Dad's E-Mail Order Bride (20 page)

“Am I doing the right thing?” Graham finally asked.

“About Gil or about Courtney?”

“About Gil,” Graham said, bringing his bottle to his lips again. “I’m not ready to hear your latest opinion about Courtney.”

“Gil has a loud mouth,” Yanoo said. “It’s time someone shut it for him.”

“He’s also ten years younger than I am.”

“Any contest is a mind-over-matter challenge. You aren’t insecure. Gil is.”

Graham looked over at him. “Why do you say Gil’s insecure?”

“The Woodsman title. The women. The bragging. Gil’s still trying to prove he’s a man. You have nothing to prove.”

They sat in silence until the beer was gone and Yanoo had finished the carving. Graham made no move to get up. Yanoo made no mention that Graham should leave. They were both waiting for the question that still remained.

“So…Courtney?”

“Look deep inside your heart for that answer.”

“And if I’m afraid of what I find?”

“Look deeper,” Yanoo said, “until you find the strength to accept what you know is true.”

“Tell me something. Do you love Hanya as much as you did when you married her?”

“No. I love her more.”

Graham sighed. “It didn’t work that way for me.”

“But Courtney isn’t Julia.”

“And you don’t think I know that?”

Yanoo shrugged. “Then why compare the relationship you had in the past to the one you’re still trying to avoid now?”

Graham picked up his carton of empty bottles and headed for the skiff. He didn’t have to look behind him to know Yanoo would watch from the porch until he was safely on his way.

His boys’ night out was over.

But his dilemma over Courtney wasn’t.

He didn’t care what Yanoo said, he’d been married. And when the honeymoon was over, people changed. Courtney had proved she could live in Port Protection. She even seemed happy here, but she also knew she was only staying for the summer. A nagging thought wouldn’t leave Graham alone. How long would Courtney stay happy in Port Protection if he admitted he loved her and asked her to stay forever?

As for looking deep inside his heart?

He didn’t have to look deep to know he loved her.

Every time he breathed he knew he loved Courtney.

It was the strength to accept what he knew was true that Graham was still searching for.

But human nature was human nature, even on secluded Prince of Wales Island. So the contest that usually drew only a small number of onlookers with nothing more exciting to do on a Saturday afternoon had turned into a record-breaking crowd with people coming from every direction.

Graham headed for the store as soon as he reached town to see how Courtney was holding up. She’d had enough class not to dignify Gil’s lies by bothering to deny them, but he knew she was embarrassed nonetheless.

People who knew Courtney knew they were lies. People who didn’t know her didn’t matter. He’d reminded her of that, and hoped she’d listened.

When Graham walked through the door at three o’clock, the store was packed. People were everywhere, filling up their coolers, picking out their snacks, all getting ready for the start at four.

Courtney looked up and saw him. Graham ignored the stares and the whispers and headed straight for the lunch counter where she worked. He nodded toward the back of the store when he reached the counter. Courtney finished what she was doing and followed.

“Are you okay?”

Courtney sighed and said, “Aside from the snide glances and strangers filing in and out to get a good look at me, yes. I’m okay. Are you?”

“We’ll both be better at the end of the day,” Graham said, nodding toward Rachel, who was still working behind the lunch counter and not looking one bit happy about it. “And Rachel?”

“She’s still angry that I’m making her work instead of going to the contest, but she’ll get over it.”

“I owe you for keeping Rachel here.”

“Then return the favor by coming back to get your daughter in one piece.”

“That’s a promise.”

He left and walked toward the town square to sign in and pick up his contest number. Yanoo was right. This was a mind-over-matter challenge. When it came down to who won and who lost any competition, it wasn’t only skill that prevailed. It was the winner’s ability to keep a cool head.

Graham knew he had that ability.

He was counting on the fact that Gil didn’t.

“You’re kidding, right?” they said in unison.

“Oh, stop being smart-asses,” Courtney told them. “I have a proposition for you. You can fill your cooler with anything you want free of charge, as long as one of you will come back during the competition with updates.”

“Deal,” they both said, and hurried off.

That problem solved, Courtney walked to the cash register and took money from two older men she’d never seen before. They stepped away from the counter and opened the cold drinks they’d just purchased.

“It might be a toss-up in the wood splitting competition,” the shorter man said. “I hear Morrison is favored to win that event.”

Courtney’s heart sank. As much as she wanted Graham to earn back his self-respect, she couldn’t help but secretly wish he wouldn’t make it through to the second round. And she’d already decided if Graham did lose his thousand-dollar bet to Gil, she would be the one paying the money, and she wasn’t going to argue about it. Besides the fact that Graham was in this contest because of her, he also had credited her debit card when she tried to pay him for the plane ticket and staying at the lodge. She wouldn’t let him get away with turning her money down a second time.

