Chapter 8
Sawyer
When I suggest to Gran that we should invite the Caswells for Thanksgiving dinner, she enthusiastically agrees, immediately calling Coach and Mrs. C. to extend an invitation, which is gratefully accepted.
Thanksgiving morning arrives bright and cold, and I’m happy to help Parker and Reeve sweep the dining room of the lodge before setting a long table for the twelve of us, the five Caswells, and the three Morgans. At the last minute, Joe asks if Vera and Aaron can join us, too, and Gran, who’s never said no to a Thanksgiving guest in her life, tells us to squeeze everyone together and set two more places, which means we’ll be a whopping twenty-two ( well, twenty-three if you count Wren! ) at dinner.
While looking for extra chairs in the basement, Tanner finds an old box of autumnal decorations, and Parker braids white lights and fall garlands together before Tanner hangs them on the rafters overhead.
Reeve and I carefully take out the china and crystal our mother inherited when she got married. It cost more than it was worth to pack it up and send it to Alaska after her wedding, so we handle every piece with the reverence it deserves. Because there are only twelve place settings, we steal another ten from the kitchen and mix up everything into a festive mishmash of old and new.
Meanwhile, Gran and Paw-Paw run the kitchen like a military operation—she’s the general in charge of all things “feast,” and he’s her sergeant, duly enforcing every command. They order around their grunts (Harper, McKenna, and Isabella) who are probably regretting that they offered to help. Joe is the only one who is let off the hook because Wren fell asleep on his shoulder, and no one wants to wake up a grumpy baby. So, he stands to the side, holding his baby in his arms and grinning with glee every time Harper rolls her eyes.
My dad and Hunter, who only arrived in Skagway last night with Isabella, left early this morning, trekking out to the forest to find a Christmas tree. After we finish Thanksgiving dinner later tonight, Gran will make an enormous vat of hot chocolate, and we will gather ’round the tree to get it decorated while Will Ferrell’s movie, Elf, plays on the big screen TV over the fireplace.
I’m filled with happiness, anticipation, and gratitude this year. I’m thankful for my family, our friends, our health, our homes, and our business, of course. But also for a second chance—a real chance, maybe for the first time ever—with the woman I love.
Sunday and Tuesday evening rehearsals were charged and heady with the freedom we now have to act on our feelings for each other. Our scenes as Catherine and Heathcliff bordered on dirty as our kisses went from passionate to full-on, body-contact, deep-throated make-outs, and when we weren’t on the stage, we were doing more of the same in the dark corners backstage or in the snow flurries outside behind the theater.
On Tuesday night after rehearsal, I asked Ivy to come back to my place and stay the night, but she gently refused.
“I’m crazy about you,” she whispered in the dark quiet of a backstage changing room. She was sitting on my lap and reached up to cup my cheeks, her eyes holding mine. “You know that, right?”
I nodded, twisting my head slightly to press my lips to her palm. “And you know I feel the same.”
“I do,” she said, leaning forward to kiss me again. “But I just broke things off with Clark on Saturday, and I haven’t even talked to my father yet. I feel like…I just feel like I need a little more time before we jump into bed together, okay?”
“Of course,” I’d assured her, drawing her back into my arms for another PG-13 make-out session. I will wait as long as she needs…and plan to take a lot of cold showers in the meantime.
“Sawyer,” calls Gran, stepping into the dining room, “I need you to go down to the basement and get that case of rosé wine your dad brought back from Oregon. Put it outside on the porch to cool? Tanner, why isn’t the dessert table set up? Where are the guests gonna put their desserts? Do I have to do everything? Reeve! Are you done setting that table yet? Come and help Isabella do the mashed potatoes in batches. Comp’ny’s coming in half an hour. Hop to it, Stewarts!”
As Tanner sets up a table to receive our guests’ dessert offerings, Reeve hustles her butt into the kitchen, and I head downstairs to find the wine. I’m placing it on the porch to cool when my dad and Hunter return with a beautiful, big fir tree in the back of my dad’s pickup truck. With Tanner’s help, the four of us manage to wrangle it into a corner of the lodge, and set it up in the tree stand.
