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But he knew Bethany—somehow she’d muddle through and it would all come off just fine in the end. He had to admit he admired her grit and persistence.
“That’s it?” They were finally done. A few more couples had arrived and were standing around in small knots, talking and laughing. Lewis knew Bethany was a little embarrassed because she’d intended to have all the floral arrangements in place before the guests showed up.
“I think so. I need to talk to the steward for a minute…” Bethany and Reg moved off, and Lewis stepped behind a large fake potted palm that was part of the boat’s everyday decor.
His heart stopped. That woman—that woman in the black dress. The one with legs that went on forever and russet hair that brushed her shoulder blades on her very bare back. Her very bare freckled back. Lewis had only caught her profile for a flash before she’d turned away from him.
He watched her accept a glass of something that a tall, weedy blond type had plucked off a tray and handed to her with a smile. The guy wore glasses, the old-fashioned horn-rim kind, but they were probably cutting-edge fashion now—with a certain type of man.
Lewis’s heart started to beat again. Nah, couldn’t be.…
But hadn’t he heard that she’d won some big science scholarship? That she was studying pond scum or fish or bugs or some damn thing at the university? Who could have mentioned it to him— Ma? Billy? He knew that his mother and sister thought highly of the entire Longquist family.
She turned again, this time straight toward him. Lewis’s heart lodged in his throat. Yep. Same nose, same eyes…same freckles everywhere. It was Phoebe Longquist.
Had she seen him? He hoped not, but then he noticed that her hand had tightened on her drink and her companion had turned in Lewis’s direction, too, as if aware that his date’s attention was suddenly elsewhere.
“Lew!” Bethany rushed up to him. Thank the Lord for small mercies.
“What is it, Beth?” Lewis couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice. It was one crisis after another with this woman.
“You’ve got to go back to the shop—here, take the key!” She thrust a key on a chain attached to a wooden daisy at him. “I forgot the most important arrangement, the one for the buffet table.”
“What about Reg?” All Lewis wanted was to go back to his apartment and turn on a baseball game. He was tired of the florist business. Tired of everything.
He didn’t dare look toward Phoebe Longquist. His brain was still churning, trying to think of what he’d say if she approached him. If he couldn’t avoid her entirely.
“Reg can’t drive and I’ve got to finish up here. Pleeease!” Bethany had tears in her pretty blue eyes.
“Hey, of course I will,” Lewis said soothingly, taking the key chain and feeling a little foolish for even thinking he’d rather be watching a baseball game. He’d intended to help her all along. Trust Bethany to hire an assistant who couldn’t drive.
“I’ll be right here, Lew.” She glanced at her watch. “You’re going to have to hurry. The boat’s due to leave in less than half an hour. We’ve got to be finished and out of here by ten to—”
“Don’t worry.” Lewis impulsively dropped a kiss on her nose. She smiled and looked slightly relieved. Lewis desperately wanted to see if Phoebe had noticed. Why had he done that—kissed Bethany? Except to hope that Phoebe noticed.
All the way back to Whyte Avenue, Lewis cursed himself for a fool. Phoebe Longquist was long out of his life. And he was long out of hers. But he could still see her tender smile, her shining eyes the night she’d raided her mom’s kitchen for him and they’d talked until past midnight on her uncle’s hammock in the backyard. He’d felt her genuine goodness warming him through and through. He’d believed that she really, truly cared for him—a stranger—the way no one had ever cared for him before. Not Ma—who’d always been old and preoccupied, as long as Lewis could remember. Not Billy—who kept to herself and was so much older than he was. She was kind, but he sometimes felt he barely knew her. She never talked to anyone if she could help it, anyone except Ma.
Lewis had a hard time getting the key in the front door of Bethany’s Blooms. And then when he did, it wouldn’t turn. Cursing, he tried the old Yale lock on the back door. It fit—just. Naturally Bethany hadn’t mentioned which door the key was supposed to open. Once in the small shop, he looked wildly around for what might be the missing arrangement. There were all kinds of small stock arrangements in the front of her store. Potted baskets. Violets with ribbons. The sort of thing people took to hospital patients.
