Alaskan Dawn

by Edie Claire

  “We are human,” Ben repeated. “Do not eat us.”

  “Do you have to say those particular words?” she protested.

  “Only to English-speaking bears,” he answered. “I don’t know what they say in Europe.”

  Haley laughed. Her breathing had steadied now and her eyes were dry. Puffy and red, still, but dry. The crying jag really had made her feel better. Her problems hadn’t changed. But she at least felt calmer about them.

  Eventually they merged back onto the trail, which led them down to the rocky outwash plain in the valley below. They stepped out of the woods onto a jumbled field of small, smooth rocks, through the middle of which ran a swift-moving, shallow stream. Cold air blew off the chilly water, and Haley stared at it with wonder, knowing that some of it had only just melted from the glacier above.

  She breathed in deeply again, relieved to know that her phone was turned completely off. Micah would be calling back frantically now, trying her best to apologize. It was what she always did. Freak out and say things she didn’t mean, then apologize profusely.

  Haley didn’t want to hear it. They both knew that Micah’s calling Haley selfish was laughable. The specific words Micah had blurted didn’t bother Haley nearly so much as her sister’s seeming instability. Six months ago, it hadn’t been like this. Six months ago, Haley had been confident that Micah and Tim would make wonderful parents. Now, thanks to the nightmare known as prenatal testing, Micah was falling apart before Haley’s eyes.

  It scared the hell out of her.

  “The footwork will get a little trickier, here,” Ben announced. The rock field ahead of them had met an end, cut off by a large outcropping of cliff that jutted out to meet the stream. “It’s not mountain climbing, exactly, but we’ll have to skirt around a narrow ledge over the water. You up to it?”

  His voice sounded strange again. Haley reached up boldly and removed the annoying shades. “If anyone needs to hide their eyes,” she declared, “it’s me.” She put the glasses on top of her own head and studied him. He looked slightly nervous. Nothing more.

  “Of course I’m up to it,” she answered. “Lead on.”

  Ben forged up and across the ledge, looking back frequently to make sure she grabbed the appropriate handholds. Haley had no trouble with her balance, but she could not help thinking — with sudden gloom — that her ability to undertake such stunts would soon be limited. When they reached the other side of the outcropping, the rocky plain opened up once again, and the toe of the glacier appeared before them. After a few more minutes of scrambling over an uneven bed of larger rocks, they at last stood within feet of the triangular chunk of ice that was the glacier’s lowest point.

  “So,” Ben said with a cheerfulness that was clearly forced. “What do you think?”

  Haley hesitated. Although the higher part of the glacier, with its frothy cake-frosting edges and milky blue depths, was beyond gorgeous, the “toe” left something to be desired.

  “It looks like what you see piled up in the corners of parking lots in Chicago in the winter,” she said honestly.

  Ben laughed. “Yeah, I guess it does. Step up and touch it.”

  Haley did. “It feels like ice.”

  “Really?” Ben said with feigned surprise.

  Haley rolled her eyes good-naturedly. Despite the toe’s unimpressive appearance, it was indeed fascinating to put her hand on its surface and look upward, knowing how massive the frozen waterfall was and how far back into the mountains it extended. “I should take a picture of this,” she murmured, shrugging off her pack again.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Ben objected, pushing the straps back up over her shoulders. “I’ll get a picture for you.” He pulled off his own pack and extracted a tiny, ancient-looking phone.

  “Seriously?” Haley asked with a grin. “I didn’t even know you owned a phone.”

  “It’s never on,” he commented, even as he pushed a button to bring it to life. It was not a smartphone; from the looks of it Haley was surprised it even had a camera.

  “But how can you get important texts from your sisters?” she teased.

  He made a face. “First of all, sisters don’t send important texts. And second, they used to send me a bunch of crap, but I never answered, so eventually they cut it out.”

  “But what if there’s an emergency?” Haley pressed. As much as she resented being chained to her own phone, she had little patience for technophobes.