And right about then, the guests start to arrive—first the Morgans, who bring a traditional pumpkin pie, plus a plate of Nanaimo bars, since Mrs. Morgan is originally from Vancouver. Vera arrives next, with a store-bought apple pie and two gallons of vanilla ice cream. Aaron’s up next, avoiding Reeve’s stink eye as he hands Joe a plate of salted caramel brownies and thanks Gran for the invitation. And finally, the Caswells pull up, with Jenny and Vicky racing up the lodge steps to hand Gran a cranberry bundt cake that they made from scratch. Coach follows behind his daughters, whispering to Paw-Paw that the pecan pie he’s holding has so much bourbon in it, the kids have been warned to stay away.
Mrs. C. and Ivy are the last to climb up the stairs of the old lodge, slow and steady, with Ivy’s hand under her aunt’s arm. Mrs. C. sure has lost a lot of weight since I last saw her in August. She wears an orange, brown, and beige plaid scarf wrapped around her head, and a thick wool sweater over black pants and a turtleneck shirt. Even covered from head to toe as she is, she looks pale, chilly, and frail.
“Welcome, ladies! Happy Thanksgiving!”
“Hello, Sawyer! I’m sure sorry to come to your gran’s Thanksgiving supper in slippers,” says Mrs. C. with a rueful chuckle. I look down to see well-worn moccasin-style slippers on her feet. “I’ve got Hand-Foot syndrome from the chemo. Shoes just hurt too much.”
“Those slippers look just fine, Mrs. C.,” I say, giving her a gentle hug. “What matters most to us is that you’re here.”
“You’re a good egg, Sawyer Stewart,” she says, smiling up at me as I let her go. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
Coach Caswell returns from his duties at the dessert table to take his wife’s hand and guide her into the lodge, leaving me and Ivy standing on the porch alone.
“How’s she doing?” I ask Ivy. “For real?”
“I know she looks rough, but her prognosis is really good. One more round of chemo next week, and she should be done.”
“Wow. Really?”
“Yep. We’re all really relieved. Especially the girls.”
“I bet.” She’s wearing the same outfit she wore to the party at the Parsnip last Saturday—jeans, a cream sweater, and that pretty flannel underneath. “You look beautiful.”
She shrugs. “I didn’t have the money to buy something new. And I figured…I only wore it for half an hour before going home.”
I want so badly to kiss her, but there are a lot of windows that look out from the lodge to the porch, and I’m not anxious for twenty sets of eyes to watch us make out.
I lean close to her and whisper, “I wish I could get you alone.”
“Dinner first, Romeo.” She chuckles, lowering her voice. “Alone-time after.”
***
Gran gives the blessing, thanking God for family near and far, present and past, for good friends, and for the fact that Priscilla’s treatment is working.
Meanwhile, there’s a whole drama going on at the table while almost everyone’s heads are bowed. Reeve tries not to peek at Aaron just as much as he tries not to peek at her, a weary McKenna leans her head on Tanner’s shoulder halfway through the prayer, Parker sticks her tongue out at Quinn at least twice, and Wren does a very loud baby fart just before we all say, “Amen.”
The food is predictably excellent, with all of the Thanksgiving staples—turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, candied yams, cranberry sauce, and cornbread—represented, along with some of Gran’s Alaskan favorites, like smoked salmon with wild fireweed jelly and a small plate of braised sea cucumber for Paw-Paw.
When we’re not eating, Ivy and I hold hands under the table, and I count down the seconds until the meal is over, and I can have her to myself for a little while.
Vera, Aaron, Coach, Jenny, Vicky, and the Morgans insist on helping to clear the table, and in the chaos of standing up and stretching and clearing and cleaning, I take Ivy’s hand and sneak us out the side door. Before anyone knows we’re gone, we race across the campground to my cabin.
I climb the four steps to the door, then turn around, finding her still standing on the ground, looking up at me.
“Are you coming?”
She places her hands on either side of the railing and leans forward a touch, a slight smile on her face. “I think we need some ground rules.”
I flick a glance over the lodge. No one’s standing at the railing, yelling at me to come back and help, but it’s only a matter of time until one of my annoying siblings notices we’re gone.
“Can we make the rules inside?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. Here. First.”
I nod at her, then take a seat on the top step, resting my elbows on my knees, and clasping my hands between my legs. Sitting like this, our faces are pretty level. She can look straight into my eyes and know she has my full attention.
“I’m listening,” I say. “Ground rules. Go for it.”
