by Cindy Gerard
He didn’t want to talk about that, either. He couldn’t bear to see the sparkle leave her eyes or to spoil the time they had left together.
So he opted for the coward’s way out.
“You know, don’t you, that the condos could be good for your own business? Wait—” He held up a hand to stall her quick and fiery comeback. “A road would make it more accessible. The condos would make it visible. The more exposure you get, the more business—”
“This isn’t about business,” she insisted, impatient with his logic even though they both knew it was sound. “This is about principles. And preservation. It’s about bucking progress in favor of the past.”
“All valid arguments... but you’re one woman, and the odds are against you.”
“And that means I should just fold?”
“No,” he said softly, admiring her determination in spite of it all. “It doesn’t mean you should fold. It means you need to be prepared for something you might not like...and be ready to take advantage of it.”
She looked toward the falls and away from him. “I don’t think I want to argue about this. Not today.”
Not today because it was their last day. Their one and only day alone together before Casey, Geezer and the new guests arrived back at the hotel.
“I don’t want to argue, either,” he said, and shrugged off the backpack.
When she just stood there, staring at her beloved falls, he decided to try on the idea from her point of view. “Where, exactly do they want to build them?”
She turned to him, judged his intent and must have realized he was coming from a different angle. “Up there.” She pointed toward the far ridge to the right of the waterfalls. “Right beside them. You wouldn’t be able to look at them without staring smack into barbecue grills, tubular lawn furniture and striped umbrellas.”
Hands on his hips, he surveyed the land with a scowl. “Looks like it would take some major earth moving to get a road up there.”
“Not to mention a loss of trees. That’s one of the last stands of virgin forest in the state. Do you realize how rare it is to find original-growth trees in this day? Mutilating it would not only be a sin against nature, it would be an abomination against man.”
He couldn’t help it. He grinned at her unwavering vehemence. “You got a soapbox to go with that speech, Miz Scarlett?”
She wheeled on him, ready to tangle, until she recognized the teasing challenge in his eyes. “You damn betcha, city boy. And I plan on using it day after tomorrow at the public hearing.”
“Public hearing?”
“The company behind the development plan has to get county approval before they’ll be able to build. Until they do, the whole project is on hold. I’m not the only one against this. Abel and Mackenzie, J.D. and Maggie, to name a few. If enough of us speak out, if our arguments are sound, we might be able to end it before it begins.”
“I hear a lot of ifs in there.”
She looked back at the falls. “We’re bucking economics. As is the case of most county governments, the coffers can always use more cash. Unfortunately, money talks louder than sentiment or even posterity... as in preserving Legend Lake and Crimson Falls for our generation and the ones to come.”
“Who’s the developer, and how did they get ahold of the property in the first place? I thought this was mostly state park and national forest up here.”
“Mostly, yes. But this particular land tract was homesteaded by a man named Swen Iverson close to a hundred years ago. It’s remained in his family ever since. Several years ago when the state wanted access to expand the park, his heirs refused to deed it over. Now, however, with the dollars this Dreamscape Corporation is shelling out, the family has agreed to sell.”
“Dreamscape? I don’t think I’ve heard of it.”
She dropped to her knees, unzipped the pack and started unloading their lunch. “It’s a company out of the Twin Cities. They’ve been trying to buy property up here for years to develop as getaways for die-hard business types. You know, workaholics who need to be force-fed rest and relaxation and clean air before they overdose on money and power.”
Her sneaky little slam stole the last of the tension between them. He reached for the blanket and helped her spread it across the ground. “Should I be taking offense at that remark?”
She broke into a wry grin. “If the stress level fits—”
“Has it ever been suggested, Ms. Morgan,” he said, easing down beside her, “that you have a nasty little mouth on you?”
“That’s not what you said last night.” Her coy smile had him reaching for her. “Or this morning,” she managed between giggles when he pinned her beneath him with a feigned leer.
“That mouth is going to get you in trouble.”
“I think that it already has,” she murmured, as he touched his lips to hers and made them both forget all about Dreamscape and his imminent departure—and gave her all the trouble she could ever want.
They lazed the day away making love, making fun, making memories Scarlett would treasure long after he left and the winter cold turned the crystal blue waters to the silver gray of his eyes.
And later, with the picnic blanket again and a bottle of wine, they shared the last night they’d have alone together on the widow’s walk overlooking the lake.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sky so crowded with stars.” Colin lay on his back, staring with the awe of discovery.
Beside him, Scarlett shared his wonder with a smile. “If I’m reading that faint hint of color edging in on the horizon correctly, I don’t think the light show’s over yet.”
“Light show?”
“Aurora borealis.”
He turned his head to look at her, before averting his gaze back to the sky. “Northern lights? No kidding. I didn’t think we were far enough north. Or in the right season.”
“Up here you never know. We catch glimpses of them on and off all winter and occasionally in summer, too, if the conditions are right.”
