Hanna came through the door of the lodge and announced, “We need to start back.”
Paul looked up from his watch in amazement. “It can’t be nine o’clock.”
Hanna grinned. “Yup.”
Duncan laughed with his father. “I’m still astonished by how much daylight there is.”
“How do you sleep?” Pamela asked.
“I just close my eyes,” Duncan responded. “I’d love to have you stay for longer than one afternoon. You would see what a haven I’ve found.” Duncan looked at Hanna and brushed in irritation at a bug flying around his face.
Hanna’s gaze locked on Duncan.
“I don’t know when we could take the time,” Pamela said. After a moment of hesitation, she added. “On second thought, when you have to sign the final papers on the probate, perhaps we could come up again.” She looked at Hanna. “You could join us all for dinner, as a thank you for your nice flight today.” She smiled back at Duncan.
Duncan paled and stood quickly. “We need to get moving.” He pointed at the lake. “There’s Jacob’s skiff.”
The next fifteen minutes bustled with the business of picking up a packet of outgoing mail, and a short grocery list, when Duncan left the lodge to walk everyone back to the strip he picked up the 30.06.
“Duncan, this isn’t the old west,” Pamela said. “Is it really necessary?”
“I hope not,” he replied. “But this time of night and this time of year, I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
When they got to the strip, Jacob was tying his skiff up at the dock. He hefted a backpack onto his shoulder and Rebecca, his sprite of a six-year-old clung to his hand. Her somber tear-streaked face the only evidence of her dilemma.
Eerily the hair on Hanna’s neck prickled. Something? Trust you guts! She turned, expecting to see a bear. Instead, the Shaman was squatted beside the plane. Nameless lay beside him soaking up the aura as the Shaman ran his hand over the young dog from head to haunches. Another husky lay beside him.
Little by little everyone became aware of the Shaman. He stood up and focused on Rebecca.
The lake went quiet. All the breeze and birds and buzzing insects became silent. Hanna hated the dreamlike fear he invoked.
Pamela stepped closer to her husband. Paul shushed her murmur of concern. Hanna’s eyes followed as the Shaman advanced toward Rebecca. The scrawny, unwashed man reached gently toward her chin and tipped her face up. He placed both hands over her ears and stood silently, his eyes locked with hers.
As soon as Rebecca’s shoulders relaxed the Shaman took his hands away. His eyes connected with Hanna’s. Angry guilt, like an unpaid traffic ticket, surged through her. Without a word or another acknowledgement he walked into the brush along the lake and disappeared.
“Papa?” Rebecca’s tiny voice said, “It doesn’t hurt so much now. Do we still have to go into town?”
“It’s was just a temporary fix, baby girl.” Jacob looked at Hanna. “Are we ready to go?”
“That’s it?” Pamela’s tone bristled. “You people let a nasty old man touch a little girl, and all anyone says is, ‘are we ready to go’? He obviously needs help. Aren’t there institutions up here for people like him? He’s… he’s….”
Jacob looked from Hanna to Duncan. “He’s crazy as a bedbug, and everyone knows what he is.” Without another word he led Rebecca toward the plane.
Duncan seemed to consider what his mother said. “Everything you said may be true, Mother, but he’s ours. Crazy or not, he’s the only Shaman we’ve got.”
Chapter 16
Ping. Hanna felt a tiny snap inside her chest. Warmth radiated down her arms and legs. She wanted to ignore it and couldn’t. She could dislike the Shaman and all he stood for, it was her contrary right. Someone from Outside didn’t have the right—to tell Alaska how to deal with its crazy people.
Duncan donned the mantle of Alaskan. “So—there,” he said to Hanna. “Want some help pulling this plane out of the weeds?” He energetically turned to help with the process of getting ready to leave.
Hanna nodded her numb, half-smiling face. What she wanted was to throw her arms around him. Mr. GQ cover boy was turning into another kind of man. She’d prepared to dismiss the man who showed up in loafers and an unlined leather jacket. What was she to do with this man? She did a slow walk-around looking for puncture marks. She paid special attention to the tires. Bears love the rubber like kids love lolli-pops.