“I think we need to be on the same page because I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”
Huh. I think I’ve heard these exact words before. If I’m not wrong, and I know I’m not , she started a conversation with these exact words on our first date, over dessert, just before we went back to her place and made love for the first time.
“I’m having some serious déjà vu ,” I tell her, feeling a little nervous.
Her grin widens as she continues.
“This is going to mean something , and it might lead to something serious ,” she says, taking a step up closer to me. I unclasp my hands, so she can take another step and stand between my legs. She puts her hands on my shoulders, and mine reach for her hips. “You get that, right, Sawyer?”
In the original speech, she told me that whatever was about to happen was going to mean nothing and couldn’t lead to anything serious. I know what she’s doing. She’s rewriting our history. It’s the sweetest thing ever, and my heart races with love for her.
“Yep. I wouldn’t want it any other way,” I say, smiling back at her. I remember one of my lines from that night. “In fact, if you were my girl—”
“Oh, I am your girl,” she says.
“Are you?”
She nods. “I think I always was.”
“I love you,” I whisper for the first time ever, staring up into her beautiful green eyes. “I think I always have.”
She smiles, brushing her lips tenderly against mine. “Then take me to bed, Sawyer Stewart.”
“My pleasure.”
***
Ivy
We didn’t spend much time at the Stewarts’ place the summer we were together. I remember one time, we stopped by to pick up something—a jacket, an extra pair of boots, I don’t remember—but I waited in the truck. I’ve never really had a chance to check out the small building that Sawyer calls home, and I’m eager to see if the home matches the man.
I step into the little vacation cottage, which is warm and sparkling clean. To my right is a tidy kitchen with a tiny table for two, and to my left, a sitting room with a loveseat. Though it faces a TV, there’s dust on the screen. Scattered all over the small room—in the bookshelves under the windows, on the coffee table, and on the floor—are books.
“I like to read,” says Sawyer with a little shrug. “I’d probably rather read most nights than do anything else.” His gaze flicks to my breasts then back to my face. “ Almost anything else.”
“I love that,” I tell him, thinking of how different he is from Clark. What a wonder that he prefers quiet evenings reading at home to carousing in town and coming home drunk. “I love reading, too.”
“Yeah,” he says, grinning at me. I get the feeling he’s pleased to see me in his space. “I know.”
Just beyond the sitting room, there’s a door that opens to his bedroom, with warm, soft light spilling over the threshold. I step inside his sanctuary and sigh. I can imagine someone thinking it’s Spartan, but really, it’s not. It’s simple, yes. But it’s also warm and comfortable and has everything he needs.
His full-sized bed takes up most of the room, so he’s built a shelf over the bed that holds a lamp, a phone charger, a fan, and a glass of water. Overhead, hanging between exposed rafters is an antler-style chandelier with flame bulbs. Across from the bed, there’s a bureau with a mirror over it, and more books on top. On either side of the bureau there are doors. One, I assume, goes to a closet, and the other to a bathroom.
I sit down on the bed, look up at him, and smile.
“So, this is your place.”
“This is my place. I swapped out the two twins for a full bed when Hunter moved out. I know it isn’t much.”
“It’s perfect,” I tell him. “What else do you need?”
“I feel the same way,” he says, sitting down beside me. “I have my bed and my shower, a little kitchen to make snacks, and a warm place to read. But mostly, I have Alaska right outside my door—fresh air and mountains, a river out back with more salmon than you could ever eat, and the moon and stars at night.” He nudges me gently with his elbow. “You’re a born and bred Alaskan. You know what I’m saying.”
“I know what you’re saying,” I say softly.
Sitting on his bed, side by side, fully dressed right down to our shoes, I remember that we were friends first—before we ever kissed, or made love, or fell in love, we were friends. And staying friends, throughout our lives, is important to me. I didn’t like it when I almost lost him.
I turn to him, taking in the strong, handsome lines of his profile. My heart squeezes with love for him.
“Sawyer…do you think…if we get together—like, for real, this time—that we’ll lose our friendship?”
“Nah,” he says, kicking off his shoes and lying back on the bed. I do the same, rolling to my side, and laying my cheek on his chest. He strokes my back, plants a kiss on my head. “If anything, I think the best relationships are built on a strong friendship. People get old. They get hurt. They get sick. Fireworks fade. But if you love someone—truly love them—you might just find a way to last forever.”
