Chapter 40
Clementine
Alec Hastings is my Sundays. The slow mornings, the warmth I swore I’d never need. I used to think happiness came in shopping bags and routines—new heels, perfect serums, a color-coded calendar. But nothing has ever touched the kind of ecstasy that comes from waking up to Alec’s kiss.
“Hey, baby, we gotta get going.” His voice is rough with sleep, low enough to curl around me like the last thread of a dream.
Baby. I’m somebody’s baby.
I blink against the dim light, and there it is, an outfit already waiting on the chair. Jeans, a thick sweater, wool socks. Alec’s quiet kind of care, practical and protective. I pull them on, still drowsy, and ten minutes later we’re in his truck. Mozart is hanging out with his Uncle Finn today.
The heater hums against the early morning chill, Chopin trickling softly from the speakers. We rattle past houses that look like they were built with whatever lumber was lying around, porches stacked with moose racks, rocking chairs, and split firewood.
The road winds along the edge of a lake, water shivering with wind. Spruce trees shoulder the road on both sides, tall and black and endless.
We pass a hand-painted sign nailed crooked to a fence post: elk meat for sale.
ring bell. Next door, someone’s strung up Christmas lights they never bothered to take down, blinking half-heartedly against the dawn.
A mailbox is plastered with bumper stickers: save the salmon, coexist, like the whole town’s worldview has been condensed onto one metal flap.
When the truck slows, it’s still dark out. Alaska-dark, which is to say the sky is more bruised purple than black, the kind of half-light that makes you think the sun is just running late.
“We’re here,” Alec murmurs.
“This isn’t the trailhead I pictured.”
A small airstrip stretches ahead, hangars silhouetted against a paling sky. My pulse spikes. I’ve never been on one of the small planes Alaskans treat like taxis.
“No, I promise I’m more than just a catalog of trails,” he says.
“Are you flying?”
“My buddy Rob owns a plane. He’s taking us up.”
“You…wait—you have a buddy?”
“Get your ass out here,” he says, leaning over me and opening the door from the driver’s seat.
The horizon yawns open, dusky blue bleeding into pink, the crescent moon still stubborn in the sky.
Alec calls out into the hangar, “Rob!”
A man in his late thirties pops up from behind a striped plane, beanie pulled low, Carhartt jacket battered by a dozen winters.
“Alec, how the hell are you, man?”
I barely have a second to marvel at it—the way his eyes actually light up as stoic, solitary Alec folds another man into a hug, arms wrapping tight like it’s muscle memory. I blink hard. Maybe I’m still dreaming.
Alec Hastings just hugged. An entire human being.
My mouth opens, ready to tease him, but one brisk glance snaps it shut.
“When you said you were bringing someone, I figured it was your other half,” Rob says, tipping his head toward me.
“Not today.” Alec shakes his head. “Today I have Clementine here with me. My Clem.”
The words land like a flare in the dark. My body reacts before my brain does. It’s too much. Too much to be claimed so easily, so carelessly, by him.
“Hiya!” I blurt, way too bright, like that’ll distract everyone from the fact that my insides are melting.
“Alec Hastings with a girlfriend. Never thought I’d see the day.”
And my emotionally allergic Alec doesn’t even twitch. He doesn’t laugh it off or roll his eyes. He just waves a hand like, Obviously. She’s mine. Next question. “How’s Betty?”
My heart stumbles so hard it nearly face-plants. He let someone call me his girlfriend. In public. With zero hesitation.
I just stand here, pretending the entire axis of the earth hasn’t tilted.
No correction. No retreat. No escape from the fact that my brain is screaming, Holy hell, you have big feelings for him, like capital-F feelings. Maybe even L-word feelings.
And, God help me, I’m not even sorry.
“Betty’s good. Another rascal on the way.” Rob pats his stomach like he’s the one carrying the baby.
“You’ll make up half the population soon,” Alec teases.
“Nothing else to do in the winters,” Rob shoots back. “Spent the summer adding two more rooms. Figured I’d better get ahead of it.”
Alec huffs, amused. “Practical as ever.”
“Hey, someone’s gotta keep this town running.” Rob grins, then tips his chin at Alec. “What about you? Still wandering, or finally settling down?”
“Alec’s been fixing up his lodge in Misthaven,” I jump in, proud, before he can dodge.
Rob’s brows lift. “Your lodge? Thought you were just here to scout climbs. You moving in, man?”
“Fixing it for Finn.”
“He’s here?”
“Yeah, you gotta come over some night for dinner.”
“I’ll be there.” Rob smiles. “Now, let’s get in the air before sunrise.”
I hover back a step, eyeing the plane like it’s equal parts thrill ride and death trap. My stomach flips, a sour-sweet lurch that tightens my throat. “So, how long have you been a licensed pilot?”
“Licensed?” Rob says with a bark of laughter. “This is Alaska, The Last Frontier, sweetheart. Rules are for outsiders.”
My breath stalls.
“He’s kidding,” Alec cuts in quickly. An arm slides around my waist, drawing me closer until my shoulder presses into his chest. His hand settles at the small of my back.
“Is he?”
“He’s flown since I was nineteen,” he explains. “Safer than anyone I know. I’d never let anything happen to you.”
“You better keep that promise.”
“I will.”
We climb in, and Rob lifts us off the ground. My breath stutters as the runway shrinks and the earth tilts away.
Alec’s hand finds mine. Fingers threaded, grip unshakable, like he knew I’d reach for something. His palm is rough, grounding. I clutch back, and he only squeezes tighter, like it pleases him.
“Look.”
I do, and the world steals my lungs. Glaciers glow as if lit from the inside. Rivers flash silver between forests. Mountains punch through clouds. It’s like someone remade the world while I wasn’t looking.
Alec is watching me instead of the view. Sunlight carves his profile into something intense, almost holy. His eyes move over mine, and I can’t tell what’s stealing my breath: the altitude or him.
“You like it,” he murmurs. Not a question. I nod. “Wanted you to see it. My place. My glaciers.”
The plane dips. I laugh without meaning to, high and bright, and he leans in, lips brushing my ear as both hands steady me. “Got you, Fox. I got you.”
It comes fast, terrifying in its clarity. I’m safer hanging above a glacier in a machine I don’t understand than I have ever been standing on solid ground without him.