Northern Exposure

“You can really indulge your inner pioneer spirit,” Merrilee said with a wide smile.

“My inner pioneer spirit?” Skye repeated and mustered a weak smile. She didn’t possess a single ounce of pioneer spirit. Nope. None. “Um …there is running water, isn’t there?”

“No worries, Doc,” Saunders said with what might appear to be a friendly smile to the rest of the room but which she knew to be an evil smirk. “It’s not that far to carry the bucket to the lake. And I’ll show you how to rub the flint together to start a fire. Just think of all that Girl Scout training you can put to use.”

“A bucket to the lake? Flint?” She surreptitiously pinched herself just to make sure she hadn’t fallen into a nightmare even worse than the recurring one she often had, where she showed up at a medical conference naked.

“Hush, Dalton.” Merrilee waved a hand at the bush pilot. “You’re scaring her to death. Don’t pay him any attention, honey. He’s just joshing you. Irene put in running water at the same time Dalton did. And the electricity might be iffy sometimes, but we all use matches instead of flint. I’ll send you out with a pack just in case.”

Skye said nothing because she wasn’t so sure she could muster anything outside of a wail.

But it didn’t really matter because Ms. Merrilee Danville Weatherspoon filled what was almost a conversational gap.

“Are you hungry, honey?”

As if on cue, Skye’s empty stomach growled. “I could eat.”

“Dalton, I’m taking Dr. Skye—you don’t mind if I call you that, do you, honey? With those lovely eyes you look like a Dr. Skye instead of a stuffy Dr. Shanahan—” How could she tell this transplanted steel magnolia no? “—over to Gus’s for a bite of dinner before y’all head out. That was the plan before the roof caved in upstairs anyway. Can you give us about an hour?”

“No problem, Merrilee. It’ll take at least that long to move all of her luggage from the plane to the truck.”

Merrilee swatted at Saunders. Too bad she missed—someone needed to smack the smug look right off his ruggedly handsome face. Did everyone in Good Riddance know about his record? Probably no one cared. That’s what these outposts of civilization were like, populated by misfits and miscreants.

She realized suddenly that she was starving, having lost her lunch earlier. Dinner at Gus’s would probably prove to be worse than a fast-food drive-thru but it would be food. And food would be good right now.

She could only pray that Saunders drove a truck better than he piloted a plane. And she absolutely refused to think about the fact that she was going to spend the next week living close to a man she found altogether too attractive for her own good.

DALTON HEAVED THE LAST of the suitcases into the bed of the pickup truck and headed toward Gus’s. Bull Swenson fell into step beside him. “You brought the new Doc in today, eh? She’s a looker. I saw her from upstairs.”

Dalton was altogether too aware of just what a looker the new doc was.

“She’s an acid-tongued shrew.” He knew whatever he said to Bull would stay with Bull, except for bits and pieces that might trickle through to Merrilee. Merrilee had a way of pulling information out of people and since she and Bull had been an item longer than Dalton had been around, chances were Merrilee would soon know how he felt about the good doctor. But Dalton didn’t care.

Shanahan was what she was—an acid-tongued shrew in a tempting package of red hair, blue eyes and a nicely rounded figure. However, he knew only a crazy man would wade into the frigid waters of Shanahan Bay, although he’d been sorely tempted to do just that earlier today. There’d be something seriously wrong with a man who actually sought out her company.

Bull rumbled, which was his version of a chuckle. “She reminds me of Merrilee when I first met her, fresh out of the lower forty-eight and full of piss and vinegar.”

“Merrilee full of piss and vinegar?” Merrilee was strong. Any woman who elected to live in the Alaskan bush had to be made of stern stuff. “She’s determined and she’s got an iron backbone but …”

“Yep. I’d say that sums up Dr. Skye.”

Dalton preferred to think of her as Shanahan but then again he could only imagine that the Dr. Skye tag would annoy her almost as much as being called Doc. Still, Dalton hadn’t been referring to her.

“No. I meant Merrilee has an iron backbone.”

“That she does. But Dr. Skye does, too.”

