Midnight Sons Volume 1 (17 page)

This was a familiar complaint among the pilots, especially in the bleak, dark months of winter. Charles didn’t understand why Christian and Sawyer had given in to what amounted to blackmail, but then, he reminded himself, he wasn’t making the decisions. Obviously.

“Is there anything you’d like me to tell Sawyer?” Lanni asked, picking up a pad and pen. For the life of him, Charles couldn’t come up with a single thing to say to his brother.

“I’ll talk to him later,” he said on a decisive note. “Thanks, anyway.”

“I’ll leave a message for Sawyer that you stopped by.”

Charles shoved his hands into his pockets. “Great.”

He hesitated. His heart seemed to be leaping and dancing inside his chest. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever gone panning for gold, have you?”

Her eyes revealed her interest. “No. No, I haven’t.”

“My grandfather’s claim is still active, and I was thinking I’d take a trip up there this afternoon. I was wondering if you’d, uh, like to come along and see how it’s done, that is, of course, if, uh—”

She nodded even before he’d finished. “I’d love to. What time are you leaving?”

Charles had to think fast. “Any time is fine. Whenever you can get away from here, just let me know.”

“I’ll ask Sawyer as soon as he’s back.”

“Good,” he said, doing his best to hide his delight. “Give me a call when you’re ready.”

Charles thought her smile could melt ice. “Thank you for asking me, Charles.”

Thank you for asking me.
Charles hardly dared to believe she’d actually agreed. It was all he could do to keep from clicking his heels as he walked out of the office.

Whatever it was, he had it bad.
Real
bad.

Charles hurried to the house and gathered together his supplies. Within half an hour he’d loaded the back of his pickup. Now all he had to do was wait for Lanni’s call.

“Where are you going?” Scott asked as he rode up on his bicycle.

“To the gold claim my grandfather used to mine,” Charles explained. He placed a second shovel in the bed of his truck. There were probably any number of shovels at the site, but he
wanted to be sure. He’d also packed things that had nothing to do with gold mining: a bottle of wine, a loaf of sourdough bread and a hunk of cheddar cheese.

“Can I come?”

“Another time, Scott,” Charles replied absently, checking to see if he’d forgotten anything.

“Promise?”

“Promise,” Charles said, smiling. “We’ll bring your sister, too.”

“No girls,” Scott protested. “Why do women have to ruin everything?”

A day earlier, Charles would have agreed with him, but not now. In an hour or two, Lanni would be joining him, and frankly nothing could have pleased Charles more.

“Susan wants to ride my bike,” Scott complained. “I don’t want her to, ’cause if I let her and she learns how, she’ll want it all the time.” He glanced over his shoulder and groaned. “Here she comes now.”

The little girl raced toward Scott. “You said I could ride your bike,” she said in an accusing voice, as if daring her older brother to refuse her.

“You don’t know how,” Scott muttered.

“Everyone has to learn sometime. Mom said you had to let me, remember?”

“All right, all right,” Scott muttered, climbing off with a decided lack of enthusiasm. He cast Charles a forlorn look as he handed over the bike.

“Besides, I know how to ride a bike,” Susan said righteously. “A little, anyway.”

“The seat’s too high and you can’t reach the pedals and—”

“I can too reach the pedals.”

The argument sounded like one that had been repeated often. Charles grinned as he watched the brother and sister engage in verbal battle. It didn’t seem all that many years ago that he and Sawyer had fought over whose turn it was to ride the bike. Their parents had settled the issue by buying Sawyer his own bike for Christmas. The very one Scott had reluctantly passed over to his sister.

The boy climbed onto the back of Charles’s truck and sat on the tailgate. “I don’t want to watch,” he said. “She’s probably going to wreck the best bike I ever had, and all because she’s a girl.”

“Be patient,” Charles advised the boy. “The harder you resist, the more attractive the bike will be to her. Women always want what they can’t have.”

“What about men?”

“Well, we’re the same—but not as bad.” Then, in afterthought, he added, “Don’t tell your mother I said that. She might not understand. Okay?” He didn’t want a war with his soon-to-be sister-in-law.

“Okay,” Scott whispered.

