The Wonder of You

by Susan May Warren

  “I have no doubt,” Amelia said. “But really? You think it’s crazy to be a missionary?”

  “I mean, you have to be cut from a special kind of cloth to cross the world to tell people about Jesus.” Ree stirred her drink. “And Vivie’s right—there are plenty of lost and needy people here.”

  “But what if you’re—I don’t know—called to go to Uganda or Rwanda or someplace off the map?”

  “I would think that it doesn’t matter if you’re called or not. You have a choice in the matter, right?” Vivie said. “You can say no.”

  “Say no to God? Who does that?”

  Ree stared at her. “Are you kidding me? We say no to God more often than we say yes. Or at least normal people do. Maybe not Amelia Christiansen.” She winked.

  But the words stung as they dropped around Amelia.

  “I think my answer would be no. Hello—snakes,” Vivie said, making a face. She turned to Amelia. “Do you have those photos?”

  “Yes. I edited a few of them.” She angled the computer toward her. “Tell me which ones you want and I’ll send them to you.”

  Ree leaned over, examining the screen. “I love the ones on the farm. And of Colleen in the tractor wheel. They’re beautiful, Amelia. You’re so talented. You should so enter that contest.”

  “What contest?” Vivie said, scrolling through the pictures.

  “The link someone put on the pictures she uploaded last week. It’s a viewer contest—you vote for your favorite photographer.”

  “It was Roark. He posted the link,” Amelia said. “The contest is called Capture America. I post ten pictures of my American life, and then people vote on the ones they like. There are three rounds, each one with a smaller group, and the one with the most votes wins $5,000 and an offer to visit their offices in New York.”

  “New York City?” Ree’s voice rose. “Amelia, you have to! Vivie can show you around, right, Viv?”

  Vivie wore an odd smile but lifted her shoulder. “Sure.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s not to know? You could go to a photography school with the money—or back to Prague. You could escape Deep Haven.”

  “I’m not sure I want to leave,” Amelia said softly.

  A knock on the window made Amelia look up. Seth stood outside, waving, smiling, wearing a red T-shirt with Turnquist Lumber stamped on the front. She waved back, wrestling out a smile.

  He’d been so attentive, worried. So sweet when he’d practically charged into the hospital, wet, grimy, and every inch her rescuer.

  Ree looked at Seth, back to Amelia. “Are you back together?”

  “He’s been hovering since the accident.”

  “And Roark?”

  “I haven’t seen him. He delivered the Boy Scouts to the resort and left.” She’d tried not to feel like he’d reverted to the man she’d known in Prague—taking off without explanation.

  “Not a word?”

  “I keep wondering if he saw the real me and made a break for it.”

  “Ames—that’s not right. He came all the way over here, got a job, is braving your family . . . What was it he said?”

  “That extreme didn’t begin to describe what he’d do to win me back.”

  “Exactly. That doesn’t sound like a man who’s going to easily throw in the towel and head for higher ground,” Ree said.

  “But I’m not the same person he met in Prague. I’m . . . I’m a hometown girl.”

  “Whatever,” Vivie said, adding a roll of her eyes. “You went over to Prague and came back with your tail cut off. So what? The Amelia I grew up with, dreaming of an epic life, is still inside there. It’s the same girl who’s probably clicked on the Capture America link, won’t let it leave her brain.”

  She had clicked on it, looked at the other photographers’ work, been debating which pictures she’d enter, and that truth probably showed on her face.

  “I knew it,” Vivie said. “Just like I know that you are destined for bigger things. Beyond Deep Haven. Maybe Roark is here to save you from a life you would too easily embrace. Seth is a full-blooded alpha male, and I certainly wouldn’t run away from him on a dark, starry night, but Seth is safe. And, Ames, I’m sorry, but deep down, you don’t want safe. Roark is just exotic enough to bring back the Amelia we knew nine months ago, boarding an airplane.”

  “You don’t understand, Vivie. I thought I wanted that, but once I got there, I was . . . I was a wreck. Terrified. Without Roark, I might have hopped a plane home that first week.”

