Passion's Fire

by Jeanne Foguth

  Link said, “Since you know so much, perhaps you should show him how to paddle a canoe.”

  Her chin went up a notch. “I couldn’t do worse.”

  10

  As Jacqueline squinted against the glare from the rippling water, a cool breeze brushed her singed cheeks and burnt nose. Unfortunately, they were the least of her aches and pains. With every breath and stroke of the paddle, her shoulders throbbed from the activity she was no longer accustomed to. When the current caught their canoe, guiding it straight and true, she settled her paddle across her lap and began kneading the tense flesh at her nape while she told herself that blistered hands and painful muscles were a small price to pay for the sense of safety she felt. She inhaled deeply realizing the air even smelled fresher – freer.

  Life was good.

  Aches and pains aside, Jacqueline hadn’t felt this wonderful in months. Coming to Alaska had been the right choice. Abruptly, the rear of Phillip, Carmen and Tempest’s canoe swerved in front of them. Jacqueline grabbed her paddle and backstroked to avoid a collision. Phillip, oblivious to everything except the view through his binoculars, continued studying the surrounding landscape. With three more backstrokes, Jacqueline created a buffer zone between their bow and the other canoe’s stern.

  Their canoe rocked slightly as Link leaned forward. “Good save,” he whispered, his breath brushing her ear.

  “Thanks.” When she felt the canoe adjust for his weight moving away, Jacqueline turned to look back at him.

  “Good idea letting them get ahead.” Link glanced at the other canoe, his expression tense. “It’ll be safer for everyone.”

  As she gave him a thumbs up, she saw a flash of movement upstream. She squinted and looked over Link’s shoulder, but couldn’t see what had caused it. “Must have been my imagination,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  “I thought I saw something come round the bend.”

  “A bear?” Link stowed his paddle and reached for his rifle.

  “More like a swan.” He raised a brow, so she explained, “It was white and seemed to be floating before it darted back out of sight.”

  “You’re sure it wasn’t a grizz or a polar bear?”

  Jacqueline nodded. Link visibly relaxed. “Good, Tempest loves bears … I might have been tempted to ask Phillip if he had more pepper spray then send her back there.” The corners of his mouth tilted up.

  “You’re bad.”

  Link pantomimed firing a gun and clicked his tongue. “Yesterday, when you reset Carmen’s nose, how’d you know what to do?”

  “Nursing school.” His expression proclaimed her statement a joke, so she added, “I am a licensed nurse.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I am.” As if responding to some unspoken cue, they each placed their paddles across their laps and allowed their canoe to drop farther behind Carmen’s. As the distance lengthened, Jacqueline began to imagine all sorts of trouble Phillip and Tempest could create. She bit her lower lip as she calculated how much time it would take them to catch up. “Should we get a bit closer?”

  “Let’s hang back this distance for a while.”

  “Are you sure?” She frowned as the other canoe disappeared around a bend. “What if they need to be fished out?”

  “That’s what it might take to get Tempest to stop rocking the boat and if they all get a good dunking, Phillip might even start paying attention to the job at hand instead of acting like a tourist with nothing better to do than gawk.”

  Downstream, boulders were sprinkled in the water like a child’s toys after a rowdy day of play. “This is a rough place to learn that lesson.”

  “But relatively shallow and slow. In a word, survivable.” Link pulled a cooler out from under his seat and tossed her a can of ginger ale. He knew her preferred drink, Jacqueline was impressed. He popped the tab off a Pepsi for himself. “Have you spoken to Carmen, or anyone else, about that note?”

  “No.”

  His smug expression made her think he’d guessed the answer. “I’ve been thinking about when it got into your book.” He took a swallow.

  “You have?”

  “Someone could have put it in your bag at the hangar.” If she hadn’t come up with the identical conclusion, she’d never have gotten any sleep the previous night. “I take it my deduction doesn’t surprise you.”

  When it became obvious he wasn’t going to let the matter drop, Jacqueline sighed in resignation then she looked him in the eye and shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about my stalker. I want to savor the untouched beauty of this wild land and relax.”

