Found: His Perfect Wife

by Marie Ferrarella

  The grin nearly split his face. Without thinking, he picked her up and spun her around. “Everything.”

  Exhilarated, he set her down again. It was such a relief, such an incredible relief to have that black drop cloth lifted from around the rest of his life, allowing him to see, to remember. To feel something again besides frustration and bewilderment. Even embarrassment, generated in his not-too-distant past, was welcomed.

  Pleased with himself and his earlier diagnosis, Jimmy beamed. “See?” He used his fork to punctuate his statement. “I said his amnesia wouldn’t last long.”

  Obviously her brother was forgetting that she was in the room when he’d offered that prognosis, hedging about the time. “Lucky guess, hotshot,” Alison sniffed. But she felt too happy for Luc to carry on the pretense of disdain.

  Kevin and Jimmy exchanged curious looks. It was very apparent to both that their sister was elated at this newest turn of events. More so than either one of them would have thought.

  “What set you off?” she asked Luc.

  “I don’t really know,” he confessed. It didn’t matter how it happened, only that it did. “Something that Kevin said, I think. Suddenly I was hearing Ike’s voice in my head.”

  “Ike,” Kevin repeated uncertainly. “You mean like the president? Dwight Eisenhower?”

  Luc thought of his cousin, a charmer since the day he was born. Ike would have gotten a kick out of the mix-up. “No, my cousin. Klondyke.”

  “Strange name for a guy,” Alison commented. It sounded more like something someone would have named their pet.

  Luc grinned. Ike hated the formal version of his first name, but it had been the whim of Ike’s parents to name both their children after an area strictly associated with their home state. “Not when you live in Alaska.”

  “Your cousin lives in Alaska?” Alison looked at Luc. It seemed like a whole other world. When Luc nodded, the only logical question followed. “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  It felt good to remember home and all the things it meant to him. He had always been happy living in Alaska, even though so many of the people in the town, people he’d grown up with, had left as soon as they were legally old enough to do so. Some even younger than that. He had never felt that urge himself, except for a fleeting moment just before he’d left for Seattle. But there had been a reason for that.

  “I live in a little town called Hades, about a hundred miles or so out of Anchorage. The only way you can get to it in the winter is by plane. The roads are impassable.”

  Kevin couldn’t imagine living anywhere but in the heart of a thriving city. Wrapping his hand around the chunky glass filled with orange juice, he took a deep swig before saying, “Sounds isolated. No wonder you came here.”

  “Yes, and got mugged less than half an hour after he landed,” Alison reminded him.

  “You gotta take the good with the bad,” Kevin commented philosophically.

  “And this is definitely the good. Well, I for one think that this calls for a celebration.” Wrapping up the remainder of his breakfast in a napkin, Jimmy got up from the table. He was late, but that was nothing new. “What do you say? You and me, we can do this city up right tonight.”

  “I’d like a piece of that,” Kevin chimed in.

  Alison looked at her older brother in surprise. Kevin rarely went anywhere but the garage and the house, preferring his entertainment in small doses and restricted to the company of a few good friends. Clubs were Jimmy’s domain, not Kevin’s.

  Jimmy looked more than happy to have Kevin along. “You’re in.” He broke off a piece of bacon from Kevin’s plate, popping it into his mouth. “I’ve gotta run, but we’ll talk when I get off my shift,” he told Luc. “We’ll take in a few hot spots, make you forget all about Alaska.”

  “I’ve had enough of forgetting for a while,” Luc told him. “But I would like to see a few things.”

  “Great. Later.” Jimmy was a memory the next moment, hurrying out the front door.

  Without realizing it, Alison moved closer to Luc. “If you want to see Seattle, I think the Space Needle would be a good start. Jimmy’ll probably only drag you to where his friends go.” Out of the corner of her eye, Alison saw Kevin grinning.

