Forever Wild

by K. A. Tucker

  “Knock … knock,” Simon calls out from behind the cracked bedroom door. “I’ve been sent to tell you that they’re waiting, and that it’s rather cold, so”—he pokes his head in—“if you haven’t decided against marrying …” His words drift, his blue eyes roaming over my dress and face. “Yes, it looks like you’re ready to go.” An odd, sad smile touches his lips.

  “I guess fashionably late doesn’t really work when you make people stand beside a frozen lake in Alaska.” I reach for the mink stole, my nerves fluttering in my stomach.

  With a squeal, Diana shimmies off the bed. “Here, hold these.” She thrusts the bouquets into Simon’s hands, freeing hers up to slide on the ivory fur stole I gifted her.

  Simon leans in to inhale the fragrant roses and eucalyptus leaves while he waits silently, a distinguished gentleman in his staple three-piece gray herringbone tweed suit, another procurement from home, thanks to Diana.

  “Thank you.” She scoops them from his grip, leaning in to plant a kiss on his cheek before sashaying out. “I’ll be downstairs!”

  “One more trip to the powder room for me,” my mom announces, sweeping past Simon with a pat against his arm.

  “Would you mind giving us a moment, please?” he asks Lacey.

  With a smile, the willowy blonde ducks out, grabbing her beanie from the dresser on the way.

  “Any last grand words of wisdom?”

  Simon sucks in a deep breath. “The powder room is code. Your mother is pulling the car around back as we speak. There’s still time to make a run for it.”

  I burst out with laughter. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to change my mind.”

  “Well then …” He fusses with the caramel-colored buttons on his vest for a moment. “I know I’m not your cool and wild, bush plane–flying dad, but if you don’t mind”—he clears his throat, and when he speaks again, that British lilt is gruff—“I’d like to take you down there to get married now.”

  Tears that I’ve managed to keep at bay stream freely now. I miss my father with every fiber of my being. I wish I could hear his soft chuckle again. I wish I could watch him climb out of his beloved planes. I wish he were here to see Jonah and me get married. I know it was what he would have wanted.

  And if he were alive? He’d be walking me down the aisle.

  He’d be on my right side, while Simon walked on my left. “You’re right. You’re not my cool, plane-flying dad.” I reach up to adjust his tie, an exact match to the cranberry of my mother’s dress. “You’re my wise and patient and dependable dad who will never play second fiddle to anyone. Not even Wren Fletcher.”

  He swallows, his own eyes misting. “I suppose that’s pretty cool, too.”

  I giggle, dabbing at my tears with my fingertips. “Yeah, it is.”

  With another deep breath to gather his composure, he offers me his elbow. “Are we going to do this?”

  I smile. “We are.”

  Michael begins strumming his guitar as soon as Diana rounds the corner of the house. It’s followed closely by Ann’s melodic twang.

  “Oh, they’re good,” Simon murmurs, holding me tight as we pick our way down the cleared path, lined with evergreen-filled urns. “Really good.”

  “Yeah. Thank God,” I whisper back, another box to check off, another relief. They were away this past Sunday, so I couldn’t even go to church with Muriel to listen to them perform.

  “I don’t know if I’ve ever heard this song. It’s lovely.”

  “It is.” Twinges of nostalgia stir in my heart. I first heard it while watching Notting Hill with my father. We must have watched that movie—and every Julia Roberts movie in his collection—a half dozen times in those last weeks.

  My stomach flips with nervous excitement as we clear the crop of birch trees. A huddled group of beaming familiar faces greets us, and I try to take them all in, each in turn. Everyone who was invited is here. Bobbie and George got the message on their phone while in town for supplies and flew back early from vacation at their remote cabin. Andrea and Chris entrusted the lodge’s New Year’s Eve crowd to their manager. Two of the fire boss crew that Jonah fought fires with this summer flew home from their contract jobs in California just for this.

  Everyone came.

  Even Roy.