  “I bet the new guy put it there.”

  Jacqueline straightened. There had been over a dozen people in and around the hangar, all of whom had been strangers to her, but of course Link would have known them. “Which one was he?” She unconsciously held her breath, hoping he could describe her nemesis, so she could finally put a face on her elusive shadow.

  Link’s expression took on a look of concentration. “He helped Drew load the bags.”

  Jacqueline studied the tiny beads of condensation that formed an abstract pattern on her ginger ale can. “Which one was Drew?”

  “The blond with the greasy rag in his back pocket. The new guy had one bushy eyebrow.” He laid his paddle across his lap. “It went from here to here.” Link tapped each temple.

  “Sounds attractive.” But it didn’t ring any bells. “What else?”

  “Navy coveralls. Long beard,” Link indicated a hand span above his belt. “Brown hair below his shoulders.” He shrugged. “I don’t remember anything else.” Link gulped his Pepsi.

  “It’s more than I’ve ever had to go on before.” But she still couldn’t be certain if she’d noticed him in the chaos Tempest had created when she’d realized she wouldn’t be allowed to sit next to Link. “Unfortunately, I have a mental image of a musk ox.” Link choked and began thumping his chest. “Are you all right? You look flushed.”

  “I’m fine.” Link picked up his paddle and made a minor adjustment.

  How like him to take care of little things without expecting the fanfare Adam had always seemed to need for the least little thing. “I’m not used to a guy being concerned about my problems.” The admission escaped before she even realized it was a thought.

  Link stared at her for a long moment. “I thought you were a widow.”

  Something in Link’s face told her that he wouldn’t let the subject go unless she explained. “Adam was absorbed in his own life and ambitions. He didn’t have much time for anyone else’s issues or problems.”

  “And you call that a relationship?” He stared at her. She glared back at the nosy man. He blinked, then as if he’d suddenly realized how incredibly rude he’d been, he asked, “Do you know how to handle that handgun of yours?”

  “Do you think I’d be stupid enough to have it with me if I didn’t?” A smile smoothed his lips and summoned the memory of the way they’d molded to her own. Jacqueline abruptly faced forward and looked at the dramatic, untamed landscape, but even the boundless beauty couldn’t make her forget the feelings he’d aroused.

  “How are you with rifles?”

  “That depends on the rifle,” Jacqueline said. “When I was eleven or twelve, I had an old Mauser eight-millimeter-aught-six Acklie improved. I can hit a snake’s eye with that at one-hundred-yards, but with anything else...” She shrugged.

  “Your parents let you have a bear killer?” Doubt dominated his tone.

  Jacqueline swiveled around so quickly the canoe rocked. “My father modified its caliber and shortened the stock two inches so I could handle it, then he gave it to me for Christmas.” His eyes widened with surprise. She grinned. “My mother gave me a scope for it.” Let him choke on those facts.

  “What the hell for?”

  “Weren’t you listening?” she asked innocently, “Christmas.”

  “Why did you need so much firepower?”

  Jacquelin
e laughed. “Probably because I wouldn’t stay close to home, and my folks didn’t want me eaten.” Link’s confused expression looked comical. “Didn’t Grandma ever tell you anything about her past?” Link shook his head. “I grew up in a cabin just a mile or so up the mountain from Grandma.” Surprise crossed his features. She frowned, wondering why her grandmother would set her up with this man when it was obvious that in the decade she’d worked with him she hadn’t told him anything about her own life. “My father and my grandfather were lumberjacks. We lived in the wilds of British Columbia. Our closest neighbors were a family of black bears. Rory and I thought they made great neighbors, but Mom never trusted them.” Knowing that she was making a mishmash of it and needing time to decide what she should tell him, she fell silent.

  “Did you shoot them?”

  “Never.”

  He nearly laughed at her outrage. “So why’d you leave the mountain?”

