Gage stood. “Tern, I’d like to talk to you.”
Since she didn’t want to spend any more time around Robert or Nadia—still trying to get the image of them humping each other out of her head—she followed Gage to his cabin. She entered behind him, stomping snow off her boots, and came up quick when she realized that Gage and Lucky had been sharing a cabin.
True to form, Lucky’s clothes were everywhere. He had always kept his hiking gear organized and clean, but not his personal items. She slowly walked over to his bunk and picked up one of his fallen flannel shirts. She clutched it in her hands and brought it to her nose, dragging his scent inside her.
God, she was going to miss him. Tears snuck up on her and settled in her throat. She hugged Lucky’s shirt to her chest and slowly dropped onto his bunk.
“You okay?” Gage asked.
She nodded unable to get words passed the emotions clogging her throat.
“I’m sorry, Tern. I should have thought of how seeing Lucky’s things would affect you before bringing you in here.”
“Why did you bring me here?” Please tell me it wasn’t to follow up on the heated look they had shared earlier. She couldn’t get intimate with Gage. Not now. She believed in life after death, spirits, and at the moment she could swear Lucky was in the room with them. “Who killed him, Gage? Who would have done something like that to him, of all people?”
“I don’t know.” He fisted his hands. “I wish to God I did. But until we do know, please don’t leave my sight.”
She paused before responding. “What?”
He knelt in front of her and took her hands in his. “When we were looking for Lucky’s body, I couldn’t stop worrying about whether you were safe or not. Tern, I couldn’t handle anything happening to you.”
“Let me get this straight. You don’t want me out of your sight, but you don’t want me.”
“I want you, Tern. But I can’t have you.”
Well that made a lot of sense. “Why?”
Gage glanced away.
“Don’t pull that shit. I can’t take it right now.” She yanked her hands free and grabbed the collar of Gage’s jacket, getting right in his face. “You left and never explained why. I get it that you were in jail, but why wasn’t I important enough for you to call? I thought we’d shared something special.”
“We did.” He ran shaky fingers through his hair. “I don’t want to get into it.”
“Too damn bad. You’re going to. Right now, right here. You are finally going to admit what the hell went wrong. What did I do that scared you off?”
“Damn it, Tern.” He covered her hands on his collar of his jacket. “You made me love you, okay? There you have it. Shit.” He yanked out of her grasp and stood.
“Excuse me? Why is loving me so horrible?” She got to her feet, too, not liking him glaring down at her from his full height.
“I don’t want to love you. And you, you’re…too much.”
“Huh?”
“You’re too much for me,” he repeated. “Too much woman, too much of everything. If I hadn’t cared so much, being with you wouldn’t be that big of an issue. I’ve made it clear up front with every woman I’ve been with that it was casual, no strings. When I tried to tell you the same thing, I couldn’t get the words out right. And then you would go and do something sexy and my brain would melt.”
“You aren’t making any sense.” Didn’t make his words hurt less, though.
“I know.” He dropped onto his bunk, stared at the floor for a few minutes and then finally met her eyes. “Take a seat. Please.”
Tern sat. He’d said please and besides, her legs were barely holding her up with the shock that he, on one hand loved her, and on the other didn’t want to be with her.
“I never told you about my mother.”
Why did it always go back to the mother?
He seemed to take forever as he struggled with his thoughts. She’d got caught up in the chinking pattern between the logs of the cabin by the time he finally spoke.
“My father was an asshole and my mother loved him to distraction. She not only loved him, but in a way, became enslaved by him. It didn’t matter what my father did, she forgave him. If he spent all the money, slept with other women, beat the shit out of her and us, she always forgave him.” He started shaking his head as though he couldn’t believe what his mother had tolerated. “Even though he ran off with our neighbor when I was sixteen, she’s still waiting for him to return to her today. Even prays for it. If he did show up on her doorstep after all these years, I’d have no doubt she’d take him back. Probably wouldn’t even ask for an apology.
