Carrie stood up. “Jake assured me that you don’t need to worry about him getting the stomach flu because he never gets sick. Are you sure you don’t want me to stay and help out with Danny while you’re baking?”
“Thanks, but I’ll be fine. I appreciate your coming over today.”
“Anytime, you know that.”
Hannah kissed Carrie’s cheek, and side by side, their resemblance was even more startling. Jake recalled an old mountaineer saying that if you wanted to know what a woman would look like in twenty years, you needed to check out her mother. If Carrie Nolan was any indication, Hannah would just get more striking as she aged.
When her mother was gone, Hannah’s expression turned chilly again. “I have your groceries in the car. I’ll get them after I look in on Danny.”
“Okay.” Obviously, she didn’t want him on her deck, much less in her house.
There were three paper bags in her trunk for him, and Jake insisted on carrying the two heaviest. He refused to be treated as if he was an invalid. In the kitchen Hannah automatically began putting the food away.
“It looks as if you got a few things that weren’t on my list,” he observed.
“Yeah, fresh food. Try it—you might like it.” She ended by folding the paper sacks and stowing them in the pantry.
“That’s all,” she said. “I’ll see you on Tuesday.”
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”
* * *
HANNAH NARROWED HER eyes. “Do you want to change the days I clean?”
“Not exactly. You love the Cascades, and I figured that since you aren’t teaching this summer, I’d hire you to show me your favorite places in the mountains. We can start with the locations where you think dogwood trees may still be blooming.”
“Even if I’m not teaching, I’m still busy.”
“Weekends, sure, but not as much during the week. I’ll pay you two hundred a day—double if it’s overnight—and we can arrange the outings around your schedule. Danny can even come with us some of the time.”
She clenched her fingers. She was busy, but how could she turn down the fee he was offering? Imagine, being paid to visit her favorite places and being able to bring Danny. She’d have to wait to do that, though, until she knew more about how Jake worked—Danny had trouble sitting still for long periods.
“Surely you won’t earn enough on your book to justify paying me that kind of money,” she said, stalling.
“I simply want it to be an artistic success. I’m not concerned about how much money the book makes.”
No doubt having a wealthy father allowed him to not worry about how he would feed and clothe himself like most people.
“It’s worth it to me,” Jake added. “And since you don’t think I have the right attitude about this project, this is your chance to convince me that the Cascades are something special.”
It was a blatant challenge, and she ought to tell him to stuff it, but she couldn’t. Hadn’t she told Brendan that Jake was an incredible photographer? And he was brilliant, even if his work often seemed sterile to her.
“Some of the places I love require a fair amount of hiking,” she warned. “Are you up to it yet?”
“I’ll manage.” His tone didn’t invite further discussion on the subject. “How about starting on Monday?”
Hannah sighed. She’d have to ask her mother to watch Danny again, but she didn’t have any committee meetings that couldn’t be rescheduled. “I should be able to work it out. I’ll let you know tomorrow if I can’t swing it. In the meantime, I have a sick son and dozens of cookies to bake.”
She walked to the door, only to have Jake follow her.
“What?”
“I just wondered why you didn’t say anything about the ice cream thing tomorrow.”
“You mean you want to go?” Hannah asked, mildly shocked. She would have invited Jake to the community fund-raiser if she’d thought he was interested.
“No. That is, I’m not good in that sort of social situation.”
“You’ve traveled all over the world, and yet you don’t think you’d be comfortable at a small-town ice cream social?”
Jake shrugged. “I guess it’s the way I was raised. We slept and ate with locals whenever possible, but Josie believed the best way to learn about a culture was to observe it, rather than to interact and taint it with our habits. I’ve mostly followed the same pattern since then.”
“Joining in seems like a better way to know a culture. Didn’t you get to play with any of the kids your age?”
He seemed even more uncomfortable. “Sometimes, but my mother didn’t approve.”
A curious sorrow went through Hannah...sorrow for the little boy who must have been terribly lonely, watching other people, but never really being a part of their lives.
“Well, if you decide you want to go to the social, it’s at Memorial Hall on Main Street. You just head into town and keep going until you pass the city park. The hall is on the left. I’ll even buy you a bowl of ice cream,” she found herself offering.
“That’s nice, but it still doesn’t explain why you didn’t mention the event.”
Hannah nearly popped off a smart remark, but stopped herself. Jake was asking seriously, and he deserved a serious response. “Because the Cascades are my home and you insulted them. I didn’t want my neighbors to be offended, as well. I realize you probably never stayed in a place long enough to have that kind of fondness for it, but home is important to most people, Jake. Maybe having to spend this time here is a chance to explore the culture of your own country.”
A taut expression went across his face. “You’re right. I apologize for not being more courteous. It’s just that photographing anything in the United States feels like...”
“Like what?”
“Surrender,” he muttered. “I’ve always left more accessible places to photographers who weren’t willing or able to go to the places that I could. Now doctors are telling me not to go to those places, either.”
