Northern Magic

by Janet Dailey

  “Sorry we digressed into state politics,” he said to explain the serious atmosphere.

  “I certainly hope you settled all the issues,” Maggie smiled.

  “Naturally,” Wade replied.

  It was nearly an hour later when Cody made the suggestion they should leave. And it was another fifteen minutes before they actually made it to the door. Wade walked them to the car.

  “I'll be in touch as soon as I have some definite answers,” he promised.

  Although the statement was more or less directed at Cody, Shannon thanked him. “I appreciate the time you're taking."

  “My pleasure,” he assured her, and waved as Cody reversed the car out of the driveway.

  For a change, Noah Steele wasn't very talkative during the drive back to the hotel. Shannon was comfortable with the occasional silences that fell. The only subject discussed at any length was her impression of the Raffertys, which was a positive one.

  Cody stopped next to the entrance to the parking lot first to let his father out. Before Noah climbed out, he started to ask, “Are you going to—"

  “I'll be home directly, dad,” Cody interrupted him.

  “Okay.” The older man stepped out and closed the rear passenger door.

  Parking the car around the corner in front of the hotel, Cody got out to see Shannon safely to her room. Little was said during the ride up in the elevator or while walking down the hallway to her room. Shannon unlocked the door and turned to thank him for an enjoyable evening, but the probing search of his gaze distracted her.

  “Is something wrong?” she frowned.

  He leaned an arm against the door frame, a corner of his mouth lifting grimly. “Yes, something is wrong. Me. I'm wrong.” Cody stated, his gaze possessively swept her upturned face to linger on her lips. “What I'm thinking is wrong.” It slid lower to include the curved length of her body in a highly suggestive glance that lifted the tempo of her pulse. “What I'm wanting is wrong."

  She was unnerved by his frankly sexual look, so blatantly demanding. “Cody, don't put me in a position where I'll have to refuse to see you again,” she warned, to protect herself from the force of his maleness.

  A nerve leaped along his jaw, exposing the raw edges of his desire, before the muscles relaxed and he smiled. “I won't. Do you believe in intuition, Texas, even when there aren't any facts to support it?"

  The question puzzled her. Already on guard, she answered warily, “Sometimes."

  “So do I. And my intuition tells me that the time will come when what I'm thinking and what I'm wanting will be right—for both of us.” He leaned down to brush her lips with a feather-warm kiss. “Good night, Texas.” He pushed away from the door frame, leaving her free to enter the room. “I'm a patient man. All things come to he who waits."

  Chapter Five

  THE NEXT MORNING Shannon was sitting beside the telephone debating whether she should call her parents and advise them of Rick's apparent disappearance. Saturday was approaching—her wedding day. She couldn't postpone the phone call much longer.

  A knock at her door allowed Shannon to shelve the decision for the moment.

  “Who is it?” she called.

  “Cody!” was the partially muffled answer.

  Unbolting the door, she slipped the night chain free and opened the door. “Good morning?” Her greeting held a question; she wondered what had brought him to the hotel at this hour.

  “Good morning.” He stood in the hallway with his hands thrust into the pockets of his flight jacket. A lazy smile slanted the strong line of his mouth. “I believe I owe you an apology for some of the things I said last night, I was out of line."

  “It's forgotten.” But she felt a twinge of regret that he hadn't meant them. Her attitude was really becoming confusing.

  “Last night I guess I just wasn't looking forward to going home and sleeping alone in a double bed. An empty pillow gets to be pretty poor company. It's soft, but it doesn't generate any warmth,” he explained with a shrug of his shoulders.

  There was a tightening of her stomach muscles at this veiled discussion of a man and a woman sleeping together. She found it all too easy to visualize herself in his arms, shaped to his length spoon-fashion.

  “Yes, I know,” she agreed, but uneasily.

  “I hope you don't have anything on your agenda this morning,” Cody abruptly switched the subject. “I've decided that you've been cooped up in this hotel long enough. It's time you saw something of Alaska up close."

