Page 108 of Summer Weddings
His face tightened, as though her comment had embarrassed him. “It must be the season,” he said gruffly. He turned away from her and started to fill the sink with hot, sudsy water.
Bethany smiled to herself. It was rare to see Mitch Harris flustered. She fingered the polished five-dollar gold coin he’d had made into a pendant and placed on a fine gold chain. The coin had been minted the year of her birth, and he’d had it mounted in a gold bezel.The necklace was beautiful in its simplicity. The minute she fastened it around her neck, Bethany knew this was a piece of jewelry she’d wear every day for the rest of her life.
She felt that her gift for Mitch paled in comparison. Mitch was an avid Tom Clancy fan, and through a friend who managed a bookstore in San Francisco, she’d been able to get him an autographed copy of Clancy’s latest hardcover.
When Mitch had opened the package and read the inscription, he’d looked up at her as though she’d handed him the stone tablets direct from Mount Sinai.
Chrissie had been excited about her Barbie town house, too.
The one who’d surprised her most, however, was Ben. He’d arrived for dinner with not one pie but four—all of them baked fresh that morning. In addition to the pies, he’d brusquely handed her an oblong box. Bethany got a kick out of the way he’d wrapped it. He’d used three times the amount of paper necessary and enough tape to supply the U.S. Army for a year.
Inside the box was a piece of scrimshaw made from a walrus tusk. The scene on the polished piece of ivory was of wild geese in flight over a marsh. Mountains rose in the distance against a sunlit sky.
Ben had dismissed his gift as nothing more than a trinket, but Bethany knew from her brief stay in Fairbanks how expensive such pieces of artwork had become. She tried to thank him, but it was clear her words only embarrassed him.
“I would’ve thought you’d want to fly home for Christmas,” Mitch said, rolling up his sleeves before dipping his hands in the dishwater.
“I seriously considered it.” Bethany wasn’t going to minimize the difficulty of her decision to remain in Hard Luck. “But it’s a long way to travel for so short a time. I’ll probably stay in Alaska during spring break,as well. After all, my commitment here is only for the school year.”
“You’re going home to California in June, then?”
“Are you asking me if I plan to return to Hard Luck for another school year?”
“Yes,” he said, his back to her.
Something in the carefully nonchalant way he’d asked told her that the answer was important to him.
“I don’t know,” she said as straightforwardly as she could. “It depends on whether I’m offered a contract.”
“And if you are?”
“I…don’t know yet.” She loved Alaska and her students. Most of all, she loved Mitch and Chrissie. Ben, too. But there were other factors. Several of them had to do with Ben—should she tell him he was her biological father, and what would his reaction be if she did? More and more, she felt inclined to confront him with the truth.
“Well, I hope you come back” was all the response Mitch gave her. The deliberate lack of emotion in his voice was clearly meant to suggest that they’d been talking about something of little importance.
Why, for heaven’s sake, couldn’t the man just say what he wanted to say?
Hands on her hips, Bethany glared at him. Mitch happened to turn around for another stack of dirty dishes; he saw her and did a double take. “What?” he demanded.
“All you can say is ‘Well, I hope you come back,’” she mimicked. “I’m spilling my heart out here andthat’sall the reaction I get from you?”
He gave her a blank look.
“The answer is I’m willing to consider another year’s contract, and you can bet it isn’t because of the tropical climate in Hard Luck.”
Mitch grinned exuberantly. “The benefits are good.”
“But not great.”
“The money’s fabulous.”
“Oh, please,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. She took an exaggerated breath. “My, my, I wonder what the appeal could be.”
Mitch looked at her in sudden and complete seriousness. “I was hoping you’d say it was me.”
She regarded him with an equally somber look. “I do enjoy the way you kiss, Mitch Harris.”
The first sign of amusement touched his lips. He lifted his soapy arms from the water and stretched them toward her. “Maybe what you need to convince you is a small demonstration of my enjoyable kisses.”