I lean up on my elbow and look down at him. For someone who’s never really known the stability of forever, his words touch something deep inside of me. They water it. Cast sunshine on it. And it begins to grow.
“That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard,” I whisper, lowering my lips to his.
I roll on top of him, straddling him as we kiss. His cock swells between us, pushing against my pussy, hoping for entrance. I feel his fingers in the waistband of my jeans, tugging at my shirt and sweater. I lean up, reaching for both and pulling them over my head. He reaches behind his head, grabs the collars of his T-shirt and flannel, and throws them to the floor.
I still have my bra on, but Sawyer’s chest is…bare.
It’s been fifteen months since I saw Sawyer Stewart’s naked chest, since I ran my fingers over the ripples of muscle, since I touched my lips to the sensitive skin of his nipples. He’s kept busy in the time between. He’s hard and cut and more beautiful than ever.
When I slide my eyes to his face, he’s waiting for my gaze.
“Take off your bra.”
I reach behind my back and unfasten it.
I let Sawyer take the straps and skim them down my arms, unpackaging my breasts like a present. He sucks in a quick breath, and goose bumps pop up all over my skin.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says, reaching for my breasts and holding them in his hands. “I’ve dreamed of you every night since the last time I saw you like this.”
My nipples tighten into stiff points under his palms. I dip my head back down to his, welcoming the slick slide of his tongue into my mouth, reveling in the velvet heat of it as it mates with mine.
I roll onto my back, bringing Sawyer with me, my legs locking around his waist as much as my jeans will allow. He settles between my thighs, thrusting forward a touch, trying to get closer through our layers. I feel him. I feel his hardness. I feel his heat. I remember how it felt when he was fully embedded within me, and I can’t wait to feel it again.
“Hey,” he says, with a little chuckle. His eyes sparkle. “Do you remember that time in high school when I came into the Kozy Kone for an ice cream and then left without paying?”
I grin at him and nod. “Yes! It was such a mystery!”
“You were scooping the ice cream, and while you were bent over, I saw your bra. It was white. Just a plain white bra. But I started getting the biggest hard-on, I was terrified you’d see, so I ran out of the store.”
He buries his head in the curve of my neck, but I can feel him laughing, and I giggle with him, loving that we have silly memories that stretch back decades, loving that I’ve always known him, loving…the way his lips are pressed against my throat, gently sliding along the column of my neck, skimming my jaw—
He demands my mouth again, kissing me madly, and I am desperately aware of other places on my body throbbing to be filled. I unlock my legs from around him and slide my hands down his back, under his belt, under the elastic of his boxers, until my palms are flat on his ass. I squeeze it, pushing his erection into the apex of my thighs.
He gasps, his mouth momentarily leaving mine.
“I need you,” I whisper. “I need you so bad, Sawyer.”
Bracing on his elbows, he leans away from me, letting his feet hit the floor, and then standing up. I sit up, watching as he unbuckles his belt, unbuttons his jeans, unzips his fly, and jerks his pants and underwear to the floor. Standing naked before me, like some golden-haired Greek god, it’s my turn to gasp.
I want.
Two words sluice through my brain, carnal and raw.
My feet touch the floor. As I stand up, my nipple brushes the erection that stands straight up against his stomach. He groans softly.
“You did that on purpose.”
“Guilty,” I murmur, taking his hand and placing it over the button of my jeans.
As I press my lips to his shoulder, licking at the dip of his collarbone, he unbuttons and unzips, pushing the denim over my hips, and using his feet to pool them on the floor. I step out of them, and he pulls me into his arms. I am flush against his gorgeous body.
“I love you,” he says, kissing me again before gently pushing me down on the bed.
With my feet still on the floor, he kneels between my legs, spreading them wide and kneeling on the floor between them. He exhales, warm and soft, against the tidy strip of curls, seeking the hidden jewel beneath, his lips landing on the pulsing nub with devastating precision. My hands fist in the comforter as he licks and sucks, kisses and soothes. His hands reach up to find my breasts, his thumbs dusting maddeningly over the sensitive nerves as I feel my first orgasm raging within me. It bursts, high and strong, and I cry out his name, riding a wave of pleasure that I’ve never known with anyone but Sawyer. My Sawyer.
I am jelly when he lifts my legs onto the bed and lays my head on his pillow. When he kisses me, I taste myself, salty and sweet on his tongue, and it makes my aftershocks pulse harder. He settles himself between my thighs, sliding his cock over the wetness of my clit, and then positioning himself at my entrance.
