Thorne Bay

by Jeanine Croft

  “Do you guys see a lot of him?” I tried to inject as much nonchalance into the question as possible, but I was afraid I was being as subtle as Owen.

  “No, not really,” she answered. “They’re pretty private. Like to keep to themselves mostly. Rumor has it their family was here long before this place was a logging town.”

  “Oh?” I said, hoping she’d elaborate. There was so much about Tristan that intrigued me and no amount of gossip would satiate my growing fascination.

  “The town was named after old Manley Thorn. Think they were originally Thorstensens during the gold rush, but somewhere along the line the name got changed.”

  “Scandinavian?”

  “Maybe.”

  “His brother’s real antisocial,” said Owen, changing the subject.

  “Until recently,” his wife added.

  “Hmm, yeah. Dean’s been trying to get me to sell him some land—ten acres adjacent to his own property. The cabin’s a little rundown though.”

  “Yeah, we really ought to just get rid of the place.” Owen stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Too many damn wolves up there anyway, scaring off all the game. No point in keeping it.”

  “True, but with us gone Sarah will be their closest neighbor. Poor Dean.”

  “Poor Dean?” I asked.

  Ali and Owen glanced meaningfully at each other, but it was Alison that answered. “Sarah Dinwiddie’s…a bit nosy.”

  “Woman’s a damn gossip,” Owen grouched. “Face like a squeezed teabag, if you ask me.”

  Ali gave a long-suffering sigh before she addressed me again. “Anyway, there’s no love lost between her and the Thorn brothers. Folks around here tend to be wary of that family.”

  “It’s like cancer, these rumors.” Owen gave a belch of disgust. “And that damn Dinwiddie woman’s the worst of the shit-talkers.”

  “She’s not that bad,” Alison argued. “Even if we sell the place at least there’ll be a few hundred acres between her property and theirs.”

  “What kind of rumors?” I was very intrigued now. Thorne Bay was proving to be a lot more interesting than I had anticipated.

  She gave a noncommittal wave. “Just nonsense really. People will always distrust what’s different. And since Dean’s family don’t exactly…” She was clearly searching for a diplomatic way to finish her thought.

  “Since they don’t exactly act normal?” her husband interposed unhelpfully.

  “No, that’s not what I was gonna say.” Ali swatted his arm playfully before continuing. “They just don’t try to fit in. They’re pretty isolated up there except for Sarah and her husband living nearby. I hear they’ve been trying to buy her land up too.”

  “Ha! She’ll stay there forever just to spite them.”

  “Since when is being reclusive grounds for suspicion?” I asked, baffled.

  “You gotta admit, it’s all very mysterious—a bunch of young folk living isolated in the woods, keeping mostly to themselves.”

  “Dinwiddie’s convinced they’re a bunch of Branch Davidians,” Owen said, chuckling, “running around buck naked and getting up to all sorts of hoodoo mischief. I’m telling you, the woman’s a damn nuisance.”

  “Huh.” On the whole, Tristan had seemed pretty normal to me. Abnormally handsome, sure, but that was no crime (my odd hallucinations about lupine teeth and freaky eyes were long since dismissed as jet lag).

  Owen chuckled, wriggling his brows comically at me. “As for you, you’re fresh meat, so you’ll quickly get the tongues wagging too!”

  I gave a solemn nod of my head, oblivious to his teasing. People will always distrust what’s different. Ali’s words hit very close to home. Yeah, I knew all about being different.

  But just how different were they exactly?

  5

  The Wildlife

  The furious peal of my alarm jolted me awake, and my head jerked up instantly from the unfamiliar pillow. This rude awakening was punctuated by a disgusted moan as I realized that I was still fully clothed, having literally collapsed on top of my bedding the minute I’d locked my door last night!

  I dragged myself bleary-eyed out of bed and shed my clothing, tripping over my jeans and shoes as I made my way to the bathroom. It was under the feeble spray of the shower head that I began thinking about Tristan. Again. My inconstant heart had already abandoned Andy, and the featured hero in this morning’s fantasy far exceeded the previous one in both height and beauty. I traced Tristan’s chiseled features in my mind’s eye, his face as vivid there as if he was standing in the shower next to me.

