Things drifted back toward normal over the next few weeks.

By now it was the height of the construction season. As always, Randy had several jobs going. He didn’t like to say that any one of them was more important than any one of the others, but some drew more of his attention.

The lodge extension at Three Pines was important, but almost routine; once the excavating work was done and the concrete was in, the job became about like the rest of the Three Pines jobs that Clark Construction had done over the last few years. Randy had put together a crew that did Three Pines work almost exclusively, and several men on the crew were from the reservation. It was still necessary for Randy or Carlos to run over there for various reasons two or three times a week, but that was less than it had been in the past. There was another new lodge building potentially in the cards for another year, and finalizing that took some time, too; at least there would be work on the books for the next year.

The pellet plant at Clark Plywood was only a few blocks away, so running over there to check it out was much easier. A fairly simple steel building, it went up quickly and was closed in before the end of June. However, there were a number of internal details that needed to be done and some secondary construction. Machinery for the plant was soon arriving a piece or two at a time, and the Clark Construction crew was pressed into service, along with some heavy equipment, to put it into place. Arrival and placement of equipment was now the pacing item on getting the plant done. It was something Randy had no control over, and from a Clark Construction viewpoint had no real interest in, but from a Clark Plywood viewpoint he had to be concerned about it. Fortunately, his father did most of the bugging of the fabricating company downstate that was building the equipment.

The job that drew most of Randy’s attention, not surprisingly since it was so unusual, was the Newton house on Windmill Island. A week after Rachel and Jared arrived in Spearfish Lake, Don was ready to set up the stringers for the tower – they were made of laminated wood and were long and heavy. In spite of his determination to not bother the very senior construction superintendent, Randy decided that he really wanted to be there for that. One morning he paddled his kayak out to the island, and with the Newtons sat back and tried to stay out of the way.

The toughest part of the job was getting the first two stringers up, one of which had the ring already attached at the top that the rest of the stringers would fit into. It turned out to be anticlimactic; Jim Wooten had worked up a gin pole arrangement to make the first stringer and the ring easier to lift. It only took him a couple of minutes with the backhoe to get the pieces up and hanging with the stringer more or less in position and held with cable stays. It took a while to reset equipment to the opposite side and lift the second one, and then quite a bit of subsequent jiggling around to tie it into the ring and get it bolted into place, but once there it wasn’t likely to go anywhere. The third and fourth stringers went up that afternoon, too, much the same way, and that stabilized the structure to the point where, the next day, pulleys and a direct lift could be used for the rest of the stringers, rather than having to fiddle with the the gin pole.

Randy wasn’t there the next day for all of that, but paddled his kayak out late in the afternoon just to see how they were coming. By then the last stringer was going into place, and with the tower support in place Randy could see that it was going to be an impressive building indeed when it was finished. He tried to imagine how it would look with the building complete and the windmill blades attached, but the reality of the tower in front of him as he sat offshore in his sea kayak didn’t quite match up to the appearance of the renderings. It was going to be so much more impressive!

With the tower up, the Newtons got into their Lake Amphibian and took off for home, promising to drop back by in a couple weeks to see how things were going. After they left, Randy pretty well made up his mind that he’d leave Don alone for a while; erecting the actual building was not only something Don knew how to do, but he could do it much better than Randy.

He got back to the office just as Rachel and Regina were picking up for the day. Rachel hadn’t wanted to put off getting to work; it just put her old life that much further behind her, just as Randy had hoped. It turned out to be good timing; the summer intern they had hired hadn’t worked out at all well, and on the Friday of the week Rachel and Jared had come to town, Randy and Carlos agreed that there was no point in putting up with him any longer. Although she knew almost nothing about construction, Rachel moved into the intern’s office and took over at least some of his duties; Randy and Carlos had to take over the rest of them. Regina started Rachel out on keeping time sheets and reports, which could get a little confusing with people moving between jobs, but she soon got the hang of it.

