At lunchtime Thea sat with Toothless Jim and some of his buddies as she ate her own bowl of beef stew. The gravy was thick and rich, and very tasty. The men told stories of their life in the Alaskan wilderness, when River Ice was just a two shanty way station for those heading in or out of the Gates of the Arctic National Park. They city existed on the edge of the Arctic Coastal Plain, a region most tourists braved with the help of seasoned guides. Many townsfolk made their living taking people sledding over the great basin.
“The big misconception is that Alaska is covered in snow and ice year round,” said Toothless Jim. “Only the central arctic circle is frozen year round, not us.”
“We have our snow, like now, but it’s only September,” another man quipped. “This is just a tease. Next month is usually our big snowfall.”
After the lunch period a lull came and Thea helped wipe down the tables and chairs, moving them back to their original spot.
“Told you this was an easy job,” Miki remarked.
“Tell that to my feet,” Thea commented. “I need to buy decent boots. These are falling apart fast.”
Both looked at her Ugg boots. The stitching was fraying, the sewn bits of faux suede curling as the thread unraveled. They had started out tan but now resembled a molted mutt.
“Right next to the bank on the street over is a man by the name of Thistle Vann. He has the best boots and can even make you a pair, if you want to wait. You should go see him tomorrow, come in whenever.”
Thea nodded. “All right, I will. Thanks. So,” she hedged, walking over to the table that Paden tended to sit at. “Does he come in every night?”
“Who?” Miki asked. She looked at the table. “Paden? He comes in every night for dinner.”
“Oh. He’s by himself?”
“There’s no missus if that’s what you’re getting at,” Miki elaborated. “He moved here about ten years ago but I don’t know from where. Had a house built along the forest line. Believe it or not, the most I know about him is that he uses please and thank you, so somebody must have raised him right.”
Thea didn’t respond, but her hand lingered on the plain wooden table top.
“You like him?” Miki asked, surprise in her voice.
“What?” Thea scoffed and moved away from the table. “No, of course not. He’s rude.”
“He is very blunt,” Miki agreed. “Just be careful around him, Thea.”
Thea glanced at her in surprise. “You think he’d hurt me?”
“Not physically,” Miki answered, shaking her head. “But Paden has his own demons. No one moves to nowhere just for the hell of it. And besides, you’re on the rebound.”
“Believe me, Miki, I am not on the rebound.”
“I’m not talking about Caleb Tasker,” Miki said gently. “I’m talking about whatever brought you to River Ice.”
Thea caught her gaze and she saw it, deep in Miki’s dark eyes. Concern, understanding. A touch of pity. Somehow, Miki knew about her, or at least knew sadness was rooted somewhere at the center of her soul. Unnerved, Thea turned away, not wanting to confront any of it. Her stupid lingering thoughts over Paden, her past, Thea desperately wanted it all to go away.
Dinnertime brought a rush of people into Suinnak’s, keeping Thea busy filling orders and drinks. The noise kept her mind constantly pulled in different directions and away from the lingering melancholy. What she dearly loved about River Ice was that nothing reminded her of Malibu and the home she had left.
Late in the day, after dark had set, two men came in to talk to Miki, who seemed really excited. She gave each man a hug and walked them to the door before bouncing over to her.
“Did you win the lottery?” Thea asked.
“Close! My caribou is here!”
“Oh. Great!” Thea looked around like the animal was going to be in the restaurant.
“Silly!” Miki laughed. “I have to go get it. Do you mind closing down shop?”
“Uh,” Thea replied, stalling. “What do I do?”
“Oh, gosh, nothing much really. Just make sure all the salt and pepper shakers are filled, get the coffee pots ready for the morning and bank the fire. Can you do that?”
“Sure, not a problem,” Thea replied, pasting a smile to her face.
Miki clapped her hands like a little girl. “Okay! Let me get to the butcher. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“You got it!”
As soon as the door closed behind Miki, Thea’s smile disappeared. She turned in a circle to look around the now empty restaurant. Once the sun went down people headed home. The temperature dropped so quickly no one wanted to chance being stuck outside without the sunlight to offer a token of resistance to the cold. Even Toothless Jim had left her.
Once again, the familiar feeling of being lost assaulted her. Being surrounded by people was one thing because memories could be pushed aside, even forgotten for a bit. But without the buffer of activity and easy banter, Thea floundered. Still, she had to admit that today had been one of the best days in the past year. She hadn’t needed, or even thought about, her medication.
She took a deep breath and began wiping down the tables, rearranging the chairs that had wandered off as patrons came and went. The work was monotonous and the room way too quiet. Quiet made her brain want to think and that was one thing she didn’t want to do, so she started to hum. The melody was easy, soft.
She turned and ran smack into a heavily muscled chest.
A stifled scream leapt from her throat, diffused by the thick flannel shirt she breathed in. A combination of outdoor and man assaulted her nose, tickling it. Two hands grasped her upper arms and pulled her back and Thea swallowed down a wide heaping of fear as she looked into hooded green eyes.
“Holy crap, you scared me! I thought Miki had locked the door.”
Paden removed his hands and gestured toward the kitchen area.