Hannah looked at the line of pain etched around his mouth. “Andy says you’ll be all right, that it’ll just take time.”
“Yeah, I’m expected to make a full recovery, but nobody can offer guarantees. And they always have to remind me that I’m lucky to be alive. Or that I might have never walked again, though they could have just shot me if that had happened.”
A sinking sensation went through Hannah as she remembered Collin’s rambling words after he fell, saying he’d rather die than be in a wheelchair. She’d held his hand, praying for a miracle, as he’d slowly drifted away. Maybe that was why Jake had rubbed her wrong from the beginning. With his penchant for risking his neck, he reminded her of the worst hours of her life.
“Hey, are you okay?” Jake asked. “You look as if you’re going to pass out.”
“I... Yes, I’m fine. So that’s what you’ve been so bothered about...that the doctors might be wrong about your leg.”
“That’s part of it.”
“What happens if you don’t fully recover?”
Jake set his jaw. “Then I’ll go where I want anyway, and take my chances. I won’t play their waiting game forever.”
She swallowed, recalling something she’d heard him say to Owen. If you live, you live. If you die, that’s it, you’re dust. Everything is pure chance.
Maybe Jake took so many chances because he didn’t believe in anything more than the here and now. Hannah had wondered the same thing about Collin; it was as if he was challenging the world to prove there was more to life than a bunch of biological reactions. But was that what Jake was doing, or had he simply never found something important enough to live for beyond his art?
“That’s something you’ll have to decide if the time ever comes,” she said cautiously. “U
m...I’ll talk to you later.”
Hannah hurried back to Silver Cottage. Danny was still asleep, and Badger lay at the foot of the bed, patiently waiting for his playmate to recover.
She slipped out of the room with a faint smile, but her humor faded as she thought about the things Jake had said. She hated the idea that he would be willing to throw his life away so casually.
* * *
IT SEEMED AS if everyone in Mahalaton Lake, resident and visitor alike, had turned out for the Sunday ice cream social, and Barbi spent a hectic two hours selling tickets before someone came to give her a break. Ticket in hand, she hurried to the ice cream serving table.
“Huckleberry, please.”
“Sorry,” Gwen said regretfully. “Every drop is gone. It went first thing. We have other flavors though—vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and pineapple sorbet.”
Before Barbi could think about her second choice, Hannah appeared.
“I saved some huckleberry for Barbi. I’ll get it.”
Barbi followed, appreciating Hannah’s thoughtfulness. The relative peace of the Memorial Hall kitchen was a pleasant contrast to the activity in the main room and on the veranda.
“Phew, it’s been busy.” Hannah opened the commercial freezer and pulled out a bowl with a generous serving, handing it over with a plastic spoon. “There you go.”
Barbi’s mouth watered as she scooped up some ice cream. The rich, fruity flavor melted over her tongue and she closed her eyes in pleasure. “You make the best huckleberry ice cream. Every year it’s the first to sell out.”
“It’s not hard to be best when you’re the only one who makes it,” Hannah said matter-of-factly. “The tourists want some because it’s different and sounds like something you’d get on vacation, and the people in town want it because they love huckleberries and aren’t willing to pick any themselves.”
“One of the first tickets I sold was to Brendan. Did he have some?”
“He chose vanilla.”
Barbi wasn’t surprised. “Figures. That man has no imagination.”
“He just has his own way of doing things.”
“You aren’t serious about him, are you?” For some reason the answer seemed awfully important.
“Right now we’re just friends. I have to be careful because of Danny.”
“Does he ever loosen up?”
“Well...no,” Hannah admitted with a laugh. “But he’s bucking two hundred and fifty years of New England propriety, and that can’t be easy.”
“You mean he’s a prig because of his uptight family. There’s no law saying we have to turn out like our relatives, is there?”
“Of course not.”
Barbi swallowed another bite of ice cream and tried to keep from looking at her friend. After so many years of being the daughter of the town drunk, she should be used to the notoriety. But all that would change when she moved away from Mahalaton Lake. Nobody would know about Vic and his temper or about her dropping out of high school.
Even so, the idea of going anywhere else scared the heck out of her, almost as much as Vic scared her when he was drunk.
She’d grown up in town and had friends like Hannah and Luigi here, even if a few people raised their eyebrows at the way she dressed. And it was a real pretty town, being at the edge of a lake with Mount Mahala in the background. Her mom used to say it was the closest to heaven you could get without actually meeting your maker.
“Uh, I better go back to the ticket table,” Barbi said with a gulp. When she was nine and her mother died, she’d believed Rachael had gone to live with angels at the top of the mountain. But that was a long time ago, and it was awful hard to keep believing in angels, no matter how much she wanted to.
* * *
HANNAH HURRIED BACK into the main room in time to see Jake come through the doors. Her jaw dropped. He looked distinctly ill at ease and immediately raised the camera hanging around his neck to look through the viewfinder.
She walked over. “Hi. You made it.”
“Er...yeah,” he said, lowering his hands a few inches. “Will people mind the camera?”
