Northern Lights Trilogy (115 page)

Kaatje, as if in a dream, looked away from him, not willing to answer his plea. She looked at Juneau’s townspeople, some women covering their mouths in wonder at the drama before them, some men looking angry, ready to pounce. Then she looked back to him. To…her husband.

Even with a closely trimmed beard, she would have known him anywhere. The curly blond hair, the mischievous eyes. He had aged in the years they had been apart, but, if anything, he had only grown more handsome.

“Kaatje?” He took a step closer, and Kaatje leaned against James as if retreating. “Please,
elskling.
” When he lapsed into their native
Norwegian, it robbed Kaatje of her last reserves. She started crying, so broken, so overcome, she feared she would never again be able to stop.

That was when James intervened. He moved in front of her, between them, and held a hand out toward Soren. “Wait just a minute.”

Soren ignored him, staring at Kaatje with pleading eyes. “My
dyr
one. Kitten. You know me, right? Right?” He tried to push past James, but James held Soren back.

“Kaatje?” James asked over his shoulder. James shoved Soren away. Soren took several steps backward until he regained his balance. They were about the same height, Kaatje judged, with a similar build. Funny how one woman could fall for two men so similar in stance, yet so different in countenance. She drew strength from James, his concern for her evident in his eyes. He stood there, her protector, ready to pounce if she so much as gave the signal.

“Kaatje?” James repeated. He ran a hand through his hair, and for a moment Kaatje felt like her heart would break. He glanced down as if he knew. Something in her eyes must have told him, told him that this would be good-bye, that their love would never have a chance to bloom. “It’s him, isn’t it, Kaatje?”

She didn’t remember nodding, but she must have, since James closed his eyes as if pained and then turned toward Soren. He leaned to him and said something no one else could hear. Then he raised his hands to the crowd and said, “Kaatje Janssen, after searching the length of the Yukon for him, has just been reunited with her husband. I think we should all head for home and give them some time alone.”

Soren heard what James had said, the word of warning and love and frustration in his tone, and he knew. The man was in love with his wife. Too bad that he had showed up in the nick of time, Soren gloated. He would be one to watch. No doubt Mr. Walker would be looking for any shred of evidence that Soren was less than he appeared.

Now that they were alone, Soren stared at his wife. She had grown lovelier in the years they’d been apart, and a familiar desire stirred
within him. He had been a fool to leave her. When he found out that she was seeking him in Fort Yukon, he had followed the trio, watching them from afar. It did not take long for him to discover how she had the means to hire Walker and his sidekick as well as offer a reward for information on his whereabouts. Days later, he learned that she had a serious investment in the Storm Roadhouse in Juneau, as well as in Ketchikan. It was that, coupled with the jealousy of seeing her with another man, that made him follow them along the river and to Juneau.

“Kaatje? After all this time, can you not even embrace your husband?”

She turned away, and he stared at her profile, that perfect nose, those wide eyes with long lashes. Only her slight lack of chin kept her from being beautiful. And he could see from the dress she was wearing that childbirth had spread her hips but left her waist trim, making her even more enticing. “No, Soren, I cannot. I must know why you’ve…reappeared. After all this time.”

“I heard you were looking for me and came right away.” That much was true. “I didn’t even know you were in Alaska until someone told me you had been in Fort Yukon.”

She whirled toward him. “I have been gone for months. I left our girls to find you. Just when exactly did you intend to come find
me?
” He hadn’t missed the fact that she had said “girls.” But her anger had to be dealt with first.

“I kept thinking that I’d find my fortune and bring you up. I knew you were safe—”

“No, Soren. I was not safe. Your family was not well. Did you even know that we left Dakota for Washington Territory four years ago? Did you know I had to scavenge for buffalo bones to sell for fuel in order to afford the train fare? Did you know I tilled twenty acres of soil in Washington by myself?” With each question she drew nearer to him, until she was jabbing a finger in his chest.

She was petite, yet strong, and Soren fought the urge to gather her into his arms, to kiss away her questions. He was about to do so
when she asked, “Did you know that Tora brought me a child that you fathered on the ship of our crossing? Left her for me to raise?”

The others he was prepared for. This took his breath away. “She did what? She brought who?”

“Your lover’s child,” Kaatje spit out. She took several steps away from him on the platform, and it struck Soren that they were performing a delicate dance. If he was not very careful, one of them would fall. “It is by God’s grace,” she said over her shoulder, her tone notably softer, “that I fell in love with the girl as if she were my own.”

Soren carefully crossed the span between them and, with a shaking hand, touched her shoulder. When she did not flinch or move away, he placed his other hand on her other shoulder. Still she did not move. Then he wrapped her in his arms, feeling the warmth of her small, curvaceous body against his. Why was he such a fool? Why had he left this strong, courageous woman?

“I thought you were dead,” she said in a monotone. “I was going to have you declared dead next week when the circuit judge came to town.”

He leaned his cheek gently against her head, smelling the clean scent of her hair, the lavender perfume on her neck. “Sounds like I arrived just in time,” he quipped.

She moved away then and whirled. Again Soren was reminded of a dance as her skirt flared and then fell. “This is no laughing matter, Soren.”

“I know. I
know.
”

“I do not think you do know. Abandoning the girls and me on the Dakota farm was one thing. Staying away all these years is another. You have created a crevasse I don’t believe can ever be crossed, Soren.”

“Do you believe in love?” he asked softly.

“What?”

He took a step closer to her again and gently caressed her cheeks. “Do you still believe in love, Kaatje?”

“I…I do not know if I believe in it anymore.”