As they lay there, the sky gradually transformed from inky black to shades of pearly gray, then ascending hues of blue and lavender with streaks of red and green flashing across the whole like bold brush strokes over canvas.
“What makes it happen?”
“Depends on who you ask. Mackenzie insists they’re the work of an ancient Chippewa magic man.”
“First, ghosts. Now, magic.”
“As I said, that’s Mackenzie’s version, not mine.”
“And Maggie—does she have an explanation too? And don’t say ghosts.”
She returned his lazy smile. “Nope. She says J.D. has convinced her that something as romantic as the northern lights shouldn’t be questioned. They should simply be enjoyed for the miracle they are.”
“What about Scarlett Morgan,” he asked softly. “What does she believe?”
She turned to him. The tenderness in his eyes touched her so deeply she had to look away. She’d like to believe in the magic of the Chippewa legend and call on it to find a way to keep Colin at her side through a thousand more nights filled with northern lights. She’d like to believe in romance as the means to the end she wanted, but knew it would never be enough.
Blinking back the tears that were trying to escape, she purposely broke the spell. “I believe it’s the walrus,” she said matter of factly.
“Walrus?” He practically laughed the word.
“Yup,” she confirmed, reacting to the grin in his voice, grateful her little bit of silliness had ended the mood. “According to Geezer—”
He snorted. “Makes sense this would come from Geezer.”
“According to Geezer,” she persisted, ignoring his skepticism, “an old legend in some Eskimo tribes is that the colored bands are spirits of the dead, playing ball with a walrus skull—or, vice versa—that the walrus spirits are playing with a human skull.”
He shook his head. “Sorry. Walrus just don’t do it for me. I think I’ll have to go along with
J.D. on this one and opt for romance.”
The moment he’d said it, they both realized the implication of his words. He was a man who didn’t look for, or want, love in his life. He was a man who had priorities, and romance wasn’t one of them.
Yet as he lay beside her, watching the sky dance with color and clarity, Colin questioned again the validity of his life choices to date. Just as he questioned if he really had it in him to leave her here and walk away.
Suddenly he had a need to know more about her—and no inclination to stop himself from asking.
He turned on his side, propping his cheek in his palm. The curve of her waist was slender and supple as he caressed her there, satisfying his need to touch her. “What happened to your marriage, Scarlett?”
He knew he had no right to ask. And for a moment, as she took the time to react to his unexpected question, he thought she’d tell him as much.
Instead, with a softly reflective tone and carefully chosen words, she answered with a dismissive shrug.
“The same thing that happens to many marriages, I guess. We were too young. Too focused on individual needs. Too stupid to know what to do about it. The stress finally got the best of us and we parted ways.”
Well. That was neat and tidy. Too neat. Too tidy. And she was too tense. There was more to the story. He knew he shouldn’t, but he pressed. “That’s it?”
She let out a deep breath, gave another one of those evasive shrugs. “Pretty much.”
“Do you ever hear from him?”
For the first time her control slipped. The smile that tipped up her lips was bitter. “Once ... maybe twice a year he calls to talk to Casey. Usually to apologize for missing her birthday or to explain why her Christmas gifts were late or why he didn’t make it to his parents when she was there visiting. He’s always got some deal going. Some big venture, simmering on the back burner, that’s turned out to be more important than her.”
“Casey’s a sweet kid,” he said, unable to curb the anger in his voice. “She deserves better. You deserved better, too.”
She said nothing.
“Do you still love him?”
Silence bad never been so loud as he waited, denying that a negative reply was as important as his next breath.
“I’m not sure I ever loved him,” she said at last, and he told himself the regret he heard was due more to circumstance than sorrow.
“I was infatuated with him in the beginning. Charmed by him even. But it never developed into love. If it had, I would have fought harder to keep the marriage intact. In the end, though, I gave up trying even for Casey’s sake.”
“You left him.”
She nodded. Not pleased. Not proud. Just resigned.
“And he didn’t try to stop you?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as to say that.”
“Then he wasn’t a total fool.” It was on the tip of his tongue to say that a man would have to be a fool not to fight for her. A bigger fool to walk away.
Just as he was planning to do.
“John fought everything,” she said, breaking into his regrets but not destroying them. “His problem was, he fought for all the wrong reasons.”
She turned to him then, her dark eyes concealing secrets he knew she was withholding, even as she searched his for answers. “Why are we talking about this? Casey comes home tomorrow. Geezer, too, along with a number of reservations. This is our last night together, Colin. I don’t want to spend any more of it talking about what’s past.”
He didn’t want to let it go. He didn’t want to let her go, either. But he had no hold on her past and no rights in her future.
What he had was tonight and half a dozen tomorrows, when he would share her company but not her bed before he left her life and went back to his.
“Tell me what you want,” he whispered, drawing her against him, the promise implicit in his embrace that whatever she wanted he would deliver.
She didn’t tell him. She showed him. With the passion of her kiss and the desperation of her lovemaking. There on the widow’s walk, beneath the vastness of the Minnesota sky and the exotic dance of the northern lights, she took him inside her and gave him everything she was as a woman. She made love to him as if it were the first time, as if it were the last time...as if she were saying goodbye.
