“What’s that idiot doing landing here?” she wondered aloud.
Mark rose to his feet. “Bringing us lunch.”
It was then she recognized the aircraft as one of her own. Fish Tail Air and with Sam Hyatt piloting.
Sam taxied closer, then cut the de Havilland Beaver’s single engine. Drifting toward their boat, the aftermath of his landing disturbed the placid water, causing it to lap on the boat’s hull and plane’s pontoons.
“You found us,” Mark said, grabbing one of the anchor ropes from the wing.
“I know the area well.” Sam had opened the cockpit door and hopped onto the plane’s pontoon. “Hey, Dana.”
Surprised over Sam’s unexpected landing, Dana said, “Hey, yourself.”
“I brought what you asked me to,” Sam said to Mark. It felt a little awkward to Dana to have the two men on amicable terms. Not that she minded. It was just that since Sam’s brother had died with her father and Terrance, Sam had taken on a huge burden of guilt and considered himself her watchdog. He hadn’t allowed any men to get close to her, at least not without feeling out their intentions. For a time, she wondered if Sam cared for her beyond a friend, but she’d asked him and he’d told her he didn’t want her to hurt anymore and he was compelled to make her life easy where he could.
Mark slipped his sunglasses onto the crown of his head. “You deliver, Sam. Thanks for doing this.”
“You paid me to.”
Laughing, Mark said, “Had to cover your gas and the cost of the food.”
Sam reached inside the airplane and produced a couple bags from Burger Queen.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Dana exclaimed, her mouth watering.
Bracing his hand on the airplane’s wing, Sam replied, “That’s what I thought when he asked me to bring the stuff.”
“Burger Queen isn’t open on Sunday,” Dana stated. The aroma of cheeseburgers and fries almost had her tearing into the bags and devouring the contents.
“I know,” Mark said, setting the food bags on the driver’s seat of the boat.
Sam shrugged. “Never in all the years I’ve lived in Ketchikan has Burger Queen turned on the fryer on a Sunday, but this loco boy did something to sweet-talk them into it. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t picked up the order myself.”
With a sly wink toward Dana, Mark didn’t elaborate on how he’d managed to pull it off. She was mulling over the possibilities, when his playful mood dimmed.
Not anticipating his next words, they took the edge right off her hunger. “Your twenty-four hours are over, Dana. You can head back with Sam—take the lunch.”
She didn’t readily reply, eyes darting to Sam and wondering if he knew in advance he might transport her back to town if she said so.
Mark continued, “Or you can hang out here and I’ll have you home by five to get your son. But I did say twenty-four hours and I want to keep my word.”
Inwardly at war with her thoughts and emotions, Dana had to get a grip on the situation. Flying to Ketchikan would take twenty minutes from takeoff to touchdown. Driving back would be under an hour. She didn’t want to be in this position. Damn Mark. He had taken care of everything else; why hadn’t he just decided on a detail like this? As long as she was home in time to get Terran, what harm would a few more hours be?
Glancing at Mark, she drank in his handsome features. Brown eyes, compelling mouth and strong nose. The build of his shoulders, so broad and strong. She felt Sam’s eyes on her as she thought over her choices. In the end, she did what she’d wanted to do from the beginning.
“I’ll stay,” she said, the words hardly a whisper.
Sam gave her a short nod. “Good enough. I’m out of here.”
He got back into the cockpit and Mark pushed him back with a shove of his boot. Then the plane’s engine fired into a roar and Sam was gliding over the water and took off. Only when he was a speck in the sky did Dana look at Mark.
She found him staring at her, a fond smile on his mouth. “I knew you’d stay.”
“Me, too,” she admitted, seeing no point in playing coy.
Those thoughts were far behind her.
THEY WERE PACKED and ready to return to town, their bags laid at the house’s front door for loading into the pickup. Mark made a quick check of the time on his watch. He had an hour before they had to leave, and he still had something he wanted to show Dana.
