Alaskan Nights

by Anna Leigh Keaton

  Isabella nodded but didn’t really hear anything the doctor said. She was pregnant. Pregnant. Maybe if she said it enough times she’d believe it. “You said little guy,” Isabella whispered, cutting through the doctor’s instructions. “That means it’s a boy?”

  “General terminology. Do you want to know?” Isabella met the doctor’s eyes and nodded. “It’s a girl.”

  As Dr. Sweeny rattled on through the list of instructions, Isabella pictured a sweet little girl with red hair and Brandon’s dark, soulful eyes. A baby. Her baby. Tears prickled her eyes again.

  Dr. Sweeny had written down all the instructions she’d verbally given her. “Just in case,” she’d said. When Isabella left the little Saturday clinic, she drove straight home.

  She’d sold Cam’s house upon her return to San Francisco, and because she needed a completely new start, had moved down to Orange County. She’d secured a job with a florist in Laguna Beach, right across the street from the ocean. Not only did Mr. Camaricci welcome her to the job with open arms, he’d also let her live, virtually rent-free, in the tiny apartment above The Garden Shop.

  Getting out of her compact station wagon, she bypassed the stairs to her apartment and crossed the road. As soon as her feet hit the cool sand, she sighed. The beach was empty, the weather too cold for any sunbathers or surfers. The crisp sea air refreshed her and helped clear her head. With a great gulp of the tangy air, she plopped down on the sand, pulled her knees to her chest, and rested her cheek on them.

  After leaving Alaska, the only thing she could do was start over. Start fresh. Make sure nothing in her life would remind her of Cam or Brandon. Not that it took anything to remind her of them. They still lived strong and sure inside her, but she’d tried to get past the debilitating ache in her heart.

  With the money from the sale of Cam’s house safely secured in a money market account, she’d packed up her few belongings and headed south. She’d always loved Laguna Beach, with its exclusive shops and art galleries, the million dollar houses on the hill, and the ocean view. When she’d wandered down the sidewalk on that day back in early October and saw The Garden Shop, she’d gone in just to look around.

  Mr. Camaricci was a funny little man, balding, pudgy, and as sweet as could be. When she’d burst into a fit of tears at the sight of a big bouquet of pink roses, he’d brought her a cup of tea and offered her a chair. Her emotions in turmoil, she’d spilled her guts to this kind, grandfatherly stranger. She told him about her uncle, and she told him about Brandon. When she explained to him about her dream of owning a flower shop, he’d offered her a job on the spot. When she’d turned him down, telling him there was no way she could afford to live in the area, he’d offered her the apartment.

  Mrs. Camaricci cooked meals that Mr. Camaricci brought to her, all packaged up for the freezer. Mrs. Camaricci was a sweet lady in her mid-sixties who’d never had any children of her own. They’d taken Isabella in, made sure she wasn’t alone over the holidays, and in general, made her feel needed and loved.

  But even with their attention, she could never forget Brandon no matter how hard she tried. With a sigh, she lifted her head and stared out at the water just as the sun took its final blazing dip into the ocean.

  It had been over four months. Had he stayed in Alaska or gone back to his job? He’d resigned, but that didn’t mean anything. Maybe he’d moved on. Met someone else. Already getting set to settle down and start that family he wanted.

  The sob that escaped her lips came unexpected. Burying her face against her knees, she let the tears flow. She’d felt so empty for so long. Now she had a baby to think about. A baby that had a right to know its father. But how could she face him now, after she’d left him the way she had? She’d run away. And he’d never come after her.

  She’d always expected him to show up at her door. It had only taken two weeks to sell Cam’s house. She’d had the first offer less than twenty-four hours after listing it. In those two weeks, she’d expected to see him walk up to her doorstep. And now she’d been here for three months. If he’d wanted to come after her, he would have. He had all the connections. If he’d wanted to find her, there’d have been no stopping him. He simply hadn’t. He’d said he loved her but in the end, she’d been right. He needed someone who could give him a family.