One problem arose in the first few days. Randy had been out at the 484 job, and a couple things weren’t going well, so a conference with Mike was needed, and that went past quitting time. He got back to the office to discover that Rachel wasn’t there; she’d called Nicole to come pick her up from work.

"This is going to happen again," Randy said over dinner. "Rachel, I think we need to get you some wheels."

"But Randy!" she protested, "I haven’t had a driver’s license in years. Joel would never let me drive."

"So?" Randy said. "Do I have to give you the lecture again? I know you know how to drive. Tomorrow, I’ll find the time to run you over to the Secretary of State’s office, and we’ll get you a new Michigan license."

"You’re right, of course," she sighed. "But how am I going to pay for a car?"

"That’s part of what you have a job for," Randy grinned. "Don’t worry, Dad and I will help you out."

Under the circumstances Rachel didn’t feel like she needed a really snazzy car, so the next evening there was a five-year-old Chevy Cavalier parked in the driveway. "It’ll do for now," she said. "But Randy, you don’t know how good it is to have my own car and be able to drive where I need to, when I want to."

"I went through something like that when I turned sixteen," Randy said. "I remember it, and you ought to, too."

After that they left for work about the same time unless Randy had to go in early for some reason or another, but Randy soon noticed that it always took Rachel longer to get to work than it did him. It was some time before he discovered that Rachel was taking the time to drive by the jail, park her car on the street, get out before flipping a middle finger at the building, getting back in and heading off to work. He said nothing about it, but couldn’t help but wonder if Joel was seeing it, or what he might think.

If having Rachel and Carlos helped Randy out during the day to make his work schedule a little more slack than he’d been accustomed to in years past, the evenings made up for it. Randy made a point of trying to make it to at least a part of all of Jared’s Little League games, and as it turned out he only missed a few innings. On the evenings that he didn’t have practice or a game, if there was a nice breeze Randy and some of the others were out in the sailboat with Nellie, learning how to sail. It wasn’t as complicated as Randy had feared, and it turned out that his experience with Scooter on the Felicity Ann a few years before gave him a running start. By the middle of June, Nellie told him that there was no reason that he couldn’t take it out by himself so long as a hard blow wasn’t in the forecast, but that she’d love to come along for the ride when there was room.

Randy found the evening sailing in the light breezes to be relaxing, and also gave him time to think. On occasion his mother came over to watch the kids, leaving the boat to Randy, Nicole, and Rachel. Those were almost always interesting evenings, and occasionally Rachel would talk about the hell she’d been through with Joel, just getting it out of her system. It was obviously going to be a while before she managed it totally, but she seemed continually happier as time went on. On occasion they’d drop anchor in some isolated spot at the far end of the lake and take the opportunity to go swimming – often in the nude if no one else was around, but wearing swimsuits if there were. Rachel was loosening up a lot, and getting to be more and more like the big sister Randy remembered.

A couple of different times during that period Dave and Ruth came up for the weekend, at least to be supportive and see how Rachel was coming along. However, they hadn’t yet made it out to Grandfather Brent’s hunting cabin, until one Saturday Randy took them out there in the pickup.

Ryan had been right – the place was sound, but needed work. Not so much repairs, but it looked like Brent hadn’t cleaned it for years, and as far as he knew Brent hadn’t been out there at all in the five years or so before his death. "Well," Dave sighed, "It looks like we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us if I’m coming up here for hunting season."

"Yeah, it looks like it," Ruth agreed. "I still like the idea of coming out here in the winter sometime. Randy, do those friends of yours still have their dog teams?"

"More of them than you can shake a stick at," he told them. "Frankly, a winter weekend out here with you guys sounds like a lot of fun to me. But rather than you guys going to a lot of trouble, why don’t we just get the whole gang out here for a workbee weekend sometime? I mean, Dad, Mom, Nicole, and Rachel along with the four of us. That might make things go a little more quickly, and I’ll bet Jared could be a big help."

It wound up taking a couple weekends, but the place was cleaned up adequately; Randy had a couple of his carpenters take on a little on-the-side extra work on the place, just to make sure everything was right.

