by Renee Hart
“Texas,” Lissa said with a grin.
“Well, you’re the hero of the story today. Wait till you see this evening’s news! My camera man got some great footage!”
Lissa looked at Gary and made a face.
“I can’t wait,” she said with a groan.
She just hoped Mr. Burns would be equally impressed. They’d probably broken several safety rules and maybe even some laws with this unconventional rescue. More agents had arrived, so Gary went over and briefed them on the situation. Seeing that everything was now under control, they headed back to their assignments. They’d have to catch the action on the news like everyone else.
***
At the end of the day, Lissa and Gary headed back to the office. Mr. Burns was standing in the doorway when they pulled into the parking area. He stood there and watched them get out of the truck.
“I’ve had several calls today regarding you two,” he said sternly. “It appears that you forgot to follow some clearly established procedures.”
They looked at each other with a sense of foreboding. This wasn’t going the way they’d hoped.
“However, the commissioner and the mayor are quite pleased with the spectacle you put on today. It seems rescuing animals with fancy rope tricks garners far more public support than shooting them with tranquilizer darts or worse. I guess all I can say is that I’m glad you won’t be having to fill out an accident report with this little stunt.”
With that said, Mr. Burns turned and headed for his office. Lissa and Gary watched him go in stunned silence. He hadn’t exactly complimented them on their actions, but it was clear they weren’t going to get fired either. Looking around the room, Lissa noticed a couple agents even seemed to be smiling at them. She smiled back at them shyly, feeling like one of them for a change.
“Quitting time,” Gary said. “I’m going to head home and get myself ready for the six o’clock news. I’m going to record this!”
Lissa laughed as she turned to head out herself. This evening’s news might just be her fifteen minutes of fame and she didn’t want to miss it either. Moments like these are what made this job worthwhile, she thought as she hurried off. How often do I get to be a hero?
On the way home, Lissa stopped by Java Nutz to let Jessie in on the news story. Jessie thought it would be fun to have a special viewing party with pizza at her parents’ house, as they had the largest TV. Making a couple of calls, she sent Lissa home to get ready, promising they’d all be in front of the TV by six.
Chapter Ten
Lissa arrived at quarter to six to find the whole family gathered in the den with a full spread of pizzas and root beer already laid out. The whole family minus Ryan, that is. She tried to hide her disappointment at his absence. If there was one person she’d been hoping to see…
Trey was bouncing around the room in his excitement and asked Lissa a dozen questions, but Jessie wanted to wait until they saw the video before she told them anything.
It was five minutes before the hour when Ryan came running in and grabbed a seat. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the screen, but Lissa took a moment to give him a quick smile. He returned her smile with an even broader one that erased the discomfort of the fishing expedition. Lissa cast a questioning glance at Jessie, but she was busy trying to get Trey to sit down.
The news program came on as they sat there eagerly waiting for Lissa’s moment. Trey groaned as they bantered on about the weather and other unrelated news. The adults shushed him several times as he fussed impatiently at the delays.
After twenty minutes of the usual chatter, Trey was nearly beside himself with frustration. When Ms. Winston was introduced with an unusual story for the day, everyone leaned forward. Lissa was nearly holding her breath.
The story opened with several shots of the caribou running between cars, clearly in danger, as they all gasped in horror at several near misses. As Lissa and Gary drove into the scene, she pointed out their truck. The camera was at the perfect angle to catch all of the action. Everyone cheered as they saw Lissa getting out of the truck and jumping into the back.
With Gary driving down the access road, Mrs. Jackson covered her eyes at the sight of Lissa clinging to the roll bar. The camera focus changed to bring the pick-up into the center of the screen as the camera man caught sight of them.
When the caribou were within range, Lissa pulled out her rope and began twirling her lasso over her head. Trey began jumping up and down in his excitement and they all cheered as her rope settled over the neck of the lead animal. Similar cheers came with the lassoing of the second and they all watched happily as the truck led the animals to a safe release.
The story ended with a few comments about the bravery and dedication of Fish & Game as the Jacksons began to clap and cheer loudly. Lissa had tears of happiness in her eyes as she took in the joy of her five minutes of fame. She spent the next ten minutes answering questions about where she’d learned roping and got to tell her side of the story.
“That was great! Lissa, you have to teach me how to throw a rope like that,” Trey shouted.
The adults laughed at his excitement as he ran out of the room. They laughed even harder when he came back with a long length of paracord.
“How about we eat some pizza first,” Jessie said. “Lissa will teach you how to do that later.”
Trey agreed, but only because it was pizza. The six of them ate pizza and watched the news clip several more times before they decided to call it a night.
Lissa was feeling the excitement of the day catching up to her and started to head off first.
“Let me walk you home,” Ryan said, following her to the door.
“Me too!”
Trey jumped up to follow them, but Jessie grabbed him and spun him around.
