by Sasha Gold
“Right.” He peeled back the tab and pulled out the eight by ten of his six-month-old nephew, setting it aside. He next pulled out a picture frame and tried to hold the phone while he slid the back off.
“Looks good. The boy’s as cute as…” his words trailed off as he tried to describe his nephew adequately. Lauren was a bullshit bloodhound and if he laid it on too thick she’d give him hell, but if his praise wasn’t glowing enough, he’d catch it two-fold. Fortunately, she started with a description of the photo session, saving him the trouble of complementing Little Joe, who, if you asked him, still looked like the last picture she’d sent.
A baby was a baby.
He shoved the photo in the frame, but the back was on wrong, preventing him from standing it up. Instead, he leaned it against the wall, propping it up with a fishing magazine so it would stay upright.
A price tag stuck to the glass. The small square hid half of Joe’s face. Clay scratched the tag with his thumbnail, loosened it and peeled it off, leaving a sticky smear on the glass. He rubbed the glue and managed to smear it more.
“…so the photographer started getting huffy with me, because Joey kept drifting off to sleep…”
“Huh. That’s bad.”
“She sure changed her tune when I mentioned Yelp. She told me she’d be happy to reschedule and would waive the sitting fee.”
Clay eyed his breakfast. The eggs would be stone cold by the time he managed to get off the phone. He loved his two sisters, but when they started talking about their children, the conversations were completely one-sided. And endless.
The phone beeped with another call from his other sister.
“Vanessa’s calling. Can I talk to you later?”
“She’s probably calling about Dad. He woke up sick to his stomach and she took him to the doctor.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and rolled his head to ease the sudden twinge. “Why would I care about that?”
Lauren and Vanessa liked to act as if their father mattered to him. He didn’t care for his step-father and tried his best not to think about the man. Ever.
“He’s been asking about you lately.”
The phone beeped again.
“Let me get this. Call you later.”
He clicked over to the other line, hoping that Paul’s name wouldn’t come up in the conversation with Vanessa.
“Thank God you’re home,” Vanessa said.
Clay closed his eyes. Not the greeting he’d hoped for. “What’s up?”
“I’m at the emergency room with Dad.”
He straightened and gripped the phone. He could picture his sister, pale and shaking. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. It’s Dad. They think he’s… oh Clay.”
He gritted his teeth. While he didn’t care for Paul, he loved his two younger sisters. Vanessa was five years younger than him, Lauren six. He remembered the day each of them was born. The way they’d looked wrapped in their little pink blankets. The curious way their hair smelled when they rested in their cradle.
Both of them were so tiny. Now, years later, the tiny bundles had grown to be strong, confident women, both hell-on-wheels. If Vanessa was getting choked up, it had to be bad. He waited, listening as her breathing evened out.
“They say he might have a blockage. And that he might have had a heart attack.”
A heart attack. Surprising to think Paul even had a heart. Clay bit back the sharp words. It wasn’t too hard to imagine that Paul’s health had declined. He drank. Not just beer, but the hard stuff. Smoked. Sat in his chair, never opening his curtains, watching ESPN in the dark.
Good fucking riddance…
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“He’s asking for you.”
“Lauren mentioned that. I just got off the phone with her.”
“I need to call her, she doesn’t know any of this. I wanted to call you first.”
“Thanks. But you know I don’t care about him.”
“That’s some over-whelming fucking concern,” she hissed.
Vanessa could turn on the venom at the drop of a hat. Normally he tried to appease her and get along. The subject of Paul always sliced a wide valley between them.
His trouble with Paul started when his mother died. Clay was fourteen. Paul coped with his grief by taking it out on Clay. His mother was barely in the ground before Paul began to berate him. And more. Paul always managed to do his worst when Vanessa and Lauren were out of earshot.
“I’m sorry, Vanessa. I’m sure this is hard. Good thing he’s in the ER. They’ll take good care of him.”
She spoke to someone else, a low mumble. David, her husband, said something about a plane leaving in an hour.