  “Nothing wrong with that.” With a reluctant sigh, Kevin pushed away from the table. “Haven’t eaten that well since Lily moved out. Well, time for me to be going, too.” He rose to his feet. “I’ll see you tonight, Luc. Glad that you’re in your right mind again.” Tickled by his own wording, he winked at Luc.

  Quickly wiping her lips, Alison tossed aside her napkin. She was planning on getting a ride in this morning. “Wait a minute, I’m—”

  Kevin glanced over his shoulder, the look in his eyes freezing her in place. “Going to stay right here and keep our guest entertained. I figure it’s the least you can do.”

  She didn’t particularly like having her responsibilities outlined for her, especially not in front of strangers. “I’m driving today, remember?”

  “Only if I say so—” He narrowed his eyes, leaving no room for argument. “And I’m not saying so.”

  She should have known this was coming. Kevin was still overreacting. Nothing had happened to her yesterday. Besides, she could take care of herself. Alison dug in.

  “Kevin—”

  “Aly—” Kevin teased back. He looked toward Luc, seeking an ally. “See if you can keep her busy today. I’d take it as a personal favor.”

  Alison’s mouth dropped open. Kevin was using Luc to gang up on her. Luc was her discovery, not Kevin’s. “But—”

  “See you later, kid,” Kevin called out from the hallway.

  And then it was just the two of them in the kitchen. In the house. The two of them and the memory of his very damp, very firm body, glistening with water beads and looking like every woman’s fantasy come to life.

  Alison reached for her glass and drained it. She had to get her mind to go beyond that image.

  But it didn’t.

  Her mind seemed to be stuck in Park, the engine revving and thoughts coming at her fast and furious.

  Thoughts that didn’t belong in a kitchen.

  Thoughts that were, she realized, completely out of character for her. She didn’t know whether to be glad, or nervous.

  Needing something to occupy herself, she began picking up the dishes from the table. For the first time in four years, she had nothing to do and nowhere to be. Freedom felt very strange.

  She did her best to sound casual. “So, where would you like to go?”

  Luc watched her as she began to wash dishes. Was it his imagination, or was she nervous about something again? “I don’t want to put you out—”

  “You’re not,” she heard herself snap, and then bit her tongue. What was the matter with her? “I mean, it’s my choice and I want to. Besides, I suddenly seem to be at loose ends today.”

  Rinsing off the last dish in the sink, she placed it in the dishwasher then turned to pick up the rest from the table. She caught her breath as she bumped into Luc. Alison forced a smile to her lips and took the dish from his hand. Why did the room feel smaller suddenly, as if someone had pushed all the walls in closer?

  He looked toward the telephone. “First thing I want to do is call home. I’ll reverse the charges—”

  He’d come to her rescue, she wasn’t about to let him pay for a measly long-distance phone call. “You do and you’ll have trouble pushing the buttons after I flatten your hand.”

  He laughed, wondering if she realized how funny the threat sounded, coming from someone nearly a foot shorter than he was. “I guess the muggers aren’t the only ones who are violent in this city.”

  “Nope.” Leaning over the work counter, she pulled the phone closer to them. “Make your call. Your family’s probably worried sick.”

  There’d been no promise of calling on landing, just a tacit understanding that he’d call at some point or other. “I doubt they even noticed. Ike still feels l
ike he’s on his honeymoon even though he and Marta have been married for a couple of months now.”

  And going at it like newlyweds, he thought fondly. There’d been a time that he’d thought he and Janice would be like that. But that had obviously just been wishful thinking on his part.

  Alison waited, but Luc didn’t continue. “Anyone else?”

  He thought of Sydney and Shayne. “Just friends, but nobody who’d expect me to call them when I got in.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t realize she was smiling until she caught her reflection in the kitchen mirror as he began to dial.

  She took him to see the Space Needle. Because the breakfast he’d made had effectively filled up every available nook and cranny in her body. Even around lunchtime, they only had coffee in the restaurant, taking in the breathtaking view of the city beneath their feet. After that, she brought him to the Kingdome and Pike Place Market. She supposed that she harbored the secret hope of tiring him out so that he’d pass on Jimmy’s invitation when her brother came home from the hospital.

