Reeve (The Stewarts of Skagway #6)

Chapter 1

Reeve (and Harper)

“Are you on your way, babycakes?”

Babycakes. Baby.

I roll my eyes.

As the youngest in a family of six siblings, I’ve always been the baby.

It doesn’t matter that I’m twenty years old, living in a cabin on my own, and making my own money as an EMT during the off-season and as a tour guide all summer long. It doesn’t even matter that there are three actual babies—my nieces, Wren and Emily Anne, and my nephew, Madden—in our family now. My sister Harper still calls me “babycakes.”

“Yeah,” I say, grimacing at the Bluetooth mic mounted on the visor over the windshield. “I’ll be there soon.”

Harper makes me call her whenever I leave Dyea en route to her house in Skagway. Never mind that I’ve done the drive well over a thousand times in my lifetime or that it’s a little over ten miles and takes just under half an hour to complete it. She still makes me call.

“See you in twenty-five minutes,” she says.

I picture my older sister setting a twenty-five-minute alarm on her Apple watch, so that even if she gets distracted between now and my arrival, she’ll know exactly when I’m supposed to be there. And woe to me if I’m more than five minutes late. Positive I’m stuck in a ditch or being eaten by wolves, she’ll send her husband, Sheriff Joe, or his annoying sidekick, Deputy Aaron, to track me down.

“Be careful of the ice on the Nahku Bay curve,” she adds. “Tanner spun out there yesterday. Almost had a heart attack when I heard.”

“Yes, mother ,” I mutter.

“I’m not your mother,” she snaps back, “but if she was here, she’d say the same. Be safe. See you soon.”

She hangs up before I can say anything else, and my phone screen dims when the call ends. There are no streetlights on the road from Dyea to Skagway. It’s pitch black outside but for the headlights on my Range Rover. It’s a bumpy ride, too. This is an old dirt road that’s never been paved and has more than its fair share of erosion, loose gravel, potholes and wildlife. Even if my oldest sibling, Hunter, was driving, she’d still tell him to be careful.

Heck, it’s not that I really mind being the youngest. After all, it’s all I’ve ever known. Someone had to come last, right? It isn’t my place in the birth order that I mind, really. It’s being treated like an eternal “baby” when I’m a fully-grown young woman.

Take, for instance, my dating life.

My non-existent dating life .

Dating in high school was next to impossible with Parker and Sawyer watching my every move and reporting back to our older siblings. After they graduated, one of my classmates finally mustered up the courage to ask me to our senior prom, but little did I know he’d cleared the invitation with Sawyer first. And Sawyer had told the guy, I found out later, that yes, he could ask me to the prom, but if he got “handsy” with me, he’d wake up minus one nut in the morning. Imagine my confusion when I tried to kiss my date on the dance floor, and he’d shoved me away like I had a rare disease. He’d mumbled something like, “it’s not worth a ball,” then disappeared for the rest of the night.

Let me be clear. When your brothers threaten the sacred jewels of your potential suitors, it’s awfully hard to get asked out on a date, let alone find a boyfriend.

Suffice it to say, I haven’t had a very robust romantic life. Aside from a couple of standoffish dates my senior year of high school and a few stolen kisses with a tourist here and there, I haven’t had much of a love life at all. And what’s even worse, is I’ve stopped looking for one…at least here, in Skagway.

What’s the point? “Baby” Reeve Stewart isn’t on anyone’s First Date Bingo card. Not if they know my brothers, anyway. Getting to know me doesn’t seem to be worth the headache, and I get it. The glowering of my brothers and brothers-in-law—which includes the town sheriff, for god’s sake!—doesn’t make me a very appealing prospect for a potential boyfriend.

But the fact of the matter is I’m lonely. Especially now that my siblings have all found someone special, I’m more aware of my single status than ever before. Though they are constantly inviting me to spend time with them and their families, I still feel like a third wheel. I want someone, too. My own special someone. I want him so bad, it hurts.

That longing, combined with my love of emergency medicine, propelled me toward a huge life decision last summer. On the sly, without telling anyone in my family, I applied to the School of Nursing at the University of Alaska Anchorage. To my surprise and delight, I was not only accepted, but offered a scholarship for the winter semester. My classes start on the second Monday in January, which gives me approximately six weeks to tell my family I’m leaving Skagway to study in Anchorage for the next four years.

Whew.

They’re not going to like it. That’s for sure.

But aside from the fact that I desperately want a career in healthcare, I recognize the dire need for space from my family—the kind of space that can only be found through real physical distance.

It’s time for baby Reeve to grow up, whether they like it or not.

