Follow A Wild Heart (romance,) (16 page)

"You're in the forestry service, are you?" The query held an undertone of sarcasm, and again, Logan waited a second before saying succinctly, "Yes, I am. I'm a research professor at the college in St. Paul."

"Professor, huh? What you doing up in these parts?" Logan explained politely about the Itasca field trip, and the fact that he would be supervising the students for six weeks during the summer, but his anger at Otis was growing steadily.

"I met Karena and Danny at the festival in Bemidji," he added. Was this leading up to a question about his intentions toward Karena? Damn it all, he'd tell the rude old man exactly what his intentions were in another minute, without being asked. But he glanced over at Karena, and his anger melted. She looked even more uncomfortable than before, unhappy and embarrassed.

"Karena tells me you're retired from the logging business," Logan remarked, making a superhuman effort for Karena's sake.

Otis nodded once, and silence fell again in the sun filled room.

Karena was feeling frustrated and helpless. She'd anticipated something like this, and now that it was happening she felt trapped between her growing feelings for Logan and her sense of responsibility and love for this impossible father of hers.

And of course Otis would decide they had to go for wood, today of all days. Going out to the wood lot and cutting wood for her stoves was a regular expedition, and one she usually didn't mind, but today it was the last thing she felt like doing.

What right did her father have to be so absurdly rude to a guest in her house, she raged silently, watching the unconcealed resentment in his eyes each time he happened to glance at Logan, trying to ignore the questioning, condemning glances he sent her way.

It was obvious that Logan had spent the night, and if her father wanted to believe they'd slept together, then he was just going to have to believe it, because she wasn't about to explain, she thought mutinously.

It's my own business, she raged at Otis internally. I'm not a child, responsible to you for my actions.

Yet a tiny voice niggled, reminding her of all the times he'd taken care of her and Danny, how hard he'd worked to dig the well out in the yard, and build the washhouse, and—

And complained about how she was raising Danny, and went on and on about Mort, and expected her to cook and clean for him.

She'd caught him sobbing raggedly over one of her mother's aprons months after Anna's death.

Damn it, she loved him, and he was impossible.

What must Logan think now of her, with this Victorian father acting like a watchdog?

Danny came in, and in a subdued voice said, "Everything's in the truck, Grampa. I locked Mort up."

Otis stood up and gave Logan a curt nod. "We'll be off, professor," he said gruffly, obviously expecting Logan to leave.

"But Logan's coming with us, Grampa. Aren't you, Logan?"

"Sure am," Logan agreed with a false show of hearty enthusiasm. Inspiration struck. "Karena and I will follow you and your Grampa in my Jeep," he declared, "and we can load wood in both vehicles."

Otis's sour expression indicated he considered that one of the less appealing ideas he'd ever heard, but there was little he could say about it. Logan couldn't resist giving the glum old man a wide, victorious smile as he stalked past him and out the door.

One round for the professor, Logan thought gleefully, escorting Karena out to the Jeep for what he planned to be a slow, very slow, trip to wherever the wood lot was.

The rest of the day, however, was an unqualified victory for Otis.

Late that night, Logan slowly, with excruciating protests from muscles he'd forgotten he ever had, lowered his aching body into bed and dolefully admitted he'd been outworked and outsmarted and damn near killed by a backwoods logger nearly thirty years his senior.

Why had Logan's power saw been the only one that constantly broke down, forcing him to take on the job of lifting and loading the blocks onto the trucks singlehandedly?

He admitted it was his own false pride that made him refuse the gloves Otis offered until it was too late. His splintered hands burned as if they were on fire, and huge water blisters smarted on his palms.

Had it been an honest accident when Otis dropped his end of the huge log that Logan had been helping carry, and the shock waves had shuddered Logan from his boots right to the roots of his hair?

He knew for a fact that Otis had played dirty with the swede saw, when he asked Logan to take the other end and help cut down that dead giant of a tree. Otis had made Logan look like an idiot who'd never been on the working end of a damned saw before.

"Karena," Otis had ordered his daughter in mid afternoon, "that's enough loading for you for one day. You and Danny take the pickup home, the boy can unload and you can get supper started. Me and the professor here, we can cut these up and load the Jeep."

Karena had shot a trapped look Logan's way and done what her father said, leaving Logan alone with the diabolical old devil for the rest of the afternoon.

There hadn't been a single moment alone with Karena. Otis had stayed for supper and sat stolidly silent but determinedly present until almost midnight, and by the time he got up and left to drive home, Logan was cross eyed with exhaustion after the rigors of the day.

And Otis had assured them both he'd come by again in the morning.

Would that be before or after Danny routed him out for an invigorating swim, Logan wondered.

There had to be a way to outsmart the old buzzard and gel some time alone with Karena, but her own acceptance of the situation made it difficult for Logan to take a firm stand. Karena obviously hadn't had much practice at standing up to her father, and any resistance to his overbearing ways would have to come first from her.

Otis could prove to be a major stumbling block between himself and Karena, Logan thought dispiritedly.

He fell asleep pondering the problem.

Chapter Seven

"So how was your weekend?"

First thing on Monday morning the inevitable query came from Abigail.

Karena gave the plump little woman a baleful look before replying shortly, "Awful. How was yours?"

"Dull, but then most of my weekends are dull. I do my laundry, buy groceries, read romance novels, have a stiff shot of medicinal brandy to fortify me and then go and visit my mother. She's never dull, she loads me up with masses of guilt feelings and sends me on my way wishing I were an orphan, but apart from that—dull. What made yours so awful? It's not Mort, is it?"