I open my eyes, because I want to watch his face—I need to see his eyes.
“All good?” he asks.
“All perfect,” I say, threading my hands through his burnt-gold hair.
He nudges against me, his thick, hard cock seeking the wet warmth of my pussy.
“Ready?”
“I want this,” I say. “I need you.”
He slides forward, his gentleness mesmerizing when I know he is as eager as I am. We stare into each other’s eyes until he fills me completely, and I can feel the strong throb of his erection against the walls of my sex.
“Shit!” he pants. His body goes rigid, his eyes suddenly flaring with worry. “I didn’t even ask if you—”
“I am,” I say, rotating my hips, wanting more. “I’m on the pill. It’s okay.”
Reassured, he relaxes against me, driving into my body with abandon, and I meet each thrust with a whimper of joy and pleasure. Every hour we’ve spent with each other has been a path we’ve walked to find ourselves here, free to love each other for as long and as hard and as much as we want. Maybe even, I think, my heart blooming with hope, forever.
“I love you,” he says, cradling my face, a slick of sweat on his brow. “I love you so much, Ivy.”
As I meet another thrust, I rake my nails up his back. He growls my name, coming in fast, hot spurts inside of me, his panting breath against my neck and his vows of love a litany by my ear. I answer each one in my heart.
I love you, too.
I love you, too.
I love you, too.
I will say the words soon. Not today, but soon.
I hold him tight as he shudders and shakes, until his heartbeat— thump thump, thump thump —returns to normal.
***
When we return to the lodge an hour later, after a shower that required a second shower, the dessert table has been ravaged, the Stewart men are arguing about the best way to rope the lights around the tree, and we are eyeballed thoroughly and completely. But to my relief, no one says anything…except Aunt P. We’re sitting side by side on the couch when she turns to me and whispers:
“Is anyone’s heart getting broken this time?”
“No,” I say, unable to keep the smile from my face. I catch Sawyer’s eyes. He’s been roped into holding the star steady while Tanner plugs it into a string of lights, and Hunter complains that he’s doing it wrong. “Hearts have been mended. Love has been made. Promises, too. I think I might stay in Skagway for a while. What do you think?”
“For real?”
I can’t help the happy giggle that escapes my lips. “For real.”
“I think I love Sawyer Stewart,” says my aunt, putting her arm around me.
“Then you better get in line,” I tell her, all sassy. “I got here first.”
When we leave the Stewarts around midnight, it’s after watching Elf , hanging ornaments, singing Christmas carols around the old piano, and drinking way too much spiked hot cocoa. The girls fall asleep in the back of the car on either side of me, and the phone I must have dropped on the floor of the backseat hours ago has one text message waiting:
FATHER:
Text me. We need to talk.
A chill runs down my spine, and for the first time today, I feel cold.
He’s taken away my allowance, my credit cards and my insurance. I’m not returning to Juneau, so he’ll be taking away my apartment, my car, and my belongings on January 1. He’s already threatened to disown me. What is there to talk about? What else is there to say? What in the world can he bargain with now?
Jenny leans her head against my shoulder, and Vicky is snoring softly in my lap. Aunt P. turns to my uncle and laughs when he makes a joke about the amount of bourbon in her pie.
What in the world can he bargain with now? I look around the car again at the family I love most in the whole world. Another chill runs down my spine, this one colder and meaner.
“Uncle Alan,” I say, my stomach roiling with dread. “How often do you talk to my father?”
“Not much. Now and then,” he answers from the driver’s seat. “A few times a year.”
“Is he demanding of you?”
“Demanding? No. Not really,” says my uncle. “He doesn’t ask a lot of me. He asked us to look after you every summer, of course, but that was more of a pleasure than a favor.”
Not to my father , I think. It’s all about money for him, about credit and debt. My aunt and uncle will have some measly bit of credit on account for looking after me, but not enough to balance out what he’d make with the “special legislation” my marriage would have afforded him.
“So, what do you two talk about?” I ask.
“We don’t really talk like normal people,” he says, and even though it’s dark, and I’m not facing him, I know he’s wincing. “We give each other brief updates about our lives. He tells me about the deals he’s working on. I probably bore him with the girls’ progress at school. When I talked to him in September, I told him about P’s cancer diagnosis. That’s when he opened the line of credit for us at the Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage.”
