Pathways (9780307822208) (21 page)

“Yeah, Beaver, we have a request for all pilots in the vicinity to be on the lookout for an escaped convict outside of Kantishna. A state bounty is posted.”

Eli glanced over his shoulder at the oblivious tourists in back and then to the one beside him who stared at him with wide eyes. “I’m headin’ over to the west side now,” Eli reported. “I’ll keep a lookout. What’s the bounty?”

“Twenty-five Gs. Guy that spots him buys for the crowd at Alice’s tonight. Happy hunting, Beaver.”

Eli whistled lowly and looked back at his passengers. “Must be some kind of bad guy for that price.”

Bryn saw a patient five miles west of Wonder Lake and then talked Leon into dropping her at Summit.

“Don’t know, Doc. Eli wouldn’t like it. That convict is still on the loose.”

Bryn let out a quick guffaw. “Eli Pierce has no say in the matter. I haven’t even seen the man for thirteen days.”

“But who’s keepin’ track?” Leon teased.

She gave him a warning look. “Besides, that was fifty miles from here, over rough country.”

“Doc, the man’s a rapist and a murderer. Used to the bush. From
what I hear, you don’t want to face him alone. And it’s been three days since they lost his trail. It’s feasible he’s in this territory now.”

“Got my own Colt .357 now,” she said. “And I’ll keep it loaded.”

Leon let out a long breath. “Sure you don’t want to head back to town, Doc? At least, until this fella is caught?”

“No. I want to be at the lake, Leon. Please.”

He glanced at her, and Bryn knew by his admiring look she had won. She had faced bears before. She could handle some convict.

“I’m not goin’ back and tellin’ Eli this news.” Leon surprised her. “You tell him yourself.” He used his radio to contact Alaska Bush, and when Eli answered, Leon nodded and handed her the mike. When she said nothing, he moved his headset microphone away and whispered. “Go for it, Doc.” His eyes had the light of victory in them.

She pursed her lips and then said, “Yeah, Eli, it’s Bryn. I was just telling Leon here that I wanted a lift to Summit, and he’s reluctant to take me. Tell him I’ll be fine, will you?”

“Doc, that manhunt has moved to within ten miles of Summit. Come home.”

His parental tone infuriated her. “No, Eli. I’m going to Summit. This is ridiculous. It isn’t likely that that man would come over two more mountain ridges. He’ll head to lower ground. And as I told Leon, I’m armed now. Completely safe.”

“You’d have to be loaded for bear, Bryn. That guy is a monster.”

“Eli, I want to go to the cabin.” She paused and gathered herself. “Please.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, and just as she had known with Leon, Bryn felt the glimmer of hope that she had won this round. “If you’re going to Summit, I am too. We need to talk.”

It was her turn to pause, to glance at Leon in confusion. What
had happened? What would push him to meet her at the lake when he had been studiously avoiding her all summer? Was he going to tell her that he and Sara had gotten engaged? She swallowed hard.

“Okay, Eli. I’ll meet you there.”

“Keep that gun loaded, Doc, and at the ready.”

“Roger that, boss, over,” Leon interrupted. “Talkeetna radio, this is Cessna-six-eight-four-Alpha-Bravo headin’ to Summit Lake now. ETA 1400 hours.”

“Roger that, Cessna-six-eight-four-Alpha-Bravo.”

And so it was done. Bryn was heading to Summit Lake.

And the escaped convict wasn’t the only dangerous man coming her way.

Eli paddled over to Bryn’s cabin that evening, content with the quiet on the lake. It was utterly still, allowing for a perfect reflection of the white peaks in the cobalt water. After a week of solid flying, it felt good to rest. Something in the air made him cautious, like a foreign scent to a deer in the wild.

Was it his fear of finally telling Bryn what he was feeling, what he was thinking? Or was it the threat of the convict so near? Eli had spent the late afternoon with Ben, cautioning him to barricade his door and keep a sharp lookout, as well as a firearm loaded and at the ready. But Ben had seen right through him, calling a spade a spade, telling Eli that he wasn’t just there to protect Bryn. He was there to claim her.

