by Ross, Carol
“But...? Come here and have a seat and I’ll get us some coffee, and then you’re going to tell me everything, including what ‘attentive’ means to you.” She stood up and hustled into the kitchen.
She came back with two steaming mugs of coffee. She handed one to Emily and then took a seat next to her.
“So he kissed you?” Amanda asked when Emily was through telling her about their outing.
“He did. But then he took it back.”
“Emily, he didn’t want to take it back. He was trying to get your permission. He was trying to be a gentleman. Trust me—you give him the green light, he’ll kiss you again.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“He will.”
Emily silently hoped she was right, even as she considered the wisdom of it all. Maybe Bering was right.... “I don’t know what to do now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, maybe I shouldn’t give him the green light or whatever. What would be the point? I know this can’t work out—long-term, I mean. It’s impossible.”
“Emily, you don’t know that. Seemingly impossible situations have a way of working themselves out all the time.”
“But how could I possibly stay away from him now?”
Amanda stared at her dumbly. “Why would you want to?”
“I don’t.”
“Then don’t,” she answered quickly. “For once in your life, Emily, just go with it. Don’t overthink it—just enjoy it.”
That was funny, she thought, and seemed telling, because it was the not thinking that had got her to this point in the first place.
* * *
“HI,” EMILY SAID a couple evenings later when Bering answered the door to Janie’s house.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I?” Emily asked as she came into the house to meet Bering’s nephews.
Emily didn’t have much experience with kids but she was great with people, so she figured it couldn’t be that much different....
A short time later she decided it was much, much different and way more difficult. Bering’s nephews were nine and eleven years old and Emily was sure the younger one, Reagan, had not stopped talking for longer than a thirty-second stretch. Bering had mentioned that he was really smart, but she was pretty sure the kid was literally some kind of genius. He lost her somewhere in the middle of a story involving genomes and RNA and a deadly virus that was spreading like wildfire in some African jungle. He wrapped it up by informing her that should she ever start bleeding out of her eyeballs, she should get to a hospital immediately. She tried not to laugh as she assured him that she would not hesitate to seek medical attention under those circumstances.
“Do you like video games?” Gareth, the older one, asked her when he could finally get a word in.
“Um, I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never played any.”
“You’ve never played a video game?” he repeated incredulously. “Were you raised in a cave or something?”
She shook her head and smiled. “Not a cave, but my stepfather did not allow any video games in our house.”
“Wow, that’s rough, and we complain about our screen time.”
“I didn’t know what I was missing, so it wasn’t so bad. I wasn’t allowed to watch television, either.”
“No television?” The look on his face made Emily laugh, as if she’d just revealed that she’d been hung from her toenails and beaten with a bamboo pole.
“Is your dad like a communist or something?”
“Was it a religious cult?” Reagan asked.
Emily laughed. “No, he’s not a religious extremist, nor is he a communist—he’s about as opposite of that as you can get, actually.”
“A capitalist,” Reagan shot back confidently. “Awesome. Like the first Reagan.”
Emily looked quizzically at Bering, who explained, “His father named him after Ronald Reagan, and thus our Reagan has taken the responsibility of being the namesake of a famous and important person very seriously. He’s researched the former president extensively.”
“Ah...well, then, Reagan, you will be happy to know that you are in the presence of a fellow devotee.”
Reagan looked skeptical, but then again, so did Bering. Gareth looked mortified.
“Reagan, maybe we should—”
“What was his middle name?” Reagan interrupted his uncle.
“Wilson,” Emily answered immediately.
“That’s an easy one, though,” Reagan said. “You had probably even been born when he was still president.”
Emily gestured at him to bring it on.
“Birthday?”
“February 6, 1911,” she responded promptly. “Born in Tampico, Illinois.”
“Nickname?”
“That depends. He had quite a few. A lot of people would say his most famous nickname was the Gipper, which he earned from a character he played in the movie Knute Rockne, All American. The character’s name was George Gipp. There are a couple others worth mentioning, but the one I would go with is Dutch because he received it from his father in childhood, so it was with him the longest.”
“Hmm, that’s not bad,” Reagan said, a dose of respect seeping into his tone.
Emily smiled, but apparently the young trivia king was only warming up.
“Name one thing he was the only U.S. President to ever have done.”
“Ooh, that’s a tough one but I’m going to have to go with the fact that he was divorced.”
“Good answer,” Reagan acknowledged. “What state was he governor of?”
“California—twice—1967 and again in 1971.”
“So, you know he was a lifelong Republican, then?”
Emily crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re trying to trick me, right? Any self-respecting Ronald Reagan fan knows that he was originally a Democrat. He switched parties in 1962.”
“Congratulations,” Reagan said and stuck his hand out. “It’s really great to meet you, Emily.”
Emily chuckled and shook his hand. “You, as well, Reagan. So, I am here for the entire evening. What would you guys like to do?”
“We’re not watching a Reagan movie,” Gareth said quickly before Reagan could answer.
