His Brother's Gift. Mary J. Forbes
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driveway and slammed to a stop. Before she could catch her breath, he was out of the cab, arms crossed and waiting like the headmaster of a nineteenth-century school.
She walked past him. He had some growing up to do.
“Damn it, Savanna.” He wheeled to stride beside her. “You said the house.”
“When you act your age, we’ll talk.”
He caught her arm, halting them midlane. “Where the hell do you get off talking like that? I’m not your student and for damn sure you’re not my mother.”
Her heart bumped her throat. She’d forgotten his size. They stood in a forest of trees, in the dark, and who in Starlight would come to her rescue against the fun-loving, dancing Will Rubens? “Please take your hand off me,” she said quietly.
His mouth thinned, but he did as she asked. “I want Christopher.”
For an indefinite moment, they stared at each other and she thought, The shape’s all wrong. Christopher didn’t have Elke’s eyes. Will dominated both the shape and color of Christopher’s eyes. A little ruffle stirred under her heart. “Why?” she finally managed.
“Why? This morning all you wanted was for me to take him, and now you ask why? How’s this—because he’s my brother’s kid?”
“Not good enough.”
His mouth gaped.
“First of all, blood does not make a parent. Second, last night and this morning you—”
He held up his hands. “Okay, okay. I can’t deny what I said before, but I’ve been thinking on it all day and I want a chance.” A heavy sigh. “He’s all I have left of…of Dennis.”
Again that little bump in the throat. Dennis, she reminded herself. She would do this for Dennis…and Elke. “All right. We can meet in the morning and figure out the arrangements.”
He looked at the house with its inviting face. “Understood. Tomorrow it is.” Then added softly, “Thank you.”
He walked back to his truck, night shadows swaying through the trees to brush his shoulders. She tried to ignore the shadow stealing into her heart.
With one hand holding a thermos of coffee, Will knocked on Georgia’s door at 7:30 the next morning.
He should be at the flight service station getting ready for the two hikers he was flying into the Talkeetna Mountains in a couple hours. He never understood people hiking when the weather was ornery and unpredictable. But who was he to argue? Their decisions and money put food on his table.
In the pale dawn light, he studied the front yard with its spruce and birch, frosted from the overnight temperature. The ambience resembled his own property on the next street. Except, when he’d bought, the original structure hosted rot and decay and he had torn it down to build a log cabin. This August would mark his seventh in the house, still ranked “new” by Starlight standards. It’s what he loved about the village, this reluctance to massacre the environment in the name of progress.
When he’d returned to his hometown eight years ago, it was to lick his wounds. To flee a broken heart. Broken because of Aileen, dying for the same altruistic reasons as Dennis had last Monday. What Will hadn’t understood then was you can’t hide from memories, that it takes time—sometimes never—for the mind to evict its awful images.
Thanks to Harlan those images had faded, finally. Harlan, former Nam vet, teaching orphaned seventeen-year-old Will to fly helicopters—a boy who eventually grew into a man, flying rich folk around California and who, one day years later, would return and use those skills in the Alaskan wilderness to erase the memory of his murdered sweetheart. A woman like Savanna, journeying into areas where poverty and gangs were medians of survival.
The door opened. “Morning, Will,” Georgia greeted.
“Nana Martin.”
“I suppose you’re here to see Savanna and Christopher?”
“Yes, ma’am. Savanna’s expecting me.”
“Come in, then.” She walked back to the kitchen.
Entering, he smelled breakfast and coffee, and followed the morning odors. At his house, he had made a plate of eggs and toast; though he had no trouble brewing his own coffee, he sometimes left the task to Lu over at Lu’s Table with her Starbucks franchise.
At the kitchen table, Christopher munched his toast triangles. His blue sweater was inside out. Savanna stood leaning against the counter, coffee mug cozy between her hands, green eyes on Will. She’d pulled her blue sweater on properly—and over breasts, he noticed, which were a nice ample package. Her jeans fit a damn fine package, too.
He offered a nod. “Savanna. Figured we could talk before I head out for the day. Don’t know what time I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going?”
“Talkeetna Mountains. Hikers,” he added.
She turned toward the window. Mounds of crusted snow lay among the trees. “People hike this time of year?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Almost May. Not as cold as it looks.” If the wind stayed down.
Her look took in Christopher, and Will understood. “This won’t take long,” he said. “We can talk out on the porch.” After the boy reiterated Will’s words verbatim in the lodge’s room, he’d rather ask questions and discuss his plans away from little ears.
“Let me get my coat.”
Outside, day was beginning to arrive. Pale-gray patches stitched themselves into evergreen tops. Will stepped from the rear stoop to walk through the trees. Brittle brown grass and glassy snow crackled under their boots. He loved early morning best. The quiet, the peace. Before people cluttered the day.
Stopping, he lifted his thermos, took a deep swallow of dark roast. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew Georgia?”
Hands buried deep in her parka’s pockets, Savanna edged beside him as he stood on the path among the hulking black spruce. He could smell her, a clear, pure scent of summer in the mountains—blue skies and meadows filled with dogwood.
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
She had him there. “Suppose I didn’t,” he admitted. “So. What’s the story? She know about the boy’s problem?”
“Yes. Elke told her right after she and Georgia started communicating in 2005.”
He looked down at the top of her head barely reaching his collarbones. “They had remained estranged all those years?”
She lifted a shoulder. “As I’m sure you know, the reasons were profound.”
Yeah, he knew all about those reasons. Elke’s mother thought him “foolish and stupid” putting his life on the line because he liked riding motorcycles and flying helicopters, sky-diving and whitewater kayaking—and dragging his brother along.
Dennis, wanting to be a doctor from his tenth birthday.
No, there hadn’t been any love lost between Will and Rose.
But Elke was the woman his brother had chosen from the time they hit puberty. In Will’s mind she’d been weak-kneed in the face of Rose. But Dennis loved Elke, and Will loved his brother, end of story.
“Who contacted who first?” he asked.
“Georgia. After Rose died.”
“Two years ago.”
“Yes. She wrote a letter of regret and apology on Rose’s behalf, and Elke accepted. They corresponded several times a month.”
“When did you tell her about the crash?” His throat tightened. Thinking of Dennis, God, it was a slug to the gut every