  When the chill of the night settled in her bones and she shivered, she slowly made her way back to her apartment. The lights were still on in the shop. Mr. Camaricci tended to work late on Saturday nights doing inventory and getting his order lists ready for Monday morning. Half of her was tempted to go talk to him. He’d know what she should do. But the other half, the half that needed more time to consider all the possibilities, decided she should go upstairs.

  The light was flashing on her answering machine by the couch when she entered her apartment. As she stripped off her sweater and pants, she hit the Play button. “This is Dr. Zewarski’s office. He needs to reschedule your Monday appointment for later in the week. Please give us a call at your earliest convenience.” Dr. Zewarski was the psychologist she’d been seeing since she started working at The Garden Shop. She’d gotten the help that Brandon had promised to help her find. She’d been doing well. No nightmares in nearly a month.

  Making her way into the bathroom, Isabella threw her clothes in the hamper then stood in front of the full-length mirror hanging on the back of the bathroom door. How could she have missed this? she wondered. Turning sideways, she examined the slight swell of her belly. What an idiot she’d been. She’d begun gaining weight the minute Mrs. Camaricci started cooking meals for her. When she’d bypassed the twenty pounds she’d originally set out to gain, she’d assumed she was just filling the void inside her with food.

  She’d been extra tired, but she’d also put in long days trying to keep her mind occupied with learning all she could about the business. She’d had a few dizzy spells here and there, but again, she thought it was from being overtired. It wasn’t until she started having these weird little fluttery things happen that she decided she should see a doctor. She thought she had some weird disease.

  A gusty laugh slipped from her lips as she ran her hands over her belly. “Not a disease. A baby!” Even as tears ran down her cheeks, happiness welled up from deep inside her. “A little girl,” she whispered. “My little girl. My miracle.”

  After a quick shower, she wrapped up in her thick, pink, terry cloth robe and climbed into bed. She needed to call Brandon. No matter what had happened between them, no matter how he might feel about her now, she had to tell him about his child. It was the only right thing to do. While she was in the shower, she’d realized that she would do everything in her power to make sure she had a happy, healthy, well-adjusted child. This little girl would never know any of the hardships and heartache she’d gone through.

  Taking a deep breath to brace herself, Isabella picked up the phone and dialed long distance information. First, she had to find out if he’d stayed in Alaska.

  ~*~*~

  Brandon watched Emma as she sat on the couch in his new house and wondered why he’d bothered. She sipped her gin and tonic with elegance. Her long legs were demurely crossed as she leaned against the armrest and toyed with her straw in a seductive way. This was their third date. The big third date. He wasn’t interested.

  She was stunningly beautiful. Tall, blonde, baby blue eyes, legs that went on forever. He’d met her at a personal protection/self defense class he taught at the rec center at the University. Something he’d started to use up the time while he got all his licenses in order and purchased a plane. He hoped to be ready to open Wilks’ Guide Service as soon as fishing seasons opened in late spring.

  Emma had come on strong, and he’d been flattered. Now he regretted ever asking her out.

  He went into the kitchen to get another beer. There weren’t any. He headed for the garage to grab a few bottles out of the six-pack he’d stored there. Just as he opened the door, the phone rang. “Grab that, would you, Em?�
�� he called. As the door swung shut behind him, leaving him in the quiet of the garage, he wondered what he was going to do with Emma. She was everything a man could want. But he didn’t want her. He had to figure out how to let her down gently. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he had no romantic feelings for her, either.

  He grabbed a couple beers from the storage shelf in the garage and went back into the kitchen.

  “Brandon,” Emma called with a laugh in her voice. “A woman is on the phone.” She dangled the receiver on one perfectly manicured finger. “And here, I thought I was the only woman in your life.”

  Brandon couldn’t help the frown that pulled his brows together as he walked across the living room toward her. He put the phone to his ear. “Hello?” He heard the distinct click of a disconnect. Well, that was fine, he thought as he dropped the phone into its cradle. Since starting up the self-defense course, he’d had a lot of the young coeds calling him. Didn’t they realize he was old enough to be—he swallowed the thought. He supposed it didn’t matter to them that he was way too old for them. It sure hadn’t mattered to Emma.