“How would you know that about the Doc already?”

Bull slanted him a look from beneath his bushy grey eyebrows. “At my age, there aren’t many things that can surprise me when it comes to people.”

The Doc wasn’t as tough as Bull thought. Alaska was going to chew Skye Shanahan up and spit her out. “She tossed it on the trip in. I had to land at Bear Claw point to let her clean up.”

Bull laughed, but it wasn’t an unkind laugh at Doc’s expense. Actually, Dalton got the distinct impression the joke was on him. Bull clapped a meaty hand across Dalton’s back. After eight years Dalton was prepared—the first time it had sent him flying. “Son, a backbone of steel doesn’t necessarily extend to the belly. Did I ever tell you about the time I signed on for a fishing season with Cap’n Louis Montrique?”

Dalton shook his head. Bull got a faraway look in his eye. “It was in ‘72 and I’d come up from Laredo, Texas. Alaska was something then. A man could find breathing room. I’d heard you could make good money in a short period of time working one of the fishing boats. I lost thirty pounds—puked every pound off. I’ve never been so sick in my life, but I’d been hired to do a job so I learned fast to haul in a net while feeding the fishes. They don’t hire extra hands so there’s no one to pick up any slack. Every man’s got to carry his own load. But my point is, I’m as tough as they come, but motion sickness, it doesn’t take any prisoners. Don’t go judging Doc Skye too harshly.”

Bull was one of the toughest men Dalton knew. It wasn’t something Bull discussed, but it was common knowledge to everyone in Good Riddance that the man had spent two years at the Hanoi Hilton, courtesy of the Vietcong, back during the Vietnam War. It didn’t take much to figure those memories were one of things Bull wanted to bid Good Riddance to when he settled here. The Doc had obviously won Bull over at “hello” which was saying something. Bull was known for being an excellent judge of character.

“Okay,” Dalton said. “We’ll see.”

They climbed the two wooden stairs lit by a blinking neon sign declaring the locale to be Augustina’s—commonly known near and far as Gus’s.

Gus hailed them the moment they walked in the door. “Evening, gentlemen. They’re waiting for you over there in the corner,” she said, nodding toward the right. “The crowd just died down. Y’all want the regular?”

“Sure thing,” Dalton said.

Bull nodded. “Much obliged.”

They crossed the scarred wooden floor to the booth where Merrilee and the Doc sat across from one another. The rest of Gus’s looked the way it usually did, crowded but with everyone doing their own thing. Two pool tables in the back had games going on. In the far corner, Brody and Tyrrell Initkit had challenged one another to a dart game. Food and drinks were being served and Frank Sinatra was crooning a tune over the radio. That’s what happened when everyone knew everyone else. Even though the radio station was two hundred fifty miles west of Good Riddance, Gus had requested “dinner music” from six until nine every evening and so dinner music they had.

Bull slid into the booth next to Merrilee, leaving Dalton to fill the slot next to the Doc. His knee brushed hers and instant heat tracked through him. Next time he’d be sure to sit across from her. Keeping some distance between himself and Skye Shanahan struck him as a good idea. He drew a deep breath and found himself inhaling her scent. Make that a damn good idea.

FINALLY THE CROWD OF people that had surrounded them—God, she’d never remember all of the names, it was worse than a medical conference—had dispersed when Dalton and a man who could have doubled for Grizzly Adams waltzed in.

Welcome to the land where nothing was as it seemed. Instead of the grizzled old man Skye had been expecting, Gus had turned out to be a woman in her mid-to-late twenties, whose dark hair was threaded dramatically with a shock of white in the front.

The establishment itself was crowded but immaculately clean. Booths hugged the “front” and right walls. Tables with chairs filled the center. A long bar, complete with a highly polished brass foot rail, provided a focal point. To the left of the open kitchen, a small stage stood between two pool tables and a dart board area. The entry from Merrilee’s was over by the stage. Merrilee had explained that Thursday karaoke was big around here. Skye shuddered at the very thought.

