by Kay Lyons
She’d read that some bears had become so used to humans they basically ignored the boats and chatter of their observers. Still, Dylan cut the boat’s forward motion down to a slow glide, and, other than a glance in their direction, the bear didn’t move.
Alex felt Dylan’s gaze on her like a physical touch but she didn’t look back at him. Busying herself with her camera, she zoomed in, determined to be a professional despite the twinge of hurt and disappointment she felt.
If he wanted to be that way, fine.
Alex watched the bear through her lens. She’d photographed plenty of black bears in Tennessee but the cinnamon-colored one in front of her was full of character and brought out chuckles from her and her seatmates. Time and again the bear dipped his large paw into the water after a fish. And time and again he came up empty. Finally, the bear got impatient, rose onto his hind legs and waited for the perfect moment to pounce. Down he went into the water and this time he dipped his head low to retrieve his catch. All three gave a low cheer for the bear’s success.
“You get all that?” Ansel asked.
“Yup. Right down to the first bite,” she said with a grin.
They watched the bear until he finished fishing and returned to the woods then Dylan guided the boat around. On their way back to the lodge, Alex snapped a few more photos. They passed a moose drinking at the lake’s edge, saw migrating sandhill cranes perched on a tree stump, and her present favorite—an eagle sitting proud high in a treetop. He was so majestic and regal.
At the dock, she stowed her camera for safekeeping while Ansel and Walter climbed out. When she looked up expecting one of the older men to be waiting to lend a hand, she discovered them halfway up the lodge path and hurrying as fast as their legs would carry them.
Only Dylan remained.
He released a disgruntled sigh when he finished tying the boat and realized what had happened. Shifting his attention to her, he held out his hand to take her equipment.
Alex handed it over only because she couldn’t toss it onto the dock and risk damaging it. While Dylan set it aside, she began to climb out of the boat using the metal ladder.
“Alexandra—”
“No,” she said, careful to watch her step onto the floating dock so she didn’t fall, “it’s fine. You don’t need to say anything, I get it.” She grabbed her backpack of equipment and straightened, only to find herself nose to chest with him.
“Because you regret it?”
She could lie and say yes but why bother when she didn’t regret it at all? “No. Because I can tell, for whatever reason, you do.” She sidestepped him to follow the others but Dylan caught her arm in a gentle grip, close enough that she smelled the scent of his soap and the laundry detergent stashed in the utility room.
Alex forced her gaze up—and suddenly she wasn’t so sure he regretted it so much as feared it. She blinked at the hint of pain and confusion, the flash of vulnerability she didn’t want to see. Because of the hurt he’d suffered when his wife died? Was he still mourning her? Was that why he was acting this way?
Dylan grimaced, his gaze shifting away from hers. “I can feel those old geezers watching us from inside. Will you take a walk with me?”
And get shot down again? It was obvious Dylan had some issues. “I guess I could get my camera out and pretend you’re going to show me something.”
“I can only imagine the jokes they’d make about what I was showing you,” he said with a wry twist to his lips. “How about we take the boat over there,” he said, pointing to the white, barkless trees sticking out of the lake’s edge like toothpicks. “Would you like some photos of those? They wind around the bend there.”
Determined to say no because that’s what any smart, kissed-and-snubbed woman would do, she said, “Sure.”
Five minutes later they were out of sight of the lodge and Alex still wondered whether she’d made the right decision.
They rocked gently on the surface of the lake, and while she actually did retrieve her camera and take several pictures of the white, weather-smooth trees and their reflection on the cold, murky water, she was ultimately unable to concentrate due to Dylan’s presence. Had he brought her out here only to brood again? Seriously?
“I don’t regret last night. Not in the way you’re thinking.”
Okay. That was good to know.
“Alexandra, Colt was three when his mother died in a fire.”
Alex blinked at him in surprise. A fire. The fire? The one that had burned him?
Her gaze dropped to his gloved hands and, unable to help herself, she reached over and trailed a fingertip over the scars she knew were beneath the protective leather. “Where you got these?”
He nodded, shifting forward on the seat until he rested his elbows on his knees, his focus on the watery grove of trees in front of them. “I wasn’t home when it started. We lived at the top of a mountain road on a pretty isolated stretch. We had neighbors but their homes were below us and it was late, after midnight. I’d been away on business and had been for a while. Lauren—my wife—got upset when I stayed away too long. She was upset a lot when I was home, too, though, so I’d begun to take the attitude that it didn’t matter where I was because she’d always be upset about something.”
He glanced at Alex and she noted his expression was the most open and revealing she’d seen since she’d arrived. This was turning into way more than the aftermath of a few kisses.
Part of her recognized Dylan’s words as a hole opening up in the wall between them. One that wouldn’t close again. Given his tone and what he’d told her… Was it more than she wanted to know?
“It was no secret amongst our neighbors and friends that we had problems. We didn’t get along, had our share of screaming matches and we’d separated a couple times both before and after Colt was born.” His head lowered another inch. “We had different views on everything, were incompatible, but we both had our reasons for staying together. Mainly it was for Colt, but there were other things, as well. Money, convenience, image. All the excuses people give to themselves when they put up with more than they should because they just can’t break the ties that bind them.”