“David got you flight, Clay.”
“The hell?” He curled his hand into a fist.
“You know me. I’m more of a forgiveness than permission kind of girl.”
“I’m not giving you either. I’m leaving for a vacation in three days.” He rubbed his thumb across the glossy brochure from the Wyndemere Bed and Breakfast in Napa. Leafing through the pages, he paused on the image of an elegant, older woman with a tiny dog on her lap.
Pets Welcome!
Behind him, Charlie crunched on his kibble and Clay wondered what he’d think of the rolling, manicured lawns. After all, the vacation was going to be for Charlie, too. The dog would be the perfect wingman.
“Oh, a vacation,” his sister drawled. ”Thank God you’re getting a break from all that fly-fishing.”
His sisters never failed to give him maximum shit about his work as a guide. Their husbands were chained to a desk for sixty hours a week, working for the pipelines, and it was as if they resented that he loved his job. Times like this he wanted to remind them of the ten years he spent in the Air Force as a Para-Rescue Jumper.
“Van, I’m not coming to Anchorage to hold Paul’s hand. Not now. I’m sure he’ll sail through whatever they’re going to do. A stent most likely. It’ll buy him ten more years so he can get right back to drinking and smoking.”
“Listen you little bastard,” she spat.
Little bastard. He smirked. He’d heard the term so many times from Paul that he wondered if his step-father even knew his name. Did Vanessa realize she was parroting the same words her own father branded him with every day for years?”
“I’m a big bastard now.”
“Listen, Clay. Dad might be dying. I’m willing to send you an effing ticket so you’ll come. He’s asking for you.”
Clay remembered the last time he’d seen his father a few years back. Maybe because it had been the anniversary of his mother’s death, but Paul seemed to be in rare form. Drunk at eleven in the morning.
Paul had always run the house like his own personal military base, but as he grew older, he stopped caring about everything. The house smelled like a garbage dump. It didn’t look much better. Paul had told him to go to hell and Clay walked out without a word of argument.
“Clay,” Vanessa whispered. “There’s a ticket waiting for you at Sitka Airport. If you don’t come, even just for a day, I’ll never, ever forgive you.”
A day… He groaned. He could probably swing that if for no other reason than to support his sisters. He was off for two weeks, starting that morning. He’d arranged his plans around pursuing Victoria, but if he went to Anchorage, he could offer some support to his sisters. He’d get big brother points. Family points or whatever.
“Please, Clay. I need you. We need you. We’re still a family…”
Her voice had lost its sting. Instead she sounded forlorn. While Lauren was the master of the guilt-trip, Vanessa lacked her finesse. She had no poker face. When she sounded desolate, she truly was at the end of her rope. He shook his head, waiting for her to finish him with her sobbing, or begging, but she said nothing. There was a click and the line went dead.
Chapter Three
Victoria
The tiny Sitka Lake airport could only support small aircraft
, puddle jumpers they called them. When she’d flown in a few weeks prior, the Sitka Air Taxi had bounced so violently that Victoria nearly got sick. It worried her to back on the same type of plane. She grimaced as she crossed the tarmac.
The pilot was also the luggage handler and he gave her an irritated look as she neared the plane.
“You’ve got a lot of baggage.” He tilted his head the direction of the cart with her bags piled high. His voice sounded like a rough, gravelly scrape. He tossed her smallest suitcase atop the rest of her bags and took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.
Flicking his lighter, he shielded the small flame with a meaty hand.
Victoria waited, her ticket in hand. “You’re not going to smoke that on the plane, are you?”
“No.” He snatched her ticket, glanced at it and gave it back.
“It’s a lovely, calm morning,” she said. “Do you suppose that will help with turbulence?”
“No.”
“There’s no wind.”
“The turbulence comes from air temperature changes. Sitka Lake is in between mountain ranges.” He frowned, drawing his bushy brows together. “You’re not a puker are you?”