***

“You made good time,” says Harper as I step into her living room, letting the front door slam shut behind me. “Were you speeding? I told you it was icy!”

“No! I wasn’t speeding,” I tell her, hanging my parka on the rack by the door and toeing off my wet boots. “And it wasn’t that icy. More mud than ice.”

“Mud can be just as dangerous,” she informs me, pouring warm milk into a bottle, then shaking it. “Travis is reading Wren a bedtime story. Let me give this bottle to him, and then we’ll go.”

“I didn’t realize Travis Clearwater was old enough to babysit.”

Last time I saw Joe’s cousin’s son, he was in grade school.

“He’s almost fifteen now,” says my sister. “In fact, I think he’s dating Ivy’s cousin.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yep!” she calls over her shoulder, headed down the back hall to the nursery. “The older one. Jenny.”

I roll my eyes and shake my head. Fifteen-year-old Jenny Caswell has a boyfriend, and I don’t? The sooner I get to Anchorage, the better!

When Harper returns five minutes later, her boots are on, and she’s shrugging into her parka. Our plan is to check out the gingerbread houses and other holiday decorations in the shop windows on Broadway before grabbing supper at the Purple Parsnip. If I know Bruce Franks ( and I do! ), it’ll be totally decked out for Christmas with a dazzling array of festive lights, themed Christmas trees, and carols playing non-stop on the restaurant speakers from now until New Year’s.

“You know what I realized?” asks Harper, wrapping a scarf around my neck, then plunking a hat over her blonde hair. “This is our fifteenth Yuletide Stroll together. Can you believe it?”

For as long as I can remember, since I was five, and she was eighteen, the Friday night after Thanksgiving has been reserved for me and Harper to window shop in Skagway and have dinner together at the Parsnip. It’s how we kick off the Christmas season every year, and I love it.

I might even miss it next year , I think wistfully, wondering if I’ll even make it home for Thanksgiving, or if I’ll need to stay in Anchorage for school.

“Joe meeting us?” I ask her as we step out onto her front porch.

The air is crisp and cold, and overhead, a million stars brighten the inky Alaskan sky.

“Maybe,” she answers, hooking her arm into mine as we head for the sidewalk. “He’s off work at six, and I told him we’d be strolling by the shop windows for a little bit before grabbing chow at the Parsnip. If it’s a quiet night at the station, he might come find us. Any objections? I can text him not to come if you want a sisters-only night instead.”

“No objection. I love Joe. You know that.”

I’ve always loved Joe. He’s my brother from another mother, much more so than Parker’s husband, Quinn Morgan, who’s growing on me, but still has a long way to go to win me over.

“How come you accepted Quinn so fast?” I ask Harper.

“Because he loves Parker. Always did. Always will. I could see it.”

“Then why was he so mean to her when they were kids?”

“He was just a dumb kid looking for attention,” says Harper, turning us right down State Street, toward the shops, restaurants, and annual Yuletide festivities. “You’ve got to give him a little grace for that. Yes, he and Sawyer were pranksters in grade school and even into middle school. And yes, Parker was their favorite victim. But they were all kids, and kids are allowed to act like assholes. You want my honest opinion? Parker was holding a grudge that was out of proportion to Quinn’s crimes. I’m glad she got out of her own way before it was too late.”

“Too late ?” I ask. “She’s not even twenty-four until next week, and she’s already married with a baby.”

“I didn’t mean ‘too late’ in the span of Parker’s life. I meant that I’m glad she gave Quinn a chance before he gave up on her. There’s only so long he could bear it.”

“Bear what ?”

“Loving her that hard, despite how much she hated him.”

I think about this for a moment, and I can see the truth in Harper’s words. I can see how much Quinn loves my sister. And it’s also true that he and Sawyer mostly stopped teasing and pranking her in middle school, but Parker’s hate for him was still going strong a full decade later. It must have been torture to love her over those long ten years—for Quinn to know that his own stupid actions had birthed and strengthened her vitriol. How lonely it must have been for him to love her without the hope of Parker ever reciprocating that affection.

But then again, I’ve read all of the classic love stories of hate turned to love; of second chances that become epic love stories: Captain Wentworth and Anne Elliott, John Thornton and Margaret Hale—and the most iconic haters-to-lovers of all—Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. What all of these stories have in common is that the lovers held on to hope, even when all hope was gone.

With this literary argument ringing in my head, I say, “If Quinn had given up on her, then his love wasn’t true.”