“Come on,” he called impatiently to her from the living room, waiting for her to descend from the second-story master bedroom. She’d gone upstairs to make a final check to see if she had forgotten anything. Why did women always have to do that? Men could care less if they neglected to throw a sock or their toothpaste in their bag. You could always buy more.
He repeated his call for her. “Dana, let’s go.”
“What’s on fire?” she questioned, stepping down and leaning over him on the landing. Her hair flowed over her shoulders, and the angle afforded him a dead-on view of her cleavage. Her breasts were small and round and, pushed together like that, distracted him.
“Me,” he replied, then brushed off the thought. “Don’t stand like that. Come here.”
She finished taking the steps and met him. “Are you ready?”
“I’ve been ready for ten minutes.” He took her hand and pulled her through the open door.
“Where are we going?” she questioned, keeping her stride as broad as his as he walked up the drive, cut through a small path in the woods and made it to the highway.
“You’ll see,” was all he told her. Glancing in both directions for traffic, he deemed it clear and took her to the other side. A smaller path connected at the road and wound upward through the hillside of ferns and lush, low-growing greenery.
Hiking single file, Mark held branches aside so Dana could be behind him and not get hit in the face. The climb wasn’t too bad, a few hundred feet, before it leveled out and connected with another trail. Towering on either side, cedars rose tall and stately. Spongy ground buffered their footsteps.
The air came alive with scents that intoxicated. Mark pulled in a deep breath and let the coolness swirl inside his lungs. White flowers blanketed a tree copse where sunshine rained through the leafy canopy. He’d gotten lucky that it hadn’t rained yesterday or today.
“Where are we going?” Dana asked once more.
“Don’t you ever want to be surprised and enjoy the thrill of it?”
“No.”
Mark let loose with a sharp laugh of enjoyment. He got a kick out of her sometimes. “Dana baby, you sure are a different kind of woman. I guess when a man proposes to you, you’ll want to know the details in advance so you aren’t taken off guard.”
The comment slipped past him before he could stop it.
But he heard Dana suck in her breath as she stopped dead in her tracks and called after him, “You aren’t…are you?”
He hadn’t meant the comparison—it had just happened.
“Not today.” Mark turned toward her, regret a bitter taste in his mouth. “Look, I’m sorry. It was a bad example.”
“Why would you think about a proposal?”
“I have a sister. We talked about stuff like that. I guess it was in the back of my head for some reason.”
Mark reached for Dana and took her slender hand in his own, giving her a slight squeeze. “We’re almost there. Come on.” With a gentle tug, he pulled her along and she kept by his side.
They hiked several hundred more feet up the maritime cliff face, winding through a thick tree stand. Then the terrain opened to reveal a sunlit clearing scattered with blue flowers.
Nudging Dana beside him, he took her to the edge and smiled.
“Some view, huh?”
And it was. The ocean stretched before them in an undulating shimmer of the sky’s cloudless reflection, verdant forests jutting from various fingers of craggy land. The Alaskan coastlines weren’t known for straight sandy beaches. They were diverse. Dense at some points,
rocky at others. Always a collection of trees to frame the edges.
In the far distance, a white-and-blue-hulled cruise ship slowly motored its way down the channel toward Ketchikan. Even this far away, its colossal size was emphasized in the scale of things.
The view was beyond perfect, and the clarity of the day made it even better. A panorama to rival any postcard in the gift shops.
Mark put his arm around Dana, bringing her close.
Dana’s gaze drank in the scenery. “How did you know about this place? I didn’t, and I’ve lived here my whole life.”
“Jeff Grisham showed me from the air when Sam flew us to Red Creek Lodge. We passed right over it. Must have been fate the rental house turned out to be near here.”
“I don’t believe in fate,” she said, her voice barely audible as her arms slid around him with a fraction of space separating the curve of her breasts from crushing into his chest. A heaviness held his heart, his throat having a hard time working to swallow. “But I do love the view very much. And it would make a nice proposal spot for some woman.”
