“Why would I want to hire anyone just yet?”
Karen studied her stir-fry and pushed the snow peas around her plate. How could the man not realize that the dates of his winter tours conflicted with her due date? She wanted Matt with her when the baby was born, but more than that, she wanted him to want to be with her. However, it wasn’t something she’d ask of him.
“No reason,” she murmured, doing her best to hide her disappointment. “Looking over your ledgers, I thought you’d be able to afford a couple of extra employees.”
“I don’t see why,” he said without elaborating.
“Oh.” Her appetite gone, Karen carried her plate to the sink. She stood with her back to him, collecting her composure.
Karen had done everything she could think of to push Matt out of her life. It shouldn’t surprise her that he wasn’t going to be available when she needed him. Maybe she should let him know how she felt, but the words stuck like a fish bone trapped in her throat.
“You sound disappointed,” Matt said.
“No, no, the lodge is your business. It was a suggestion, that’s all. Don’t worry about it.”
Later that evening, Karen was sitting on the porch knitting a blanket for the baby when Matt eased himself into the chair next to hers.
“I’ve been doing some thinking,” he said.
“About what?” The knitting needles made soft clicking noises, and she jerked the soft pastel-green yarn.
“You’ve been taking a few phone reservations for the fishing tours lately.”
“Yes.” Karen was astonished by how many people booked their vacations a year or more in advance. If the orders coming in for the next summer were any indication of what was to follow, Matt would be sold out before the end of the current year. She’d had no idea that people would be willing to spend this kind of money to catch a few measly fish.
“I, uh, suspect there’s been the occasional question you couldn’t answer.” He knew that to be true. More than once, she’d had to write down questions, ask Matt for the answers and then phone back.
“Yes,” she said.
“It seems to me you’d be able to deal with that type of question better if you’d gone out on a fishing trip yourself.”
“You want me to fly hundreds of miles from here to fish and camp so I can answer travel agents’ questions?” That seemed a little extreme to her.
“Sure,” Matt replied as though this made perfect sense to him. “You’ll love it.”
“We’ll camp…in a tent?” Perhaps there was some other accommodation he hadn’t told her about.
“It’s the only way to go,” Matt said, looking delighted with the idea.
“We’ll cook over a camp stove?”
“You’ve never had better-tasting meals.”
Karen didn’t quite believe that.
“So, what do you say?”
She looked at him in shock. They’d been married four years and he apparently hadn’t noticed she wasn’t the camping type. She opened her mouth to tell him exactly what she thought, then stopped herself.
Matt was right. This was exactly the sort of thing she should do.
“If you agree, we can leave in the morning,” Matt coaxed, his eyes twinkling.
“Will we be gone one night or two?”
“Whatever you want.”
“One night…You’re sure you want to do this?” Karen didn’t want to be difficult, but she did enjoy the more basic comforts.
“Of course I’m sure,” Matt said. “We’ll have a wonderful time, just you wait and see.”
Karen would’ve been more than willing to wait. But she wanted to support Matt, and if that meant traipsing around the tundra, then she’d prove what a good sport she was by doing it.
Mariah Douglas waited for the paper to come out of the printer, then reread the letter she’d composed on Sawyer’s behalf.
The phone rang and she reached for the receiver. “Midnight Sons. Mariah speaking. How may I help you?” The static on the line told her it was a long-distance call.
“Mariah?”
“Tracy!”
She was thrilled to hear from Tracy Santiago. They’d become good friends and corresponded regularly. Tracy was the Seattle attorney Mariah’s family had hired when they’d learned she’d accepted the position with Midnight Sons.
At the time there’d been a lot of publicity, some positive and some negative, about the O’Hallorans “luring” women north.
Although Mariah had repeatedly reassured her parents that everything was fine, they’d insisted on having the O’Hallorans investigated. They’d hired Tracy to fly up and check everything out. The attorney had asked a lot of questions, which made some people uneasy, and she’d inadvertently stirred up bad feelings. Mariah didn’t blame her; Tracy was only doing her job.
