That's Our Baby!

by Pamela Browning

  In the sudden hollow silence, Sam spat feathers out of his mouth, slung his backpack into a corner and peeled off his parka.

  “What kind of welcome is this? I hammered on the door and yelled until I almost froze. Or is that what you had in mind?” His piercing blue gaze swept over her, taking in her mussed hair now frosted with feathers, the worn jeans, the red wool hiking socks with a hole in one toe. She stood gaping at him, unable to speak.

  “You shouldn’t have dressed up,” he said, stomping clumps of snow off his boots and making a feathery mess on the floor. He threw the parka over a peg beside Kerry’s coat and strode through a few still-fluttering feathers to the kitchen area where he helped himself to a towel from the shelf over the dry sink.

  “You forgot to shave,” Kerry snapped back, picking feathers from her hair, her sweater, her jeans. She felt perilously near tears; it was because her finger hurt and her favorite pillow was ruined. Or maybe it was because she’d been foolish enough to think that Sam Harbeck had the capacity to care about anyone but himself.

  “I’ve been roughing it, camping out.”

  “In snow?” Kerry said, heavy on the sarcasm. She bent to pick up the pillow. Its case was wet, and feathers were still falling out.

  “It wasn’t snowing when I started,” Sam said. He wiped his face with the towel and tossed it into a basket under the sink before peering into the cloudy mirror beside the back door and brushing feathers from his hair. In obvious distaste, he poked at a pot of red beans she’d left on the stove after lunch and dropped the spoon before looking her over again from head to toe.

  It was a thorough inspection, his gaze lingering on her face before sweeping the rest of her slight frame. It unnerved her, that look. She felt as if she were standing in front of him buck naked. For something to do, she walked over to the wood box and shoved the sadly deflated pillow in between the logs. She didn’t know what else to do with it.

  “Whatever brings you to this neck of the woods?” she blurted. She held her injured finger in the palm of her other hand; it was throbbing painfully. Through her pain and astonishment, she had the idea that maybe Sam was checking on her out of a feeling of obligation to Doug. At that thought she felt a kind of absurd gratitude, but it evaporated as soon as Sam opened his mouth.

  “Your friend Emma told me you’d written and said you were staying on here after the last boat of the summer came through. I couldn’t believe you could be so dumb. Why are you staying here in the cabin instead of the lodge?”

  “It costs too much to run the electrical generator there, and the lodge is too big to heat. Anyway, the cabin is cozy. It suits me.”

  “What ever possessed you to hang on at Silverthorne with winter coming on? With winter already here,” he amended, with a meaningful look at the storm flailing outside the windows.

  “I had lots of work to do. I was in the middle of painting the dining room because I was running behind schedule when the River Rover made its last run. Captain Crocker is sending his son-in-law Bert to pick me up in his plane in a couple of weeks when he flies to the Indian village on government business.” She narrowed her eyes. “The captain didn’t send you instead, did he?”

  Sam’s hair was coal-black and unruly, and now he furrowed a hand through it, which only made it wilder. “Hell, no. If anyone had asked me to fly all the way over here to pick up a cheechako woman who was enough of a nitwit not to head for civilization in the face of an Alaskan winter, I would have refused.” Like Captain Crocker, he’d pronounced it “cheechaker.” “Nope, it was my own fool decision to stop here. You should have left weeks ago. And if Bert’s planning to fly to an Indian village, which one?”

  “To Athinopa. Captain Crocker said Bert wouldn’t mind stopping here.”

  “He wouldn’t. If he heard about you, that is.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “Josiah Crocker habitually tosses his captain’s hat onto his bedpost on the last day of August every year and goes on a six-month drunk, that’s why. I wouldn’t count on Joe to tell anyone anything.”

  “How was I to know?” Kerry said, feeling deflated.

  Sam evidently took this for a rhetorical question because he picked a few feathers from his shirt and changed the subject. “You’re too thin. Don’t you eat properly?”