Eli’s heart pounded at the thought. His eyes went from the swirling water around his paddle to the sleeping bag, stowed in front of the canoe. If Bryn insisted on staying at Summit with a criminal on the loose, then he was determined to stay with her to keep her safe.

He chuckled suddenly. She wouldn’t like it. She wouldn’t like it at all.

The sound of a timber-splitting maul biting into soft, wet wood met his ears. A second later, he could see her, a braid swinging with every arc of her arms. She was strong and independent but still managed to be ultrafeminine. All woman. His kind of woman. How did she manage it? He smiled again. Allowing himself to formulate such a thought, after years of training himself not to think of her, was a freedom he enjoyed. It felt good, like hearing a wind gust coming through the trees and welcoming it with eyes closed, face forward. He dug his paddle deeper into the water and reached her shore.

She paused briefly, smiled at him, wiped her forehead, and gave the green wood another swing. It went only about a third of the way through. “You mind?” he asked, reaching out for the tool as he walked to her.

“Be my guest,” she said, crouching and panting from the exertion. With one neat stroke, he split the wood in two, then divided it again.

“You come all the way to Summit to chop firewood for me?” she asked, a teasing smile in her eyes.

“Don’t mind chopping,” he said, eyeing the next log.

“Thought we needed to talk.”

“We do.” He swung the ax around, cutting halfway through a large round. He pried the buried maul out of the center, aimed for the crack, met it, and succeeded in dividing it in half.

“All right then. I’ll just be inside.” She rose to go.

Panting now too, Eli grabbed her arm. “No, Bryn, wait.”

She looked up at him, then slowly let her gaze wander up from his hand on her arm to his chest, to his neck, to his chin, and finally
to his eyes. The effect was mesmerizing and threatened to suffocate him with its power. Her wide, chocolate eyes and mink eyelashes. Her long, straight nose and full lips. Swallowing hard, he threw the maul aside and took her in his arms.

This could not wait any longer.

“Eli—”

He hushed her with a kiss that spoke of his buried passion, the love he’d held back for years, the desire he’d longed to respond to. A kiss that said she was the one for him. Had always been the one.

“Oh, Eli,” she whispered, staring up at him. “What about Sara?”

“We broke up.” It was enough talking for him. He wanted the taste of her again, her lithe, curvaceous body against his. He pulled her to him, kissing her hard and long, wishing with everything in him that they were married and it didn’t have to stop there. She met him this time, her hands running down his chest and then around to his back, her strong fingers digging in through his sweatshirt.

They separated after several long minutes, panting now from the passion rather than from chopping wood. When he looked at her, wonder and awe and fear and love passed through her eyes, and Eli knew the same must be sweeping through his own. He kissed her again and again and again, each time trying to assuage his need for her, yet desperate to turn down the heat of his fire for her to at least a hot-coal stage. But each kiss just led them deeper.

“Stop. Eli, we have to stop,” she groaned as he covered her cheek in kisses, moved toward her neck. Bryn pushed him away, gently but firmly, and half of him agonized that she stopped him, half of him praised God that she had the strength he seemed to have lost somewhere across Summit.

“You sit there,” she said as if she barely had the strength to speak, her face red from his whiskers, her lips a bit more full. He forced himself to look away, to sit on the upended log she had indicated. She sat down, three feet away from him, on her own log. “I always wondered if you were a good kisser.”

He grinned back at her. “What do you think?”

She pulled her head to one side. “Better than I had hoped. Better than anyone I’ve ever kissed before.”

Eli forced himself to resist the urge to rise and take her in his arms again before she could protest.
Give me the power over this desire, Lord
, he prayed silently. It overwhelmed him, like a tsunami washing over an unsuspecting surfer.

“Eli? Eli! Earth to Eli!”

“Sorry. You got me spinning, Bryn Skye Bailey.”

She smiled shyly. “I asked you why now? Why kiss me now? I tried every which way to get you to kiss me ten years ago. Was even wanting to kiss you last time I was in Alaska. But you never made a move. Why now?”