Her head was spinning and she could’ve gotten by quite nicely without Saunders’s aggravating, albeit disturbingly attractive, presence next to her in the booth. However, there was nothing she could do about it, short of being rude. And if he was going to be her nearest neighbor, that didn’t seem the smartest plan.

Merrilee introduced the latest mountain man. “Dr. Skye, this is Bull Swenson. Bull, Dr. Skye. She’s filling in for Dr. Morrow while he’s on vacation.”

She offered her hand across the table. “Pleased to meet you …” She hesitated, finding it difficult to actually refer to him as Bull, “Mr. Swenson.”

While his hand swallowed hers, it was a gentle touch. “Pleased to have you here, Doc. And please, call me Bull.”

“Bull,” she murmured.

Gus arrived with two draft beers which she promptly served to Saunders and Bull.

“Tonight’s on the house, Dr. Skye. We’ve got caribou scaloppini or a moose ragout. Or I can whip you up an omelet if you’d prefer.”

“The scaloppini is to die for,” Bull said, seemingly serious.

Wild game scaloppini and ragout? Maybe these were some kind of Alaskan frozen dinners. “Scaloppini would be lovely,” she said.

“You know I love your scaloppini. That’s what I want,” Saunders said, slanting a charming smile Gus’s way. That smile qualified as disarming, dangerous …even downright lethal. For a second she wondered if there might be something between the bush pilot and the bar owner. But no, there didn’t seem to be any particular sparks flying there. And it was sheer stupidity that a feeling of relief chased close on that realization.

“I think I’ve got a taste for moose tonight, so I’ll take the ragout,” Bull said, picking up his beer and taking a swallow.

“Merrilee?”

“Would you mind terribly if I order that mushroom omelet with brie and gorgonzola?”

“Of course not. Chanterelles or shitake mush rooms?”

“Both?”

Gus shook her head. “It’s a bastardization, but because it’s you, I’ll do it.”

Gus bustled off and Skye looked to Merrilee for clarification.

“Gus is my niece.” Skye would never have guessed. She wasn’t seeing the family resemblance, but then sometimes that’s just the way it was.

“Gus trained in Paris,” Bull added.

Surely he didn’t mean trained? “Trained?”

“You know, got her degree from the L’Ecole Gastronomique,” Saunders explained, as if she were simple-minded. Skye appreciated good food but she’d never heard of the L’Ecole Gastronomique. Still, she’d rather lose a limb than confess that to the smug Saunders, so she nodded as if she was intimately acquainted with the cooking school.

“She trained in Paris and then came to Good Riddance?” Skye asked. This place was full of some truly odd people.

Merrilee and Bull exchanged a subtle glance which Skye almost missed. “She worked in Manhattan for a while before she came here.”

“She was working in Manhattan when Miriam sent her here.”

Bull chuckled, at least that’s what she thought it was, and shook his head. “She fell in love with the town her Aunt Merrilee had founded and decided to stay.”

Skye sipped at her wine. She wasn’t big on alcohol, but right now she really needed a drink. “How did that happen? I mean, it’s not every day that a woman wanders into the middle of nowhere and founds a town.” Or maybe it was out here.

“I’d been married for twelve years when I finally figured out it was a whopper of a mistake. Since I couldn’t kill him—well, I could’ve but I didn’t want to wind up in the slammer—I decided to pack my belongings and move as far away as I could and still retain my U.S. citizenship. Everybody thought I’d lost my mind. So I took our R.V. and started driving. I knew I’d know when I found where I belonged.

“One thing led to another. I took a wrong turn off the highway and stopped to spend the night here and I just knew. I knew I’d found the place for me. Word gets out in these parts when a single woman arrives and before long, other people started showing up. So there you have it. My ex told everyone I had a mid-life crisis but I was just finding where I belonged and it wasn’t with him.”

Skye nodded, but she was sure she hadn’t heard the whole story. It was just a gut instinct but a strong one, nonetheless. Gus arrived bearing plates as artfully arranged as any Skye had seen in the best restaurants. It smelled heavenly. After one bite, she knew it tasted even better than it smelled.

