Northern Fires

It was common knowledge Skye, while she was a helluva doctor, was a lousy cook. Actually, it was something of an ongoing debate throughout town as to who was worse in the kitchen, Skye or Jenna.

Juliette laughed and Sven realized that in the months he’d known her it was the first time he’d heard her laugh. Her amusement had a musical quality. “No, Dalton cooked. I understand it’s best that way. Skye’s the first to say she’d starve left to her own devices and no takeout.”

He was curious about Juliette. In a town where everyone knew everyone else’s business, all he knew of her was that she flew a bush plane and kept to herself. He knew she had short, wavy hair that made his fingers itch to run through it and a mouth that directed his thoughts to long, slow kisses on an Alaskan spring evening. Other than that, she was a mystery. “What about you? Do you cook?”

She shrugged and offered another one of her quiet smiles. “Nothing gourmet, but I manage.” She sniffed. Even with the cabin door closed, the faint aroma of roasted meat and vegetables mingled with the scent of evergreen and fresh air. “You obviously know your way around a kitchen … or at least a Crock-Pot.”

Ah, a dry sense of humor lurked beneath that serious, faintly mysterious exterior. “The Crock-Pot is a beautiful thing. My parents were adamant my brother and I know how to take care of ourselves.”

“There’s a lot to be said for self-sufficiency.” A hint of melancholy tinged her smile and shadowed her eyes, and it was as if she retreated a bit into her shell. What had he said wrong?

It was just as he’d known from the get-go—the woman would be a boatload of trouble to figure out, and who needed that?

“Yeah, there is. What do you say we eat out here? I do most evenings. Even if I eat at Gus’s I usually wind up out here at some point before I go to bed. Of course, that’s since it’s warmed up.”

“The porch would be fine. I like being outdoors and it’s a nice view of the lake and the sky.”

“I’ll grab dinner.”

“Need any help?” She shifted forward as if to get up.

“Nope. I’ve got it covered.” He stopped at the door. “What can I get you to drink? Beer? Milk? Water? I’m not a wine drinker.”

“Water sounds good. Are you sure you don’t need any help?”

The place was kind of a mess. He wasn’t the neatest guy and he almost never had guests. “No. I think I can manage two plates and drinks. Mind if I have a beer?”

“Of course not.” There was a hint of searching in her regard, as if she was looking for some deeper meaning.

“I’ll be right back then.” Sven stepped into the cabin, closing the door behind him. He picked up yesterday’s shirt and jeans and tossed them into the bedroom just in case she decided to come in. He did a quick bathroom reconnaissance. Not too bad.

The cabin was essentially one big room with a separate bedroom and bathroom. From the kitchen, where he filled two plates with roast, potatoes and carrots, he could see Juliette through the front window. Even though she looked peaceful enough on the porch, there was a tension in the line of her shoulders.

A loon, with its distinct cry, called from the lake. Dalton had told him the pair returned year after year to spend the summer. Interesting creatures those loons—they mated for life.

He left the plates on the table and carried another chair outside, Juliette’s water glass in his other hand. “Dinner’s coming right up.”

She took the glass, her fingers brushing his, sending a jolt through him. “Thanks.”

He went back in, picked up the plates and utensils and brought them out to the porch. She took her plate and he settled in the empty kitchen chair.

“Hope you enjoy it,” Sven said as he automatically tipped his chair back until it rested against the cabin wall.

“It smells delicious,” she said, fork in hand.

“Dig in.” He loaded his fork with a piece of meat and a potato chunk, suddenly ravenous.

She took a bite and a slow smile lit her brown eyes. “Delicious,” she said when she finished chewing and swallowing. “You do know your way around a Crock-Pot.”

Inordinately pleased with her compliment, he found he was glad he’d been the one to put that smile on her face. “Glad you like it.”

She gestured with her fork, at the vista before them. “I understand why you sit out here most evenings.”

The sun slanted onto the covered porch. Sven always thought of this as “the golden hour.” Now he stared at Juliette, transfixed by her radiance as the light burnished her hair and skin. Something inside him shifted and fell into place, like when he was notching logs and got the fit just right.

She glanced at him. “Sven?”

He shook his head. What the hell was wrong with him? It had to be that crazy conversation with Jenna. “Uh, yeah. It is a pretty awesome view, isn’t it?”

For what could’ve been one second or minutes, their gazes locked, ensnared. Gold flecked her smoky-brown eyes. His gut tightened and he had the most incredible urge to bridge the space between them and test the smoothness of her skin with his fingertips. Her eyes darkened as if she’d read his desire and wanted the same. Juliette finally looked away.

“So,” she prompted, a husky note flavoring her voice that held a Southern undertone. “You had some ideas about the set?” She speared a carrot with her fork, looking at her plate as if the contents fascinated her.

Sven shifted on the hard chair and checked out his own plate rather than the wash of light over her. Meat and potatoes would curb at least one appetite.

Over the meal, he outlined his suggestions and was pleased with her thoughtful comments and questions. Before he knew it, their plates were clean and they’d finished discussing the set.

Juliette stood, her empty plate in hand, “Well, thanks so much for dinner. It was delicious.”

The idea that he didn’t want her to go flashed through him and instinctively he said, “There’s a nice trail down by the lake that leads to a rise with an even better view if you’re up for an after-dinner walk.”

Surprise registered on her face and she hesitated. Finally she nodded. “That’d be nice.”

THE BREEZE BLEW ACROSS the water, cooling Juliette’s heated skin and teasing her hair against her neck and temple. She’d been torn. Did she want to soak up more of the tranquillity of Shadow Lake, and the rush of heat and awareness brought on by Sven—feelings she hadn’t known in a long time, possibly ever? Or did she want to safely retreat to her own cabin in the woods? She wasn’t sure it was the smartest move on her part, but she’d opted to stay.