Duncan walked with her and when they got behind the plane he lowered his voice. “Don’t trust my mother’s barracuda smile. You can never know what she’s thinking.”
“Thanks. I can handle myself.”
“You don’t know her,” Duncan continued. “She has her heart set on The Amazing Victoria, any other woman is in danger.”
“You make it sound like I have reason to worry.” Hanna gave him a flirtatious leer.
“You do,” Duncan said quietly. He was close and the flutter in her chest gave her trouble catching her breath. Her ears pounded until she got her plane in the air.
The next afternoon, when Hanna got back after dropping Jacob and Rebecca at the north end of the lake, she landed.
Tom met the plane with the four-wheeler for the freight, what little there was. “You coming up to the lodge?”
“No. Tell everyone hi. I’ve got projects. You know—winter is coming.”
Tom nodded sagely. “Tell me about it.”
She went directly to her cabin. She had jobs to finish before snow made them difficult or impossible. The lodge was busy, and the summer was in full swing; tomorrow was the first day she didn’t have to fly into Anchorage.
Hanna swung the maul from high above her head, and the resounding thwack reverberated through her arms. The birch round split with a crack, and she reached down to set another in its place. Thwack. Out of the corner of her eye, a movement caught her attention, and she stopped as Duncan’s four-wheeler picked its way through the sun-dappled woods.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked.
“I came to take you on a picnic.”
“A picnic?”
“Yup, I brought a lunch. Tom told me I have to explore the area, and I decided I needed a guide.” Duncan’s infectious grin spread across his face.
“Sorry, I’m busy.” Hanna avoided looking at his charming face and set up another round of birch.
“All work and no play…” Duncan trailed off. “You’ll always be busy. When was the last time you went out the old mine road?”
“Uhh.”
“It’s what I thought. ‘Com’on, I need to know where I send these people when they want to go hiking. He pointed to the birch tree scattered in neat rounds across the forest floor. “Your dead tree will still be here tomorrow.”
Hanna shook her head. “Can’t do it. I need to get my wood shed full before I go back this week. It’s what I have on my schedule.”
“Your schedule. Couldn’t you rearrange the schedule?”
“No.” Hanna hefted the maul and let it fall. Thwack.
“You’re breakin’ my heart here,” Duncan said. “I’ve never had a woman turn me down. Never.”
“Then I must be good for your development into a well-rounded, fully formed human being.”
“So—we’ll just ride out there, you’ll show me what I need to see, and I’ll bring you back. No lunch, no meaningless conversation, just a neighbor keeping the greenhorn out of trouble. ’Cause I might get lost and never be seen again.” Duncan looked down his nose in her direction. “You will still get back to your axe today.”
Thwack! Hanna looked down at the handle in her hand. “Maul.”
“Maul, axe, wood cutting utensil.” He gave a bemused shrug.
“I really shouldn’t take the time.” Hanna looked over at the chainsaw propped up against a stump. “But I haven’t seen the swans this year.” She’d worked so much this summer even this small pleasure induced guilt. Where’s the harm in taking a couple of hours
off? “I guess—”
“I’ll help you put your tools away, and you can check on your swans.” Duncan hopped off the four-wheeler and stumbled. He caught himself and limped toward the chainsaw.
“Are you hurt?” He didn’t often let the limp show. A kernel of concern popped into her chest.
“No, I’ve been working hard this week. We have to dig the septic system in by hand, and I pulled something. Tom made me leave. I hate it when the help runs the business.”
“Humm, how did you hurt yourself? I mean, before. You said car wreck—it’s none of my business, but—” Hanna’s curiosity embarrassed her. She ducked her head and scooped up the rest of her tools and followed Duncan into the lean-to woodshed.
“Ah, you know how it is. Jubilation at the end of the second year at college with no direction in sight. I’d gotten thrown out of the party at my frat house.” He dropped his voice to exasperation, “Never try to pick up someone else’s girl.” He smirked briefly in her direction. “You aren’t someone else’s girl—are you?”
