Chapter 15

They began Sunday with a very pleasant brunch at their hotel. They had been quite late getting up, as neither of them had set an alarm, and the blackout drapes had kept the sunlight out of their room. It had allowed them to get up in the morning fully refreshed.

After they finished brunch Dawn made phone calls to her parents and her brother, for no better reason than that she could. As she explained to Matti, over the years that she had been apart from them, she had often been tempted to just pick up the phone and call them. She had always managed to find an excuse not to take up the opportunity. Now, she told him, she had every intention of making up for lost time.

There was time for a couple of hours of shopping along Yonge and Bloor streets before they drove back to the airport for their return flight to Thunder Bay. Matti guessed that it was the long walk they had taken while shopping, combined with leftover emotion from the previous day, that caused Dawn to sleep throughout most of their flight home. It didn’t bother Matti, as he had enough to keep him busy. His briefcase was on his knees, and he was spending a lot of productive time reviewing the information on his purchase, and making a list of priorities for the next day. It was one thing to procure the equipment; now he had to make good use of it.

Matti and Dawn spent Sunday night together in her apartment, but there was no sleeping in possible on Monday morning. Both of them had a busy week ahead, so, after having coffee together, they each went their separate way.

Matti’s first task was to call Ernie, to let him know about the new equipment that was on its way from the auction site. Once again he had to reassure his old friend that he wasn’t overextending the company’s resources.

“Seriously, Ernie, this isn’t a problem. I got a really good deal on them. Wait until you hear what is on its way. As far as I could see, they have had very little use, and there’s no sign of any breakage or excessive wear.”

Matti continued with the description of the equipment, referring to the notes he had made as he prepared the pallets for shipment. When he was finished, Ernie grudgingly agreed that it sounded as though he had made a very good purchase. After being updated on the status of the drilling job, Matti ended the call.

The next couple of days, while Matti waited for his equipment to arrive, were spent settling down his company’s finances. He spent a lot of time with his accountant, explaining that he had a silent partner, as well as fortunate winnings at the casino, that had helped turn his business around. With advice from his accountant, and the reorganization of his bank accounts, he soon had things under control. His accountant had taken him at face value when he introduced the fact that he had taken in a silent partner, and the bank seemed quite happy that he was making his loan payments on time. Overall, his finances were complicated, but it seemed that Matti had a handle on them that would be sufficient to explain where the money was coming from.

By the end of the week things were pretty much back in control for both Matti and Dawn. They were able to get back to their almost normal schedule of spending weekends at his camp. It was a schedule that they both enjoyed, and that they were able to keep up for the next several weeks. While they had never seriously discussed their relationship, each of them privately enjoyed the company of the other more and more with every day they spent together. The ultra-serious L word had not yet been spoken, but both of them had it enter their minds regularly. It was almost as though neither of them wanted to cross that bridge. Matti knew that in his own case, his failed relationship with his old girlfriend, Amber, probably had a lot to do with his hesitation to broach the subject with Dawn. He sometimes wondered why she didn’t bring up the subject on her own. He finally decided that she was waiting for him to break the ice.

It was almost the middle of September when Matti had to make a trip to the worksite to check on progress, and to meet with the on-site geologists and technicians who were overseeing the operation for the company that had hired McEwen Drilling. He had gone up on the Friday flight, and was coming back as he normally did on the Tuesday return flight. In this particular instance, the turnaround time was considerably less than usual, and Matti was back in Thunder Bay several hours before his normal arrival. He decided to surprise Dawn.

His decision to drive directly to her apartment from the airport would have major ramifications. As he came to a stop in the visitors’ parking area, he noticed a large, black, Ford Expedition pass him and pull up beside a group of people at the front entrance to the apartment block. He was about 40 feet away from them when he took a closer look at the group, and realized that there were two couples waiting to be picked up. What immediately caught his attention was that the two men looked to be considerably older than the two very young women with them. A closer look allowed him to identify the two men as probably being bikers, as both were wearing black leather vests so commonly associated with the clubs.