Early in July Joel’s trial date rolled around. Randy, Nicole, Rachel, and several of the others who had been in Randy’s living room that day all had to go to the trial since they expected to be called as witnesses, but as it turned out it was a waste of time. Somewhere in the nearly two months that had passed, Pat Roberts had apparently made it pretty clear to Joel just exactly where his bread was buttered in Spearfish Lake. It would be best for him to agree to plead guilty and work a deal with the prosecutor to ask the judge for some degree of clemency. So they only saw Joel in the courtroom for about five minutes, and then only the back of his head as he made the plea.

"It could be worse," Randy said once they were outside the courtroom. "He still has that two-year sentence for packing heat, there’s no way he can get out of that since that was one of the charges he pled guilty to. No telling what the judge will stack on top of that, but Rachel, you can have your divorce final in less than half that time. After that he’ll have less hold on you since that takes the money issue out of the equation. Besides, you should be more ready to deal with him if he comes after you again."

"You’re probably right," she sighed. "But I still think I’m going to take those martial arts classes this winter, and it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to learn to use a handgun, too."

Needless to say, they showed up for the sentencing hearing a few days later. The judge did show some clemency; he gave Joel five to seven, rather than the seven to ten he could have gotten. That meant he’d be the guest of the state prison system for a while. Harry Novato explained later that Joel could conceivably be out in four years, given good behavior, but that would be up to a parole board. Harry also explained that the bus from the state prison system would be through the next day to haul Joel downstate for processing, and that would be the end of that.

Waiting around on the sentencing hearing had wasted most of the morning, so Rachel, Randy, and Nicole headed home for lunch. Rachel was in a much better mood now that she knew Joel wasn’t going to be a problem for a while.

Over lunch, Nicole announced, "Randy, do you know what we were doing a year ago today?"

"Jeez, is it here that soon?" he said – it was the anniversary of their taking off for a couple days to make Brent. "We sure had ourselves a couple good days out on Little Woodlark, didn’t we?"

"The best," Nicole grinned. "And it worked out pretty well, too. We had quite a year, didn’t we?"

"Yeah, especially the last six months," Randy shook his head. "I have to say that I’m glad to have it over with. There were some bad things that happened, but there were some good things, too."

"We ought to celebrate," Nicole said. "You know, ever since we started talking about getting the boat we’ve talked about sailing out there and spending the night, but we’ve never done it. You cleared your workload to get away all day. Why don’t you and I take advantage of it?" She gave a broad wink at Rachel as if to signify that this was something just between the two of them.

Rachel got the message – Randy figured that she and Nicole had probably already talked about what Nicole had in mind. "Fine with me," she said. "I’ll watch the kids. It’s celebration enough for me to know that I’ve got at least four years free of Joel."

"All we really need to do is change our clothes, grab a few cans of food, and throw the sleeping bags on board," Nicole said. "We could be out of here in ten minutes."

"I really need to be at work tomorrow," Randy said. "And you do too, Rachel. But Nicole and I can come back on the outboard if there’s no wind first thing in the morning. It won’t be any problem if we get in a little late."

It took a little longer than ten minutes, but not much. There was a nice west wind blowing, just a summer breeze, so they didn’t need much more than shoving the boat away from the dock and raising the sails to get under way. In the few minutes they’d spent getting organized Nicole had gotten out of her court clothes and pulled on a string bikini, and Randy spent no little time contemplating her wearing it. Really, it was nothing new; he’d watched Nicole wearing tiny bikinis since they’d both been kids, but somehow this was different – like when they paddled the sea kayaks out to Little Woodlark the previous summer, Randy knew she had business on her mind.

Even at the height of summer there’s often little traffic on the lake, at least when away from the town and the cottage country at the west end of the lake. That was the case today; the nice breeze was only being enjoyed by themselves. Before they were very far from shore, Nicole had the top of her bikini off, and Randy was looking forward to what was to come.

