Love at First Light (Lost Harbor, Alaska Book 6)

by Jennifer Bernard

  “Jessica’s probably already packed one,” he told her.

  “Then you’ll have an extra. No arguing. Doctor’s orders. And make sure you’re back for the wedding.”

  Nate handed him an invitation. “Two weeks. At our house on the hill. Pray for sun.”

  “If we’re not back in two weeks, we’ll have bigger problems than missing your wedding.”

  Nate clapped a hand on his back. “Any trouble, we got you. We’re used to pulling people out of the sea around here. Summer storms, winter storms, we’re on it. And you know how to handle a bear encounter, right?”

  He’d planned to completely avoid the bears. Failing that, he’d follow Jessica’s lead.

  “I’m going to rely on my expert guide.”

  Nate nodded, looking reassured. “Jessica knows what she’s doing. You’ll be in good hands.”

  The preparations for the trip showed him another side of the girl he’d first thought was just a pretty baker. Jessica knew exactly what to pack for the trip and made efficient work of the process. Tent, ground cloth, sleeping bags, Therm-a-Rests, water filter, dry bags for matches and toilet paper, cooking gear, food, head lamps—it was dizzying.

  Not only did she have to pack, but she had to entrust the bakery to a rotating shift of twenty-somethings with countless different scheduling demands.

  “What if Hutch Brinker comes back?” he asked.

  “I told them to shut down if that happens. Hutch Brinker can deal with the wrath of hungry Lost Harbor-ites craving their sticky buns.”

  Understandable, he had to admit.

  Finally, they loaded everything into Jessica’s Subaru and headed for Trumpeter Lake just outside of town. “I came here earlier for the preflight,” she told him as they pulled up next to a small shed next to a dock. “I had to drain water from the floats, that sort of things. We just have to load up and go.”

  The lake’s marshy shoreline was punctuated with several docks that stretched into the tranquil water. Jessica parked her car near the head of one of the docks. Tethered to the end of it, a sporty red plane perched atop two gleaming white pontoons, floating almost surreally on the water’s surface.

  “This is my plane, it’s a single-engine 208 Caravan,” Jessica said proudly as they hauled their backpacks, a cooler, and two extra duffel bags down the dock. “Five friends and I bought her used and fixed her up. It’s a good thing no one had dibs on this week. We make up a schedule at the start of summer.” When she reached the plane, she dropped her gear and caressed its shiny curved fuselage. “You wouldn’t believe how much this lovely lady costs me every year. But she’s worth it.”

  “Are planes always ladies, just like boats?”

  “Just like humans, they’re on a spectrum.” She winked as she opened up the hatch and climbed onboard. Her long hair was tamed into a braid that she’d pulled through the opening of a Lost Harbor Puffins baseball cap. She wore spandex jogging pants tucked into hiking boots that laced up the front. Her excitement about the trip to Lost Souls shone in her bright eyes and eager movements.

  “How many times have you flown it?”

  “I have to fly a certain number of hours a year to keep my rating. Don’t you worry your pretty head. I got this.” She beckoned to him to hand up their gear. One by one, he swung the duffels and backpacks into her grasp so she could stow them in the storage compartment.

  Faster than he was really prepared for, they were tucked into the tiny cockpit. She handed him headphones for ear protection and started up the ignition.

  “Do a lot of Alaskans have their own planes?” he asked curiously.

  “It’s not uncommon.” She spoke absently as she checked gauges and flicked toggle switches. “So many places are inaccessible except by plane. And the regional airlines don’t fly everywhere.”

  As soon as she started the engine, they began gliding across the water. “No brakes on these planes,” she explained as she steered toward the center of the lake. “I’m positioning us so we can take off into the wind, though it’s so glassy today there’s hardly any. One of my mom’s boyfriends owned a float plane sightseeing operation. He taught me how to fly. We had some great family trips across the bay.”

  “Was he one of the good ones?”

  A shadow crossed her face. “He was. I prayed he and my mom would stay together. I could never understand why they didn’t. I still don’t.”