Her mouth was inches from his, her moist breath caressing his lips. Though her body didn’t touch his, he could feel the heat from her limbs. The air around her seemed magnetic, drawing him to her. He couldn’t deny that he had wanted to hold her like this in the worst way ever since coming here.
“Why didn’t you come upstairs last night?” she asked, her chin tilting so she could stare into his face.
A current of heat ran through his every nerve ending. His jaw tightened and it was all he could do not to burn his mouth over hers and kiss her. “Because everyone who loves you—your mother, Leo, Sam…they made it clear I shouldn’t break your heart.”
“It’s my heart. I know how to protect it. I’m not stupid.”
“Honey, I have never for a moment thought you were.”
Dana whispered against his cheek. “Good.”
Mark’s breath jerked from his chest as she circled his neck with coaxing arms. Molding against him, she gave herself to a kiss that smoldered like the heat that joined metal. Her tongue traced the moist fullness of his mouth, then explored the recess within.
She had to stand on tiptoe to reach him and he lifted her into his arms, her legs wrapping around his thighs. She blended into his strong embrace, melting against him. His fingers burrowed into the depths of her hair as he kissed her back.
They kissed as if thirsting, their mouths greedily taking from the other and shattering the foundation of the resolve Mark had fought so hard to keep in place.
An aching need coursed through his veins and he could hardly keep from laying her on the ground and taking her.
He let her mouth trail over his cheek, brushing kisses on his eyelids and brows, finally settling on his earlobe. Torturous ecstasy rose from the depth of his throat.
It was too much.
Setting her feet back on the ground, he took a step back. As he clawed for breaths to fill his lungs, he raked his hand through his hair.
Dana struggled to stand firmly in place, a mixture of desire and an undefined emotion filling her eyes.
Clearing the hoarseness from his voice, he said, “We gotta be heading back if you’re going to pick up your son on time.”
She managed to give him a half nod, then she turned and was heading down the trail. It was several long heartbeats before he was able to move without an aching tension in his muscles.
When he caught up to her, neither of them said anything the rest of the way down the hillside.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“HEY, MARK? Can you sleep over?” Terran asked, out of breath, wearing his helmet, knee and elbow pads. He’d been practicing on the skateboard ramp, showing Mark what he could do. His little boy face was bright with excitement.
Dana quickly curtailed that idea. “Terran, quit. Enough with the sleepover talk. Stop asking me.”
Mark shrugged with an amused expression. “It could be fun, Mom.”
His smile told her he was messing around. Ever since they’d come home from their weekend getaway, many of Mark’s comments had reverted back to a casual flippancy, as if he needed to begin the process of distancing himself from her.
She should have been grateful he was making an effort to end things this way.
“See, Mommy—Mark wants to.” Terran painted a knowing smile on his mouth, a toothless one.
Feeling powerless to stop his burning desire for other people to spend the night with him, Dana cooked up a quick idea. “Terran, I think it’s time we had a big boy sleepover here. We’ll ask the entire hockey team to come and bring their sleeping bags and we can have hot dogs and cupcakes.”
“For real!” he exclaimed, and jumped up. “And my daddy, too, ’cause he’s my hockey coach.”
Discomfort held Dana in a cold grasp. Mark’s eyes caught hers and she looked away, unable to meet his. “No, baby. We’ve already talked about this. Daddy has his own house.”
Dejected, Terran’s chin drooped. “Okay…”
Mark cut the grim mood as he said, “Come on, Terran, let me show you how to do something really cool.”
Dana watched as Mark took the skateboard and went up the ramp, flipped the board, then came back down. The stunt was quite impressive. For a man his age, his athletic agility was apparent and he impressed her son beyond measure.
“Now me, Mark!” Terran squealed, wanting to try the feat himself.