“My sister, Rebecca…” He stopped and cleared his throat before starting again. “When I showed up and found her in the hospital, beaten, bloody, and childless, she begged me not to hurt Mitch. He’d almost killed her. There was no grieving for her baby. All she was worried about was her asshole of a husband.”
Tern started to see the pattern he was drawing out for her and didn’t like the direction he seemed to be taking.
“When Rebecca came home from the hospital, I left to pick up her prescriptions. Mitch showed up. I think he was watching the house. When I returned, he was inside and Rebecca was attempting to cook him dinner. He’d already hit her once, I didn’t give him a chance to hit her again. You know the rest. While the court threw out the case, labeling his death self-defense, Rebecca never wants to see me again. I saved her life and she blames me for killing her husband.” He rubbed the sides of his stubbled face. “I won’t love like that. I can’t be obsessed with you and that’s where I’m headed. I have to stop loving you, Tern, before loving you ruins me.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I have to stop loving you before loving you ruins me.
Wow. What did she do with that?
She sat there on Lucky’s bunk feeling like Gage had plunged her into the glacial lake and then held her under. It was hard to catch her breath, if breathing were even possible with her heart ripped out. She loved Gage. Loved him like she’d never cared for another man. That was why his leaving had hurt so badly. She’d take that hurt tenfold over the kind of pain she felt now. How did she comprehend that the man she loved, returned her love, but refused to give into his feelings because he thought she would ruin him?
There was nowhere to go with that.
The situation was impossible, unbelievable, and seriously fucked up. He needed counseling. Hell, so did she right now. How she wished her sister, Raven, were here to talk with. No, she wished she were home, in the bosom of her family with Raven advising her on what to do.
Why oh why had she gotten on that plane?
“Well…I guess there isn’t anything else to say.” She raised her eyes to his, knowing he would see the pain swimming in hers but didn’t care. Would she ever care about anything ever again?
He sucked in his breath. “Don’t. Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what? Like you just ripped out my heart? I’ve never lied to you, Gage. I fell hard for you. You knew that. Twice now, you’ve put a knife in my heart.” She stood on wobbly legs. She wanted to slink away and lick her wounds, but didn’t know if she had the power to do so.
“Tern—”
She held her hands up in a show of surrender. “No more. It’s best if I leave now.” Before she gave into the tears she’d strangled in her throat. She needed time to fortify her defenses. She’d had good defenses in place.
When had they crumbled?
Not yesterday when they’d gone at each other like wild animals in heat, though that had helped chip away at the foundation. Lucky’s death had weakened them more, allowing an opening. She looked at Gage for reassurance of some sort, and she knew better than to depend on him.
Maybe she shouldn’t have been so hard on Nadia and Robert needing human contact. Death did strange things to people. And up here in the Arctic away from everyone, with their lives on the line, explained why she had let Gage get close a
second time.
But never again.
The cold hit her with icy fingers as she stumbled out of Gage’s cabin. She welcomed it, unzipped her jacket and let the cold sink in. The frigid air relieved her burning lungs and froze any tears begging to fall.
Nadia and Robert were huddled around the campfire. Robert was giving Nadia those sexy, hooded looks he used to send her way. Would she ever find someone who could return her love in the way she needed, believed she deserved?
What did any of it matter now?
Lucky was dead, there was a thick blanket of snow covering the June meadow, and someone was out to murder them. As problems went, those were pretty damn serious. What did her relationship issues matter next to them?
Nadia glanced up and saw Tern. “Want a cup of coffee?” She raised the coffeepot for emphasis.
“Sure.” Tern sat around the blazing fire and took the cup Nadia poured for her, cradling it between her hands. It was warm, but the expected comfort didn’t come.
“You okay?” Nadia asked.
“Yeah.” She took a sip and relished the burn of the hot liquid searing a path down her throat. At least she felt that.
“Where’s Gage?” Nadia asked.
“Who cares?”