“You’re going to help me clean up this mess,” she said giving him a big hug and whispering something in his ear.
He snuck a quick look at his uncle and settled back into his chair.
“You don’t have to walk me home,” Lissa protested. “I only live outside the back door!”
“Nonsense! It’s my pleasure and besides, it’s not all that often that I get to bask in the presence of a real hero.”
Lissa blushed to the roots of her hair and fell silent at his nearness.
“I do remember that I’m holding a rain check for dinner. Since we just had pizza, is there any way I can use it for tomorrow night?” Ryan asked as they walked up the stairs to her door.
“Are you saying that you’d like to have dinner with me tomorrow night at my place?” Lissa asked looking up at him.
“Yes. If that’s okay with you, and maybe after that you’d like to come over and have dinner at my place and so on…”
“Does this mean that you’re going to take a chance on me?” Lissa asked warily.
“The truth is that my sister gave me a very stern talking to about missing out on the best parts of life and also about jumping to wrong conclusions. She convinced me that I needed to listen to my heart and stop worrying about everything that might go wrong. I think you might find that I’m a changed man and if not, you can always throw a rope around me,” Ryan said leaning in close. “Besides, where else am I going to find a woman like you?”
Lissa closed her eyes as the smell of donuts enveloped her. As their lips met, she wondered if life with Ryan would always be this sweet. For now, she thought, this is a very good beginning. The rest would come one day at a time.
THE END
I hope you enjoyed this story.
If you would like to leave a review on Amazon
it would be greatly appreciated!
Sincerely,
Renee Hart
* * *
Ready for more adventure?
Read on for a taste of
Yesterday Island,
the sixth book in the
Alaska Adventure Romance series
* * *
Excerpt from Yesterday Island
© 2016
by Renee Hart
CHAPTER ONE
Kat looked around the drab room and sighed. Like it or not, this was going to be her home for the next nine months. The nondescript color of the walls matched the floor and most of the furnishings. The one bright spot in the room was her pile of suitcases stacked in the corner. She rested her eyes upon them for a moment as she thought about the reasons for such a drastic move.
There was no denying that five weddings in the last three years had pushed her to make some kind of change. Two of the brides were her younger twin sisters and they’d opted for a double wedding to save their father some money.
The other three brides were the mainstay of her circle of friends from high school. One by one, they’d said their vows and slipped into another kind of life that didn’t lend itself to crashing on each other’s couches and middle of the night calls for no reason beyond the need to talk to someone.
Kat was the last among her friends to find someone willing to make that kind of commitment. It turned out that most of the men she’d dated were less interested in commitments than her. She could remember the long, late night conversations where her friends had vowed to remain single forever, or at least as long as possible. Eventually they were all forced them to eat those vows, leaving her as the sole survivor on the behalf of freedom from marriage.
Her friends and family saw her “freedom” as a cause to be taken up and they all turned into yentas. Every dinner invitation was suspect as she found herself face to face with strange men chosen by distant relatives and their various workplaces. She pushed back against these efforts by showing up in sweats or making lame excuses, but her friends were relentless.
The final blow to her freedom came when the company she considered herself committed to for the long haul was forced to lay off more than a third of the workforce after a hostile takeover.
Kat was only a junior member on the editing staff and was near the top of the list of those axed. It didn’t matter that she’d given nearly ten years of her life to building her reputation there. The new owners weren’t interested in reputations. They were looking for a quick return on their investment. Out with the old and in with the new was their motto.
With little savings and a weak job market, Kat was faced with the prospect of having to move back home with her parents. The thought of giving up her apartment for her old room was too depressing to think about and Kat decided to search the internet to find some kind of alternative lifestyle to fill in this employment gap.
Her childhood dream was to be a teacher. That was replaced by a college dream of becoming a writer. Since college, her only writing was limited to the editing work she’d done on the job. With that job out of the picture, Kat figured it might be worth exploring the earlier dream of being a teacher. However, she didn’t want the usual kind of job at a nearby school. With her friends determined to find her a husband, she wanted to get as far away from them and her family as possible.
She pored over job listings for faraway countries on the internet where opportunities were presented in glowing terms. The idea of moving to the other side of the globe looked great on a computer screen. Being a practical young woman, she wasn’t ready to take that big of a leap of faith, however, and she narrowed her search to Alaska.
She found plenty of interesting postings for teachers in the native villages. The place that really captured her imagination was a small island that lay in the Bering Strait called Yesterday Isle. The past was where her heart longed to stay.
She applied for the job and much to her surprise, her application was accepted without so much as an interview. She found herself with an expected date of arrival in Alaska post haste.
Flying to Anchorage wasn’t all that different from flying to any other large city in the U.S. Kat arrived in the middle of the night, so her first impression wasn’t very impressive at all. The next day, she was scheduled to meet up with the rest of the teachers to complete their journey to the island. Her whirlwind decision to change her life was in full hurricane mode at this point and she’d barely caught her breath after saying good-bye to the old one.
