A light, teasing laugh trickled from her lips. It was really great to hear it. “I’m sorry. It’s a bad habit, but I was pretty sure you were going to invite me along, right?”
“You happen to know where we’re going, too?” He couldn’t resist teasing her, and when she laughed at his playful dig, he grinned.
“Maybe I am psychic after all.” She smiled for him and the bright studio got even lighter. “Let me get my purse and I’ll be right with you.”
It felt great to talk to her again, and he looked forward to spending time with her. He planned to take her to his favorite place, a small park just before the Ringmuren where the view of the river was spectacular.
“I’m ready,” she said a couple of minutes later, popping out of nowhere, a baggy olive-green sweatshirt over her white work shirt and worn jeans. She’d run a brush through her hair, too, and the sun from the skylights cast a bright sheen over the raven-colored waves.
“Let’s go, then.”
*
The view of the Columbia River was magnificent from this vantage point. Marta would have believed it if Leif told her it was the Pacific Ocean because the opposite bank was nowhere in sight. And farther south in the distance, the Astoria-Megler Bridge looked as if it was a hundred miles long. Wow.
She inhaled fresh air and felt less queasy than she had in days. The dogs frolicked around the park without cares, and their antics made her laugh. “Do they ever get tired of chasing that Frisbee?”
“Never,” Leif deadpanned and tossed it again.
He struck her as a solid guy, one who carried on no matter how tough the going got. He’d already been through hell; anything else must seem trivial.
“Let’s sit over here.” He pointed to a bench at the end of a pretty walkway surrounded by flowers. Though it was hard to tear her gaze away from the river, she followed him.
When they arrived, Marta realized the bench was a memorial to Leif’s father. “You put this here?”
He nodded. “Dad always liked this view.”
After only knowing Leif for a short time, Marta suspected there were a couple other perfectly placed benches in Heartlandia for his mother and wife, too. A pang of sorrow over her mother caught her off guard. Maybe she’d call her father later to catch up. “Well, it certainly is fantastic. This is a lovely part of the country.”
“Agreed.”
“You’ve never wanted to leave?”
“I considered it in my late teens, but then my dad offered me the apprenticeship and I had the good sense to recognize a solid future when I saw it. Then after Ellen died, I thought I’d get the hell out of Dodge, but something held me back.” He’d been facing the vista, but now he turned and engaged Marta’s questioning stare. “All my memories are here, you know? If I left, I’d feel like a huge part of me was missing. Where’s a guy supposed to go from there?”
How different that was from her need to break the chains of her overbearing parents when she was a teen. She’d left home for college and never looked back. She’d thought of her mom and dad as old-fashioned and wanted nothing to do with their lifestyle. Leif honored his parents and their memories. She loved and missed her mother and decided right on the spot that when she finished the mural she’d paint a series of pictures dedicated to her. Some might say it was too little too late, but hopefully her father wouldn’t be one of them.
“So you get comfort knowing your loved ones once existed here,” she said.
He agreed, then tapped his chest. “And here. Always.”
“But you take your heart everywhere you go.”
“True. But there’s actual evidence of my mother and father and Ellen here. I guess I’d worry my memories would fade faster if I went somewhere else.”
There was that urge again to reach out and touch him, to take hold of his hand and squeeze, to let the man know he wouldn’t always be alone, but could she guarantee it? At this point in her life, she felt completely alone, too, and the fact she was staying in Leif’s house helped smooth out those rough feelings, but there was no guarantee she’d ever find anyone to love again, either.
Something about Leif called out to her. He deserved so much more than what life had dealt him.
“Listen,” he said. “I wanted to clear the air about something.”
That got her attention. They needed to clear the air already?
“We’ve recently come to find out our town’s story isn’t exactly the way our history books tell it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m saying there may be a reason you’ve been artistically blocked at the beginning of your project.”
Okay, now he was making the hair on her arms rise, and not in a good way. “Go on.”
He proceeded to tell her the whole sordid tale of the Prince of Doom discovering Heartlandia. How he’d shanghaied sailors from Scandinavian ports and forced them to come here. How his ship had sunk and, though it had never been found, may very well still be somewhere off the coast of Heartlandia in the Columbia River.
Then he explained how none of this would have been known if he hadn’t discovered the buried trunk when building the City College.
“If the Chinook and Scandinavian fisherman hadn’t joined forces to overthrow the pirates, Heartlandia might have been named Princetown.”
She could hardly believe her ears. What a wild story! And what a relief it was to know she wasn’t crazy, that there really was a reason for her hesitation to start the mural with the Chinook and Scandinavian fishermen working in harmony to build a storybook town.
The bigger questions was, how had the information been suppressed all these years?
“For the past few months I’ve been involved with a special committee looking into the contents of the trunk and following up with where the journals led. We’d chosen to keep the information to ourselves until we authenticated the journals, dated them and figured out what exactly they meant. We’ve finally decided the time is right to move ahead with informing the locals, and tomorrow is our first community meeting. Lilly Matsuda, our new journalist, will follow up with a three-part story, explaining everything.”
“This is amazing,” Marta said, working very hard not to let her jaw drop.
