Private North

by Tess Oliver

  There was a tap on the open door, and I turned around expecting to see Professor North. It was Dalton. He was wearing jeans, a black t-shirt and a smile that would leave a lasting impression long after he walked away. “Dad and Ethan are gone, and I’m bored. I was thinking we should do something to entertain ourselves.”

  I leaned back and lifted a brow at him. “Exactly what did you have in mind?”

  “Well, it’s not exactly what I had in mind. That scenario requires a blindfold and a can of whipped cream and far more time than we’ve got.” He waved his hand as if dismissing a vision. “I was thinking gingerbread.”

  “Gingerbread?”

  His long dark lashes gave him a boyish quality that made him that much more heartbreaking. The guy had been blessed with every attribute that could make even level-headed women like me utterly defenseless. “You said you’d wanted to bake.”

  “True. I was picturing myself cutting cookies with my mom, but I guess you’ll do.”

  “Are you sure because we could still try the blindfold idea?”

  “No, gingerbread will be fine.” I stood and leaned my head from side to side to stretch my neck. “I must have been tensing up my shoulders.”

  He stepped into the office. Sometimes, when he only had a few feet to walk, it was easy to forget his painstaking gait. He stopped directly in front of me and motioned for me to turn around.

  I looked at him questioningly.

  “No blindfolds I promise . . . for now. I was going to rub the stiffness out of your shoulders. You’re no good to me if you can’t roll out dough.”

  Reluctantly, I turned around.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you don’t trust me, Sugarplum.”

  “Not a bit,” I said over my shoulder.

  His long, strong fingers pressed down as he massaged my shoulders. “You were right. You must have been tensing your shoulders. They’re like rocks.”

  My eyes shut as his fingers worked along my tight muscles. I had no right to enjoy his touch so much, but heat radiated through every inch of me. His rough fingertips pressed tenderly into the bare skin of my neck, and his calloused thumb stroked along the back of it.

  “Holy crap, you are good at this,” I sighed. Slowly, my entire body relaxed, and I felt like rag doll beneath his touch.

  Then his mouth pressed against my ear. I startled and jumped away from his hands.

  A devilish smile crossed his face. “Most of my customers like it when I finish with that. He motioned toward the door with his head. “Let’s go bake.”

  ***

  The overwhelming scent of cloves and cinnamon filled the kitchen. A cloud of flour floated up from the mixing bowl, and Dalton cleared the air with his hand. “I don’t remember this flour hurricane when I made these with my mom.”

  “You’re turning the mixer on too fast.”

  He leaned over the bowl and turned down the speed. “I guess that makes sense.”

  “I think we have to let the dough chill before we can roll it out.” I leaned back against the counter and watched him as he worked a spatula clumsily around the side of the bowl. “Somehow, I never pictured you as the domestic type,” I said.

  “Yeah, well you learn to be pretty self-sufficient in the army.” He looked up. There was a streak of flour running across his forehead. I pointed to my head to let him know, and he wiped his fingers across and left more flour.

  I laughed and stepped toward him. His eyes did not leave my face as I reached up and wiped the flour from his skin. The space between us was suddenly thick with heat, and I quickly stepped back. “How the hell do you do that?”

  He blinked innocently. “Do what?”

  I pointed to my face. “This.” My cheeks were warm with a blush. “You fluster me with just your— your aura.”

  His laugh bounced off the kitchen tile. “My aura?”

  “Yes, your aura. I step toward you with the innocent, perfectly logical intention of wiping flour off your face, and instantly, I feel like—”

  “Like ripping off your clothes? It’s a gift.”

  “And then you’re so damn cocky about it too.”

  “Another gift.” He turned back to the mixer and looked inside. “I think this is ready.” He removed the bowl and stuck it in the freezer. “What should we do while we’re waiting for it to chill?” There was nothing suggestive in his tone, and yet my mind had gone straight to the proverbial ‘gutter’.

  “We could talk,” I suggested quickly.

  “Not my first choice but all right. Let’s sit though. My leg is killing me.” His walking stick was leaning against the corner of the kitchen, but he didn’t use it as he maneuvered around the kitchen island and sat at the dining room table with a grunt.

  And as quickly as the heat had risen in my face, my throat tightened with the thought of his constant pain. I sat down across from him. He was staring down at his hands.

  “Were you in Iraq?” I knew I was treading on fragile territory, but I wanted to know more about him.

  He nodded. “I never had the grades for college like Ethan. Just wasn’t an academic. I know it irritated my dad to no end, but you just can’t fit a mold you’re not shaped for.” He still hadn’t looked at me. “The economy sucked and there wasn’t much to do, so my buddy convinced me to enlist.” A sad laugh came up from his throat. “Thought my dad was going to have a stroke. Bryce thought it would be cool, an adventure, a chance to get out of this small, boring town. We got out, all right. Only we had no idea just how fucked up the world was. We’d gone in blindly, like two ignorant fools. Almost as soon as we stepped foot in the desert, I knew at least one of us wasn’t going to make it back.” His voice trailed off. I blinked back tears. “I was always sure it would be me.” He took a deep breath and lifted his gaze to me. The green of his eyes had darkened with the grim memories. “What about you, Auggie?”

