Chapter 8
THE STORM HAD STOPPED.
Or at least died. The wind had quieted, the snow no longer pinging on the window in her room. Keely lay there, under the heavy peace of her blankets, her breath cool in the room.
If she closed her eyes, she might hear her mother humming in the kitchen nearby, the pungent scent of coffee percolating on the stove, pancakes sizzling in bacon grease.
Keely hadn’t sat in that memory for years. Now, she drew it in. Let it saturate her, returned to her conversation with Dawson last night.
“Fear makes us do stupid things. It makes us run. Hide . . . And sometimes, it causes us to make terrible choices that cost us more than we can realize.”
She closed her eyes, listening to her heartbeat. And Dawson’s voice in her head. “I think probably you shouldn’t leave Alaska without another go at getting what you came for.”
He meant Vic.
She might mean something else. Because last night, sitting on the steps with him . . .
He’d very much looked like he might kiss her. And she very much, at least for a terrible, wonderful beat, wanted him to.
Oh brother. She was in the middle of one of her sad songs about falling for the wrong guy.
Wrong place, wrong time.
She could almost hear the lyrics write themselves . . .
Wasn’t looking for a spark, just a quiet night,
But you lit up the dark, made the wrongs seem right.
Like a flash in the pan, it happened so fast,
In the blink of an eye, thought it was meant to last.
She flung off the covers, let the cold air rush in, then pulled the comforter around herself, and stood at the window. Ice and frost crept in around the frames, a lacy pattern that belied the frigid temperatures.
Outside, the world had turned to a wonderland, wind still stirring up phantoms of snow on the pristine lake.
Snow frosted the pine trees that surrounded the community and white blanketed the black shingles of the barn, falling in massive drifts around it.
People shoveled around the barn entrance, and the brr of a chain saw lifted in the distance.
She’d never felt guilty for sleeping late before, but now she tied back her hair, pulled on a flannel shirt and her yoga pants, pulled on her boots, and headed downstairs.
A few kids ate breakfast at the long tables, but in the kitchen, a cadre of teenagers washed dishes while Nance directed traffic.
Keely went to the counter and poured herself a cup of coffee. “Why is everyone outside?”
“There’s another storm coming in, so we have just a few hours to feed the animals and repair the heating system.”
No wonder the cold nipped at her. Sure, a fire crackled in the massive hearth, but ice and frost laced her bedroom window. “What happened?”
“Tree came down on the generator hut. Which shut down the boiler. It’s wood-fed, but the pump to the lodge and all the houses is electric, and it also runs the damper.
The tree took out a few of the connections, which shut down the damper, which snuffed off the furnace.
” She handed a stack of plates to one of the younger boys. “Your man is out there with them.”
“He’s not . . .”
Nance raised an eyebrow, winked. Whatever. With the storm gone, they’d be leaving anyway.
Except, she’d been gone for the better part of two days. In the Alaskan bush. With an ex-cop. As if. The papers would have a field day.
Maybe she wasn’t in any hurry to leave, thank you.
For some reason, the story of Donald’s wife crept into her head. Keely headed for her borrowed parka and sturdy Sorels, grabbed her hat and mittens, and stepped outside.
Funny how, three days ago, she might have stopped in the mirror and grimaced. Now, she pulled the matted fur hood up and cinched it down.
The wind swept out her breath, the cold biting her nose as she clomped down the stairs. She expected to see Caspian, but maybe he was helping Dawson.
Following the growl of the chain saw, she spotted a trail that led behind the machine shed and headed around the building.
A massive Sitka spruce sprawled across the property, its firry arms broken and covered in snow, the trunk maybe three hundred feet long.
One giant, shaggy arm had landed on a fourteen-by-twenty-foot building, the back of it half crushed, broken wood scattered like shrapnel in the snow.
Atop the tree stood Griffin in a pair of brown coveralls.
He was wearing glasses and chainsaw chaps and sawing through one of the branches.
Dawson hauled away cut branches from the pile—she only recognized him by his dark scruff of whiskers and set of his shoulders, because he’d also borrowed a pair of coveralls.
He seemed to be moving better, although maybe it was just slow going.
On top of the building, the third man from the ice—she thought his name might be Landon—ran another saw, chewing into the arms of the branch. He threw the broken branches down to Donald.
The doors to the building hung open, and she glanced inside to see yet another man—she remembered the name Abe—crouched in front of a big white box, something she might see on the roof of a hospital or behind a building.