Abigail knew all about Mort by now, and quite a lot about Danny, but nothing at all about Logan. Karena had mentioned the moose, and Max had filled in the rest at coffee breaks.

"Mort's fine, Danny, too." Karena thought of the endless Sunday she'd just spent with her father, her reluctant son and Logan, the four of them doggedly splitting and stacking in the shed all the logs they'd spent Saturday cutting up and hauling.

Otis had arrived early and stayed late, and at last Logan gave up and left to drive back to Itasca.

She'd never felt as frustrated in her entire life, or as helplessly angry at her father. Abigail wasn't the only one who wished she were an orphan, Karena thought grimly.

A truckload of logs came rumbling up, and the women went to work so it was lunchtime before they were able to talk again. Karena gathered up enough courage to say abruptly, "What's your mother like, Abigail? What is it about her that makes you feel guilty?"

Abigail shrugged, an uncharacteristically pensive look on her plump features. "Oh, I made the mistake years ago of letting my mother come first in my life," she said thoughtfully. "My dad died when I was seventeen. Mother had always been sort of delicate, and he'd protected her. So instead of going away to college as I'd planned, I stayed at home to look after her. One morning, I woke up and I was forty. She'd had a minor stroke that winter, and she was more dependent on me than ever. I could see the years ahead, endless and the same. Something snapped that day. I marched out and arranged for a minimal care unit for her in a nice new building the city was opening, and she's made me feel like a traitor ever since."

Abigail screwed her nose up and munched a carrot stick. "I hate these damn things. Why does society say women have to be thin? I'm bringing doughnuts for lunch tomorrow; to hell with dieting." Karena thought of her father, and the weekend he'd so successfully ruined.

"Why do you think they do that?" she asked passionately. "Why do you think parents hold on to you like that? Try to own you?"

Abigail shook her head tiredly. "God, I don't know. Maybe they figure if they let go, you'll stop loving them. Or that there's only so much love to go around, and if you give it to someone else, you take it away from them. I've thought about it, believe me, and the only thing you can do is go ahead and live your own life. Go on loving them, but be firm, establish your own rights." She gave her self-deprecating laugh. "Trouble is, I'm a damn slow learner."

Karena took a deep breath and blurted, "Abigail, would you, ah, do you want to come over for dinner? I don't suppose you'd want to stay the night. The moose can be an awful pest and Danny talks a lot."

Abigail beamed at her. "If you're inviting me over, I accept with pleasure. I thought you'd never get around to it, Karena. Tomorrow night?"

As easily as that, it was done,

Monday made Logan wonder why he'd ever agreed to Itasca.

Twenty three exuberant students poured into the camp by bus, car and motorcycle. They were all, in Logan's view, far too young to be in college. They acted as if they were here for a party, and Logan remembered why he hated teaching.

Except for rare exceptions, students didn't want to learn, they merely wanted to pass.

These kids were typical. They were irreverent and fastmouthed. The girls all giggled, the boys all jostled, and the lot of them were abysmally ignorant about what was actually in store for them during the six weeks ahead.

By ten past six Monday evening, Logan was exhausted. The demands of his first day as a teacher, added to the weekend spent chopping, sawing and carrying wood at Karena's, as well as too few hours of sleep the night before, in a cabin infested with mosquitoes, all had taken their toll on him.

Years of research studies hadn't prepared him at all for a headlong leap back into the rigors of classroom teaching.

Without the classroom, he reminded himself dismally, gazing around at the cluster of primitive buildings that constituted the headquarters for the forestry sessions. Unless weather conditions were terrible, most of the time he'd be teaching outside in the open air. And the lavatories, the showers and the sleeping arrangements that the camp offered were also what might be classified as open air.

He sorely missed the comforts of his apartment, particularly the Jacuzzi, the steam room and the armchair in front of the television.

Later, he sat quietly at the back of the dining hall as Ranger Brian Sutton gave a lecture about the rules of the park and what the ranger service expected and hoped for from the students during their stay. Obviously, he had no more illusions than Logan about the students.

"When it gets dark up here, it gets dark, and we don't want any collisions between you people coming home happy from the Northway Pub and our pine trees. The pines don't move."

Logan liked the pragmatic young ranger, and after Brian's talk, they had coffee together.

"Many moose in this area?" Logan asked at one point.

"Quite a few," Brian said. "Here and north to the Canadian border is moose country."

Logan told him about Mort, and asked if Brian had any ideas for helping the calf learn the skills he needed.

Several students were listening, and soon a lively discussion ensued about wild animals being domesticated.

All in all, it turned into not a bad evening, Logan admitted to himself later. If you had to live without a Jacuzzi, a TV, an armchair and a steam room, at least conversation took your mind off your misery.

That evening proved to be a high point in involvement and participation on the part of the students, however. The rest of the week, their only show of enthusiasm during his attempts at teaching them botany and ecology came when each day ended and they figured out who was riding with whom out to the Northway.

There was a staff meeting that lasted late Friday night, and it was early Saturday morning when he finally wheeled the Jeep into Karena's driveway.

This time, he lifted her in his arms when she came out to meet him. Danny was down at the lake with Mort, and he kissed her until both of them were breathless.

"That week was three months long," he said when she finally pulled back a little and smiled up at him.

"How are your hands?" she asked, turning one over to inspect the palm, and to his great delight planting a kiss there.

"They're sore here as well, and here, and here," he teased, and she wrinkled her nose at him.

"Come in and have coffee. I'm making breakfast. Danny will be up any minute."

The next hour was full of laughter. Danny rattled off everything Mort had done in thepast week.