Unfortunately Mariah had already started out on the wrong foot with one of her bosses—Christian O’Halloran. When Tracy showed up, the youngest O’Halloran brother had held Mariah personally responsible and labeled her a troublemaker. From that day forward, he’d actively looked for an excuse to fire her. Mariah was certain she would’ve been laid off long before now if it hadn’t been for Charles and Sawyer.
From that rocky beginning, things had quickly deteriorated. Lately her relationship with Christian had become worse than usual. The incident at the wedding reception—when he’d spilled punch on himself—hadn’t helped. He hadn’t actually said so, but she knew he blamed her.
“I’m calling in an official capacity,” Tracy explained. “It’s been a year now, and your commitment to Midnight Sons is over.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Will you be moving back to Seattle?”
Mariah’s family had probably put Tracy up to this, but Mariah didn’t even consider the suggestion. In the past twelve months, she’d come to love Alaska and Hard Luck. For the first time in her life, she was out from under her family’s dominance. She made her own decisions—and, consequently, her own mistakes.
“I’m staying right here,” Mariah said.
“You’re happy, then?” Tracy asked, sounding unsurprised, perhaps even a bit wistful.
“Very happy.”
“What about the other women?”
“So far, everything’s worked out really well.”
The door swung open, and Duke Porter walked into the mobile office. Mariah’s gaze followed the bush pilot. She didn’t know what it was about Tracy and Duke, but those two definitely rubbed each other the wrong way. Mariah had watched the sparks flash whenever they were together—and yet they seemed to gravitate toward each other. It was an interesting phenomenon.
Personally Mariah liked Duke. True, he was a bit of a chauvinist, but a lot of what he said was simply for show. Or provocation. He’d toss out the most ridiculous comments just to rile everyone, then sit back and look pleased with himself. Tracy’s problem was that she’d taken Duke at his word.
“I don’t know if you remember Matt,” Mariah said conversationally. “He’s the one who bought the old lodge from the O’Hallorans. It’s in full operation now, and his ex-wife, Karen, is back with him. Oh, and Abbey’s pregnant. Karen, too. And Mitch and Bethany are married. So how’s everything with you, Tracy?” She purposely used the other woman’s name, expecting a reaction from Duke.
He didn’t disappoint her. No sooner had the lawyer’s name left her lips than Duke wheeled around. “Is that highfalutin lawyer bugging you again?” he demanded.
“Just a minute, Tracy,” Mariah said and held her hand over the mouthpiece. “Did you say something, Duke?”
“Is that Tracy Santiago?” he asked.
“Yes.” Mariah nearly laughed out loud at the way fire seemed to ignite in Duke’s eyes. Tracy was probably the only woman to challenge the laughable things Duke said and did. He didn’t much like it.
Mariah always got a chuckle out of Duke’s heated response to Tracy. In fact, everyone laughed; nevertheless, Mariah sensed that Duke and Tracy c
ould be good friends if they’d put their differences aside.
“What’s she want?” Duke asked.
“To talk to me,” Mariah informed him sweetly, turning her back to him. “I’m here,” she told Tracy.
Duke strolled over to Mariah’s desk in a blatant effort to catch what he could of the conversation. He didn’t bother to hide his eavesdropping.
“Is that Duke Porter I hear?” Tracy’s usually controlled voice went chilly.
“If you two ever made the effort, you might be friends,” Mariah said to them both.
“I’d rather be friends with a skunk,” Duke said loudly enough to be heard in Fairbanks.
“You tell Mr. Chauvinist I’d rather clean fish than have anything to do with him,” Tracy snapped.
“Does she have a reason for calling or is she just hoping to stir up more trouble?” Duke asked, making sure Tracy heard that, as well.
“Mariah, listen, this doesn’t sound like a good time for us to talk. Why don’t you give me a call if you need anything.” Tracy hesitated. “You know, I’ve come to think of you and the other women as my friends.”