“Anything I can do to help?”
The saw cut off her voice, so she didn’t repeat herself, just stood, watching.
Dawson looked over then and waved. Smiled.
And of course, her stupid little heart jumped up and did a dance.
Hello. Leaving.
In twelve hours, she could be on a plane for the Lower 48.
Except, didn’t Nance say another storm might be coming in? She motioned to Dawson to come over, but he held up his hand and turned back to catch a branch that Griffin sawed.
He dragged it away to a pile and then trudged through the snow to her. His reddened cheeks betrayed the cold and his hard work, and he smelled of evergreen and sap. “Hey.”
“Hey. Whatchya doing?”
“Oh, you know. Just hanging out with the guys.” He winked.
Stop it! Stop it!
“Where’s Caspian?”
He looked around. “Don’t know. He took off this morning, went bonkers in the snow. Maybe he thinks he’s on a winter holiday.” He laughed.
He wasn’t the only one.
“It’s cold out today.” She shivered, blew out her breath. It caught in the air.
“Post-storm effect. It’s always warmer when it snows. It’ll warm up—but that will bring another blizzard.”
“Yeah. That’s what I came out to ask. Should we be leaving?”
She didn’t know why the question landed in her heart, twisted.
He glanced at Griffin on the tree, back to her. “Yeah. I just wanted to help them get their power restored. Without heat, they might not make it through the next storm. But pack up—we’ll leave right after lunch. It’ll only take a couple hours to get to the outpost, and then Moose can get us.”
“What am I going to pack?” She smiled at him.
He smiled back, and for a second—a terrible, perfect second—the world stopped. Just her, standing in the snow under a blue sky, the world bright and shiny. Dawson standing in front of her like some Hallmark hero, handsome and . . .
Her man.
Oh no. She stepped away. “I’ll see if we can pack a lunch.”
He held up a gloved thumb and turned back to the work. Nope, he definitely wasn’t limping so badly today.
She crunched back around the building toward the lodge. Barking lifted, and she turned, spotted Caspian. Someone had shoveled a path down the center of the road, and the dog stood in the middle, a speck of black.
She whistled, but the dog just stood there.
Aw. The last thing Dawson needed was to go hunting for his dog, out chasing some fox.
She headed down the shoveled path toward the dog. Whistled again, patting her legs.
Caspian barked, turned in a circle, then barked again.
He wanted to play.
Scamp was right.
Picking up her pace, she hustled out toward him. He sat, his tail swishing, then got up as she drew near and began to bark and back away.
“C’mon,” she said, lunging for him.
He turned and took off.
For the love. “Caspian!” But of course, her voice didn’t carry. She crunched after him, past the shoveled area, out into the deep snow. It had crusted over in parts, so her steps crashed through layers, slowing her.
Caspian skittered on the top of the crust, breaking through in spots.
Only then did she spot the boot marks. Smaller steps flattened by what looked like the trail of a sled.
Her gut tightened, and she sped up.
Caspian waited for her at the edge of a field, just past the town, at the opening of what looked like a deer trail through the woods.
She paused, glanced back at the community. The bite of the chain saws still ground through the air.
“Okay. Slow down!” She fought her way to the forest edge and then into the bunker of trees.
Here, the snow drifted but hadn’t layered as deep.
Caspian stood at the far end of the trail where it opened to a wide, cleared area.
Maybe a logging trail, although it seemed nearly twenty feet wide, not painfully steep, but . . .
The sledding hill that Wren had mentioned.
Keely stepped out into the pristine white, and there, the footsteps led out to a matting of snow and sled marks.
The sledding trail cut through the snow, not deep, evidence, maybe, of a child’s weight. It tracked down the slope and then . . . oh no, veered off into the trees.
“Good boy, Caspian.” Keely followed the trail, running slash falling down the slope. She landed headfirst into the powder—snow plunged down her jacket—then rolled and forced herself back up, breathing hard. Caspian ran beside her, around her, nudging her.
“Okay, okay—” She stood, shook off the snow. Her cheeks burned, the snow sharp with cold.
The sledding trail led into the forest, breaking twigs and brush, and twenty feet in ended at a shaggy tree. Splinters of wood scattered the area, the broken carcass of a wooden toboggan cast to the side. Wren.
Keely worked her way to the edge of the tree and lifted the branches.
Wren. She lay at the bottom of a circle of snow near the trunk, her eyes closed, blood emitting from her mouth.