  “Maybe,” Ree said. “But everybody gets in over their head. Eventually we would have turned you around and shoved you back on the plane until you stayed. Until your outside matched the Amelia we know is inside.”

  It’s not about how you feel. It’s about what you do.

  Amelia stared at Vivie, who was trying so hard to become the movie star on the outside she believed she could be on the inside. At Ree, launching out to grab ahold of her journalism dreams.

  “One failure does not a lifetime make,” Ree said. “That’s the best Yoda I’ve got.”

  Amelia had a crazy urge to hug both of them. She turned the computer. Clicked on the Capture America link.

  “The deadline to enter is today,” Ree said, reading over her shoulder.

  “It’s a sign,” Vivie said.

  “No, it’s not,” Ree said. “It’s Providence. God is in this. Enter, Amelia.”

  “I won’t win.”

  “You could win.” Vivie wiggled her eyebrows. “You could win, and suddenly you get to see the world. You’d have opportunity and choices. A doorway to your future.”

  Amelia glanced at Ree. At Vivie. They nodded, her own personal cheering squad. Plus, she had more—an entire family of fans. And Roark.

  Do what you know to do.

  Yes, maybe, for the first time in months, she did know.

  Even before Darek’s crazy suggestion that Roark become a lumberjack, the idea of staying, of starting over here in Deep Haven, building a life with Amelia, had begun to seem . . . maybe not so crazy.

  And the longer he spent with Darek, training for a contest he didn’t have a prayer of winning, the more the life of the Christiansens drew him in. Took root, settled deep, became sane. He saw himself belonging, taking kids out on the trail with Amelia, or toasting s’mores by the fire.

  He could even help with the lodge, teach them how to manage rates and revenue. Maybe they could expand. Open another resort.

  “So you’re saying that you used to change the rate every day?” Darek was saying. They stood in the gravel pit a few miles from the Evergreen property where Darek had decided they should train. Just in case Amelia should happen home, unexpected.

  Roark tried not to let the word lying into his head.

  “Yeah, depending on how many rooms we had, the occupancy of local competition, the time of year, the day of the week, and how much we needed for our projected ROI. It’s easy once you plug all the values into a formula. Then you change your rates on your reservation software system, and it changes them globally across all your online and off-line platforms.”

  As Roark talked, Darek affixed a skinned log vertically between two clamps, raising it to knee height. He wore steel-toed boots, had given Roark a pair of Casper’s boots, and fitted them both with shin guards.

  To think Roark believed yesterday’s lesson on hot sawing had been challenging. He could still feel his hands buzzing from the chain saw.

  Darek had picked up an ax, now set it down. “We don’t have a reservation software system. We issue rate cards at the beginning of the year, then record the reservations in a guest book, designated by nights.”

  Roark stared at him, trying to imagine a system that required someone to flip pages, to manually record all the information without the convenience of a computer. But lodges like Evergreen Resort had managed exactly that way for centuries. Still . . . “We need to get you an RDP system. It’ll change your life.”

&n
bsp; “And this will change yours. Have you ever chopped down a tree with an ax?”

  “I hardly think that learning how to swing an ax—”

  “It’s called the standing block chop, and it’s the first of the four competitions in the lumberjack games,” Darek said and handed Roark the ax. “By the way, I know I’m all gung ho, but you should know that you don’t have a snowball’s chance in Texas of winning the logrolling, although I’ll do my best. I think our strategy is to hone the block chop, the hot saw, and the double buck. Let’s be thankful that there’s no pole climb, because I am not a fan of the ninety-foot height.”

  Uh . . . “Me either?”

  “With the standing block chop, the goal is to cut away the scarf on each side until the block is severed. You’re in luck because technique and skill trump brute strength. I won two years ago, was runner-up the year before that. Seth, he’s all about the brawn in this event.”

  He gestured to the ax. “That’s called a racing ax. It’s lighter than a regular ax and razor sharp. And—” he smiled—“it was my father’s.”