  “Relationships.” He shrugged. “It’s hard to make them last. Jaded detective here.”

  “Yeah, it’s amazing that I’m not more cynical. My friends laugh at me for being optimistic, but they don’t understand that if I weren’t, I’d be—“ She broke off and used the distraction of piloting the plane to avoid finishing her sentence.

  At least that was how he saw it.

  He also knew where that sentence was heading. If she wasn’t able to stay optimistic, she’d be mired in bitterness. She might be just as cynical and jaded as he was.

  Thank God she wasn’t. Her optimism was so refreshing. He liked her just the way she was, even though she was apparently determined to scare the crap out of him as they picked up speed and skimmed across the surface of the lake.

  “We’re on the step now,” she shouted over the drone of the engine. “In a second we’ll be airborne. There isn’t a process server chasing down the dock after us, is there?”

  He tried to laugh as he dug his hands into his seat. No armrests here. “All clear.”

  “Come and find us, asshole!” With a maniacal laugh, she worked the controls so the nose tilted into the air. With a stomach-dropping lurch, they lifted off the surface and headed straight for the treetops on the other end of the lake. “Up, up, up, come on,” she muttered. “You can do it, beauty.”

  Was she kidding? Was it too late to jump off this thing? He looked wildly down at the lake, only to see it disappearing from beneath him, replaced by treetops so close they seemed to brush against the float plane’s pontoons.

  “Woooooohoooo!” shouted Jessica as they cleared the woods and aimed for the sky. “Yeah baby.”

  Ethan unclenched his jaw and peeled his fingers off the vinyl seat cover. At least he’d kept his cool outwardly. Jessica didn’t have to ever know that he’d just about crapped his pants in her float plane.

  Once they were fully airborne, he was able to relax enough to enjoy the magnificent spectacle unfurling all around them. Little powderpuff clouds flirted with the plane as they passed. Seabirds tilted and wheeled nearby, as if intrigued by this new breed of fellow airborne being. Way below, the Misty Bay waves turned into little wrinkles on the water’s surface.

  It was a short trip across the bay, and soon a massive upwelling of rock and trees loomed up ahead. The mighty and ancient Lost Souls Wilderness, part cold-climate rainforest, part glacial overflow from the endless ice fields beyond.

  Jessica ascended another thousand feet so they could comfortably clear the closer slopes. Last night, they’d spent some time poring over S.G.’s account of her solo trip from her cabin to the cove where she’d stowed away on a fishing boat. They’d studied topo maps in order to match her descriptions with the geography of the area. And then they’d factored in her dream about the lake.

  Only three locations really made sense, and all three were close enough so that they could hike from one to the other. They’d selected the largest lake—none of them were named—and decided to make that their base of operations. It was located in a long and gently sloping valley that would be easy to navigate through.

  As the bay disappeared behind them and they entered the territory of wooded slopes and high snow-topped peaks, a kind of awe crept over him. The forbidding wilderness encircled them, as if checking out the encroachers into its realm. Strange things happen around Lost Souls Wilderness.

  “We come in peace,” he muttered to himself.

  “What?”

  He shook his head, embarrassed.

  “Talking to the wilderness? I totally get it,” she shouted over the
engine noise. “I always ask permission before I fly in here.”

  “What if you get a ‘no’?’

  “I have. I turned back once. A big forest fire came through right after that. I could have been trapped.”

  That sounded like a fairy story. But as he gazed out at the enigmatic cliff faces and spruce trees so tall they caught clouds of mist in their tops, he realized he wouldn’t be surprised if ancient magic lurked in this wilderness.

  Maybe Jessica was right after all. Maybe some things went beyond “common sense.”

  The little plane chugged steadily through the curving valley that would lead them to their destination. Even though he’d studied the topo map until his eyes blurred, everything looked so different in real life.

  “Keep an eye out for that lake,” she told him. “You’ll have a clearer view than me.”