Hanna only frowned and pointed to the bench where he could put the chainsaw.
“So, a little too much booze, a little too much speed on a winding road with a really steep slope, put me in a really lonely hospital for a really long, thought-filled summer. It wasn’t what I had planned, and I had another year of rehab to work on after I got out of the hospital. At least I can still walk.” He chuckled.
“It sounds more serious than you let on.”
He sobered, “I have to make light of it. And to give credit where credit is due. Carl and John saved me from myself. They kept my spirits up and called bullshit on me when I started to backslide into whiny-rich-kid.”
As they walked past the front of her cabin, Hanna ducked in the door and scooped up a small backpack. Duncan swung astride the four-wheeler to wait. “What’s in the bag?”
“I like being prepared. It’s my grab-n-go. Sort of an emergency first aid thing, it has binoculars too.” She swung on behind him and directed him to the old road. They left the big trees growing around the lake and gradually the willows and alder brush dwindled to low hummocks of Labrador tea and an Alaskan equivalent to blueberries.
A brisk breeze scooted across the rolling hills and jerked their words away. The road, a rocky, uneven track, wound along the dry sides of a gentle slope avoiding the bogs and ponds.
They splashed across gravel-bottomed trickles and one snowmelt creek rushing and tumbling through a sharp-sided canyon. Hanna pointed to where the bog it fed spread out into a shallow pond. “I’d like to stop here.” She put her arm back around his chest and convinced herself the warm glow between her legs was because the shelter of his body kept the breeze away.
Duncan found a protected hollow and he turned off the machine. Silence broken only by the friction of the passing wind enveloped them.
Hanna turned her face up toward the sun and breathed deeply. She imagined she could smell the salt air even though it was a thousand miles west to the Bering Sea. She pulled binoculars from her backpack and focused them on the pond. There they were, a pair of tundra swans and one gray cygnet. She passed the glasses to Duncan, and he sat for a long time watching.
“I’ve never seen such big birds in the wild,” Duncan said, as if they might hear him. “My God, they’re beautiful.”
Ping.
Another strand broke. Hanna scrambled desperately to grasp the loose ends and thread them back into her rope of wisdom. If she could find something wrong with Duncan Mahoney, Mr. G.Q. Cover Boy, she could save herself. She could escape the fall she could see coming. This. Just. Can. Not. Work.
“Well, we’re here. Might as well eat.” Duncan gestured in the direction of the cargo pod on the back of the four-wheeler and grinned.
Ping.
He even had a blanket. The knee-high brush cushioned them as they ate. Hanna pulled out her binoculars, and they spent a lazy two hours passing them back and forth, glassing the undulating hills. Duncan delighted in seeing a fox and a bull moose on the opposite hillsides of the valley. Hanna showed him how to recognize the zig-zag zipper look of an old bear trail.
Hanna reveled in the complete relaxation. How long had it been since she’d allowed herself to lie in the sun and do nothing?
Hanna’s little snooze ended when a fly trapped under the blanket buzzed and bumbled at her ear. She opened her eyes, “Did you plan the nap, too?”
He was reclined against the four-wheeler tire. “Oh, yeah. It’s always my plan to take a girl on a date and watch her sleep.” The moment stretched, her questions were reflected in his green eyes.
“This isn’t a date.” She lay there gazing up into a future she wanted to resist, and like the slow-motion of a car wreck, he leaned over and kissed her. An unhurried, soft kiss. She focused on the taste of him, the touch of the stubble on his face, the tender tip of his tongue. The smell of warm skin, the man smell, sending an unavoidable quaking need through every joint and fiber of her parched body.
More. I want more. Her arm slipped up around his body and pulled herself deeper into his embrace. It feels so good. Just enjoy it and you can stop later. If she stopped now it wouldn’t hurt so bad later. But, what about now? It’s been so long and he feels so good.
Duncan’s hands played across her body and loitered at the junction of her jeans and her back. His rough hands found the sliver of skin beneath her shirt.