  Nothing like holding the legacy of two generations in his hand. The hickory handle fit into Roark’s grip, and Darek showed him how to put both hands together at the end of the handle. Then he demonstrated his stance. “Everyone is different. Some like the wide stance; others like a narrower stance. I like to keep it wide so I can utilize the power in my legs and hips. Keep your knee back a bit so you can use your weight to distribute the power.” He took the ax, demonstrated the upswing.

  The ax struck deep, smooth as butter into the wood. Darek stepped up, grabbed a marker, and drew four equidistant lines on the log. Then he drew an oval, centered on each side. “This is your scarf, where you’ll be chopping. These lines help you set your feet. If you line up exactly the same on both sides, you should have an even chop. This stance will also protect your leg in case you skid your ax down the stump.”

  He demonstrated again, standing in position. “Now, the bigger the arc, the harder the hit. You want to reach back as far as you can, keeping your eyes on your target. If you’re casting a down hit, you let gravity do the work. Once it hits, pull the ax out, let it fall to the ground, then loop it back up and strike again. Think of a circle motion. When you’re striking an up hit, think of the ax like a pendulum. You’ll hit, pull it out, let it fall, then bring it back in nearly the same place. You’ll repeat this technique for both sides until the block is chopped in half.

  “You want to bend your legs into the up hit, stand tall for a down hit, getting above the block and using your shoulders to power into the strike.”

  He handed the ax to Roark, who positioned his feet, then brought the ax down. It sat in the groove, about half as much as Darek’s strike.

  “Don’t be afraid to really hit it,” Darek said. “We’re sort of conditioned here in the States, and maybe even Britain, to pull our punches. You don’t have to do that when you’re power chopping. Give it all you’ve got. I usually start with about four up hits, then two down hits, and I keep that rhythm as hard as I can, as fast as I can. It’s fun.”

  Fun? Maybe it was as Roark threw his shoulders into the next hit. Chips flew as he sank the ax deep, then yanked it out. The rush of adrenaline burned through muscles he’d forgotten existed. “This could get tiring.”

  “Good thing you have almost three weeks.” Darek stepped up to the wood again and explained the art of cutting scarfs, the way the underhand cuts should carve out trapezoid chips. “But the most important thing is to nail the technique before you work on speed.”

  Roark tried the underhand cut. Realized that it took a bit more finesse to aim the ax in the right slice. “You can feel the weight of the ax head engage about halfway through the swing,” he said, giving it another go.

  “That’s a good sign. Means you’re doing it right. Now, when you feel that weight, add a little whip action with your wrists and it’ll sink even deeper.”

  He tried it, the ax sinking to the head. Darek made a noise of approval. “By george, I think he’s got it. Give it a few more goes; then I’ll teach you about covering your corners.”

  The wood came off in twenty-four blows, the top skidding into the gravel. Roark set the ax down, breathing hard.

  “Not bad,” Darek said, reaching for another block. “If you can get it off in twelve, you’ll have a contending time.”

  He helped Roark mark the wood, then sat on the bed of his pickup and directed, corrected, and encouraged as Roark attacked the block. “Nineteen. Better.”

  The chops echoed through the pine trees into the sweet summer air. Roark’s hands burned, his shoulders cramping with the upper hits. He set the ax down again and took a breath.

  Darek dug a cold can of Coke out of the cooler in the truck. He tossed the can to Roark, who opened it and drank deeply as Darek lifted another block.

  “Not a lot of chopping at that prep school you attended?” Darek said, affixing the block. He marked it, then grabbed the ax.

  “Eton. And no. We did some outdoor survival, but no lumberjack games. Cricket. Polo. Yachting.”

  Darek attacked the block and had chipped out half of it in six blows. “So where’d you learn first aid?”

  “My gap year.” He watched as Darek attacked the other side. He had the block apart in five more blows. “I went to Uganda to work in a refugee camp. They needed so much help, I got a hands-on course in basic triage. And I did a lot of nursing.”

  “Where did sailing and Kilimanjaro fit in?”

  Darek set up another block, this time handing the ax to Roark.

