well, it’s just that . . . Amelia called, and Seth’s there. He’s bringing her home.”
Roark opened his mouth in a round, silent O. He sighed, reaching for the sweatshirt Jensen had brought him and pulling it on over his soggy, borrowed thermal shirt. “Maybe I shouldn’t be here when they get back.”
“Stay,” Ingrid said. “I’m sure Amelia would like to see you.”
Even so, he probably couldn’t bear seeing her hug Seth. Thank Seth. After all, when she needed someone, really needed rescue, beyond what bottle of wine to order or what f-stop to use, she’d called her trusty lumberjack, Seth.
What did he expect? Seth had grown up in these woods like Amelia. Had built a lifetime of trust with Amelia, was so embedded in Amelia’s life that her instincts simply took over.
And Roark couldn’t compete with that, could he?
He sank onto a stool, trying to ignore the stares of the curious Boy Scouts at the kitchen table. What an arrogant, desperate fool he was to think he might compete with Seth, with this world.
He clung to a future that he could never have, one where Amelia left Deep Haven to live in Brussels, maybe even travel the world with him.
Ethan was right. He was completely off his trolley.
“Are you okay? You look a little pale there, 007,” Jensen said.
“I think I’m just hearing Amelia for the first time,” he said. “She keeps telling me that we’re from two different worlds. I’m realizing now that maybe she’s right. She belongs here.”
And he didn’t. He didn’t say it, but the reality seemed to march into the room, sit down in front of him.
Claire, his new guidance counselor, seemed undaunted. “So can you. You just have to be willing to . . . well, stay.”
He glanced at her, and she raised an eyebrow, completely understanding that stay meant a whole new set of rules.
A whole new life.
But maybe that’s exactly what he needed. A restart, instead of dragging around his past, dodging divine retribution.
He glanced at Jensen for reinforcement and found him nodding. And then, to his surprise, Darek added, “No one is kicking you out of Deep Haven.”
It struck Roark that for the first time, they’d invited him to . . . stay. The sense of belonging—or wanting to—to this hovering, loyal, brave clan felt . . . like home. Like something he might have been searching for all his life.
It knocked him a little off-kilter.
“You know, if you really want to impress Amelia, to show her you belong, you could enter the annual lumberjack games,” Darek said quietly.
“Oh, Darek,” Ingrid said. “I don’t think—”
“It’s perfect, Mom.” Grace turned to Roark. “Seth won last year, but Darek won a couple years back and he could teach you all the tricks.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a competition held during the annual Flapjack Festival about three weeks away. The events are based on lumberjack sports—chainsawing, chopping, team broad sawing, and birling.”
“Birling?”
“Logrolling,” Darek said. “It’s not a full-out competition, just smaller events designed to stir up excitement for those competing in official events around the state. Brings out the locals, maybe a few contenders who want to sharpen their skills. But it’s serious enough around here that you need to know what you’re doing.”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“Yet,” Darek said, a gleam in his eye. “At the very least, you’d show Amelia that you’re willing to fit into her world.”
He did want to fit into her world. After all, he’d taught her how to belong to his. Maybe it was his turn to join hers.
Who knew? He might even impress himself.
“Okay, you’re on,” he said to Darek. Then he turned to Grace. “How about another plate of spaghetti?”
The puck pinged off the crossbar, the sound reverberating through the arena. Max chased it, scooped it up, and headed to the other goal, slapping the shot wide.
It slammed into the boards.
Jace Jacobsen, his brother-in-law and line coach, former enforcer of the St. Paul Blue Ox, brought the puck down the ice. A good six inches taller than Max, Jace appeared every inch his reputation as a former bruiser. What most people didn’t know was his soft side, the side that despised his reputation and led him to spend hours volunteering in the children’s ward at the university hospital.
He circled around Max, who’d stopped, sweating despite the chilly air of the practice dome at Blue Ox HQ. Max propped his hockey stick on his knees, leaning over, breathing hard.
“Something eating you, Max?” Jace said. Of course, his slap shot landed dead-on in the center of the net.
Ma
x straightened, skated toward Jace. “Grace and I are married.”
“Wow. So you did elope. I mean, you hinted at it all season.”
“Three weeks ago, right after our last game.”
“Three weeks ago? And my wife doesn’t know yet? Oh, Eden’s going to be livid.”