The path skirted the shore, worn and obviously used by both man and wildlife. She focused on the nuances of the setting rather than the energy radiating from the man beside her—the soothing lapping of water against the shore, the sigh of the wind through the spruce boughs, the muted rhythm of their booted feet against the dirt trail. Mosquitoes, jokingly referred to as Alaska’s national bird, buzzed past, and a bald eagle’s distant chirping carried on the evening air.

The mosquitoes always reminded her of childhood summers when she’d spent as much time as possible outside. Bug bites had been a small price to pay for a reprieve from the chaos inevitably found indoors.

“So,” Sven said, breaking the silence and pulling her back from her brief foray into the past, “how’d you wind up flying a bush plane in Alaska?”

Surely he knew the story. It was a standard question that came with her profession and she’d been asked numerous times. She gave him the same abbreviated, sanitized version everyone else got.

“I’ve always loved flying, being up in the air.”

She was eight years old and once again Mama and Daddy were shouting and throwing things. Juliette darted out the back door when they were distracted. Outside was better than inside, but they could always still find her. She dashed across the field to old man Haddricks’s place and scrambled into the cockpit of his crop-duster plane. Her folks never thought to look for her there and she liked to pretend she was flying up in the sky. They couldn’t get to her up in the sky.

“All right, little missy,” old man Haddricks said, nearly startling the pee out of her. “I been watching you sit in my plane going on near a month. I’m about to dust the Oglesby soybean fields.” He hooked his thumbs in the straps of his overalls. His gray, bristling eyebrows nearly met one another over his nose and he never smiled, but his eyes were kind. You could see meanness in a person and it wasn’t in him. “You wanna tag along?”

She nodded mutely. Her heart nearly thumping out of her chest, she climbed over into the second seat and buckled in. The next thing she knew, they were off the ground. And for the first time in her life she actually felt safe. It was just like she’d dreamed it would be. No one could find her and no one could harm her when she was in the sky.

She shrugged. “I became a flight attendant, fell in love with Alaska on a long layover and decided to get my pilot’s license.”

Her life sounded so nice and neat and compartmentalized when in fact it had been one big mess and even that CliffsNotes version dredged it all up for her again. Marrying Boyd Feldman, her high school boyfriend, when she was seventeen just to get out of her parents’ house. Foolishly believing Boyd would stand between her and her parents. Realizing she’d jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Divorced by nineteen. Lucking into the flight attendant job. Falling into a second marriage where once again she thought he’d have her back, only to discover the only thing they had in common was burying their respective troubles in a bottle. A second divorce. Waking up in a hotel room one morning after a flight and an evening spent in the hotel bar, not remembering where she was or how she’d gotten there, knowing if she didn’t make some changes she’d surely ruin her life and die young. Alcoholism was suicide by installment plan.

She’d climbed out of bed, bleary-eyed, hungover and generally mad at the world and gone online and found an AA meeting. She wasn’t sure what had been harder, showing up or admitting she was, in fact, the very thing she’d always despised about her parents. An alcoholic.

With sobriety had come the acknowledgment that while being a flight attendant put her in the sky, what she really longed to do was fly a plane.

She’d had a small nest egg set aside, but she’d still busted her butt waiting tables in an all-night diner in Anchorage. It had taken her twice as long to save up the money for flight school because her tips were easily half of what they would’ve been in a bar. But getting sober and staying sober had been as important as earning her wings.

She certainly didn’t lay all that out on the table for Sven, who probably couldn’t handle it even if she wanted to tell him … and she didn’t. Instead, she simply smiled and said, “And the rest, as they say, is history.”

A twig snapped underfoot, underscoring her story.

Sven looked at her as if he could see through all she’d said to the pieces she’d left out, which was unexpected and caught her off guard. And there was something in his look that said he’d ask. “So, you’ve been flying how long?”

She breathed a sigh of relief, but sooner or later he’d probe. She sensed his curiosity. Most of the time her wall of reserve kept people at bay, but with him …

“Two years now.”

Three years and forty-four days of sobriety, and she never, ever took it for granted. She looked up at the ribbons of orange and pink streaking the sky as the sun began its nightly journey toward the horizon. A sense of contentment wove through her.

“I’m never as happy as when I’m up there.” The moment those words slipped past her lips she caught herself. Sven was easy to be around in a way she hadn’t experienced with anyone before.

“What is it about being up there that you like so much?”

Once again she lowered her guard as if lulled by the place and the man and the moment. “It’s freedom and open space and safety.”

They climbed the last of a small rise where a stone outcropping formed a natural bench at the top. Without stopping to discuss it, they settled on the sun-warmed rock overlooking the vista of lake, mountain and sinking sun. Fireweed, her favorite Alaskan wildflower, filled a meadow on the far side of the lake. In the distance Dalton and Skye’s house sat in the clearing at the edge of the spruce forest. It was all singularly spectacular. She liked the solidness of the stone beneath her.

The wind shifted and Sven’s scent wafted around her. He radiated energy, but it wasn’t the frenetic mix some people gave off. There was simply a heat and power to him that drew her.

“Open space and safety,” he echoed her words. “That’s a different take.” Sven grinned and pushed his blond hair behind one ear. Juliette noticed a small hole in his earlobe, as if once upon a time he’d sported an earring. Somehow it seemed to fit. He struck her as free-spirited and a little unconventional with his long hair and outgoing personality. She was finding, however, that one-on-one he was quieter than she’d expected.

“Lots of people would find being up in a small plane in a small cockpit in the air confining and somewhat dangerous,” he continued.

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