Pathways (9780307822208) (13 page)

Bryn smiled.

“I don’t suppose a pretty girl like you has ever looked over those ads.”

“Oh, I have. Two or three times. When I’m especially lonely.”

“What kind of ad would’ve made you pick up the phone or e-mail or whatever you kids do to contact each other these days?”

Bryn thought about it, took a sip of her cocoa. “Tall, handsome,
single pilot with a yen for the outdoors seeks brunette to share camaraderie and quiet kisses.” She blushed, and Ben laughed softly. He reminded Bryn so much of Grampa Bruce before his memory started fading that she found herself sharing the most intimate of thoughts.

“Ah, love. You two are like unbound lobsters in a butcher’s fish tank.”

“What happens when they’re unbound?”

“They rip each other to shreds. Don’t mean to, of course. It’s just their way.”

“That’s a pleasant thought.”

“Sorry. The funny thing is, when lobsters are in the ocean, where they’re supposed to be, it doesn’t play out like that. I mean, at least not for the males and females.”

“So you’re saying that if Eli and I were someplace different, we wouldn’t be killing each other. We could be mates?”

“It’s not Summit that’s tearing you apart, Bryn,” he said gently. “It’s where you are, here,” he said, motioning toward his heart.

Bryn sighed again. She seemed to do a lot of that, sighing. “I know, Ben. I know. But I’m getting there.”

Eli flew to Summit Lake on his monthly supply run for Ben. He knew he had to see Bryn, see how she was doing, show her how well his leg was healing. Ben had radioed in for a pepperoni pizza—a rather unusual request—and some additional supplies beyond his typical order. Eli knew they were for Bryn. He also knew Ben would ask him to deliver them. He landed on the choppy, silver lake and expertly beached the de Havilland on Ben’s shore.

Eli watched as Ben came out of his cabin, waving and ambling down the stairs to help unload. Eli jumped out of the plane, leaned back inside the fuselage, and pulled out the pizza. “Haven’t known you to ever have a hankerin’ for pepperoni.”

“Pshaw,” the man retorted, turning half away and waving a hand. “Not for me. Gastritis city. You know as well as I it’s for the pretty girl down the lake.”

“You’ll have to take it to her,” Eli said. “I can’t see her. It’s not good for us, Ben.”

“No,” he said. He studied Eli as if he was a wounded bear that he needed to treat. “It might hurt a little bit, but it will all be worthwhile. Maybe not this summer. But down the road. You’ll see.”

Eli sighed and tossed the cold pizza back in and grabbed a crate instead. He raised an eyebrow as he passed the shorter man. “Don’t go matchmaking, Ben,” he warned. “We’ve tried. It’s not going to work.”

“Maybe,” the man said, taking another box and following behind.

“She’s not a believer,” Eli said, huffing a little as he climbed the steps.

“Yet.”

“She lives in Boston.”

“Right now.”

Eli reached the porch and set the crate on the railing, turning to look at Ben. “You know somethin’ I don’t?”

Ben stared at him, set his box on the rail, and looked out at the lake. “Don’t know anything really. Just a feelin’ I’ve got. Always had it around the two of you.”

“We always get that feeling too,” Eli said, going inside. “And it always sets us on the road to heartache.” He put Ben’s supplies down on the kitchen table, and Ben did the same.

“Sometimes,” Ben said, placing a hand on his shoulder, “Heartache leads to ultimate healing. The girl wants what you have, Eli.”

Eli glanced at him.

“Yes. Inside. She wants to know the Lord. She’s on her way. But sometimes it takes an awful lot of pain to tear down the walls. Take me for example.” He moved back to the porch door to go and grab another load. Eli followed, stooping to pet a lone cub in the pen in Ben’s living room. “I’d been listening to the platoon parson ramble on about Jesus for a good seven months. Had to be in a Korean swamp, bullets singing by my ears, my buddy dying in my arms, before I was ready to walk with him.”

“So who’s going to die for Bryn to see the light? Me?”

Ben raised a brow, his eyes twinkling. “Hope not. Like to see you two married. A few little cubs of your own.”

Eli laughed and shook his head, following Ben down the stairs. “That, my friend, is about as likely as the northern lights appearing at midday.”

Bryn hauled more rock inside, sweating from the labor. She was almost to the ceiling. With a little more mortar, she’d reach the top, and all her work would then be outside, where the mosquitoes would do their best to eat her alive.

“Not much use living anywhere a mosquito wouldn’t even choose to live,” Ben had defended. He had helped her cut away the logs and build the flue form, as well as the arch support, which still remained. It would be there until she was done, and then she’d know for sure if the project was a success.
If it all comes crashing down …
She shuddered at the thought. Not after all that work! She still had the outside of the chimney to complete. It would take some work—she
only had a few weeks left at the lake. But she felt certain she could do it.

She stood back and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
Dad would be proud
. He’d love the real fireplace. It gave the cabin a snug feel, and being able to see it complete, with a fire crackling inside, made her feel just a bit closer to him. She imagined the mantel where she’d built a support form. She moved her hand to shoulder height. She would place her treasures on it—that plaster casting of the wolf print she’d taken, the driftwood “sculptures” she’d collected from shore, the various items she’d found over the summer.

The sound of the de Havilland drew her to the window. Eli. He was back, after being gone from Summit for a couple of weeks. She wondered how his leg was faring. More important, she wondered if he had brought her pizza. She smiled and looked down. She was a mess. Good. The last thing she wanted to do was look attractive. The messier the better. Maybe she ought to smear some of the rock dust over her face.

No. She was who she was. Looked the way she looked. Eli had made his decision. Besides, she had work to do. He would show up when he was good and ready. And she would go on with this day without him, just as she would return to Boston in a few weeks and resume her life without him.

