The Secret of Stavewood (Stavewood Saga Book 4) (15 page)

Thirty-Two

     
T
he day suited her mood perfectly, Louisa thought, another dreary spring morning. There would be no sunlight streaming through the cottage windows brightening the yellow clapboard and ruffled, gingham cushions on the wicker chairs. It would be sedate and dull and that much easier to say goodbye.

      She saddled Romeo and rode towards her grandparent’s property along the main road. At the cottage she dismounted and laid the reins over the post in the front yard.

      On the step she found a plain, brown box tied neatly with a bit of twine and a simple tag that read:

           
For the child
.

      Louisa picked it up and tapped on the cottage door.

      James appeared in the doorway with deep circles under his eyes. His hair was mussed and his shirtsleeves were wrinkled.

      “Good morning,” he said in a low voice. “Come in.” He stepped aside wearily.

      Louisa walked into the tiny cottage and handed him the box. “This was on the step.”

      He accepted the package with a lopsided smile and led Louisa into the bedroom. Katie sat up in the bed. It was clear she was equally exhausted.

      “I have most of the information I need for my book,” Louisa said. “In a few days I’ll be heading back to New York City. I just wanted to stop by one last time.”

      James set the package down in Katie’s lap. Louisa looked down at the baby sleeping contentedly beside her mother in the bed. She saw her perfect, tiny face and turned away.

      Katie unfastened the string and reached inside the box. She pulled out a beautifully carved, wooden statue and set the piece on the bed. She read the card in a soft voice:

     
Congratulations on the birth of your daughter.

                                                    Sincerely,

                                                 Luc Almquist

      Katie held up the figure and turned it in her hand.

      Luc had hand-carved a sleeping dragon, coiled into a perfect circle with a tiny infant nested safe within the center.

      “The benevolent dragon,” Louisa said softly.

      “Wow,” James remarked. “That’s quite a piece.”

      “He’s protecting her,” Katie said. “Look at the way his body is wrapped around her and she’s sleeping so peacefully and safe. This is magnificent.” Katie let her breath out slowly. “I haven’t seen Luc in a long time. How thoughtful of him.”

      Louisa looked at the figure and felt her throat tighten. The dragon he had carved was not a villain, not an evil monster bent on destruction. He cradled the babe within his scales, like a suit of armor, and they both slept peacefully.

      Louisa held her emotions in check and kissed Katie goodbye and gave James a hug and quickly stepped outside. “Congratulations, I wish you the best of happiness.”

      Louisa stepped into Romeo’s stirrup and looked out over the yard. The gift may have been for Fiona but it spoke clearly to her. She saw the symbolism. Stavewood was the dragon and she was all wrapped up inside, protected from the rest of the world. But she might as well have been locked up in the tower. What good was that? The only way she could experience real life was to make her own way.

Thirty-Three

     
L
ouisa rode Romeo along the back road towards home. This was the road her parents had taken that fateful day when Diana Weintraub and her daughter Octavia had met their ends. Louisa chose it because it was rarely traveled these days and she did not want to encounter any of the local folks setting out to start their day or the lumber mill workers or especially any of her family. Louisa wanted to be alone.

      As she rode she thought about Diana Weintraub, obsessed with marrying her only daughter to Timothy Elgerson. In the end it had cost not only her life but her daughter’s as well. That’s what became of those who did not venture outside the circle of the dragon. If Octavia had gone off and found someone else then she’d have known what life was really about. If one never took to the road to find their own destiny how could they ever expect to find it?

      Louisa reined in her horse and sat astride gentle Romeo looking up the trail. What was her destiny, she asked herself. If she never left Stavewood how could she know if she was genuinely happy? She cursed under her breath. It was up to her to go and find happiness and not let her family decide her life for her, like Diana Weintraub had tried to do for her daughter.

      “Now what are you looking for, Sherlock?”

      Louisa turned and saw Luc Almquist and Avalanche coming up behind her on the trail. She groaned.

      He slid from the saddle and walked up to Romeo, putting his large hand onto the horse’s rein. “Good morning!” He rubbed Romeo’s nose in a friendly manner.

      Luc’s engaging smile and warm expression only aggravated Louisa.

      “Having a tough morning?”

      Louisa dismounted, took Romeo’s reins from him and started up the road.

      “Whoa there.” Luc followed her with Avalanche trailing. “Let me figure it out then. I know it’s not because you aren’t a morning person. It seems to me you do fine in the morning if you are, say, fishing. So that’s not it.”

      “I just don’t feel like talking to anyone,” Louisa grumbled back.

      “Oh, alright,” he replied. “Have you seen the new baby?”

      “I have.” Louisa stopped and turned to face him. “And your gift as well. A sleeping dragon? Really?”

      “Good idea, eh? I got it from you, but I’m sure you figured that out. I mean with your talent for deduction and all.” He tossed his hair casually.

      “I figured it out alright. Thanks for enlightening me. Now I know exactly what to do.”

      “You do?” He stepped up closer.

      “I’m going to go back to New York City and never come back. I’m going to escape the dragon and make my own life.”

      It was clear from Luc’s expression he was confused and disappointed. “Escape? Louisa, what are you talking about?”

      “You don’t understand,” she said, looking down at her feet. She took a deep breath and looked up into his eyes. His expression was genuine and concerned and his warm brown eyes searched hers.

      “Then explain it to me,” he said.

