Chapter Thirteen


	Simon poked at the fire, piled another log on top, then sat back on the floor to
watch the flames curl aimlessly towards the chimney.  It was almost two months since
he'd left Arizona, and he hadn't been able to bring himself to leave the cabin and take
another project since.  
	In the end, Jake Zimmerman's capture had been almost anticlimactic.  Lacking
the mind of a true criminal, and  driven by a wild obsession he'd developed over Logan,
he'd actually returned to Logan's apartment that very same night.  After Logan fled to
Candace's Jake had stayed at her place long enough to discover that she had slipped
out of his grasp, and had ransacked the place in his anger.  He'd left before Officer
Bracken had arrived, but had returned in the middle of the night, only to find Simon,
instead of Logan, in the bedroom.  But Simon hadn't been sleeping, and it hadn't taken
much for the bigger man to prevail.  
	By sunrise the next morning Jake was in police custody and singing like a bird
about the entire Colorado Plateau Project scam, everything  from whom he'd been
recruited by, to the  whereabouts of the missing money.   It seemed that the son of one
of Flagstaffs's major criminal minds had studied at NAU, and the father had approached
Jake to insure that the son got the job as photographer on the Project.  When Simon
was hired instead, Jake was given an ultimatum, and a suggested plan, plus the names
of people who could help him put it into action. 
	Logan's arrival in the canyon had been unexpected, and Jake had resented her
from the moment she'd set foot in camp.  When Simon had whisked her away in his
SUV, Jake had made his own conclusion that the two of them were acting together to
sabotage his plan.  When it had become clear that the Project would not be given a
second breath of life, he'd set out to exact revenge, and his obsession had focused on
Logan.  He'd known he'd have no chance against Simon, and Logan proved to be a
much more interesting target anyway.  She was a woman.
	The entire plan had been a failure, but he'd been right about one thing.  He was
no match for Simon Crestwater.  Simon had heard him enter the apartment and had
waited for him in the dark.  Their roles had suddenly been reversed, with Simon
becoming the hidden tracker, and Jake, the unsuspecting  prey.  It had taken longer for
the police to arrive than it had for Simon to subdue the smaller man. 
	
	Simon poked at the logs in his fireplace and watched a shower of sparks fly
upwards.  He'd done the right thing, so why did he feel so miserable about it?  Logan
was better off without him in her life anyway, and returning to the Yukon without seeing
her again was the only way he could insure he didn't make a choice he'd live to regret.
	He'd talked to Hector since.  The missing money had been recovered, and the
universities had agreed to consider re-starting the project.  Although Simon had offered
them any of the photos he'd already taken, he'd declined their offer to join a re-vamped
project, recommending Logan as a replacement photographer instead.  The last time
he'd spoken to Hector, she'd accepted the offer, quit her department store job, put her
belongings in storage and moved out of her apartment.  That had been a few weeks
after he'd returned to the Yukon.  He'd heard no more about her since. 
	Simon poked at the logs more vigorously.  Why should that fact disturb him at
all?  It was what he'd wanted, what they'd both needed.  The best thing he could have
done, as a matter of fact, was to let her move on with her life without him in it. Of that he
had always been certain.    
	Why was he feeling so damned horrible lately then?  Even his cousin Jules was
an unwelcome guest when he stopped in.  Simon knew, of course, that his cousin wasn’t
just dropping by to see if anything was needed on the next flight into Whitehorse.  Jules
would be on a mission, Simon was certain of that.  A mission to check up on Simon, see
how he was doing, and report back to Hayley, Jules’ young bride.  She worried about
Simon just like family, and had extended several invitations to the Lodge that she and
Jules ran in the Yukon wilderness.  But as  much as he loved his cousin and his wife,
Simon had declined.  Even the temptation of their cook Anna's delicious food hadn't
managed to entice him.  He’d preferred to stay holed up in his own cabin, all alone.
	His mind wandered back to his childhood, sitting in the hospital by his mother's
bedside, with Jules on the other side of the bed.  He'd found himself unable to stay
there, needing to leave the room and wander, wallowing in his guilt and his sorrow. 
Jules had never left the bedside, however, and Simon had never forgotten that even in
her death, his cousin had done for her what he could not bring himself to do.
	His life had spiralled in the wrong direction after his mother's death.  The brothers
of the man who had beaten his mother to death had tried to claim revenge.  Jules
suspected it was these men who had burned his house to the ground, and Simon wasn't
inclined to disagree.  Jules and his father had escaped unharmed, but his mother had
died a week later from complications from smoke inhalation.  The death of both his
mother and his aunt, so close together, had devastated Simon.  Two deaths for which
he felt personally responsible. 
