Chapter Fourteen

            It was late by the time Reese pulled the company truck into the yard outside the
Kincaide Landscaping shop and switched off the ignition.   They'd hit the road at dawn
and driven non-stop, sharing the time at the wheel.  Both he and his partner were tired,
but there was still a truck to unload.  They unfolded their weary bodies from the truck and
stretched, and gave way to uncontrollable yawns.  
	Without a word, Jake headed to the back of the truck to open up the cap while
Reese unlocked the shop, with only a glance towards the house.  There was still a light
on in the front room.  Maybe Mikki was still awake.  She wouldn't be expecting them
though, they were three days ahead of schedule.
	Although they had encountered a few set backs, long hours and perseverance
had paid off, and both men were glad to have the job behind them.  No matter how
much Reese enjoyed  spending time with his mother, and working on Marina's garden,
he liked being home better.  And Jake?  Well, whatever he'd been brooding over — or
whoever — maybe he'd lighten up a little now that they were back in Elmdale.   
	"Jake Forrester, why you're a sight for sore eyes!" Mikki called, as she stepped
out of the house and quickly made the distance to the truck, throwing her arms around
the man.  Despite his weariness, Jake couldn't help but grin. 
	"Better watch out, your husband's around here somewhere," Jake said with a
wink.
	"Well he'd better be!" Mikki laughed.  Just then Reese appeared in the shop
doorway, and Mikki's eyes lit up.  
	"Are you man-handling my wife again, Forrester?" Reese joked, but no reply was
needed.  Seconds later Mikki was in his arms and he was swinging her around, revelling
in their reunion as if they'd been separated for months, Jake thought.  As he watched,
something strange tore at him inside, and he looked away, absently kicking at a pebble
on the driveway.  A deep ache was growing inside that he had never felt before.  The
only thing he knew was that it had something to do with Max, and the type of scene he
was witnessing between Reese and Mikki. 
	"For heaven sake, leave this stuff for the morning!" Mikki was saying, her arm
wrapped lovingly around her husband's waist.  "Come on in for some coffee."
	"Well, if you two are going inside, maybe I should just head on home and leave
you alone?"  Jake teased.
	"Nonsense," Mikki pouted.  "I wouldn't hear of it! I bet you guys didn't even stop
to eat on the drive home.   You come right in and I'll get you something to eat."
	Reese grinned at his partner and shrugged.  "We better listen to the boss," he
said, and everyone laughed, and the three of them made their way into the house. 
	"Is Sandy still here?" Reese asked, glancing around as he closed the door
behind him.
	Mikki shook her head.  "She went home the day before yesterday," she said, 
pouring a cup of coffee for each of the men.
	"You two have a good visit?" Reese asked.
	"It was great!  We haven't spent that much time together, just the two of us, in
years.  We had so much fun!"
	"Bet it was wild when Max was with you," Reese commented, sipping his coffee
and sighing as the warm liquid soothed his tired body.
	"Oh, no, it was just Sandy and me.  Max hasn't been home since just after you
left."
	"Not home?" Jake asked, shooting a questioning glance at Mikki and nearly
dropping his coffee.  Neither Reese nor Mikki seemed to notice, however, and he quickly
set his cup on the table.  "What do you mean not home?"
	Mikki grinned, and pulled out a chair for herself to sit across from the two men. 
"Oh no, she headed off a week and a half ago to Camp Logan."
	"Camp Logan?" By this time the confusion on Jake's face was deeply etched,
and his struggle to hide it was getting him no where. "What is she doing at Camp
Logan?"
	But Mikki was eager to tell her tale, and continued without hesitation.  "It seems
one of the councillors had to cancel, so they called Max to fill in."  Mikki leaned forward
and grinned even wider.  "And just between us, I think she's probably having a
wonderful time.  She's met this other councillor, Cal, there, and from what she says he's
good looking and nice too." She winked at the men.   "Who knows, maybe she'll have
more than just campfire tales to tell us when she comes home on Sunday!"
	Jake stared at her as his blood ran cold.  He vaguely heard voices as Reese and
Mikki discussed the likelihood of Max returning from camp with a boyfriend.  He couldn't
concentrate on their words, but the impact of what they were saying was hitting like a ton
of bricks.  He'd taken Max for granted for so long, but what was really stopping her from
meeting someone else?  If this Cal character was as irresistible as Mikki was saying,
what was stopping Max from falling for him?  