“I do. Kaatje. Kaatje, Kaatje.” He pulled her chin back toward him and waited for her eyes to meet his. “I do,
elskling.
You and I were born for each other. You cannot deny it. Behind the hurt and sorrow in your eyes, I still see the love.” He was lying now, desperately fishing for what he hoped was there.

She looked away, obviously unconvinced. He needed something…more. It came to him in an instant.

“I have come to know a greater love than ours,
dyr
one.”

Her hazel eyes immediately met his.

“Yes, Kaatje. It is as you prayed. God found me, and I welcomed him at last.”

His heart sped up when he noted a flicker of light in her eyes. A warmth spread through his chest as he sensed her defenses faltering. “Is it not how you prayed?”

“Soren. Oh, Soren, of course I prayed for you. That you would find the One who could bring you peace. But I never thought… I always wondered.”

“If it were truly possible?”

“Yes.” She gave him a searching look.

“It’s possible.” When she said no more, he asked, “Where are my girls? May I see them?”

“No,” she shook her head immediately. “No, it would not be good. I’m sure Tora took them home.”

“Why? Why can I not see them?” He worked to squelch the flare of anger in his chest. He hadn’t seen Christina in six years and had never met—he didn’t even know his other daughter’s name.

“Why?” she asked, her face portraying her exasperation. “You ask me why?” Her own anger grew. “You might think you can reemerge now, Soren, and resume our life together, but it is not that easy. I was ready to declare you dead. Now here you are standing before me, acting as if you have every right to see our daughters. You abandoned them. You abandoned us, Soren. No, you may not see my girls. Never. Not until I am convinced that you are home to stay. That you are
home to stay with
me.
I won’t put them through what I have been put through with you. I will not risk their hearts.”

“Kaatje, I am changed.”

“Time will tell.”

“Yes, it will. I am changed, Kaatje.” He reached out and stroked her shoulders. She was all lean muscle and bone beneath her gown. He hadn’t known she was such a woman before, a woman of strength and character. Her strength drew him. Challenged him.

She shook her head and then her arms, turning away from him. “It is too much. I need to go away from you, to think.”

“I understand. May I see you tomorrow?” She was scurrying down the stairs as if he was pursuing her. He was, in a way.

“I do not know,” she said over her shoulder, dismissing him.

It was odd that she didn’t welcome him back right away, he thought. After searching the entire Yukon for him. Soren had thought it would be much easier. That there would be some groveling, sure, but not this rebuff. Why, she had left him out there in the streets! Without a room! The least she could’ve done was offer him a room at her roadhouse! He kicked the stage in frustration and paced, thinking. What would it take to win Kaatje back? To get his old Kaatje back?

He turned and walked down the stage stairs, looking each way for the nearest hotel other than the Storm Roadhouse. Spotting it, he took his time in getting there, laying his plans to make Kaatje his own once more. He was at the hotel’s frosted glass door before the idea first struck him. Was Kaatje in love with James as he obviously was with her? Soren repeatedly slapped one fist into the palm of his other hand, turning away from the door as he thought about it. Never. Kaatje would never have given her heart away to another before she knew for certain that he was dead. Not his Kaatje. She was loyal to the end. He had come back just in the nick of time.

“Kaatje.” Her name emerged hoarse from his throat. He had run after her, racing to intercept her before she went inside the roadhouse. She
turned halfway, not daring to look at him, and the beauty of her profile made him close his eyes in anguish. “Kaatje, I must speak with you.”

“James, we cannot. It is too much. I already have so much to think upon.”

He sighed. “Yes. I know. I hate it that I am here, but I cannot help myself. I was about to tell you on that dance floor. I only wanted you to know.” He turned away, biting back his words. He could not tell her he loved her now. It wouldn’t be fair. She had to make her decisions about Soren first.

When he turned back to her he discovered her on the stair, holding on to the rail as if she would faint at any moment. The sight of her made him want to weep.

“I know what you were about to tell me, James.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Because I feel the same.” There was no joy in her words, as there should have been. Only regret and sorrow. Only good-bye.

He gasped for breath, feeling as if he were being held underwater. Once more he had found love. And once more, he was left alone.

She stared at him, her eyes shimmering with tears, then turned and walked to the door, crying already.

Kaatje was gone. Soren had stolen her away.

“You had better heed my warning, Soren Janssen,” he whispered angrily through his tears as he left Kaatje’s home. “You hurt her this time, you’ll be accountable to
me
.”

Late September 1888

B
y some miracle, the
Majestic
made incredible time to San Francisco, even with the loss of one mast. The ship’s carpenter had brought the broken white pine log down, cutting the base in a way that a new mast could be easily grafted on once they reached Ramstad Lumberyard. The prices in San Francisco for a sizable mast would be exorbitant, and Elsa refused to purchase one there when, after a week’s further sail, they could pick one up for no cost at all. No, in San Francisco, they would simply replace the boiler and get back to sea. Elsa twisted her hands as the ship was brought into the wharf by a small steamer tug. They might still make Tora’s wedding if all went well.

She accompanied the children into town, agreeing to explore Chinatown with them. Eric came too, ostensibly to sightsee, but more likely acting as a self-appointed bodyguard. Or responding to Riley’s direct orders, she mused. Riley stayed back to oversee the purchase of a new boiler and, hopefully, negotiate an immediate installation. Oh, how she hoped that he would receive good news and that they could soon be underway!

The children requested dim sum—a light meal of finger foods—for their noon dinner, and Elsa agreed with an easy smile. Being in the hills of San Francisco with the smell of hot oil in the sea breeze
and the bustling of people in traditional costume made her remember pleasant times in the Far East. It was interesting to her that her first thought was not of Mason Dutton and his attack upon her, but of fragrant lotus blossoms and friendly people. Of rickshaws and heavily wooded mountains…