  “When I’m home they can call the landline and when I’m on a tour they can call the office and have somebody radio the boat,” he explained unapologetically. “For anything less than dire, they can send an email or leave a voicemail and I’ll get it that day or the next.”

  Haley frowned. She had no good response to that. She only knew that she could never get away with it. Bob would pop arteries on a daily basis.

  “Smile,” Ben suggested, holding up the Paleolithic phone.

  Haley curved her lips, wondering what time it was and how much longer she could relax before the dreaded conference call. As soon as she got back into Seward and turned her phone on, Micah would be calling her, too.

  Ben lowered the camera without clicking it. He moved to a nearby boulder and sat down with a sigh.

  “Look,” he began, watching her with a resigned expression. “Can we get real a minute? I know we just met three days ago and I’m probably not your first choice of confidant. But all this pretending is…” He looked away from her. He pulled off his cap and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re dealing with a guy who grew up with four sisters, okay? I breathed in estrogen like second-hand smoke.”

  Haley’s heart beat faster. What was he getting at?

  “What I’m trying to say is,” he continued, catching her eye. “You’re not fooling me, here. I know you’ve got some serious stuff going on, and no, the waterworks were not my first clue.”

  Haley made no response. Had she been that obvious? Yes, probably. But he couldn’t know about her pregnancy. Not unless he had overheard something…

  “I’m not asking you to explain,” he said quickly, no doubt perceiving her sudden panic. “You don’t owe me anything. I just want you to know you don’t have to pretend with me. And if you ever do want to talk… well, I’m here.”

  Haley smiled at him. Her blasted eyes grew moist again. Of course he didn’t know anything. He was only trying to be kind. “Thank you,” she choked out.

  He said nothing else. Haley turned back around, stepped to the glacier, and laid her palm flat on the ice. The cold crept slowly up through her wrist, and as she concentrated on the feel of it and on the steady rhythm of her breathing, her emotions gradually calmed.

  She heard a click, then turned to see Ben staring down at his camera.

  “Now, there’s a nice shot for you,” he said proudly, turning the tiny phone around.

  Haley gazed at the picture of herself touching the glacier. She was smiling slightly, her expression serene. She looked almost… happy.

  It was too much. Without thought she stepped forward, threw her arms around his neck, and hugged him tight. “You are the best shower buddy ever, Ben Parker,” she said with a croak.

  She held him as long as she dared. The feel of his arms around her, the firmness of his shoulder under her cheek, his warmth… It was all entirely too enticing. Reluctantly, she stepped back and looked at him.

  His face was smiling, but his hazel eyes swam with conflict. Haley could understand why. The attraction between them was turning painful.

  “Yeah,” he said dryly. “I get that a lot.”

  Chapter 14

  Ben shoved a dollar bill in the slot, then pushed the start button. The machine whirred to life with a splash and a swoosh.

  Laundry.

  Was this any way to spend his twenty-eighth birthday?

  Hell, no. He was supposed to be spending it out on the ocean. Preferably, with cake.

  He walked out of the laundromat and onto the sidewalk. No way was he s
itting in the dim, noisy room for half an hour. He had time for a stroll. Perhaps down to the Sea Life Center.

  He started walking. With the bay on one side and towering mountains on the other, he should have been enjoying the view. Instead, his gaze was riveted on the pavement.

  The day hadn’t been all bad. The first part of his hike with Haley had been amazing. She had made him laugh, she had kept up with him on the trail, and she hadn’t whined once. Being witness to her awe was, as always, pure joy for him. And if he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off that adorable body of hers, he had at least managed to keep his mind off what he could do with it. Most of the time.

  It was the fact that he’d had so much fun in the first half of the hike that made the second half totally suck.

  I’m not on the market. I’m single, but… there are things going on in my life that would make a relationship — any kind of relationship — impossible right now.

  She could say that again.

  He kicked at an empty water bottle on the sidewalk. Then he caught up with it and picked it up. There was a recyclables bin at the Sea Life Center.