The cooler.
That made sense. There was a huge, spread-out arrangement of fall flowers in the cooler. That had to be it. And if it wasn’t—tough.
Lewis loaded the arrangement into the van, taking care not to bruise or break any of the stems. He checked his watch. Still fifteen minutes before the boat sailed.
He made the trip back to the dock in record time and leapt out of the van. It was difficult carrying the awkward arrangement with any speed along the footpath, but somehow he managed, sweating and cursing the entire way. It would be a long time before Bethany Cook roped him into something like this again.
So where was she? Lewis hadn’t thought to look for Bethany’s car in the parking lot and now, aboard the Alberta Queen, she was nowhere in sight. Nor was Reg.
Lewis slammed the floral arrangement down on the buffet table in the space that had obviously been left for it, ignoring the scowl of the steward. Or whoever the dandy was, outfitted in a penguin suit and visor cap and looking as if he was in charge. Lewis ripped off the cellophane covering the flowers and thrust it at him.
“Any sign of the flower lady?” he asked, noting that the steward had speedily handed off the plastic wrap to a surprised underling, who stuffed it in the nearby trash container without comment. There was obviously a chain of command here.
“Flower lady?” The steward gave him an icy stare.
“Oh, never mind.” Lewis stalked off. He headed toward the open foredeck, screened from the afternoon sunshine by a big blue-and-white canvas awning. He scanned the deck. Lots of guests, chatting and sipping their wine, but no sign of Bethany or Reg.
Lewis wheeled, intending to leave the boat and give Bethany a piece of his mind as soon as he located her. He stopped.
Phoebe Longquist was standing right in front of him, with the worried-looking blond man at her side.
“Lewis…”
Lewis took a step back. “Hey,” he said, taking a deep breath and nodding. “Phoebe.”
“I…I thought I saw you earlier, bringing in the flowers…” Her eyebrows rose delicately over green-blue eyes. The color of a mountain lake at sunset. God, she was beautiful!
“Yeah, that was me, all right,” he admitted. “Helping a friend.” He looked around and frowned, saw the light in Phoebe’s eyes dim slightly. Man, he could be an unsociable jerk sometimes. Where were his manners? “So, uh, how are you?”
“Fine. And you?”
“Great. I see you’ve still got your freckles.”
Her eyes flashed dangerously. “And I see you’ve still got your bad attitude. Lewis, this is a friend of mine. Boyd Paterson. Boyd— Lewis Hardin.”
Against his will, Lewis found himself shaking hands with the weedy academic type.
“Professor Paterson,” corrected the blond man, nodding vigorously. “Ha-ha. Just recently appointed to the department.” He turned to Phoebe. “Old friend of yours?”
“You could say so,” Phoebe murmured. Lewis saw that she was ruminating over the word friend. “We’re from the same district in southern Alberta.”
Yeah, well. Lewis glanced toward the open deck. He wanted out of here. Fast.
“Are you in the sciences, too, Mr. Hardin?” the professor asked, the sun glinting off his lenses as he inspected Lewis’s casual attire. He’d obviously missed Phoebe’s comment about the flower delivery earlier. “Freshwater algae, perhaps, like our Phoebe here?” He laughed. A rather stupid laugh, Lewis decided. Our Phoebe. What did she see in a goof like that?
“No, I’m in oil,” he said abruptly. “Oil and water don’t mix, as you know.” The date hooted with laughter.
Just then Lewis realized that the sound of the boat’s big diesels had changed. The boat was moving. Damn it! He looked around.
“Lose something?” Phoebe muttered, adding just for him. “Something with, er, long black hair in designer jeans?”
Lewis cast her a sharp glance. She’d noticed that he and Bethany were together. “You could say that,” he replied smoothly. “How long is this cruise supposed to go on, anyway?”
“Four hours,” she said, tipping up her glass to finish the champagne, then handing it to the professor with a charming smile. He moved off with the empty glass. She knew damn well Lewis hadn’t planned to sail with the boat. “The dean is over there.” She pointed to a middle-aged man in the middle of the deck, looking very flushed. This was his big day.
