Cold Hearted
An Alaskan Werewolf Romance
Heather Guerre
Copyright © 2020 by Heather Guerre
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
A Note on Language
Epigraph
Also by Heather Guerre
Chapter One
I gripped the edge of my seat as the plane touched down. Normally, I wasn’t afraid of flying. But in this instance, I was strapped into a four-seater plane, whose wingspan nearly clipped the pine trees growing tight on one side of the gravel—yes, gravel—runway. A frozen river snaked alongside the other side. At the end of the runway, a corrugated metal shed served as Longtooth, Alaska’s airport.
When the tiny plane had bumped and lurched its way to an idling stop, the pilot flicked switches across the instrument panel. He killed the engine and pulled his headset off. The sudden silence pressed on my ears, thick and cottony. I pulled my headset off and looked over at the door handle beside me. It seemed very wrong that an airplane door should look like a car door from 1989, but I reached for the handle anyway, and let myself out.
It was only four in the afternoon and already pitch dark. The surrounding mountains formed jagged silhouettes against the night sky. The air was bitingly cold, but I was prepared for it. Sure, I was from the lower-48, but I’d grown up in northern Wisconsin and had been living in Chicago for the last four years. My blood was good and thick from decades of lake-effect snow, winter winds out of the Canadian prairies, and polar vortexes. I already owned good winter gear, and knew how truly dangerous the cold could be. I wasn’t going to embarrass myself on that front.
The pilot came around the body of the plane and opened the belly hatch where my bags had been stowed. He was a large man—tall and broad—with dark eyes, a perpetually furrowed brow, and a thick beard that hid his mouth. Despite the fact that he’d said less than a dozen words to me, I was certain he didn’t like me. And yet, I just didn’t care. The part of me that used to care about other people’s opinions had shriveled to a rattling husk.
Over the course of our three-hour flight, he’d only spoken twice to me. First, to order me to buckle in and put on my headset. And then, a second time, when I’d asked him how long he’d been flying, and he’d tersely answered, “Long enough.” I’d taken the hint and stopped trying to make conversation.
“Thanks,” I told him as he hauled my massive, wheeled suitcase from the hatch. I moved to take it from him, but he held on, and with his other hand, pulled out my other bag—a large canvas duffel. Turning away from me, he carried both of my bags towards the metal pole building.
I followed awkwardly behind him. “You don’t have to—”
“Get the door,” he ordered.
I felt a flare of annoyance so strong, it froze me for a second. I hadn’t felt anything strongly for such a long time. It was prickly and painful, like the feeling returning to frozen toes. When I realized the pilot was waiting, staring impatiently at me, I hurried past him and pulled open the heavy steel door on the pole building.
Inside, fluorescent lights hummed, starkly illuminating raw walls with exposed pine two-by-fours and yellow foam insulation. There was another airplane parked on the far side, a twin-prop plane larger than the single-engine plane I’d arrived in, but still a far cry from the commercial jets I was used to. Otherwise, the small building mostly housed maintenance equipment—a battered old pickup truck with a plow mounted on the front, a tractor with a wide rake attachment, a dusty brush hog, chain saws—all things I was used to seeing in the barns and garages of my childhood. Except for the transportation, Alaska was, so far, not the culture shock I’d been expecting—or, if I’m being totally honest, that I’d been hoping for.
I’d wanted a change. I’d wanted to get far, far away and start over in a place that was new and different. So far, it looked like all I’d done was move back to my rural Wisconsin hometown—pine trees, snow, and farm implements included.
A woman stood just inside the door, bundled in a heavy down parka, an ushanka hat, and thick hide gloves. Though I’d never seen her before, I knew it had to be Margaret Huditiltik, the superintendent of the Teekkonlit Valley School District, and principal of both the elementary and the secondary school. She looked to be in her mid-fifties, with a freckled brown face, lightly weathered in a healthy, frequently-outdoors kind of way. A long braid, silver threaded with black, emerged from her ushanka and lay over her shoulder. Her eyes were a surprisingly pale gray against her tawny brown skin. A smile stretched her cheeks and she stepped forward to intercept me with a handshake.
“She made it!” Margaret’s gloved hand enclosed mine. “I hope Caleb didn’t talk your ear off.” She shot the pilot a teasing smile. He responded by dumping my bags on the floor at my feet.
“No, he—” I glanced uncertainly at the taciturn pilot, glimpsing only his back as he pushed the door open and disappeared back into the cold. “Uh, he was an excellent pilot.”
Margaret gave me an apologetic look. “He’s the best there is, but he’s not exactly a one-man welcome wagon. Anyways, you’re here. I’m Margaret Huditiltik. It’s nice to finally meet you, Grace.”
“Thank you, it’s good to finally meet you, too.”
Margaret released my hand. “Alright. Let’s get your bags loaded up and we’ll get you set up at The Spruce. I’m sure you’re tired after traveling all day.”