  “Come over here, Brandon.” Emma practically purred as she held out her hand toward him.

  Stifling a sigh, he rounded the coffee table and sat down next to her. She set her glass on the table and leaned against him, her hands on his chest. She raised her face to his for a kiss.

  Brandon kissed her. He felt nothing. He hadn’t felt anything for months. Not for women, not for work. He wrapped his arms around her and tried to get into it. When her lips parted and he tasted her, the only thought he had was that it was all wrong.

  Emma smelled of expensive perfume, tasted of gin and lime and some weird European minty-chocolate candy she constantly ate. He wanted fresh skin that wasn’t covered in make-up. Lips that tasted of honey and sunshine.

  “What’s wrong, Brandon?” she asked as she sat back, a tiny frown on her perfect, porcelain face.

  “I’m sorry, honey, I’m just not...” She was a really nice girl. And she was practically a girl. Early twenties, just out of college, working for her father’s real estate company. Too young to be hanging around with him.

  “It’s all right.” She took another sip of her drink, but this time there were no seductive affectations. She set the glass back on the coffee table. “Looks like you could use a friend, though.” She held up her hands. “I promise not to touch if you want to talk.”

  Brandon chuckled. “I don’t think I’m very good company, Em. And I’m sorry, but it’s just not going to work out—” He waved his hand between them. “—with us.”

  She folded her arms over her breasts—breasts that must have cost Daddy a pretty penny. “Does this happen to have anything to do with that woman who saved your life?”

  His eyebrows shot up in surprise.

  “Oh, come on,” Emma said around a sultry chuckle. “She’s been with us on every date.”

  Brandon shook his head. “I guess I might have mentioned her once or twice, huh?”

  “Yeah, just a couple times. So why am I here, and she’s not?”

  “She left me.” The squeeze around his heart was such a part of him now, he hardly noticed it anymore.

  “Bull. Any woman would be crazy to do that.”

  He sighed and leaned back, crossed one ankle over the other knee. “It’s a long story, Em. And somehow I doubt you’d want to hear about it.”

  “Try me. I’m a sucker for a fairy tale.”

  Brandon eyed her. All looks of seduction were gone and she smiled a warm smile of friendship.

  “Come on, Brandon. If I’m not getting anything else, give me a nice bedtime story, at least.”

  “How nice can it be? There’s no happily ever after. She didn’t want one.”

  “But you love her, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he said without hesitation, rubbing his fingertips against his chest as if the pressure would dispel the constant ache living there. “So much it hurts.”

  “Okay, I’ll start. Once upon a time in a remote corner of Alaska, there was a handsome law enforcement officer who crashed his plane in a lake...”

  Brandon laughed. He squeezed Emma’s hand and then proceeded to tell her how he’d come to fall in love with his skinny, redheaded wood sprite.

  “Well, that settles it,” Emma said in finality as she stood to carry her glass into his spacious kitchen.

  “What settles what?” he asked, following her.

  “You’ve got to go find her. Finish this fairy tale. Make a happy ending.” She raised her palm to his cheek. “You deserve it. Isabella deserves it. She needs you.”

  “Yeah, tell her that.”

  “Come on, Mister Detective. You can’t tell me you couldn’t pull some strings and find her. So what if she sold her house and moved? If the cops can find some wacko living in the woods who plants bombs in people’s letters, you can find a woman who’s probably not even hiding.”

  “I’ve tried. I had some friends search for her. She sold her house, moved out of San Francisco, and left no forwarding address. I had her social security number run down and it doesn’t look like she’s working anywhere. She put all her money into a bank account and adds to it periodically, but the address she put down on the account is for a post office box. And getting a residential address from the US Postal Service without a warrant is darned near impossible.”

  “Then you just have to try harder. That’s all. I have faith in you.” She smiled at him, a bright, warm smile, devoid of any sexual interest.

  Brandon dropped his head forward. “Mom keeps telling me I’m an idiot.”

