Come Fly With Me

by Addison Fox

  Chapter Twelve

  “A notebook and sixteen letters.” Grier laid the last faded letter on top of the stack.

  “Don’t forget the letter that came with the package,” Avery added.

  That one looked fresh and had her name on it, but Grier hadn’t opened it yet. She couldn’t explain why, but she wanted some time alone with the contents of the package.

  As if reading her mind, Sloan patted her shoulder. “We’ll let you get to it. We’re here if you need to talk.”

  Avery added a hand to her other shoulder. “Whenever you need us.”

  Her throat tightened at the show of support and Grier stood to grab both of them in a three-way hug. “You guys are the best. I’m probably just being a loon. I’m sure there’s not much here.”

  “It doesn’t matter what’s here.” Sloan patted her back. “It’s yours to discover. We’ll talk to you later.”

  “And we’ll leave the cookies,” Avery added with a wink.

  The two of them slipped from the room and Grier was left with the past.

  Unable to wait another moment, she slit open the letter and pulled out a fresh sheet of paper, covered in neat, even rows of cursive writing.

  She saw Maeve’s name first, larger than the other lines in a heavy scrawl at the bottom of the page, and thought about her aunt.

  Walker had told her early on she had an aunt—her father’s sister. She’d tried making an outreach several times but hadn’t gotten anywhere, despite leaving phone messages and sending e-mails. Although the urge to go out to the woman’s house had been strong, she knew where she wasn’t wanted and she hadn’t been all that willing to face yet another cold, unfriendly face.

  Especially when that face belonged to a blood relative.

  She’d also asked around about Maeve and had gotten more than a few raised eyebrows. The term “recluse” was the kindest she’d heard, with “a little off” bringing up the rear. No one had used the word “crazy” outright, but it hadn’t been too big a leap to make to pull that from the subtext.

  On a sigh, she settled back in her chair.

  Might as well see if she really was as crazy as the common wisdom suggested.

  Dear Grier:

  Forgive the delayed note, but I’ve struggled with the best way to reach out to you. I’ve appreciated your calls and your e-mails, but as with most things in life, if you’re not ready to do something, it’s best to wait until you are ready to do it.

  I have some things that belonged to your father that now belong to you. I’ve hesitated to give them to you because doing so unequivocally revokes Kate’s claims in court. While I’d have come forward eventually to ensure you have a right to what’s yours, I’ve had a hard time coming to grips with what my actions will mean to that child.

  Jonas often worried about her to me. He worried that her prickly personality hid a deeper fear of life and how to live it. Oh, she’s always done the right things and said the right things and put on a good face, but Jonas worried, especially after Kate’s mama died.

  I’d hoped she’d come around and drop this ridiculous fight to keep you from his things, but since that’s not happened, it’s time to end it.

  For her good and for yours.

  Your father loved you and he loved your mother. That also might not be very evident by his actions, but don’t you spend one more day thinking otherwise.

  That man loved you.

  He just never knew how to tell you.

  The enclosed notes are all the proof you need that you are his daughter.

  If I might make one other suggestion, there’s a man in Barrow named Brett Crane. He was a good friend of your father’s and they worked together around the time you were conceived. I’ve enclosed his contact information in the envelope. Give him a call. He can testify on your behalf and get this ridiculous court nonsense finished.

  One final suggestion. Go visit your father’s grave. I know you haven’t been out there and while I don’t think he deserves much from you, he does deserve that.

  Give me a call when you get back. I’d like to have a visit with my niece.

  Maeve Price

  Grier folded the letter and set it aside, afraid of getting it wet with her tears.

  She glanced at the faded letters and the leather-bound journal. As her gaze danced over the address on the letters, she realized it was her mother’s handwriting. Curiosity rose up, swamping her as she reached for the one that lay on top.

  A New York City postmark ran along the top edge and the date was about two months after her birth.

  With shaking hands, she slid the note out and saw the baby photo of herself, worn and slightly crinkled, as if it had been touched too often. Setting the photo aside, she unfolded the letter and saw her mother’s small, efficient script.

  The letter was short and to the point.

  Jonas:

  I can’t see you again and I hope you will allow me to raise Grier as I see fit. I can’t make a life with you and I won’t go through my reasons again.

  I will see that you receive photographs of our daughter, but I need to ask that you respect my wishes and stay away.

  Patrice

  Whatever Grier had expected, this cold, horrible note from her mother wasn’t it.

  Since this whole mess had started, Patrice had artfully managed to stay above it. She’d refused to engage in conversation about “her past” and she’d been unwilling to offer any assistance, including a signed affidavit or any form of testimony confirming she and Jonas Winston had conceived a child.

  Although hurt, Grier had thought it unkind of her to ask her mother to open up her past grief and she had agreed to do this on her own. She’d been willing to fight this battle alone because she’d believed Patrice hid the scars of a deep and painful past.

  But this?

  Her gaze alighted on the letter once more.

  I need to ask that you respect my wishes and stay away.