  “I try,” she said evenly. For the first time she noticed that Sam Harbeck looked like a cross between Harrison Ford and George Clooney, heavy on the Harrison. He seemed to take up too much space in this small room; he filled it up. Kerry tried to inhale, but found that she couldn’t breathe. She grabbed the back of a chair with her uninjured hand and closed her eyes against the bevy of black dots swarming behind her eyelids. Meanwhile her visitor was pacing like a caged animal. An agitated caged animal, who was incongruously wearing the ubiquitous Alaskan bush boots. Feathers fluttered lazily in the air like snowflakes.

  “Worse September snowstorm I’ve seen in many years. I was halfway here when it hit. I ditched the plane at the bend in the river where it meets Chickaback Creek. Do you have anything to eat? Anything good?” He cast a disparaging look at the pot of beans.

  “I—um, well, I made goulash yesterday out of the last of the beef and was going to heat it for dinner. Anyway, beans are very nutritious. I cooked them with wild onions and chili powder. What plane?”

  “It’s an aging Cessna 185 that I agreed to ferry back to Anchorage for a friend. Against my better judgment, by the way. Last week I had one of my pilots drop me off at Vic’s camp, it’s out Tolneeka way, and indulged in a few days of fishing. Where’s the goulash?”

  She ignored his question. “What happened to the Cessna?” she asked. She was still trying to figure out what Sam was doing here.

  “It was an emergency landing, and the plane’s not flyable. I guess the damage could have been worse considering the conditions. Actually I didn’t land far from here, but I had to walk most of the way against the wind. Is something wrong? You look like hell.” He tucked his hands into his belt loops and scowled at her. His brows were still damp and stood out from his face; a small scar cut through the left one. His mouth turned down at the corners; it was too generous to be considered handsome. Even as she noted these irrelevant details, Kerry couldn’t help thinking that there was something overwhelmingly, reassuringly masculine about him. She told herself that under the circumstances, she should be relieved to see another human being, any human being. Even Sam Harbeck. Even when he was saying uncomplimentary things.

  “I thought rule number one was never to leave the plane if you go down.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve never been much for rules. I asked you if something was wrong.”

  “I think I broke my finger,” Kerry said with reluctance.

  “Let’s see.” It wasn’t a request, it was a command.

  Reluctantly Kerry presented her hand, and Sam enveloped it in his larger ones as he studied it. He whistled. “That’s a lovely shade of violent.”

  “Violent?”

  “Violet. It’s a joke, Kerry.”

  “It hurts too much to laugh.”

  She could tell he didn’t like the looks of her injury. “What have you been doing for it?” he asked.

  “Cold packs. I’ve been hoping it’s only sprained.”

  “It looks like more than a sprain, all right. What were you doing, smashing your fingers with a hammer? You have no business trying to renovate that big old lodge by yourself. You should have waited until next year when you could bring in a crew of workmen.”

  “There’s no money for workmen, and by next summer I’ll need paying guests. Doug didn’t leave me in great financial shape, you know.” She pulled her hand away from him, but he grabbed her wrist. His fingers were surprisingly gentle.

  “Not so fast. Where does it hurt most?” His voice had lost its challenge and its banter now. Also he had ignored the reference to her finances, which Kerry thought was probably just as well. She didn’t want Sam Harbeck to pity her for her financial diffic
ulties; everyone knew that he had built the small bush-flying service that he’d inherited from his father into Harbeck Air, Alaska’s biggest charter airline. Sam was worth millions of dollars. His remarkable success only underscored her late husband’s recklessness with money.

  “I think my finger’s broken in the end segment. That’s where it hurts most. Hey, careful! Your hands are cold.”

  “I’ll spare you the usual comeback.” His eyes now were surprisingly mischievous, a pale sparkling blue.

  “‘Cold hands, warm heart?’ It’s not necessarily true.”

  Sam ordinarily seemed to enjoy sparring with her, but now he was all business. “What’s true is that we’d better do something about this finger. Usually doctors don’t treat fractures in the end segment of the finger unless they involve the joint. Think the joint’s fractured?”