  “But ... don't you have to work?"

  “That's one of the privileges of owning a business. You can take a day off whenever it suits you.” When she continued to hesitate, Cody reasoned, “What would you do if you didn't go with me?"

  “I....” Her hand opened in an empty gesture.

  “Nothing,” he answered for her. “You need the break. Get your purse and a jacket."

  It took her only a few seconds to collect both items and join him in the hallway. “Where are we going?” she asked as they entered the elevator.

  “I thought we'd take a drive out to Matanuska Valley."

  “I don't know any more than I did before,” she laughed, because the name held no significance for her.

  “You will,” Cody promised.

  In the car Cody took the highway that angled north from the city. The sky was predominantly blue, with gray white clouds lingering on the ridges of the Chugach Mountains. Homes began to thin out, the settlement giving way to an encroaching forest of trees dressed in the autumn colors of gold and rust. When they passed a highway sign that advised Moose Crossing—Next Ten Miles, Shannon turned to Cody with a disbelieving look.

  “Moose crossing?” she repeated, certain it was a joke of some sort.

  The corners of his mouth deepened in a half smile as he slid her a brief glance. “Except for some black-tailed deer on the islands, Alaska doesn't have any deer, but there are plenty of moose and caribou to make up for it. You'll see signs similar to that all along the highway. The moose like to browse on the young willow shoots that grow along the highway. Like the deer, you usually see them early in the morning or around sunset. A full-grown moose can weigh around a thousand pounds, so it isn't any joke if you run into one with a car."

  “It certainly wouldn't be.” The chance that she might catch a glimpse of one of the giants of the wild kept her gaze sweeping the undergrowth of the forests even though it was midmorning. The homes she saw scattered along the highway were more frequently constructed out of logs.

  Miles slipped away as they traveled inland. The sight of a whole mountainside cloaked in shimmering gold leaves made her catch her breath in awe. It was a spectacle of nature in all its raw glory.

  “What kind of trees are those? Aspens?” she questioned Cody, not believing she could be right.

  “The gold ones? Yes."

  Her head moved from side to side in awed disbelief. “I've been to the Colorado Rocky Mountains in the fall, where you often see a clump of golden aspen against a backdrop of pine. It's the other way around here. A clump of pine trees with a whole mountainside of aspens."

  “Impressive, isn't it?"

  “That's an understatement,” Shannon declared on a fervent note, and turned to look at him. Her gaze was distracted by the glimpse of a plowed field beyond him. “Do they farm around here?” Farms did not fit her image of Alaska—so far nothing had matched her preconceived notion of Alaska.

  “Matanuska Valley is the center of Alaska's agriculture,” he verified.

  “What do they grow?” Unconsciously she was still considering the climate too severe.

  “Oats, wheat, barley, some vegetables.” He named off the crops, then added, “We'll stop at one of the produce markets near Palmer."

  Her glance swept the valley to the left of the highway. “I suppose they raise a lot of cattle."

  “Not as much as you would expect. There isn't a high nutrient value in the native grasses. Most of the big cattle operations are
located on Kodiak Island,” he explained. “Matanuska Valley was settled during the Depression when much of the midwestern United States was stricken with drought. The Federal Government provided transportation for some two hundred families to come here and gave them land to develop and farm."

  “I didn't know that.” A brief look of chagrin spread across her features. “I'm beginning to realize there are a lot of things I don't know about Alaska. I should have been reading up on my history."

  “Alaska has to be seen to be believed.”

  “I'm discovering that,” Shannon agreed.

  They drove through several small communities. The conversation between them subsided, leaving Shannon free to absorb the continually changing scenery that surrounded them. Mountains, valleys, wilderness, farms, log cabins, modern homes, rivers, lakes, ribbon-slim waterfalls splashing silver down the rock face of a mountain, marsh-wet lowlands—every curve in the road brought something new to see, sometimes at a better angle and sometimes just a tantalizing glimpse.

