“When I see a sky like tonight, I always think of early ship navigators, you know? Looking at the sky, trying to figure out where they were headed.” She leaned her elbows on the railing, putting her hood up, grateful for the thick down between her arms and the icy, cold iron. “It must have taken such courage, such faith to set sail, relying only on the stars to see them home.” She smiled at him and turned her glance back up to the sky, pointing. “There’s the North Star. Polaris. See it? The brightest one that way. If you can find that, you can always find your way.”
“Always find my way, huh? Even in snowy mountain passes, stuck behind a pokey plow?”
“Ah, so that’s what happened today.” She glanced at him and grinned, then turned her attention back to the sky. “Uh-huh. It’s a fixed point. If you prefer Shakespeare, it’s an ‘ever-fixed mark.’ It doesn’t move. It doesn’t change. If you can find north, you can find your way.”
“Shakespeare?”
“It’s from one of his sonnets.”
“Go ahead…” His smile encouraged her.
She chuckled nervously and shook her head, but spoke the words quietly, staring out at the black river before her. “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. O, no. It is an ever-fixed mark.”
He joined her at the railing, leaning beside her. “So I’m guessing you teach English.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Science.”
When he chuckled she gave him a quizzical look. “What?”
“Suits you.”
“Are you laughing at me? Teasing me?”
“No! Not at all! Just…stars, navigation… You threw me with the Shakespeare. I had figured science, but then…” He looked back up at the sky. “Sure is pretty.”
“The sky or the Shakespeare?”
“Both. Either.” He shrugged and smiled at her. “I can’t remember the last time someone quoted Shakespeare to me. ‘An ever-fixed mark…’”
“Well, maybe there’s a frustrated English teacher in here after all.” She touched her heart with her hand and grinned at him. “Or maybe just cold winters. Lots of time for reading.”
“Reading. Hmm. I can think of better—” He cleared his throat. If she didn’t know better, she might wonder if he covered a chuckle by clearing his throat. She could hear the controlled humor in his voice when he asked, “And science?”
“Always loved it. I spent a lot of time in the park growing up, and my Pappa was always teaching us something about the hot springs, the geography, the animals. Natural fit, I guess, being from here.”
He looked back up at the sky. “There’s nowhere like here.”
She turned to him, cocking her head to the side and searching his face. “I didn’t realize you had such an affection, you know, for here. For Montana. I just assumed—”
He blew into his bare hands, then rubbed them together and stuffed them in his coat pockets. “Sure. I mean, I live in Chicago and my life’s there, but I love it here, too. I wasn’t clear before. We drove out to Choteau twice a year like clockwork until I started college. Spent a lot of time in Montana as a kid. My mom and Kristian’s mom are sisters and they didn’t think a twenty-four hour drive was reason enough to keep them apart.
“My Aunt Lisabet and her family drove out to Chicago for Thanksgiving and Easter. And we spent New Year’s and Midsommardagen in Montana for a week each every year. Never missed either my entire childhood. No excuse was good enough for my mother, you know? I may not have always loved the drive, but I always loved being here.”
“Whew! Twenty-four hours!”
“Yeah. With two older sisters heckling me in the backseat.”
“You’re the baby, too.” She smiled at him, seeming fascinated to find they had a bit of common ground when their lives seemed worlds away. “You celebrate Midsommardagen?”
“Of course! My mother’s Swedish. Anyone with a drop of Swedish blood celebrates Midsommardagen!”
She smiled. “My father’s Swedish. My mother was Norwegian. She used to say that Midsummer was just an excuse for drunken fools to stay drunk all weekend. But I know she loved everything else about it. She used to braid my hair with flowers on Midsummer morning every year…hers too.” She paused then added quietly, “She…she died.”
“I’m sorry.”
Jenny nodded wordlessly, looking at the river below, while he stood beside her in silence. Where did that come from? She didn’t generally share her private business with strangers. Then again, Sam didn’t feel like a stranger to her, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense since she had just met him.