Chapter 9
9
He was giving me a strange look. His gaze was so intense, it made my heart race. Why was he looking at me like that? I tilted my head, seeing if he would tell me what he was thinking, but he didn’t. Instead, he shook his head.
“Sounds like I really stepped in it,” he finally said.
“When you say it that way, it makes it sound like you stepped in something by accident. You were totally aware of what you were signing up for.”
His smile was rueful. “You’re right. I did.”
“Why did you?”
“I’ve been where Sam is.”
“You mentioned Walter Reed. Now I’ll admit that Lettie already said you were in the military. But she hadn’t said you’d been badly injured.”
“Only Little Grandma knows about my injury. Well, and you,” Kai said.
“I’m not surprised she didn’t mention it. She seems like the type of lady who keeps her own counsel.”
Kai nodded in agreement.
“I wonder just how much she knows about this town?” I pondered.
“I would guess, everything.”
I laughed. “I’m thinking you’re right about that.” I paused, feeling the weight of the next question.
“Go ahead and ask. I already liked how up front you were up in the woods the other day. You just said it was a tough break, and we moved on. Don’t start pussyfooting around things now.”
“I gotcha. So how long were you in Walter Reed?”
“I got injured overseas. To begin with I was airlifted to the American military hospital in Germany. That’s where they did the original surgeries. They weren’t sure that I was going to make it.”
I sucked in a deep breath. “What was wrong?”
“Two sniper bullets hit close to me. The shards from the concrete that blew off the building hit me. I had my Kevlar on, but it hit me along the back of my neck, or what the docs call the cervical spine. I don’t remember much of anything after that happened.”
“How long were you in Germany?”
“Two months. They don’t usually keep you that long at Landstuhl, but I ended up with an infection. When they sent me to the US, they told me that I wasn’t going to walk again. I stayed at Walter Reed for eight months. Six months was in rehab.”
The grin on his face was really something to behold. It made my stomach flip in a way I wasn’t prepared for. He was telling me something serious, and here I was, feeling like a teenager.
“So you enjoyed your physical therapy?” I asked, trying to get myself back on track.
“I enjoyed the results of the PT, that’s for damn sure. But to give you an idea of how much I liked the physical therapy, to this day I refer to my physical therapist as the demon from hell. But by God, he got me to the point that I can jog and bicycle. So I’m damn happy.”
“That’s amazing, Kai.” I couldn’t imagine being in his shoes. I admired his strength, his determination. “What did you do in the service? Do you think that helped you push yourself to walk?”
“Here’s your food,” Lettie said. She put a big plate in front of me that smelled heavenly, but it was piled to the moon.
“Lettie, I’m not going to be able to eat all of this,” I protested.
I watched as she put another big plate in front of Kai, only it was filled with broccoli, cauliflower, corn, and turkey.
“Don’t worry about it, Marlowe. I expect that Kai will be eating whatever you can’t finish.”
I looked over at Kai. He winked at me. “I’ve got your back.”
I nearly melted right then.
“See, I told you.” Lettie patted my shoulder. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”
We both shook our heads, and then started eating. After my second bite of fried chicken and my first bite of waffle, I looked up at Kai. “You’re not going to be getting any of my food.”
He burst out laughing. The sound was deep, rich, and sent tingles down my spine. “In that case, I’ll put in another order to take back to the hotel with me.”
“How long are you staying at Whispering Pines?”
“Until I get in touch with Beau.”
“Are you going to talk to Bernie? He’s the one who arranged the three calls I had with Beau.”
“Yeah, he’s definitely on my list of people to talk to.” Kai cut up a piece of turkey and put it in his mouth. When he was done chewing and swallowing, he gave me a half smile. “You were also on my list of people to talk to, even if I didn’t want to ask you out.”
“So, is this a date?” I teased.
He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice, making it impossible for me to look anywhere but at him—not that I wanted to. “If you don’t know this is a date, I’m doing something wrong. How can I convince you?”
I shivered. “I think you telling me I was beautiful and noticing my shoes, convinced me.”
“Don’t forget your hair. Now that I’ve seen it down, I’m going to be dreaming about your hair.”
Damn, I’m going to start blushing again.
Time for a new topic. “What do you want to know about Beau?”
“Anything? Everything?” He took a sip of water. “Now I probably sound like one of those lovelorn high school boys who follow you around.”
“No. No, you don’t. You sound exactly like a brother who wants to know about a twin he never knew he had.”
