Refuge Cove (New Americana 2)

“Not again!” She groaned, rolled to one side, and sat up. “Have I been here since last night?”

He nodded. “I’d have hauled you up and walked you to your bed, but you were out like a light. And after Boone’s visit, I thought you might be nervous sleeping alone.”

“You’re right. I would have.” She yawned. “I hope you got some sleep, too.”

“Enough.” Emma knew he was fudging the truth. He would have sat up all night keeping watch while she slept.

“Lia

r,” she said. “I know you better than that.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Lucky for us, the rest of the night was quiet.”

He sat down next to her on the love seat. “Look at me, Emma. You need to understand something. Now that Boone knows you’re here with me, this cabin isn’t safe for you anymore. It’s too isolated. There isn’t even any cell phone service out here, just the radio I have in the Jeep.”

“Having me here isn’t safe for you, either,” she said. “Boone could sneak up in the night, block the door, douse the porch with gasoline, and set the place on fire. The old wood in this cabin would go up like tinder, and us with it.”

“Let me fly you out of here,” he said. “Tomorrow I’m scheduled for another mail run. I can take you along and drop you off in Sitka with some good people I know.”

Emma hesitated. It made sense to say yes right now. But if she left, Boone would have a good chance of going free. The police and troopers had more urgent matters to deal with than an elusive man who’d cheated a woman out of her savings with a pretend wedding. She knew she mustn’t stay in the cabin, but there had to be other, safer options.

“Let me think about it.” She rose, pulling up the waist of John’s oversized thermals. “I said I’d let you know after I talk to the judge—and I will.”

“I guess that’ll have to do for now.” He didn’t look pleased. “Go on and get dressed while I rustle us up some breakfast.”

Emma went down the hall and, after cleaning up in the bathroom, unfolded her new clothes from the plastic shopping bag, which would have to do as a purse until she could find something better. Maybe there was a thrift shop in Ketchikan where she could buy a few more necessities. She would have to ask John, or perhaps the judge.

By the time she’d dressed in her new jeans and a navy blue cotton turtleneck, she could smell bacon cooking in the kitchen. She was just leaving the bedroom when she happened to glance down the hall. At the far end of it, beyond John’s room, was a closed door. Strange, she hadn’t noticed it earlier. Was it a back door to the cabin? Curious, she walked down the hall to investigate.

The sturdy wooden door was latched from the inside, but opening it was easy enough. Slowly and cautiously, Emma pulled the door open far enough to step through. She’d expected to walk outside. Instead, she found herself in a shedlike structure built like a lean-to on the rear of the cabin.

The enclosed space was almost dark, the air damp and smelling of old wood. As Emma’s eyes adjusted, she could see a massively long, pale shape laid out on sawhorses like a coffin for a giant.

Trembling a little, she walked forward and laid a hand on the object. Her fingertips brushed a surface of intricately carved wood, the contours slightly rough to the touch.

“Emma?” John stood in the open doorway, his hair tied back now. “I was wondering where you’d gone to. What are you doing out here?”

“Just exploring.” She turned back to face him. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Why would you think that? Here, I’ll give you a better look.” Crouching in the darkness, he plugged something into the wall. A naked bulb, rigged on a long cord, came on above her head. Bathed in its harsh light, raw and unfinished but still beautiful, lay a twelve-foot totem pole carved from a massive log of red cedar.

Emma’s breath caught as she realized what it was. There’d been totem poles in the park where her so-called wedding had taken place. But in size, design, and sheer magnificence, they couldn’t hold a candle to the one she was seeing now.

“This is amazing,” she said. “Did you do this?”

John shook his head. “My grandfather was a master carver. He passed away years ago. This was his last piece of work.”

“It seems a shame to leave it like this. Isn’t there anyone who could finish it?” She gazed at him, the realization dawning. “Could you?”

He glanced away, as if avoiding her eyes. “The old man taught me to carve. When I was a boy, I used to help him out here in the carving shed. One of his last wishes was that I finish this totem for him.”

“But you haven’t. Why not?”

His face assumed its stoic expression, shutting her out. “Your breakfast is getting cold,” he said. “Come on, we’ve got a long day ahead.”

On the way to town John talked about totem carving. Emma had come to recognize what she called his tour-guide mode. It was like a mask, or a role in a play, a means to hide whatever he was feeling.

“In the old days, my people, the Tlingit, had no written language,” he said. “Our totems were our stories, our messages, our history. But about a hundred years ago, with the coming of so-called white civilization, the totems began to disappear. The old ones lay fallen and rotting. And the carvers, the few that still lived, were old men. In the late 1930s, the WPA started a movement to bring back totem poles. Young artists were trained by the elders—my grandfather was one of them. He was still a boy when he learned to carve.