Lana sat back and crossed her arms. “And you were thinking you’d just married the kind of woman who can cook enough to keep you alive?”
“I obviously don’t know you well enough.” He used the diplomatic tone of a man who’d broken up too many arguments.
Lana got up from the table, clearing both their plates. “There’s a lot you don’t know, Mack Tanner.” She reached for the pile of McGuffey Readers she’d poured through in the hours before he woke this morning. She’d started the “Second Year” reader on the boat as they came back from Skaguay, and her opinion had begun to form then. As she sifted through the rest of them this morning—including the pictorial one she started with Georgie last night—the idea had planted itself in her head like a flag thrust in a mountaintop.
As she read through the volumes, Lana discovered she had very definite ideas about education. Ideas about how education was to be accomplished, and by whom, using what techniques. Really, what sort of person launches a child’s education with “A is for ax?” Everyone in Treasure Creek was fine with building a school, but it seemed to her no one gave much thought to what would go on inside it, once built. Somewhere in the second half of the “Fifth Year” reader, Lana had the shocking thought that people might assume the Tucker Sisters would simply hammer their last nail and move inside to take up the chalk. Surely not. Nor should they.
“I’ve read through these,” she began.
“Early riser,” Mack said, finishing his third cup of coffee.
Lana nodded toward Georgie. “Not by choice.” She lay the pile of readers on the table and sat down opposite Mack again. “Who will teach these?”
Mack ran a hand across his chin. “School’s not even finished yet. When it is, we’ll send word and the government will send out a teacher.”
So he didn’t have someone in mind for the position. She’d mentally catalogued Treasure Creek’s population earlier this morning, and came up with no clear candidate, either.
“I expect one of the Tuckers might even take it on.”
Lana swallowed a disparaging laugh. “The Tuckers? Teach school? I doubt that, and I doubt most folks would take to the kind of teaching they’d do anyway. If you want families, we’ll need a good school. And these books are a start, I suppose, but…” An hour ago she’d been so sure of what she wanted. Faced with proposing it to Mack, she felt her conviction waver. Alaskan women face life head-on, she reminded herself. Head-on it would be. “I’ve been thinking about it since I read through these, and, well, I’d like to be our schoolteacher. Very much.” Seeing as the world didn’t cave in on itself with the voicing of the thought, Lana went on. “And I don’t think we should wait until the building’s done. There are plenty of places to gather the children we’ve got. Even the church would work. Or outside on nice days. It’s not as if there are crops to get in, and most of these children are sorely lacking in education as it is. We’d only need to meet for an hour or two each day over the summer and it would do them so much good.”
Mack said nothing for a long moment, his face an exasperating neutral that offered no clue as to what he thought of the idea.
Georgie chose that moment to knock his bowl onto the floor, sending bits of apple and a chunk of cheese scattering across the cabin floor. On the one hand she was grateful for something to divert her attention from Mack’s uncomfortable silence. On the other hand, she didn’t care for Georgie’s commentary on the proposal.
“You want to teach,” he replied when she finished picking up Georgie’s spill. His tone was perfectly even. No wonder Jed often said it was a pity Mack shunned cards—the man’s face was unreadable.
She returned to her seat at the table. “Yes.” Lana gave her voice what she hoped was command. “I do.” Mack pinched the bridge of his nose. Not an encouraging response. Lana counted to ten, willing her hands not to fidget. “Well?”
“I can’t say I’m overly fond of the idea.”
“Why not?”
Georgie threw his spoon to the ground, babbling. Mack raised an eyebrow at her as if to say he thought she had her hands full already.
She did, but in some twisted way that was part of the attraction of teaching for her. Tending to Georgie was like tidying up after a tornado all day long, only to do it again tomorrow. She desperately needed to feel a sense of accomplishment, of achieving something beyond mere survival. The truth of it was she was as surprised as Mack at the idea, but it had grabbed hold of her somewhere between the fourth and fifth reader and refused to let go. She knew she needed this. She also knew she’d find a way—no matter how hard or complicated—to make it work.
“A man provides for his family. It takes a lot to keep a household running up here. You’ll be too busy. I want Georgie to come first.”
She’d been worried he would think she couldn’t do it. The idea that he thought she shouldn’t do it pulled something dark and angry out from the hard knot under her stomach. It leapt from her mouth before she could think better of it. “Georgie? Or you?”
“Lana…”
“I’m to fill my days being Mrs. Mack Turner, is that it?”
“You’re to be a mother to your son.” His voice rose to match hers. “Let someone else, without that kind of responsibility, see to the teaching. The government will send one if we ask. I see no reason for you to take this on. I just don’t think it’s wise.”
“Oh, and you’re Mack Tanner—you always know what’s best.”
Mack pushed away from the table. “We’ve been married—what?—not even three days? Do you even know what’s ahead of you? Of us?”
“I know the timing’s not perfect.”
“Perfect? It’s lunacy. The school’s not even built. It’s June. Georgie’s a handful on a good day. I don’t see how this makes any sense.” He looked at her, a sharp shadow of hurt behind his eyes. “Isn’t this enough?”
Hadn’t she asked that very question of herself? A dozen times over? Why, after resisting for months and finally relenting to the one thing she’d thought she’d never do, did she need something else? And she did. She needed this. In a fierce, defiant way she could never begin to describe. It was, she supposed, a way of hanging on to Lana Bristow before she became completely swallowed up by Mrs. Mack Turner. “Not yet” was the only reply she could manage, weak as it was.
Chapter Six
Mack pushed the floorboard into place with his boot. “So I told her I’d think on it.”
Ed Parker, down off the trail, in between prospecting trips, hauled more board over from the stack at the far end of the new general store’s main room. “You did, did you? Why’d you say that?”
Mack held the board in place with one foot while he nailed the edge down. “Because she loved the idea. She was all fired up and ready to fight for it. I hadn’t even seen the sun go down twice on our house and already things are—” he searched for a word “—complicated.”
“Nothing complicated about it. Say ‘no’ and that’ll be end of it.”
Because that wouldn’t be the end of it. He’d seen it in her eyes. This notion had a hold of her and she wasn’t about to let it go. Logic didn’t come into it. The most he could hope for was to hold off until her head cleared. “You married, Ed?”
Ed dropped the stack of boards with a smirk. “Nope.”
“Well, when you’ve got to spend every morning sitting across from a woman you’ve said no to, then you come and give me advice, okay?” Mack drove the final nail home.
Ed pulled another board off the stack and slid it up against the one Mack had