  Outside of Palmer, Cody slowed the car and turned off the highway where a sign indicated the location of a farmers’ market. Two cars were parked in front of a shed bearing a sign that read: Open. He stopped the car beside the other two and turned off the engine.

  “Come on,” he smiled. “We'll continue your education inside."

  His remark aroused her curiosity as she climbed out and walked to the front of the car, where Cody waited for her. Together they walked to the shed's door, his hand resting lightly on the curve of her waist.

  Astonishment registered in her expression within seconds after she stepped inside. She stared at the long tables with their picked-over selection of vegetables. Those that remained were so huge she doubted they were real. She walked over to a cabbage that weighed at least fifty pounds and touched a leaf.

  “It's real,” she murmured aloud, and lifted her rounded gaze to Cody. “How did it grow so big?"

  “That isn't big,” he denied as he critically studied the cabbage. “In fact, it's on the puny side."

  “You're kidding!” Shannon breathed.

  Cody gave her a look of mock surprise. “Don't cabbages grow this big in Texas?"

  “You brought me here deliberately,” she accused without anger, wising up to his game, “so you could brag about how big everything is in Alaska."

  “I don't have to brag, Texas. Alaska does it for herself.” His smile was wide, laughter sparkling wickedly in his blue eyes.

  She had to laugh, unable to dispute the accuracy of his remark. “You're going to have to explain to me how this cabbage grew so big,” she insisted.

  “It's very simple, really. Just a little bit of northern magic,” Cody assured her. “This is the land of the midnight sun. The secret is almost twenty hours of sunlight during the day."

  “I hadn't thought about that. Does that much sunlight make everything grow like this?"

  “It makes everything grow, but it doesn't always produce,” he admitted. “Corn, for instance; the stalks and leaves are tall and healthy, but the ears are small and unformed."

  “Why?” In the light of the way the sun affected other crops, she didn't understand why it didn't produce the same result with corn.

  “You've heard the saying that at night you can hear the corn grow. In Alaska there is no night, only a kind of twilight. In order for corn to produce ears, you have to put it to bed—cover it the same way you cover a bird's cage, with cloth or a paper sack. Commercially, that isn't practical, although it's often done for family consumption in a home garden,” he explained.

  “That's amazing!” Shannon turned back to view the cabbage again, still marveling at its proportions. “Can't you imagine what a shock it was the first time someone planted a cabbage here and it grew into something like this? Talk about Jack and the Beanstalk!” she laughed, still finding it all a little incredible.

  After they toured the small marketplace, they drove into Palmer and had lunch at the small café located inside the equally small hotel on the main street. Shannon was surprised at how hungry she was, cleaning up every bit of food on her plate. They returned to Anchorage at a leisurely pace, arriving back at her hotel in the early afternoon.

  Suggesting coffee, Cody accompanied her into the hotel. “I think I'll check at the desk first, just to see if there are any messages for me,” Shannon stated. As she started to cross the lobby, she recognized a couple standing in the center lobby.

  “Cody, look! There's Wade and Maggie.” When her glance swept back to him, she was surprised to find that he didn't appear pleased to see his friends. A thought occurred to her. “Do you suppose they found out something about Rick?"

  “I don't know.” He didn't venture an opinion as his hand applied pressure to the back of her waist, guiding her forward. “They've seen us. Let's go over and say hello."

  So many times she'd had her hopes falsely raised that she was almost afraid to hope Wade Rafferty had learned something about Rick's whereabouts. Crossing the lobby with Cody's hand firmly on her waist, she forced a smile to her lips and greeted the couple.

  “Hello. We didn't expect to see you here this afternoon,” she said, and glanced expectantly from one to the other, waiting for an explanation that would answer the looming question of what had brought them to the hotel.

  Wade flicked a brief look at Cody, and Shannon felt his hand tighten its grip. When his enigmatic gaze returned to her, she was puzzled by its remoteness. “Last night when I told you your fiancé wasn't in the employment of our company, I was in error. His records were misplaced, I happened to show his photograph to a couple of our mechanics on the flight line; they recognized him as a pilot recently hired. They thought his name was Dick."

