Kitabı oku: «Northern Exposure»

Alaska—the last frontier

The nights are long. The days are cold. And the men are really, really HOT!

Can you think of a better excuse for a trip up North?

Don’t miss the chance to experience some

ALASKAN HEAT,

Jennifer LaBrecque’s new sizzling mini-series:

Northern Exposure (October 2011)

Northern Encounter (November 2011)

Northern Escape (December 2011)

Enjoy the adventure!

About the Author

After a varied career path that included barbecue-joint waitress, corporate number cruncher and bug business maven, JENNIFER LABRECQUE has found her true calling writing contemporary romance. Named 2001 Notable New Author of the Year and 2002 winner of the prestigious Maggie Award for Excellence, she is also a two-time RITA^® Award finalist. Jennifer lives in suburban Atlanta.

Dear Reader,

Once in a lifetime, you discover a place that touches something inside of you. Alaska was one of those places for me. At the time I had never seen a place of such wild, unspoiled beauty, or a landscape that varied from barren to the lushness of the Matanuska valley to the magnificence of millennia-old glaciers. And the state is inhabited by some of the most interesting people you’ll ever meet.

Obviously, I fell in love with Alaska.

And when the opportunity came along to create my own Alaskan paradise, I was thrilled. I totally enjoyed bringing Good Riddance—a small town in the Alaskan bush where you can leave behind whatever troubles you—to life! Founded by a transplanted Southern belle, Good Riddance residents are a quirky assortment of folks from all walks of life. It’s the perfect place to fall in love.

So welcome to Good Riddance. I hope you enjoy your stay. And don’t forget to drop by and visit me at www.jenniferlabrecque.com

As always …happy reading,

Jen

Northern Exposure

Jennifer LaBrecque

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the intrepid men and women who settled the last frontier.

Acknowledgement:

Thanks to Dr Roger L Swingle, Jr. for his patience with all of my questions and his willingness to share his knowledge and love of Alaska with me. Any inaccuracies in the book are all my own.

You’re the best, Rog.

Prologue

SOME DAYS, LADY LUCK was with you and on others, she didn’t ever bother to show up. The way it was looking, she wouldn’t be flying with him today.

Dalton Saunders, former corporate drone CPA, current Alaskan bush pilot, had planned to go fishing with Clint Sisnuket on this fine October day. Instead, he was going to spend his Sunday afternoon making an unscheduled run.

“You need for me to fly to Anchorage?”

Merrilee Danville Weatherspoon, transplanted Southern belle, mayor and founder of Good Riddance, Alaska, and proprietor of Good Riddance Air Strip Center and Bed and Breakfast, nodded. “Sorry, Dalton. The fish are going to have to bite without you today. Juliette was going to make it but she’s got engine problems.”

Juliette covered his days off and picked up the overflow runs, but if she was grounded, there wasn’t much sense arguing. Not unless he wanted to come across like Jeb Taylor and Dwight Simmons, who sat in rocking chairs with the chess table between them. The grizzled old-timers never agreed on anything other than hanging out at the airstrip and dickering.

“Can’t do much about engine problems,” Dalton said. But damn, this was probably going to be one of the last nice days they’d have. It had been unseasonably warm for October today. For that matter, it’d been unseasonably warm period. The loons were still out at the lake and it was the latest they’d ever stayed in the years he’d been here. “What am I picking up?”

“Not what. Who. You’re picking up a doctor who’s filling in the next few weeks for Doc Morrow. Dr. Shanahan.”

Dalton had flown Good Riddance’s doctor, Barry Morrow, into Anchorage Friday evening for the first leg of his vacation. Dalton supposed it was only fitting that now he’d have to pick up Doc Morrow’s replacement. Although it would have saved him a trip if this Dr. Shanahan had been ready to go on Friday.

Snagging a cup of coffee from the carafe on the small carved table next to the desk that housed all of the radio equipment, Dalton nodded. “Guess we’re lucky to find a replacement.”

Merrilee nodded. “Isn’t that the truth?” Her smile crinkled the corners of her eyes. “And here I thought we’d be overwhelmed with doctors wanting to fill in for a few weeks in our fair city.”

Dalton laughed as Merrilee intended. But actually, she was right. Very few visitors came through who weren’t immediately charmed by Good Riddance. The town had been just what he’d been looking for eight years ago when he’d tossed in the towel on the rat race that was his life in Michigan.