“They docking anywhere else?” He could hope.
“Not as far as I know,” she replied, still smiling. She seemed delighted to see him in this predicament.
Lewis stepped over to the side of the boat. He hadn’t made it as far as he had in a tough business by letting petty details stop him. They were only seventy yards or so from the dock, upstream. It was doable. And the south bank of the river was even closer.
“Lewis!”
He grinned. He’d shocked her, after all, right out of her creamy smooth, Phoebe Longquist, algae-specialist self by stripping off his T-shirt and tossing it to her. She caught it by reflex. He kicked off his sneakers. He’d buy a new pair.
“Sorry, Phoebe, Professor Paterson,” he said, stepping up to the railing. The professor had returned with two full glasses and was regarding the crumpled white material in Phoebe’s hands with an expression of horror that might ordinarily be reserved for, say, a rattlesnake. “Sorry, folks, can’t stay. I’ve got other plans.”
And with that he dived smoothly into the North Saskatchewan River. When he surfaced, he laughed and waved at the boat. Dozens of screaming spectators leaned over the side and the boat’s steam whistle shrilled. He saw Phoebe in the background, waving back. He’d swear she was giggling.
Lewis sputtered. It was tough to swim and laugh at the same time. Then, with steady, powerful strokes, he set off for shore.
As he’d told her, he had other plans.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHEN LEWIS GOT BACK, Bethany and Reg were kissing and cuddling in the tiny crowded office of Bethany’s Blooms.
He was astonished. “I thought Reg was gay.”
“What!?” With her hands on hips, disheveled as hell, Lewis had to admit Bethany looked as if they’d been having a good time. Her face was flushed and her eyes were soft. Funny, it didn’t hurt at all. In fact, Lewis wanted to laugh. Loverboy was hiding in the office—the coward—with the door closed, while Bethany confronted Lewis in the shop.
“Yeah. I thought—”
“You thought he was gay? Just because he works in a florist shop? Just because he loves flowers the same way I do? Just because he’s a fine, sensitive, artistic young man? Lewis Hardin! You should be ashamed of yourself. You’re just one cliché after another.”
“I am?” Now Lewis was hurt. “He’s six years younger than you. He can’t even drive!”
“So what? He has many other fine qualities. And, yes, you are one testosterone-loaded, macho-oilfield cliché after another, with your…your big muscles and your smelly boots!” With that final salvo and one long manicured finger indicating the door, Bethany asked him to kindly leave her establishment, which Lewis did, shaking his head. Smelly boots?
It was true. He’d found some steel-toed boots in his Jeep and had put them on when he got back to where he’d left his vehicle, in the alley behind her shop. He’d also found an old shirt to wear. His jeans were soaking wet. Bethany hadn’t asked how they’d gotten that way. Hadn’t she even noticed? Just before he climbed into the Jeep to leave, Bethany ran out and hugged him and thanked him for all his help with the riverboat. The flip-flop was pure Bethany. She was a good kid, underneath all her craziness.
“Where were you, anyway?” he asked when he got his breath back. “Why’d you leave the riverboat?”
“We were worried you weren’t going to make it in time so we…we thought we’d hurry back to the shop and see what was happening.” Bethany looked doubtfully at him. “I had to drive.” He figured she knew very well that she was making no sense. He handed her the keys to her van.
Whew! Some females. Lewis got into his own vehicle and left. He felt better than he had in a long, long time. His big muscles and his smelly boots?
Bethany and little Reg. Well, hot damn. Who’d’a thought…
PHOEBE STUFFED Lewis’s T-shirt in her bag and asked the boat’s steward for a plastic bag so she could take his sneakers, size twelve, home with her, too. She’d return them to Mercedes and Billy Hardin next time she was in Glory. They could make sure Lewis got them back. No point wasting perfectly good clothing.
Boyd quizzed her about Lewis as he drove her home, but Phoebe’s mind wandered, and she realized she wasn’t paying as much attention to him as she usually did. Generally she enjoyed the young professor’s conversation and his company. He’d been the one to insist she go to the reception today, telling her it couldn’t hurt to be seen at a few department events. It was sincere and well-meant advice. But somehow today, since she’d seen Lewis peel off his shirt and take that flying leap into the icy North Saskatchewan River, Boyd seemed…well, pale. Thin and pale and not nearly as interesting as she’d found him in the past.