Victoria smiled. “I’m on a plane several times a month. Haven’t puked yet.”
“Good. I keep forgetting to get them little bags for folks who get motion sickness.” He punctuated his words with air quotes.
“I promise I won’t need one. I didn’t eat breakfast.”
He shook his head and let his gaze drop down the length of her body and right back up. “You look like you stayed at the Lodge. That fancy place by the lake.”
“I did.” She eyed the cigarette. “Are we going to leave when you’re done with your smoke?”
“Probably. I’m waiting on my last passenger. Got two kids inside already.”
Victoria stepped to the door of the plane. A pre-teen boy listened to music, and a teenaged girl sat beside him. The girl regarded her with large blue eyes, solemn and humorless. She and the boy took up the two front seats, which meant Victoria and the other passenger would have to sit in the back seats.
The open seats looked small and cramped, far more restricted than the front row. The girl’s indifferent expression told Victoria she wouldn’t be persuaded to trade. She sighed and watched the pilot finish his smoke and use it to light another cigarette.
A small airplane taxied past, turned to the runway and a moment later it was in the air, wings tipping and catching the morning sun. The plane turned and finally disappeared behind soft wispy clouds. Her easily-triggered anxiety didn’t extend to air travel, thank goodness. She’d always wanted to learn to fly and eyeing the pilot wondered how hard it could be.
“Any minute now, right?” she asked, trying to sound good-natured.
He crushed the second cigarette under the toe of his scuffed boot and shrugged. “Can’t leave till my last client gets here, or until we get word he’s not coming.”
She tilted her head towards the cabin of the plane. “Tell me the last passenger is a petite woman. Or another child, maybe?”
The pilot snickered, setting his hand on his belly as it shook. “Let’s just say this person is pretty much the opposite. Plus, he’s probably traveling with his dog.”
She wondered if she’d heard him correctly. “His dog?”
A bark drew her attention back the direction of the airport and Victoria drew a sharp breath. Clay Bergstrom strode across the tarmac, with Charlie bounding ahead of him. Clay’s mouth curved with a look of bemusement and Charlie’s smile was even wider. The dog dashed past her and leapt inside the plane.
Clay looked clean-shaven and utterly amazing in a pair of pressed khakis and a button-down shirt. His aviator sunglasses added a degree of GQ.
Every time she’d seen him, he’d looked like some sort of rough and sexy Alaska mountain man. Now he looked like a midpoint between a Milan catwalk and an MMC octagon. Big. Masculine. And with that sexy smirk, almost irresistible.
Almost.
She set her hand on her hip. “I think you’re following me.”
It wasn’t like her to flirt, but it was only a two-hour flight to Anchorage. She might as well have a little fun since they would be stuck with each other for a short while.
“I am, in fact, following you. I’m sort of a stalker. The mostly harmless type.”
She laughed and felt a pang of remorse for having avoided him the night before. Why couldn’t she be calm, cool and collected around men like every other woman she knew?
The girl emerged from the plane, her lips pressed to a thin line. “Sir,” she called to the pilot.
The man was studying the plane’s tail and either hadn’t heard her or ignored her.
Her scowl deepened. “Sir!”
He turned. “Huh?”
“There’s a dog on the plane.”
Blinking, he rubbed the scruff of his jaw. “Yeah?”
She let out a small huff of outrage. “I’m sure that’s against FAA regulation.”
The pilot grinned. “Well, sweetie. I ain’t going to let him fly it.”
Clay scoffed at the pilot’s teasing and tossed his duffle bag in the luggage compartment. “Charlie won’t bother you,” he told the girl. “He’ll sleep the whole way, right by my feet.”
The girl rolled her eyes and ducked back inside.
Clay turned his attention to Victoria. “You have any complaints about Charlie?”
Victoria looked up at him, a shiver of raw awareness rolling across her skin. He took off his sunglasses and smiled. God, he was gorgeous. Not in the perfect way some men were, but in a rugged, rough-and-tumble way. A small scar ran along his jaw. His nose was a little crooked, and another scar ran along his eyebrow.