“Am I too late for a meal and coffee?”
“O-oh,” she stammered, unsettled. “Um, no, not at all,” she replied and hurried over to the coffee pot. He filled the room with his presence and Thea found she had to concentrate on not spilling the coffee as she poured it into a mug. “Milk? Sugar?”
“Black.”
“Right,” she muttered under her breath. He sat at his usual table and she put the steaming mug down in front of him. “Let me, ah, I’ll go get your food.”
She turned and practically fled to the kitchen, feeling his eyes following her. Thea grabbed the sink to steady herself. Lord, he made her nervous! He unnerved her, even though she hadn’t a clue why. She had dated lots of good looking men in the past, and a few had been up and coming film stars. Sure, Paden What’s-his-name made those men look like pale toothpicks but still, he was just one man!
Preparing the stew only took a few minutes by heating it up in the microwave. For good measure she took some bread, toasted it, added a little butter and sprinkled a little garlic powder on it before taking the dishes out to him.
He watched her as she served him and it took a lot of her concentration to not spill the food into his lap.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
“Y-you’re welcome,” she stammered, flushing again. “She went off to get caribou. Miki, that is. She went to butcher for the, you know, meat.”
He nodded before turning his attention to his food. Feeling the slight snub, Thea turned and headed back to the bar.
“Your name is Greek, right?” he said suddenly, out of the blue. “Panthea. A Pantheon of Gods.”
“Yes,” she answered, surprised. “My mother was into Greek Mythology. My sister’s name was Hera and my brother’s middle name was Cronus. Usually I go by Thea.”
Inside her brain was screaming at her to shut up. She turned her back to him and then bit her tongue. God, could she sound any more stupid?
“What does your family think of you being here?”
The question threw her off balance and she floundered a moment, her shoulders bunching as she fr
oze. She took a deep breath and turned to face him.
“My family died,” she told him in the rehearsed tone that had taken months to perfect. “They died in a car crash last year.”
She braced for his apology, his pity, and the fumbling words from someone who hasn’t a clue what to say. But he did none of those. He just studied her steadily from beneath dark, sooty lashes before looking back to his food to resume eating.
She let out a shaky breath and went back to the closing duties, making sure salt and pepper shakers were full, cleaning out the coffee pots and getting them set up. She finished wiping the tables and closed the front of the stove. By the time she was finished, so was he. She cleared away the dishes and washed them up before setting them off to the side. Thea took one last look in the kitchen to make sure everything was put away before heading back into the front of the restaurant.
Paden was still there, waiting. He had put his coat on but held his hat and goggles.
“You ready?” he asked.
She didn’t know quite what to say so she nodded and headed over to the hooks, grabbing her coat and zipping it up. She put on her hat, scarf and gloves and exited out the door that Paden held open for her. The lock was a simple push button, anyone trying to break in wouldn’t have a hard time, but Thea decided that Miki knew this town and its people better so she didn’t worry too much.
Unlike last night there was no wind kicking up white dust clouds. The sky was clear and a thousand stars twinkled above. Thea’s mouth fell open as she stared at the wondrous night sky.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
Paden stopped his trek and looked first at her and then upwards. “Don’t see this in the city.”
“No you don’t,” she murmured, agreeing. “People like to blame smog but it’s simply too much light. I live on the ocean and sometimes I can look out over the water and see the stars in the distance but nothing like this.”
“What made you want to be a mail order bride?”
The question pulled her abruptly back. She swallowed and hunched her shoulders. She could feel her muscles stiffening under his expectant stare.
“That’s a personal question,” she said softly.
“You don’t answer personal questions?”
“Do you?” she shot back.
Paden only shrugged. “I moved here to have peace and quiet to write my books.”
She didn’t believe him. His answer was too smooth, too polished, and too quick. Had she been a regular person, however, she would have accepted it at face value, but she had her own practiced statement and recognized the falseness in his tone.
“Ditto,” she said instead, “except for the book part.”
He raised an eyebrow at her but let the subject drop. “So why didn’t you marry him?”
“Again, personal.”
“You know there are a couple of bets going on about you, that you’ll stay and which man you’ll marry. Not many pretty girls come to River Ice so you’re a hot commodity right now.”
It took her a moment to process the last part of his sentence. Her brain sort of went haywire when he called her pretty. She blinked. “Which man is winning right now?”
Again, he looked at her with one eyebrow raised. Thea came to realize this was his surprised look.
“It’s pretty much even between all the single men, but the majority thinks Caleb will wise up and whisk you away.”
“I never pictured you as a gossiper,” she replied.
He shrugged. “All I’ve been hearing for the past few days is Panthea Snow this and Panthea Snow that. I feel like you’re a celebrity.”
She waved away his words. “I’m here till the snow breaks is what I am. But River Ice seems like a nice place.”
Paden snorted. “There are about five hundred people living here, and seventy percent is male. Everyone is showing you their nice side on purpose.”
“Not everyone,” she muttered under her breath.
Paden must have hyper-hearing because he stopped and took her arm. She looked at him under the faint lights from the town and stars above. His eyes were in shadow, but she could still feel their burning gaze heating her up.
