Chapter 42
Sitka; Two Weeks Later
Alexei spied the ship entering the sound from his position behind his desk. His monstrously large desk, which was situated near the back of his monstrously large office, inside the monstrously large former governor’s mansion atop Castle Hill.
But even from this distance, he recognized the sails of the Alliance.
He set the map he’d been studying down on his desk and stood, then took a few steps closer to the window overlooking the sound. The wall to his left held another window that overlooked the town, giving him a full view of all the goings-on in both places.
He’d been governor for less than a month, and every minute of it had come with an endless list of things to do.
He’d been staring at a map of Alaska, trying to figure out where a company from California could put a cannery without forcing the Tlingit clan in the town of Petersburg to relocate like the clan in Klawock had.
He had yet to come up with a solution, but he had to think of something.
That was one of the things he’d had to agree to before Secretary Gray was willing to appoint him governor.
He had to acknowledge the US government’s official stance that none of the Alaskan tribes had any claim to the land, that the US government had paid Russia for the land, and that Russia had taken it from the various tribes by force.
It wasn’t true and he didn’t agree with it, but he’d had to agree on paper; otherwise Secretary Gray would have appointed someone who was just as intent on trampling the rights of the natives as Simon Caldwell had been.
So he was trying to use his position of power for good.
So far it hadn’t been easy, but he hadn’t given up hope of finding a solution that would prevent the town of Petersburg from relocating.
The other concession he’d had to make was about Inessa. She would be attending Reverend Jackson’s industrial boarding school in Sitka in the fall. The only concession he’d received regarding the government’s Indian policy was that Ilya could continue learning at Evelina’s school in Juneau.
It seemed like a small victory, but it was enough. As Mikhail had pointed out, even if he had to make a few compromises, Alaska would do better under his governorship than under any of the previous governors.
Or at least he hoped it would do better under him. But if he thought the paperwork involved in running a trading company and shipyard was cumbersome, then the paperwork he faced as governor was enough to bury him whole.
The ship sailed deeper into the sound, its nose pointed toward the wharf in front of his family’s warehouse.
It was close enough now for him to make out the sailors working on deck and a family of four standing on at the railing.
Sacha and Maggie had finally returned from San Francisco, along with Maggie’s younger siblings that Sacha had adopted, Ainsley and Finnan.
He turned and strode toward the door, then yanked it open. “I’ll be back in an hour,” he told Lyle, the clerk who had outlasted Alaska’s past three governors. “I’m going down to the harbor to greet my brother.”
The thought of Sacha returning put a smile on his face, but so did the thought of Yuri and Rosalind being settled in San Francisco.
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.