“You are a friend,” Mariah assured her.
“With a friend like that, who needs—”
“Duke, enough,” Mariah said, glaring at him.
“All right, all right,” he muttered as he moved away from her desk.
“You’ll keep in touch?” Tracy asked.
“Of course,” Mariah promised. “Thanks for calling, Trace. It was good to hear from you.”
She was about to replace the receiver when Tracy giggled and said, “Mariah?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Duke still there?”
“Yup.”
Tracy giggled again. “Do something for me, would you?”
“Sure.”
“Go over to him and kiss him and tell him it’s from me. Then ask if I’m still his favorite feminist.”
Mariah grinned. “You’re sure you want me to do this?”
“Positive. I just wish I could see the look on his face when you tell him that kiss is from me.”
“You got it,” Mariah said, and she hung up the phone.
Duke studied her quizzically. “What did she want this time?”
Mariah rolled back her chair. Her eyes on his, she stood and walked slowly toward him. He was obviously uncomfortable with the way she’d focused her attention on him.
“Mariah?” Duke glanced around, then started moving backward as she continued her approach. He cleared his throat and glanced in both directions. “What’s the matter with you? You look like something out of The Exorcist.”
“Tracy asked me to give you this,” she said, making her voice low and sultry.
When Duke was backed right up to the wall, Mariah braced her hands on both sides of his face. Duke’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to speak. He didn’t get a chance.
Mariah planted her mouth firmly over his.
Duke squirmed.
Mariah heard the door open, but paid no heed.
“Mariah!” Christian yelped. “Duke! What the hell is going on here?”
“You didn’t tell me my feet were going to get wet,” Karen complained as they trudged along the marshy banks of the lake. Sawyer had delivered them by float plane to the prime fishing area where Matt brought his clients. The plane had taxied as close to shore as possible, but they’d had to walk the rest of the way in. Through the water. No one had bothered to tell her this, Karen thought with some bitterness.
Something bit her and Karen slapped her neck. The mosquitoes swarming about her face were evidently thrilled with her arrival. Already she had two huge swellings on her neck. She’d be lucky to get out of this place whole at the rate the bugs were dining.
“If your feet are wet you’d better put on a fresh pair of shoes,” Matt said after he finished unloading their supplies.
“I only have the one pair. You told me to pack light, remember?” If Sawyer was late picking them up the following afternoon, Karen swore she’d kill him. Her enthusiasm for this undertaking had never been high. The little interest she did feel was vanishing rapidly.
“We’ll make camp by that cluster of trees,” Matt told her, pointing into the far distance. “The river’s directly behind it.”
Karen drew a deep breath as she remembered Lanni’s adventure with the brown bear when she’d taken Abbey’s children out to gather wildflowers on the tundra. Scott had delighted in telling Karen how he was sure they were about to become “dead meat” that afternoon.
Matt had tried to reassure her about bears, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She’d had Mitch Harris teach her how to shoot off the can of pepper spray. Karen gave a heartfelt sigh. Matt seemed to believe this trek in the wilds would be one grand adventure. He’d talked excitedly about the wildlife they might see, mentioning moose, caribou, Dall sheep and wolves. Then he’d blithely told her she didn’t have a thing to worry about.
“Why do mosquitoes love me so much?” she grumbled, although she didn’t really expect an answer. “You’d think they were holding a dinner party and I was the main course.”
“They’re always more of a problem by the water,” he reminded her.
Karen’s feet made squishy sounds with every step she took. Matt might have advised her about adding an extra pair of shoes to her pack, she thought again—but she didn’t want to be a complainer.
He was trying to make this a positive experience for her, and she felt guilty every time she found something else to gripe about. Unfortunately a camping-and-fishing trip wasn’t even close to anything she considered fun. If Matt and his buddies enjoyed this kind of stuff, fine. Just leave her out of it.