With Charles’s help, Susan climbed onto the bicycle. Her toes barely reached the pedals, even after Charles had lowered the seat as far as it would go. She looked up and beamed him a radiant smile of triumph.

“Thanks, Uncle Charles.”

Being called uncle would take some getting used to, but as Charles had realized the day before, he rather liked it.

“I’ll walk beside you until you get going,” Charles said.

Scott got to his feet. “Just make sure she doesn’t crash!” he shouted.

Susan started peddling, and the bike wobbled precariously from side to side. Charles trotted along beside her until she found her balance, then he stopped and waited for Susan to ride away on her own.

“She’s doing all right,” Scott mumbled, “for a girl.”

“She’s doing great.” Charles felt a surge of pride as if he alone was responsible for Susan’s success. He continued to watch as the seven-year-old turned the bike around and rode back.

“She shouldn’t get so close to the side of the road,” Scott warned. “There’s all kinds of rocks there.”

Charles was about to call out a warning when Susan made the unpleasant discovery for herself. The bicycle wobbled, then crashed into the bushes. Almost immediately they heard her howl of pain.

Scott leapt out of the truck and darted down the road toward his sister, with Charles following. When they reached Susan, Charles carefully pulled the bike away and handed it to Scott, who inspected the wheel to make sure it wasn’t bent.

“Are you okay?” Charles asked as he gently helped her stand up. Tears streaked her face, and her shoulders jerked as she struggled to hold in her sobs.

Susan sat by the side of the road and twisted her arm so she could look at her elbow. “Here,” she said, showing him the scraped skin. “Here, too.” She pushed up the leg of her pants to examine her knee.

“You’d better let me wash that off and put on some disinfectant.”

“It’s not the kind that stings, is it?” Scott asked, sounding concerned. He stood over Charles and studied his sister’s injuries.

“No,” Charles said. “It isn’t the kind that stings.”

He carried Susan back and sat her on the tailgate, then hurried into the house for the necessary first-aid supplies. Although she didn’t really need them, he brought out a couple of Band-Aids.

The little girl grimaced as he cleaned the scrapes. She gritted her teeth when he sprayed on the disinfectant. Then she released a slow smile and announced, “It didn’t hurt.”

“I told you it wouldn’t,” Charles said with an answering smile. He carefully placed the two small adhesive strips on her knee and elbow, then helped her down.

Before Susan’s feet touched the ground, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “Thank you, Uncle Charles.” With that, she was off like a shot, running toward the library. Scott hopped on his bike and rode after her, with a wave and a “See you later” for Charles.

Watching them go, Charles felt his heart constrict. Sawyer was a lucky man, he thought. Not only had he fallen in love with Abbey, but she was bringing the priceless gift of her children to their marriage.

Back in the house, the phone rang. It was Lanni. Sawyer had returned and she was free to leave the office. Charles picked her up at Catherine Fletcher’s house, and before long, she was sitting beside him in the cab of his truck. Feeling more lighthearted than he had in years, he headed north on the maintenance road out of Hard Luck.

“You said your grandfather used to mine this claim?” she asked conversationally.

He was pleased to note that she’d changed clothes and was dressed appropriately in blue jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and ankle-high boots. He’d brought some bug spray to ward off the mosquitoes, but unfortunately that went only so far in keeping the pesky critters away.

“My grandfather, Adam, and his wife, Anna, settled Hard Luck in the early 1930s. Like thousands of men and women before them, they came in search of a dream.” He didn’t mean to sound poetic, but he’d heard the story so often he found himself repeating it just the way his grandmother used to tell it. “The gold dredges working near Fairbanks were digging up huge quantities of gold. I don’t recall the precise amount,” he said, “but in a four- or five-year span one dredge was responsible for more than ten million dollars’ worth of gold, and that was when the price was thirty-five dollars an ounce.”

“Did your grandfather work on a dredge originally?”

“Yeah. That’s when he got hit with gold fever. But he was convinced the real motherlode lay north. He planned to strike it rich someday.”

“Did he?”

Charles sighed. “Not in the way he wanted or expected. He discovered some gold but never the huge vein he sought. He found something else, something far more valuable, though. He built a town and settled a land. He created a community that’s grown and thrived. Without meaning to, my grandfather shaped the lives of several generations.” Charles paused, wondering how much more he should say. “I believe the gold’s
there—the major strike he was hoping to discover. But now it might be one of Adam’s descendants who finds it.”