Reagan shrugged, acknowledging that it had been an option he was going to suggest.
Gareth asked, “Do you want to try playing a video game, Emily? I can teach you.”
“Sounds good,” she said.
Emily soon discovered she was completely inept at virtual soldiering. An hour later she had failed to save planet Earth no less than twelve times. Twice she had single-handedly, albeit accidentally, annihilated it and the entire human race along with it. Gareth was a very sweet and patient teacher. He reminded her very much of his uncle, who, thankfully, took over her remote and fought much better on the endangered planet’s battle front than she had.
She spent the next hour playing a trivia game with Reagan, and although she lost, he informed her that she had fared better than anyone else he’d ever played. She graciously accepted the compliment.
After that they made pizza and French fries and watched an action movie that she’d never seen. It was nearing ten o’clock by the time Bering announced to the boys that it was time for bed. She thanked them both for an awesome evening and said goodbye. They shuffled off to brush their teeth and Bering walked her to the door.
“So,” he said, “I have to go out of town for a couple days for work. I’ll call you when I get back.”
“Oh,” she said. A wave of disappointment washed over her at the thought of not seeing or talking to him for even that long. “Where are you going?”
“Washington, D.C. It’s an annual thing. Every
year I go with our state biologists to attend a presentation of wolf data to the Department of the Interior. Every state with a wolf population is represented.”
She nodded and smiled in his direction, hoping she could pull off the nonchalance that she was striving for. “Okay, well, good luck. Be safe.”
He looked as though he wanted to say something else and Emily wished that he would. She was disappointed at the turn their relationship had taken. They’d seen each other every day since they’d returned from the cabin, and even though they were back in campaign mode, things were good between them. But that was all, just good—cordial and...friendly.
It was becoming increasingly clear to her that friendship was indeed as far as Bering wanted to go. Apparently he’d meant it when he said that kiss had been a mistake. Even though there were moments that felt flirtatious and even a couple times when he’d looked at her with what she would swear was longing. But she was beginning to think she had been imagining it.
Was she imagining that right now? Emily didn’t know how she could make her light any greener....
He stepped toward her and reached for her hand. “Emily, I—”
Suddenly, Reagan shouted his uncle’s name from somewhere down the hall and they heard footsteps coming toward them. He flashed her an apologetic smile and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze before releasing them. They said their goodbyes and Emily slipped quietly out the door.
As she drove home, melancholy once again took hold of her. She thought about the relationships in her life and how different they were from the relationships that Bering had. For the first time in a long time, she ached for the family she’d never had. For the first time ever, she longed for a family of her own. She missed Bering and he wasn’t even gone yet. She missed him and he wasn’t even hers.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“HELLO? YES, GOOD morning, sir. I’m looking forward to that, as well.” Bering kept the cell phone pressed closely to his ear as he climbed into the airplane. Bering glanced at his watch. “I’m on my way. Tag is flying me to Anchorage and then I leave from there in three hours. Sounds great. I appreciate it.”
Bering clicked off the phone and quickly buckled his seat belt. He knew Tag wouldn’t go anywhere until he did. He watched silently as Tag began the preflight maneuvers. In all the years they’d been flying together, he’d never known him to skip even a single step, which was probably the reason they were both still alive—that, and his cousin’s phenomenal ability to stay calm in virtually any situation. It was a trait that helped to make him both an excellent paramedic and an expert pilot. Flying could be extremely dangerous amid the temperamental Alaskan weather; between the mountains and the coast, there was always something exciting brewing in the skies. But Bering had only seen him really rattled a couple times, and they’d had their share of close calls together. Bering supposed it was just one part of what kept them so close.
Tag finished up, but instead of taking off, he turned and looked at Bering. “So, what are you going to do now?”
Bering glanced over at him, but didn’t quite meet his eyes. “About what?”
“About what?” Tag mimicked with a roll of his eyes. “You know what ‘what’ I’m talking about, but if you want to play that way then I’ll give you a hint—she’s thin, blonde, pretty, blue eyes. She also happens to have a giant Cam-Field brand on her back. And, in spite of whatever it is that’s going on between the two of you, it is still her job to strip this little town that we love of everything that we hold dear.”
“What are you trying to say, Tag?”
Tag shrugged. “I think I just said it. This can’t end well, Bering.”
Bering stared at his cousin. “Why do you have it ending before it’s really even begun?”
“Aside from the fact that I’m assuming that she doesn’t know exactly what connections you have, there are two things that can happen here—either she wins and our town is destroyed, or you win and she pulls up shop and leaves right along with Cam-Field.”
“So I shouldn’t get involved with her? Or I should, but I should also tell her everything about myself so that she can then use that information to ruin Rankins? And her eyes are gray.”
“I think you’ve just proven my point.”
Bering sighed tiredly. “It doesn’t have to matter, Tag.”