“You two have a tiff?” Robert asked, putting an emphasis on ‘tiff’.
“Robert,” Nadia scolded, “can’t you see she’s hurting?”
“Sorry,” he grumbled and drank his coffee.
“Want to talk about it?” Nadia asked, reaching out and covering Tern’s knee with her hand.
Yes, she did want to talk about it, but did she want to talk to Nadia? She wanted her sister. Raven would know what to do, or she’d say the perfect thing to make Tern feel better. Besides, she couldn’t talk to Nadia with Robert in hearing range.
“I’m okay. I think I’ll try and lay down for a while before I need to relieve the two of you.”
“Some sleep would probably help,” Nadia agreed, her tone seemed relieved that Tern didn’t want to talk. Did she want Tern to leave her alone so she could spend time alone with Robert?
Regardless, Tern was through with them all. While she and Nadia had been friends for years, they had never spent this kind of time together. Maybe they weren’t the kind of friends who did well cooped up for too long. Seeing her jump from Lucky’s bed to Robert’s so fast was more than a bit disconcerting.
A beam of sunlight sliced through the gray clouds, creating a luminous conduit into the heavens. For a moment, Tern caught her breath at the beauty of it. A moose lumbered out of the trees and drank from the lake. The multi-hued blues of the glacier in the background was sharp in contrast. She felt as though Lucky were shining down on her. What was it like in heaven for him? Were there mountains to climb? She hoped for him there were. God wouldn’t be so cruel as to not have the things they enjoyed on earth absent in heaven, would he?
The thought cleared her mind a bit until she turned and caught Gage watching her from the doorway of his cabin. How long had he been standing there? And why? He’d told her that even though he cared for her, he wouldn’t allow himself to follow up on his feelings.
The storm was lying down, the sun getting stronger as it burned off the clouds. Good, she didn’t relish a night of trying to sleep with the temperature dropping below zero and no way to heat the cabins. She hadn’t brought her subzero sleeping bag along.
She turned her back on Gage and walked into Mac’s cabin. He was the only man she was willing to tolerate at the moment, and she couldn’t face being alone right now.
“Hey,” he greeted as she entered. “They driving you nuts?”
“You could say that. Mind if I crash in here with you.”
“As long as you don’t snore.”
“I don’t snore.”
“You have.”
She dropped down onto Robert’s bunk and remembered him and Nadia having sex here. She jumped up, and Mac laughed.
“Just remembered the last occupants?”
“I need a hot shower. Scathing hot.” She wiped at her clothes as though she had picked up some residual sex cooties. “Hey, want to head to the hot pots with me?”
“The minute you walked into this cabin, I knew you were going to talk me out of my clothes in some fashion.” Mac pulled himself up and swung his legs over. “Beats taking a nap.” He grabbed his rifle. “I don’t have swimming trunks.”
“I’ve already seen what you’ve got.”
“Does that mean we’re both going commando?” He wiggled his brows.
She attempted to answer his teasing smile, but fell short with the sound of a roar that had the hairs on the back of her neck standing at attention.
Mac rushed for the door, pushing Tern behind him. “Stay back.”
Like that was going to happen. She followed right behind Mac. Gage had the butt of his rifle tight against his shoulder. Robert was in the same stance. Even Nadia had her pistol clenched in a two-handed grip.
A big grizzly raised its muzzle and sniffed the air. Gage fired a shot before its feet. The lumbering bear just roared again.
“Every damn animal is following Lucky’s scent back to camp.” Mac picked up a rock and threw it at the bear. It hit the muscled mass of terror in the face and had a greater effect on scaring off the predator than the noise of the gunshot. The bear lumbered away to the edge of the treeline, where it stopped and looked back. After a long stare, it ambled off as though not fearing them one bit and was already planning its return.
“We’re going to be fighting off predators all day,” Gage said.
