Yukon Wedding

He was making an effort, reluctant as it was. Perhaps she ought to as well. “There’s enough for you, Mr. Parker.” In her exuberance—and the joy of having more than enough supplies to cook anything she wanted after so many weeks of scraping by—she’d probably made enough for four.

“I may not be a scholar, but I know enough to leave two newlyweds alone. Even arguin’ ones. How about I take Georgie over to the carpenters and see if I can find some scraps we can make into blocks?” He looked at Georgie. “You got any blocks yet, fella? Every boy needs blocks.” Despite Lana’s certainty that Georgie wouldn’t go two feet from her after all the fuss, Georgie toddled over to the big man’s outstretched hand.

“Mind him, Ed,” Mack called after the unlikely pair. “He misses his own nephews, I think,” Mack remarked to Lana. “He’s a big old teddy bear on the inside.”

She managed a laugh. “You’d never know it to look at him.”

“He’s had a rough life. Seen a lot—both good and bad. He’s been a good friend, though, since…” He gave a forced sigh and settled himself on the store floor, sunlight streaming in around them through the still open framework on one side of the building. Some days she could be so swallowed up by the loss of her husband of three years that she would clean forget Mack had lost his best friend of nearly thirty years. How two such different men could grow up together and still stay friends always amazed her.

She looked up at the grief shadowing Mack’s eyes and sighed. They still didn’t quite know how to be alone in a room together. Lana occupied herself by unfolding a napkin. “We’ve all had a rough night. Tempers are short.”

He made a low grunt in reply and rubbed his neck. “Smells mighty good,” he admitted, as the scent of the chicken wafted through the room.

She filled a tin plate and handed it to him. “I’m a very capable person, you know.”

He looked up, a what’s that supposed to mean? expression in his eyes.

“I’m smart enough to know what’s possible and what isn’t.” She filled a plate for herself. “For example, I am smart enough to know that I can’t make it up here alone, but I am also smart enough to know that I can teach those books.”

His eyes flicked up from the food, but he said nothing.

Lana settled her plate on her lap and deliberately softened her tone. She waited for the tension to ebb from the room, watching instead how the crisp ribbons of sunlight illuminated the bits of sawdust dancing on the waterfront breeze. Keeping her tone as soft as she knew how, Lana caught his eyes. “Tell me why you don’t like the idea of my teaching.”

He gave the question considerable thought before replying. “I think,” he chose his words carefully, “that your plate is full enough already. If you’ll pardon the lunch reference,” he added with the barest hint of a smile. “And then there’s Georgie. I don’t see how you could do it.”

“Well, I don’t know much of that myself yet.” He obviously hadn’t expected such an answer, for he stared hard at her, as if she were some difficult puzzle he couldn’t solve. It was true. She felt like a puzzle to herself today.

“You don’t need the job. You’re provided for now.”

“I don’t need the money, true. But I think I need the challenge. There’s a right way to do this.” The ambitious urge those books pulled out of her caught her by surprise, much as that hideous miner had this morning. “I want Treasure Creek to have a good school for Georgie. I want everyone here to have a good school.”

“And you’ve a definite opinion on how that ought to happen.” He declared it like an unfortunate fact of nature, like floods or avalanches.

“I do. And you’re right, I know the why but not the how. At least not yet. So…” She put a luxurious slather of butter on her biscuit, “I’d like to try and work it out. I don’t think asking you to keep an open mind about this is too much.” She looked up and caught his eye again, pleased to see the dark storm of anger had retreated considerably, replaced with a rather amusing curiosity. If there was anything Lana Bristow Tanner knew how to do best, it was to coax a deal into existence. “In return, I’ll keep an open mind about your ideas of what’s needed for my safety.”

He managed an actual smile. “Those marriage vows had ‘honor’ in them, and some other words, but I don’t recall much about ‘keep an open mind.’”

He’d left out the bit about “obey,” and they both knew it. Lana sat up straight. “An open mind is the highest honor a man can give his wife.”

Her statement amounted to a well-played verbal parry, and Mack raised a dubious eyebrow before dissolving into a smirk. They both laughed. It was the first time they’d laughed together, and the first time Lana could remember laughing in ages. There was a precious warmth to it. It was—dare she think it?—fun to coax a deal out of him. He matched her efforts by displaying his “consideration” with an oversize thinking expression while devouring a piece of chicken. His dark blue eyes had hints of gold and green in them when the light hit them right. She’d thought of them as a flat, stormy blue, but there was a shimmer in the storm she hadn’t noticed before. Yes, he did have a playful side. One she’d all but forgotten in the onslaught of drama and conflict that had been both their lives. Georgie would be good for him. Shake some of that stiffness out of him in the way that only small children can.