It seemed they’d been walking for miles, but in actuality, she realized, it couldn’t have been more than a few hundred yards.
Matt slid the large backpack from his shoulders and set it on the ground. “We’ll make camp here.” Quickly and efficiently, he began to unpack.
He’d carried almost everything, and feeling equal parts guilt and exhaustion, Karen leaned against a large boulder and simply watched him.
“First I’ll pitch the tent and then we’ll do some fishing.”
“What about dinner?” She was already hungry. It must have something to do with running around in the great outdoors, breathing fresh air. But then, you couldn’t find air any purer than what she’d been breathing in good ol’ Hard Luck. It seemed unnecessary to travel hundreds of miles north when the air at home was just as fresh and unpolluted. Besides, she could feel a cold coming on and would’ve preferred the comfort of her own surroundings. The truth was, she wouldn’t mind crawling into bed right this minute. A real bed. Her bed.
“Dinner?” Matt said, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “That’s why we’re doing the fishing first.”
Karen groaned. He expected her to catch her own dinner. A crucial question occurred to her. Namely, what would she do if she struck out—did no fish mean no dinner? This was the first time she’d ever gone fishing. And probably the last, she muttered to herself.
She felt decidedly annoyed that her very own ex-husband would assume she knew anything about this camping and fishing business when she’d never so much as baited a hook.
“It won’t take me long to set up camp,” he said, removing a few more things from the huge backpack.
Karen was astonished that he could carry everything they’d need for the night in that contraption. And she was impressed at how easily he assembled the small tent. Before she knew it, Matt stood in front of her, holding two fishing poles. “Ready?”
She wasn’t. “I guess so,” she said, forcing some enthusiasm into her voice.
It was an effort to ease herself away from the rock.
Matt offered her his hand.
“I’m not good at this kind of thing,” she said, slapping at another mosquito. Then she sneezed. Twice.
Matt led her to the river, whose rushing water emptied into the lake, and in no tim
e Karen had a fishing pole in her hand. However, she soon learned that whatever it was that attracted fish—and she refused to believe it was the offensive-smelling egg at the end of her hook—she lacked it.
Clearly Matt didn’t suffer the same affliction. He cast his line into the water and almost immediately got his first bite. He’d brought in two fish, one after the other, and all Karen had caught was a cold.
She sneezed once more and rubbed her nose with her sleeve.
Matt stood in the middle of the river—or “stream,” as he called it—wearing rubber hip boots. Water swirled around him as he held his fishing pole in one hand and fed the line with the other. He glanced over at her and smiled in perfect contentment.
“It doesn’t get any better than this!” he shouted over the sound of the surging water.
“You mean it gets worse?” she shouted back. Matt laughed; he seemed to think she was joking, but she was serious. Dead serious.
Uneasy about walking into the middle of a river, despite the protection of the hip boots Matt had given her, Karen remained close to shore, feeding her line into the clear, tumbling water. She’d about given up hope of snagging one of the rainbow trout that seemed to migrate toward Matt’s line when she felt something nibble at her bait. She actually felt the fish nibble. Her eyes lit up, and she gasped with excitement.
“Matt.” She didn’t dare shout for fear of alerting the fish that it was about to become their main course. Matt didn’t respond, so she raised her arm above her head and waved.
At that precise moment, the fish decided to take the bait and the fishing pole shot out of her hand.
“Matt!” she screamed.
“Grab that pole,” he yelled, wading toward her, his eyes filled with panic. His expression told her she was replaceable, but the rod and reel were not.
Karen didn’t have any choice but to go splashing into the fast-rushing stream after the rod. It would’ve been lost if the reel hadn’t caught between two rocks. She just managed to rescue it, but lost her fish.
By the time she made her way back to shore, she was drenched.
Matt reached her side and jerked the pole away from her. “I thought I explained that this is expensive equipment! I can’t afford to lose a rod and reel, so hold on to it, will you?”
Midnight Sons Volume 2 Page 26