Watching his father die, weeks from retirement from a job he despised, had changed Dalton’s life. His dad had put off living until he retired and, ironically, he hadn’t lived to enjoy it. Swearing he wouldn’t make the same mistake, Dalton had unloaded his job, condo and fiancée and pursued what he really wanted—a job as a bush pilot in the Alaskan wilds.

Dalton and his dad had always shared a fascination with their country’s last frontier. For Dalton’s sixteenth birthday, he and his dad had spent four days on an Alaskan fishing trip. How many times since then had he and his dad talked about a “big” return trip to Alaska, once his dad retired, of course? Countless. Alaska had been their shared dream. Even though he and his father had never made that trip together, he’d felt closer to his dad in Good Riddance than he ever had in Michigan.

Good Riddance was a great place to leave a lot of things behind. He mentally shook off thoughts of Laura, his former fiancée. He’d considered himself damn lucky to have tossed in that particular towel—and that type of woman. Ambition, plain and simple, had been the nail in their relationship coffin. Laura’s ambition had led her into bed with Dalton’s boss, who apparently had the measure of ambition Laura found lacking in Dalton. Although it had hurt like a bitch at the time, he figured it’d been his lucky break in the long run.

So, if he occasionally missed a Sunday afternoon fishing trip to haul in some relief doc for Merrilee, well, it still beat the hell out of the life he’d had before.

“Dr. Shanahan, huh?” he said.

“Yep. I’ve made you a sign and everything.” Merrilee handed over a placard for him to hold up at the arrival area.

Finishing the last of his coffee, he traded the now-empty cup for the sign. “Alright then, I guess I’ll go get our new doc.”

He sighed as he headed out. Sure was a nice day. If the trip went fast, maybe he and Clint could still get a little fishing in. Heck, maybe they’d take the new doc with them.

1

AS DR. SKYE SHANAHAN made her way off the plane in Anchorage she wondered again how she’d allowed herself to be railroaded into this Alaskan bush debacle. Guilt, plain and simple. Maternal manipulation, at its finest.

Skye was never quite allowed to forget that she was something of a disappointment to her parents. Sure, she carried the title of doctor but her mother, father and brother were neurosurgeons. And her sister had done the next best thing and married one. Nope, in a family of brilliance, Skye was a lowly general practitioner and still single to boot. Single, with the innate ability to pick the wrong guy. When her last boyfriend had left her with egg on her face, Skye had vowed to take a hiatus. Unfortunately, that left the door wide open for her mother and sister to step up to the matchmaking plate. And they were determined to hit a home run.

Skye had had neurosurgeons, orthopedists, even a podiatrist thrown at her to the point of ridiculousness.

So when Skye’s mother and Barry Morrow’s mother—Barry was the poor soul buried in some backwoods Alaska bush practice—put their heads together in some misguided attempt to get their children together, Skye had given in—on the condition that he’d be the last man they sent her way.

And that was precisely why she’d given up a sunny Caribbean vacation to squander two weeks in this God-forsaken place. She was a city girl, born and raised in Atlanta. She didn’t do bush or outback or all of that other stuff—except now she apparently did.

Granted she’d been feeling an underlying restlessness for the last year or so. It was as if she’d been so caught up in med school and residency and then joining a practice that she hadn’t thought any further. Once those things had been accomplished, she was almost disappointed. But that was ridiculous. How could she be discontent with her life? Maybe because you’re bored, an insidious little voice whispered in her head.

But if she was bored, Alaska certainly wasn’t the answer.

She tamped back a momentary panic at the thought of spending two weeks in Good Riddance, practicing what amounted to frontier medicine. What if she couldn’t hack it? Then she squared her shoulders. She’d manage. Shanahans didn’t fail—that simply wasn’t an option.

She quickly found and stepped into the women’s rest-room. It had been a long flight. Although she knew it was quirky, she couldn’t use the plane facilities. The claustrophobic nature of being in such a small, tight space and the incredibly irrational fear she carried from being on a plane the very first time as a six-year-old—when she’d thought that she’d be sucked out into the atmosphere when she’d flushed—made using the onboard facilities impossible.