“You think I’m not nice?”
“I’m sure you’re a lovely person. I must be the one that brings out the disagreeable in you.”
“You almost froze to death your first night here. Sorry if I was a little curt about it.”
“All right, I get it! You don’t have to-”
He kissed her. All coherent thought fled her mind as his lips settled on hers. At first it was just a mere dusting of mouths, but then he leaned into the kiss and his tongue grazed the seam seeking entrance to the dark caverns of her mouth. She allowed him access. It was a bold kiss, a long sexy, sensual one that demanded a response, and to her surprise she gave it. Her body strained against his as far as the bulky coats would let them as her hands grasped his shoulders. His hands snaked around her to pull her into him. Fire zinged through her blood as her heart pounded with desire.
Then suddenly he pulled back. She half fell forward from his desertion, catching herself by shifting her foot. Her lips tingled at the loss of his lips.
She still couldn’t see his eyes but his mouth flattened out in a straight, unfriendly line. “The hotel is right up this hill,” he said, his voice strangely distant. “Good night, Thea.”
And then he left her, standing in snow. Absolutely bewildered.
Chapter Seven
Paden berated himself all the way back to his snowmobile, which he’d parked behind the Suinnak restaurant. How foolish he was acting, over a wounded girl no less. Like he could offer her something better, kind words of understanding or some shit. It was those eyes of hers that had gotten to him. From the first moment he had seen the emptiness in those grey eyes it had called to the thing inside him. Only someone who had lived through hell had those kinds of eyes, and damn if it didn’t entice him.
Why did he kiss her?
One minute he had been watching her lips gripe at him and the next his had been on hers. And it had been…amazing. For a moment, a very brief moment, he had believed that the monster was gone and he let his mind wander to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he would be able to have normal feelings. That it would be okay to kiss the girl and live happily ever after. He had never had a kiss that had felt so nice, so right.
And then the monster inside him woke up. Paden punched his leg, hard, to fight it back and the pain temporarily soothed the demon raging its need for more. It was enough, however, to allow him to get back to his home, to put away his snowmobile and trudge from the garage into the warm house. The house was large, far larger than one man needed in River Ice, Alaska, but at the time he was having it built he had needed room. The monster didn’t like small, confined spaces. That was why his house had double-paned windows stretching two stories tall, with a non-furnished great room.
The beast inside roared and Paden groaned. He fell to his knees, pressing the palms of his hand into his eyes hard. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to gouge out his eyes or not, but the discomfort felt good.
He had thought it was over, that the demon was gone. He had done everything they had told him to do. All the therapy, the antidepressants…nothing had worked. In desperation, he had isolated himself, had carved out a life in the Alaskan wilderness in order to retrain his brain.
And all it took was one kiss to erase ten years of work.
Like a scorpion hidden in the dark, the monster struck with a poison that eroded his soul. It ate its way from the outside in, layer by layer, until the venom reached his heart. He couldn’t run.
Hurt me, it whispered.
Cut me up.
The voice softly danced through his mind. It seduced, sounding like heaven. Paden rose to his feet and stumbled into the kitchen. He banged into the countertop, hitting his hip and the jolt of pain brought a momentary flash of excitement. His hand shot out and he clutched the block of knives like it was
a lifeline. In some far distant corner of his mind, he thought how he’d just bought them six months ago. It had been the first time he had allowed knives in his home, one of the reasons why he always took his evening meal at Miki’s restaurant. He thought he had won, he thought he was safe.
The voice taunted him again and the emotional overload threatened to sweep him under. He grabbed one of the knives, one of the smaller ones and he brought the blade to his arm. He slashed at the chaos, and pain exploded through his body. It brought his focus back into alignment. It calmed his thoughts. Yet it also gave him pleasure. Exquisite pleasure in the most basic form.
Bliss.
Because once the monster was appeased, it disappeared again. For a while, the voice quieted.
And Paden Winters could rest.
Chapter Eight
The kiss wormed its way into her nightmare. The crash still happened, the blood still dripped, but somehow Paden was there kissing her, holding her as if to shield her from the horror of it. For the first time in a year she hadn’t woken up with a strangled scream.
For the first time since the accident, Thea had gotten a full night’s rest. She awoke feeling completely refreshed. She dressed quickly and headed out of the hotel, breathin in the crisp, morning air. The cold jolted her senses awake, better than a cup of coffee. Now when people waved at her, she waved back with a smile. Snowmobiles weaved their way over the snow covered streets being careful from the occasional sled with dogs passing by. She saw the bank and headed for it, entering the warm interior.
“Hello!” came the friendly greeting from the teller.
“Hi,” Thea greeted. “I need to set up an account.”
“Certainly. Let me get Mr. Quinn.”
Half an hour later, Thea walked out with access to money, which was a good thing considering her next step was to the bootmaker next door.
“Good morning,” she called out in the small store overflowing with shoe patterns of all sizes hanging on the walls.
A short man wearing magnifying glasses perched on the end of his nose walked from the back room. He was small built, thin, with a bald patch surrounded by curly white hair.
Love Story for a Snow Princess Page 4