  He hated plastic water bottles.

  He hated pollution in general.

  How could somebody as intelligent and sensible as Haley do what she did for a living? How could she even sleep at night?

  Knock it off, Ben.

  He realized his jaws were clenched. Who was he kidding? He had no chance with Haley and he never would, no matter what she did for a living. Never mind that she was all he could think about. Never mind that she’d kept him awake two nights in a row now — actually, three — with no relief in sight. Never mind the connection he thought he felt with her, the way the slightest touch of her hand could make him shiver like a teenager. Never mind that every feature of her face had become emblazoned in his mind, and that every second he wasn’t with her, he was thinking about when he could see her again. Never mind that he couldn’t remember ever feeling this way about any other woman… ever.

  There was no hope. None. The fact that she lived and worked across the ocean was a problem he had no answer for. Her choice of vocation bothered him more than he would admit. But even without those two extraordinarily difficult obstacles standing in their way, he could not ignore the grim truth his gut kept screaming at him, a truth that cut him to the bone.

  Haley was pregnant.

  Pregnant!

  Ben picked up his pace and started to jog.

  He didn’t know for sure. He shouldn’t even suspect it. His crazy upbringing was the problem. It had stuffed his brain with knowledge he didn’t need and never cared to use, and now he was stuck with it.

  Was it so odd for a woman to ask how long a salmon lived, while contemplating ordering the sockeye? Not really. He had believed that Haley was genuinely curious. And why should he think twice about the ditched champagne? There were plenty of good reasons to avoid alcohol on a boat. Who cared that he’d never seen her drink a cola or a cup of coffee? Only a nutcase would put those things together and come up with pregnant. Only a nutcase with two OB/GYNs for parents who had listened to four sisters spend a total of nine pregnancies going apecrap over mercury, ethanol, caffeine, and every other possible threat to pregnancy, real or imagined.

  He could ignore all that. He had ignored it.

  The baby bump, not so much.

  He reached the parking lot of the Sea Life Center, dropped the plastic bottle in a recycling bin, and kept on jogging. When he got to the gravel road on the other side, he started to run.

  Pregnant.

  He shouldn’t have noticed. It wasn’t that obvious. He never would have noticed if she hadn’t stretched. Stretched her arms straight up in the air, hiking her shirttails above her waistband. She’d been standing within inches of him, for God’s sake. Of course he was going to look. Her waist should have been thin, like the rest of her. Slender and smooth, with an adorable belly button peeking out.

  Her belly button had been adorable. But her shape was not the shape he expected to see.

  Now, it was all he could see.

  Pregnant.

  Yet with all her talk of family and sisters and husbands, she hadn’t said word one about a guy. Why not?

  I’m single, but…

  Ben frowned and slowed his steps. He’d been running so hard he had a pain in his side. The cool air he’d been gulping burned his lungs.

  It made no sense.

  Why was Haley acting as if there was no man in her life? If she wanted to keep Ben at bay, she could have dropped “my boyfriend” into the conversation two minutes after they’d met. Why bother with the elaborate “just friends” speech, in which she had specifically said that she was single… and even admitted that she was attracted to him?

  Was she hiding the pregnancy just to keep her options open with him?

  Ben scoffed out loud. That made even less sense. If she wanted to deceive him and use him for… whatever... why bother with the “just friends” speech at all? She could have him any time she wanted him.

  He looked around and breathed deeply. He had run a long way. If he kept going at this rate, he’d be crawling back.

  He turned around and began to walk. The road ran along a ledge beside the bay, sandwiched between the water on his right and towering cliffs to his left. His eyes drank in the soothing blue color of the water, and he watched the other boats as they moved to and from the marina, the smaller ones buffeted by the strong wind. A day like today was doable within the protected bay; it was the boisterous chop of the gulf beyond that would have been dangerous for the tour boat.

  He should be out on the bay with them. What had he been thinking? He always went out on his birthday.