She’d taken care of her business, washed her hands, tucked a stray hair back into her chignon and was touching up her lipstick when someone tapped her on the shoulder. Startled, she turned. A short woman of obvious native heritage stood next to Skye, a friendly smile on her face.

“Yes?”

“This is for you,” the woman said, pressing something into Skye’s hand.

“What …?” Instinctively she dropped the object and it clattered to the bathroom counter. It was a rock with the word “Yes” printed on it.

“It is yours now,” the stranger said.

Why would Skye want a rock? The stranger continued, “I saw you and sensed your unrest. That’s when I knew the rock belonged to you. Everything you need to know can be found in that rock. It is your answer rock.”

Skye was a woman of science, of fact. But there was a part of her she seldom visited that embraced the fanciful notion of a flat stone carrying universal answers. She didn’t particularly believe it but she liked the idea. And it was that fanciful part of her that led her to pick up the rock and curl her fingers around the smooth surface. “Thank you.”

The woman turned to walk away and glanced back over her shoulder. “Welcome home.”

Skye opened her mouth to tell the stranger that she wasn’t from Alaska but the woman had already left. She dropped the stone into her purse along with her lipstick and hoisted her purse onto her shoulder. Even though it had been a strange encounter, there had been something strangely calming about it.

Exiting the washroom, she glanced around but the woman was nowhere to be seen. Funny. She’d known, somehow, that she wouldn’t be.

Putting the strange encounter behind her, she focused on finding her ride to Good Riddance. She exited the area that was gated off for security purposes and scanned the people obviously awaiting arrivals. It took about two seconds to spot the broad-shouldered, dark-haired man holding a placard with her last name on it.

She had the craziest reaction as her eyes met his across the crowded room. It was cliché, tired and slightly insane but her breath caught and held in her throat as his gaze tangled with hers. Her legs were slightly unsteady as she crossed the remaining few feet. No, no and no. She was face-to-face with her worst nightmare. At an intellectual level, everything about him screamed Mr. Wrong. However, at a visceral, cellular level, everything inside her had flipped to “On.” She shook her head. She hadn’t flown across the damn country looking for some quiet space to regroup only to find herself face-to-face with the one kind of man she shouldn’t want—an Alaskan sky cowboy.

“Hi, I’m Shanahan,” she said.

Looking at possibly the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on, her heart lodged somewhere in her throat. She was tingling in all the wrong places …or right places, if she wasn’t standing in the middle of Anchorage, Alaska’s airport. Apparently she had a weakness for a rugged flannel-shirted man in need of a shave with dark hair curling past his collar. But no. She was so not going to make this mistake.

“You’re the relief doc?” He sounded as startled as she felt. But now, she felt even more nonplussed because he sounded as yummy as he looked. And what the hell was wrong with her? Hadn’t she vowed, promised herself no men who were all wrong for her? So, she could stand around like some goof or she could nip this right in the bud.

Besides, that Doc business irritated her to no end. And irritation was so much healthier for her in the long run than this surge of unwanted attraction that had roiled through her. “Doctor—” she stressed the entire word “—Skye Shanahan.” She held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you …”

“Dalton Saunders,” he said. His handshake was dry, firm, no-nonsense. A flummoxing jolt traveled through her. It wasn’t static electricity, but was more like a shock to her entire central nervous system. She practically snatched her hand back.

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Shanahan.” Dark, spiky lashes fringed his topaz eyes. “I’ll be your pilot for the last leg of your trip to Good Riddance. I’ll also be the one to take you out into the bush if there’s an emergency.”

There was no reason why the thought of being in a small plane with this man should make her heart pound, but it did. Not acceptable. He made her uncomfortable. She didn’t want to spend the next two weeks with him acting as her chauffeur in the sky—although she’d been told it was unlikely she’d be making emergency bush visits. However, she supposed anything was possible.

“I thought bush pilots were older,” she said, feeling stupid the moment the words left her mouth. And she didn’t like feeling stupid.

He looked momentarily taken aback. Like a shift in the wind, his manner went from laid-back to stiff. “I assure you I’m very capable.” For one second, just a fraction of time in space, there was a look, a gleam in his smoky golden eyes that literally had her toes curling inside her wedge heels. “I have an excellent record, Doc.”