  Grier had always thought her mother cold and distant, but she’d at least believed something hopeful lived within her. Something that gave her a life of purpose.

  How wrong she had been.

  Avery wiped down a table, delighted the small crowd who’d been in the bar earlier had all left. Susan had covered things while she was upstairs with Grier and Sloan, and it was easy enough to collect the last of the glasses and get everything locked up for the night.

  She moved to another table and heard Susan’s voice from where it echoed out of the office. Something struck her as slightly off. While she wasn’t an unhappy person, Susan was pretty even-keeled and not much got her chattering away in a high, excited voice.

  Except Roman.

  Or showing off pictures of her grandchildren, courtesy of Roman’s younger sister, Riley.

  It had to be a story about the kids. Maybe Madison was getting the hang of potty training or Connor had had a good game of peewee hockey.

  Because it couldn’t be about Roman.

  He’d just been here, for God’s sake. There was no way the league would give him enough time off twice during the season. And even when they got the occasional stretch of days off, he never had enough time to get all the way up to Alaska for a visit.

  Susan’s voice broke into her thoughts as she danced into the lobby. “You’ll never believe what happened!”

  “You sound excited. Did Connor have a good game?”

  “It’s even better news.”

  She knew the answer before the words even left Susan’s lips.

  “Roman’s coming. Twice in one season, do you believe it?”

  Susan’s chatter ensured she wasn’t really required to give an answer, so Avery moved on to the next table.

  “He’s coming up because one of the big sports channels is doing a special on him and the amazing season he’s having. They want to get a few live shots of him at home, so they’re flying him up here on a private jet.”

  Avery didn’t have the heart to stomp on Susan’s happiness, and i
t certainly wasn’t her place to tell her employer she wished her son would just stay away.

  But seriously?

  She and Roman got along just fine with an entire continent between them. And on the occasions when he was home, she managed to find ways to avoid him for the duration. Her alcoholic mother had actually been a blessing in that sense—one of the rare occasions when she was—but that excuse was now gone and she hadn’t yet cooked up a new one.

  “Avery, did you hear me? They’re going to film right here. And they want to interview us.”

  “You. I’m sure they want to interview you. I’m just the hired help.”

  “You’re so much more than that and you know it.”

  Avery swallowed at the lump that always rose up in her throat every time Susan pulled the mother routine on her, and she tried for a smile instead. The truth was, Susan Forsyth was the closest thing she’d ever had to warm and nurturing, and she hated to disappoint her.

  Even if a small part of her twisted up in grief and pain at the fact that she’d had to turn to someone else to find the warmth her own mother was incapable of giving.

  The fact that the source of that warmth was her ex’s mother, well…life was a freaking circus, even on good days.

  And since the woman had a blind spot the size of the North Slope when it came her son and her hotel manager, Avery walked a tightrope when it came to the subject of Roman.

  The two of them weren’t teenagers any longer—and hadn’t been for a very long time. Whatever bright, shiny happily-ever-after Susan still envisioned for the two of them wasn’t possible any longer.

  But no matter how many ways she tried to explain that, Susan would not be convinced.

  “What’s going on?” Sloan stood on the other side of the door, her flannel PJs peeking out of the bottom of her padded coat. “I came as fast as I could.”

  “Is Walker downstairs?”

  “Yeah. I know it’s just a walk across the square, but he insisted.”

  “You can tell him to come up.”

  “He’s fine”—Sloan waved a hand—“and before you push it, he understands. Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “Here.” Grier thrust the first letter she’d read from her mother into Sloan’s hands. “Read it.”

  She watched the expressions flit across Sloan’s face—curiosity, frustration and finally, anger—and realized the order matched her own processing of the document’s contents.

  “Grier, I’m sorry. I know I overstep all too often when it comes to your mom, but that is beyond cold. Heartless.”

  “I know.”

  Sloan shrugged out of her coat and threw it onto one of the room’s chairs before hopping on the bed. “Did you read the rest?”

  “Yeah. The next one, written about a month later, is clearly in reaction to his writing back to her. In it she tells him she’s marrying my stepfather.”

  “What about the others?”

  “They’re all before she left Alaska.”

  “Oh.”

  At Sloan’s probing gaze, Grier nodded. “They’re love letters.”

  “Really sexy love letters?”

  “Passionate and flowery, yet nothing too specific on the creepy, eww, this-is-my-parents front. But—”

  “But what?”

  “But it feels like a violation somehow. To think that my aunt read them and now I’m reading them. It feels intrusive.”

  “Maybe your aunt didn’t read them.”

  Grier shrugged. “True. But it still feels weird that I have. I mean, it sounded like she really loved him. And there was this passion in them. If I didn’t know my mother’s handwriting so well, I’d say they were written by someone else.”

  “Maybe she was someone else then. Someone who was in love.”

  “So what happened?” Grier picked up the letter where Sloan had laid it on the desk. “What happened between love and passion and a baby and this?”

  “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “She refuses to talk about it.”

  Sloan pointed to the pile on the bed. “It looks like you finally have the proof you need to make her talk. Up to now, you’ve given her the benefit of the doubt of her privacy. But this? You’re entitled to know why your mother refused to let Jonas see you.”