  He’s standing off to the side, away from everyone, his wide-brimmed cowboy hat hiding his eyes from me. He looks ready to bolt before the ceremony is over.

  But he came.

  Having greeted everyone with at least a glance, I finally turn my attention to Jonah, my handsome and steadfast pillar in a three-piece charcoal twill suit standing at the end of the lengthy red carpet, the sun an hour from setting above him. Archie sits behind him, waiting to take us on our first flight as husband and wife, an insistence of Jonah’s that I couldn’t refuse. Teddy stands next to him on the left, beaming and ready to officiate, and a polished Marie in a dazzling black dress to act as best woman stands on his right.

  The intensity in Jonah’s icy-blue eyes as he watches me approach makes my heart stutter and then pound as strongly now as it did in those hours, days, weeks of first looks, first touches, first kisses. Only now that reaction is roused by something far deeper than a ruggedly handsome face and pretty eyes.

  Now, it’s Jonah’s fearless confidence that makes my blood race.

  His unwavering loyalty that makes me search for him in every room.

  His untamed passion that makes me weak at the knees.

  It’s everything—inside and out, good and bad—that makes up this wild man’s heart.

  And he’s about to become mine till death do us part.

  Jonah leaves his spot, moving swiftly toward me.

  Marie is fast, though, grabbing his arm. “No! Remember? You need to wait for her!” she scolds through a chuckle. The small crowd behind us joins in with laughter.

  His jaw tenses and he mouths, “Hurry up.”

  I sigh as I leave the snow-covered ground and take my first step on the carpet.

  “You seem relieved,” Simon muses. “Were you actually afraid he wouldn’t show?”

  “No. But I was afraid he was going to wear one of those herrebunad things.” Traditional Norwegian garb with pants that look an awful lot like lederhosen, in my opinion. I’m not sure even Jonah could pull off that look. “He’s up to something. I know it.”

  “Ah, yes.” Simon’s brow furrows. “I’m not entirely certain, but I’m a tad concerned it might have to do with that raccoon. And your ring.”

  Epilogue

  July

  * * *

  “There was this huge field full of them, so Jonah decided to just land right there. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to him doing that.” I chuckle as I tuck the bouquet of vibrant purple wildflowers into the mason jar of water and then set it next to the white cross. “Sure was beautiful, though.”

  The cemetery is oddly quiet for such a balmy summer day. I drove through Bangor on my way here, and it was bustling, people trudging along the dusty roads, carrying bags of groceries and greeting neighbors. The parking lot at Meyer’s was crammed. Agnes said the store shelves were bare all week after a lengthy storm system lingered, grounding cargo planes for days. I guess they must have restocked.

  I adjust the small model plane, shifting it to sit closer to the flowers. “Agnes and Mabel are flying home with us today. You should see their new place.” The construction company we hired to build the prefab log house told us it wouldn’t take long to erect the building once the ground was level. They weren’t lying. One week there was flat ground by the lake’s edge where trees had been. The next? A small but beautiful two-story home. A parade of tradesmen have cycled through since, installing electrical and plumbing, flooring and kitchen cabinetry.

  Now it’s Roy’s turn for all the final touches. He’s far from finished, but Agnes is anxious to get settled, her house in Bangor sold and emptied of personality. She also said she doesn’t mind the curmudgeon milling about with his
chisel and saw, not saying much. For his part, he doesn’t seem to mind her chattering.

  “The garden is growing wild. I must have made a thousand jars of strawberry jam. I mean, it was realistically more like fifty, but it felt like a thousand. And there’s this zucchini that’s already three times the size of all the other zucchini. It’s a mutant. Muriel says we should enter it in some giant vegetable competition when it’s full grown. But, I’ll probably sell it at the farmers’ market.” I trace the letters that spell out my father’s name. They could probably use a fresh coat of paint soon. “Delyla’s coming. Did I tell you that already? I can’t remember if I did. She’s flying up with her kids next week. They’re going to stay with us.” The day after Christmas, I woke up and called her. Before coffee, still in bed. I didn’t wait. I didn’t waffle. I called and she answered on the third ring, her sweet southern twang carrying surprise through the phone line.