“A little,” I agreed politely. In truth, I was exhausted. But I was always exhausted. I could never seem to get enough sleep. And at the same time, could never fall entirely asleep either. I spent my days and nights caught in a half-conscious state of perpetual, mind-spinning fatigue.
Margaret helped me carry my things out another door to the other side of the building, where an old black Suburban sat idling.
Longtooth’s airstrip was only a two minute drive from the center of the little town, visible from the main street.
“There are basically two main roads in Longtooth,” Margaret explained. Towering snowbanks lined the gravel road. Both sides of the street were bordered by rows of weathered, metal-sided buildings, in a motley patchwork of faded blues, grays, and reds. There was a combination grocery-and-hardware store, a lawyer’s office, a small medical clinic, a bank, and the post office. Archaic-looking powerlines spidered out from each building, accumulating in a mass around a single, overburdened electrical transformer mounted high above the street.
The river curved close to the road on the eastern side, wide as a freeway. The ground sloped upward from the river. A few narrow streets spidered along the slopes. Small, boxy,
log-sided houses sat at irregular distances and angles from each other, rising above the main road. Further up the slopes, the houses gave way to a thick pine forest. From there, the ground rose steeply, transitioning into rocky mountainsides, forming towering walls that cradled the city from the east and west. I could only see a narrow wedge of the night sky overhead, most of the view dominated by jagged mountain peaks.
At the end of the road, Longtooth’s two schools faced each other from opposite sides. The secondary school, where I’d be teaching grades seven through twelve, was a one-story building, shingle-sided and topped with a steeply-pitched metal roof. The entire building would’ve fit in my last school’s library. I’d already seen pictures of it online, but in person, it was even smaller than I’d expected.
“Teekkonlit Valley Secondary School,” Margaret said, slowing to a stop. “One hundred and eighty-three students. Think you can handle it?” I realized she was joking when the same teasing smile she’d directed at the pilot was now turned on me. At my last school, back in Chicago, there’d been nearly three thousand students.
I returned her smile with practiced ease. I knew it looked warm, genuine, natural. Nobody ever seemed to realize how hollow it was. “I’ll see if I can manage,” I told her.
“Alright, my girl, let’s get you to your new home.” She turned back the way we came and took a right at the intersection. “This is the other main road,” Margaret explained. “The Spruce is at the end.”
There were fewer buildings on this road, but they were constructed of more expensive materials—brick, stone, and timber. Rustic, log-sided buildings nestled up against classic brick storefronts. There was an outfitter, a wilderness guide service, a small office for dog sled tours wedged next to another office advertising chartered flights, a general store, and a tiny, two-pump gas station. Businesses were marked by hand-painted wooden signs hanging over their doors.
“And here’s your home. The Spruce.” Margaret pulled up to the curb alongside the largest building on the street. It was three stories tall, constructed of massive, ancient-looking dark logs. As part of the terms of my employment contract, the city of Longtooth provided me room and board at The Spruce, an eighteenth-century boardinghouse and hotel. “This time of year, long-term tenants are the only residents. But in the spring, when hunting and fishing kick off, The Spruce is usually at full occupancy.”
Margaret parked on the street in front of The Spruce and helped me haul my bags from the back of the Suburban. A recent snowfall still dusted the sidewalk, disturbed by one set of boot tracks, and the tracks of what had to be an absolutely massive dog. I stared at the paw prints as I followed Margaret to The Spruce’s entry, and a thought occurred to me.
“Do a lot of wild animals come into town?” I asked. In the small town where I’d grown up, deer, black bears, and coyotes made regular forays into town.
“We get a bear or two every winter, a handful of moose.” She paused with her hand on The Spruce’s heavy wooden front door. “The wolves are pretty frequent. If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.”
With that ominous warning, she pulled the door open. Inside The Spruce, the lobby was dim. All the interior walls were made of the same massive logs as the exterior. The floors were wide wood planks, worn smooth from over a century of foot traffic. Thick timber beams crisscrossed the peaked ceiling. You could still see the gouges in the wood where they’d been hand-hewn by long-dead lumberjacks.
The front desk was empty, but Margaret waved me past it and led me into an expansive dining room. There was a long, diner-style counter at the head of the room, and the floor was filled with heavy wooden tables. A long bank of windows looked out on a thick copse of pine trees, threaded through by a narrow, iced-over creek. Paper New Year’s decorations hung from the ceiling.
It was getting close to dinner time, and a few of the tables were occupied. The diners glanced up at Margaret and me with curious expressions.
“Hey there, Maggie,” an older man greeted her from the counter, swiveling on his stool to face us. He looked well into his sixties, but still hardy, with swarthy skin, acute gray eyes, and thick silver hair. “This our new teacher?”
“Grace, let me introduce you to the town’s postmaster and resident ne’er-do-well, Wade Evers. Wade, this is Grace Rossi. She is, indeed, the new English teacher.”
“Don’t listen to Maggie,” Wade told me, rising from his seat. He offered his hand to me and I shook it. “I’m Longtooth’s moral compass—”
Margaret snorted.