She was suddenly extremely warm underneath her silk and angora turtleneck and soft wool pantsuit. She actually felt slightly feverish. It certainly wouldn’t do to get sick at this point in time. “I was simply expecting someone older,” she said.

“So was I.”

She looked every day of her twenty-nine years in her estimation but that still didn’t look old enough to most patients. That was the reason she’d taken to wearing clear-lens black-rimmed glasses. In the end, her skills won patients over, but she’d learned long ago that the glasses, professional dress and a polished demeanor went a long way toward setting the stage and meeting expectations. She gave him her best quelling look. “I’m extremely competent.”

Undaunted, and her look usually daunted the best of them, he grinned at her. “Backatcha …Doc.”

She rubbed her index finger along her temple. That grin was lethal to a woman’s resolve. “Sorry about that. I should know better. I’ve been fighting that particular battle since residency. It’s tough to be taken seriously when you’re a woman.”

“I noticed, Dr. Shanahan,” he said. And while there wasn’t anything offensive in his words, there was a note of awareness in his voice that sent a whoosh of color up into her face. Very primal. Very elemental. Him, man. Her, woman.

“I apologize. I’m sure you’re very competent,” she said, falling back on her professionalism in an attempt to quell what felt like an intimate moment between two strangers.

He nodded, a faintly wicked glimmer in his eyes. “Of course I am. Otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here.”

Skye laughed. She got the implication—incompetent bush pilots were either grounded or six feet under.

An answering smile lit his eyes and for a moment she forgot to breathe. “So, is that your bag, Doc?” He nodded toward her carry-on. “We can head out.”

He must be kidding. She always packed a carry-on bag with her toiletries and two changes of clothing and undergarments. That way if her suitcases got lost in transit, she wasn’t stranded without anything. There was much to be said for not being caught unawares. But she was here for two weeks. Her carry-on bag would cover her for two days.

Apparently, however, he wasn’t being funny. Mr. Saunders was already turning to go.

“No, this isn’t everything. We’ll need to pick them up at baggage claim.”

“Them?” His dark eyebrows lowered.

“I never quite mastered the art of packing light.” Not to mention she was about to be in the back country. It wasn’t as if she could just run down the street to one of twenty stores to pick up whatever she needed out here in the cold, God-forsaken Alaskan wilderness. “You might want to grab a luggage cart.”

“YOU KNOW MY PLANE HAS a weight limit,” Dalton said as he stacked yet another matching bag, all in a green and blue paisley pattern, for crying out loud, on the cart. She’d brought a ton of stuff with her. You’d think she was checking into the Ritz Carlton instead of the Good Riddance Bed and Breakfast.

From the moment he saw her crossing the terminal, in her trim pantsuit, elegant hairstyle, and now the matching designer luggage, he knew she was the ambitious sort.

Was that a blush creeping its way up beneath her freckle-kissed porcelain skin? Nah. Probably just a flash of temper that went with that gorgeous red hair of hers. At least he suspected it would be gorgeous if it was tumbling down around her shoulders rather than pinned into an elegant twist at the nape of her neck.

His fingers itched to reach over and pluck a few pins and watch it fall and see just what color her eyes turned then. And that was just plain dumb-ass considering she was exactly the type of woman he needed to avoid.

She had the most incredibly amazing blue eyes. The name Skye didn’t fit her—nah, she was Dr. Shanahan up one side and down the other—but it fit her eyes to a “T.” They were the color of the sky Dalton flew through, which was a distinctly different shade than you saw when you were on the ground looking up. Yep, her eyes were the open sky at fair-weather flying altitude. Fringed by reddish-gold lashes that led him to believe her hair color was real and not out of a bottle. Of course there was one sure way to know and of its own volition his mind quickly sketched an image of her naked—red hair down around her shoulders, pale freckled skin with a thatch of fiery red curls at the apex of her thighs.

And damn it to hell, he had absolutely no business standing here daydreaming about the good doctor without clothes. Alaskan men had a reputation for being woman-desperate, but he was far from that. He hooked up occasionally with Janice, a cute diner waitress in Juneau, and outside of that, rounding up a date now and then wasn’t difficult. No, he wasn’t desperate and furthermore he wasn’t stupid. Even if he liked the idea of seeing her naked, that was the end of it. God save him from any more involvements, physical or otherwise, with ambitious women.