“Yeah, well, she can get in line. We haven’t told anyone. Not Grace’s parents, no one.”
Jace skated over to the bench. Picked up a towel. “Wait—didn’t you spend last week at their house?”
Max skated with the puck around the boards, behind the goal, tucking it in. Finally.
He skated in to the bench and grabbed another towel. “Yeah.”
Jace regarded him with a smile. “And you didn’t tell anyone? So that means . . .” He dropped into a chuckle. “Fun.”
“No doubt. Grace was afraid to tell her family, so she slept upstairs with Amelia all week long. I hung out in the den.”
Jace’s laughter echoed through the arena. “Dude! What a way to spend your honeymoon.”
“Tell me about it. Grace would sneak down at night sometimes, but let’s just say that I’m ready for the wrath of John Christiansen if I can spend the entire night with my wife.”
“You gotta bite the bullet and confess. John and Ingrid like you—they’ll be thrilled.” Jace picked up his water bottle.
Max didn’t answer.
And right there, hanging in the silence, was the truth.
“I’m not so sure. I mean, yeah, they said they gave us their blessing, but now that it’s done . . . After all, I’m dooming their daughter to grief.”
“I thought we went through this.” Jace grabbed his skate guards, worked them on, then headed off the ice with Max following. “You have to let go of that, let her choose whether to love you or not.”
“I know. But . . . it suddenly got real the day we said, ‘Till death do us part.’ And it’s worse now.” They entered the locker room, empty of the cacophony of his teammates’ voices, a sound Max loved to lose himself inside.
Jace sat on the bench, loosened his skates.
“Grace wants to have kids.”
Jace looked up at him. “I thought you . . . uh, took care of that.”
“She wants to adopt.”
Jace pulled his shirt off. “Makes sense. The second Eden and I got home from the honeymoon, she started talking about kids. Of course Grace wants to be a mom—”
“I don’t want to be a dad.” There, he said it straight out, even as the words seared through him. Someday, if he said it enough, his heart would accept what his brain knew to be right.
Jace tossed his shirt into the hamper, grabbed his bottle of soap. “Never?”
“I can’t bear to leave a family behind, grieving me.”
Jace stopped at the door of the showers. “Max. You’re going to leave people behind. It’s inevitable. And they don’t have to be family to grieve you.”
“Kids. My kids. Leaving them without a father. I’ve been through that. No thanks.” He threw off his own shirt. “I just wish Grace would get that.”
“I think she probably does. But the good thing about Grace is that she’s not alone. You married into a family with a team of overbearing brothers. Do you think they wouldn’t help her?”
Jace had a point. Even now the family’s immediate welcome of Yulia into their midst rose up to confirm his words.
“I think you need to consider what you’re truly afraid of.” Jace stepped into the shower.
“I’m not afraid of anything!” Max said, grabbing his own soap.
Jace said nothing further until after he was dressed and waiting for Max in his office, just off the lobby of the arena.
Max came in, flopped into a chair. “Okay, yes, I can admit not looking forward to getting sick, deteriorating in front of my family. Don’t shoot me for wanting to protect Grace from adding more to the stress of taking care of me.”
Jace closed his laptop. Since moving to the coaching staff, he seemed older, maybe more responsible, and now he looked at Max like a brother. “Dude. Who are you really trying to protect here?”
Max shook his head.
“You’ve cemented a reputation of being the guy who doesn’t get involved. Doesn’t have long-term relationships. Suddenly you find a girl who looks past all your demons and loves you anyway, and you actually let yourself fall in love.”
Max wanted to cringe, but Jace’s smile eked out his own. “Yeah, okay. I got lucky.”
“You scored big. But now you’ve got a chance to love beyond yourself by putting it all out there for a family, and that scares the stuffing out of you.”
Max started to shake his head again, but Jace cut him off.
“I get it, Max. I used to think that I couldn’t let a woman close, because when she got a glimpse of the true me, she’d run. But Eden proved that theory wrong, and she’s got me believing that a baby is a good idea. I can’t help but think that I’ve lost my mind, but another part of me can’t wait to know that we’ve created a life together. To hold our child in my arms, to teach him—or her—how to shoot a puck. It’s crazy, but I want it, man. And you do too, if you let yourself admit it.”
“Grace deserves to have her own child growing inside her. Not be saddled with a guy who’s already stolen that from her.”
“So what? You leave her? Divorce her?”