“Oh, babycakes, you’ve read too many novels,” she says, her tone annoyingly condescending. “It makes the heart brittle to love without reciprocation. If you truly believe that there’s no chance to requitement—that the object of your love will never, ever love you back—eventually, you must force yourself to move on.” She takes a deep breath. “And think about it. Quinn was down in Juneau crabbing every year. He has friends there. He could’ve easily moved down there to get away from her. To get over her. And she would’ve lost out on the love of her life.”

“Or maybe she would’ve met someone else,” I suggest, trying to sound wise. “Someone who might have loved her even better.”

“Better than Quinn, who’s loved her since the fifth grade? Is that even possible?”

“No one’s loved me since the fifth grade,” I point out, my voice soft and small.

“And more’s the better,” says Harper. “You’re in no rush.”

Maybe I am , I think, feeling increasingly irritated. “I’d like to meet someone.”

“And you will! I’m positive there’s someone wonderful out there for you!” she says. “But Reeve, you were still a teenager until last month. Slow down, huh? You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”

“Harp,” I say, unhooking my arm from hers as we turn left onto Eighth Street. “You do realize that there are only four years between me and Parker, right? Parker. Our sister. Who’s married. With a kid.”

“Of course.”

“And there are only three years between me and Sawyer.”

“What’s your point?”

“Parker’s a mom, and Sawyer’s about to propose, but I’ve never even had a proper boyfriend, which makes no—”

Her sharp gasp makes me swallow the rest of my words.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

He swore me to secrecy!

“Wait! What? What are you talking about?” Harper stops walking and turns to face me, taking my forearms in the tight grip of her gloved hands. “Sawyer’s…Sawyer’s about to—”

“Propose? Yes.” I yank my arms away. “You can’t be that surprised, Harp! He and Ivy have been together for a year now. And he’s loved her forever.”

“Oh, my god! He’s proposing ?” She searches my face. “Why did he tell you ? Why didn’t he tell me ?”

“Huh. Wow,” I mutter, trying not to be offended by her implication. “Maybe he told me because you and Parker and Tanner all have babies now…and Hunter lives a lot of the year in Seattle! I’m the one sibling left who—”

She whips her phone out, pulls off a glove with her teeth and opens a text chat to Sawyer. I grab the phone out of her hand just as she starts typing.

“No,” I growl, shaking my head.

“Reeve!”

“No, Harp.”

“Reeve, give me my phone.”

“Absolutely not,” I tell her. “He told me . Not you. And he didn’t give me permission to tell anyone else. It just slipped out.”

“And now I know, so—”

“So nothing ,” I say, shoving her phone down my turtleneck where it lands snugly between my boobs, encased in my sports bra. I know it’s childish, but I can’t help it. “You’re not getting involved unless he reaches out to you.”

She puts her hands on her hips. “Stop being a brat. Give me the phone.”

“No way,” I say.

“Reeve Caroline Stewart, you give me back my phone!” she snarls, her eyes shiny and serious in the moonlight.

This is Harper’s “mama-bear” voice, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m affected by it. Always have been. But ( sorry, not sorry! ) not affected enough to give her the phone so she can barge into Sawyer’s personal life without an invitation.

“Forget it!” I say, turning around and sprinting toward Broadway.

“Reeve!” my sister shrieks from behind me. “Come back here!”

But I’m a deer, a forest wolf, an Arctic fox—I’m fleet of foot and fast in my boots…

Until I’m not.

A patch of black ice under an unshoveled dusting of new snow proves my undoing, and I faceplant into a snowbank on the corner of Eighth and Broadway.

“Oh, shoot! Reeve! Are you okay?”

Joe Raven’s voice looms above me. I lift my head, spitting out a mouthful of gritty, roadside snow.

He speaks to someone else. “Help her up, would you?”

Strong hands hook under my shoulders and lift me upright. My back is against someone’s chest as I find my footing. My brother-in-law stands frowning in front of me. My sister runs up beside him, hands on her hips as she pants from exertion.

“She stole…my phone!”

“Did she have a good reason?” asks Joe, grinning down at her.

Wait a second. If Harper and Joe are standing in front of me, then who— I look over my shoulder to find Aaron Adams’s stupid face. I flail like crazy, furious to find out it’s him holding me firmly against his chest.

“L-Let go of m-me!” I sputter, still wiping dirty snow from my lips.

He lets me go a little too abruptly, and I slip again…right back into the same snowbank.

Smooth, Reeve. Real smooth.

This time no one helps me up, so I push up on my own, careful to keep my mouth closed against more dirty snow and gravel. When my boots land on a non-icy patch of sidewalk, I straighten up with as much dignity as I can muster, brushing snow and dirt off my parka.

“Are you finished?” asks Harper.

I reach beneath my sweater and turtleneck to retrieve Harper’s phone.

