Bates
Ijerk awake when the tiny charter plane hits the runway for landing.
I’ve napped like the dead on all three of my flights, which is good because I couldn’t sleep a wink in my hotel room after I put Lana in a cab.
The bed smelled of her.
Of us.
It did strange things to me. Made me feel hopeful and hopeless all at once.
I want to hunt her down and somehow make her mine. But I also don’t want to be some rugged, middle-aged lead weight clamped around her dainty, young ankles.
Somehow Lana made me feel found — and then even more lost — than I’d been before I met her.
How in the world did I stumble into that whirlwind when only a week ago I’d given up on love and sworn-off women for the foreseeable future?
I snort to myself and grab the small backpack from under my seat.
Lana wasn’t foreseeable.
She was the last thing I ever expected to turn up in my life. I’d never have known to look for her, and if I had, I might never have found her. We were just two souls who happened to collide in a random crossing of paths that sparked… something.
Or not.
It could be that I’m romanticizing it all. Maybe I’ve been so profoundly betrayed and heartbroken that I’ve imagined the whole beautiful experience just to make myself feel better.
Not for the first time, I pull Lana’s email address from my pocket and stare at the proof of her existence. It happened.
And she gave me a way to contact her. Am I strong enough not to use it?
Because I want to, but I’m hyper-aware that we’re in very different phases of our lives.
I’m not the best prospect for someone so ambitious and pretty, with her whole life ahead of her.
She’s smart, and when she means business, she really gets shit done.
Who knows how far a girl like that could go?
I watch my tools and equipment getting lowered out of the cargo hold, then I head inside to sign for it and meet Hawk before we load up his truck and leave. I try to think about the work ahead, but Lana won’t leave my mind.
What’s she doing right now?
I didn’t even ask her where she was headed. I only know she’s motivated as fuck to succeed when she gets there.
That’s right, I tell myself. She has a life, and she’s only just setting out to live it. She doesn’t need some battle-weary old man chasing her to ask if she wants to settle down and make babies with him.
Seems like a terrible, wonderful, very unrealistic idea, and I should probably leave her inbox well enough alone, even if it feels like my heart has already written her countless love letters. I groan out loud as my heart pounds its desire loud enough to wreak havoc with my decision-making.
I’ll have to talk it out with Hawk when I see him. He’ll know if I’m being stupid. Always does. He told me Shaniah was trouble when I met her — not that I listened. I owe the guy a hug for caring enough to say it, and I make sure I prioritize that hug over heading to the cargo collection area.
As soon as Hawk sees me, his face lights up and his arms go wide. “Kelly. You big, ugly son of a bitch, I have missed your pretty face.”
“Likewise, asshole.” I wrap my arms around him in a bear hug that lifts him off the ground. I squeeze a strained grunt from him before I set him back on his feet. “Thanks for shouting me first class for the initial leg. Having that much room and comfort makes a real difference to a guy my size.”
He wobbles slightly before realigning his spine. “Yeah, well. I’d say you deserved it, but by the time you finally agreed to come back to work with me, there were fuck-all other seats available. You owe me.”
“I ain’t paying you shit. If you want me as badly as you say, you can woo me with fancy things — it’s not like you can’t afford it.”
“Fuck you.” He gives me a playful shove. “I already eat beans from a can like a hobo so I can pay your fucking wages.”
I look him up and down, noting the labels embroidered on his quality outdoorsman-looking ass. “Uh-huh. Is that why my last flight was a tin can? I practically had to peel myself out of it.”
He laughs with me and claps a hand on my shoulder. “Hope it was big enough to haul your oversized ass and my equipment. Where’s the gear?”
I point past his shoulder toward the cargo area. “I’ll go piss, then I’ll get it.”
When I walk back out of the men’s room, I stop dead in my tracks at the sight of Lana rolling her luggage toward my friend, and I just about die on the spot when I hear the first word out of her mouth when he lifts his eyes from his phone.
“Dad?”
I steady myself with a hand on the wall as that one word threatens to fell me like a tree in a forest full of revving chainsaws.
“You came to meet me?” she asks, sounding surprised. “I thought you’d just send someone.” Her smile is huge as she hugs Hawk, and my guts drop to the floor when he pats her back.
“Kelly — my best guy — was able to make it up for the season at the last minute,” Hawk says. “Managed to time both flights to Dawson almost perfectly, so I thought I’d make an effort and come collect you both.”