I jolt forward. “Wait! What? When he…what?”
“I told you about that, didn’t I? I must have!” says my uncle.
“No,” I whisper. “I don’t think you did.”
“Oh, well. He was very kind. He said we should charge Priscilla’s treatment to him. I told him that we already had insurance, but he said we’d get better treatment options if we paid out of pocket, and boy, was he right. The chemo that worked so well, so fast? Your father bankrolled that. The option covered by our insurance wasn’t as aggressive.”
“Your father’s tough,” adds Aunt Priscilla. “But he has these surprising moments of generosity, too.”
A lump has formed in my throat, and a stone settles in the pit of my stomach.
I’ve figured out his last bit of leverage. Aunt Priscilla’s treatment.
“That’s…so nice. Just wondering, how much does each treatment cost?” I ask. “You only have one left, right?”
“Yes!” says Aunt P., her voice filled with hope and happiness. “One more left!”
“And to answer your question,” my uncle adds, “I think the whole course of treatment for four months was—ooh, let’s see…um, about sixty-four thousand dollars.”
Oh. My. God.
“Wow! And he’s been paying all along? Every month?” I ask, trying to keep the fear out of my voice. “Or do they charge the whole four months at the end of treatment?”
“Yes. Month by month,” my uncle confirms. “He’s already paid forty-eight thousand dollars for us. I know it’s not much to him, but it’s been the difference between life and death for your aunt.”
My shoulders, bunched up around my ears, relax a touch. He’s already paid for three-quarters of her treatment. Phew . So, her final treatment will cost—I quickly do the math in my head—about sixteen thousand dollars. Sixteen thousand dollars. Holy cow. I only make $29.32 per hour. It would take over five-hundred hours of work to make the amount my aunt needs for her final treatment. I’ve been offered more hours after the new year, when the current office assistant moves to Montana, but right now, I only work twenty hours a week.
With my aunt out of work and the extra costs associated with her illness and treatment, money’s tight for my aunt and uncle. They don’t have sixteen thousand dollars lying around. And if I can’t give it to them—
“Why all the sudden questions about your father, honey?” asks my uncle.
“N-no reason,” I say. “Probably because it’s Thanksgiving. You know. Family and all.”
Family. Ha. My father has no idea what family is, what family can be. He only knows credit and debt, cold, hard business, and using those closest to him to get what he wants.
And I know exactly what my father’s going to demand for Aunt P.’s final treatment: me getting back together with Clark.
No way.
I won’t do it.
I’ll work three jobs to help my aunt pay for the treatment she needs, but I will never, ever go back to Clark- fucking - Rupert. He showed his true colors to me the last time we spoke, and they were uglier than I ever knew.
I rack my brain, trying to think of anything I own that’s worth several thousand dollars. I picture my room at Uncle Alan’s scanning it carefully in my mind, inventorying everything I own.
My designer sunglasses and the two Louis Vuitton bags I brought to Skagway might get five thousand dollars in a high-end second-hand shop in New York or Los Angeles, but it would take weeks to get them there, get them appraised and get the money. And besides, five thousand isn’t even a third of what I need.
Hmm. I brought a couple of pieces of jewelry with me. I have a pair of Pavé diamond earrings that might be worth another few thousand, and a couple of gold necklaces. Maybe those baubles, along with the sunglasses and bags, might be enough to get half of what I need?
I regret not bringing more with me. I have a bracelet sitting in Juneau that could—
Wait!
Suddenly, I remember the rock that’s been sitting on my finger for the last six months. My little shackle . When we spoke last weekend, Clark told me it was a piece of crap that I should “throw in the trash.” But maybe he just didn’t want it back because it was a symbol of our failed engagement. Clark wouldn’t have given me a piece of garbage. In fact, I remember him bragging to his friends about how much it cost. I don’t remember the exact number, but I remember thinking it was a lot. My heart lifts as I remind myself that Skagway, like most Alaskan cruise towns, has several very high-end jewelry stores. One of them should be able to appraise it for me this weekend and give me a fair price. Once I have that money in the bank, I can transfer it to Aunt P’s credit account at the hospital in Anchorage.
I say a quick prayer, relaxing in my seat and enjoying the irony that Clark, who never cared a bit for my aunt and probably never cared much for me, might be the person who inadvertently saves her life.