  “Me? I’m just like you said— a trust fund baby with an obsession over the ancient world. But I’m not as spoiled and shallow as you might imagine. I’ve never fit in the mold either. I hate designer purses, five star hotels and fur coats. I especially hate fur coats. I won’t be investing in Wall Street when I inherit my money. I’ll be investing in the world.”

  “Do your parents know about these altruistic plans?”

  I shrugged. “We don’t discuss it much. They know I go out of my way not to fit in their world, but they firmly believe that I will change.”

  Freed of the agony of the previous topic, his expression had lightened again. “And will you?”

  I shook my head. “Not a chance.” I glanced over to his walking stick. “I must ask, who carved that awesome dragon handle on your walking stick?”

  “I did.”

  My eyes widened. “You made that?”

  “Yep. I had a lot of time on my hands when I was recuperating. The doctors had given me one of those old man canes, and so I decided to make the walking stick. I thought the dragon would make it cool.”

  “You did such an amazing job.”

  He glanced over at his carving, but this compliment passed without a cocky reply. “Do you think the dough is cold enough to roll out?”

  “We could give it a try.” I got up and walked to the kitchen. I floured a small clean section of the granite counter and smoothed some flour over the rolling pin before pulling the dough from the freezer. It smelled rich of molasses and sugar, and I couldn’t resist pulling off a ball to taste. Dalton was smiling at me as I melted the piece in my mouth.

  I put up my hands. “I confess— I’m a dough eater. It’s not something I’m proud of but there it is. And I’m not terribly picky on which type— I’ll dig a spoon into any of it.”

  “I knew you were a wild one the moment I first laid eyes on you— after you nearly ran me down.”
His smile grew wider and with some effort he pushed to his feet. His arm and chest muscles rippled with power beneath the tight black t-shirt, but his arm strength hardly compensated for the pain and weakness in his leg. He moved as subtly as he could, as if not wanting to draw attention to his injury, and in seconds he was next to me. The heat of his body swirled around me as I tried hard to focus on my task.

  “Please don’t remind me of that horrid morning. I was so scared and you were lying there so still.” The last word stuck in my throat as I relived those awful moments.

  He took hold of my wrist and turned me toward him. The walls seemed to vibrate with energy around him. “Sorry, Sugarplum, I hadn’t meant to scare you like that.”

  “I’m just glad I didn’t hit you.” My voice had dropped to a near whisper as his nearness pulled the breath from me.

  He lifted his hand and rubbed his thumb across my bottom lip. “Flour on the lip, one of the hazards of being a confessed dough taster.” His gaze dropped to my mouth and he leaned down, but I pressed my flour covered hands against his chest, leaving white handprints on the black cotton. He straightened and his expression had gone from confident to disappointment.

  “I’m worried I’ll take this too seriously and you won’t take it as anything but flirting.”

  A glint of anger flashed in his green eyes. “I’m not as ruthless as that. I like you, Auggie.”

  “And I like you, which brings me back to my original hesitation. Ethan warned me—” I knew I’d made a grave mistake the second his brother’s name left my lips.

  “Of course, Ethan, always my most fickle ally.” He turned to leave but I grabbed his arm. He shook his head. “It’s obvious you’ve already formed an opinion of me, August, so I’ll just leave you alone.” I hated the coldness in his tone. I had to work hard to convince myself that I’d done the right thing. He took hold of his walking stick. I listened to the uneven steps and the rhythmic tapping of wood on the hallway floor, and a hard knot formed in the pit of my stomach.

  Chapter 11

  One thing I’d discovered in my short time with the North men was that they were not great at finishing what they started. I knew I’d upset Dalton, but I’d also decided that I was not completely off base with my intuition. I’d just ended a relationship, and the last thing I need was to lose my head over a guy who was the type to sneak off with his shoes in his hand before dawn. I’d finished the gingerbread cookies and took a plateful into the office to munch on while I finished the work left behind by the other brother.

  Two hours later, my shoulders ached again with the stiffness of sitting hunched over a keyboard for hours. I’d had enough work for the day. I pushed up from the chair and headed down the hallway to my room.

  Ethan’s door was ajar as I walked past and I glanced inside. Professor North was deep in a rather intense conversation with Ethan, and it became immediately obvious that he was keeping his voice low to avoid being overheard. Ethan saw me first and touched his dad’s arm in warning. Professor North stopped talking.

  Professor North smiled at me over his shoulder. “Auggie, there you are. Delicious cookies, by the way. Made the whole house smell like a celebration.” His pleasant tone was forced.

  Ethan walked toward me. “How about going out tonight? You’ve been cooped up in that dreary office all day. There’s a bar in town and a great band is playing there tonight, mostly rock and roll and country, but they have a great sound.” He’d recovered much faster than his dad after being caught in what seemed to be a highly serious, highly secretive conversation.

  Professor North grabbed the edge of the door and opened it wider to move past me. “I’ll go make us some sandwiches. You should go, Auggie. You’ll have a good time.” I pushed away the feeling that he seemed to need me out of the house for awhile. “Dalton is out and I’ve got papers to grade, so I won’t be much company.”