If his square jaw didn’t make him handsome enough, his eyes took her breath. Blue with flecks of gold, they held her in a warm gaze that felt like a caress. Those bedroom eyes had women falling at his feet, she was sure. If he’d wanted them, that is. When she’d seen him at the lodge she’d never seen him with a woman.
“Well?” he asked. “Are you going to give me grief about my dog?”
“No complaints. I like your dog.”
“And he likes you.”
The soft, sensuous tone of his voice spiked a wave of worry through her thoughts. Like always, the fretfulness rushed in and swirled. She replayed her therapist’s words.
Breathe in, two, three, four and out two, three, four.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yeah, just some jitters.”
He glanced inside the plane. “You, me and Charlie are going to be squished together. You’re not going to have room to jitter.”
Without waiting for a response, he gestured to the door. “Ladies first.”
She climbed up the three steps and ducked into the cabin. Passing the children, she glanced at the girl and then the boy. The boy looked to be about ten and stared out the window with a rapt expression.
She edged past Charlie and sat down, tucking her purse beside her. Clay waited till she’d fastened her seatbelt and then took the seat beside her. The cabin was cold and she wished she’d gotten her jacket from her suitcase. Clay’s arm brushed against hers. The sensation wasn’t unpleasant. At all.
Jerking her head around to face him, she marveled that sitting beside him felt quite nice. His shoulder was directly in her line of sight and for a brief, ridiculous moment, she imagined reaching over and squeezing the massive bulge.
He turned and arched his brow. “You scared of flying?”
“I love flying.”
The pilot hauled himself into the plane. “We’ll be in Anchorage in two hours. Hope no one needs to use the crapper.”
Clay nodded at the pilot and turned back to Victoria. “You love flying especially when it’s first class, am I right?”
She laughed softly. “I love first class. How did you know?”
He shook his head as if the answer was obvious. “You have that first-c
lass, fancy sort of look, Victoria.”
The pilot moved to the cockpit and started the plane. The drone of the engine forced her to raise her voice to be heard.
“I’m flying first class from Anchorage to SFO.”
“I bet the champagne is a little better than what Henry serves.”
She nodded. “And we have a crapper.”
His laughter was a warm rumble that made Charlie lift his head and thump his tail. As the plane taxied to the runway, the girl turned in her seat.
“Do you two know each other?”
“Not really,” Victoria said.
“I tried,” Clay said, pointing his thumb at Victoria. “I offered to cook her dinner and she said yes.”
A slow burn of mortification crawled across Victoria’s skin.
The girl’s lips twitched with the hint of a smile. “Dinner? That’s nice. Sort of romantic.”
“I thought so too.” Clay’s voice edged with humor while Victoria waited for him to embarrass her with the rest of the story.
“Why are you going to Anchorage together?”
“We’re not,” Clay said. “I’m going to visit family for a few days and she’s going to Napa.”
The girl’s gaze moved between the two of them. She frowned. “Huh.”
“What about you?” Clay asked.
She shrugged a shoulder. “Going to visit my dad for a three-day weekend.”
Clay nodded. “Mom lives in Sitka Lake?”
“Yup. We just moved there. I hate it.”
He smiled at the disdain in her voice. Sitka Lake was tiny, probably not much fun for a barely-teenaged girl.”
“You look familiar,” she said. “You were on that Alaskan wilderness show, weren’t you?”
Clay nodded. “Yeah, they came and filmed a couple of fishing shows in Sitka.”
At this the boy turned around and raised up on a knee. “Wow. That’s cool.”
“That’s Ross. My brother. I’m Sydney.”
Clay nodded. “My name’s Clay. Her name’s Victoria.”
“And our four-legged passenger is Charlie,” Victoria added.
Sydney grimaced and pinched her nose. “I think Charlie just, you know, passed gas.”
“He does that on take-off.”