“That’s all of it.” Her no-nonsense tone snapped him out of his introspection.

“Good thing. If you’d tossed in the kitchen sink I’d have to circle back to pick you up later.”

“Or maybe I’d have to read the manual on how to fly your plane.”

He laughed at her not-so-subtle message that he was dispensable. “You’d be out of luck there, Doc. My plane doesn’t come with a manual.”

“How fortuitous then that I left the kitchen sink behind at the last moment.”

Dalton was about a hundred percent certain Dr. Skye Shanahan wasn’t thrilled to be here. He spent a lot of time hauling strangers from one destination point to another and he’d learned to read body language. Hers screamed that she was here under protest. “I’d say it’s a very good thing.” He glanced at the mountain of luggage and pushed the cart in the direction of his plane on the tarmac outside. “How long are you staying again?”

She bristled. “I didn’t want to leave something I might need.”

He skirted a group of guys who had obviously flown in on a hunting trip. They looked like hunters and the rifle cases were a dead giveaway. He’d take that assignment over transporting Dr. Holier Than Thou any day. But he was getting paid and that’s what mattered. And while she might be a pain in the ass, she was undisputably easier on the eyes than the hunters.

“I didn’t bring this much with me when I moved here,” he said, pretending to stagger under the weight of the bags.

“Then I guess you win the light packer award.”

He nodded. “I keep it on my mantel.”

“Good place for an award.”

“Missed diagnosis, Doc.” Her full lips tightened every time he called her Doc. “I keep my suitcase on the mantel.” It was actually a lightweight backpack but why let the truth stand in the way of a good story? Tall tales abounded in the Alaskan wilderness.

That seemed to catch her off-guard. “You keep your suitcase on your mantel? How …bohemian.”

“Yeah. It keeps me grounded—it reminds me that everything I really need can fit in there.”

She looked at him as if he’d belched in public and then cast a faintly mournful eye at the luggage cart. “I hope I’ve remembered everything I’m going to need.”

He held the exit door for her and then damn near lost one of her suitcases wrestling the cart over the threshold. “Doc, I bet when you leave, you won’t have used even half of what you brought with you.”

She shivered and tugged her wool jacket together over her sweater, whether from chill or apprehension he had no clue. Maybe a combination of both. She tilted her chin up at a stubborn angle. “But I’ll have it if I need it.”

“Yes, ma’am, that you definitely will.” He opened the door of the plane and started stowing her mountain of luggage. “Here we are.”

She stepped back and eyed his baby, aghast. “That’s a plane?”

There were some lines you didn’t cross. You could insult a man’s intelligence, his mother, his sister, the size of his private equipment, but you never, ever insulted a bush pilot’s plane. “Wings. Propeller. She’s not just a plane, she’s a damn fine plane.” He patted Belinda’s riveted metal side.

She narrowed her bewitching eyes at him. “Are you expecting me to get on that plane?”

At this point, it’d be easier if he took her luggage and let her hitch-hike her prissy ass to Good Riddance. But that wasn’t part of his contract. “That’s the general idea.”

“But it’s so …little.”

He was damn proud he managed to not roll his eyes at her. “You were expecting a 747?”

“There weren’t any details. I was just told I’d have a connecting flight out of Anchorage.” She shrugged and he almost felt sorry for her. She seemed so surprised. It occurred to him that she might be one of those really smart people who was long on brains but got the short end of the common-sense stick.

“You didn’t find it strange that the pilot was going to be waiting for you?”

Again, despite her haughtiness, there was a vulnerability about her that surprised him. “Sometimes doctors get preferential treatment. It’s not as if I expect it or demand it, but it just happens sometimes. So I really hadn’t thought too much about it. I was more concerned with the lack of information available about Good Riddance on the Internet.”

He might’ve been living the simpler life for almost a decade but he still recognized all the trappings of money and privilege. The matching designer luggage. A fine-worsted wool suit. Real gold earrings. Dr. Skye Shanahan had packed and dressed this way for her foray into the Alaskan wilderness? He reconsidered his previous opinion about preferring to take the hunting party in the terminal instead of her. Watching the good doctor get her comeuppance might prove to be fine entertainment for the next few weeks.

He bit back a smirk and offered his hand to help her aboard.

“Haven’t you heard, Doc? We’re Alaska’s best-kept secret.”