“You been up t’ no good, ain’t ya?”
It was the night after Casey and Geezer had returned to Crimson Falls. It was the night after he’d made love with Scarlett on the widow’s walk and felt her come apart in his arms.
Colin was standing on the dock, contemplating the night, trying to void the memories the two of them had made together.
Geezer’s voice was a jarring reminder of those things he was trying to forget.
He turned toward the sound of the old man’s shuffling gate, squinted through the darkness and saw him standing at the base of the dock.
“While I was gone,” he continued, his tone accusatory, “and you was alone here with her. You couldn’t keep them hands t’ yerself. I knew I shouldn’a left her by herself with the likes a’ you.”
Colin figured he deserved the dressing down, though Geezer couldn’t add anything to what he’d already told himself a thousand times.
He turned back to his study of the lake, letting the night sounds and the water sounds drown out Geezer’s mutterings and the guilt he was already heaping on himself.
Scarlett hadn’t told Colin the public hearing on the condo issue was being held in the hotel. Had he thought about it, he would have seen the logic. What better place to plead for the preservation of the past and the land than in the midst of it?
The dining room was as full as he’d seen it since he’d been here. Several locals had boated over to show support for one side or the other. Some of the hotel’s new arrivals had even wandered in to see what was going on.
The Greenes had been among the first to arrive and, in a show of solidarity for Scarlett’s cause, were sharing a table with Colin and Casey and Geezer. The Hazzards arrived late. When Colin saw J.D. and Maggie slip inside, he sent J.D. a look across the room.
J.D., undaunted by Colin’s “I’ve got a bone to pick with you” glare, gave Colin a huge grin and a thumbs-up.
Colin just shook his head. James Dean Hazzard was a difficult man to dislike—let alone hold a grudge against. Still, Colin was about to give him a dressing down, when Scarlett took the floor.
The crowd stilled as she eloquently and passionately stated her case. Everyone listened, but it was to a handful of government officials and a contingent of Dreamscape attorneys and company reps that she spoke.
“She’s on a roll now.”
This from Casey who had returned from the Greenes yesterday morning early enough that Colin and Scarlett had had to scramble out of bed and hustle around to look presentable—and platonic.
On that issue Scarlett was adamant. “Casey is not to know or suspect what went on here while she was gone. She’s missed having a male influence in her life. don’t want her to get the wrong idea about us.”
As the day progressed, he spent it regretting the end of their intimacy and the lost chance to make lazy morning love to her one more time, and he wondered just what idea Casey might get if she knew.
Would she get the idea that he was in love with her mother? Would she see, as he sat there this very moment with his hands suddenly wrapped around his coffee cup in a white-knuckled grip, that he’d just figured out that was exactly the case?
He was in love. For the first time in his life he was in love. The impact of that unthinkable truth hit him like a lead pipe.
Stunned, he sat there, watching the woman who’d breached a barrier he’d thought impenetrable, and accepted that he’d been in love with her from the beginning. He couldn’t imagine that there was a drug made, legal or otherwise, as potent as the feelings she evoked in him—or as mind-bending. Hell of a pill to swallow for a man who had an aversion to something even as benign as aspirin.
&nbs
p; After only one day of generic smiles, forced, distant courtesy, and one long, empty night without her in his arms, he already felt the loss. He just hadn’t realized it was love he was losing. Hadn’t realized, as he’d lain awake half the night coming up with and then tearing apart ideas to stretch their time together, that it was love he was trying to keep intact.
Well, he knew it now.
He was still struggling with the newness and the disbelief when the room erupted into an enthusiastic round of applause. Only then did he realize she’d spoken her piece. And only when she made her way through the crowd to take a seat beside him at the table did he realize that walking away from her was going to be one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
Nine
“Well, now we wait.” Mackenzie took a sip of iced tea and, with an encouraging smile for Scarlett, fell as silent as everyone else in the room.
They were in the dining room: the Greenes, the Hazzards, Colin and Scarlett. It was late afternoon. The crowd had slowly disbursed after the round-robin session of open-mike comments and arguments that J.D. and Mackenzie had added to Scarlett’s. Some of the others had spoken, too—both for and against the advent of the condos. The county officials had listened patiently to all. Only when the representatives from Dreamscape spoke, however, with their graphs and charts and carefully illustrated drawings and dollar signs, did they show any reaction. That reaction had been greed.
Everyone at the table knew the power of the dollar and its ability to win over sentiment and ideals.
‘“A tree hugger,”’ Scarlett sputtered, staring glumly out the window toward the falls. “That pompous, placating opportunist actually called me a tree hugger. Tried to make me out as some militant environmental activist who was more wrapped up in cause than purpose.”
“Well, there’s one thing about it,” Maggie added, sympathetic with Scarlett’s disgust, “he didn’t make any points taking that tack. Everyone who knows you knows how ridiculous that label is.”