  Of all the things Mick had expected after a restless, sleepless night, none of them involved Grier Thompson standing over his table at six o’clock the following morning in the middle of the Indigo Café.

  “I need to go to Barrow.”

  “Well, good morning to you, too.”

  She impatiently dragged off her padded coat and threw it across the bench seat that made up her side of the booth. Before dropping into her seat, she leaned forward and pressed a hard kiss to his mouth. “Please.”

  “You don’t play fair.” He reached for his coffee, his hungry gaze devouring her small form as she slid into the booth, his lips buzzing from that kiss.

  “I’m not trying to play fair. I need to go to Barrow.”

  “Why do you want to go to the North Slope?”

  “Would you accept sightseeing as an answer?”

  He shot her a dark gaze as he sipped his coffee. After swallowing it down, he added, “No.”

  “I need to go see a man who knew my father.”

  Mick sat up straighter in his seat, the caffeine and the reality of what she wanted to do waking him up. “Grier. Where did this come from?”

  “My aunt. My father’s sister.”

  “What does Maeve Price have to do with a trip up to the North Slope?”

  As Grier began to tell him about a package and old letters and Maeve’s move behind Kate’s back, Mick could only hold up his cup to gesture to their waitress for more coffee.

  And fifteen minutes later as their waitress set down matched stacks of pancakes before each of them, Mick still couldn’t quite process it all.

  “But you have all you need. The letters definitively prove you’re Jonas’s daughter and that he wanted you as part of his life. Kate has no claim otherwise and there’s nothing further she can use to waylay the processing of the will. Give them to Walker. He can have them before the court today and you’ll be on your way. The injunction will be lifted. You and Kate can split the contents of the will and you’re off to the races.”

  And off to New York. The morose thought hit him as he spread the butter across the top of his breakfast, pulling him up short.

  She’d gotten what she’d come here for and she’d be leaving.

  “But I want to meet this Brett. Talk to him about my father. He knew him, Mick. Really knew him.”

  “We all knew him, Grier. Just ask any of us.”

  “None of you knew him when he knew my mother. Brett Crane does.”

  He saw the need in her eyes—would have been blind to have missed it. “Do you have any idea what it’s like up there in January?”

  “No sunlight.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And it’s inside the Arctic Circle, so it’ll be even colder than Indigo, if that’s even possible. Can you fly there?”

  Mick tamped down on the indignity that reared up at her question. “Yes, I can fly there.”

  “Have you flown there?”

  He grinned at that. “Darlin’. There’s nowhere in Alaska I haven’t flown.”

  “Don’t get cocky,” she muttered as she dug into her pancakes like a lumberjack.

  Damn, but she made him smile. And got his insides so fucking twisted, he didn’t know if he was coming or going.

  Of course he’d take her up to Barrow. He’d be damned if he’d let anyone else do it and the determination in her eye wasn’t to be taken lightly.

  “How do you eat like that?”

  She looked up from the forkful of fluffy pancake, drenched in syrup. “Why does everyone ask me that?”

  “Maybe because you’ve got an ass that makes the angels weep and the rest of you is even finer than that.”

  “Um, thank you?”
>
  Despite the sass, he didn’t miss the lopsided grin she fought to hide as she took her bite.

  Mick reached across the table and snatched a piece of her bacon.

  On a huff, she added, “I do work out.”

  “How often?”

  “Every day. I just don’t make a big deal out of it. I hate those people who run around talking about how healthy they are.”

  “The wheat germ people.”

  She snapped her fingers. “That’s a good name for them. What’s the point of working out if you can’t eat stuff like this?”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” He snatched one more piece of bacon and settled back. “So, when do you want to leave?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Grier flipped through the fourth-quarter folder she’d created for Chooch and Hooch and sighed. How much dog food did these people buy? As she thought about their brood of huskies, she had to acknowledge they required quite a lot. Add in vet bills and you had one very expensive hobby.

  “You look like you’ve gotten through most of that,” Chooch interrupted from the doorway of the conference room.

  Grier glanced up and nodded, but she didn’t say anything as she finished tallying up her last stack. She’d dragged an adding machine in earlier from the hotel’s office and the monumental task of sorting Chooch and Hooch’s receipts had gone a lot faster.

  The satisfying hum of the adding machine clicked as she finished tallying up the receipts, the gentle whirl of printed paper falling out the back. She missed this, Grier acknowledged to herself as the last of the paper spooled off the machine. More than she had realized.

  “You look like you’ve gotten through nearly all of them.”

  “These pet receipts were the last of it. I’ll get them input later and once you’ve got your bank statements, we’ll be ready to get you and Hooch filed.”

  “Damn, but you were quick.”

  “I enjoy it and I’m going out of town for a few days.”

  Chooch grabbed a seat, the lure of being in the know clearly catching her fancy. “Where are you going? Or more to the point, who are you going with?”

  “Mick’s taking me up to Fairbanks for a few days.”