She’d forgotten she’d placed her hand over his until her fingers instinctively tightened. She could feel the tension in him. And because she couldn’t bring herself to stop his words, she moved her hand under his arm to hold him close. Both for Dylan because he looked as though he needed that contact to get through whatever he was about to tell her, and for herself because she needed an anchor. The balance between them was shifting with every word he uttered, and she knew it was no small thing for him to tell her what happened. How she felt about it happening, she wasn’t so sure.
“I knew Lauren was upset and getting angrier with every day that passed, so I decided to placate her and fly home long enough to check on her and Colt before flying out the next morning.” A rough huff left his chest. “I was prepared to give her about eight hours of my life. I thought, given our situation, that was enough, but all I really wanted was to see my son.”
She’d wondered if Dylan’s marriage was a happy one. Now she knew. But knowing it had ended badly, and in tragedy, wasn’t a good feeling. Who could be happy about that?
“When I got there the house was already in flames. I was so exhausted I remember just sitting there in the driveway because I thought I’d fallen asleep. I thought I was having a nightmare.”
“No one goes home expecting to see that. You were probably in shock.”
“All I could think about was Colt. I wasn’t even sure he was there. Sometimes Lauren left him with a cousin of hers but I had to know for sure. The front of the house was impassable so I ran around to the back to find a way in.”
“Dylan.” She smoothed her hand over his arm again, unable to imagine carrying that night not only in his mind but on his body. “If the memories are too much, you don’t have to continue.”
“Yes, I do.”
His head swung toward he
r and Alex was taken aback by the urgent, almost desperate need she saw in his eyes. As though he wanted to tell her, had to tell her.
“All I’ve thought about today is kissing you again, being with you. And even though I’d rather never talk about the fire again, you need to know this about me first.”
Being with her? As in a relationship with her?
What do you think he means?
Wondering if she’d lost her mind because she didn’t do casual sex or have “relationships”, she went over the rest of his words. What did she have to know about him? “Tell me.”
“I broke Colt’s window and climbed in. Colt wasn’t in his bed and I thought he wasn’t there so I went to the bedroom door to get to Lauren.” He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight. “I almost missed him, I wouldn’t have seen Colt at all if I hadn’t tripped over him.”
Oh, dear God. Colt was in the fire, too? “But you found him,” she whispered, hoping to soothe him, remind him, well able to imagine the thoughts in Dylan’s head right now. “And he’s fine. Was he conscious?”
Dylan nodded. “He was crying. He had his hands over his ears and he—he kept saying, ‘Mommy.’”
“What did you do?”
“The flames were coming under his door, right next to where we were. I didn’t think, I just grabbed the first thing I could and tried to put them out so we could get out of there. So I could get Colt out.” He swallowed, and took a deep, ragged breath. “There was this sound…this horrible noise. I didn’t realize what it was.”
She waited for him to continue, dread heavy in her stomach.
“Lauren was screaming. I think that’s what Colt heard, why he had his hands over his ears and was sitting there by the door, like he was waiting for her.”
Alex gasped, her free hand shooting to her mouth to cover it. She burrowed into Dylan’s side, her head on his shoulder, taking comfort as much as she offered it. She said a prayer for Dylan’s wife because it was the only thing she could do, and tightened her hold on Dylan. What a horrible way to die. What a horrible thing to hear. She couldn’t fathom the pain and terror they had all endured.
“I took Colt out the window. I had to get him out but I thought I had enough time. I thought I could get to them from the outside.”
All of the pain missing from Dylan’s voice the afternoon he’d said Colt’s mother was dead was present now. She heard it, felt it. Saw it on his face. But when his words repeated in her head, she frowned. Them? “Was someone else there?”
There was no mistaking his expression now. Such a bitter twist to his lips.
“Lauren wasn’t alone. Her boyfriend’s car was in the driveway. He was in the bedroom with her.”
Her boyfriend? With Colt in the same house with them?
“I got Colt away from the house but the roof caved in. That’s when she stopped screaming.”
Alex sat there in stunned silence, unable to feel much of anything except horror for all Dylan and Colt had been through.
“Alexandra, I swear to you I was going back, I was going back to try to save them but I had to get Colt out. I had to make sure he was somewhere safe so he wouldn’t follow me.”
“Of course. Why would you say—?” Suddenly she knew. People talked. Said cruel things.
“I wasted precious seconds sitting in the driveway staring at the flames.”
No. She could hear a lot of things and keep her mouth closed, but she couldn’t handle that. “Dylan, you’re an intelligent man. That was shock setting in. Who wouldn’t be completely caught off guard and terrified at coming home and seeing that? Knowing your family was inside?” She lifted her hand to his face and gently angled it toward her. So close, she could see the little lines around his eyes. “Everyone thinks of things they should’ve said or done after they lose someone. It’s natural.”