You’ll be so sorry. She could feel his breath come in sharp bursts. His arms slid around her and his body covered hers. This is a terrible idea.
When he moved his elbow to brace himself the mood was altered. He broke the deep kiss, and two small kisses later he raised his head to look into her eyes. “This is nice, Hanna, where is it going?”
“I don’t know,” her whisper was attached to regret. “I—don’t know.”
He rolled over and dragged her with him. She curled into his shoulder. After jostling a moment, he got comfortable against the tire. “We’re big people; we know what’s possible. Do we want to go there?” His arms wrapped her into his chest and his heart thumped softly beneath her cheek. “I’m crazy about you. Can we..?” Duncan’s hand stroked her arm.
“Can we go ahead and then not be pissed off later?” Hanna asked.
“Yeah.”
Hanna shook her head. “I’ll be pissed off later.”
“What if we go ahead and plan not to be pissed off?” Duncan asked.
Hanna tensed. “You mean like planning for a future?”
“Yeah. Would it be a bad thing?”
The violent disagreement continued inside Hanna’s head. This is a stupid conversation, why am I here? I should get up and make him take me back. NOW. He won’t stay, you know he won’t stay.
“I wish you would think out loud.” His gentle strokes up and down her arm continued.
“No you don’t.” Hanna turned her face up and kissed the line of his jaw. He kissed her again.
Liar, you’re just like him, but this feels so good. I don’t have to tell him the whole truth. When he leaves he won’t remember this conversation, he’ll just leave.
A big blue bottle fly careened into Hanna’s cheek and bounced drunkenly between her eyelashes and Duncan’s nose. They broke away from each other and Duncan swatted violently. “Aaa, do you ever get used to the insult of flying insects?”
Hanna laughed and rolled away, ending up on her feet. “No.”
“Just as well, I guess. I didn’t bring a condom.”
She laughed again. “I did. There are several in my pack.”
Duncan paused. “Really?” His eyes widened.
“Don’t look at me you lecherous man. Most emergency packs have one or two. They’re used for more than sex you know.”
“Not where I come from.”
“Welcome to my world,” Hanna said. She picked up two corners of the blanket and waited for Duncan to move. “Care to join me in my bug-free cabin?”
Duncan bent down and took the other two cor
ners of the blanket. Together they began folding. “Could we call it something like planning a future?” He asked.
“No, but it could be fun.” She’d committed, even if it was the worst decision she ever made, Hanna was ready to live with the consequences.
Chapter 17
When Duncan stopped in front of Hanna’s cabin, she hopped off the four-wheeler. “I’ll be right back.” She detoured into her small sauna and he followed, watching from the low doorway. She started a fire, checked the water level in the large stainless steel pot on top of the little stove. She turned to face him.
“Quit multi-tasking and come here,” he said. “I want your undivided attention.” He pulled her close and kissed her.
He fell into the kiss, the lovely oblivion of no past and no future. The exquisite present took over all of his consciousness. He didn’t know how long the kiss lasted. She pushed away slowly. “I don’t have to fly tomorrow. I have a nice bottle of wine in the house and since this is the first time…I want a little help with my inhibitions. Besides, I want to be fresh for you, and the water isn’t hot yet.”
Duncan smiled and kissed her nose. “Okay, you take the lead.” Fear took hold of his nerve endings, and he trembled as if he were standing between the tracks with an oncoming train. This woman was making his head swim with the possibilities of a forever, and this time he wanted to go there. He realized the futility of the women in his past, nice women, hot women, but none of them had been Hanna. He’d waited for her. The question was had she been waiting for him?
They went back to the cabin. Hanna turned down the volume on the music and poured wine. He savored the taste of it on her lips. She began to undress, slowly, revealing the body he’d dreamed about over the last month. It was better than the dream.
She stood back and considered him still fully clothed. Duncan laughed at the trembling of his hands. He didn’t remember this flood of emotion accompanying a new conquest. But she wasn’t a conquest.
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