After a few hours of sleep at a cheap motel, Kat felt as chipper as a block of wood. Her breakfast meeting of her fellow colleagues gave her little time to determine anything about them. It was only clear that she was the newbie and had no idea of what she had taken on with this job. It had also come out that the reason she’d been given the job was because no one else had applied and they needed to fill the position immediately. This news did little to inspire her to feel confident about her own skills.
There was little time to take in more than a few passing views of mountains and trees before their group was loaded into a small plane to fly to Nome. From there, the small group would be transported to the island on a ferry, and that was heavily dependent on the weather conditions. Kat struggled to keep track of her bags and cases as things were poked and pushed into the most unlikely places.
Space was clearly limited on the small plane. The other three passengers were accustomed to the cramped conditions and made every effort to stow things in a way to make themselves a bit more comfortable. Kat realized that inexperience had left her sharing seating space with a large case of spaghetti and her heavy tote bag. Looking around at the others, she wondered if her discomfort was deliberate, but found no one hogging an excess of room.
“Here, let me move that this way a little more,” the young man sitting behind her said over her shoulder. “Then, you can put your tote on top of the case. At least you’ll be able to walk when we arrive in Nome,” he laughed.
“Thanks,” she tossed back as the two of them wrestled the case more towards the center.
“My name’s Jim, by the way,” he added as if she’d somehow forgotten their earlier meeting.
“Kat.”
“Ah, yes. And that was Kat with a “K”, if I remember correctly,” Jim said.
“Correct.”
“And what is it that has Kat with a “K” running away to Yesterday Isle,” he asked by way of conversation, “if you don’t mind me asking, that is?”
“What makes you think I’m running away,” Kat asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” he added. “It’s just a feeling.”
“Leave her alone, Jim,” the young woman sitting across from them said bluntly. “She’s not your type.”
“Oh? And what type would that be, Marissa,” Jim sneered.
The glance that passed between the two of them made it clear to Kat there was a history here and it hadn’t ended all that well from the looks of things. The chill in the air put an end to the conversation, which was fine with Kat as the pilot revved up the engines for take-off. The noise level inside the plane left little chance for intelligible conversation anyway. Kat double-checked her seat belt and then laughed to herself. The belt wasn’t going to make much of a difference if they crashed. The packages and baggage crammed inside the plane would kill them all no matter how they stayed in their seats. She choked down the regrets rising up inside of her and turned to look out the window. There was no room in this whirlwind for turning back, she thought to herself as her stomach twisted. I’m just going to have to make the best of this.
***
Iliana wiped her muddy hands on the front of her tunic and laughed when Ulriq did the same. She knew her mother would be angry at the state of her clothes, but Papa never cared. He always said children should get dirty when they played or they weren’t having any fun. Her mother would just grumble until Papa would sweep her into his arms and kiss her complaints away. The two of them never stayed angry for very long. Their love was too important to be squandered on petty squabbles.
The two children ran to the top of the bluff and crouched down behind the rocks to spy on the men below. The boat men were busy loading large bundles of furs and hides onto the longboats and both Iliana and Ulriq knew exactly what that meant to them. Their short time together was about to end and Iliana would leave with her parents back acr
oss the narrow strait into the land that lay beyond the dark water.
They were silent as they watched the activity below. Nothing either of them could say would make any difference to the situation. It was the same every year. In the silence, their hands sought each other and they gripped the other tightly as if somehow they could hold on to this moment forever.
“Iliana,” Ulriq said as he turned to lean his back against the rock, “promise me you will come back again next year.”
“You know that even if I promised you, there’s nothing I can do to make my father return. He only comes for the hides and furs. He doesn’t care about anything else.”
“That’s not true,” Ulriq retorted. “I know he loves you and if you begged him, he might come for that reason.”
Iliana laughed as she jumped up and ran away from the bluff.
“You’d do better to ask him to promise,” she called back over her shoulder. “He loves you too!”
Ulriq chased after her and the two of them ran and ran until their breath would no longer come and they flopped to the ground and lay there panting. They both knew the island wasn’t big enough for them to run far enough to stop the inevitable. It was the same every year when Iliana’s father would bring his family to the island to trade with the People for the hides and furs they gathered.
The two children would play together every moment they could steal away from the grown-ups. Neither of them could remember a time before they’d been a part of each other’s lives and they couldn’t imagine a time would come that would tear them apart.
Even Ulriq was too young to realize that each year the hunts were bringing in less and less skins and the trading connection was growing weak. He only knew that each winter, his tribe would go out for longer and longer hunts as the animals pushed back against the demands placed upon them. The People were always careful to maintain respect for the hunt, but the ever-growing demand for hides and skins from the Russian traders pushed them to take more animals every year.