They were simply not meant to be.

With some trepidation, Eli paddled across the lake with Bryn’s supplies—mortar, coffee, sugar, cornmeal, and the pizza. He could see her, moving outside the house, probably working on her fireplace.

When Bryn Skye Bailey went after something, she went after it big. And opened herself up to a very big fall.
Like us
, he mused. As
he drew closer, the hot early-August sun high in the sky, he could see her in a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans, her olive skin glistening in the sun, her ponytail half undone, smudges of gray stone dust on her arms and even on her forehead. She wore leather gloves, and as she leaned down and took another load of rock inside, she pulled her head back once with a smile of greeting.

When he beached the canoe, she came outside. A squirrel chattered madly from a nearby branch, as if telling him to go away.

“When Pizza Town says they deliver,” Bryn said, “they mean
deliver
.”

“Yes,” he said with a chuckle, stepping out. “That will be forty-five dollars and fifty cents, ma’am.”

Bryn’s smile grew larger. “A deal, I tell you.” She took the box from him and opened it up, groaning in pleasure. “Pure heaven. Worth any price.”

“Cold pizza? Must be a desperate bush woman.”

“I’d say,” she answered. The squirrel scolded from above them again, and a pine cone dropped nearby.

“New friend?” Eli asked.

“Ishmael,” she introduced, then shrugged. “He’s mad because I’ve filled all the holes in the roof and he has to find another home this fall. Come in. Come see my fireplace. You’ll forgive me if I don’t offer you a piece of pizza? I’m going to nurse this all week.”

“No problem.” He ducked through the low doorway and walked over to the fireplace and short hearth. “Doc, it’s …” He paused to run his hands over the stones, impressed with their perfect placement and her choice of the rocks themselves, varied in color and, from the looks of them, gathered from all around Summit. “It’s beautiful.”

Bryn smiled broadly and pulled off her gloves. “Ben says that too
many people do parts of jobs, not the whole thing from beginning to end. Gives a body a sense of satisfaction.”

“Wise man, our friend.”

“Yes.” She looked Eli in the eyes, almost searchingly. “Ben is a wise man. We’ve had some good talks …” Her words trailed off as if she wanted to say more, and Eli wondered just what Ben and Bryn had been discussing.

She opened the pizza box, took out a cold slice, and bit into it as if it were manna from heaven. She turned her wide, grateful brown eyes toward him. “Mmm. Thanks for bringing this. I owe you big.”

“Nah. Check out your stitches. I still owe you.” He propped a boot up on the nearest chair and lifted his khaki-colored cargo pants. “Nice work, eh? Dr. Towne was most impressed.”

“Not bad for an emergency treatment.”

“Towne called them perfect.”

“He’s easily impressed. How’s the ankle?”

“Still a little sore when I do too much. Nothing that some Advil doesn’t whip in an instant.”

“Good, good.” Her pizza seemed forgotten in her hand as she stared at him.

“I’ll go get your other supplies,” Eli said, suddenly aware of the electricity in the room. He motioned with his thumb over his shoulder and firmly tucked his other hand in his pocket.

“Great,” she said softly, decidedly returning her attention to the pizza. “Need some help?” she asked, then took another big bite.

“Nah. Take a load off, enjoy your dinner. I’ll just bring this stuff up to the cabin and be out of your hair.”

“You have to leave right away?” Her voice was soft again.

“Yes,” he said, too fast, too defensively. “I mean, yeah. Jamie has
me scheduled for a sunset flight tonight out of Talkeetna, and I have a full couple of weeks ahead.”

Bryn nodded. “I need to pull out of here in a couple of weeks myself. Can you come pick me up on the twentieth?”

“Sure. I’ll put it on the schedule,” he said over his shoulder, walking out. Suddenly he couldn’t get away from Bryn fast enough. The woman was as dangerous as a tarpit to a saber-toothed cat.

The afternoon before Bryn’s departure Eli returned to the Pierce cabin, bringing his mother and father with him. He couldn’t keep himself from pacing in front of the deck window, looking out across the lake.

“Go see her,” Meryl encouraged, taking his arm and looking out the window with him. “Before you wear a rut in the wood floor.”

“I can’t, Mom. I can’t be with her. It will just make things worse. The best thing to do is stay away.” He resumed his pacing.

“You’ll have to see her tomorrow.”

“Yes. But I’ll just pick her up and drop her off in Anchorage. Knowing she’s on her way out will help me keep a lid on things.” He walked over to the stove and poured himself a steaming cup of coffee. The weather had changed over the last week, from a hint of autumn to full-fledged fall. At the narrow edges of Summit, there was even the thin sheen of ice, testimony to cold nights and the coming onset of winter. The tundra’s fireweed had turned a brilliant red and had topped out its bloom; the locals called it the “red flag of winter.”

“I always forget how beautiful it is here,” his mother said, still at
the window. She looked on down the lake, where Jedidiah had canoed to see Ben. Eli rejoined her at the window, as drawn to the vista as a June bug to light.

“Sure you shouldn’t go on over there?” she asked. “Say your good-byes, so she doesn’t haunt you for the
next
few years?”

“It isn’t going to be like that again, Mom. We didn’t spend as much time together this summer. She had some things to work out, inside, for herself.”

“Did she do that?”

Eli thought about Bryn, about how she had completed the fireplace by herself. He could see the chimney rising from the trees. And Ben had told him that she’d taken to hiking again, even after the bear attack. She definitely seemed to be moving forward, not wallowing in the pain of her father’s desertion. Eli thought about their last conversation, when he’d brought the pizza. She’d wanted to tell him something, and there had been a hint of excitement in her eyes. “Maybe. I think so,” he finally replied. He took a sip of coffee. “And tomorrow, she heads back to Boston.”