Page 110 of Against the Rain
If there was ever a woman who deserved to be well cared for and happy, it was Rosalind Caldwell Amos. Even though he’d suspected Yuri’s feelings for Rosalind for over a year, he never would have thought there was a way for the two of them to end up happy and married, but God had other plans.
Alexei took the stairs down to the foyer two at a time, then barged through the giant wooden doors of the mansion and started down Castle Hill at a brisk trot. People nodded and called out to him as he passed, but he kept his gaze pinned on the harbor, only waving back and nodding on occasion.
He reached the wharf about half a minute before the sailors slid the gangway down from the ship and was the first one up it.
Even with all the movement on deck, it wasn’t hard to spot Sacha. His big, burly brother simply had a way of commanding space.
“Sacha.” Alexei clasped his arms around him, hugging him tight. “I missed you.”
Sacha squeezed him tight enough to push the wind from his lungs, then released him too quickly, and Alexei nearly stumbled backward.
“Uncle Alexei! Uncle Alexei!” Finnan tugged on the edge of his coat, and Alexei bent down and clasped the six-year-old to his side.
“I want a hug too.” Ainsley elbowed her brother out of the way, then pressed up on her tiptoes and gave Alexei a hug.
Alexei smiled, squeezing her tight. He turned to fold Maggie in his arms next, but his gaze snagged on a familiar shade of flaxen hair.
He’d seen that shade only once in the past ten years, but he’d recognize it anywhere.
“Clarise?” The word was more of a whisper than anything. She was talking to one of the deckhands, giving instructions about a large trunk that had been hauled up from belowdecks.
He cleared his throat and turned to Sacha. “What’s Clarise doing here?”
Sacha scratched his beard. “Ah, about that. She and her children boarded in Seattle.”
Her children? He turned back to study Clarise, and sure enough there was a toddler tucked against her hip and a young girl standing quietly at her side. “Where’s her husband? The senator?”
“So you didn’t know either?” Maggie came up beside him and gave him a side hug.
Alexei hugged her back but couldn’t tear his gaze away from Clarise. “Know what?”
Sacha scratched his beard. “He died last fall shortly after he returned from Alaska. Apparently he suffered from a weak heart.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Alexei knew the right words to say, but they felt empty and dry. At the same time, his brain was scrambling to make sense of everything he’d just heard. “That still doesn’t tell me what she’s doing here.”
Sacha looped an arm around his shoulder. “She’s moving back.”
Alexei froze, every muscle of his body growing tense. “What? Why? It doesn’t make any sense. Why would she come back here? Now? After all this time?” Laurel was coming to visit soon.
“I don’t think she’s coming back for you, brother. I think she’s coming back to get out of Washington.”
Maggie offered him a small smile. “She told me that out of all the places she’s lived, Sitka is the place she felt most at peace.”
“Does she . . . Does she know I’m governor?”
“She does now.” Maggie nodded in Clarise’s direction. “I told her yesterday. She bought the bakery in town.”
The bakery? “Since when does Clarise know how to bake?”
Maggie shrugged.
He licked his lips. This was wrong. All wrong. Clarise had left him twelve years ago, just after his brother died and without having the courage to tell him her plans to his face. She’d left him a letter and then she’d gone to Washington and married a senator.
When she’d returned to Alaska on a visit with her husband last summer, it had been apparent that she wasn’t happy, but she hadn’t complained to him. If anything, she’d seemed resigned to make the best of the life she’d chosen.
Seeing her again had helped him finally forgive her for leaving as she had, and it had also helped him realize he was ready to move on from his memories of their time together and find another wife. He’d looked at the fact he’d met Laurel only a few weeks before seeing Clarise again as a sign God was pointing him in a new direction. And Laurel and her father were coming to Sitka before the end of the month.
Clarise couldn’t just return to Sitka and walk back into his life.
That was the last thing he was ready for.