	Who knows how he would have ended up if he hadn't landed himself in juvenile
detention!  There they'd offered him an education.  A good education, and he'd
discovered that he was an avid learner when he had no choice but to attend school.  It
was there, in Juvenile Detention, that he was introduced to photography, and his
budding interest was nurtured by a kindly counsellor.  So much so, that when he was
released, he'd gotten himself a job pumping gas to earn the money to buy himself a
second hand camera.  But the old influences were everywhere, and for the first time,
he'd taken his life in his own hands instead of giving in.  It had been the beginning of the
new Simon.  The stubborn Simon.  The Simon Crestwater who knew what he wanted,
went after it, and didn't let anything stand in his way.
	When he'd shown up on his uncle's doorstep, so many miles away from his
unfortunate beginnings, far in the Canadian north country, Jules and his dad had taken
Simon in without question.  They'd been glad to have him, had never judged him for his
past, and encouraged him to look to his future.  To his own surprise, he'd both finished
high school, and completed post graduate studies in photography in Vancouver. 
	And during all those years since, he reminded himself, you've never let a woman
get under your skin like you let this one! You've got to get your act together, Crestwater.
	Dammit!
	He cursed under his breath and shoved his poker into the logs in the fire.  He
didn't know where the time had gone, but there wasn't much left but coals now, and he
scattered them around the firebox then stood up and closed the screen in front of the
fireplace.  Hayley had been particularly persistent with her invitations lately.  It seemed
the longer he stayed alone in the bush, the more concerned the woman became.  Since
he wasn't doing anything else except staring at the fire anyway, he might as well give in
and take her up on it, as long as they didn’t mind putting up with the mood he was in. 
Maybe they’d leave him alone for a while if he ate one of Anna’s home cooked meals
with them.
	He made his way through the bush on his four-wheel ATV, using the trail that he
and Jules had cut years ago to travel between the cabin and the Lodge on snowmobile
in the winter and ATV in the summer.  Along the way he stopped to move a few fallen
trees, and discovered that the physical labour made him feel better.  Even the sight of a
bird fluttering away as he tossed a branch into the underbrush, stirred that old familiar
instinct to reach for his camera, something he hadn’t felt since he’d returned to the north. 
He chopped at a few more branches that didn’t really need to be trimmed, but the work
was  therapy for him, and at long last he stood up and wiped his brow with his shirt
sleeve.  By the time he stowed his axe back in the crate on the back of his ATV and
straddled it once again, he felt more alive than he had in weeks, and headed off toward
the Lodge with renewed energy.  Anna’s cooking would taste good afterall!
	He rounded the bend in the trail and pulled up alongside the Lodge.  Swinging off
the ATV be could just make out the plane resting on the lake down the bank from the
building.  This meant Jules was home, which he’d pretty much expected anyway. 
Unless he had to fly in to town to pick up guests for the Lodge, Jules was sticking pretty
close to home since the new baby had arrived.
	Simon sighed.  Just a few weeks before he’d headed down to Arizona, Hayley
had given birth to a beautiful baby girl that they had named Aurora after Hayley’s love for
the Northern Lights.  She was the sweetest little creature Simon had ever seen, and his
heart had melted when he’d first seen her.  Hayley had joked that the little girl would
have no trouble wrapping her uncle around her little finger, and as he strode towards the
Lodge with a growing smile on his face, he was inclined to believe Hayley was right.
	“Anybody home!”  he called, as he burst through the front door of the Lodge, his
voice throwing a booming echo through the high-ceilinged room within.  He noticed the
head of a blonde woman seated on the sofa, facing the fireplace with her back towards
the door, and silently chastised himself for his bold entrance.  Of course, this was a
tourist Lodge, there was always the possibility of there being guests, who might be a little
rattled by the sight of a big Indian barging in unannounced, all covered in mud and
sweat from chopping up the bush on the way down the trail.  He cleared his throat
self-consciously and turned towards the dining room doorway, where Anna’s head had
appeared.
	“Simon!” the old woman exclaimed, in her rarely used voice, and waddled
towards him with her arms wide open.  When she hugged him, her head reached the
middle of his chest, and he laughed, patting her animatedly on the shoulder.  "Eat?" she
asked him, when at last she let him go.
	"How could I turn down an offer like that," he said, with a broad smile.  Anna
nodded happily and turned to waddle back into the dining room and then on to the
kitchen.  He was about to follow, both because of the thought of the food she had
offered and the desire to remove himself from the commercial side of the Lodge while
guests were about, when the image of the woman on the sofa began to materialize more
vividly in his mind.  With brow raised, he turned towards her and was immediately
greeted by a familiar warm smile.
	"Dolores!"
	Her smile got even bigger. "Simon Crestwater, you old bear you!"  she said, and
soon she was standing in front of him.  