  His eyebrows were inhumanly straight and sat low over thick black lashes and smoldering cyan eyes. It was such a piercing male stare even in the privacy of my thoughts that my anxious hands came up swiftly to cover myself as the sudden, disquieting sense of being watched came over me.

  Get a grip, Ev! Ignoring the odd sensation, I put my hands to better work, lathering my hair with shampoo as my mind resumed the pleasurable pastime of dwelling over Tristan’s face.

  After I’d rinsed my hair, and squeezed the water from my eyes, a slight movement in my peripheral drew my gaze to the floor beside the toilet. I froze.

  My palsy, though, was short-lived. I began shrieking wildly, like Janet Leigh in Psycho. Ripping the shower curtain from its rail, I flew from the bathroom still soaking wet, nearly slipping and cracking my skull open on the tub. Once in the safety of my room, I spun back around to see that the object of my horror had turned to watch me—a monstrous wolf spider. It leered openly.

  The little pervert soon followed my wet trail, scuttling eagerly from the bathroom to perch itself in the doorway, the better to fix me with those eight hairy eyeballs. Whatever wildlife lurked nearby, I was pretty sure there was not even a damn cockroach in the acreage when I was done screaming. No woman had ever scrambled into her underwear faster than I did at that moment.

  Spiders I preferred out of sight and out of mind. Preferably out of my bedroom too. Thankfully, the little peeping Tom turned out to be quite a cooperative prowler because, after I’d opened my door for him, and with a little leery guidance on my part, he vacated the premises like a considerate evictee.

  With the spider crisis now sorted, I could concentrate on the day ahead. I was supposed to be acclimatizing myself today, and weathering the jet lag, but I’d come here with a purpose, so I decided to pay Alison a visit in her office and beg for a mission. My orientation would only be starting tomorrow, but I wanted something to do today.

  I expounded this all to Alison thirty minutes later and she suggested I take her SUV into town for a drive. If I was feeling energetic, she said, I could go run some errands for her too. That way I could also visit Thorne Bay Market and stock the little pantry and mini fridge in my room with essentials. If I happened to see any spider deterrents whilst shopping, I’d be purchasing those in bulk.

  “I’d also get some bear spray if I was you,” Alison suggested, tapping her bottom lip with her pen.

  “You do realize we have bears in Florida?” Not to mention gators and snakes and spiders. Hell, there were even panthers down there. I didn’t want her to think I was some clueless urbanite. “I don’t plan on getting close enough to the wildlife to use pepper spray.”

  “Trust me”—her brow curved a smidgen higher as she placed the GMC keys in my hand—“the wildlife’s a lot bigger in Thorne Bay, and nine times out of ten you won’t see each other till its too late.”

  * * *

  For a one-horse town, the store on Shoreline Drive was rather impressive from the outside, only insomuch as there were no tumbleweeds drifting past the glass doors. Not exactly a ramshackle building selling bait, snacks, and sundries, but commonplace all the same. My attention, though, was very quickly diverted from the red corrugated facade towards the black truck in the parking lot with a Thorn Aviation decal on the back window.

  I maneuvered the white Yukon carefully into the parking space beside it. Earlier, when I’d passed the port, I
’d seen One Tango Alpha docked beside the post office. The sunlight blinking off the windscreen had seemed to wink suggestively at me. It knew exactly who I was looking for.

  And now that I’d killed the ignition, the silence only tautened my nerves with expectation. Was he inside?

  I had no idea what sort of car he drove, so I had no way of knowing if the truck was… Jeez! Stop being such a stalker, Ev. I shook my head, irritably. Who cares if he’s here or not? You do, a voice within taunted knowingly. “Shut up,” I growled at myself, hopping down from the running board and slamming the door for good measure. That's what I got for spending too much time in my own head—annoying inner monologues.

  With one last look at the F-250 over my shoulder, I reached a hand out for the door. But it unexpectedly swung open even as my fingers touched the handle and I jumped back with a squeak of surprise as a tall woman emerged briskly from the store.