  But instead of tiring Luc out, traipsing around Seattle only seemed to invigorate him. She supposed that life in the frozen north had built up his stamina and made him heartier than most.

  Her subtle plan backfired. At the end of the day she was the one who felt as if she needed a dose of energy. But she’d made up her mind that he wasn’t going to go out into the wilds of Seattle’s nightlife in Pioneer Square without her. After all, he was from a small town and consequently sheltered. Without saying so, she appointed herself his protector.

  One of the duties of a protector, she quickly learned, was being an available dance partner. Luc, it turned out, loved to dance. The fast tempo numbers sapped her energy.

  But the slow dances were even harder on her.

  She tried not to analyze her reaction and to look, instead, as if she were having fun. She tried so hard, she forgot she was trying.

  “How big is Hades, really?”

  The question brought a fond smile to his face. He could remember a time when the entire population could fit into one building. But that was before the zinc mine had opened up and industry of a sort had found its way to Hades.

  “You could probably stick it in Seattle’s back pocket and have room to spare. Just enough people to make a good-size party.”

  She looked around at all the bodies pressed into the small area that comprised the club. Anyone with claustrophobia would have taken one look and run out screaming by now. “Okay, how many in a good-size party?”

  He thought for a second, recalling the statistic he’d read in the weekly newspaper. “About five hundred and three people. A little more if you count the Inuit village on the perimeter.”

  “Oh.” There’d been more people than that in her graduating class in high school. For that matter, there might have been that many people in here. “What do you do there?”

  “Until recently, I was part owner of the local saloon. Ike owns the other half,” he added. It’d been Ike who’d talked him into the venture in the first place, saying that he needed to do something with his money besides leave it in the bank.

  “Until recently. Did you sell out?” Alison caught her tongue between her teeth, wondering if he thought she was prying.

  But if he thought so, he gave no indication.

  “No, bought in, actually.” He saw his answer confused her. Maybe the blow on the head had left him generally inarticulate. He certainly felt tongue-tied at any rate. “The general store.” Taking a breath, he backtracked. “The old owner wanted to sell and I thought after the fire, the place could stand a little renovation.”

  She was trying to piece this all together and not having much luck. “You had a fire?”

  “Yes.” He nearly laughed. She made it sound as if it was something unusual. Or maybe she thought of Hades as something unusual. That was probably more like it. People generally thought of Alaska as being a million miles away, a place only a little less distant than outer space. “We have fires, parties, births, just like regular people.”

  This was not coming out right. She did better with a thermometer in her hand, leaning over a bed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  His grin was quick, absolving and oddly warming. “Don’t apologize. I was only teasing.” Luc cocked his head, studying her. “Don’t people tease you, Alison?”

  “My brothers do, but in general, no. At least, not often enough for me to get used to it.” To keep his questions at bay, she forced a smile to her lips. “I guess I’ve been on the serious side of life for so long, it’s hard for me to remember that there are two ways of looking at things.”

  Because the music seemed to have increased in volume, even though the song was a slow one, he leaned his head in close to hers, whispering in her ear. “Sometimes more.”

  The press of bodies was getting to her. Both the ones on the dance floor, sucking up the available oxygen, and his against hers. It all conspired to making it far too hot for her to withstand.

  She turned her eyes away. That was the easy part. The hard part was anesthetizing her body to the feel of his against it. “So, you’re the general store owner and the bartender—”

  “Used to be,” he corrected. Nowadays he tended bar rarely, only when Ike was away. “Ike handles that by himself now. He’s got some hired help, but he likes to spend his time behind the bar, listening to the miners swap stories.” He laughed softly. She knew it was crazy, but the sound seemed to glide along her skin. “He tells some himself.”

  She tried to envision it, to see in her mind’s eye a place that was open and friendly, its families’ lives tightly interwoven. Sounded almost picture-perfect. And untroubled. “I guess the general store isn’t as colorful as the saloon.”