“Oh.” Lana stiffens in his arms. Her eyebrows dip in the center before evening out again.
“Well, that’s very efficient of you,” she says, disentangling herself from her father.
“I can appreciate that.” Her smile is infinitely more forced than the one that had lit up her face upon seeing him.
“When you say Kelly, are you talking about the infamous Kelly? The foreman of legends, who runs your crew like greased lightning?”
“The very same,” Hawk says with a proud grin I would feel flattered by if I wasn’t freaking the fuck out.
“No wonder you wanted to come pick him up personally.” Her flat tone is edged with disappointment, but it soon hardens into a more accusatory pitch. “Wait… Kelly’s going to be on our crew? The man whose presence will affect literally every single forecasting calculation I’ve made to date?”
“Yep.” Hawk looks in my direction with a huge grin. “There he is. Kelly.” He waves me over. “Come meet my daughter, Lana. She’s going to be reviewing the claim’s functionality and offering her productivity expertise.”
I move in slow motion toward Lana, whose eyes are so wide and unblinking that I’m sure she thinks she’s hallucinating. I hold my hand out automatically, and she takes it just as reflexively.
“Kelly?” she squeaks.
“Bates Kelly,” I confirm. “Lana… Hawkins?”
“Baker-Hawkins,” she corrects, giving her father a nervous glance.
“I’m one of Dad’s non-Martha kids, and you’re…
Kelly. Dad’s left-hand man, who was subbed out by Clyde this season.
You’re… not on my list.” She turns to Hawk, looking more than a little ruffled in the feather department than seems safe. “He’s not on my list.”
“So put him on the list,” Hawk says with a shrug.
“Just put him on?” Lana’s expression is incredulous as she glances at me twice and then glares at her father. “Like his being here doesn’t change everything?!”
“Steady on, Goose.”
Goose?
Oh, fuck. I’ve heard Hawk talk about his daughter, Goose.
A “real odd duck,” he always jokes — among some other borderline disrespectful shit that I want to travel back through time and punch him for now that I’ve met her. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“And Kelly’s the right hand,” Hawk adds, giving me a wink. “Always.”
Lana shakes her head and seems to become even more incensed as she stares down her father. “He’ll have to be the left this season. Martha’s the right. You promised.”
“She’ll understand.”
Lana plants her feet in a battle stance. “I assure you, she won’t. For fuck’s sake, Dad. Do you even know her?”
Hawk chuckles softly and puts his arm around Lana’s shoulders. “You’re probably right, but we’ll figure it out.”
“Martha can run the show. I’m fine on the left,” I butt in before Lana launches the full-blown rage attack that’s turned her face nearly as red as her pretty dress.
“Martha works her ass off, and she deserves her shot at being the right-hand. I signed up late, and I accept the consequences. I’m going to grab the gear and let you two catch up on family stuff. Meet you out front?”
“Sure thing,” Hawk says, giving me a relieved, thank-you kind of glance as he takes one of Lana’s bags and turns her toward the exit.
She glances over her shoulder at me, and I don’t know how to read the expression on her face, but it feels like it might be a reflection of something very similar to what I’m feeling — sort of like, “Oh fuck, what have I done, and how the hell am I going to survive the seven months of gold mining season without her dad finding out, or without wanting to do it again when it was the best thing that ever happened to me, and we’re going to be right there in the same fucking camp… just out of reach?”
“Why the fuck are you in a dress?” Hawk rumbles at her as they walk away. “Did Harper visit and drag you on some wild adventure to stylize your closet or something?”
“I visited her,” Lana replies in a flat tone. “And what’s wrong with me wearing a fucking dress, Dad? It’s comfortable for travel, it shows off my assets, and it has pockets,” Lana snarls in her defense.
“Okay, okay.” Hawk raises his palms. “Well, I hope you brought some real clothes in one of these suitcases. You and your assets are in the deep north now.”
“Thanks for the geography lesson, but the beards, boots, and brutal reception are all landmarks I’m more than familiar with.”
Hawk pauses at the snark in her tone. “Are you okay, kid? Did you get enough sleep last night?”
“No,” Lana replies bluntly. “I’m extremely tired, actually.”
“You sound it,” Hawk mutters.
Lana takes a deep breath and nods as they leave the building. “I’ll try to do better.”
“That’s my girl,” Hawk says with a smile and swings his arm around her shoulders again.
What. The. Fuck?