Dylan stared into her eyes and she felt the connection all the way to her soul. His hazel gaze was a turbulent sea of wariness and disbelief, reluctance that seemed to turn to thankfulness? Maybe hope?
“You don’t think I should’ve done more? That there isn’t a chance I hesitated because I knew what she’d been doing with him?”
Is that what he thought? What others had thought of him? That he’d left his wife and lover inside on purpose, because Lauren was with another man? “No, I don’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
How could she explain her instinct? Her sense of self-preservation and intuition? Whatever the name, she knew the truth. Dylan was so shaken by tragedy, he’d lost all objectivity but she knew. “Because even though I’m sure you were angry at them for what they were doing with your son in your home, you aren’t a sociopath capable of hurting someone that way. Did you call 911?”
“Someone else did. There wasn’t time.”
“Which means you put their safety above your own,” she pointed out, “because if you’d put yourself first you would’ve made that call and waited for the fire department to arrive. You wouldn’t have gone inside a burning house after them.”
Holding him close, she closed her eyes, her forehead against his jaw, trying to think of a way to reach him. Given the newness of their…relationship or friendship or whatever it was, was she crazy to feel so sure?
Alex went over what he’d told her and tried to think of it in ways a man might. Then she knew why he’d told her. Why he’d said she had to know before anything else happened between them like kissing or—being together.
Dylan was afraid she’d believe the worst and he was giving her an out.
Was that why he’d ended things so abruptly last night? Why he’d kept his distance today?
Maybe what he’d told her should make a difference but it didn’t. His past was more than she’d wanted to encounter on her trip to Alaska, but no man could fake the look Dylan wore, could fake being as tormented as he was. And she didn’t believe he’d told her anything but the truth. “Did you expect me to think you’re a murderer?” she asked softly, her heart pounding in her chest because she knew by the shifting and lowering of his gaze that she was right.
“Some people do.”
“Not me. Dylan, I look at your face and I see the truth.” She lifted her hand and smoothed a finger over his jaw, his beard soft to the touch. “Who blames you? Lauren’s family?”
“She didn’t have much family but they weren’t the only ones who thought it suspicious under the circumstances.”
Because of the other man in Lauren’s bedroom. “Okay, fine. You didn’t get them out. But what about the man she was with? Why didn’t he get them out? What about Lauren? She was an adult. Why didn’t she save Colt and get them out before the fire spread?”
Who knew what anyone’s response would be in that type of situation? As much as she’d like to think she would run into a burning building to save her family, it was as likely that she would freeze, so horrified by what was happening that she couldn’t move.
The thought didn’t sit well. For all her worldly travels and adventures, it was a humbling realization to discover that cowardliness about oneself.
“According to the autopsies both of them had been drinking pretty heavily. I didn’t hear the man with her screaming, only her.”
No wonder the fire had gotten so out of hand without anyone discovering it. “Dylan, I can only imagine the pain you feel given all you’ve endured. I hate that you and Colt have gone through such a thing, but all I see when I look at you? All I see is a man who risked everything to save his family. Colt was a baby and your priority in getting him out first was right on the mark. You might have been angry at your wife but did you want her to die?”
“No.”
His whisper was strong, adamant.
“Regardless of who she was with, she was Colt’s mother and she was a good one.”
He praised Lauren, even after her betrayal. “Then make every moment you have with Colt count even more because his mother isn’t here to share them with him. Leave the past where it belongs—in the past.
”
The gratitude and warmth in his eyes gave away his intent to kiss her. They were side by side, nearly nose to nose. Then his mouth was on hers and she was in his arms. This kiss was desperate and thankful and hotter than any they’d shared last night. It was a kiss of life and hope, and she was so glad to share it with him.
When Dylan finally let her up for air, he kept her close, his breath hitting her mouth.
“We pick the worst places to do this.”
She laughed, still trying to catch her breath from the fierceness of the kiss and agreeing completely. She didn’t know what would happen between now and Saturday when it was time for her to leave Deadwood Mountain, but for the first time ever she knew she was getting involved with someone associated with the business being reviewed.
“You’re cold again. And hungry from the sounds of your stomach.”
Alex laughed, embarrassed. “I am. And Zeke and the others probably ate lunch with their faces pressed against the window watching for us. Any longer and they’ll be sending out a search party.”
“We’d better go back.”
“Yes.”
But neither of them wanted to go. They didn’t move.
Then she had a thought, crazy as it sounded. “Dylan, what if… I have a proposition for you?”
Dylan raised a thick eyebrow and dropped a chaste kiss on her forehead. “You’ve definitely got me curious.”
She fingered the zipper of his coat, suddenly nervous because she’d never really propositioned a guy before. Stumbling and rambling her way through an explanation about her canceled tours, she finally shut up and simply asked, “So, would you be interested in spending more time with me?”
Oh, what a question, such a hard question to ask. What if after everything he said no?
“I’ve never been anyone’s tour guide. I know Alaska’s history pretty well because it’s something I’m interested in, but that’s about it.”
“If you’d rather not take it on right now, I understand. You have your hands full with Colt and running the lodge.”
He winced at her words.
“What? Did something happen?”