  “Well, you are. Mind you, a very sexy one, but you’re an idiot.” Emma laughed. It wasn’t anything like Bella’s sweet, husky laugh.

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “I’m going to go home now and cry myself to sleep,” she said with a chuckle. “And you’re going to get on that phone and figure out how to track her down. Even if you have to go down to California and start the search yourself. Even if you have to go knock down a few doors.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but she put her fingers over his lips. “Want to be miserable your whole life? Want to mope around in this nice big house all by yourself forever? I didn’t think so.” She walked around him and picked her parka off the coat tree by the front door.

  Brandon took down his winter jacket as well. “I’ll walk you to your car.” He waited until she’d zipped her coat. “Em, thanks. I needed a friend.”

  “Come on, walk me out, kiss me goodnight so I can at least fall asleep with some pleasant things to think about.”

  Brandon laughed, flicked on the porch light, and opened the door.

  ~*~*~

  Slumping back on the bed, Brandon rested his head on his hands and contemplated the knotty pine tongue and groove ceiling. He loved this house. He’d bought it without trying to negotiate the selling price. It was spacious with a great kitchen, and had a huge game room in the basement. There was a whirlpool on the glass-enclosed sundeck and a sunken tub in the master bath. Four bedrooms and cathedral ceilings. The house perched on the banks of the Tanana River, with a spectacular view of the Alaska Range, just far enough in the woods, away from town, that privacy and quiet were never in question. He had plans drawn up for a dock where he’d tie down his plane, when he got one.

  But it was so damn empty. His impulse to buy it had been based on the fact that he knew Bella would love it. He’d thought that he would go after her and beg her to come back. He understood that the reason she left was because she felt inadequate because she couldn’t have children. He didn’t give a damn. He needed her. But she’d vanished.

  He’d used just about every contact he’d ever made, called in every favor in every department ever owed to him, and still she’d been impossible to find.

  Rolling over on his side, he glanced at the phone on the nightstand. The little red light was flashing from the call that had come in earlier. He hit the Review button to see what the num
ber had been that called. A 949 area code? He was unfamiliar with that. He picked his laptop up off the floor and scooted up in bed to lean against th eheadbard. As soon as the computer booted up, he Googled the area code. Southern California? His heart sped up. He then used the reverse directory and punched in the whole number. The name was completely unfamiliar. S. Camaricci, the display said.

  Brandon realized his hand was shaking as he picked up the receiver. Was this it? Had she called? With the comment that Emma had made about being his only woman, he wouldn’t doubt that if it had been Isabella, she would’ve hung up.

  He held the receiver to his ear and hit the button to dial the last number that had called his house. His heart pounded in his ears, his chest squeezed tight. On the fourth ring a machine answered. “Hi, I’m not in right now, please leave your name, number and brief message after the tone. Thanks.”

  Isabella!

  His mouth went dry. His throat closed on him. He hung up the phone. Now that he knew her phone number, it would be a simple task to track down her address. And damn it, he was going to meet her face-to-face, not over the phone.

  ~*~*~

  Exhaustion permeated every cell in Brandon’s body as he finally stepped outside LAX and headed for the rental car. The pilot had said the temperature was sixty-nine, but after leaving the sub-zero temperatures of Fairbanks, he felt as if he’d stepped into a sauna. Glancing up at the hazy sky, he scowled. A really dirty sauna.

  He’d managed to get on the one a.m. flight out of Fairbanks going to Seattle, but had to fly stand-by from there to L.A. Now, in the late afternoon sunshine, his head throbbed, his stomach was giving him fits from too much raunchy airport coffee, and he still had at least an hour’s drive to Laguna Beach.

  Before leaving Fairbanks, he’d called Sheila, his ex-partner, who did the footwork tracking down an address for the phone number he had from the caller ID. He’d reconnected with Sheila while waiting for a flight in Seattle. He had two addresses for S. Camaricci. One was a residence in Laguna Niguel. The other, the one the phone number was connected to, was one of three lines registered to his business, The Garden Shop. Brandon made the decision to try the shop first, since that was where the phone call had originated.