Mary Forbes - His Brother's Gift

“Anything, honey.” She darted a look at Christopher. “Is Will adamant?”

Over the lodge phone, Savanna had briefed her on Will, as well. “I’m working on that. It’ll take some time.”

Georgia laughed. “I’d say you have your work cut out for you, then. That boy has a stubborn streak twenty miles wide. But a good heart. What is it you need?”

“A place to stay while he and Christopher get to know each other.” She watched the child walk to the living room, where he sat yoga-style on a large round rag rug beside a husky, its tail slowly beating the floor. “Is your dog good around children?”

“Blue loves kids,” Georgia assured. “But arthritis is eating his hips and he’s half-blind. Now, he pretty much sleeps the day away. Chris is okay with dogs, then?”

“Yes,” Savanna conceded, and for a moment they observed boy and canine. “Let’s hope your Blue helps him adjust over the next twelve weeks—and I won’t have to make a decision.”

The old woman’s eyes narrowed. “Decision?”

“To take Chris back to my hometown in Tennessee—if he and Will don’t connect.” Savanna pulled the copy of Dennis’s will from her purse. “Georgia, your granddaughter and Dennis requested…” How to explain to this sweet elderly grandmother? “I was their second option to raise him,” she whispered in a rush before clamping her mouth shut.

Georgia read the highlighted paragraphs, her curls quaking from the tiny tremor of her head. Was she in the initial stage of Parkinson’s?

“I’m sorry,” Savanna whispered, picturing the latter phase of the disease. “I can’t imagine how you must feel.” On top of everything else .

The stationary quivered in the old woman’s hands. “No, they were right. I’m too old and…” She folded the testament carefully. “Well.” Eyes sharp as a blade, she handed back the copy. “Do you love my grandson?”

“As if he’d come from my own body.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

Savanna’s shoulders relaxed.

“But,” Georgia said with a wink, “three months is a long time. Will and I just might convince you to become an Alaskan.”

Chapter Three

They arranged for Savanna and Christopher to temporarily move into Georgia’s home. Savanna had argued against the offer, but the old woman would not budge. She wanted a chance to know her great-grandson, she said. And Savanna. She wanted to understand the woman her granddaughter trusted with life’s most precious gift.

They used Georgia’s old truck to move the suitcases from the lodge. Done, they drove to Starlight Elementary where Savanna registered Christopher in fifth grade for the remainder of the school year.

She was walking through the six-o’clock dusk, back to the house from Larson’s General, with three king salmon steaks, when Will came up the street in a red Toyota 4Runner.

“Hey,” he said through the open window. Slowing to a crawl, he drove with his right hand atop the steering wheel while his left arm sat jacked on the sill. “Lodge said you’d checked out.”

She stopped, the grocery sack swinging against her leg. “We moved in with Georgia Martin.”

His brows jumped. “Didn’t know you were acquainted.”

“She’s Christopher’s great-grandmother.”

“I know who she is, Savanna. I just didn’t know you two knew each other, is all.” His eyes were ebony in the dusk.

“We didn’t until about eight hours ago. I needed a place to stay. She offered, so…here we are.”

He stopped the truck. “Get in and I’ll give you a lift.”

“What for? It’s right there.” She pointed a hundred feet up the street where lights welcomed the old lady’s home among the trees.

“Because,” he said, “we need to talk.”

“If it’s about us leaving, I’m not interested.”

“It’s about Christopher. I’ve changed my mind.” He nodded to the passenger seat. “Get in. Please,” he added.

The please went through her like butter, but she forced herself not to give in too quickly. “Are you always this charming?”

His grin rippled across her stomach. “Only with certain women.”

Certain women . She could imagine the type. Tittering at his whim. Blinking doe eyes. Women like Mindy the waitress, dreaming of dancing with the local macho pilot. Dirty dancing. Eager young women. Not one skipping toward menopause with the next handful of birthdays.

She raised her chin. She had not spent twenty years in the Third World without earning her wrinkles, her tough spine. Nine years and Will Rubens might , might, catch up to her wisdom.

“I am not certain women,” she said. “And I do not take orders easily.” Definitely not from young hotshots with dimples .

He laughed. “Feisty is good.”

She walked on. “We can talk at the house.”

“Savanna…”

“The house,” she called back.

“Fine.”

She heard gears grind as the truck detoured around her and roared ahead. He veered into Georgia’s 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.