  “Damn cheechakos,” she barked.

  I stammered a small apology and sidestepped to let her stalk past me, which she did, glaring as though I was the bug guts bespattered across her newly cleaned windscreen. Blocking the doorway was hardly cause for rudeness, but I let it go. Despite her terse manner, I couldn’t help admiring her physicality. She was stunning. The sunlight gilded her hair lovingly like a halo. Her manner, though, was anything but angelic. And here I was in ridiculous thermal leggings and a mundane blue hoodie.

  Right on her heels came two other women, both of whom—except for brief and perfunctory nods—were watchful as they passed me by. Neither rude nor friendly, yet absurdly curious, twisting their necks around to look back at me.

  Was there something on my face? The thought precipitated my hand self-consciously to my chilblained cheeks. Or did I smell funny? I backed up towards the entrance, my gazed trailing them as they approached a black Escalade where they promptly began unloading their brown paper shopping bags into the back. Each one of them had a very commanding presence. Especially the scary blonde who fired off another sharp scowl at me.

  “You coming in?” came a familiar voice from the doorway that I was blocking yet again.

  I’d completely failed to notice the three people waiting at the open door, the blonde had so starstruck me. Tristan, of all the men to catch me acting like a gaping twit, stood propping the door open with a boot. A lazy smile was lifting one corner of his mouth.

  His hair was gorgeously unkempt today, as per usual, dark walnut waves of it had settled at his temples. His impressive flannel-clad torso was hardly obscured by the two cases of Alaskan Spruce IPA he was holding.

  Tristan opened the door a little wider, no doubt wondering why I was still standing there dumb-struck.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, slipping past the intimidating trio. It was clear that they, the women included, were all leaving together. Was Blondie his girlfriend? Ugh! Please, God, no!

  The striking couple standing just behind Tristan had been observing us curiously, almost knowingly, as I’d slunk away. They’d probably already determined that I was the village idiot. Worse still, I’d been on the verge of blurting out a “toodle-oo”, I was that maniacal. And that would have been catastrophic! No one ever said toodle-oo anymore except maybe my grandmother, a woman who still sent faxes, for God’s sake, and still referred to her couch as a Davenport!

  Managing a wan smile, I gave a diffident wave goodbye as I hurried into the first aisle. Once safely out of sight, I dropped my face instantly into my hands. The heat from my cheeks was like a furnace against my cold palms. I could have cried, I was that frustrated with myself. Why was I such a fidiot?!

  “Evan?” Tristan’s woodsy scent enveloped me like smoke and earth as he unexpectedly drew up beside me.

  Crap! I began blinking furiously as though there was an irritant in my eye, and then, pretending I’d loosed it from my cornea, I forced my gaze up and plastered a pseudo smile of surprise on my face. “Tristan! Hey!” God, he looked so good in green! I added a few more watts to my creepy smile, just in case he wasn’t already convinced I belonged in an asylum.

  At some point, while I’d been wallowing in my discomposure, Tristan had relinquished the cases of beer and now stood before me with his hands casually shoved in his pockets. “You ran off so quickly, I didn’t get to introduce you to my friends.”

  “Oh, I…just…” Need a checkup from the neck up? “I assumed you were in a hurry, so…” Blondie, at least, had definitely seemed as though she was. That or she’d just taken an instant disliking to me for whatever reason.

  “You know what they say about assumptions?” He waited for half a beat before saying, “Don’t make them.”

  “True,” I sighed. It just hadn’t occurred to me that he’d want to pause for a chitchat, never mind introduce me to his friends. Sadly, whatever magic had come over me when we’d first met, when I’d actually made him smile with my rare wit, had long since evaporated. Might as well be my boring self now because he was both unavailable and tragically out of my league. Something told me that the pissy blonde she-devil was the same girlfriend that Alison had speculated about last night. Nicole, was it? “I’ve made a few too many assumptions today already.”

  “Uh-oh.” He folded his arms, amused.

  “Yup. This morning’s assumption cost me a shower curtain.”

  He cocked his head like a shepherd. “Oh?”