  He thought of some of the disputes he’d been forced to settle on the spur of the moment. The only difference being that his customers had lists in their hands instead of mugs of ale. “It has its moments. Besides, Mr. Kellogg still works there with his wife.”

  How much business could there be in a small town like that? “So you’re a man of leisure for the most part.”

  He laughed at the laid-back image that called to mind. A couple bumped into them and he moved over slightly, guiding Alison away.

  “Nobody is, in Hades. The weather won’t let you be idle.” He could see what was on her mind and smiled. Most outlanders thought that way. “We just don’t move as fast as everyone else, but we get things done.”

  It was hard for her to think. It felt as if small, electrical charges were shimmying up and down her body. She wasn’t sure if that was a factor of having seen him naked this morning, or just because.

  Alison searched for something to keep the conversation going and in the open. “Do you have a hospital?”

  He began to laugh then, really laugh. She supposed the question was probably naive sounding at that.

  He hadn’t meant to make it appear as if he was laughing at her. It was just that he could hear Shayne lamenting the fact that things were still so out of touch in Hades, and it felt good to remember even small things like that. “The closest any of us come to a hospital is when Sydney or Shayne fly us to the one in Anchorage.”

  “And Sydney and Shayne are—?”

  Maybe because of his own dilemma, he said the first thing that popped into his head. “Married.” Luc saw the incredulous look that came into her eyes and then realized why. “Sydney’s a girl.”

  “Glad one of them is,” she murmured.

  Something warm and good moved through him, though he wasn’t absolutely sure as to why. He did like the feel of holding her so close, Luc thought.

  Luc realized that he was staring at her. But she did have beautiful eyes, even in this lighting. And he’d remembered his first impression of her when he’d opened his on the pavement. He’d thought he was looking up into the face of an angel.

  The angel was creating some very unangelic thoughts inside his head.

  “Shayne’s a doct
or,” he told her. “And he’d sell his eyeteeth for someone like you.”

  She tried to take that as a compliment, but something made her stiffen involuntarily. “I take it he’s not happy with Sydney?”

  “Not happy…?” Luc’s voice trailed off as he tried to make sense out of her question. And then he laughed. He was going to have to try to be clearer when he spoke. “Anyone in his right mind would be happy with Sydney. No, I meant because you’re a nurse.” His tongue grew thicker as he tried to explain. “Shayne needs a nurse. He’s been trying to get one to come up ever since his brother left town almost two years ago now. Ben was a doctor, too, but he wanted to get out. Kind of like Ike’s sister.” He was rambling, he thought. Saying more in the space of these few moments than he customarily did in an entire week. But that was her fault. She was creating this energy within him and he wasn’t sure just how to handle it. “They could never get a nurse to come to Hades. Women are pretty outnumbered up there.”

  That didn’t sound right, either. Reconnoitering, Luc pried his foot out of his mouth and tried again. “I guess another way to say it is that women are pretty special up there.”

  He had a nice way of looking at things, she thought. For the moment, because none of this was quite real to her, Alison laid her head against his shoulder. The music drifted through her, making her sway. Thoughts began linking themselves up in her mind.

  Why not?

  She raised her head and looked up at him. “Is he really looking for a nurse?”

  Why would she think he’d make something like that up? “Yes, why?”

  Maybe this was serendipity. She didn’t much believe in fate, but there were times when things just seemed to lay themselves out.

  “Because, as I mentioned earlier, I’m looking for a place to earn the rest of my credits. I was trying to decide between going to work at this little clinic in Montevideo and a tiny two-man practice in the Appalachians.” Both had stirred her sense of charity. But both required a drastic severing of ties. She wouldn’t be able to come back home for visits often. “Alaska’s a lot closer than either one of them. The flight home wouldn’t take nearly as long.” She glanced over toward where Jimmy was entertaining not just one, but two women at the table. And Kevin seemed to be getting pretty cozy with the redhead he’d been talking to for a while now. “Not that either one of my brothers would notice I was gone.”