	"Dolores, what are you doing here?" He seemed confused now, even though he
was clearly delighted to see her, and the woman laughed. 
	"Well, we have hardly heard from you since you left, and I figured if I were ever
going to see you again I just might have to come all the way up here to do it."  She
winked at him and grinned. "Besides, I needed a holiday, and I just had to see the
baby!"
	Simon threw back his head and laughed.  The Shellingtons had been staying
with  Jules when he and Hayley had first fallen in love, and Dolores was determined to
treat baby Aurora like a granddaughter.  Simon was almost inclined to believe her
second reason over her first, though he knew she did have a soft spot for him as well. 
This was where he had first met this interesting couple, and they'd treated him as one of
their own ever since.  He draped an arm around Dolores' shoulders and began to
saunter back toward the sofa.
	"So where is everybody?"
	"The men are out fishing, just down on the shore somewhere, and Hayley is
taking advantage of Little Aurora's nap time to have one of her own.
	As if on cue, Simon heard the faint cooing and gurgling of a waking baby filtering
down from the upper level of the lodge.  He lifted his eyes to where the long log railed
balcony overlooked the room they were in.  
	"Oh dear, looks like that's the end of the nap. I hope I didn't wake her with all the
noise I made coming in."
	Dolores smiled.  " She's been asleep for a while, it will be alright for her to get up
now."  The woman patted the sofa beside where she had just sat down, and Simon sat
beside her. 
	"I'm a mess, Dolores.  Some of the trail needed a bit of clearing on the way over
here.  I'm hardly presentable for company, perhaps I should go take a shower and
change into some of the clean clothes I keep stashed here at the lodge."
	"All in due time, Simon," Dolores said, then immediately started talking.  She
talked about the weather in Tucson, about her daughter Carolyn and son-in-law Tomas,
about the ladies club meeting she had attended the day before they had flown north. 
She talked about anything and everything, non-stop, until suddenly she lifted her face
with a warm smile.
	"Ah, there she is, the little darling."
	Simon followed her gaze.  Hayley must be bringing Aurora downstairs.  He
couldn't wait to see the little girl.  When she grew older he wanted her to run to him and
squeal in excitement as he scooped her into his arms and swung her in the air. He
wanted to spoil her rotten with gifts and know that she couldn't wait for Uncle Simon to
visit again.  He wanted to experience through her all those childhood things that he'd
never known in his own youth.  But for now, he would settle for holding her in his arms
and listening to her gurgle while she gave him her bubbly grin.  He shifted in his seat and
turned, but when he faced the stairs he froze.  
	"McCoy!"  The name was a mere whisper as it passed his lips, for there, on the
stairs, stopped in mid-step, stood Logan with Aurora cradled in her arms.  The sight was
too much for him.  He'd agonized over his feelings for her all these weeks since he'd left
Arizona, and suddenly there she was, with a baby in her arms.  He swallowed hard to
quell the absurd thought that was threatening to surface.  The thought that she should
be holding his baby!
	Absurd! he told himself, as they looked at each other.  Neither one moved, and it
felt like neither would move at all, until Aurora wiggled and complained, and Logan was
forced to turn her attention back to the baby.  Slowly she made her way down the steps,
until at last both feet were on the floor. 
	What on earth is she doing here?  He was confused, and managed to turn a
questioning glance to Dolores, only to find the older woman beaming up at him from the
sofa.
	
	"Well, honestly, Simon.  If you aren't going to take your niece and play with her, I
most certainly will."  Dolores stood up and walked past him, giving the baby a
grandmotherly kiss before lifting her out of Logan's arms.  "There, there, sweetheart,"
she cooed, then Logan was left standing alone and vulnerable.
	The last person Logan had expected to see when the Shellingtons had talked
her into joining them on their Yukon vacation, was Simon Crestwater.  He'd walked out
of her life months before without so much as a goodbye, and she'd finally managed to
forget him.  Now, as she found herself face to face with him once again, all the old
feelings welled up inside, mixed with a number of new ones.
	She had known that there was no future for them, that once he no longer needed
to guard her he would walk out of her life and move on, but she had at least expected a
goodbye.  For that, she was angry, but seeing him standing there in front of her she
realized just how much she loved him, how much more powerful that feeling was than
the anger.
	But he could never know!  He didn't love her, he couldn't.  He wouldn't have left
the way he had if he did.  So above all, she needed to keep her feelings hidden.
	"Simon, what a surprise.  You're the last person I expected to see here."  Her
voice was shaky, despite her attempt at indifference, and she took a deep breath to try
to calm herself. 
	"This is my territory up here," he reminded her, cautiously.  "Jules is my cousin."