“Leave. Him. Alone,” I tell her, holding the phone out of reach until she nods in agreement.

“You are such a pain in the ass,” she tells me, shoving the phone in her pocket.

“Are you two going to tell me what all of this was about?” asks Joe.

I stare at Harper, daring her to betray Sawyer’s confidence. It’s a test, and she knows it. She narrows her eyes at me for a second, then shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “It’s a sister secret.”

“Then can we go see the windows and get some dinner?” he asks. “I’m starving.”

“I’m gonna head home, boss,” says Aaron, who’s still standing behind me.

My sister glances at Aaron, then at me, then back at Aaron, offering him her prettiest smile. “No way, Aaron! We’d love for you to join us, wouldn’t we, Reeve?”

Well played, Harper , I think, narrowing my eyes at her. She knows I don’t like Aaron Adams, and she’s getting some petty revenge for me sidelining her from Sawyer’s love life. Well, fine. I can take it. I won’t give her the satisfaction of acting bothered.

“Sure,” I say, dusting off my jeans with mittened hands. “The more the merrier.”

Harper and I exchange the fakest of fake smiles, and then she takes Joe’s hand and turns down Broadway, leaving me and Aaron to follow behind.

Tall and buff, with caramel-colored skin and a bald head covered by a Skagway PD baseball hat, Aaron is objectively good looking. In fact, there was a time when I thought he was the hottest guy in town. But Aaron made it clear that he wasn’t interested in me, which turned my own interest into humiliation and scorn.

“I’m surprised you said yes.” His voice, a deep, smooth baritone, is familiar to me, but I stopped being wowed by it a while ago. “I mean to me tagging along.”

“Didn’t have much of a choice.”

“Oh.” He clears his throat. “Huh. Okay. So you don’t want me here.”

“Aaron, I really don’t care if you come along or not.”

“I should probably just go home.”

I don’t like the twinge of conscience I feel about being mean to him.

“How would that look? Your boss’s wife invited you to dinner. What excuse would you give for suddenly leaving?”

He humphs softly.

Harper and Joe stop to admire the windows at the fudge shop, which offers small cups of hot cocoa to passers-by.

“Joe and I are running in for Miner’s Mint,” says Harper. “You want anything?”

“Nope,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. A jaunty version of “Jingle Bells” floats out of the shop as Harper opens the door and steps inside, leaving me alone on the sidewalk with Aaron. I ignore him, admiring a beautiful gingerbread house in the left picture window.

From behind me, Aaron says, “I wish I knew what I did to make you hate me so much.”

“Don’t play the fool.” I turn around to face him. “You know exactly why I hate you.”

His lips twitch with annoyance, but his brown eyes are soft as he stares down at me. “You were seventeen , Reeve.”

It’s my turn to humph .

“What did you expect me to do?”

Text me the second I was legal.

I hate that this thought slides through my brain. I don’t want to be attracted to Aaron, who still sees me as a flirtatious teenager who tried to honey-trap him when she was seventeen.

And honestly, that wasn’t my intention. I mean, I don’t think it was. Heck, I don’t even know if I had clear-cut intentions. I was flying by the seat of my pants—flirting with the hot, new cop in town. I wasn’t thinking about the age of consent or the legal logistics of going out on a date with him. He was cute and new, and I was intrigued—that’s all there was to it.

“Reeve, you made a pass at me . You asked me out, even though you were only—”

My cheeks flare sunburn hot. “Can we please not talk about it?”

“I’d like for you not to hate me.”

“Too bad for you,” I mutter.

Turning on my heel, I fast-walk down Broadway, only stopping when I get to the next set of windows. At a boutique called Lynch and Kennedy, whale tails in the window have been decorated artfully with white lights and silver garland. I stare at them, wishing I couldn’t remember the first time I met Aaron Adams.

Unfortunately, I do—in blistering detail, that is beyond humiliating in hindsight .

Three summers ago, when all six of us Stewart siblings were still single, and I was an EMT-in-training, a call came in at the clinic—possible anaphylaxis at the Parsnip. Aaron, Joe’s new hire, who I hadn’t met yet, met the ambulance outside the restaurant, clearing a path for me and the other EMT to head inside with a gurney.

We’d given the tourist, who hadn’t realized there were cashews in the Kung Pao chicken sandwich, a shot with an EpiPen, then loaded him onto the bus so we could take him back to the clinic. He needed an hour or two of observation before re-boarding his cruise ship.

“Reeve,” said my partner and mentor, Belinda, “good work in there.” She’d checked her watch. “Your shift is just about over, kid. I’ll head back to the clinic and punch you out. You enjoy the rest of your day.”

