Thunder Pass (Firelight Ridge #6)

Chapter 1

1

A hush fell over the ballroom. Not a whisper of a breath could be heard. Even the chandeliers seemed to pause their brilliant sparkling. The elegant guests—men in black tuxedoes and women in exquisite shoulder-baring gowns—let out gasps of awe. Such a sophisticated crowd wouldn’t normally blink an eyelid when someone new appeared at the top of the curving marble staircase.

But this new someone was different. None of them had ever seen anyone quite like her. She stood for a moment, gazing down at the upturned faces below her, a mysterious Mona Lisa smile on her face. A low buzz filled the room. Who is that gorgeous creature? Where did she come from? Is she royalty? A duchess? A princess? A star?

She picked up the hem of her skirt and took the first step down.

A dancer. She must be a dancer. So graceful. Every movement is perfection.

She’s waving at someone…who does she know?

No, not waving, she’s scattering diamonds across the room. Diamonds! Come on, let’s get some!

And the crowd surged toward her, chattering and squawking and…

“Get a hold of yourselves,” Ruth Chilkoot scolded the hens flocking to her from all sides of the chicken run. “I feed you every day, you don’t have to act like you almost died of hunger overnight.”

She scattered another handful of feed, broadcasting it far enough away that the hens would give her some space.

The diamonds created showers of rainbow light as they arced through the air. They landed in the upswept hair of the ladies, on the broad tuxedoed shoulders of the men…

“What does a tuxedo even look like?” she murmured to Maisie, the oldest hen of the flock, and her favorite. She and Maisie had an understanding. Maisie never rushed her and always laid her eggs in a nesting box instead of a random place in the enclosure where Ruth would have to hunt them down. In return, Ruth always kept a secret treat for her, something she took from her own plate. Today it was a slice of apple. “I’m sure they’re very elegant, but none of the books have a picture of one. It’s the kind of thing I’m embarrassed to ask anyone about.”

That’s why she was asking a hen.

And that wasn’t embarrassing at all.

Even though she smiled wryly at that thought, the fact remained that there were so many questions like that. She couldn’t ask anyone here at the farm about tuxedoes, because they probably didn’t know either, and if they did, they considered them vain and worthless.

She couldn’t ask anyone in Firelight Ridge, because then she’d be revealing the depth of her ignorance. Tuxedoes were clearly something everyone knew about—everyone normal, that is, or at least everyone who hadn’t been raised as a Chilkoot, separated from the rest of the world.

Time to collect the eggs for breakfast. She waded through the flock of hens, scattering the rest of the feed as she went, then stepped into the coop where the flock roosted and laid their eggs.

For a while, she’d thought she’d found someone she could pepper with endless questions. Gunnar Amundsen owned the only auto shop in town, and he too had grown up in Firelight Ridge—although not in an isolated compound like her. She’d figured that he knew how ignorant she was of huge swaths of the outside world. But then he’d kissed her. She’d liked it, and had instantly assumed they’d be getting married. His shocked laughter had made her realize she’d made a huge mistake and he couldn’t possibly understand.

She’d quickly ended their barely budding relationship and had avoided him ever since.

Except in her dreams and fantasies. In those, he was often bare-chested, as on the covers of her secret stash of books. His summer-sky eyes were kind and understanding as he swept her up in his arms and carried her upstairs to his bed.

A dreamy smile touched her lips as she searched the nesting boxes and various nooks and crannies where the hens liked to tuck their eggs away. Her basket was nearly full already. The early summer was when the farm’s egg production soared, which was good because that was also when they all had a lot of work to do. The gardens and greenhouses and fields still had to be tended, even though only a fraction of the Chilkoot family remained.

About a year ago, her father Luke’s insane Ice Falls scheme had been stopped just in time, and he and his co-conspirators had been arrested. With Luke and her mother Naomi and sister Soraya and quite a few others now in custody, she was the one responsible for the remaining children. No one else had volunteered for that role, not even any of her three aunts who still lived at the compound—Magda, Carrie, and Saffron. They were all older and had no patience for kids anymore.

Only she had stepped forward. At the age of twenty-seven, she’d agreed to become the temporary guardian of ten children between the ages of six and sixteen, who may or may not be related to her by blood.

Speaking of the children…Sarah, the oldest, popped her head around the post at the entrance to the coop. “I’m sorrrrrry,” she moaned. “This is my job, I know. I had some homework to finish up.”

Ruth bit back a snort. School was over for the year, but Sarah wasn’t giving up homework. She couldn’t blame her. All of the Chilkoot kids were behind because they’d been homeschooled by Ruth, who’d been homeschooled herself and had barely managed to teach them to read and write and do basic math.

When Maura Vaughn, an actual teacher, had agreed to hold classes for all the Firelight Ridge school-age kids, Ruth had been tempted to sign up herself.

As if she had time for remedial elementary school.

As if that wouldn’t be the ultimate embarrassment.

“It’s okay,” Ruth reassured her. “I like coming in here. It’s peaceful.”

Sarah cast a skeptical glance at the milling, squawking throng of hens and roosters. “I suppose. Anyway, I’ll take one of your morning chores to make up for it. Which one do you hate the most?”