	Logan shot an accusing glance towards Dolores, and the woman laughed over
the baby's head.  "Didn't I mention that, Logan?" she asked, feigning surprise.  "Terribly
remiss of me.  I thought I had.  This is where we first met Simon.  He lives in a cabin off
in the woods somewhere when he's not travelling the world."  Dolores waved her hand in
the air toward nowhere in particular, then blew bubbles on the baby's cheek. 
	Logan tightened her jaw and tried to smile. "No, Dolores, you never mentioned
it."
	"So silly of me," was all the woman said, and she wasn't about to say any more. 
All her attention was Aurora's now, and she purposefully walked the baby out of the
room into the dining room.
	If I didn't know better, Logan thought, I'd think they brought me up here on
purpose.  But Dolores knew nothing of her feelings for Simon, so there was no reason
for any matchmaking on the older woman's part.  Once Simon had moved on, Logan
had thrown herself into the work the universities had offered her.  She was grateful to
him for having suggested her, but she'd been told he was no longer available due to a
conflicting assignment.  Even if she had known this was where he came from, she'd
never have expected him to show up.  He spent months on assignments in remote
areas.  She should have been safe anywhere.
	The Project had been pared down, due to time constraints with the students, but
with Simon's photographs added to her own, they had been able to assemble a large
database of photographs. The next step was for the students to identify and catalogue
them all in preparation for publication, and to decide if there were any major species 
missing that still needed to be photographed.  In the meantime, the idea of a remote and
unusual holiday with the Shellingtons had seemed quite inviting. 
	In fact, over the past week since they had arrived at the Lodge, Logan had had a
wonderful time.  She adored Anna and Marty, and Hayley had quickly become like a
sister to her.  Hayley had moved from Southern California to the extremes of the Yukon,
and loved every day of it since, but it was nice to have a young woman her own age
around the place.  They'd become fast friends.  Logan kicked herself, however, for not
having seen the resemblance between Jules and Simon from the first day Jules had
picked them up at the airport.  Now that Simon stood in the room with her, large as life,
the similarities were painfully obvious!
	"Well, it most certainly is a beautiful place," she nodded, managing to keep her
voice calm as she wrapped her arms tightly around herself.  "Your cousin is a wonderful
host, and I'm sure you already know that Anna is absolutely the best cook in the whole
country.  Hayley's a delight to be around, and Aurora, well, she's such a sweetheart! And
this place!  It is so beautiful!  It's amazing, isn't it, that Jules did so much of the work by
himself.  I've never seen anything — "
	"McCoy."
	As she'd been speaking, her voice had picked up speed, until she was rushing
through her words without breathing, and when he spoke her name she stopped in mid
sentence, mouth open, and stared at him.
	"You look good," he said, because all the other things he wanted to say just
wouldn't come out. 
	She shrugged.  "Thank you.  It must be all those weeks out doors.  Spending
time out doors is really good for the soul you know, all that fresh air, and of course it's
hot in Arizona, but of course you know that, you were there."
	"McCoy, stop it!" he interjected, and she paused once again. He sighed, and
raked a hand through his hair.  "Just stop talking for a while."
	She shrugged, and walked toward the window, staring outside.  "I wonder if Jules
and Hector have caught any fish."
	He walked up behind her, resisting the urge to rest his hands on her shoulders. 
"McCoy, I'm sorry."
	"Sorry for what?" she asked cheerfully, turning to smile at him, then quickly
turning back toward the window.  She hadn't been prepared for the flutter that raged
through her at the sight of him standing just inches behind her.  This would never do! 
She had to keep her composure.  Gripping herself tighter, she strained to see if she
could catch sight of the three men down at the lake. 
	"Listen, McCoy, I owe you an apology, at least let me say my piece."
	"Jules says there's a little competition going on between him and Marty."
	"I'm sorry I left the way I did, McCoy.  You deserved better than that."
	Silence filled the room while Logan fought with her emotions.  She wanted to turn
on him and declare how much his departure had hurt her, but she dared not.  Instead,
she drew a deep breath and stared out the window.  "Yes, Simon," she said, coldly. "I
did deserve better.  I deserved a decent goodbye.  I deserved the chance to say thank
you for everything you did for me."   I deserved the chance to look into your eyes one
last time, she thought, but instead of speaking that thought she bit back her tears. 
"Thank you for the recommendation for the Project, Simon.  I suppose it was the least
you could to.  Now, if you will excuse me, I think I'll go to my room until supper time.  I'd
like to be alone."
	Simon swore under his breath as he watched her go.  The urge to run after her,
draw her into his arms, and beg her forgiveness, was strong, but he resisted it.  The
reason he'd left her in the first place was as strong as ever, perhaps even  more now. 
This was a remarkable woman, and she deserved more than just his apology.  She
deserved a better man than he was.