  He gave her a thumbs up and scanned the valley for a lake shaped like a lopsided heart, with one lobe dwarfing the other. At first he worried that the summer growth of vegetation would mask its shape, but when it finally came into view, he recognized it immediately.

  “There.” He pointed ahead of them.

  “Yup, that’s it.” Jessica worked the controls and they went into a descent.

  The more elevation they lost, the faster the trees seemed to be rushing toward them. Jesus. Were they breaking the laws of physics trying to land a plane on a fucking body of water? The flat expanse of the lake came at them like a brick wall. He flung up his arm to shield himself as the pontoons splashed onto the water. She pulled back on the controls to bring the nose up, and the plane skimmed across the lake like a dragonfly.

  It felt like forever that they raced across the water, but it was probably only a matter of seconds until she throttled down. They sloshed to a halt pretty much in the center of the lake.

  “Holy Mary mother of God, we’re alive.” He peeked out from under his arm.

  “So far,” she corrected with a grin.

  “You did it. You landed a plane on a puddle of water. You’re a goddess.”

  Her lips curved in a funny little smile. “Technically, we didn’t land, we alighted. Hardly anyone says that though.”

  He lifted up her hand and pressed his lips to her warm skin. “Whatever you call it, you did that with your bare hands.”

  “Tougher than you thought, right?”

  “You’re a goddess,” he repeated.

  She cleared her throat and took back her hand. “Let’s pick a beach and anchor as close as we can to it. That will minimize the rowing. Can you reach that yellow oilskin bag back there? It has a blowup dinghy inside.”

  Okay. Back to business. Obviously he’d embarrassed her with his overflow of compliments.

  The after-landing checklist, unloading the gear and rowing to shore in the inflatable dinghy took about an hour. They left some of the gear—most of the food and the cooler—on the plane to keep it out of the reach of wildlife. Once they were safely onshore, with the float plane securely anchored, it was time to set up camp.

  All of it was hard physical work, and his leg was aching when they finally relaxed onto a driftwood log next to the small campfire Jessica made on the beach.

  “Good work, buddy,” he murmured to his leg. He rubbed it absently as he gazed at the deep green of the lake and the dark reflections of the spruce on the surface. The quiet was immense. There were sounds—a squirrel chirp, the lap of water on the pebbled shore, the comforting crackle of the fire. But those sounds only emphasized the lack of manmade noise. Compared to West Covina, silence ruled here in Lost Souls Wilderness.

  So did the cold. Even in midsummer, a chill set in as the sun made its leisurely way across the sky. Nate had also given him a thick fleece-lined rain jacket with a hood. He hadn’t thought he’d need it, but damn it felt good against the cool touch of the evening air.

  Jessica waved away black flies as she fed driftwood sticks into the fire. “The smoke will chase away the bugs,” she explained. “I did bring head nets in case the mosquitoes get out of control. But these flies will bite right through your clothes. They can drive you insane. I remember once I was out here with my friends and we spent the whole time whacking flies off each other. We were black and blue by the time we got home.”

  She brought him a mug of instant soup, which he accepted eagerly. The scent of chicken and salt went right to his head. “Wow, that smells good.”

  “Everything tastes better in the wilderness. Try it. You’ll see.” She smiled encouragingly at him as he took a sip.

  “Can’t argue,” he agreed. “Left field kind of question, but is that why you like it out here? Because things taste good while you’re defending yourself from hordes of insects?”

  “I like it out here because it’s magical.” She knelt by the campfire to feed more driftwood into it. “Don’t you feel it?”

  He cocked his head, going along with her delusion because she knew this place better than he did. An eddy of a breeze off the lake touched his neck. Silver flashed under the surface; maybe a fish on the hunt. An uneasy chill went down his back. He recognized that feeling. The same sensation crawled across his neck when someone spotted him during a stakeout. But this was the wilderness and no one was around for miles. And he certainly wouldn’t call that feeling “magical.”

  “Hm,” he grunted, not wanting to let her down. He swallowed more of his instant soup. So basic, and yet it was really hitting the spot.