  “But I reckon most people assume they’re alone when they take a shower.”

  His brow at first creased and then instantly relaxed as I expounded my hideous wolf spider encounter and once again lamented my ruined shower curtain.

  He chuckled. “That isn’t the type of wolf you should worry about.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Lest I stumble into any more hairy situations, what other Alaskan wildlife should I be worried about?”

  “In the shower?” His left eyebrow crept a little higher.

  “Especially in the shower,” I replied, trying to keep a stern face.

  “Thankfully, the ‘wildlife’ you really want to worry about is gonna be out of doors.” That had sounded entirely too ominous, more so because his grin had disappeared suddenly. “Trust me,” he went on, “there are some pretty interesting species here in Thorne Bay.”

  “Like Bigfoot?” Sadly, though, my attempt at humor appeared to have missed its mark. He gave not even a twitch of the lips.

  “Something like that.” His look was long and assessing.

  6

  Bigfoot

  The silence quickened hotly between Tristan and I. I wanted to grimace when Let’s Get It On began streaming through the market. Real funny, Marvin. I was struck with the fidgets again. “So…were all those people your friends?” Mostly, I was curious about the blonde.

  “Some of them.” His face seemed to harden suddenly. “I’m sorry about Nicole. She’s a little short on manners.”

  So the blonde had a name! And lo and behold she was his girlfriend! Why else would he feel the need to apologize for her? Cold dismay rushed into my gut as the truth settled in. “Ahh,” I said with a weak smile, “so that’s not how the natives usually greet us…cheechakos, was it?”

  “Nah, over here we usually welcome newcomers with Sex on the Beach.”

  “Is that right?” I tapped my lips thoughtfully. “I’ll have to file a complaint with the Thorne Bay officials since I never got mine.”

  “They’ll be horrified by the oversight.” His eyes darkened. “No woman should ever be denied Sex on the Beach.”

  I was so out of my depth with this guy. My hands itched desperately to fan the heat from my face. Swallowing my reserve, I said, somewhere between a whisper and a croak, “Depends on who’s serving it.”

  His lips twitched. “Some backwater pilot probably.”

  Yes, please.

  Then, noticing the shopping list I was fiddling with, he leaned in (for a hot second I thought, rather irrationally, that he was pulling in for a kiss) only to reach a hand behind me to take a basket from the stack nearby. “You
’ll need this.” He appeared to have no intention of handing the basket to me, only nodded towards my list expectantly.

  I lowered my gaze to the list, feverishly aware that his eyes were moving curiously over my flushed cheeks. “Um…I need…mustard.” Good thing I hadn’t chosen the condom and ‘personal lubrication’ aisle to hide in. My mortified heart would not have withstood that much strain—flirting with Tristan was heady enough as it was without being surrounded by condoms. And then, mind veering off tangent again, I wondered if there was, in fact, a condom aisle here.

  “The condiments are this way,” he said.

  My head snapped up in shock. “Pardon?” Could he read minds now?

  He gestured from my list to the condiments aisle. “Mustard’s over there.”

  “Right,” with an awkward cough. Not condoms, then. My mind seriously needed ripping from the gutter.

  “Tristan?” Nicole appeared suddenly. Her arms were folded in front of her chest expectantly. “Aren’t you gonna be late?” The prickliness in her tone made me flinch. The other four soon appeared behind her, as if on cue, and her already elevated eyebrow rose even higher. “We’re waiting,” it seemed to say.

  “Nicole, this is Evan.” His mouth compressed into a hard line. I never wanted to be on the receiving end of that look—he was frightfully intimidating when he wasn’t smiling. “She flew over with me yesterday.”

  “Hi,” she said curtly, inspecting me from head to toe. Clearly, though, she was deeply unimpressed.

  It was a shame she was proving to be so catty because she really was beautiful. Unlike her personality. She was willowy and tall, her features delicately formed. Her nose, however, gave her haughtiness away instantly. It was long, like a Saluki’s, and turned up naturally at the tip. If she’d been smiling, it might have left a better impression than cold arrogance. Her full lips were currently pursed into a moue of impatience.