  Against her better judgment, Kerry tried to wiggle her swollen finger. “It hurts so much that it’s hard to tell. I may have just jammed it. My hand took a blow when I broke my fall.”

  “You’re lucky it’s your left hand.”

  Kerry shook her head. “Not so lucky. I’m left-handed.”

  “Well, what I’m going to do is tape your ring finger to the middle one. It won’t hurt so much if it’s immobilized.”

  “Wouldn’t a splint be better?

  “There are pros and cons. A splint decreases pain, but may increase joint stiffness after it’s healed. If we leave your finger as it is, the pain may last longer and chances are you’ll end up with a stiff joint anyway. Taping it to the adjoining finger is a good compromise.”

  “How do you know so much about this?” she asked, watching him as he dug a first-aid kit out of his pack and withdrew a thick roll of gauze.

  “I had a broken finger once from a sled accident. The doctor explained the alternative treatments to me.”

  His touch was sure and gentle as he bound her ring and middle fingers together with gauze, and he stood so close that his face was only inches from hers. She inhaled the welcome warm male scent of him, a combination of leather, wood smoke, musk and something indefinably exciting. He smelled of the outdoors, of melted snow and a raw wind and, too, of the river.

  What he was doing to her finger was painful, and she forced herself not to flinch. Instead she would trust, and that wasn’t easy. She had come to depend on no one but herself long before Doug died. Even as she was thinking how nice it might be to be comforted and cosseted, to have someone to take care of her, Sam’s eyes met hers.

  She instantly felt a jolt. Not just a mental one, but a physical one, too, as if a current of electricity pulsed from one to the other. Where it originated, in her or in him, Kerry couldn’t have said, nor did she know if it was conducted from his hand to hers or over the brilliantly charged space between them. It unnerved her and made her want to yank her fingers away, and yet she couldn’t move. Couldn’t stop looking at him, into him, wondering if he too felt something. Felt—what? They had never much liked each other.

  This reality check gave her the strength to look away. It was too intimate, that blistering brief moment of eye contact and this electrifying physical closeness. While she was contemplating her own embarrassment, Sam dropped the adhesive tape into her free hand.

  “Here, hold this,” he said abruptly. He ripped a piece off the roll and wound it around her fingers. If he noticed anything amiss, he gave no sign.

  “What medicine are you taking for the pain?” he asked.

  “None,” she replied, striving to keep her tone even. “I didn’t bring any, and there weren’t any medical supplies here.” Did she sound normal? No. But maybe she sounded normal enough to fool him.

  “I’ll see if I have something.” Sam rummaged in the first-aid kit and produced a small white envelope. “It’s not much, but it’ll have to do.” Sam shook out two acetaminophen. “Take them,” he said. “You’ll be more comfortable after it kicks in.”

  Without comment, Kerry picked up the glass of water she’d set on the table next to the couch and swallowed the pills. She definitely did not feel like herself. The day had been a strain, and she’d been working hard for weeks with no respite. And here was Sam, and she didn’t know why he was here, and her finger hurt worse than anything she could imagine.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?” Sam was wrinkling his forehead at her. He really had such a noble forehead, so wide. And the way that one curly lock of hair fell across it was charming.

  Charming? Sam Harbeck was anything but charming. I may have broken my finger, but falling off a ladder hasn’t made me lose my mind, she thought just as Sam grasped her around the shoulders. She struggled to push him away, but he said, “You look a little woozy. Here, let’s ease you down on the couch,” all the while holding her so close that she actually felt the muscles ripple across his chest.

  “Now sit down and put your feet up,” he said close to her ear.

  “I’m all right, leave me alone,” she replied weakly.

  He snorted. “I’m not going to have you dropping in your tracks, at least not until I clean the water and feathers off the floor.”

  “I’m all right,” she repeated, but he knelt beside her and studied her while his face kaleidoscoped into several Sams, all of them wearing the same expression of concern.

  “I’m going to pull this blanket up over you, and you can lie back and watch me work.” Sam settled the striped wool blanket across her as Kerry allowed herself to sink back on the couch cushions.