  She rolled her eyes. “You think I’m imagining it.”

  “Didn’t say that.” His leg spasmed and he adjusted its position.

  From her spot by the fire, she handed him one of the turkey sandwiches she’d brought for the night’s meal. “What’s going on with your leg?”

  “Nothing to worry about.” He hated talking about it; it was his problem and no one else’s. He didn’t even like being asked about it.

  Jessica sat back onto the driftwood log and fixed him with eyes that looked like pure gold in the misty light. “I need to know,” she said gently. “It’s just the two of us out here in the wilderness. If you have any physical limitations, it’s better if I know.”

  “It’s not a limit—“ He gritted his teeth. She was right. They were relying on each other out here. She had a right to know. “It’s just something I work with. I had bone cancer when I was a kid. Childhood osteosarcoma. It’s gone now, but I still feel some effects from the surgeries. I’ve spent months of my life doing PT and my functionality is almost a hundred percent. Maybe ninety-six percent. But it does ache sometimes. You don’t have to worry, though, I’ll be able to keep up.”

  He braced himself for the usual responses. Pity. Fear—as if cancer was contagious. Medical advice—have you tried such-and-such for the pain? That was why he didn’t like talking about it. It was a lot of fucking work.

  But she just nodded. “Okay. Thanks for telling me. The important thing out here is communication. I’m going to trust that you’ll tell me if you need anything, like a break or a change of pace.”

  “I will,” he assured her. Could he actually do that? Would he? He thought about it, and realized that yes, he would. Jessica had an accepting way about her that put him at ease.

  “Let’s come up with a plan for tomorrow, yeah?”

  And he didn’t even have to change the subject. God love this woman.

  She unfurled the laminated topo map of the area and they pinned down the corners with rocks. As they ate and waved away flies, they studied the lines that indicated ridges and trails and waterways.

  “S.G. said she followed a trail from the cabin to a creek bed, then turned east along the creek.” Jessica pointed to a spot on the map not far from them. “Should we try that one?”

  Ethan pulled out Maya’s notes, which he’d packed into a Ziploc bag in his backpack. He scanned the section about her journey to Lost Harbor. “She said it took her three days. Is that the right distance?”

  “But it was in winter. Travel is easier in winter because she had a do
g sled for part of the time.”

  “But then the dogs ran away. She said she thinks they knew that Murchison was back. She was on her own after that. I think we should try this other one.” He pointed at another trail that had caught his eye.

  Jessica traced a line with one finger. Her nails were cut short and he noticed several burn scars and nicks on her skin. Baking had its own dangers, apparently.

  He resisted the impulse to put his hand on hers. To caress it. His respect for her kept growing, and along with it, his attraction.

  “I could ask my crystal,” she murmured.

  And…back to reality.

  “Are you telling me you brought a crystal with you to Lost Souls Wilderness?”

  “I bring it everywhere.” She shot him an annoyed glance as she dropped her hand from the map. “Why are people so weird about crystals? Mine helps me tune into my intuition.”

  “Maybe because logic is more important. Intuition is just…emotion. It can be biased. You can’t really trust it.”

  She reached into her pocket and drew out a felt drawstring bag. “In my experience, it’s more trustworthy than people are.” A sparkling cut crystal on a delicate chain tumbled into her palm. Even though it was clear, it refracted golden light across her skin.

  “You’re going to do it right now?”

  She gave a disappointed sigh. “I knew you’d be like this. Are you really so close-minded?”

  “Close-minded because I don’t want a rock telling me where to go?”

  “You don’t have to watch if you don’t want to.”

  “Oh, I’m watching. I gotta see this.”

  Rolling her eyes again, she sat next to him on the log and let the crystal dangle from her fingers. After a moment of silent communion with it, she asked out loud, “Should we try the northern trail to find S.G.’s old cabin?”

  The crystal quivered and swung in a side to side motion. “That’s a no,” she explained. “Should we try the trail Ethan suggested?”