Yukon Wedding. Allie Pleiter

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СКАЧАТЬ chose that moment to knock his bowl onto the floor, sending bits of apple and a chunk of cheese scattering across the cabin floor. On the one hand she was grateful for something to divert her attention from Mack’s uncomfortable silence. On the other hand, she didn’t care for Georgie’s commentary on the proposal.

      “You want to teach,” he replied when she finished picking up Georgie’s spill. His tone was perfectly even. No wonder Jed often said it was a pity Mack shunned cards—the man’s face was unreadable.

      She returned to her seat at the table. “Yes.” Lana gave her voice what she hoped was command. “I do.” Mack pinched the bridge of his nose. Not an encouraging response. Lana counted to ten, willing her hands not to fidget. “Well?”

      “I can’t say I’m overly fond of the idea.”

      “Why not?”

      Georgie threw his spoon to the ground, babbling. Mack raised an eyebrow at her as if to say he thought she had her hands full already.

      She did, but in some twisted way that was part of the attraction of teaching for her. Tending to Georgie was like tidying up after a tornado all day long, only to do it again tomorrow. She desperately needed to feel a sense of accomplishment, of achieving something beyond mere survival. The truth of it was she was as surprised as Mack at the idea, but it had grabbed hold of her somewhere between the fourth and fifth reader and refused to let go. She knew she needed this. She also knew she’d find a way—no matter how hard or complicated—to make it work.

      “A man provides for his family. It takes a lot to keep a household running up here. You’ll be too busy. I want Georgie to come first.”

      She’d been worried he would think she couldn’t do it. The idea that he thought she shouldn’t do it pulled something dark and angry out from the hard knot under her stomach. It leapt from her mouth before she could think better of it. “Georgie? Or you?”

      “Lana…”

      “I’m to fill my days being Mrs. Mack Turner, is that it?”

      “You’re to be a mother to your son.” His voice rose to match hers. “Let someone else, without that kind of responsibility, see to the teaching. The government will send one if we ask. I see no reason for you to take this on. I just don’t think it’s wise.”

      “Oh, and you’re Mack Tanner—you always know what’s best.”

      Mack pushed away from the table. “We’ve been married—what?—not even three days? Do you even know what’s ahead of you? Of us?”

      “I know the timing’s not perfect.”

      “Perfect? It’s lunacy. The school’s not even built. It’s June. Georgie’s a handful on a good day. I don’t see how this makes any sense.” He looked at her, a sharp shadow of hurt behind his eyes. “Isn’t this enough?”

      Hadn’t she asked that very question of herself? A dozen times over? Why, after resisting for months and finally relenting to the one thing she’d thought she’d never do, did she need something else? And she did. She needed this. In a fierce, defiant way she could never begin to describe. It was, she supposed, a way of hanging on to Lana Bristow before she became completely swallowed up by Mrs. Mack Turner. “Not yet” was the only reply she could manage, weak as it was.

      Chapter Six

      Mack pushed the floorboard into place with his boot. “So I told her I’d think on it.”

      Ed Parker, down off the trail, in between prospecting trips, hauled more board over from the stack at the far end of the new general store’s main room. “You did, did you? Why’d you say that?”

      Mack held the board in place with one foot while he nailed the edge down. “Because she loved the idea. She was all fired up and ready to fight for it. I hadn’t even seen the sun go down twice on our house and already things are—” he searched for a word “—complicated.”

      “Nothing complicated about it. Say ‘no’ and that’ll be end of it.”

      Because that wouldn’t be the end of it. He’d seen it in her eyes. This notion had a hold of her and she wasn’t about to let it go. Logic didn’t come into it. The most he could hope for was to hold off until her head cleared. “You married, Ed?”

      Ed dropped the stack of boards with a smirk. “Nope.”

      “Well, when you’ve got to spend every morning sitting across from a woman you’ve said no to, then you come and give me advice, okay?” Mack drove the final nail home.

      Ed pulled another board off the stack and slid it up against the one Mack had just secured. “You ain’t been married but a few days. What do you know about all that stuff anyways?”

      Mack pound in the next nail. “That’s the secret to my success. I learn fast.”

      “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, seeing as you’ve got a teacher for a wife and all. Me, I think you have a lot to learn.”

      “Mack!” Any further commentary was cut short by the appearance of Caleb Johnson. “Got another one for you.”

      Mack set down his hammer and straightened up with a groan. “Sixth this month. I thought we’d see more of these in winter than now.” He walked out of the general store’s framed-out shell to see a scrawny young man in tattered shoes and nowhere near enough clothing for the trail’s demanding weather. “What’s your name, son?”

      “David Mindown, sir. Out of Seattle. Came up two weeks ago.”

      It was the Seattle ones that always showed up like this. Young men who’d hopped the next boat, so sure of their fortune, only to discover how cruel the Chilkoot Trail could be. Mack was surprised he’d lasted this long. “How old are you, Mindown?”

      “Twenty-one.”

      Mack doubted he’d seen twenty, from the looks of him. “Got family back in Seattle, do you?”

      The boy just nodded. The ones that came back down off the trail—especially the ones Caleb brought to him—would almost choke up at the mention of home and family. Most of them were so broken down and hungry they’d been known to call any woman who offered them a good meal and a bit of care “Mother.”

      “Got anything left at all?”

      Caleb and the boy shook their heads simultaneously. This boy should have never been allowed up the trail. Harder men than he had barely made it halfway. Mack put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, finding it sharp and bony under the thin shirt he wore. “Time to go home, son. Some adventures are better left to other days. You come on by the house tomorrow morning and I’ll get you squared away. There’s a ship leaving on Tuesday, I’ll book you passage. You got a place to sleep and eat until then?”

      “Mavis said the shack is open,” Caleb answered. Mavis Goodge, the boardinghouse owner in town, had a little bunkhouse out on the back of her property that she’d fixed up for just such circum stances. Treasure Creek had crafted an odd little rescue system. Caleb usually found the wayward miners in need of rescue. Teena Crow often tended to whatever wounds she could with the Tlingit healing ways that were her gift, as the town still had no doctor СКАЧАТЬ