“Tell me about it. Anyway, I hope you’ll come with me tomorrow. I’ll introduce to you the mayor and city council and show you around the rest of the town, too.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Okay, then, it’s a date. Hey, feel like grabbing something to eat? Oh, wait, I already know the answer to that.”
She offered a sad-faced smile. “I wish I had an appetite.”
“How about if I make us omelets?”
She tried to look enthusiastic but only managed a wan smile. He read right through it. “I’ll make yours as bland as water. You should be able to get some of that down, right?”
She screwed up her face, unsure how the food would affect her. “Sometimes it’s more about texture than taste or smell.”
“I make great toast, too.” The guy was persistent, and his effort made her want to at least try to eat. He snapped his fingers. “Oh, hey, how about a fruit smoothie?”
She lifted her brows. Ah, now he was on to something. “That has merit. I’ll give it my best effort,” she said with deep appreciation for his concern.
“That’s all I can ask.” For one quick moment, his everyday good looks stood out against the backdrop of the darkening sky and the deep river below; the fact that she noticed threw her for a second. She had absolutely no business enjoying his appearance, not in her condition.
His sharp whistle for the dogs snapped her out of the thoughts, and they headed back to the big lonely house on the hill that she could spot all the way across town from the memorial bench at Leif’s special park.
*
The next morning the town was buzzing with interest and maybe a little concern. What could merit a town meeting when they hadn’t had one since last year when their former
mayor announced his early retirement? Leif considered that some of the businesspeople might wonder if the town was in debt or, worse yet, failing. He’d overheard another group whispering about the effects of the financial downturn on tourist towns such as theirs nationwide.
After introducing Marta to Lilly and Desi Rask, Gerda’s granddaughter, he planted her on the adjacent chair to Desi and headed to take his place on the podium with the rest of the committee. Marta was wearing the same black slacks and white blouse she’d worn the day she’d arrived. Looking at her from the podium, there was no way anyone could suspect she was pregnant. Both artists, Desi and Marta, appeared to chat easily while waiting for the event to begin. It made Leif happy to see her connect with new people. He worried he kept her locked up in his empty castle like Rapunzel or something.
Gerda, the mayor pro tem; Elke Norling, the town historian; Gunnar Norling, her brother and local police sergeant; Jarl Madsen from the Maritime Museum; Adamine Olsen, president of the Small Business Association; and Ben Cobowa, the only Native American of Chinook ancestry on the committee, all sat in a unifying row.
The interested crowd grew by the minute, and by ten o’clock, the appointed time for the meeting, the city college auditorium was packed to standing room only.
The mayor stepped to the microphone, her usual white bun twisted so tight, Leif wondered if it would give her a headache. She cleared her throat. “Thank you all for coming.” She waited for the chatter to die down, but it didn’t.
Gunnar, in his police uniform, stepped forward. “We’d like to get started,” he said loudly. “Let’s pipe down, okay?” He nudged Gerda back to the podium microphone as the auditorium grew quieter.
“We’ve called this town meeting to announce some rather startling news we’ve recently discovered.”
Her use of the word startling caused the few remaining talkers to go quiet.
“I know you’re all anxious to hear why we called everyone here today, so we’ll get right to the point. When we broke the ground for the college, Leif Andersen discovered an ancient trunk. The contents were priceless and we have spent the past several months making sure everything was authentic. Elke Norling has done a wonderful job, and we wanted to share the information with you.”
From there Gerda went on to tell the story of Captain Nathaniel Prince to the obvious disbelief of many in the crowd. Several times, Sgt. Norling had to ask the auditorium to pipe down again, and glancing around at the faces, Leif realized the magnitude of this disconcerting news about their beloved town roots.
Adamine Olsen then stood and explained how the local businesses could capitalize on this new information, that the allure of a one-time pirate outpost turned solid small town and sleepy little tourist attraction could be a boon for the local shops and restaurants.
Gerda stressed what mattered most was not how they’d begun but how they’d turned out, and there was nothing to be ashamed of.
Then came the questions of why they’d waited so long to come forth with this information. Gerda tried her best to explain that the committee had wanted to be completely sure about their findings before addressing the town. Leif was grateful she hadn’t included the fact he’d sat on his findings several months before bringing it to the town’s attention.
Everyone knew Gerda had only stepped in to the mayor position when the town needed a fill-in after their mayor had had a heart attack. She’d done so willingly. What they didn’t know was that almost immediately Gerda had gotten slapped with the crazy possibility of the pirate discovering what everyone knew as Heartlandia. The stress had made Gerda sick, but she’d struggled on and led the committee in an honorable way.
“We realize there must be hundreds of questions.” Gerda spoke over the grumbling. “And that’s why the Heartlandia Herald will be running a series of articles beginning this afternoon in a special edition and continuing through Saturday. We want to stress that it’s not how you begin that counts, but how you end up, and Heartlandia is still the wonderful place we’ve all known and loved all of our lives. None of that has changed. So please bear with us. This committee has worked hard to make the best of a troubling situation. If after the series of articles your questions are still unanswered, please feel free to submit any and all questions to the newspaper. We vow to answer each and every one personally as well as in the newspaper.