“I suggested it.”
Jace’s expression had him thinking he should flee at full tilt from the building. Max held up a hand in defense. “I know I’m an idiot.”
“Thank you.”
“But I can’t get past the fact that she won’t have what she desperately longs for.”
“Having a biological child is only one way to be a parent, and if any two people are suited to adopt children and create an amazing family, it’s you and Grace.”
Max managed a slight smile, followed by the sudden, sweet image of Yulia sitting with Grace as she worked a puzzle, or Grace braiding her hair, or the way Yulia had pocketed herself into his embrace at the campfire.
Maybe.
“Stop trying so hard not to be happy, Max,” Jace said, rising. “And start trusting the life God is giving you. It just might knock your socks off.”
SATURDAY’S STORM had littered trees and debris from Hungry Jack Lake all the way down to Deep Haven, overflowing the riverbanks with frothy, murky brown water and stirring the big lake into a turmoil as it threw flotsam upon the shore.
Three days later, the air still hung heavy with mist. Amelia sat in the coffee shop, needing an escape from the lodge. How she hated housekeeping. With a full house booked for Memorial Day weekend, she wanted to summon a cheer, but her summer loomed ahead as an endless cycle of making beds, washing sheets, cleaning bathrooms, and mopping floors. She still nursed her sprained wrist, encased in a brace.
“Where’s Roark?” Ree sat opposite her in an overstuffed chair, holding a blended vanilla mocha. “I thought 007 would be here. I was looking forward to the view.”
Amelia looked up from the screen, where she had been clicking through her photographs of the Boy Scout trip. The shot of Roark, his hand up, grimacing, could made her smile with the memory of his wretched paddling skills. Until, of course, everything faded away and he’d become her hero.
She wouldn’t easily forget the image of him standing onshore, hands on his hips, his shirt wet against his chiseled outline, watching the plane as if she carried his heart with her.
She’d expected him at the hospital, or later, at the resort, but she hadn’t seen him since he’d spoken those words into her ear, the ones that stirred the feeling he’d seeded all those months ago while she stood on a bridge in Prague. You are more than capable of handling yourself. Do what you know to do.
“He must have gotten off his shift early.” She couldn’t brush the disappointment from her voice.
Ree must have noticed. “No more sending him packing?”
“Not so much,” Amelia said. “He was . . . Well, he prob
ably saved Big Mike’s life. I’m not sure how he talked Jake Goldstein into flying him out.”
“How are you? The whole thing made the papers—even in Duluth. Said that the EMS crew hiked in.” Ree gestured to Amelia’s braced arm.
“I’m fine. I fell trying to get help. And yes, Seth and Pastor Dan came in with a crew. Seth wasn’t real thrilled that I’d left them behind when he showed up hours later at the hospital.”
“The papers said he evacuated a troop of Boy Scouts.”
“I think that might trend toward fiction. Roark had it under control. Even had the boys singing camp songs. You should have seen him—he went from being a duck waddling over the lake to . . . I don’t know, a rescuer, I guess. Unflappable. I bet that comes from his days as a missionary kid. Which makes him, by the way, probably poor and not remotely a European playboy.”
“And mysterious. And exotic. Very James Bond,” Ree said.
“Yet, unlike Bond, he probably doesn’t have two quid to rub together.”
“So you live on love.”
Amelia’s own words at the beach tumbled back to her. But the thought didn’t sound so crazy. Live on love, or maybe run their own resort somewhere around Deep Haven? Didn’t he say he had hotel training?
No. He wouldn’t consider staying here permanently, would he?
Ree ran her thumb down her cup. “Did you meet the folks from Uganda? They stayed at the Mad Moose while scouting out a place to have their daughter’s wedding. By the way, I gave them your name for wedding photos.”
“Thanks. Anything to get away from washing sheets.”
“I don’t think I could ever be brave enough to be a missionary,” Ree said.
“Me either,” Vivie said, approaching from the counter. “Not to mention, that’s what I call overkill. You can serve God without doing it halfway across the world. I promise there are enough unsaved, lost people in Deep Haven.” She sat next to Amelia wearing jeans and a blue blouse tied at her waist, her hair in a high ponytail.
“You’re looking very Betty Rizzo,” Amelia said.
“Perfect. Sal is coming into town today.” Her red lips curled up. “He says he wants his car back, but I think he misses me.”
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