  I told her all about the Roy Donovan that I know, the one who is always there for a neighbor in need, who may not choose the right words but somehow always ends up letting you know how he really feels. The man that I’ve come to care for as deeply as if he were my own family.

  The man who is far more than he seems, and whose regrets are bottomless.

  We talked for over an hour, until my mother came in, tapping her watch impatiently.

  Delyla thanked me and asked if she could call me sometime in the future.

  She called the next week.

  The week after that, I emailed her a few candid shots of Roy from our wedding. She thanked me profusely.

  And the next week, she emailed a letter for Roy that she asked me to print out and give to him. I left it on his kitchen table. He grumbled and snarled for three days, dubbing me Muriel Junior. And then he showed up at our house out of the blue, asking me to teach him how to use one of those goddamn computers. So I set him up with an account and left him alone to type out his thoughts. It took him three hours to finish that first email and hit Send. Delyla confided in me that it was only seven sentences long and riddled with apologies.

  After that, Roy started showing up at our house every Monday like clockwork, with handwritten drafts of what he wants to say to his daughter. I leave him be in the office. He’s sometimes in there for hours, cursing at the keyboard, his two-fingered typing painfully slow.

  In April, I set up a video call for the two of them. He barely said two words. He seemed dumbstruck. It didn’t matter because Delyla likes to talk. For a while, I was worried he’d complain about his ear falling off, but he didn’t. He’s improved his video-calling skills since then, asking questions and answering them with complete sentences. I’ve even caught him with that rare smile, which doesn’t seem to be quite so rare anymore, especially when Gavin and Lauren are present.

  I’ve found a kinship with Delyla, either because of our connection to Roy or my own estrangement with my father. We’ve forged a friendship of our own over the long winter months, sometimes spending hours on FaceTime, laughing and chatting about nothing and everything.

  When she suggested coming up to Alaska, I didn’t hesitate to offer her a place to stay. It took me three days to work up the nerve to tell Roy that his daughter was coming here to meet him face-to-face. He was annoyed at first, but he didn’t damn me to hell for meddling.

  I’d say the curmudgeon is definitely coming around.

  I check my phone. “Jonah should be back from flying Marie to the villages.” She came to our house in a huff the other day, begging to tag along on this trip to Bangor. She said she needed to get away “from it all.” I’m not sure what “it all” is, but I’m guessing it has to do with a certain sled dog breeder that Toby said she’s feuding with.

  I study the simple solemn cross, still remembering the day it was placed. An ache stirs in my chest. “Why does it feel like we’re leaving you behind?” Like the last ties to Western Alaska are being cut. With Agnes and Mabel in Trapper’s Crossing, there’s no real reason to come this way anymore. “I guess that’s not really possible, though, is it? You’re still everywhere to me.” When I hear the buzz of a plane overhead, I like to think it’s Wren Fletcher, doing what he loves most, flying high over the mountains, over the land he loved so deeply. He just doesn’t need to land anymore.

  “Hey, Calla!” Jonah’s deep voice carries from the edge of the cemetery. I didn’t hear him pull up. “Sorry, but are you about done there? ’Cause there’s some weather comin’ in that I’d like to get ahead of. Aggie’s all packed.”

  I see him leaning against George’s borrowed truck, his USAF ball cap pulled low on his brow, a soft, black cotton T-shirt clinging to his powerful frame. He’ll wait for me out there. He never intrudes on my time at my dad’s grave.

  “I don’t know when I’ll be back here again.” I bite my lip as my stomach erupts in a wild rush of butterflies. “But can I let you in on a little secret? One I haven’t even told Jonah yet?”

  I lean in.

  And I whisper the words that are about to make my husband very happy.

  Catch up with Calla, Jonah, and the rest of

  Trapper’s Crossing, Alaska in

  Dr. Marie Lehr’s story.

  * * *

  Title and release date to come.

