want the truth, they scare me to death. I suppose it’s got something to do with never knowing my mother and growing up with my dad at Spruce Pond—no other women there. No other people, come to that.’
‘I’m not meaning to be critical,’ Ruth said hastily. ‘I like you just as you are.’
‘That’s good,’ Jenessa said with an impish grin. ‘Because I’m likely to stay this way. I’m not at all unhappy as I am, Ruth. I don’t know how to flirt, that’s true, and I’m not out plaguing some man to marry me—but I really like my life the way it is. I love my job... how could I ever give that up? Marriage and babies kind of crimp your style.’
‘They’re worth it,’ Ruth said placidly. ‘Stephen, my duckie, smile at Jenessa.’
Stephen gave a huge yawn, exposing one tiny pearlwhite tooth, and let his head plop against Jenessa’s shirt. She held him close, liking his baby-powder smell and his warm weight, yet knowing that in a few minutes she could hand him back to his mother without the slightest twinge of regret. She didn’t have any impulsion to have a baby of her own. Or to attract the man whom one required in order to produce the baby. But it was one thing to acknowledge to herself that she didn’t fit the normal societal expectations of what a woman should be like, and quite another to have both Ryan and Ruth, in one day, suggesting that she should change her ways.
She was fine as she was. Besides, the man wasn’t born for whom she would give up her job.
So why should she change?
Jenessa spent the next day washing and ironing the clothes in her backpack and helping Ryan varnish a pine bench for a customer from Massachusetts. She could have used the time to go to Marylou’s and get her hair cut, but some unacknowledged streak of stubbornness kept her from doing so.
That evening she presented herself at the airport just as the propellor-driven plane was coasting toward the terminal. The same stubbornness had caused her to dress in stone-washed jeans and a forest-green shirt with a businesslike leather belt around her waist. She knew most of the small crowd of people waiting at the gate; she was chatting to Ruth’s mother and father, who were meeting their youngest son, when the first passenger pushed open the door. While she’d been waiting, Jenessa had conjured up a mental image of the forceful Mr Marston: he’d be short—short men, in her experience, were often aggressive—greying, and would light up a very expensive cigar as soon as he entered the terminal.
She had often played this game; her record of success was interestingly high.
Ten people got off the flight from Halifax. The short ones were women, the sole man with grey hair was Tommy MacPherson from Norris Arm, and the only one smoking was Ruth’s youngest brother, a fact that would annoy Ruth considerably: Ruth was a reformed smoker and dead set against cigarettes.
A tall man with a thatch of untidy dark brown hair had halted just inside the doorway, surveying the small crowd with visible impatience. He was wearing a blue wool shirt, a well-worn pair of jeans and leather hiking boots; a haversack was slung over one broad shoulder. The only thing she had got right, Jenessa thought ruefully, was the aggression.
Quickly she walked over to him. ‘Mr Marston?’ she said with a pleasant smile.
He did not smile back. ‘I’m Finn Marston, yes.’ His voice was deep, gravelly with tiredness.
‘I’m Jenessa Reed,’ she said. ‘The guide you hired.’
His lashes flickered. ‘I’m not in the mood for jokes.’
‘Neither am I,’ she said crisply, wishing that just for once she could be taken at face value rather than having to justify her existence to her male clients. ‘I’m the person Ryan recommended to you.’
‘You’ve got that wrong. Ryan said nothing about a woman—because if he had I wouldn’t have hired you.’
‘Well, you did hire me,’ she said with another pleasant smile, although this one took more effort. ‘And I’m very good at my job. Ryan booked a room for you in the best motel in town; I’ll take you there now, if you like. Or do you have other luggage?’
He looked her up and down with an insolence that could only be deliberate, from her jagged crop of toffeecolored hair to the shiny toes of her leather loafers. ‘If I hired you, I can unhire you,’ he said. ‘I’ll get a cab to the motel—what name does it go by?’
His hair was as badly in need of cutting as her own, she thought inconsequentially; his eyes were a very dark blue, reminding her in colour, if not in expression, of Stephen’s. The stubble of beard on his chin was also dark, and there were dark shadows under his eyes. He looked, she thought with a faint stirring of compassion, truly exhausted: it was a long way from Indonesia. ‘A cab won’t be necessary; I’ll take you. Luggage?’
‘Miss Reed, I don’t think you heard me—you’ve just been fired.’
‘Mr Marston,’ she replied with rather overdone patience, ‘this is at least the fiftieth time I’ve played this little scene. Canadians, Americans, Swedes, Spaniards ... hunters, fishermen, photographers ... they all think I should be a man or they think it’s extremely funny that I’m a woman. But I can give you references from every one of them as to my competence. I do agree with you that Ryan should have told you I’m a woman. I disagree that that should make any difference to you whatsoever.’ She smiled at him again. ‘The luggage carousel’s just started up; we shouldn’t have long to wait. That’s one advantage of these short hops—the stops are brief. Have you flown far today?’
His mouth tightened. ‘Too far to get any enjoyment out of playing verbal games. The name of the motel, Miss Reed.’
She jammed her hands in the pockets of her jeans. ‘Are you Canadian, Mr Marston?’ As he nodded, she went on, ‘Then you surely must be aware that in this country you can’t fire someone because of his or her sex.’
‘So sue me. There’s my bag, and I’m sure the cabbie will know the name of the best motel in town—in a place this size there can’t be that many to choose from. Goodbye, Miss Reed.’
She said clearly, ‘I wish you luck finding a replacement. Ryan tried four other outfitters because he knew I was just coming off a job, and no go with any of them.’ With a tinge of malice she added, ‘To further enlighten you as to the law, as a non-resident you can’t go further into the woods than eight hundred meters from the highway without a guide. Good luck, Mr Marston.’
Her cheeks were pink with temper and her shirt made her irises look very green. Something flared to life in his somber blue eyes and just as quickly was smothered. ‘Thank you for your help,’ he said sardonically. Turning away from her, he heaved a battered duffle bag off the carousel and strode toward the exit. She watched as he climbed in the back seat of a taxi and drove off; he did not look back.
From behind her Ruth’s mother said, ‘My, what a handsome man ... I do love those big, rough-hewn men, don’t you, dearie? Client of yours, Jenessa?’
Ruth’s mother Alice, for all her many good points, was the most avid gossip in town, and her question was a blatant appeal for information. ‘Ex-client,’ Jenessa said, trying hard to sound as though it didn’t matter in the least that she had been unceremoniously fired in full view of several friends and acquaintances. ‘He’s done me a favor, actually—I could do with a few days off.’ She smiled at Ruth’s brother. ‘How are you, Dougie?