  His breathing steadied, but the dull ache in his chest persisted. He hadn’t been thinking straight, that was for sure. Whether Haley was pregnant or not, she had told him no, not interested. That really should be the end of it.

  His mood remained in the doldrums as he slogged slowly back to town, picking up three more recyclable cans and bottles on the way. He dumped them off at the Sea Life Center and arrived back at the laundromat just in time to grab the last two dryers.

  Happy birthday.

  Thinking wistfully of celebrations past — in those giddy, innocent days before he had realized just how weird his family was — he walked outside again and headed in the opposite direction. His steps took him to the currently empty tour office, where he unlocked the back door, entered the tiny staff area, and extracted his laptop from his locker. He was behind on his email. Perhaps someone had sent him something.

  He had not yet finished booting up when his cell phone rang. He had left it on in case Haley called. She had taken his advice and decided to conduct her conference call sitting in her car near the marina, where she could be reasonably assured of a steady signal. He could have told her that she would be better off sitting in the lobby of a motel or even in the tour office, where she would also have access to Wi-Fi. But he was not without an ulterior motive. If all environmental attorneys were forced to conduct their meetings while looking out over Resurrection Bay and the Chugach Mountains, the glaciers might not be melting so fast.

  The call was not from Haley.

  “Happy birthday, little brother!” came the exuberantly kind, but inevitably bossy voice.

  “Hi, Maggie,” he said with a smile. “Thanks.”

  “I can’t believe you actually answered!” she teased. “What are you up to?”

  Feeling sorry for myself. “Just taking it easy. My full-day got cancelled because of the wind. I’m treating myself to a fun-filled afternoon at the laundromat instead.”

  Maggie clucked at him. “That is just sad, Ben. I wish we were up there. The kids would show you how to party!”

  Ben grinned. At the moment, he would give anything to have his nieces and nephews piling all over him. “I keep telling you to come up!”

  “I know, I know, but if I have to choose between Alaska and Hawaii, you know what I’m
going to pick. And for a family of five, by the way, you’re pretty damned expensive to visit.”

  “I know,” he said regretfully. Jenna and her family had made it up in June, which was a total blast. And his parents came up every August. But Maggie and Lara saved their vacation dollars for Hawaii, and Emma couldn’t afford to travel at all. Which was why he made a point of spending time in Seattle twice a year, never mind the hit to his own bank account.

  “Well, I’m sorry you have no one to party with besides your laundry,” she quipped. “How’s the soulmate search going?”

  Ben closed his eyes with a groan. He had made the colossal mistake, several years ago, of using the S word to explain to a persistent five-year-old niece why he wasn’t married yet. The little rat had then promptly quoted his response to the entire assembled extended family — over Christmas dinner, no less. If he never heard the term again, it would be too soon.

  “How’s the marriage?” he returned.

  Subtle sarcasm was lost on Maggie. The woman had no shame. “Oh, we’re good. Jim’s home today. The vasectomy was totally painless. I didn’t feel a thing.”

  Ben sighed.

  Maggie chortled. “Seriously, I hope you manage to have some fun today. I assume you didn’t get the package yet?”

  “Package?”

  “I was afraid of that. Well, maybe it will come later this afternoon. We sent you a big one. All the kids threw something in, even Emma’s when they were here last. I hope it gets there today. They said it should.”

  Ben’s smile was genuine. Childish or not, the thought of a giant mystery package lovingly constructed by his nieces and nephews warmed his heart. The birthday might be salvageable after all.

  He thanked his sister heartily, and they said their goodbyes. Then he dug into his mountain of email. He deleted huge chunks of garbage, answered one question from his supervisor at the tour company in Maui, then settled down to the real mail. His inbox, as it turned out, was flooded with happy birthday notes. His smile became fixed as he read through and replied to each one. As much as he loved Alaska, almost all of his close friends lived in either Seattle or Maui. It felt good to reconnect, and by the time he had finished and packed up to leave, his mood was much improved.