“Thanks, Belinda,” I’d told her, waving goodbye as she drove away.

Upon our arrival, I’d only gotten a glimpse of the handsome new deputy, who was still inside the Parsnip, giving the patient’s family directions to the clinic. So, I’d leaned against his police Jeep, waiting for him to exit through the Western-style double doors so we could meet properly.

I took off my EMT cap, unfastened my scrunchie and shook out my long, blonde hair. I was tall, with bigger-than-average breasts, which made me look older than I was. A tourist once told me I could pass for twenty-one.

When Deputy Snack walked out of the Parsnip, his eyes had landed on me, just as I’d hoped. They’d scanned my face, and his lips had turned up.

“Hi,” I’d said.

“Hi,” he’d answered.

“My shift’s over, so I thought I’d stick around. Can I do anything else to help?”

“Nah,” he’d said, flashing me a full-blown smile that made my knees weak. “You saved his life. That’s about the best you can do.”

His was a new face in Skagway—an incredibly handsome face with high cheekbones, amber eyes, and close-cropped, black curly hair. To say I was interested was an understatement.

“You’re new in town, huh?”

“Yep. Fresh out of the academy in Sitka.” He’d held out his hand. “Aaron Adams.”

“Reeve Stewart,” I told him, shaking his hand and realizing how much smaller mine was encased in his. Up close, all of him was bigger than I originally thought. I could see the definition of his pecs under his work shirt. Whew. He was hot. No doubt.

“Nice to meet you, Reeve.”

“Nice to meet you, Aaron,” I said, making no attempt to take back my hand.

“So you’re an EMT, huh?”

“Just about,” I said. “I have a few more hours left before my practical.”

He slid his hand away from mine, slowly, like he wished he didn’t have to. “That’s awesome.”

“Yeah. I really like it.”

“That makes me like you , Reeve Stewart,” he said, leaning against his car, his hip grazing mine. “People who help other people are my favorite kind.”

The way he said this—so smoothly, like the words were lyrics to a song playing in his mind—made my breath catch. My crush on him was developing lightning-fast and made me bold.

“Since you’re new in town,” I’d said, “I think you might need someone to show you around.”

“I think you’re right.”

“I’d be happy to be that person.”

“Oh, yeah?” he’d asked, pivoting slightly to face me. “Well, that sounds pretty sweet to me.”

I’d reached for his hand, taken a pen out of my breast pocket, and written my phone number on the skin of his palm.

“Text me.”

“Will do.”

“Can’t wait,” I’d said, pushing off from his car.

“Me neither,” he’d answered, his eyes glued to my ass as I sauntered away.

I’d checked my phone every ten minutes for three days, but needless to say, he’d never texted. And the next time I saw him, he barely made eye contact with me. He’d acted like we’d never met outside of the Parsnip, never had a highly charged conversation filled with delicious innuendo. He’d looked embarrassed. Sheepish.

Someone must have told him who I was—the sister of the Sheriff’s ex-girlfriend and a seventeen-year-old EMT-in-training with three overbearing brothers. And just like that, all of the gorgeous potential I’d felt at our first meeting was— whoosh —gone. Whenever we saw each other after that, we avoided each other’s gaze. What started out as giddy flirtation had quickly turned into perennial discomfort.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I had a short-lived burst of hope when I turned eighteen that October. Maybe I’d hear from him now that I was a legal adult. Maybe he’d finally reach out. When he didn’t, the embarrassment I’d felt for weeks had swiftly turned to scorn.

“Reeve! Wait up!”

I look to my left to see Harper and Joe walking toward me without Aaron. In spite of myself, I look over their shoulders, down Broadway, where I see a lone, shadowed figure walking further and further away from the downtown area.

“Aaron went home, huh?”

Harper nods. “Something about having to feed his cat.”

I’m relieved, yes, but that initial spark of attraction I felt for Aaron still exists somewhere deep inside of me, and in moments like this, it burns and stings. I’d never felt like that about anyone at first sight. And from the way he’d looked at me that day, I think he felt something, too. Sometimes I wonder what could’ve happened between me and Aaron Adams if I’d been a few weeks older the first time we met.

Harper takes my right arm in her left, and Joe’s left in her right, linking the three of us together.

“It’s a beautiful night for a stroll,” she says, smiling first at me and then at her husband, “with two of my all-time favorite people in the entire world. Let’s enjoy it!”

And so we walk along together, saying hello to friends and acquaintances, and kicking off the Christmas season together. And little by little I forget that Aaron Adams was, for however long, a part of the plan.