“The most important thing to take away today is that our town hasn’t changed. We are still the great town of Heartlandia. The only change is how we got started. Please continue to be proud to be a citizen of the best little place on the Oregon coast.”
The questions flew from the curious and agitated crowd, but there was no point in sticking around because the first newspaper article would hit the stands that afternoon. Lilly had done a phenomenal job of writing the articles, and the entire committee had approved them. They’d printed triple the usual copies, expecting a run on the newspaper.
As far as Leif was concerned the meeting was over. He left the stage, grabbed a stunned-looking Marta by the arm and took her out a side exit.
“I had no idea how this would affect the citizens. It didn’t seem like such a big deal to me,” she said. “Wow. This is crazy.”
“All we can do is move forward. Paint your mural from present day to the beginning. I’m sure you’ll figure out how to portray this part when you get there.”
“I certainly hope so.” She didn’t look the least bit confident, and Leif decided distraction was the key to helping her relax.
“Come on. I’m going to rent you a car so you can have more freedom. You must be going bonkers being stuck in my house all day.”
Her eyes lit up. “That’s a great idea, but I can rent my own car.”
He gave her a “don’t argue with me” look, the kind that imparted there was no way in hell she’d win this debate. She inhaled, ready for a fight, thinking how her parents used to give her ultimatums all the time, but wasn’t Leif completely different, only thinking of her welfare? Hmm, maybe that’s all they’d been thinking about, too. Mentally shaking her head at her old headstrong self, wishing she could turn back the clock, she accepted his offer.
*
Using the GPS, Marta spent the next few days exploring the city and getting to know some of the townsfolk. Though everyone, and she meant everyone, was in an uproar about the crazy news—she’d kept up with the three-part story like everyone else, and found them extremely well written, informative and to the point—she was still enchanted by Heartlandia. What a wonderful place it was. Who cared if some crazy pirate discovered the land?
The Chinook and the Scandinavian fishermen had worked together to build the town…after they’d joined forces to overthrow the pirates. What city worth its salt didn’t have a dab of violence in its past? She chuckled quietly and shook her head. Who’d believe this from looking at the city today?
Rethinking what Mayor Rask had said—what mattered most was how the town had wound up, not how it had begun—Marta scouted out a parking space. Wasn’t that a lesson for everyone? She’d been calling home just about every night talking to her dad, sharing what was going on in her life but conveniently leaving out the part about being pregnant. That was something she preferred to tell him face-to-face. If she kept up these calls, maybe she’d work up the courage to tell him how sorry she was for the way she’d treated them way back then. Sure, she’d been a royal pain to her parents, but what mattered most was how she’d turned out—pretty darn well, thank you very much. Hopefully her father would understand that point. She just wished her mother could be around for the long-overdue apology.
The scent of fresh bread wafted through her opened window, and fond memories of her mother’s kitchen piggybacked along. There went another pang of sadness and loss. Being pregnant made a woman think about her own mother a lot. The inviting smell continued to invade her nostrils as she parked in front of a little bakery with a blue-and-white canopy. She took a deep breath and realized for the first time in three months
she wasn’t queasy. Rushing out of the car she went inside and, seizing the moment, she ordered a fresh croissant, then slathered it with butter and jam. She nearly inhaled it. God, she was hungry.
And not the least bit nauseous.
Thinking what the heck because she didn’t know how long her reprieve might last, she ordered a second croissant. Once she’d wolfed that down, she asked for directions from the clerk and headed to the nearest market. A huge weight had lifted from her. She was almost through with the first trimester, and could the loss of nausea possibly be ahead of schedule? All she knew for sure was today, this hour, her appetite had returned, and, boy, had she missed it.
After two weeks of Leif cooking for this very picky eater, it was about time for payback. Because she still felt great, she decided he deserved a special dinner prepared especially for him.
Off she went to buy the ingredients to her favorite Tex-Mex, Sedona-style meal, hoping Leif would enjoy every bite. Fingers crossed she’d keep her appetite through dinner.
*
Leif came home from a long hard day of construction to the most amazing smells. Meat, onions, spices and corn tortillas. He entered the kitchen to a busy and beautiful Marta wearing a forgotten apron and whisking around his kitchen with three pots simmering on the stove.
“Hi!” she said brightly.
“Wow. What’s all this?”
“I’m finally hungry, and this is my way of saying thank-you for taking such good care of me.”
He couldn’t help the smile as he lifted one of the lids and took a deep inhale. “This smells great.”
“I was hoping you’d say that. It’s beef and wheatberry chili, just like my momma used to make. Now wash your hands, pour yourself a glass of wine and grate some cheese for me, okay? I had to improvise with Colby-Jack since the clerk gave me a blank stare when I asked where the queso was.”
“What do you expect from Little Scandinavia?”
“Good point.”
How could a guy refuse a beautiful lady with a wooden spoon in one hand and a small plate of diced green chiles in the other? She had poured herself a tall glass of lemonade and it looked so good, he decided to forgo the wine and join her. As Leif poured his drink, the fatigue of the day lifted, and because of Marta’s contagious happy mood he thought he might be smiling all through dinner.
Falling for the Mom-to-Be Page 5