	Somewhere in the back of his mind he began to remember snippets of
conversations.  Max had talked about Camp Logan before.  She'd hoped to get a job for
basketball camp there, but all the positions had been full.  If this was the camp she was
working at, then Cal was more than likely exactly her kind of guy.  As a fellow councillor
he obviously liked working with kids, and playing basketball, two of Max's favourite
things.  They'd be natural together! Two weeks, working in close quarters, away from
outside influences — it wouldn’t take long.
	And where would that leave Jake?  His scowl deepened and he concentrated
intently on the shimmering reflection on the surface of his coffee.  There was no question
where that left him.  Out in the cold, that's where!
	"Jake? Are you alright?" 
	"What?" Jake shook himself to his senses and looked in the direction of Mikki's
voice.
	"You were off in some other world. Did you hear a word I was saying?"  
	He looked from Mikki to her husband, and back again, then grumbled.  "I'm sorry,
Mikki. I’m half dead I'm so tired. Your husband is a slave driver of a boss!"  he managed
a wink in Reese's direction, then took a big gulp of his coffee and pushed away from the
table.  "I think I'll just go home and go straight to bed."
	"Are you sure?" Mikki sounded disappointed, but when Jake insisted she didn't
make a move to stop him.  He was glad of that, and said his good night's quickly then
left them to head out into the night.  Somehow he found his own truck, parked at the
edge of the driveway where he had parked it the morning they had left for Clay River,
and somehow he found his way through the streets of Elmdale to his own apartment. 
He was downright miserable by the time he got there.
	He was prepared to spend a fitful night bemoaning the loss of what he had never
had in the first place, and hadn't even known he'd wanted.  Stabbing a finger at the
taunting flashing light on his answering machine, he turned his back on it and stripped of
his shirt, only half listening to the messages that greeted him.
	He had just stepped through his bedroom door when a voice stopped him in his
tracks. 
	"Max?"  He spoke the name out loud and spun around, half expecting to see her
standing in his living room before he realized it was just her voice on his machine.
	"... when I get back on Sunday."  Her voice trailed off, followed by a beep, and
another voice took its place.  He'd missed it! Whatever she had said, he had missed
almost the entire thing!  He cursed out loud and picked up the machine, trying to figure
out how to replay the last message, while some male voice continued to talk about
selling him a subscription to a magazine.  Another beep, and another message started,
and Jake stabbed his finger down on another button.  The machine burped, and
beeped, and moved on to another message.  Again he jabbed at the machine, and
again another voice filled his room.  The offensive piece of electronics burped out ten
more truncated messages before he finally reached the end and started over, at last
reaching Max's once again.
	It wasn't a long message.  Just a quick call to tell him she's been unexpectedly
offered the job at Camp Logan; telling him when she was leaving and when she would
be coming back.  But as Jake slouched in his chair listening to her talk, he was surprised
at how calm and peaceful he felt just hearing her voice.  
	And when it stopped, he felt incredibly empty!
	It wasn't until he'd paced the length of his living room and back again at least ten
times, that the thought occurred to him.  If Max was going to fall for this Cal guy at camp,
Jake wasn't going to let her do it without at least having heard him out first.  He switched
off the lights and walked purposefully into his bedroom.  His mind was made up.  First
thing in the morning he'd make the drive to Camp Logan and, even if he came back
empty handed,  he'd at least have said his piece.
	 But the morning dawned dark, and gloomy —  much like Jake’s mood — and
pelting down rain.  Undeterred, Jake set out in his truck in the direction of Smythe
Corners, only to find himself stranded on the side of the road twenty minutes later with
water sluicing down his windshield despite having the wipers on full.  He couldn't see the
nose of his truck, let alone the roadway in front of him, and he grumbled to himself as he
sat waiting for the rain to clear.  The steady noise of the wipers mixed with the rain on
the roof of the truck was loud, and every now and then the air was split with the  crack of
thunder and flash of lightning that raged across the sky. 
	"Damn!"  Jake cursed to himself, as he glanced at his watch.  At this rate, it
would take him all day to get to the Camp.    Who knew what Max and this Cal guy could
be doing while all the campers were secluded in their cabins in the rain.  