      Louisa clenched her teeth and struggled to contain her frustration. “As long as I’m here, at home, I’ll never be my own person. I’ll always be little Loo Elgerson, the daughter of the lumber mill tycoon who lives up in the big castle on the hill. I want to be somebody. I want to be my own person. Life is passing me by. I’m nearly twenty-five years old and I’m practically a spinster. Nothing is going the way everyone promised me it would. There are no handsome princes and the fairy tales are all illusions. All this time, since I was a little kid, I’ve been expecting something completely unrealistic. So I left. I went someplace as far from everything here as I could get. And I went looking for a man that was not from Minnesota.”

      “Hey,” Luc said. “I resent that. What’s wrong with the men of Minnesota?”

      “You don’t get it, do you?” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “That’s what’s wrong. You’re just like all the rest of them. Like my father and my brother and Mr. Vancouver. Like my brothers will be, like all of them. You’re all simple minded loggers who live in this utopia of ignorance thinking you are all handsome princes when you are nothing more than, well, loggers!” She was growing more exasperated with him by the second. He kept looking at her with his soft, brown eyes and his expression was gentle and wounded.

      “That’s a terrible generalization, Louisa Elgerson. And hurtful as well, I might add. Besides, I’m not a logger anyway.”

      “Oh, excuse me,” she corrected herself. “You are a
cartographer
.  Sure, I suppose you went off to school for that. So what? You learned nothing apparently, since every time I see you you’re traipsing around in the woods in your big leather boots sweating in the sun. I swore a long time ago I would never fall in love with a logger, or a cartographer who is really just a big
logger
!”

      “You know what, Louisa Elgerson?” He stepped closer and faced her squarely. “You deserve to be a spinster because you are the one without a clue. Who would want to fall in love with you anyway, some dandy fellow like that guy you brought home from New York City? Well then, good luck to you. You’ll get exactly what you deserve. I’ll give you a suggestion, though. Don’t ever say what you just said to me to any of those men you just mentioned. Your father. Your brother. And Roland Vancouver. They love you, Louisa, and every one of them would lay down his life for you. I’d hate to imagine how hurt any of them would be to hear you talk this way. Your father is a fine man who’s spent his whole life working to provide you with this beautiful home you seem to hate so much. Your brother Mark? I would consider myself lucky to be half the man he is and I have always felt that way. You think we all live perfect lives here? You think we’re all safe and protected? Mark came home with his throat torn open by a bullet and his best friend, Sam Evans in a casket. Emma Vancouver was attacked right in her own home. Get your facts straight, Louisa Elgerson, before you insult everyone who cares about you. If there is a utopia here then it has been hard won and paid for with blood and sweat.”

      Louisa pursed her lips and fought back tears of anger and frustration. She turned away from him and started up the trail.

      “Oh, are you out of insults now, Sherlock?” Luc said.

      “Stop calling me that!” She spun around, stepped up to him and put her face up to his.

      “Don’t you get too close, Louisa Elgerson,” he growled. “I might kiss you or something and you might fall in love with me and then where would you be?”

      “Don’t you flatter yourself, Luc Almquist! Don’t even imagine that if you kissed me I would be anything but…” Louisa stopped mid-sentence and pursed her lips. He smelled of the pines and he was so strong and determined facing her that she wanted to slap his face for being so blunt… and so right. Instead, she leaned over and kissed him hard, right on the lips. She stepped back and set her jaw.

      “There, see? Nothing,” she said stubbornly.

      Luc wrapped his arms around her. She squirmed and pressed her hands against his chest.

      “Don’t,” she protested, as he hugged her firmly.

      “You started this,” he said and he kissed her hard.

      His grip was like an iron vise. She could taste his lips and his manly scent filled her head. He pressed up against her and her heart raced.

      Louisa looked up at him and the hunger in his eyes told her he knew what she was feeling. Luc Almquist was exactly the man she had told herself she did not want and now somehow she was completely in love with him.

      “Louisa,” he said, his voice husky.

      She stood on tiptoe and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with abandon. He pulled her closer to him and Louisa wanted him as she had never wanted a man before.

      Luc Almquist surrendered to all the feelings he had tried to deny from the moment he had seen her stepping from the platform at the mill station. She was perfect and feminine and carefree and independent. From the time he had first set eyes on her he knew that falling in love with her would be a huge mistake. And just a moment ago she stood there telling him how wrong he was for her. But now she was in his arms, warm and sensual, pressing against him eagerly. She was exciting and delicious and Luc was losing all control.

      “Louisa.” He said her name out loud, as if it would somehow break the spell. Her soft breasts were warm against his chest and her thigh pressed provocatively between his own. She slipped her hand inside his shirt and he closed his eyes and moaned.

      Suddenly he took her by the shoulders and held her away from him. “Louisa, no,” he said.

      Louisa looked up into his eyes.

      “Why not? I’m the one who’s supposed to be saying no. I’m the angry one.” Her voice wavered and her breath caught in her throat.

      Luc swallowed hard.

      “I was wrong,” she said. “Everything I said was wrong. I’m so sorry…” her voice trailed off and Louisa put her hand on his cheek.

      Luc shook his head, and took her hand, kissing her palm. “You’re so beautiful. The moment I saw you I wanted you but I can’t do this.”

      “I don’t know what to do,” she said softly.

      “What do you want, Louisa? What do you really want?”

      “You.”

      Luc sighed and turned away.

      “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve made a terrible mess of things.” She turned and took Romeo’s reins. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking back into his eyes. “You’re right about what I said before. I don’t blame you, really. It’s me. I’ve been trying for so long to convince myself of how I
should
feel that I almost talked myself out of what I
really
feel. I was wrong, Luc.” She turned and led Romeo up the trail.

      Luc Almquist watched her walk away.