A rough-hewn timber building, a clientele wearing blue-jeans and work boots and a five-star quality meal.

Welcome to Good Riddance, Alaska.

4

SAUNDERS FOLDED HIS NAPKIN and placed it on the table next to his plate. “We’d better be heading out,” he said. “I’ve got an early flight in the morning which means Doc—” she wanted to throttle him every time he called her that “—has to be up early too. What time does Nelson get in?”

Merrilee dabbed at her mouth with the edge of her white linen cloth. “What time does he need to be there?”

“Six-thirty.”

“I’ll give him a call,” Merrilee said with a brief nod.

Even though this was about her, Skye was fairly clueless. And she didn’t do clueless. “Nelson?”

“Your assistant, dear.” Merrilee reached across the table and patted her hand.

“Ah. I see.” Actually, she didn’t see anything. It was as if she’d stepped through the rabbit hole. Nothing was as it seemed. She’d just had one of the finest meals she’d ever indulged in and now it was time to find out what else was in store for her.

She’d been dreading going to the cabin that was to be her home for the next two weeks. But heck, considering the meal she’d just enjoyed, it might turn out to be a first-rate accommodation—fluffy down pillows, five-hundred-thread-count sheets, a down mattress topper so thick you sank into the bed and never wanted to crawl out ….

“Are you okay?” Saunders interrupted her reverie.

“What?”

“It sounded like you moaned.” Was that a strained look on his face?

“I most certainly did not.”

He slid out of the booth and stood. “Let’s go. It’ll take half the night to get your suitcases in.”

Skye was ready. She’d been desperately aware of Saunders’s heat, the breadth of his shoulders and the proximity of his body throughout dinner. She grabbed her jacket and scooted across the wood seat while Bull and Merrilee watched in amusement. “I’d like to thank Gus, if you don’t mind.”

He shrugged into his jacket. “Make it quick, Shanahan.”

Wow, she’d like to smack him. Which was a much better idea than kissing him …Unfortunately, that crazy thought had gone through her head a couple of times over dinner. Instead, she said good-night to the other couple, then stopped by the kitchen, which was open to the rest of the room except for the separating counter. Gus stood at the stove stirring a sauce in a small pan.

“Thank you. That was wonderful.”

“You’re welcome. I saw you looking at Merrilee’s omelet. Want me to send one over to the office tomorrow morning for breakfast? I doubt you’ll have time to whip up much for yourself.”

Time or not, Skye wasn’t much for whipping anything up—she was something of a dud in the kitchen. She ate mainly take-out at home, she’d never had anything that compared to the meal she’d had tonight. “That would be wonderful.”

“I’d suggest chanterelles.”

Ah, the chanterelle versus shitake situation. Skye didn’t volunteer that she wasn’t a mushroom purist and wouldn’t know the difference. Instead she simply beamed at Gus and said, “Chanterelles would be lovely.”

“Sourdough or challah toast? I’m not making the cinnamon rolls until day after tomorrow. I’ll put one of those aside for you. There’s always a run on them.”

Oh. My. God. She might stay for the food alone. Perish that wild, errant thought. No food was that good. However, she was partial to the egg-based bread. “Challah, please.”

“Nelson makes a decent cup of coffee so you’ll be fine on that front.” Without missing a beat, Gus poured the sauce over the contents of the plate.

“Thank you.”

“Nice to have you here, Dr. Skye.”

“Er, um, nice to be here, Gus.” She realized she had no clue what Gus’s last name was. Not that she supposed it really mattered. Convention and ceremony seemed out of place here.

Saunders was waiting by the door, engaged in conversation with Merrilee. Her heart sort of did a trippy kind of thing, which once again, made no sense. He was no taller than any other man in the establishment. In fact there were quite a few who were taller and brawnier. He was dressed the same as most of the other men—blue jeans, flannel shirt and boots. But something made him stand out, stand apart, and sent her heart into arrhythmia. Or maybe she was just suffering a mild case of indigestion. She immediately mentally apologized to Gus.

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