  She had been bracing herself for another dead end. It was just beginning to hit her that she had finally found out where Rick was working. “I can't believe it!” she burst out on a happy note of relief. “Where is he? Where's Rick?"

  “Steady, Texas,” Cody's voice cautioned on an ominously low note.

  “Cody's right,” Wade stated briskly. “I'm afraid I don't have good news."

  “What do you mean?” Alarm flashed across her face as Shannon suddenly became aware of the quiet sympathy and concern in Maggie's expression. “Is Rick all right? Has he been hurt?"

  “He was flying copilot on the plane that carried Jackson Hale, our board chairman. There isn't any easy way to say this, Shannon.” Wade's voice was heavy with regret. “The plane was reported missing more than two weeks ago, presumed lost with everyone aboard."

  She stared. They were saying Rick's plane had crashed, implying that he was dead. It was in their faces. A tremor of disbelief started, gathering momentum.

  “There must be a mistake,” she murmured in vague protest. “Maybe it wasn't Rick."

  Wade returned Rick's photograph, placing it in her nerveless fingers. “The ground crew identified him as the copilot. Henderson, our chief pilot, had hired him only the day before. We aren't certain whether the absence of any employment record was an oversight or if Henderson had it with his papers aboard the plane. Without it we weren't able to notify his next of kin. I'm sorry, Shannon. I'm truly sorry,” he said grimly.

  Her eyes blurred as she tried to look at the photograph in her hand. “No.” It was a strangled sound of denial. She refused to accept that any of this was true.

  “Come on.” Cody's hand tightened around her waist, his voice brisk and commanding. “Let's go someplace less public than this lobby."

  Shannon heard him, but she was barely conscious of being swept along to the elevators. Insulated by a numbed kind of shock, she kept hearing fragments of Wade's voice, phrases out of context: “presumed lost ... flying copilot ... next of kin ... missing ... sorry, sorry, sorry...."

  “Where's the key to your room, Shannon?” Cody was asking, his voice coming from some far-off place. “Do you have your room key?"

  His request penetrated her consciousness, but she lacked coordination as she fu
mbled with the flap of her shoulder bag. Cody slipped the strap off her shoulder and handed her purse to someone else, his arm remaining around her in silent support.

  “See if you can find her room key, Maggie,” he ordered.

  She was absently aware of a door being opened. She was half walked and half carried into the room. Images danced in her mind of an airplane flying into a cloud and never coming out, swallowed by the vastness of the sky. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to shut out the vision.

  “Wade, call down to room service and order up some black coffee with plenty of sugar,” Cody ordered as he pushed her into a chair.

  Her eyes opened to cling to his lean, strong-jawed face. There was the glitter of unshed tears in their hazel depths. A reluctant sadness was in his features, stamped with grimness.

  “You weren't at all surprised when Wade told me.” Her voice was hoarse, but the haze was dissipating, clearing her head. “You knew ... or guessed before he told me."

  “Yes,” Cody admitted.

  “How long? How long have you known?” She felt betrayed by this man she had thought she could trust.

  “I found out for certain only this afternoon, a few minutes ago, when I saw Wade in the lobby waiting for us. I suspected last night, after talking to Wade.” He stressed the qualifying verb. “After talking to you, Wade realized that your fiancé could have been the unidentified copilot. That's why he wanted the photograph."

  “You knew—you suspected, but you didn't tell me,” Shannon accused. “I had a right to know."

  “Maybe you did. But I didn't see the point of your losing a night's sleep when we weren't even certain Rick was on that plane,” he retorted with a trace of anger. “I don't regret it and I'm not going to apologize."

  “I won't thank you for it, either!” she flared.

  “I never asked for your thanks,” he countered with equal force. A heavy sigh broke from him as Cody lowered his head and rubbed the center of his forehead. “I'm sorry, Texas. I shouldn't have yelled at you.” The anger of regret made his voice husky and rough. “I only wanted to make things a little easier."