When he kissed her at the elevators that led to the third-floor apartment that Phoebe shared with another graduate student, she didn’t invite him up. Men were allowed on the women’s floor between 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. Phoebe and Lindy Sokoloski were “floor mothers” in the undergraduate girls’ residence, Hanratty Hall. It was a job, extra income that paid for her accommodation, which meant she could use all her scholarship money for school and books. Well, most of it. She looked down guiltily at the little black dress she was wearing. It had been on sale, she reminded herself, or she’d never have spent the money.
And now that she’d graduated at the top of the dean’s list and been accepted into a very limited postgraduate program, she had a certain amount of socializing to do, even within the department, as Boyd had reminded her. She needed clothes, besides the jeans and T-shirts she wore to classes and in the field. She had a career to develop. There was politics in the sciences, just as there were in the arts. Maybe more, with everyone jockeying for publishing credits and grant money. Boyd Paterson’s specialty was studying the sediments at the bottoms of lakes. It was a subspecialty of geology. Pond science, she called it privately.
Algae was her particular passion. Chemistry and plant science. She was excited about the work she’d be doing this year with algae. New breakthroughs in DNA technology had opened up possibilities for the simple-celled organism to supply all kinds of useful products—starches for the food industry, waxes for cosmetics, enzymes that might prove useful in medicine, even oillike substances that might help replace fossil fuels someday.
“Lindy?” No answer. The apartment had an empty feel, and Phoebe was a relieved. There were disadvantages to sharing such a small space; lack of privacy was one.
She went into the small alcove that served as her bedroom— Lindy had one on the other side of the tiny living room—and folded Lewis’s T-shirt carefully, pausing to stroke the soft, overwashed texture of the cotton knit. How would she have explained pulling this out of her purse if her roommate had been home? Plus a pair of men’s sneakers? Lindy might not have asked. She was pretty easygoing, one of her qualities Phoebe admired most. Lindy was practical; she’d just assume Phoebe had a good explanation for bringing home a pair of men’s size-twelve sneakers and a T-shirt. Otherwise, or so Lindy would reason, why would she have them?
Phoebe buried her nose in the soft folds of the T-shirt and breathed deeply. A faint musky scent lingered in the fabric. Lewis. That summer so long past came rushing back—the scent of the crushed grass, the taste of Lewis’s kisses, the warm strong feel of his arms around her. His laughter.
She sat down on her narrow bed and gave herself up to the flood of memories.
The way he’d looked at her back then, the way no man or boy had ever looked at her before or since. As though this magical thing between them, this thing that had just happened, would go on forever and ever. She’d been half in love, no question. Her girlish, sensitive heart had been terrifically impressed with him. He was the romantic hero of all the novels she’d read in her quiet bookish childhood.
And, then—that horrible evening after her high-school graduation when she’d impulsively bought him at the charity auction. He’d insisted on replacing the money she’d spent, over her protests. She didn’t understand the fine cold anger on his handsome face. He acted like a stranger. Didn’t he want her to “buy” him? Did he think she was chasing him? Didn’t he want to see her again?
Apparently not. The rest of the evening had been a nightmare. They’d spent a very uncomfortable hour or two—at least for her—in the tavern of the Glory Hotel with the friends Lewis had met. Losers and drunken cowboys, every one of them. Phoebe didn’t like beer. He drank several glasses, but before they left, she saw him go up to the hotel bar and purchase something else.
They’d left and, without even consulting her, he’d driven his truck to the town dump. He’d parked right in front of the dump, rather than at the nearby lovers’ lane. By then it was dark. He kissed her, his kisses rough and hard, not at all like the Lewis she remembered. These were a man’s kisses—a frustrated, demanding, powerful man. She was frightened. When she came back to the truck after going out to the bushes to relieve herself, he’d started drinking whatever it was he’d bought at the hotel. Rye whisky, straight out of the bottle. She thought hotels were only allowed to sell beer, off-license. What did she know?