  Tears filled her eyes at the bitter memory. “A tree fell wrong and Grandpa was killed. We stayed a few months after that, but it was never the same. Grandma hated the reminders. She even stopped chasing Cin out of her kitchen.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “One of the black bears was cinnamon colored. Really beautiful. Unfortunately, he had a fondness for fresh baked pies.” Jacqueline smiled. “Cin was also good at opening doors. He got his first pie when he was about half a year old. Grandma chased him out of her kitchen with her broom. She whacked him all the way across the yard, raising great clouds of dust; he bawled like she was killing him.” Jacqueline chuckled at the memory. “He mustn’t have been as upset as he acted because he kept coming back and Grandma kept beating him. It became a ritual with them.” Jacqueline snickered. “Grandma never stopped until she broke her broom on him.” She chuckled at the memory. “When she stopped and stared at her broom, Cin stopped and stared at her. I’ve never seen such a confused and disappointed look on a bear’s face.”

  “She lit out after a bear with just a broom?” Jacqueline nodded. “Was it orphaned or something?” She shook her head. “No wonder Mavis doesn’t think twice about locking horns with riggers.”

  “Those were happy times.”

  “But they ended,” Link said.

  Jacqueline nodded. “After Grandpa died, Grandma moved to Valdez. Eventually, we moved to Washington State. I hated it there. There were so many people, and they seemed so superficial.” She shrugged and grinned at the naïve child she’d been. “At least that’s how they seemed to me. The girls were more interested in going steady with someone cool and being in style than learning.” Memories of trying to fit in when she felt like a square peg in a community of round holes overwhelmed her. Why was she telling her personal thoughts and feelings to Link? Jacqueline turned her back to him, and tried not to dwell on the past.

  In the ensuing silence, the grandeur of the landscape and the solitude began seeping into her soul. A tiny seed of confidence, which had lain dormant since her marriage, sprouted. As the frigid current swept them past boulders and gravel beds, Jacqueline admired the massive mountains and wondered how soon the dramatic heights would give way to the forested foothills.

  Link often laid the paddle across his lap until their canoe fell back so far that they occasionally lost sight of the other canoe, but they never got so far behind that they couldn’t hear Tempest.

  Jacqueline adapted to the rhythm, but wondered if he wanted to stay so far behind because of Tempest, who had thrown a tantrum when he’d tried to fulfill the threat of making her steer or if he wanted the safety margin to compensate for Phillip’s erratic course.

  “Have you ever killed anything?”

  Link’s question startled her. “Yes.” Her spine stiffened at the shameful memory. Slowly, she turned to look him in the eye. “Seven years ago.”

  “Are you going to tell me about it?”

  “It was a rattlesnake.” Jacqueline hoped her answer would satisfy him.

  “Tell me about it.”

  She sighed. “My father got a job offer he couldn’t refuse. So, when I was seventeen, we moved to New Mexico. The first week there, a snake decided to take a nap on our front porch. Mom screamed bloody murder. Since no one else was there, I grabbed the shotgun and shot it.” She shrugged.

  “Bet that left quite a hole in the porch,” Link said.

  “While I went to get my rifle, it took off across the yard. I shot it about fifty yards from the porch.” She shook her head. “Rory got pissed off when he heard about it and said I’d shredded a perfectly good potential belt.”

  Link burst into laughter.

  Over his shoulder, Jacqueline saw the distinct silhouette of another canoe against the gleaming gray water. A second later, it vanished behind a boulder. A chill rushed over her and gooseflesh broke out over her body, as something deep inside told her that her stalker was still on her trail.

  11

  Link woke with a pounding heart. He rolled to his right, then to his left, and back again until the soothing reality of the tent assured him that it had only been a dream.

  A clank resonated through the still night.

  Link told himself the breeze had tipped something over, but the tent’s nylon hung limp in mocking contempt. Stealthily, he slipped from his sleeping bag. The chill air chased waves of gooseflesh across his bare chest, unheeding of the discomfort, he grabbed his rifle then grabbed the tent flap. The zipper sounded loud as a siren in the still night. Any chance of stealth lost, Link whipped aside the flap.