“That’s not quite true. I had dreams of the two of us. I remember telling my father about them once…”
His voice trailed off.
“And?” I prompted.
“Let’s just say, it didn’t go well, and leave it at that.”
I could see both pain and anger in his eyes. My instinct was to reach out, touch his hand, offer some comfort. I sure as hell wasn’t going to press for an answer. “Was there anything good about your childhood?” I prayed he’d say yes.
His expression softened. The anger left his eyes. “Alaska is beautiful. Before I turned ten, I got to run wild. Dillingham is a small community, and I made friends with other kids who were just as unruly as I was. Ronald, I mean Arthur, didn’t care where I was, or who I was with. It was great. Then I turned ten and I had to work the boat.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean, work the boat?”
“He owned a crabbing boat. He was a shitty captain, but he somehow managed to talk some guys into working the boat with him during king crab season from October to January. He had less guys working for him during snow and Dungeness season because they weren’t worth as much, so the payout was smaller. That’s why he needed me. Plus, I was cheap labor.”
“Was it dangerous?”
Kai gave me a half grin.
“Sometimes.”
The way he said sometimes didn’t sound like he was shutting me out like the way he had earlier. So, I decided to ask more questions. “What did you have to do on a crab ship?”
“A crab ship?” He grinned. “You’re cute. It’s a crabber. We would bait two hundred crab pots and throw them over the side.”
“How would you keep track of so many?”
“We would attach a buoy to each one and drop it over the side. I was lucky. Sometimes I didn’t have to bait the traps and help throw them over the side. Instead, Ronald would have me record the location, depth, date, and time each pot was set.”
“Weren’t those heavy?”
“Not as heavy as the full pots.”
“How heavy were those?”
“Anywhere from five- to eight-hundred pounds.”
I’d been in the middle of pouring the spicy maple syrup onto my meal, and I dropped it. “You had to help pull those into the crabber? And you were ten? And some of them were eight-hundred pounds?”
He nodded.
“When you were ten?” I repeated, trying to wrap my head around it.
“Marlowe, it’s no big deal. What’s more, the crew decided I was more of a hindrance at ten, so they had me help sort out the small crabs and females that needed to be thrown back. When I was twelve, Ronald noticed this and raised holy hell, so I had to start pulling in the traps like the rest of the crew.”
“My God, Kai. Was there anything good after you had to start crabbing?”
He frowned. I could see him thinking, then he gave me a slow smile.
“I remember this one time, we were crabbing in Bristol Bay. We’d dumped off our catch at Dutch Harbor. I was fourteen. It was the biggest haul we’d ever made. Ronald went to King Salmon instead of Dillingham. I didn’t see Ronald for an entire week. The guys said there was some woman he went to see. I didn’t care, as long as I didn’t have to be with him.”
“He just left you alone?” My heart went out to the fourteen-year-old boy he’d been.
“Yep.” Kai grinned. “Like I said, this was a good time. I didn’t get paid. But I did have a place to sleep. Of course, it was in the shittiest motel that Ronald could find. It made the LeeHy motel look like the Waldorf. But Lucky, Barry, and Shil decided it would be a good time to show me more of Alaska. They used some of their money to fly us all to Sitka. Have you ever been to Alaska?” Kai asked me.
I shook my head.
“Have you seen pictures?”
“Sure.”
“They wanted to show me the fjords. This was about twenty years ago, before it started warming. They were mind blowing, Marlowe. Just stunning. You would see this white snow, covering crevices of neon blue. But it wasn’t just the visuals, you could taste them. The cold air was an icy blast that coated your lungs with a fresh taste that made you feel like you took in a breath of heaven.”
I stared at him. He was looking off in the distance. I’d wanted to kiss him before he’d said that, but now, I really wanted to kiss him. “That sounds beautiful. What else did you do?”
“Besides taking a boat ride to see the fjords, I fished.”
“Fished? Hadn’t you’d been on a boat long enough already?”
“No, we didn’t go on a boat, we stood out in the middle of a river. They got me a special rod and reel and tried to teach me fly fishing. It wasn’t until day three that I finally started getting the hang of it, but it was soothing to be out there with the guys, just standing out in the river with your wading boots on, feeling the river flow by and the rustle of the wind in the trees. It made you feel closer to nature. It was one of the best times of my life.”