“But it does matter, Bering. I know you and you’re not going to be able to live with yourself after using someone in the sense that you are here. And I’m not criticizing you for your motive. It’s just the means—”
“I’m not using her,” Bering interrupted. “I don’t need her to accomplish this.”
“Then what are you doing?”
He flashed his cousin an irritated look. “Saving Rankins.”
Tag let out an exasperated breath. “What are you doing with Emily?”
Bering shrugged. “I like her.”
“But you realize she’s not going to like you, right? After she finds out what you’re up to?”
He didn’t want to think about that possibility. He didn’t want to believe that it could even be likely, not after the time they’d spent together. He’d never felt this way about anyone before, and the reason he hadn’t taken it any further was because of the very possibility that Tag was now throwing in his face.
“I’m well aware of that, and I’m hoping to find a path around it. Our relationship is—”
“Relationship?” Tag repeated the word. “Is that what it is?”
“I don’t know.”
Tag shook his head. “Well, you better figure it out, Bering. I’m afraid you could do some real damage here. Amanda has said some things—”
“She’s not as vulnerable as she appears, Tag. Trust me. And I seem to recall that it was you who not long ago told me she was trouble.”
“That was before.”
“Before what?” Bering stared hard at his cousin for several seconds as the meaning behind his statement sank in. “You think I planned this?”
“I don’t know, Bering. I do know that you’ve been pretty worked up about this whole Cam-Field thing for months now and it does seem rather, uh, propitious that Emily came along and now you two are...”
“Are what?” Bering said.
Tag lifted a shoulder as if to say he didn’t know, but the look on his face spoke volumes. “I know you spent the night at your cabin with her, so why don’t you tell me?”
“It wasn’t like that. You know I had a dead battery.”
“Okay, Bering, come on. It’s me, Tag. You and I both know you could have managed to get that snow machine started. Or you could have come up with some other means to get out of there if you had really wanted to.”
Bering was shocked at his cousin, who knew him too well. There was no point in arguing. “That’s undoubtedly true. But, Tag, do you really think that I would sleep with a woman in order to undermine her business plans? And we’re not just talking about some woman here—we’re talking about Emily. That’s insulting. We’re friends, maybe more. I would like more, I’ll be honest. Am I sure how to achieve that? No, I’m not. Do I believe it’s even possible? I don’t know. But I thought you were on my side anyway.”
“It’s not a matter of undermining her business plans. It’s a lot more than a business plan to you and to me and to the majority of this town, for that matter. And what I’m saying is that I think it means more than that to Emily, too. I’m not sure why exactly, but I’ve gotten the impression from Amanda that there’s a lot riding on this job for Emily, too.”
“What do you mean?” Bering said as a rush of uncertainty coursed through him. It was the same thought he’d had himself—something that went beyond her obsession with her career. Something more that she wasn’t telling him. But to be fair, there was quite a bit he wasn’t telling her, too. He had only told Emily part of
the reason he was traveling to Washington, D.C.
“I don’t know. Amanda has said some things that indicate she’s got a lot invested here. I haven’t asked directly because I don’t want her to think I’m spying for you or anything.”
Bering rubbed a hand over his jaw as he turned to look out the window into the darkness. Tag had a point—he’d specifically asked Emily if this was just a job for her and she’d said yes. He’d been relieved by that answer, but what if there were things she was deliberately keeping from him, as he was from her? The thought was unsettling.
“You know I’m on your side, Bering,” Tag added. “I’ve always been on your side and I always will be. But it’s not like you to cheat to win. Or to step all over someone to get what you want. That’s what Cam-Field does, Bering, not us.” He finally turned his attention to the airplane and Bering was glad for both the noise and the distraction.
In spite of what Tag was insinuating, he hadn’t intended to get so involved with Emily. A wave of guilt washed over him. Who was he kidding? He’d been drawn to her almost immediately. At first he’d wanted to help her, then he’d been worried about her and now he just wanted to be with her. How could he have possibly foreseen these feelings he had somehow developed along the way?
And along with this came the realization that what he’d admitted to Tag was true—he wanted more than friendship. But did he want that more than he wanted to save this town? More than he wanted to preserve his way of life? He wanted both. What lengths would he go to in order to have them both?
He wanted Emily, yes, but he wanted her on his terms. That notion was troubling. Emily was right—he was spoiled. He was used to having his own way. And for the first time in his life, he wanted something he truly could not have. He would have to choose, and he couldn’t be the only one he thought of when he did.
* * *
BERING HATED WASHINGTON—D.C., not the state. The state, he loved; it was the nation’s capital that he couldn’t abide. He couldn’t imagine how Senator Marsh could bear it. The man was an avid outdoorsman and usually spent a few weeks every year camped out in one of Bering’s cabins. He would come up in the summer for the salmon fishing and then again in the fall to hunt moose. And occasionally he would make the trip in the winter to enjoy the solace and the snowshoeing. Over the years he had become a friend, and although today it was a different type of business that brought them together, he was still genuinely glad to see him.