“Another reason we need to get out of Dodge,” Mac muttered. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the SOB who invited us all here will get taken out by the wolves or the grizzlies.” Mac looked at Tern. “Still want to head to the hot springs?”
“Maybe not. I don’t relish the idea of fighting off animals in my birthday suit.”
Mac nodded. “We’d better be extra vigilant. Besides, I’m hungry. Probably should have shot that bear so we had something for dinner.”
“How about we try fishing instead?”
“Sure, got any fishing supplies?” Robert asked, sarcastic as always.
“I wonder how my ancestors fished these waters without a pole and a three hundred dollar reel?”
“What? You going to fish like your ancestors?” Robert scoffed. “Going to spear us some dinner, Native?”
“I’d shut up if I were you,” Gage said.
“Tell you what, Robert” Tern said. “You gut and cook whatever I catch.”
“Not a problem.”
“And clean up.”
“What if you don’t catch anything? What do I get then?”
“Free babysitting for a year.”
“You’re on.” He snickered. “Don’t fall in.”
“How the hell did you ever go out with him?” Gage asked with obvious astonishment.
“I’d like the answer to that one too,” Mac said.
“You have to meet his little girl. She makes him look damn attractive.”
Tern entered her cabin and grabbed her knife. She then went into Lucky and Gage’s cabin and rummaged through Lucky’s climbing gear, finding a nylon rope. She cut the sealed end so the nylon would fray and unraveled ten feet or so. Then she tied the nylon thread to the end of her knife and headed for the lake.
Mac and Gage followed her, both men armed. It was like being flanked by bodyguards. Nadia and Robert stayed behind to feed the fire and who knew what else. She heard Nadia’s giggle and the rumbling timber of Robert’s voice. They were sure getting cozy.
Along the shore of the lake the threesome walked, Tern wishing Gage had stayed behind. But then she didn’t blame him for not wanting to stay with Robert and Nadia gushing sickeningly over each other.
The lake was so clear she could see straight to the bottom. Pebbles sparkled back at her like a scattering of jewels. A shadow would flicker past every so often and flit away. The lake had a healthy population of
arctic graylings. Tern climbed onto a bunch of boulders that were half-submerged in the lake and waited.
“Are you planning on stabbing the fish?” Gage asked.
“Shh,” Tern admonished.
“I take it she never showed you this trick,” Mac murmured under his breath.
“Shh,” Tern said again.
They finally hushed and she stood still, becoming part of the landscape until the fish flickered closer to the presumed safety of the rock outcropping. Tern left them to swim, getting used to her shadow, their smooth water ballet calming her as she watched and aimed. She let her knife fly. It sank into the water with deadly precision, slicing through the hard gills of the fish to the hilt, keeping the blade stuck enough that she could pull the fish to the surface with the nylon thread she’d tied to the handle.
“Now that was slick,” Gage said.
“Damnest thing I ever did see,” Mac said. “Still can’t copy it even with the years I’ve practiced.”
“It helps to be ‘native’,” Tern said, tongue in cheek. And to have learned from the best of teachers, her Uncle Pike. He’d taught them all to fish like this on the banks of the Chatanika, Chena, Yukon, and the Kuskokwim Rivers. Since her father had died, Pike had taken over the teachings her father would have imparted. There had been many summer days and nights learning the art of spearing fish for dinner. You learned fast when you didn’t eat unless you were successful.
Mac chuckled and Gage smiled at her, until he realized what he was doing and the smile disappeared.
She turned away, hiding her hurt. She grabbed the fish by the head and pulled out her knife, tossing the Arctic grayling toward the men. Then she resumed her stance and waited for the next one to swim into her kill zone.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They returned to camp with four fat arctic graylings. Gage was in awe at the patience and skill Tern had displayed.
The midnight sun had returned and the blizzard was history, like it had never happened. Gage wished Lucky’s death could be erased as easily, and the blundering way he’d tried to explain to Tern why they couldn’t be together. He’d sure as hell had botched that one.
Death Cache Page 11