Just to tease her, Randy sailed the boat fairly close to the point and her parents’ house, but not too close. It was a fine day for a sail, and with the wind behind them it still took a couple hours to get out to the vicinity of Little Woodlark Island. Since the day was yet young, they sailed around in the mouth of the Albany River and its associated bay before Randy turned the boat into the wind and headed for their destination.

The breeze died out when they got into the wind shadow of the island. In the dying breeze Randy worked the boat up into the leeward side of the island and the relatively shallow water, while Nicole stood ready, topless on the front deck, to throw the anchor overboard. "It doesn’t look like there’s anyone here," she called to him from the bow.

"Wouldn’t expect there to be, not today," he said. "Go ahead and lower the anchor, then let’s get the sails down."

Getting the sails down was easy; the boat had a roller furling system that made taking them in a matter of a couple minutes at most. By then it was clear that the anchor was holding. "Well," Randy said, "We’re here."

"I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a swim," she replied. With that, she peeled out of her bikini bottom and tossed it in the cockpit. Randy figured what she was up to, and his shorts were there at almost the same time. They jumped overboard – it was too shallow to dive – and swam and walked until they were on shore. In a couple minutes they were up on a grassy spot in the edge of the trees, doing what they’d had so much fun doing the year before. It was one of the wilder sessions of love making that they’d had in a while.

Afterward, they just cuddled up on the shore, kissing a little and talking. "I think we got a good deal out of the last time we did this out here," she smirked.

"Are you sorry we’re not out here with exactly the same goal?" he teased.

"Well, a little," she said. "I want to keep our kids close in ages, but this is just a little too soon, so I guess I’m just as glad we’re not trying to do it again this time. Timing the kids to be born in the late winter or the early spring works too well. But I’ll tell you what, we can come out here about this time next year and you can put another baby into me."

"I’m looking forward to it," he grinned. "Like they always say, practice makes perfect. I’m not quite ready for some more practice but I should be in a few minutes."

"I’ll be ready when you are," she said.

"You know, that’s the one downside of having Rachel and Jared around all the time. We can’t be quite as free and easy as we used to be."

"Well, that’s not going to last forever," she replied. "Now that Joel is as good as gone and staying away for a few years, I think she’ll get the itch to be a little more independent of us."

"Yeah, I’m starting to get that feeling. And really, that’s good. Joel kept her under his thumb for so long she’s having some trouble digging out from it, but I think she’s doing pretty well so far. Maybe having him out of town will speed the process up."

"I think so," she agreed. "I mean, in one sense, I don’t mind having her with us. She’s been a big help with Brent, and you’re going a long way toward being a replacement father for Jared. He needs someone who can show him what a father is supposed to be, not the one he had. I think you’re doing well at it."

"Practice makes perfect," he grinned. "I mean, it’s less than nine years till we have a nine year old."

"It’s a tough age. At nine they’re still children, but starting to look past that. Can you imagine what an asshole Jared would have been as a father if he only had his father’s example to work with?"

"It’s not very pretty," he conceded. "But maybe we got to both Rachel and Jared just in time."

"I think we did. At least I hope so. I don’t want to push Rachel out the door, but it’s time for her to start thinking about taking the next step. I just hope that before Joel gets out of prison that she’ll have found another man, a decent man who will respect her. That’ll be more protection from him than anything we could provide, at least in the long run."

"I’ve thought about that, too," Randy agreed. "But that’s something I don’t want to push her on, either. One step at a time, and it may take her a while to get ready to take that step. In spite of everything, I don’t think she’s anywhere near ready for it yet. But, she’s got three or four years, and that ought to be enough time."

"I think you’re right on that, too. I guess about all we can do is wait for it to happen without looking like we’re pushing it, while you continue to be a substitute father for Joel. It’ll happen in time. But I’ll tell you what, Randy. While I don’t want to push her out of the house, we’ve still got a few years where we can have our old free and easy sex around the house before Brent starts getting old enough to notice and we’ll have to tone it down."

"Yeah, I miss that," he said. "But maybe now that we have the boat we can come out here once in a while."

"I’d like that," she grinned. "In fact, I’d like it a lot. Are you ready to get in some more practice?"

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