  He stood, sized up the log, considering how to answer Darek’s question. He’d sealed the past inside so long; maybe he’d let a little of it leak out. He drew in a breath and landed the upper hits perfectly. “I needed some space after an accident in my hotel. People died, and it was my fault.”

  He arched the down hit, and it slid into the wood with a satisfying thump over Darek’s silence behind him.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Darek seemed to be considering his Coke can. He looked up, met Roark’s gaze. “Keep chopping.”

  Oh. He threw himself into another chop. “I just . . . I needed to get away, so I started traveling.” He cut out the corners with the next upper hits, and a nice wedge of wood fell out.

  “New Zealand is pretty far from Paris,” Darek said.

  Roark didn’t add that his uncle had a hotel in Wellington. Instead he threw down another blow and sliced out a hefty wedge of wood, feeling strong. “It wasn’t far enough.” He moved to the opposite side. “I could still hear the screaming, smell the smoke.” Could still taste what his arrogance had wrought. Feel the futility of trying to outrun God’s wrath.

  “I’m sorry. I know a little about trying to run away from mistakes,” Darek said quietly. “Although if it was truly your fault, you’d be in jail, right?”

  He hadn’t thought about it that way. “Right. I suppose that’s a bit overstated.”

  For some reason, the quiet exchange loosed something inside. He placed the next two cuts fast and hard, then added two down hits. “I eventually headed to Africa. Decided I’d climb a mountain.” He surveyed the wood, then swung down with everything inside him. The top spiraled off. He looked at Darek. “That didn’t quite work either. I came back to Europe and ended up in Prague.”

  “Where you met Amelia.”

  “Yes. And for the first time, it felt as though I could finally start over. Stop running.”

  Darek crumpled his can. “Evergreen Resort is a good place to stop running.” He took the ax from Roark. “I should know.”

  It was the second time he’d dropped a bread crumb Roark desperately wanted to follow. Instead he said, “Why are you helping me, Darek? It wasn’t too long ago you might have taken that ax to me.”

  One side of Darek’s mouth curled. He looked at the ax as if he might still be considering it. “You’re right about the hovering. We spend a lot of time in this family meddling in eac
h other’s lives.”

  “Some would call that caring.”

  “We do too, but the fact is, we know each other so well, it’s easy to be cemented in by the expectations of the family. Seth is that expectation. He’s been in Amelia’s life so long it seems only logical that she would settle down with him. But you . . . you’re unexpected. You . . . see her. Not the Amelia we expect her to be, but maybe the Amelia who has been trying to break free. My mother always says that my sister is trying to escape our shadow. I think, in Prague, she finally did. And you were part of that.”

  He walked over to the stump. “Besides, seeing your devotion to Amelia has made me realize something. Seth is smitten with the idea of him and Amelia together.” He looked up and met Roark’s eyes. “You’re smitten with Amelia.”

  Indeed.

  “Wait until she finds out you’re taking on Seth.” Darek wore a strange grin. “I can’t wait to see her face.”

  “We don’t have to tell her . . . yet.” Even as Roark said it, warning flares lit in the back of his head. Still, set against his other secrets . . .

  “Oh, I love it. We’ll get you into shape, then surprise her.”

  Roark wanted to rewind, recast his words. “Maybe—”

  “Listen, I think we’re done here. Why don’t you come back to the office and show me what you mean by reservation software. You can stick around for dinner.”

  “Uh, I’ve been invited for dinner to Jensen and Claire’s.”

  Darek considered him, wearing an enigmatic expression.

  “What?”

  “I just put it together. Jensen’s your inside man. The one who convinced you to return, got you a job, fixed you up at the Java Cup. I was trying to figure out how you two met.”

  “I got my own job, thank you. But yeah, Jensen suggested that maybe your bark was worse than your bite.”

  Darek shook his head, chuckling. “He was always for the underdog.”

  “I’m not the . . .” Okay. “Maybe I am.” The thought stirred him. He’d never, ever, been the underdog.

  It felt . . . empowering.

  “But not for long.”