  The Player Next Door - Sneak Peek

  Chapter One

  2007

  * * *

  I survived Day One without puking or crying.

  Do they make T-shirts with that slogan? They must. I can’t be the only person to head back to school after summer vacation with a broken heart. Though, I’d be lying if I wore that T-shirt. I did cry today; I just didn’t do it in public. I ducked into a restroom stall as the first fat tear rolled down my cheek and then spent my entire lunch period with my butt planted on a toilet seat, struggling to muffle my sobs as giggling girls streamed in and out, oblivious.

  And all it took was one look from Shane Beckett to cause that reaction. Or rather, the lack of a look. A passing glance as we crossed paths in the hallway between third and fourth period, when his beautiful whiskey-colored eyes touched mine before flickering away, as if the momentary connection was accidental.

  As if the seventeen-year-old, six-foot star quarterback for the Polson Falls Panthers and I hadn’t spent the summer in a semipermanent lip-lock.

  As if last night, sitting in his father’s car outside my apartment building, he didn’t tell me that we were getting too serious, too fast, and he couldn’t handle a relationship right now, that he needed to focus on football, and I was too much of a distraction.

  That one vacant, meaningless look from Shane Beckett in the hall today was worse than anything else he could have done, and it sent me stumbling away, dragging my obliterated spirit behind me.

  The rest of the day has been a painful blur, with me cowering in the same restroom stall after the last bell rang to avoid the crowd. I foresee myself spending a lot of time in there. Maybe I should hang an occupied sign and declare it mine for the school year.

  “Hey, Scarlet.” Becca Thompson, her stride buoyant, flashes a sympathetic smile as she passes me on the steps outside the front doors of Polson Falls High.

  “Hey,” I manage, but the bubbly blond is already gone, trotting down the sidewalk, no glance backward, almost as if she hadn’t greeted me at all. She’s nice enough, but I shouldn’t be surprised by the lukewarm friendliness. We’ve never traveled in the same circles, her being the popular cheerleader and me being the reticent mathlete who slogs away at the local drive-in movie theater every weekend in summer. We’d exchanged nothing more than polite greetings before Shane and I started dating, despite our mothers working together at the hair salon for years.

  Couple that with the fact that Becca is best friends with Penelope Rhodes—a.k.a. the Red Devil, otherwise known as the worst human to walk these dank halls—who was away in Italy all summer, and I’m not surprised that I’m persona non grata once again.

  Becca obviously knows Shane and I broke up. They all mu
st know. But at least she acknowledged me, so I guess there’s that.

  She’s heading toward the parking lot now. That’s where the jocks and cheerleaders and otherwise popular crowd hang out, congregated around the cars their parents bought for them, talking and laughing and ignoring the peasants.

  I check my watch. It’s been twenty minutes since the last bell. Most of them should have left by now. With a heavy sigh, I tuck a wayward strand of my mouse-brown bob behind my ear, hike my backpack over my shoulder, and amble down the path, ready to avoid eye contact and walk the eight blocks home where I can hide in my bedroom for the rest of my life—or at least for the night.

  Rounding the bend, I spot Steve Dip heading this way with two other guys from the football team. My stomach clenches. There’s a reason the wide receiver and Shane’s best friend is nicknamed Dipshit. He’s an obnoxious ass with a cruel sense of humor.

  I hold my breath, hoping he’ll ignore me, like everyone else seems to be.

  Our eyes meet and he winks. No such luck. “Hey, BB. You cost me fifty bucks!”

  I frown. What? I have no idea why he’s calling me that, but it can’t mean anything flattering, especially not with the raucous laughter that follows.

  He brushes a hand through his cropped hair. “Tell Dottie I’m gonna come in for a quickie later, will ya?”

  “Bite me,” I throw back, my cheeks burning as we pass. How long has he been sitting on that stupid joke? It’s far from the first time I’ve heard something along those lines. When your mother’s the town bicycle, everyone feels the need to share their punch line with you. He never dared say a word about her when Shane and I were together, but I guess it’s no holds barred now.