“I don’t think so, but why don’t you just have a bowl of ice cream and enjoy yourself?” Hannah searched in her pocket and pulled out the advance sales ticket she’d bought for Danny before he had gotten sick. “Be my guest.”
Jake peered through the viewfinder again. “Thank you, but I’m more comfortable taking pictures.”
“You mean, as if you’re chronicling a tribal ceremony?” she asked curiously.
“No. Josie used to take assignments to do pictorial cultural studies, but my work is strictly about nature. I only went to the Middle East to help out a colleague.”
“Then why are you taking photos now?”
“Because it’s what I do.”
Jake’s mouth was tense, and Hannah suspected the camera was mostly a shield between him and everyone else. From everything she’d seen, his reputation for being a loner was well deserved, so it was odd that he’d shown up at the fund-raiser.
“Well, keep the ticket in case you change your mind,” she said, dropping it into his open camera case. She was about to excuse herself when she saw Brendan approaching with an annoyed expression on his face.
“Hey, Brendan. I thought you left,” she said.
“I decided to come back. I hoped it wouldn’t be as busy now, so we could talk.”
He gave Jake a hard stare, and the two men measured each other like bulls at Pamplona. She sighed. What was it about the male psyche that they felt compelled to wrangle over a bone, even when the bone didn’t belong to either one of them? For that matter, Jake didn’t even want the bone. He’d made it quite clear that he wasn’t interested in a relationship with any woman.
“How about tomorrow afternoon?” Hannah suggested. “I’m showing Jake a place where dogwood might still be blooming, but we won’t get back late.”
“You’re what? Please excuse us, Hollister.” Brendan dragged her a few feet away before she broke free.
“What is wrong with you?” she demanded.
“Sorry, it’s just that...” Brendan gestured toward Jake. “I didn’t realize you were cozy enough with your tenant to go anywhere with him.”
“We aren’t cozy. He wants me to guide him to my favorite places in the Cascades, that’s all.”
“There are professional guides, Hannah. He doesn’t need an amateur showing him a few points of interest. Doesn’t he have GPS? Or a map? Just circle the places he should go and send him on his way.”
Her eyes narrowed. Having Brendan act this way was irritating, especially since he hadn’t shown much interest in seeing the Cascades himself. Perhaps she needed to rethink their relationship. It was important to have shared values, but it was just as important to have shared interests.
“And what will people think if you’re spending that much time together?” he whispered urgently. “Mahalaton Lake is a small town. You’re the one who told me that everybody knows your business here. I won’t have it.”
Her eyebrows shot upward. “You have no say in what I do, Brendan. We aren’t engaged. We aren’t even dating exclusively. And even if we had gotten to that point, you still wouldn’t have any right to object.”
Brendan looked taken aback. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize... Can I still see you tomorrow?”
She let out a breath. “All right. But you can’t stay long. Barbi is coming over at seven.”
Turning on her heel, she hurried to the ice cream table, thoroughly frustrated. Her doubts about Brendan had been growing. Despite the surface things they had in common, they didn’t talk about anything important. And though they’d been dating for a while, she felt nothing more than friendship for him...certainly nothing like the intense response she had to Jake.
But she couldn’t think about it right now. Maybe later, when things were quiet...or when she wasn’t so annoyed that he’d tried to forbid her to guide Jake around the Cascades.
* * *
HANNAH WAS SURPRISED when Jake handed her the keys to his SUV early Monday morning, inviting her to drive.
“It only makes sense,” he said when she commented on it. “You know the area and I don’t.”
“All right.”
Hannah got into the Jeep. The motor turned over quickly and she headed north around the lake. The place she had in mind was where she and her parents often camped. It was located partway up Mount Mahala and was often the last place to find dogwood blooming.
“Your mother says you’re involved in several fund-raising committees,” Jake mentioned after they’d driven awhile.
“A few. We have fund-raisers here for everything from classroom computers to stained-glass windows. I primarily focus on raising money for the rescue squad—that’s what the ice cream social was for—though I support other emergency services like the new fire truck.”
“I’ve mostly lived in places without modern amenities. It’s good that Mahalaton Lake is upgrading.”
“Not upgrading, expanding. We haven’t used a horse-drawn, hand-pumped fire wagon for at least twenty years,” she said wryly.
“That isn’t what I meant.” Yet from the look on Jake’s face, it probably wasn’t far off. Or maybe she was being too sensitive. His general ability to stick his foot in his mouth could also have something to do with it.
“We want to put in a second fire station and need the equipment,” she explained. “Fire trucks are expensive, and the town budget can’t afford one without community support. We’re also hoping to add a second paramedic unit.”
“Why is your primary focus the rescue squad?”
“Someone I cared about died in a mountain climbing accident a long time ago. I couldn’t save him, but maybe I can have a small part in saving someone else.” Hannah turned off the main road onto a forest service road. Few people traveled this road, since it led up and away from the lake and not toward one of the popular ski slopes.
Jake's Biggest Risk (Those Hollister Boys) Page 12