The maintenance road ended, and Charles slowed as they crossed the rugged tundra. The ride was far less smooth now. The track, what there was of it, was barely recognizable, even to him. But then, he only visited the site two or three times a year.

Soon they could hear the sound of rushing water. Lanni glanced at Charles questioningly.

“That’s the Koyukuk River,” he explained.

“Koyukuk,” Lanni repeated. “It sounds like you’re trying to clear your throat.”

Charles laughed. “It’s an Athabascan word. Although you’ve probably never heard of it, the Koyukuk is the third longest river in Alaska. It stretches over 550 miles.”

“Then the longest must be the Yukon?”

“Right, but it covers three times the territory.”

“That
is
impressive.”

Charles threw her a look. He had the feeling she already knew this. “An Indian friend of mine lives close by. I hope you don’t mind if we drop in,” he said. “Fred’s a trapper, and I haven’t seen him in some time.”

“I’d like that,” Lanni assured him.

Charles smiled at her. Being with Lanni felt completely natural. When he’d first spoken to her that morning, his mouth had been so dry he could barely talk. Not now.

Soon they approached Fred Susitna’s cabin, a weathered log structure nestled among scrub trees. A tin-covered porch extended halfway across the front, and a row of lanterns hung from hooks along the roof edge.

Charles had no sooner turned off the engine than Fred appeared. His tanned, leathery face broke into a wide grin of welcome. Charles had been making impromptu visits to Fred’s cabin for years, and his friend never seemed to age. Fred could be forty or sixty, Charles didn’t know.

“Welcome!” Fred hugged him as though it had been ten years since his last visit, instead of ten months. He slapped Charles on the back, then turned to meet Lanni.

“Fred Susitna, this is Lanni Caldwell.”

The trapper greeted her as he had Charles, with a hug of welcome. He ushered them into his home and went about heating oil to fry bread. In the Alaskan interior it was a custom to feed visitors.

Within minutes they were served hot coffee and deep-fried bread coated with sugar. Charles smiled as Lanni finished the warm bread and licked the sugar from her fingertips.

His friend murmured something in Athabascan. Although Charles didn’t understand the words Fred spoke, their meaning was clear.

Charles could feel his face grow hot.

He managed to make small talk for a while, asking about the line Fred trapped each winter. Lanni was full of questions when Fred proudly brought out and showed her the furs.

It didn’t take Charles long to realize it had been a mistake to bring Lanni. Not because of her questions, but because Fred saw through him far too easily. As soon as he could do so without rudeness, Charles made an excuse to leave.

“Good to see you again,” he said, edging his way to the door.

“It is always a pleasure,” Fred said, walking out to the truck with him. “Come again soon and bring your woman.”

He waited for Lanni to deny that she belonged to him or any other man. “Lanni isn’t my woman,” Charles corrected when she didn’t say anything.

“No?” Fred Susitna asked, dark eyes twinkling. “I’ve never seen you run from the truth before, my friend.”

If Lanni heard his remark, she didn’t comment, and Charles was grateful.

The old mining site was less than five miles down the river. Charles parked the truck and helped Lanni out. Gazing around her, she walked over to the shore of the Koyukuk River. The water rushed past like a roaring freight train, drowning out every other sound.

When Charles came to stand by her side, she turned and smiled up at him, a smile of excitement and pure rapture at the river’s fierce power. He swore he didn’t mean to kiss her. It just happened. One minute he was thinking how lovely she looked, how…kissable her mouth seemed, and the next she was in his arms.

What started out as something unexpected, a moment’s gratification, quickly became much more. They kissed again and again, tenderly, then heatedly; gently, then with a restless hunger that left him breathless and confused.

He needed to read what was in her eyes. He had to know what she was thinking, but realized he was afraid to ask. He eased his mouth from hers and searched her beautiful deep blue eyes. What he found there gave him pause.

“Lanni,” he whispered, shocked by the openheartedness he saw, the acceptance.

“Have we both gone crazy?” she asked him, whispering despite their solitude.