Ruth weighed her answer. The task she hated the most was bringing breakfast to the men’s dorm. Why couldn’t they make their own eggs? They had a full kitchen over there. But in their minds, since only five able-bodied men were left, and they worked in the fields all day, or on new living structures, or on whatever nefarious schemes they were cooking up now, they deserved to have food prepared and brought to their door.

But she didn’t want to give that task to Sarah. All the men who were still here were just as complicit as the ones who had gone to jail. The fact that they hadn’t been arrested was just good luck. She didn’t trust them anymore. Sarah was her responsibility and she wasn’t going to let her get in trouble thanks to those idiots over there.

“You can make the bread,” she said after a long pause.

“But you like making bread.”

“No one likes doing anything all the time. It’s nice to get a break.”

Sarah nodded as she fiddled with the end of her braid. Braids were a Chilkoot thing, as were clothes handmade from the sheep they raised on the farm, or from fabric they traded for. They’d very nearly reached full self-sufficiency—until Luke had ruined it all with his crazy plans.

Of course, calling those plans crazy was heresy around here, so Ruth kept that opinion to herself.

“Is there something else?” Ruth asked Sarah as she felt around under the cabinet where Flex liked to lay her eggs.

“Have you ever kissed someone?”

Ruth reacted so quickly that she banged her arm on the bottom of the cabinet. “Why? Did someone kiss you? Does someone want to kiss you? Is there someone you want to kiss? Who? Is there a boy you’re—it has to be a tourist. Who else could it be? If someone’s been bothering you, you know where all the weapons are.”

Sarah backed away, causing flutters and cackles among the hens. “Never mind. Pretend I didn’t ask that question. I take it back. Please calm down, Auntie Ruth.”

Even though she was only eleven years older than Sarah, all the younger kids called her Auntie. That was because her role was somewhere between sister and mother.

“Just tell me why you asked and I’ll calm down.”

“Well, someone said you kissed Gunnar. I said it was a lie and they should be ashamed. But then they pinkie swore. So I just wondered.”

“That’s…” Sweet lord, where should she start? She couldn’t just say it was private. She was supposed to be setting an example for the younger children, especially the girls. An unmarried woman wasn’t supposed to be kissing men.

Sure, it happened in the books she’d found at the flea market and managed to smuggle in under a pile of uncombed alpaca wool. But those books weren’t reality—certainly not her reality. As much as she might let her imagination fly when she was alone with the chickens, when there was a real life sixteen-year-old looking at her with questions in her eyes, she had a responsibility.

But…to what?

The strict world she’d grown up with as the daughter of Luke and Naomi Chilkoot was shattered. She didn’t know anymore if she trusted the rules and strictures she’d been raised with. What were they based on? Not the Holy Bible, which people often assumed. No, Luke and Naomi had developed the Chilkoot philosophy on their own, as far as Ruth knew. But did it all make sense?

After all, what if you kissed a man and didn’t like it? Did you still have to marry him? Not that such a scenario had taken place with Gunnar. The opposite had happened.

“You’re turning red,” said Sarah. “Does that mean you did kiss him?”

“No, it doesn’t mean that. It just means...” She fanned herself with a stray work glove sitting on the hay. “It just means?—”

To her relief, a shout from the longhouse interrupted her. Sarah darted out the door to see what was going on, while Ruth gave herself a moment to collect herself.

Had someone seen her kiss Gunnar? Who could that possibly be? It had happened in the back office of his shop, and she was pretty sure the door had been closed.

Was Gunnar telling people he’d kissed her?

A flush of anger welled through her. He was probably laughing at her, telling the story like a joke.

The ballroom filled with laughter as word spread from one party guest to the next.

“And then she assumed we’d get married.” The words echoed like the mocking call of a grackle. Titters of derision followed her as she ran out of the ballroom, blinded by humiliating tears.

Basket in hand, she ran toward the longhouse, as others broke off from whatever they were doing to see what was going on.

A truck she didn’t recognize was pulling into the clearing. That was unusual in and of itself, as everyone knew the Chilkoots didn’t welcome uninvited strangers. Just to hammer the point home, recently Jared and Uncle Ted had installed No Trespassing signs every fifty yards along the drive. The messages ranged from civil—“Private Property”—to hostile—“Intruders Will Face No Mercy. Signed, Smith and Wesson.”

The guard dogs were jumping and barking around the truck. They didn’t recognize it either. Dread clutched at Ruth’s stomach. If any of the Chilkoot men overreacted and shot someone, they’d be in for another wave of attention from the State of Alaska. She might lose custody of the kids. As much of a burden as that felt like at times, she knew she was the only person standing between them and utter uncertainty.

The truck door opened, and a leg clad in work pants and steel-toed boots emerged. Ruth stopped dead. That leg looked vaguely familiar. But it couldn’t be. It was impossible. She peered closer, trying to make out the man’s features.

He gave a hand signal and all five of the dogs went quiet and settled onto their haunches. They only did that for one man.

In shock, Ruth watched as he stepped out of the truck and closed the door, then bent to greet the dogs he’d raised and trained. Now there was no doubt.

Luke Chilkoot—patriarch, mastermind, visionary, criminal, and her father—was back.