“The ax throw is Gil’s best event,” the taller of the two men said. “He hit the bull’s-eye with all five throws last year. That’s why he’s been the champion for the last four years.”

“Yeah,” the short guy said, “but Gil fights dirty. He almost put that guy’s eye out year before last.”

The men walked off as Courtney’s stomach rolled over.

It totally irritated her to think that this was the twenty-first century and men still felt the need to participate in barbaric rituals that should have been outlawed ages ago. Why couldn’t the final event have been something more civilized? A footrace, for instance, instead of two men willing to slam each other to the ground and punch and gouge and who knew what else in an effort to prove that one man was stronger than the other.

It just didn’t make any sense.

Courtney looked up and suddenly realized there wasn’t a customer left in the store. When she looked toward the lunch counter, Rachel was staring right at her, arms crossed defiantly, one black eyebrow raised in question.

“Well?” Rachel said with a smirk. “Think we should hire an extra employee to help us with all of these customers?”

“People will trickle in and out all day,” Courtney said. “We both need to be here when they do.”

“And between trickles?”

We wait for news that Graham is okay.

“We do what we do any other day, Rachel. We clean, we stock shelves and we keep busy. That’s our job.”

“Well, that just plain sucks!” Rachel declared.

Courtney agreed.

The entire situation just plain sucked.

Graham raised the ax above his head.

He didn’t look to the left or the right at his opponents. Nor had he engaged in conversation with anyone after he arrived in the town square.

He’d let Gil do all the talking. And he’d ignored Gil completely when he kept making wisecracks about Graham’s age that caused chuckles from some of the bystanders, and dirty looks from a majority of people who had the strong desire to see Gil get his ass kicked before the day was over.

Mind over matter.

Graham focused on the piece of wood sitting on the stump in front of him. He was looking for the sweet spot, searching for the exact place in the center of the wood that would give him a clean split.

“On your mark. Get set. Go!” Snag yelled and pulled the trigger.

Graham’s ax came down and split the wood in half.

So Graham had won the first round. Gil had lost his thousand dollars. And all Courtney could do was pray Graham didn’t make it through to the next round and the whole thing would be over.

“Big deal,” Rachel said, when Courtney looked over at her. “Dad spends half his life splitting wood. It
should
have been a piece of cake for Dad to win that round.”

“Speaking of a piece of cake,” Courtney said, suddenly badly in need of comfort food, “there’s still one piece left of that cherry cheesecake I made that you love. Want to share it with me?”

“I can’t,” Rachel snipped. “I have this annoying slave driver boss who insists that I keep busy.”

Rachel marched toward the pool table with her broom.

“Keep being such a witch,” Courtney called after her, “and you’ll be riding that broom by the end of the day.”

“
Not
funny.”

His grandfather’s ax was one he rarely used.

But Graham couldn’t think of a better time than now.

In this round, Graham and the other three contestants had drawn numbers to determine in what order they threw. Graham had drawn number one, the worst spot to be in. Gil would go last, meaning Gil would know exactly how many points he needed to win.

Graham focused on the target straight ahead of him, twenty feet away. He already knew Gil had made a perfect score during last year’s competition. So did everyone else. Gil had spent the past fifteen minutes making sure everyone knew about his perfect score.

The umpire signaled for Graham to get ready.

Graham picked up his first ax. When he stepped to the throw line, an immediate hush fell over the crowd.

Graham took aim, drew back his arm and threw.

Cheers erupted when the ax hit the bull’s-eye.

Courtney held her breath.

But a woman with two small children walked into the store. “Do you have a bathroom we could use?”

“Sure,” Courtney said, and pointed to the far side of the store.

“Twenty dollars says they won’t buy a single thing,” Rachel grumbled when the bathroom door closed.

Courtney started to comment, but Clark burst through the front door.

“Graham just won the ax-throw,” he shouted.

Rachel dropped her broom. “Shut the f—front door,” she finished when Courtney’s head jerked in her direction.

“I’m telling you,” Clark said, “the crowd out there is freaking jumping, man.” He held up four fingers. “Four. That’s how many times Graham hit the bull’s-eye.”

“And Gil?” Courtney asked, praying Gil hadn’t advanced.

“Gil only hit the bull’s-eye three times,” Clark said. “And you should have seen him. Threw a fit. He even claimed something was wrong with his target and made the umpire check it. Believe me, Gil did not like coming in second to Graham in his best event.”

Clark grinned and did a wide stir-the-pot hip roll.

“It’s on, baby,” he said. “This competition is
on!
”