  “Sounds great, Ethan. Let me shower and change. And thanks, I wouldn’t mind a night out.”

  “Terrific,” Professor North said. “But be sure to dress warm. There’s a cold front setting in.”

  ***

  I held my gloved hands in front of the heating vent in Ethan’s car. We’d spent a good fifteen minutes chipping ice off the windows. While showering and getting dressed, I’d tried to imagine what a cold front might feel like in a place that already felt like the North Pole, and now I knew.

  “It will warm up once the engine has been running awhile,” Ethan assured me as he drove around the last bend of unpaved road that led away from the house. His brow creased and he pulled the car closer to the side of the road as headlights turned toward us.

  I wasn’t great with cars but the one that passed us on the narrow path looked the same as the car we’d seen pull away from the house after the snowmobile outing. I glanced at Ethan. His jaw twitched, and he seemed to be gripping the steering wheel harder.

  “Someone you know?” I asked.

  “Huh?” He looked over at me. “No idea. Probably just lost.”

  To find the road leading to the house, a driver had to make a conscious effort to locate it and then turn a sharp right to land on it. It was not an easy road to get lost on. I pushed it from my head with the thought that it was none of my business. But these short spurts of tense, almost suspicious, behavior on both the part of Professor North and Ethan definitely made me uneasy.

  Of course, there was another topic that held my interest far more than strange cars driving up to the house. “So, where did Dalton go tonight?” I pushed a nice dose of nonchalance into my tone, or at least I hoped I had.

  “Beats me. I’m not exactly on his friend list at the moment. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve even fallen off his casual acquaintance list too.”

  I fell silent. They’d had words after the snow race, but I was the bigger cause of their rift. I’d thrown Ethan’s name out there without thinking, and now I regretted it even more. “The old silent treatment, eh?” I said cheerily. “My brother, Raymond, who I’m closest to in age, used to be ruthlessly mute when he was mad at me about something.”

  “Three brothers? That must have been hard.”

  I pulled my sufficiently warmed hands from the heating vent and sat back. “Sometimes, but they were all pretty protective of me. And I confess that my dad spoiled the heck out of me because I was the only girl.”

  “I’ll bet. Dalton was the spoiled kid in our family.”

  “This coming from the only other kid in the family who obviously has an unbiased view.”

  “Really, it’s the truth. My mom thought Dalton was a treasure put on earth by the angels. And Dad was no different. I’d get the good grades and the honor awards, and Dalton would get referrals to the principal’s office. But in Dad’s eyes he could do no wrong. My brother is just the type of guy everyone loves. He doesn’t even have to try and people adore him.” I looked for shades of hurt or jealousy in his words, but he spoke so plainly, so matter-of-factly, he seemed to have accepted it.

  “Excuse me for saying so, Ethan, but when I see the three of you together, it seems that your dad has much more respect for you than for Dalton.”

  “I’m with Dad more. Our lives are much more connected. Dalton began distancing himself from us right after high school. Dad was really upset when he enlisted, and they just never patched things up completely after that. Dad seemed to think that Dalton had done it just to spite him.”

  “I don’t know if your dad told you, but he showed me the gold arm band.”

  He was wearing gloves, but it was easy to see that his grip tightened on the wheel, and not because of any hazard in the road. “Did he?” He spoke hesitantly.

  “He told me the entire story of how he came upon it. It’s a breathtaking piece. I’m sorry he has to hand it over to the university. I know he fought to keep it.”

  “Yeah, well, Dad i
s always the first to tell me that plenty of things in life are unfair.”

  The mounds of snow along the side of the road glowed beneath the clear night sky. It was nearly deserted. “Is this bar in the rear of an emporium?”

  “Karl’s Emporium, that’s right. Sundries by day and whiskey by night.” He pointed through the windshield. “There are the striped awnings up ahead. It should be crowded tonight. This band is popular.” He parked the car. “In fact, I’m sure this is where Dalton ended up.”

  I froze in the seat and stared at the entry to the saloon where people were standing hunched over and cross armed against the cold. Ethan stepped out and leaned down into the car. “It will be warmer inside with all the people. They have a place where you can check your coat.”

  I coaxed myself out of the front seat. “I’m definitely going to need a drink.”

  “That will help warm the blood too,” Ethan said, but I needed the drink for a completely different reason.

  The saloon was as most saloons tended to be, dark, dank and loud. Years of sweat, perfume, aftershave and alcohol vapors had permeated the rich wood paneling lining the walls of the room, and the odd mixture of scents floated in the moist air.

  The band struck up their version of the Rolling Stone’s song “Angie” as Ethan dragged me through the crowd to the bar. We reached a clearing at the counter. Ethan glanced down at me.

  “A beer is fine,” I said loudly.

  He leaned over and shouted our order to the girl behind the bar. Then he straightened and glanced around the room.

  I hopped up on my tiptoes and nearly yelled into his ear. “I thought you lived in a small town. I never would have expected there to be so many people in here.”

  “That’s because it is the only decent place for miles around.”