I sighed. “Hearing that makes me feel better. I’m glad you had friends like that in your life. I’m sorry I got you off track. Let me tell you about Beau.”
Kai put his fork down, and I had his full attention.
“First, let me just tell you, I don’t have a lot to tell you. Yes, I had three conversations with him, but we talked in total for maybe a half hour.”
“Still, that’s a lot, considering the fact you were just talking about you renting his house.”
“He was curious as to why I was coming to Jasper Creek to teach, so I told him my little story, so that took a bit.”
“What happened?”
I didn’t want to get into my story, didn’t want to think about my life at the moment. “Uh-uh, we already got off track once. Back to Beau. To begin with I thought he was a flake. Bernie would set-up a FaceTime meeting and he wouldn’t show. It wasn’t until the third meeting that we met.”
Kai started to frown but I shook my head before he could get upset. “No, don’t get a bad opinion of him. He’s active duty. The guy here in Jasper Creek who normally handles the renting of the house wasn’t available.”
Kai relaxed and sat back. “Good. I can’t imagine him blowing you off on purpose.” He gave me the kind of smile that made me lose track of what we were even talking about.
My plate was still mostly full, but I couldn’t eat another bite. It might have had something to do with the way my heart kept fluttering. “You’re in luck. You don’t have to order chicken and waffles to go. There is no way I can finish this. Wanna trade plates?” It was something I saw Mom and Dad do all the time.
His eyes lit up. “Sure.” He switched the plates and I had an empty plate in front of me, and he had a mound of chicken and a good deal of waffles in front of him. “If you see Lettie, flag her down. I’m definitely going to need more syrup.”
“Can your body handle sugar?” I teased. He was made of pure muscle.
“Only when I’m on a date, then my body demands sugar.”
The way he was looking at me, there was no way I could miss his meaning.
Gah! I felt myself blushing again .
“Beau was actually a good guy once I had a chance to talk to him. He wanted to know about my dog.”
“Chaos?”
“Yeah. I’d put her down on the application. A lot of the places I’d looked at here in Jasper Creek wouldn’t rent to someone with a pet. Beau would, but he still wanted to know about her. I got the feeling it was more curiosity than worry.”
“Why did you think that?”
I thought back to our conversation. “He had a lot of questions about her like her breed, her age, what kind of personality she had, how long I’d had her. Things like that. Did you guys have a dog?”
Kai squeezed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, and I regretted opening up another hidden wound. Then he looked at me. “Not that I can remember. But I remember as a kid always wanting one. Ronald wasn’t having it. Two of the kids I hung out with had dogs, it was great playing with them. Nobody enforced a leash law in Dillingham. We were constantly running wild with the dogs.”
Talk about a man who needed a dog.
“So, what did Beau think when you told him you had a Bernese Mountain dog?”
My heart stuttered. He’d met Chaos, but only a real dog lover would know her breed. “How’d you know what kind of breed Chaos was?”
He shrugged. “Just picked it up, here and there.”
I lifted my glass of tea. “Here’s to the college of ‘Here and There’.”
I grinned when he laughed. He had a great laugh.
“I enjoyed talking to your brother, but here’s the moment I liked your brother. It was after I had moved in and we FaceTimed for the last time. I was bemoaning the fact that I was probably going to need to use my school lunchbreaks to come back home to let Chaos out. I told Beau how at my old house in West Virginia, the property was big enough and off the beaten track, that having a big doggy door wasn’t a security issue.”
“Let me guess. Beau came up with a way for you to have a doggy door in his house that Chaos could use.”
“How’d you know?”
“Just a wild guess.”
Talk about bullshit .
“Well Mr. Smartypants, he figured out a way that only Chaos could go in or out of the door, if we put a chip in her collar. He even told me who I should talk to, to have the door installed. And he insisted on paying half of the installation, because it was an upgrade for the house.”
Kai hit me with another of those killer smiles that put me back in danger of melting into a puddle right there. “He did that part because you’re beautiful.”
My face felt like it turned to flames. “He’s just a nice guy. There was no flirting going on.”
Kai’s eyebrow lifted and he looked amused. “Let me guess—he offered to pay for the total installation.”
I nodded.
“There was flirting going on.”
I blushed as I took a long sip of my iced tea.
Should I say it? Before I could talk myself out of it, I blurted, “Not like with you and me.”
Kai stared at me so hard, it was as if he thought I was going to vanish.
He only looked away long enough to signal to Lettie for the check.