Patiently, Mark spent the next thirty minutes trying to prepare Terran to make the run in the same way. Of course Terran bit the dust more than he succeeded in getting the board to the top and turning it back down. But that didn’t bother her son. From the red cheeks on his face, he was thrilled just to be hanging out with a big guy and being taught a new daring stunt.
Terran had always enjoyed a physical challenge—he got that from Cooper. Funny how there was something in a child’s genes that paralleled the adult.
At that thought, Dana, who stood back watching, wondered if Mark would ever want children to raise. They’d not talked much, if anything, about it. Part of her was curious, another part told her to let the subject go. It was futile and proved nothing beyond her own simple curiosity. And maybe…hope.
Hope that possibly Mark wanted children and to be a parent. To be a father. But really, it didn’t matter.
Dana didn’t want to acknowledge the limited time they had left so she didn’t. Instead, she smiled and clapped, encouraging her son to do his best while holding back when he fell. She refrained from helping him dust off. Any effort would have been a waste of her energy anyway. The spry little boy was up again barely after he’d smacked down.
Terran’s bedtime approached and she gave him a five-minute warning for time to call it quits. As if he would never have another chance to use the ramp, he tried to get in as many attempts as possible at making the twist at the top.
He never succeeded and fell at least a dozen more times, his slender body sliding down the plywood slope. But he gave it his best shot, and she had no doubt he would eventually master the trick and command it.
She handed him a cold box juice from the garage refrigerator and he plopped down and huffed and panted from the exercise. He knew how to unfasten his helmet, and he did so. Then he greedily drank from the straw, sucking apple juice into his mouth.
“Can I get you a beer?” she asked Mark, who just inspected the ramp and checked the joints to his satisfaction.
Facing her, he declined. “I’m good. I have to take off soon.”
Regret momentarily held her in its clutches. She hated that he had to go, but knew that tomorrow was a big day at the Blue Note for him. The fire-exit steel was arriving, and he’d secured a crane to swing it into place.
Dana ruffled her son’s sweaty hair, then smoothed its shaggy length away from his forehead. He needed a haircut. “Finish your juice, baby boy, then it’s time for your bath. You have to get to bed real soon.”
Terran smelled like damp clothes and marshmall
ow cookies.
As he removed his elbow pads, he asked, “Mommy, what time do I have to get up for kinny-garden?”
“No different than you do now.”
“Doncha want to set an alarm clock?”
“You won’t need to, baby.”
“I don’t mean me, Momma, I mean you. You don’t get up too early.”
Dana traded glances with Mark, and she felt heat spread over her cheeks. “I will when you start school. I’ll be there every day to drop you off.”
“And Daddy will be there the other days, won’t he, Mommy?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s going to pick me up?”
“Grandma or Daddy or the kids club bus—but just for a short time until Dad can get you when you’re at his house.”
Terran’s face grew serious as he processed the complexities of it all. “Okay,” he finally said, apparently whatever thoughts had been moving around in his head geared into place. Then to Mark, “Hey, Mark? Can you come over tomorrow to show me how to do this some more?”
Once again, Dana traded a look with Mark. She interjected, “Baby, Mommy has to work and I won’t be home until really late.”
“But Mark could just come over.”
“That won’t be—”
“Sure, if it’s okay with your mom. I can come by after dinner and we’ll work on it.”
Terran snapped his attention on her. “Doncha think that’d be okay?”
Dana kept her eyes on Mark, a tenderness inside her heart she would never expose, for it was too fragile for her to make sense of it. “Sure. If Grandma doesn’t have any problem with it, that would be fine.”
That Mark Moretti would want to spend his Friday night at her house with her little boy, showing him how to do a skateboard trick, touched her more dearly than anything.
THE THREE FISH TAIL AIR floatplanes had to be relocated and the waterway in front of the Blue Note cleared to make room for the 175-foot-long barge. Before a hazy dawn broke the sky, a tugboat arrived, towing the barge carrying three sections of prefab, powder-coated steel to be assembled on-site.
All That You Are Page 26