	"I can't reach, Coach!"   Jenny called through the rain, as she tried to grab the
shutter that had worked its way loose and was banging repeatedly against the wall of her
cabin.  From her own cabin Max had seen the girl struggling in the downpour, and had
pulled on her raincoat to investigate.  She'd found Jenny perched precariously on an
upturned log, stretching to reach the banging shutter.  Several times she almost caught
it, but just as her fingers grazed the edge of the wood it was ripped from her grasp by
the wind. 
	"What are you doing out here in this weather, Jenny!" Max asked, as she came
up beside the girl and grabbed hold of her to steady her.
	"This thing came loose from the wall and has been banging around all morning. 
It was slamming so hard I was afraid the window was going to break!" Jenny explained.
Then she leaned a little closer and lowered her voice.  "It started before dawn, and it's
kind of scaring the girls," she added.
	The shutters had been on the old cabins since they had been built, but Max
couldn't remember that they had ever actually been used.  Some were even nailed to
the walls, making them purely decorative, while others were held back with wire or
hooks.  This particular one had somehow broken free and had obviously been causing
enough noise to conjure up all kinds of frights amongst the teenage girls who slept there. 
As Max stood assessing the situation, another gust of wind hurtled the shutter back
against the wall with a loud bang, and the sound of screams from inside the cabin met
her ears.
	"What were you planning to do if you could reach it?" Max asked the girl.
	With a grin, Jenny held up a hammer, then pulled a nail from her raincoat pocket.
"This thing wouldn't have a chance against me, if I could just get my hands on it."
	Max thought for only a few seconds, before motioning for Jenny to climb down off
the block of wood.  "I'm taller than you are.  Let me give it a try," she suggested. 
Minutes later she was perched, wavering, atop the block, trying to get her balance.  The
wood under her feet was slippery, and not big enough for both her feet to stand firmly
from heel to toe.  Thought not high enough to sway, the block was somewhat unlevel in
its top cut, and Max felt her left foot slip several times before she felt secure enough to
take her hands off the wall and reach for the shutter. 
	"Careful, Coach!"  Jenny warned, as Max turned her head to look upwards. 
	It was at that moment that a sequence of events were set into motion that sent
Max flying to the ground.  As her fingers took hold of the shutter the wind whipped
around the corner of the cabin and ripped it from her grasp.  She let out a yelp of
surprise, as the action threw her off balance, and sent her left foot sliding off the edge of
the block of wood.  Both arms began to flail like a windmill, and as Jenny tried to steady
her, the block seemed to tip in slow motion and her right foot lost its grip as well.  Within
seconds, they were both flat on the ground.
	"You alright, Coach?" Jenny gasped.
	"I'm fine," Max groaned, rubbing her hip where she had landed in the mud.  As if
to taunt her, the offending shutter banged once more against the window, and Max
practically growled at it.  "But I wish I'd gotten a good swing at that thing."
	Jenny laughed, and climbed back onto her feet, reaching a hand down to help
her teacher up.  It wasn't until Max tried to stand that she felt the shooting pain piercing
through the numbing cold of her wet ankle.  She let out a yelp an sunk back onto the
ground.  On her second try she managed to clamber onto one foot, but the other
refused to accommodate her. 
	After a slow struggle on slippery, muddy ground, Jenny and Max made it into the
girls' cabin, where she was settled onto a chair while Jenny bolted back out the door for
help.  Minutes later she returned with the camp nurse, Suzanne, and Cal on her heels.  
Although Max stubbornly refused to admit that her pain was caused by much more than
a sprain, no one was willing to take any chances.
	"As soon as this rain eases up enough to drive in, were sending you to the
nearest Hospital," she nurse insisted, and Max groaned.  But as they helped her hobble
to the camp truck a half an hour later, she was silently glad to be going to get checked
out.  Her ankle was throbbing despite the ice that had been applied to it while she had
been waiting, and she could put no weight on it whatsoever. 
	"What are you, the designated driver around here or something?" she asked,
trying to make a joke of her situation, as Cal slid into the driver's seat.  He smiled at her,
and threw the vehicle into gear.
	"I guess so," he said, then he glanced at her bare foot that was resting on a
pillow on the floor.  "Let me know if it's too bumpy a ride."
	"Ouch! Are you trying to kill me?"  Max yelped, as they manoeuvred their way
along the driveway out of the camp.  He shot her a frown,  until he noticed the grin on
her face and shook his head.