He didn’t offer her any. Not that she would’ve been interested. In fact, he barely spoke to her, just flicked the truck’s lights on once in a while and watched the skunks and possums scatter before switching the lights off again, grinning. Some inner joke, she presumed. It was sick. She didn’t find the scavengers or the spotlight he put them in the least bit amusing. Finally she realized he was too drunk to drive; too drunk to do anything. She considered getting out and hitching a ride back to town, but that meant she’d have to walk to the main road first, at least half a mile in the dark.
When he got out to relieve himself—she noted that he didn’t bother to move more than ten feet away from the pickup door, although he did have the decency to turn around—she slid into the driver’s seat, grabbed the keys out of the ignition and locked the door. Lewis had to make his way around to the passenger door, cursing and staggering.
As soon as he got in, he passed out. Thank heaven. Phoebe had driven him back to the Double O ranch, had opened the passenger door and, with a combination of pushing and pulling, managed to flop him onto the porch at his boss’s place, dead drunk. Then she’d driven his truck back to the Glory Hotel where she’d picked up her car, leaving his keys under the floormat on the driver’s side. Someone would find his vehicle there. Someone would tell him where she’d left it.
Phoebe tucked his T-shirt into the bag with his sneakers and shuddered, remembering. That was the last time she’d seen Lewis Hardin and the last time she’d ever wanted to see him.
Until this afternoon.
Of all places—to show up on the Alberta Queen. She wondered if he’d found his black-haired girlfriend; if he’d managed to carry out his pressing other plans.
She could just imagine what they were.
She set the bag with the sneakers and T-shirt on her bed and turned to stare out the window. There weren’t many people about. Summer school was over. It was the quiet time between summer school and the start of the fall term. She could leave if she wanted. There was nothing really keeping her in the city between this reception today and the beginning of the school year. She’d planned to stay in town, catch up on some reading, do some shopping, go to a few plays.
But suddenly she was homesick. She wanted to see her mother and dad. Even Jill, who was in her last year of high school now and becoming more of a friend than the annoying kid sister she’d always been. And Renee, the youngest. It was her birthday soon. She’d be turning six, Nan and Harry Longquist’s last little one, coming more than ten years after Jill. And Trevor—would he be home? He was in his first year of veterinary college in Saskatoon.
Phoebe made up her mind suddenly. During the summer there weren’t many students in the residence, so it wasn’t as though she was leaving Lindy with a whole lot of extra work. And Lindy planned to go home, too, for a week. To Vegreville, where her family had a big hog-and-grain farm.
Phoebe changed, packed the suitcase Uncle Joe and Aunt Honor had given her for her high-school graduation, left a message for Boyd on his answering machine—she was glad he wasn’t answering his phone—and wrote a note to her roommate. Then she grabbed the bag with Lewis’s clothes and left the apartment.
The next week or so had taken on a whole new aspect. Midsummer. Foals and calves in the fields. Lazy sunny afternoons. Grasshoppers. Picnics. Fresh corn on the cob.
Mostly, though, it was the thought of going home to Swallowbank Farm. The thought of going home to Glory.
PHOEBE WAITED two days before bringing up the subject of the Hardins.
“Fine drying day, isn’t it, honey?” Nan Longquist said with a sunny smile as she brought in a basket of clothes, fresh from the outdoor clothesline. “We’ve had a lovely month so far. I hope the weather holds for harvest.”
Phoebe nodded. Her uncle Joe and her father were out working on the big machines today, making sure everything would be ready when the grain was ripe. She was helping her mother fold laundry. Ironing—after sprinkling and rolling and folding into a plastic bag—would be tomorrow. Nan believed that air-drying clothes was superior to using the dryer, even though with her large family, that meant a lot of pegging out over the years. She still ironed pillowcases and tea towels, just as her own mother had before her. Phoebe thought it was a complete and total waste of time.
“Have you gone to Bearberry Hill lately, Mom? To the Hardins?” Phoebe glanced up from pairing socks.