“—and it’s a pleasure to have you here.”
“Very nice to meet you, Mr. Evers,” I told him with another one of those smiles that nobody ever saw past. It was strange how I could recognize that an interaction was going well, without feeling it. I knew what to say, how to act. I knew how to leave people feeling that I was charming and sweet and engaged. And all the while my mind was just a mess of white noise.
“It’s Wade to you, sweetheart,” he told me sternly.
“Wade,” I complied, taking my hand back.
“Grace just flew in from Chicago,” Margaret said.
Wade let out a low whistle. “Big city.” He glanced around the dining room as if he were observing all of Longtooth. “Big change.”
I shrugged. “Not entirely. I grew up in a pretty small town.”
Behind the counter, the swinging kitchen door slapped open. A short, buxom, caucasian woman emerged. Like Margaret, she looked to be in her early fifties, with her hair dyed deep auburn, and her eyes expertly lined and heavily lashed. She was dressed in a utilitarian zippered fleece with The Spruce’s logo on the chest, but she wore a clattering bracelet loaded with golden charms and big gold hoops hung from her ears.
“Tasha,” Margaret greeted her.
“This is my new tenant?” the woman asked with a slight Slavic accent. Pale blue eyes tracked over me. Bow-shaped lips pursed speculatively.
“Yep. Meet Grace Rossi. Grace, Natasha Freeman owns The Spruce with her husband, Arthur Freeman.”
“Ms. Rossi wants dinner and sleep,” Natasha pronounced. I had no appetite, but Natasha’s tone didn’t allow for dissent. She gestured at the empty stools along the counter and commanded, “Sit. You like caribou? And bread?”
Before I could answer her, Natasha disappeared back into the kitchen.
“Well,” Margaret said, giving me an assessing look. “I think Tasha’s got the right of it. Enjoy your meal and get some sleep. Why don’t I meet you here at eight tomorrow morning, and I can give you a better rundown of things? You can see the town in the daylight, I’ll show you around the school, and we can get your vehicle sorted out.”
I nodded. “Sure. That sounds good.”
We shook hands once more, and then Margaret was gone. My bags sat on the floor at my feet, taking up walking space in the dining room. I was working to tug them out of the way when Natasha burst through the kitchen door again, bearing a steaming bowl of stew with two thick slices of generously buttered bread.
“Leave those things,” she commanded, setting the food in front of me. “Aleksandr!”
A few seconds later, a harried young man appeared around the doorway beside the front desk. He was tall and thin, with dark hair, honey-gold skin, and muddy green eyes. Though he towered over the pale, blue-eyed Natasha, there was something in his features that reflected hers. “Yeah, mom?”
“Alek. Take Ms. Rossi’s bags up to her room.”
“You can call me Grace,” I told Natasha, watching as the reedy teenager hoisted my bags. He did so with less ease than the big, broad bush pilot had done, but he still managed better than I would have.
“Grace,” Natasha acknowledged, nodding. “Now, eat.” She disappeared back into the kitchen.
I slid onto the stool beside Wade. I pulled out my phone and sent a text to both of my parents. Hey, arrived safely in Longtooth. Just getting settled into my new place.
I got an immediate read receipt from dad—and no reply.
A few minutes later, Mom texted, ok. I stared at the response until my phone went dark. I hadn’t expected anything more than that. Honestly. Even so, the cold inside of me became a little more brittle.
I laid my phone facedown and picked up my spoon.
“How was the flight?” Wade asked.
“Uneventful,” I told him. “Just how I like ‘em.”
Wade chuckled. “Can’t argue with that.”
I ate quietly while Wade chattered at me. He recounted the town’s history for me, and I tried my best to feign interest. Long ago, the area was inhabited only by an Athabascan people from whom the Teekkonlit Valley derived its name. European Russians and indigenous Siberians arrived a few centuries ago during Russian colonization. Then an influx of African-Americans following the Civil War. Then Anglo-Europeans during the tail end of the Klondike Gold Rush. As a permanent settlement, Longtooth was first a lumber camp, then a boomtown during the gold rush, then a ghost town, and now a moderately prosperous throughway for tourists and hunters headed for the Gates of the Arctic. After the town history, Wade gave me a crash course on the who’s who of Longtooth. The endless stream of names went in one ear and out the other, but I nodded and pretended to be interested.
When my spoon scraped the bottom of my bowl, Natasha appeared again. “Grace needs to sleep,” she told Wade. She turned imperious blue eyes on me. “Up you get. This way, please.”
Natasha’s commandeering brusqueness was softened somewhat by a maternal air. She guided me through the dining room to a creaking flight of wooden steps. Dark log walls hemmed us in tightly on either side. Natasha led me up one story, then another. The narrow hall at the top of the stairs was lined with heavy wooden doors, brass numbers affixed to the center of each one.
Cold Hearted: An Alaskan Werewolf Romance Page 1