  For a moment, there was tense silence, followed by a soft grating sound, then a rock splashing into the water. The pounding thuds of running feet brought his attention to a bulky silhouette dashing upstream, into the cold light of dawn.

  He sprinted out of the tent, after the person, but the contents of one cooler were strewn in an arc, as if the looter had fled in the middle of sorting through it. He paused, torn between securing the food and tracking the perpetrator. Food, which equaled survival, won.

  “What happened?” a voice demanded.

  Link whirled and leveled his rifle. Jacqueline jumped aside. His heart slammed against his ribs. “Christ!” Link swore, shocked that he’d drawn on her. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.” He secured the safety.

  “Sorry.” She squatted to study the ground and studied the mess. Her T-shirt hiked up to reveal perfect thighs. “A bear didn’t do this.” His gaze fastened on the shirt’s hem, and his breath caught in anticipation of the fabric inching higher. Jacqueline looked up at him, tilting her head as she studied him, then in a smooth move, she ejected the clip from her gun. Link wondered why he hadn’t noticed the weapon. “I heard someone running away.”

  He nodded.

  She scanned shadows, then began repacking the chest. Link squatted down to help, but paid more attention to her hemline than fitting the food inside the cooler. She said, “We’re missing some powdered eggs and coffee.” She wrinkled her nose. He’d never seen her consume either item, so was surprised she’d notice their absence.

  He stood and looked upriver. “Must have been someone trying to get breakfast.”

  Jacqueline made a derisive sound. “If people have to steal food, they don’t belong here.”

  “I agree,” Carmen said. Carmen had jeans on under a thick flannel nightgown, but she was rubbing her arms as if she was freezing. Dressed only in sweat pants, he was cold, too. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” Link moved from foot to foot.

  “Now.” Jacqueline amended, then continued packing the cooler, as if totally unaffected by the chill.

  Carmen squinted first at Jacqueline, then at him. “Did I interrupt something?”

  “Someone vandalized our camp.” If the zipper had been quieter, he’d have caught the thief.

  Carmen frowned. “I didn’t know anyone else was around.”

  “It’s easy to believe that.” Jacqueline stood up. “Do you think it was another river runner, or a local?”

  “Native
s never bothered me before,” he said.

  Carmen stared, shivering, into the darkness. “I hope they don’t come back.”

  Jacqueline got an odd expression on her face, then visibly paled. “Think it might be your phantom?” Link asked.

  “If it was, I wish we’d caught him.” She cradled her gun. “I’d love to get that jerk face to face and give him a piece of my mind.” Her tone said thrash the living daylights out of him.

  “Who are you talking about?” Carmen asked.

  “A spineless fool. And a rotten poet.” Jacqueline turned and stalked back toward her tent. Link liked the way her hips swayed beneath the thin cotton.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  Link gestured toward the campfire. As they squatted next to its residual heat, he quietly related the story Jacqueline had told him. Carmen frowned. “Either Jacqueline didn’t tell you everything, or, like she said, the guy is a spineless fool.” He nodded. “How much do you know about her?”

  “Only what I’ve found out in the last couple days.” He looked around the peaceful campsite and pursed his lips. The tents looked serene, but appearances could mislead.

  Carmen massaged her temple. “I like her.”

  “So do I.” More than he wanted to. “If someone were writing you letters, the anonymous kind, do you think you’d have an idea who was doing it and why?”

  “Probably.” She thought a moment. “Yes,” she said, decisively. “I got some when I was in junior high. They were the secret admirer sort.” She shook her head. “I knew who sent them.”

  “Who?”

  “J.T. Henry. His handwriting was as lousy as his spelling.” She gave a short laugh. “I wished they’d been from Mitch Wallace.”

  “Wasn’t he captain of the junior varsity basketball team?” She nodded. Link scratched his head. “I don’t remember J. T.”

  “He wasn’t someone people remembered. He sort of blended in with the surroundings.”

  He looked upriver. “Do you think this stalker of Jacqueline’s could be someone like that?”