“I’ve told you, a kiss means something to me, Bryn. It’s an announcement of my intent, of sorts. You weren’t a believer until the night before you left here last time, so I knew I couldn’t pursue a relationship. Then when you showed up this year, and all those old feelings came back, only stronger. Now you’re …” He groaned, ran his hand through his hair and stared up into the limbs of trees that crisscrossed above him. Was he really ready to lay it all on the line? To make himself this vulnerable?

He stared back at her, so lovely, so enticing, so … “Bryn, woman, you are like utter perfection to me. I’ve been in love with you for years. Seeing you again, after all that time away, just made it clearer
to me. I had to break up with Sara, even if you weren’t going to give me a chance. It wasn’t fair of me anyway, to be with her when I was still in love with you.”

Bryn’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, Eli, I am far from perfect.”

He laughed at himself. “I know that. I know that’s the reality. But this crazy thing I feel for you is like a Fourth of July rocket on a pitch-black night. It’s exploding inside of me, and there just aren’t words to describe all that I feel. It’s electric, cataclysmic! Crazy making!” He rose, needing to pace to work out some of his energy if he couldn’t kiss it out of Bryn. “I’m thirty-one years old, Bryn,” he said turning toward her. “Please tell me I’m not in this alone. That we can start something together. In earnest.”

She looked down at the forest floor and shook her head. “Oh no, Eli. You’re not in this alone.”

He went to her then, knelt by her side, ran his hand over her head and down her soft cheek. “I said I’m in love with you, Bryn,” he said, waiting for her to meet his gaze. “I have to know. Have to know this today. Are you in love with me?”

Her eyes shifted back and forth, always on him. “Eli Pierce, I’ve always been in love with you.”

And then she was back in his arms, beneath him on the forest floor, beside him, her dark hair blending with the land he had always loved. They kissed and cuddled and talked and picked pine needles and twigs and sticks out of each other’s hair until the sun sank over the western mountains and the chill of the forest superseded even the warmth generated between their bodies.

They picked at their dinner, lost in staring at each other across the candlelit table, each dizzy in the discovery of love. Shoving aside his
plate at last, Eli reached for her hand. “Pray with me, will you, Bryn? I’ll start, you finish?”

She smiled, pushed her own half-eaten trout away and took his hand in answer. He stared at the simmering beauty of her in the dancing candlelight, just a moment longer before bowing his head too. “Father God, thank you for this woman. This thing that has started between us. We ask for your hand in our relationship, that you will guide us and lead us and pull us away from anything you don’t want us to do. Please, Lord, we ask that you help us draw the lines on our passion for each other. We want to honor you in all things, including this.”

“Yes, Father,” Bryn added, a smile in her voice. “I thank you for Eli, too. What a blessing he has been to me, throughout my life, but especially this year. Lord, I’m afraid. Afraid of this wrenching open of my heart, afraid that it will be left open and bleeding. Protect us both, lead us, but make us brave and courageous, too. Help us to follow your call, wherever it leads. We ask for these things in your name, Jesus. Amen.”

“Amen,” Eli echoed.

She met his eyes then, and they stared at each other for several long minutes. Eli felt as helpless as he had when he had fallen for Chelsea Thompson. Except worse. Or better. He laughed.

“What?”

“Nothing. Well, I forgot how great—and terrible—it feels to be in love. It’s all tangled up inside me.”

“I know the feeling.” She covered his hand with her other, and he did the same. “I just can’t believe that all
this
was just beneath the surface.”

“Me neither. In a way. But then I think I knew it all along. Just wasn’t acknowledging it.”

She nodded, glanced to the window. “Eli …”

He followed her look. In the corner of a window pane was the faintest stripe of neon green on the far horizon.

“Do you think?” she asked, nodding toward the lake.

“Could be. That would be the perfect ending to a perfect day. Let’s go.”

Wordlessly she went for her parka and then opened the door. “Separate canoes?” she asked.