  “How do you feel?” he asked. Absently he reached over and plucked a feather from her hair; he sat looking at it thoughtfully.

  “Lousy,” she mumbled. She wondered if Sam was aware of how endearing he was when he was being kind.

  “Great. We should have that finger x rayed, you know. But the nearest x-ray machine is in Anchorage, over three hundred miles away.” He tucked the feather in his pocket.

  “Believe me, the same thought has occurred to me. Go away, Sam. Let me suffer in peace.” This dramatic utterance brought a derisive hoot from Sam.

  He stood up. “As long as you can talk, I know you’re fine,” he said dryly.

  How could she have found his behavior endearing only moments ago? He was making fun of her. “Go on,” she said, pushing at his knee. His jeans were wet from being out in the snow.

  After one last exasperated glance at her over his shoulder, Sam went to the supply closet and dug around amid the welter of old brooms, battered skis and bent buckets until he produced a mop.

  “Too bad there’s no electricity in the cabin. A vacuum cleaner would come in handy for these feathers.”

  “D’you know how to use that?” Kerry said thickly as he began to wield the mop.

  Sam paused and indulged in an amused chuckle. “My first job at my Dad’s airport was janitor,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said, but she couldn’t help recalling the time she and Doug had flown into that very airport and visited Sam in his plush office, where he was ensconced behind an enormous mahogany desk while he fielded telephone calls from all over the world. Afterward they’d glided in Sam’s Mercedes sedan to his elegant house in exclusive Turn Again by the Sea. The house was an architectural marvel overlooking an arm of Cook Inlet, where his houseman served them a gourmet’s dinner of grilled Alaskan King salmon and wild rice sauted with roasted pine nuts.

  It was hard to reconcile that image of Sam with the slightly rakish and unshaven man who was so vigorously mopping the wide planks of the cabin floor and stirring up drying feathers. She watched him through half-closed eyes as he worked, admiring in spite of herself the swift power of his movements and his attention to the task. When he had finished mopping and stowed the mop in the closet, he said, “That’s about the best I can do, so now I’m going to shuck these wet clothes. Close your eyes.”

  One thing about Sam Harbeck—he certainly knew how to get a girl’s attention. Kerry roused herself to object, pushing herself to a half-sitting position and regarding Sam with what she h
oped would pass for outrage.

  “You could step out to the shed to change,” she pointed out. “Or go up in the loft.” Those were the only two possibilities for privacy. The cabin consisted of only one twelve by eighteen-foot room with a loft built above the kitchen section.

  “I’m not going anywhere. The shed is too cold and the loft ceiling is only five feet high and slanted, which would require that I change clothes in a crouch.”

  “What’s wrong with changing clothes in a crouch?” Kerry said for the sake of getting an argument going.

  “Since I’m over six feet tall, I’d end up with a crick in my neck or worse. It’s your choice. You can watch me as I expose my shivering male body to your eyes—or not. I’ll leave it up to you.” Sam was maddeningly arrogant, but that was nothing new.

  The worst thing was that Kerry couldn’t think of anything at all to say in response. She caught only a glimpse of that devil-may-care grin of Sam’s as he turned and reached into his pack to withdraw neatly folded jeans. As if to underscore his own outrageousness, he tossed a pair of black male briefs to the floor where they lay in all their skimpy glory.

  “I don’t want to see anything shivering or naked,” Kerry blurted with all the conviction she could muster at the moment, and Sam laughed when he saw where she was looking.

  “I thought so. Don’t worry, I’ll sound the all clear when I’m decent.” He was already unbuttoning his shirt.

  Kerry closed her eyes, tight. She heard the clomp of Sam’s boots as they fell to the floor followed by the whisper of sodden jeans against flesh and the dull muffled thud as they fell. Telltale sounds reported that Sam was pawing through his pack; he tossed some things onto the floor, humming to himself.

  “I could have sworn I stuck a wool flannel shirt in here,” Sam mused. More digging. More humming. At last Kerry couldn’t stand it anymore and opened her eyes to a slit so that she could peer from beneath her eyelashes for a peek.